Speeches by Alexander.

“You are right to say that this is a really important moment for the east coast main line. The production of this timetable has been a number of years in the making, but it is important to unlock new services, and to provide additional seats and additional capacity. The way in which we have decided to approach this is w…”

“The quickest and easiest way to explain this is that we need to get more bums on seats. We need to increase the number of people who are using the railways. The less we are paying as a country to move half-empty bits of steel around the rail network, the better value for money we will be getting, so there is an ambitio…”

“There are two really important things to remember when it comes to investment in transport over the next three to four years, both in the day-to-day spending, so the resource spending that we have, and the capital spending. Jo might like to pick up on some of the detail of it. Broadly speaking, when you look at capital…”

“Jo, you might want to pick this one up. I can tell you what outcomes we are trying to achieve.”

“It would be very challenging because local areas have very differing economies. You will see local areas with very differing levels of car ownership, different demographics and different needs. In a period when we have good but finite funding for the buses, i.e. we are spending nearly £1 billion this year on supporting…”

“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 …”

“I am really lucky to have an excellent team. You are right to say that Lilian Greenwood, who had been the Future of Roads Minister, is now spending some of her time as the transport Whip. I have reorganised the portfolios of the Ministers to make sure that individuals have the right workload. Lilian will be taking on t…”

“No, we need to make sure that our spending priorities map clearly against the outcomes that we are trying to achieve. First and foremost among those is making sure that we are supporting growth in the economy. The second one is that we create a cleaner, greener, safer and healthier transport system. We also want to mak…”

“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…”

“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…”

“The Chancellor and the Treasury are very aware of the potential electric vehicles offer in terms of jobs of the future. We are investing in battery giga plants, for example, and supporting developments down in Somerset around that. We also moved very swiftly in the summer, when we had some volatility around internation…”

“I hope to be able to say more on that in the next couple of months. We are fully committed to ensuring that the great cities of the north of England have better rail connectivity, but we want to get it right. Following the publication of the James Stewart review, it makes sense for us to take our time and make sure tha…”

“Good morning, everyone. Thanks ever so much for having me back. I think the last time I was here was in April, so it is good to have this regular catch-up. You asked me how I would assess the state of progress in my Department, with this Government having been in office for 16 months now. I think we are doing a good jo…”

“I am Heidi Alexander and I am the Secretary of State for Transport.”

“It was a specific decision of the Government to publish the spending review, the industrial strategy and the infrastructure strategy around the same time, so that we could make sure that they were aligned and could provide long-term certainty about the investment pipeline, for example, to lever in private sector invest…”

“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 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, …”

“I do not think so. We have a very experienced individual in Jeremy Westlake, who has been appointed as the new Network Rail chief executive. He obviously has a long history in Network Rail himself. I am also confident that, with LNER and the leadership of David Horne, we have some stable and experienced leaders in the …”

“What we are trying to do through RIS3 is get the balance right. We want to progress significant enhancements, some of which we set out in the announcement that I made in July after the spending review. Whether it is the M54-M6 link road, the A38 Derby junction scheme—I can see that Baggy has left—or the A66 trans-Penni…”

“As I said in response to a similar question from my hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Fleur Anderson), we will review the noise requirements set out in the current NPS and the mitigations associated with that. As I stand here today, I have no intention of diminishing in any way those requirements, but we will look at …”