Transport Connectivity: Midlands and North Wales
Debate between Simon Lightwood and Amanda Hack(2 days, 12 hours ago)
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Simon Lightwood
My hon. Friend is right to recognise the historic levels of funding going into local areas, which are almost doubling by the end of this Parliament. We increased funding this year from £1.1 billion to £1.6 billion, which came with conditions about publishing transparency reports on their websites. The multi-year funding that we have announced will also come with some conditions and incentives, to make sure that we turn the attention of local authorities from just patching those potholes—going back to fill them again and again is not a good use of taxpayers’ money—to preventing them from forming in the first place and ensuring that we fully resurface roads. That accountability will be there for all our constituents to see where the council is or is not doing its job. If it does not spend the money, we will pass it on to a local authority that will.
To come back to a point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Derby North (Catherine Atkinson), we are providing the East Midlands combined county authority with £2 billion through the transport for city regions fund, with the east midlands receiving £450 million from the local transport block. That means the east midlands will receive significantly more local transport funding per head than the England average in the coming years—£561 per person against an average of £391.
Amanda Hack
I want to reflect on those numbers. The east midlands mayoralty is not the east midlands. It covers only Derbyshire, Derby, Nottingham and Nottinghamshire. How does the rest of the east midlands fare in terms of funding?
Simon Lightwood
My hon. Friend jumps ahead of my next comment. The Department is providing all local transport authorities with a multi-year consolidated funding settlement, delivering on our commitments in the English Devolution White Paper to simplify funding. Leicestershire county council will be allocated £22.5 million in local authority bus grants over the next few years, in addition to the £8.2 million it received in 2025-26. It is then for her local authority, which I appreciate is a Reform council, to use that funding to the best effect. She touched on bus services. What I would politely say to her local authority is that it has the funding and the powers—it should get on with the job.
I thank the right hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills for her comments on Aldridge station. She is a former Minister of State in the Department for Transport. Mayor Andy Street failed to use the £1.05 billion allocated to him in 2022 to fully develop designs for Aldridge station when he had the chance. This Government have allocated a record £2.4 billion in transport for city regions funding for the West Midlands combined authority.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Simon Lightwood and Amanda Hack(8 months, 1 week ago)
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Amanda Hack (North West Leicestershire) (Lab)
In the ’60s, North West Leicestershire lost its only passenger rail service, the Ivanhoe line. In 2025, my constituents still have no direct access to the rail line. Increasing connectivity of railways is crucial to securing economic growth. Will the Minister share the Department’s plans to improve access to passenger rail for communities with no current access?
Simon Lightwood
I am more than happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss this further.