Go-ahead for 50 road and rail schemes will 'get the economy growing', Heidi Alexander tells GB News

GB News

Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander has told GB News that giving the go-ahead for 50 road and rail upgrade schemes is aimed at "getting the economy growing".Hailing an "important day" for the nation's infrastructure, Alexander was grilled by host Miriam Cates on "where the money was coming from" to fund the schemes.FULL STORY HERE.

Transcript

00:00And we're joined now by the Transport Secretary, Heidi Alexander. Heidi, good morning. Thank

00:05you for joining us. Now, there are a number of new announcements today that the government

00:09has made. Tell us about some of these new infrastructure projects.

00:15Yes, so it's an important day because we're greenlighting about 50 rail and road upgrades

00:23across the country. So some of the schemes that have had uncertainty hanging over them

00:28for a number of years have now been given the go-ahead. That includes rail schemes such

00:33as the Midlands Rail Hub that the Chancellor spoke about in her speech. Also the digital

00:38signalling on the East Coast Main Line between Edinburgh and London. We're building new stations

00:44as well, restoring train services to some towns that haven't had a rail service for decades.

00:51So we are reopening a rail station at Portishead and at Peel to provide services

00:58into Bristol. There's going to be a new station at Haxby in Yorkshire, which is on the York-Scarborough

01:03line. Two new stations as well in Devon at places called Wellington and Columpton. Not

01:09only will this lead to tens of thousands of new jobs in the construction process, it will

01:14also link people to centres of economic activity. And it will also unlock development sites where

01:21new homes can be built because as part of this government's plan for change, we've obviously

01:25got a commitment to build 1.5 million homes over the duration of this parliament.

01:31So this is about improving journeys for people. A number of road schemes in there as well, such

01:36as building a new road between the M54 and the M6 in Staffordshire, duelling the A66 Trans

01:43Canine Route between Carlisle and Scotch Corner. I'm sure people will be delighted that these schemes are going

01:49ahead. Some of them have been in the planning for a decade or more. But nevertheless, it does draw

01:55attention to the amount of money that this is going to cost. We know that the government is short

01:59of money or the taxpayer is short of money. How are these things going to be funded given last week's

02:05vote or lack of vote to save money on welfare? Where is the money going to come from for these schemes?

02:10So the Chancellor committed £92 billion of capital spending for transport infrastructure in the

02:20spending review. Now, some of that is the really big schemes that, for example, HS2 between London

02:26and Birmingham, East West Rail, the Trans Pennine Route upgrade between Manchester and York. But she was

02:32able to take long-term decisions in the national interest to invest in assets where we are going

02:41to yield the benefits over many years and decades to come. And so these are one-off capital schemes.

02:47It's not the day-to-day revenue spending. And it's completely the right thing to do to invest in

02:53transport infrastructure in order to get the economy growing. Because if we can get businesses thriving,

02:59then obviously that's good for the exchequer in terms of tax receipts. And that means money available

03:06to invest in public services in the NHS and schools, which we know are people's priorities.

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