Baroness Morgan of Cotes
Main Page: Baroness Morgan of Cotes (Conservative - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Baroness Morgan of Cotes's debates with the Department for Transport
(12 years ago)
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Mrs Villiers
I very much agree that Monday’s debate was excellent. Although the hour was late, the attendance was strong, with a huge number of hon. Members demonstrating their support for a project that does have a good business case; electrification will be expected to pay for itself over the appraisal period. We will consider the other upgrades that the hon. Gentleman would like to happen. We do not think that their business case is likely to be as strong, but those projects will be examined carefully, too, alongside all the other competing priorities, including projects such as the northern hub.
Nicky Morgan (Loughborough) (Con)
16. I thank the Minister for her constructive comments and response to the Adjournment debate that I led on Monday evening. Given the remarks she made just now, she is obviously aware of the cross-party support in the House for the upgrade and electrification works. I hope that she is also aware of the support outside, including from all the local enterprise partnerships and councils affected. Is there any further information that any of us campaigning for the electrification and upgrade of the midland main line could provide to her or her office before her decision is made?
Mrs Villiers
My hon. Friend has been running a great campaign on this issue, alongside many other honourable colleagues. As she says, support has been demonstrated by a lot of the other stakeholders and, of course, by the Derby Telegraph, fine institution that it is. We are confident that we have the information we need, working with Network Rail, and we will be looking further at that in the run-up to these decisions. Of course we take this issue very seriously, because we are committed to electrification of the rail network; we are committed to about 800 miles of it, with about 130 miles of it on stream with TransPennine electrification, whereas the Labour Government only managed less than 10 miles of it.