Oral QuestionDepartment for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy

If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

Tabled: 23 November 2022Answered: 29 November 2022

Asked by

Greg Smith

ConservativeMid Buckinghamshire

Answering Minister

the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy

Answer from Hansard

The Prime Minister

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising this matter on behalf of his constituents, so I will speak and his constituents will hear the answer. There was not a plan for the building. It was a pretend plan; it was a fiction. It was unfunded and undeliverable. It only existed in the head of Boris Johnson. There is the frustration for his constituents and I really understand it. They thought—because they were promised—that they were going to get something, which the Conservative party knew was never going to be delivered. That is absolutely unforgiveable. We will pick that up. We have put in place a funded scheme to build as quickly as we can, but it has to be funded and it has to be deliverable. That is the difference between the approach that we are taking and the approach that they took. Of course I will ensure that a relevant Minister meets the hon. Gentleman and his constituents to explain that more fully to them.