Speeches by Alexander.

“As I said, that informed all our discussions at the spending review. Through the spending review, we secured a package that enables us to grow the economy, be that the more than £25 billion that we are spending on HS2 in capital, or the £15.6 billion that we are spending on transport for city regions to unlock producti…”

“I understand the point you are making, Chair. When we publish the integrated national transport strategy next year, that will give you a clearer sense of direction on some of the issues that you are raising.”

“I would like to thank Laura Shoaf, who has chaired shadow Great British Railways over the last year. Essentially, she has been working on and convening a forum in which the leadership of Network Rail, DFTO and parts of the DFT can come together to make sure that we are making progress in advance of GBR being set up, be…”

“Yes, so they are essentially the same. They are about improving integration and driving out duplication; about shared standards, which I talked about, and those key performance metrics; and about working with us on fares and ticketing reform. We have the digital pay-as-you-go trial that is operating in the east midland…”

“If you look at what I have prioritised as the Secretary of State in the less than a year I have been in the job, you will see that my priorities are about improving the public transport system for individuals across the country. That is why we secured the extension of the £3 bus fare cap. It is why we are spending £1 b…”

“Chair, with the greatest of respect, as you and I are friends, you are slightly putting words into my mouth to say that I said that the second runway at Gatwick could only be brought into use if there was significant new rail infrastructure; nor have I said that there has to be publicly funded rail infrastructure to su…”

“I am very disappointed that the adoption of the IMO net zero framework has been delayed, because we played a very important role in developing that over a number of years. We remain committed to working with other international partners, whether that is at the IMO, through COP30, which has obviously happened recently, …”

“You are right to highlight the fact that driving lessons can be very close to the test fee. As part of the review that I have talked about, we will be looking at what an appropriate level is. It is a fair comment to make. We will be taking that into consideration in the round when we take decisions about fees going for…”

“It is only partly our aviation strategy, because we should be on the right side of public aspirations when it comes to flying. If you look at demand in our airports this summer, a number of airports have had record summers, while we face huge challenges around climate change and fundamentally about the next generation.…”

“I set out a number of measures there for decarbonising aviation, of which SAF is one. Investing in the fuels of the future and the technologies of the future is absolutely key. SAF is a key part of that, but it is not a silver bullet. We are investing. We have invested £63 million in the advanced fuels fund to support …”

“Ultimately, we need to move to a place where all maritime routes are going to be green shipping corridors, because that will mean that we have a global network of decarbonised shipping at that point. It is a big challenge for the maritime sector. We are investing £448 million through our UK SHORE programme to fund rese…”

“I am not in a position to give you a date sat here today. What I can tell you is that I will be working with the new leadership of the DVSA to make sure that we leave no stone unturned in how we might address this issue. We have those three new measures that I have announced today, in terms of bringing in the Ministry …”

“Jo might want to say something particularly about the approach that we are taking within the DFT corporately to some of the points you raised there about staffing levels. One thing to remember when it comes to the work of the Department for Transport is that you have Network Rail and National Highways, which are both v…”

“Yes. We have seen a period of time where you have third parties booking up these slots for driving tests and then selling them on at hugely inflated prices, such as you have just described. We do need to take action on this. We consulted on it over the summer. It does require secondary legislation. We hope to be able t…”

“Subsequent to the spending review, all the executive agencies that are charging fees have been reviewing their fee structures, because essentially I would like to move towards cost recovery. We need to think about the impact upon the end user of these services in terms of the costs that they will then be confronted wit…”

“It is early days, but we are doing some important exploratory work.”

“We are going to progress work on a new maritime strategy. In the last couple of months, I have been persuaded that this is an important piece of work to do. We had a very successful London International Shipping Week a couple of weeks ago. There have been quite a lot of changes since the last maritime strategy, so we w…”

“When Laura came in front of your Committee in January, I had been in the job for about four or five weeks, so we have established a slightly different way of working. I did not require her to produce a delivery plan. She regularly updates me on the work that she is doing. I have regular meetings with all the leaders fr…”

“All I can say is that, within months of me setting foot in the Department, we took a decision and an operator was appointed. I do not know whether Jo wants to comment on what happened prior to that. There was a decision to take, because there were various operators that could have undertaken phase 1 of the service betw…”

“Recent conversations have progressed well.”