Oral Answers to Questions

Sara Britcliffe Excerpts

Thursday 27th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Sir David Evennett (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Con)]

What steps the Government are taking to implement their levelling-up agenda.

[Sara Britcliffe (Hyndburn) (Con)]

What steps the Government are taking to implement their levelling-up agenda.

[Dr James Davies (Vale of Clwyd) (Con)]

What steps the Government are taking to implement their levelling-up agenda.

--- Later in debate ---

[Michael Gove]

My right hon. Friend, as ever, is spot on. As well as being a brilliantly effective advocate for business, he is also someone with a distinguished former career in education, particularly further and technical education, and in advancing the careers of young people from working-class backgrounds. He is absolutely right. We need to do more in the civil service, as the recent Social Mobility Commission report points out, echoing points that he has been making for some time.

[Sara Britcliffe]

I very much welcome the levelling-up fund and the transformative difference it can make to constituents such as mine in Hyndburn and Haslingden. Does my right hon. Friend agree that this is only a small part of our levelling-up agenda and that it is important that investment in local transport infrastructure continues, such as looking at the scope for freight terminals and the reopening of railway lines?

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and Accrington and Oswaldtwistle could not have a better advocate. She is absolutely correct to point out that we need not just new investment in improved rail —indeed, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport has been reversing some of the Beeching cuts, with more to follow—but to ensure that local bus services and other transport routes are invested in. I know that she is a particularly passionate advocate for improving local bus services as well.