Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Hammond of Runnymede and Julian Sturdy

Tuesday 27th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr Philip Hammond)]

As my hon. Friend the Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury has just told the House, there has been more than £0.25 trillion of public and private investment in infrastructure since 2010. We continued to invest in infrastructure in the autumn Budget 2017 by expanding the national productivity investment fund, so that it will now provide £31 billion of additional investment, including more than doubling the housing infrastructure fund to £5 billion. The Institute for Fiscal Studies said after the Budget that our plans will see public investment increase to levels not sustained in 40 years.

[Julian Sturdy]

Through the major road network, vehicle excise duty will be made available for investment in strategic roads outside the remit of Highways England. I understand that economic growth must be a priority, but how much will the pressure of future housing developments be considered in any of these future schemes? My constituency in York, for example, is surrounded by the northern ring road and we have a lot of housing coming forward.

[Mr Hammond]

My hon. Friend is right that the major road network will support the creation of new housing developments by improving access to future development sites and boosting suitable land capacity, so investment decisions for this funding will include consideration of how proposed schemes will unlock land for housing developments, helping to improve how transport is planned for new developments at the outset. The ring road to which he refers is, of course, part of the proposed major road network.

Rail Investment

Debate between Lord Hammond of Runnymede and Julian Sturdy

Thursday 25th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

As I have said, there are complex legal and commercial issues to consider. The hon. Gentleman will understand as well as anyone the process of negotiating with Agility trains as the preferred bidder and that everything we do has to be within the constraints of the European procurement directive.

[Julian Sturdy (York Outer) (Con)]

I, too, welcome the Secretary of State’s announcement. Will he outline in more detail the benefit that will come from the 650 new carriages that he has announced for 2010 to 2014 and how the investment in Network Rail will benefit the east coast main line?

[Mr Hammond]

Network Rail is making significant investments on the east coast main line, which explains to some extent the less than exceptional service performance on the line in the past few months as that work has been carried out. It will bring benefits in due course in terms of greater line speed and reliability. The 650 additional carriages will be distributed across the network. Some of them have already been contracted with individual franchisees and some of them will be the subject of further negotiations, which we will now commence, but there will be benefits for all parts of the country.

Transport (Investment)

Debate between Lord Hammond of Runnymede and Julian Sturdy

Tuesday 26th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

Dear, dear, it must be my ears again. I did not hear the hon. Lady mention the Leeds station southern access scheme, which has been approved—[Interruption] If I may say so to the hon. Lady, when one’s constituency is in a city, I think one will find that the effects of transport infrastructure improvement are a little wider than the narrow boundaries of a single constituency. Leeds station southern access scheme has been approved, and two further Leeds schemes, the Leeds rail growth package and the Leeds new generation transport scheme, have been included in the development pool, where we will work with the local authority to look at how we can ensure value for money and get the schemes into the best and most competitive form that they can be, after which we will make a decision on the allocation of the scarce capital that is available. I want to remind the hon. Lady one more time that the transport capital budget has been reduced by 11% for the next four years. The Government formed by her party before the last general election proposed to reduce capital spending by 50%.

[Julian Sturdy (York Outer) (Con)]

I thank the Secretary of State for the improvement that he has made to fairer transport funding for my region, Yorkshire and Humber. May I ask him about the time scales for best and final funding bids for the schemes in the development pool? Will he look closely at the Access York park and ride bid, which will be crucial to the local economy?

[Mr Hammond]

Access to York park and ride is included in that group of schemes. As I announced earlier, we intend to take decisions on which of those schemes will be funded by the end of 2011. We will work proactively with the local authorities sponsoring those schemes from now, and we will make decisions as we are able to do so, not necessarily in a single announcement at the end of 2011. It may be possible to announce some conclusions earlier than that.