"I thank the hon. Member for his point; it will be no surprise to him that I will address it later on in my speech—it makes up a good part of my speech. Unfortunately, those plans were not very ambitious. What I am outlining is a more ambitious programme. The …..." Alexander Stafford - View Speech
"I will give way one more time to the hon. Gentleman, but I am sure he will want to make his own speech at some point...." Alexander Stafford - View Speech
"That is an interesting point, but once again I look at what happened in Manchester and West Yorkshire. They got Government funding because their plans were ambitious. There is no point putting money into a plan that will not work, or will provide only minimal benefits. We want a grand …..." Alexander Stafford - View Speech
"On that programme, will the hon. Member acknowledge that there was just over £1 billion available from the Government for the whole country, yet South Yorkshire put in a bid for £400 million? That is almost half the money for the entire country. Surely that shows unrealistic expectations from South …..." Alexander Stafford - View Speech
"I would be grateful if the hon. Member outlined why West Yorkshire got the money whereas South Yorkshire did not. To me, that shows that the money was available and was on the table. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, our bid was not good enough to make the cut, whereas West …..." Alexander Stafford - View Speech
"That is not true. I have been on numerous calls, and I have regular conversations with the South Yorkshire passenger transport authority and the hon. Gentleman’s offices and officers about a whole range of transport issues...." Alexander Stafford - View Speech
"I find the hon. Member’s argument quite astounding. On the one hand, the South Yorkshire mayoralty failed to get one pot of money; it has now failed to get another pot of money. Surely, this is just a failure of leadership. If it keeps getting things wrong, it is not …..." Alexander Stafford - View Speech
"May I thank everyone for such a lively debate? We may not all agree about the solutions, but at least we all care about our region. Before I sum up the arguments, I put on record my thanks to the hon. Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis). We may disagree …..." Alexander Stafford - View Speech