Oral Answers to Questions

John Bercow Excerpts

Wednesday 14th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Geraint Davies]

I am losing my voice, Mr Speaker. HS2 will cost £56 billion and 20,000 Welsh jobs. For £1 billion, we could build two and a half miles of HS2 or halve the time between Cardiff and Swansea and have an electrified Swansea metro. Why is the Welsh Secretary not objecting to the £1 billion cut from Network Rail to our rail infrastructure and investing in Wales instead?

[Mr Speaker]

The hon. Gentleman has done very well, considering he has lost his voice.

[Alun Cairns]

I point out to the hon. Gentleman that HS2 is a UK scheme and provides an opportunity for significant connectivity benefits with north Wales. He refers to the Swansea metro project, which offers interesting opportunities, and I am happy to say that I am meeting Mark Barry, the project’s architect, in the coming weeks.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jeremy Corbyn]

NHS England has abandoned its A&E targets until April 2019, so it is a bit rich for the Prime Minister to be scaremongering about Wales while she is abandoning targets in England—[Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. There are lots of questions to get through, and they must be heard.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

A recent National Audit Office report states that NHS funding will fall by 0.3% in 2019. People’s lives are at stake. Is the Prime Minister really saying that the A&E doctors are wrong, that the NHS managers are wrong and that the royal colleges and the health unions are wrong, and that it is actually only she who knows best about the NHS?

--- Later in debate ---

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Mr Speaker]

Order.