Emergency Services Network

Lord Foulkes of Cumnock Excerpts

Thursday 24th September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

The noble Lord is absolutely right to point to the importance of emergency networks in the London Underground. In fact, that work and that testing has begun with TfL— I visited one of its sites in Canada Water—but it has been delayed because of Covid-19, for very obvious practical reasons. I can assure the noble Lord on this. The testing is absolutely imperative, so that the technology that we have works in emergency situations such as those he referred to.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op) [V]]

My Lords, will the Minister admit, in a moment of frankness and honesty, that this project is a total shambles? Will she tell the House what the arrangements are for consulting with the authorities in Scotland and Wales? What is their view about this interminable delay?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

Well, I think I was quite frank initially in saying that it had been a challenging project. It is a project that I have paid particular attention to in trying to get it moving, in terms of emergency services testing it and taking it up. In terms of the Scottish view on it, we engage with all devolved Administrations on this sort of thing, and we want to get it up and running as soon as we possibly can.