Oral Answers to Questions

Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi Excerpts

Wednesday 24th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I have said in this Chamber and outside that we retain the ambition of ensuring the City of London remains a global financial centre, and that is indeed what we are working on. I was very pleased to welcome a number of senior representatives from the financial services sector to No. 10 Downing Street only a few weeks ago and to sit down and talk to them about how to do exactly that. London’s place as a financial centre for the world is not just a benefit to the UK; it is a benefit to the global financial system and to the EU.

[Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)]

Q10. It is wonderful that while others are talking about building walls we in Britain are talking about building bridges—connecting communities, despite Brexit—but let me reassure our American friends that the Mexicans, no, the French, will be paying for it, because our NHS needs to be properly funded first. Rather than building an airy-fairy 22-mile-long bridge over the English channel or a £50 billion Boris airport in the Thames estuary, however, will the Prime Minister confirm when the western rail link, the 6 km rail track to Heathrow from my constituency, which will connect Wales, the south and the west directly to Heathrow, will finally be built? Or will we be subjected to further sluggish studies and consultations?

[The Prime Minister]

I believe that there is very strong cross-party support for the western rail link for Heathrow. The hon. Gentleman has expressed his support, and my right hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Richard Benyon) has also been supporting it. It would reduce journey times for passengers in the south-west and could support the Thames valley economy as well. I myself, as a Thames valley MP, have looked into it previously. Development funding has been committed for the project and the Department for Transport will provide further detail on the timing in due course.