Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)

I am grateful to my noble friend for his compliments. Of course, the real significance of this list is that it is a funded list, rather than one that is not funded—a list of aspiration and hope. I am not too sure about the phrase “green-lighting”; I am not too that it is in the dictionary and, if it is, it is a shame. What it means is that these are funded schemes to go ahead. One or two still need development consent orders, which is a process that has to be taken to a conclusion. Therefore, the start dates will be different across the huge list, but many are ready and have been waiting for funding for quite a long time. On the pausing at Dawlish that I referred to in the discussion with the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, monitoring will take place. It is not that it “should” take place. The monitoring of those cliffs needs to continue. My understanding of the situation, which I have to say is from the last job I did rather than this one, is that monitoring those cliffs is essential. The work needed to remedy all this is, at least partially, about what we see in the monitoring process, so it is sensible to look now and do something when agreed. Will we publish a paper on the criteria that have been used? There are two things here. One is that the Government have decided to do these schemes and have taken a view, from the wreckage they inherited, to prioritise things that need to be done that will contribute to a better local economy. We will get on with doing that first. In the longer term, there is an intention to have both a 10-year infrastructure strategy and a long-term railway plan. In conjunction with the revision of the Green Book that the Chancellor talked about in the spending review—to look at aspects that allow projects in parts of the country with lower rates of economic activity to benefit—I think there will be a case to publish a long-term railway plan and talk about the criteria used. For now, we will get on with what has been announced.