Storm Babet: Flooding

Neale Hanvey Excerpts
Monday 23rd October 2023

(1 year ago)

Commons Chamber
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Neale Hanvey Portrait Neale Hanvey (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (Alba)
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I thank the Minister for her statement, but she made a significant omission in relation to the impact on the railway network, which has implications for funding and the response in Scotland, because the network is not devolved.

Following August 2020’s fatal derailment at Carmont, near Stonehaven, in which three people lost their lives, Network Rail gave a commitment to the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers that it would put in place additional resources to address the drainage maintenance failures that were responsible, but the RMT’s Gordon Martin has claimed that Network Rail’s modernising maintenance project has less to do with improvement and everything to do with cuts. As the Minister is responsible for flooding and its impact, will she raise this with her counterpart in the Department for Transport to ensure that Network Rail’s failings do not again lead to death and injury, as they did in August 2020?

Rebecca Pow Portrait Rebecca Pow
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I will certainly pass on those comments to the Department for Transport.