Rail Update

Mims Davies Excerpts

Wednesday 29th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

We are going to press ahead with it in the immediate future and look at what will not happen. I am not going to give the hon. Gentleman an exact date—I never do that.

[Mims Davies (Eastleigh) (Con)]

Eastleigh is a historic railway town, and transport issues really matter in my thriving but getting-more-busy-and-congested constituency, which hosts Southampton airport. East-west connectivity between Portsmouth and Southampton on a railway line takes an hour. Will the Secretary of State commit to working across Departments to make sure that there is a joined-up approach for constituencies that not only provide housing, but are blighted by air pollution, congestion and a historic lack of investment in railway lines?

[Chris Grayling]

I give my hon. Friend that assurance. It is really important that, as we seek to develop more housing, we make sure that infrastructure is in place to cope with it, whether road, rail or cycle routes, or different forms of public transport in different parts of the country. I assure her that I and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, who is in charge of the housing infrastructure fund, will look supportively at those parts of the country that are being asked to take on housing development and see how we can best provide infrastructure for them.