Oral Answers to Questions

Charlie Elphicke Excerpts

Wednesday 4th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

What the “Green Budget” today shows—I think we should take this as an important reference work—is that Labour would lead to an extra £170 billion of borrowing. That is the official figure. The shadow Chancellor was busy yesterday. In another of his interventions, he said on Radio 2 that “debt would be higher”. The cat is out of the bag. It is official: Labour would borrow, tax and spend more, and do all the things to put us back into the mess we got out of.

[Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)]

Q8. In recent weeks, Dover and east Kent have suffered gridlock due to problems at the port of Dover and the fire in the channel tunnel. Will the Prime Minister support the finding of a long-term solution to the problem? Will he consider making this a national strategic priority and using lorry levy funds to help to pay for it?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is right to raise this question, and I know how hard he works for people in Dover and across east Kent. I understand that he met the Minister of State, Department for Transport, my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr Hayes) about this, and as a result we have ordered an urgent review to look at the contingency arrangements for the M20/A20 and for the M2/A2 in the event of severe disruption at Eurotunnel and the channel ports, taking account of the recent congestion. It is important that we learn the lessons from this incident, and if the report comes up with good suggestions, we will look at them very carefully.