Speeches by Mayer.

“The Stewart review states: “In my opinion there is a history of gold-plating in railway projects in the UK, especially compared to international benchmarks.” Is this a culture that you recognise? Are people still coming to you prioritising best over affordable?”

“I welcome that, through Best Start, Central Bedfordshire is getting funding for a family hub for the first time. Will the Secretary of State explain how this will be linked to areas of deprivation and urge the independent council to look closely at the statistics that show that places such as Dunstable and Houghton Reg…”

“At present do you feel that there is clear accountability between mayoral combined authorities and Network Rail, in terms of delivering enhancements?”

“Do you think there is any danger that you might, sort of, be treated as a bank? The Government do not have enough money to do one thing or another, so they come to the mayoral combined authority to top it up.”

“How do we square the circle of the sector wanting certainty for investment while projects have to go through many stages of development between them first being announced and confirmed and spades in the ground?”

“Absolutely. We have heard a lot about partnership, predominantly from the previous panel as well as from you. Partnership always sounds brilliant as a concept, but it involves people agreeing with each other. Is there a danger that, as we go further down that model with the reforms that are coming in of giving more str…”

“I am a great fan of passenger transport executives, being probably the only MP who ever referenced them in their maiden speech.”

“No, don’t worry. Liz, you said earlier that one of your main objectives was to get more people on to trains and grow the revenue. Just so that I understand: who is getting that revenue at the moment? Who gets the money from the tickets?”

“I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. I know she is normally a champion for trains in her constituency, so I welcome her branching out into buses. The Campaign for Better Transport says that £1 of investment in buses brings £4.55 in benefits, and I am absolutely up for that. While we are on the subject of better buse…”

“I thank the Backbench Business Committee for allowing this debate to take place. I very much welcome the investment in transport—especially public transport—in the spending review. The commitment is really clear; for example, there is £2.3 billion for the local transport grant, which will support local transport improv…”

“Is there really a lack of political consensus? East-west rail has been talked about since before the millennium. Twenty-five years ago groups of local authorities came together to say they wanted it, and in 2011 the Government backed it. We have been through loads of different types of Government. It is still sort of t…”

“In the written evidence we received there was quite a lot of discussion about control periods. Briefly, how would you like control periods to work differently?”

“My colleague asked the previous panel about the rail network enhancements pipeline document that is stuck on the DFT website and has not been updated in some time. Do you have a view on its effectiveness in principle if it were updated?”

“How do you think the Government should approach rolling stock procurement? John McGookin: We look at where we are on procurement. Last week, I was on an HST, a 385; these trains were new before grass was green. Ultimately, we do not have, and do not see, a joined-up plan in terms of how we replace rolling stock. We now…”

“Stephen, you said earlier that there was a lack of cross-party consensus, and we have heard evidence about the need for more public support for investments, to help to insulate a pipeline from political changes. How might that look? How do you make it happen?”

“Thank you; we are always happy when politics isn’t the problem. You mentioned that some other countries do this better, and you mentioned the concept of more regional devolution. Are there any countries that do regional rail policy well?”

“Excellent. Moving on a bit, how do you think that a stable investment pipeline would improve productivity and efficiency in rail projects?”

“I agree, and let me say that transport is popular when it comes up in the Chamber. It does not often come up, because there are not emergency statements on it every five minutes, but everyone has a bus in their constituency and many people have a train—”

“It does not seem very long since we were last here talking about eggs and chickens, although I imagine it would feel much longer if we were stuck in a cage only the size of an A4 piece of paper. Does my hon. Friend agree that we need to learn lessons from other countries, including Austria and Luxembourg, because our h…”

“Passengers quite often say to me that the wi-fi on trains is not fantastic. I am sure that you have experienced that, too. I am sure that you build what you are told to build, as with everything else, but are the specifications and expectations changing for wi-fi on trains?”