Extract from Lords debate on Publicly Funded Infrastructure Projects - Jul 2
Wednesday, 3 July 2019 07:48
Baroness Randerson (LD):...We deal with these projects piecemeal
and efforts to have a joined-up approach to skills have so far
failed because we agonise and dither for so long and because
government is structured to take the short-term approach. We do not
have an integrated approach nor a long-term programme for
government, so we cannot get skills co-ordination on a grand scale.
I give the example of Great Western electrification. It
has cost double what was anticipated, and some...Request free trial
(LD):...We deal with these
projects piecemeal and efforts to have a joined-up approach to
skills have so far failed because we agonise and dither for so long
and because government is structured to take the short-term
approach. We do not have an integrated approach nor a long-term
programme for government, so we cannot get skills co-ordination on
a grand scale. I give the example of Great Western electrification. It has cost
double what was anticipated, and some major errors have been made
along the way. Yet another emerged this weekend: equipment
installed in the Severn tunnel is rusting before it has even been
used. We have known for more than a century that the Severn tunnel
is very damp...
(Lab):...Where will these
trains go? These days, it is impossible to modernise a railway
system and run trains at the same time. It did not used to be. In
my younger days—I confess that I remember the first electrification
of the west coast main line—much of the work was done between
trains, although there were lots of alternative routes. The
Manchester trains went over to Great Central. The brains that run
this country decided to close that line, so the
trains went on the Midland main line, now closed between Matlock
and further north. There are no alternative routes. The Liverpool
trains went on the Great
Westernfrom Paddington to Birkenhead. That does not
exist any more; indeed, part of it is a tramway through my former
constituency...
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