Garden Bridge

Debate between Stephen Pound and Christian Matheson

Wednesday 7th September 2016 Commons Chamber

[Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)]

In my very brief contribution, let me start by paying warm tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey). It says a lot about her and her priorities that when she is offered what is apparently a prestigious large-scale project in her constituency, she instead considers its effect on ordinary people in her community, and her mind is made up partly because of that. I also pay tribute to her for the forensic way she has tried to get through the murk of the financing of this project. She has obviously made some progress, but some murk remains; there is still a lack of clarity.

My ears pricked up at the sound of the £30 million from the Government. The Transport Minister who is in his place will know that I have been campaigning for just £100,000 for a transport project on the M56 to put in police and Highways England safety cameras. Sadly, the Minister declined that expenditure. Yet at the same time we can find £30 million to pour into a black hole, which my hon. Friend tells us is a vanity project, with several big-name backers but no clear benefit to the community. Will the Minister tell the House in his response whether he thinks that £30 million spent on a vanity project garden bridge in London is better expenditure than £100,000 on motorway safety cameras in Cheshire? Is the garden bridge receiving this level of public money simply because it is in London rather than the north-west of England?

[Stephen Pound (Ealing North) (Lab)]

I am afraid my hon. Friend seems to be straying into the Brexit argument about figures written on the sides of buses, because I do not necessarily think this is an either/or. I am massively in favour of my hon. Friend getting all the money he needs for his part of the world, and he has made the case very strongly, but he must not think it is because of the garden bridge that he is not getting it. I ask him to let his spirits soar with the imagination of this marvellous project which will be immensely beneficial to London and the country. Tourists will flood in to see this beautiful creation. Have a little imagination. Chester is a beautiful city—I admire it and love to visit it. Come and visit London and see, hopefully, our marvellous garden bridge.

[Christian Matheson]

My spirits soar every time I hear my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing North (Stephen Pound). My point is simply that there seems to be a reason why £30 million of public money is being given to this project despite the immense lack of clarity that my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall has exposed, despite no clear end to the project, and despite very little financial and accounting responsibility and oversight.