Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi
Main Page: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)Department Debates - View all Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi's debates with the Department for Transport
(11 months, 1 week ago)
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Huw Merriman
I have met my hon. Friend and I appreciate the work that he does campaigning for the stations in his constituency. I have regular conversations with people from Govia Thameslink Railway, and I know that they have recently increased capacity on some busy services through Carshalton and Hackbridge. On Hackbridge station, I offer to meet him with a team from Network Rail to see whether we can address the matter that he mentions.
Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)
Such was the excitement in Wales in 2012 when Conservative Ministers announced that they would be building the four-mile western rail link to Heathrow to open in 2020 that First Minister Rhodri Morgan described it as one of the “most important announcements” in the last 50 years, but it was yet another broken promise. After more than a decade, when does the Transport Secretary expect the first spade to be dug into the ground to build the No.1 infrastructure priority of the Thames Valley region?
Huw Merriman
When this proposal was first mooted, it was to be a 50:50 split with Heathrow airport and the new runway, but matters changed after the pandemic. We are determined to see private sector involvement in the railways continue. If there is a private sector proposal, we are very happy to support it, but these schemes must not come at the expense of taxpayers.