"Given the perilous state of the travel industry, should Ministers not take much greater care with what they are saying? Words matter, and they can have an immediate impact. Not only do we have the chaos of the 14-day quarantine, but the Health Secretary this morning all but ruled out …..." Lucy Powell - View Speech
"With more than 3,000 Thomas Cook employees in Greater Manchester, our economy is being hit particularly hard. May I press the Secretary of State on what has been done in the past four or five months, when the warning signs were all there but people could still buy package holidays …..." Lucy Powell - View Speech
"I am pre-empting some of the remarks that I will make in my speech later, but as a Manchester MP, I thought I should speak for Manchester airport on that point. Manchester airport refutes the figures in the forecasts, because it believes that it will exceed those passenger numbers even …..." Lucy Powell - View Speech
"I will spend most of my speech discussing a cross-party letter that myself and 21 other MPs from Greater Manchester wrote to the Secretary of State last week in support of Heathrow expansion, and also asking the Government to renew and restate their energy and focus on delivering the vision …..." Lucy Powell - View Speech
"With the collapse of this contract and the collapse of Carillion recently, is this not a moment for us to be clear with the public that we are learning the lessons of these contracting exercises? People are coming in, overbidding or undercutting —or however one likes to put it—to kill …..." Lucy Powell - View Speech
"As has been said, reducing congestion on our roads requires serious investment in our rail infrastructure, so when will the Government give the north our fair share of rail investment and, in particular, agree to a Crossrail of the north that is fully integrated with HS2 at Piccadilly station?..." Lucy Powell - View Speech
"Does the Minister agree with a group of leading north-west businesses that the gap between investment in north-west transport infrastructure and investment in London transport infrastructure is unacceptably high? Does he agree that if we were to close that gap, we could really transform the commuter services, trams and buses, …..." Lucy Powell - View Speech
"The Secretary of State echoes Sir David Higgins’s call for the benefits to be brought to the north-west and north of England faster. Other than the Crewe interchange—which I welcome, but which should not be seen as the only solution—what other avenues is he looking at? Will he speak to …..." Lucy Powell - View Speech
"On behalf of Manchester, I strongly welcome the proposals that the Secretary of State has laid before Parliament today, not, as others have said, as a panacea to stop the north-south divide, but to build on 15 years of urban renaissance started by the Labour council and Labour Government. The …..." Lucy Powell - View Speech