East Coast Main Line Debate

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Department: Department for Transport

East Coast Main Line

Edward Leigh Excerpts
Thursday 27th November 2014

(9 years, 5 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Lord McLoughlin Portrait Mr McLoughlin
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The people who are serving on East Coast trains now will be the people serving on the new InterCity franchise that I have announced today. I will quote another Labour Member of Parliament; that seems to be a bit of a habit this morning. The right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Sir Gerald Kaufman) said:

“will he be fair to the marvellous train crews of Virgin Trains, who give extraordinarily good service, and tell them that their future is assured? Will he simply award the franchise to Virgin, which has carried it out brilliantly?”—[Official Report, 15 October 2012; Vol. 551, c. 53.]

In fairness, he was referring to the west coast main line, but if I go back to that statement I could quote those people time and again.

Edward Leigh Portrait Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
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For years in north Lincolnshire, we have been arguing to get back our through-train from London to Grimsby via Market Rasen. At the moment, the train stops at Lincoln. What hope is there of getting back our train?