Speeches by Aquarone.

“A lot of silos.”

“Hang on, carpooling, even the 70% of adults who do it informally? How are they defining it?”

“We heard you talk about the withdrawal of the guidance in May this year. Any idea what is behind that?”

“That rather answers my next question, which is: was it useful?”

“James, your first step.”

“The hon. Gentleman knows as well as I do how rural and isolated much of Norfolk can be. I represent the oldest constituency in the country, and I have been shocked by the living standards of some of my elderly residents in isolated communities, who simply feel that there is no help out there to give them the quality of…”

“People with a wide range of views about how to tackle immigration spoke to me over the summer, and none of them is happy with how things are. They are furious about how the Conservatives trashed our border security, and they certainly do not want the hare-brained schemes of Reform—they want action that fixes the system…”

“On the theme of clarity—this is my last question on this area, Chair—you are comfortable with a rail investment pipeline being strategically led, multi-layered, with different time horizons, quite detailed in terms of the picture that is painted around each possible scheme, what the business case is, and then of course…”

“Indeed. It is not just third-party funding; it is also whether it is coming from regional authorities or local government or other schemes and investments, and incorporating the ambition of smaller projects like Access for All into the pipeline.”

“That is a good point. I meant more about trying to get away from it being a wish list. Part of getting away from it being a wish list is to understand whose wishes are represented in each element of it.”

“In terms of industry readiness, clearly industry is grown-up enough to price political risk into it, and when it comes to the different funding streams there are different risk profiles attached to the reliability of those funding streams and the status of the funding commitments. Is it not therefore important that the…”

“On incorporating the long-term strategic ambition for rail into that pipeline, there must be some capacity to set the direction, subject to successive Governments’ agendas over a period that goes beyond what you have just described, Lord Hendy, and into maybe the 20 to 30-year outlook, or is that wildly unrealistic?”

“This may be a multi-layered pipeline with different degrees of political risk, funding certainty and time horizon built into it. What is the ideal time horizon, bearing in mind that the answer may well be separate for each layer?”

“Thank you. Lord Hendy.”

“Thank you.”

“Infrastructure as in major projects or RNEP?”

“Okay. Rolling stock is in the pipeline.”

“Thank you all for your contributions so far. I want to talk about the practicalities of what the pipeline should look like. There is clearly not a huge amount of rhetoric in the title of this inquiry. This Committee has a belief that a rail investment pipeline could help end boom and bust. I am interested in the practi…”

“For clarity, it is four years before we hear about Ely and Haughley.”

“Can you give us a bit more understanding of what that means? You are talking about going deeper into the supply chain and being part of the negotiation of supply contracts? What is the business as usual approach, as opposed to the plan B approach?”