Business of the House

Tom Harris Excerpts

Thursday 27th May 2010 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

The hon. Lady makes her point very forcefully. Next Thursday there will be questions to the relevant Minister, and she may like to table a question and use the opportunity during questions to that Department to get a substantive answer.

[Mr Tom Harris (Glasgow South) (Lab)]

Given that Ministers of this Conservative Government, particularly those sporting a yellow tie, are positively salivating at the prospect of imposing swingeing cuts which less than a month ago they were campaigning against, when can we have a debate on the economic nonsense of the Government’s saying that they will fully fund the Crossrail project—a good decision—and yet, at the same time, significantly undermining Crossrail’s value for money by cancelling the third runway at Heathrow?

[Sir George Young]

We made a firm manifesto commitment on the third runway at Heathrow, which the hon. Gentleman would expect us to honour. I welcome his support for what we said on Crossrail. It is an important project that we want to take through. However, if he wants to press the Transport Secretary more fully on the funding issues, there will be an opportunity to do so at Transport questions.