Oral Answers to Questions

Stephen Mosley Excerpts

Thursday 19th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Mosley (City of Chester) (Con)]

Question 4, sir.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Stephen Hammond)]

The Government have committed funding to electrify more than 880—

[Mr Speaker]

I believe that the hon. Gentleman was grouping this question.

[Stephen Mosley (City of Chester) (Con)]

4. What plans he has to extend railway electrification.

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

8. What recent progress he has made on railway electrification.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Stephen Hammond)]

My apologies, Mr Speaker. With permission, I would like to group Questions 4 and 8. So excited was I about electrification that I wanted to mention that the Government have committed funding to electrify more than 880 miles of railway by 2019. Last week, we announced the Wigan-Bolton electrification, and a joint taskforce is being set up to explore where next we can look for rail electrification in the north of England.

[Stephen Mosley]

I thank the Minister for that reply. Last week, a taskforce was launched to examine electrification in the north. In those proposals, we are examining Chester-Crewe and Chester-Warrington. There is a huge amount of enthusiasm in Chester in support of these plans. How can members of the public put their views forward to the Minister and to the taskforce?

[Stephen Hammond]

Local Members of Parliament will be invited to be members of that taskforce, so undoubtedly my hon. Friend will be able to represent his constituents directly, but the taskforce will, I am sure, want to accept representations from local people as to the benefits of electrification for them.