East Coast Main Line

Christine Jardine Excerpts

Wednesday 16th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I would be happy to do that. I want to see services on this route develop, and I want to see new destinations and new kinds of service. Of course, once High Speed 2 opens, there will be an opportunity for a whole raft of new services on this route, because of all the extra capacity that will be freed up.

[Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

I wonder whether I could first address the point of order. Correct me if I am wrong, but I think the Secretary of State said that all Opposition parties had been informed of the contents of the statement before we came into the Chamber. That was not the case for my party. We had no notification at all, other than an email with a heading saying that there would be a statement. We did not receive an electronic notification until two minutes past 1 o’clock, when we were all already in the Chamber. Could the Secretary of State comment on that?

The Government cannot simply go on bailing out failing rail franchises. There will be a knock-on effect on other rail franchises, and what are other companies to do if there is a further reduction in economic growth and they are finding it difficult? Are the Government going to bail out every one of them, or will they take the opportunity to look at how public ownership works in this case and examine the future of the railways?

[Chris Grayling]

I will make two points. The custom and practice is to provide an advance copy of a statement to Her Majesty’s Opposition. It has also been the custom in recent years to provide one to the third party. Both of those were done this morning, so I have followed conventions as per normal.

The hon. Lady talks about bailing out a private franchise. I have not bailed out any private franchise; I have just taken away its contract.