Speeches by Alexander.

“Thank you to you and the Committee for all the work you have done to support the many changes we are making to the transport system, particularly on the Railways Bill. Your recommendations were very helpful in that respect. We are making good progress on improving public transport, investing in our roads, and enabling …”

“What is different about me being before you today compared with six months ago is obviously the impact of the conflict in the Middle East and the pressure that has put on prices associated with fuel. If I was not focused on what that meant for drivers and operators of public transport—buses, rail and the airlines—then …”

“Yes.”

“We have set targets in the cycling and walking investment strategy. We have said that we want 55% of short trips taken in towns and cities by 2035 to be made by people walking or cycling. We have set a really ambitious target around enabling more children to walk, cycle and scoot to school, which is a 60% target by 203…”

“The three big commitments in Better Connected are very significant and really important. The review the Law Commission is doing—a big piece of work to make recommendations about what the future direction should be for regulations and enforcement—is really significant. We are doing the work on the accessibility charter,…”

“I am frustrated by that as well.”

“The planning application that was given consent in December for Universal Studios makes the second phase of the railway into quite a different beast. We have had to finish the work at the stations; for example, Wilmslow needs to be handed over. As I said to you at oral questions last week, Chiltern Railways is leading …”

“I do not have an entry-into-service date.”

“Yes.”

“It was always going to be the case that HS2 trains would spend a lot of their time on the conventional rail network. Given the previous Government’s decision to cancel HS2 north of Birmingham, making sure that the rolling stock that we deliver aligns with our ability to improve services north of the west midlands is ab…”

“We are making good progress with Great British Railways. We obviously had the Railways Bill pass its Commons stages last week, and it now goes to the Lords. You will be aware that this gives me the powers to set up GBR. We anticipate that GBR will be established probably about 12 months after the Act gets Royal Assent,…”

“Are you specifically asking about out-of-area working?”

“Those discussions will continue to take place between EWR and my Department. It is probably the best value-for-money way of delivering the scheme but we will make sure that we are robustly testing any assumptions about novel aspects of the way in which that technology may be deployed.”

“We need to be increasing capacity on services between Scotland and the north-west and London. We know that the West Coast Main Line—”

“I have had some conversations. We have been able to make some progress, for example, with extending the DLR to Thamesmead. That was working very closely with the Treasury and I am sure the Mayor of London will want to say more on that in due course. Yes, I work very closely with the Treasury on this.”

“The truth of the matter is I inherited an absolute mess, and the previous Government did not actually provide sufficient funding for work to be done; a small amount of funding was available. We have dedicated £1.1 billion in this spending review. But we also want to work differently because we need to work in partnersh…”

“Jo might want to pick up on the issue of alternative fuels in particular. One of the observations I would make is that one of the ways in which we have reduced the carbon impact of road traffic has been through the RTFO, the renewable transport fuel obligation. That has increased the amount of biofuel that is in the pe…”

“We have not as yet, but I have asked the Department to make sure, given that train services are not running at the moment, there is a way in which we can bear down on costs. If we are not getting the revenue in, the worst thing would be to have all the costs going out. For example, we have released a train to support s…”

“I am always willing to have the conversation and the right to request framework that this Government have set up is working quite well. For example, I have been approached by the Mayor of the Liverpool city region about him having more control over local stations, not to define and specify the nature of the rail servic…”

“We have said that we will consider this as part of the work that we are doing on pre-legislative scrutiny for a future taxi and private hire Bill. A couple of changes have already been made through legislation that we have passed in the last year around setting national standards and enabling enforcement action to be t…”