Oral Answers to Questions

Rosie Cooper Excerpts

Thursday 27th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Rosie Cooper (West Lancashire) (Lab)]

8. What assessment he has made of the potential role of the local growth fund in improving transport; and if he will make a statement.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Norman Baker)]

The single local growth fund will incorporate devolved major transport scheme funding along with other funding streams from across Government. The contribution the fund can make to improving transport will ultimately be determined by local decision takers. The Chief Secretary will make a statement on the matter in 31 minutes.

[Rosie Cooper]

I will try to get in before him. The Burscough curves, the Ormskirk bypass and a railway station for Skelmersdale are much-needed transport projects in West Lancashire that would benefit from local growth fund money. Following the Chancellor’s statement yesterday that local enterprise partnerships are to bid for single growth fund moneys, it is unclear to me who is responsible for making decisions on local transport priorities. Is it LEPs or the local transport authorities? Whose door do I knock on to get that much-needed money?

[Norman Baker]

We have set up local transport bodies and I have recently been engaging with them on their assurance frameworks, so in the immediate future I would suggest that the hon. Lady contacts her local transport body. The LEP responsibility kicks in from 2015.