Lord Grocott (Lab)

My Lords, it is great to hear my noble friend’s tributes to the railway engineers, who keep the trains going at the same time that they are trying to build in many places new rail developments—which i

My Lords, there is a great deal in this Statement that I warmly welcome: in particular, the bit the Minister has just referred to about what was HS2, the link from Crewe to Manchester. He has repeated

My Lords, I particularly want to speak today because I am on the IRDC. I am proud that we completed a near-impossible task given to us by Parliament, which was to try to summarise the feelings of the

My Lords, on Erasmus, I remind my noble friend that, as I am sure she knows, we are talking about very large sums of money. It was £570 million in the first year alone, and that is with a terrific 30%

Does my noble friend, with her long and distinguished experience of local government leadership, agree that, all too often, major local government reorganisations take longer than anticipated, cost mo

My Lords, this is a question asked in all innocence. It is now 15 years since the OBR was established. Some of us have lived through the period before the OBR and the period since. Does my noble frien