---

Thames Gateway

I shall talk about the strategic placing of housing in due course. Any additional requirements on building can cause an impact, whether that is protection against flooding or other environmental risks. If the hon. Gentleman will wait, he and I can perhaps continue our dialogue when I reach the part of my speech about housing. Questions were asked about the Thames estuary survey. It notes that the Government are well aware of people’s worries about flood risk. We are engaging people with the Environment Agency through the Thames estuary study so that we can ensure that effective flood risk management is incorporated into developments in the Thames Gateway. The question of balancing out costs will be a feature of the process of deciding whether developments should proceed. The hon. Member for Poole spoke about architecture. I thought at one point that he may have been taking a side-swipe at the dome. My hon. Friend the Member for Eltham (Clive Efford) also referred to architecture, and I shall return to that in due course. The hon. Member for Poole asked for a breakdown of the £6 billion funding. I can give him a thumbnail sketch by telling him some of the amounts that we intend to make available—more than £1 billion for transport, £400 million for health, £850 million for the Thames Gateway budget, £41 million for the environment, £268 million for affordable housing, a similar figure for land reclamation, more than £1.5 billion for education and almost £300 million for neighbourhood revival. By my calculation, that adds up to about £5 billion. I am sure that he gets the picture. The hon. Gentleman referred to Crossrail and a stop at Woolwich. As he says, with champions such as my right hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr. Raynsford) and my hon. Friend the Member for Eltham, the station has very strong advocacy, and I will turn to our assessment of the situation when I respond to my hon. Friend’s remarks. The hon. Member for Poole asked whether there were delays to the channel tunnel rail link. Our best information is that there is no delay. International services will be running from 2007, but domestic services will not begin until 2009. The rolling stock has been ordered and the development will obviously be a great improvement to transport links from that part of north Kent. I understand that people will be able to get from Ebbsfleet to King’s Cross in 17 minutes. It is a major addition to the infrastructure. My hon. Friend the Member for North-East Derbyshire made her maiden speech and, judging by the acclamation, she made a fine debut. Her generous tribute to her predecessors, her proud description of her constituency and her passionate articulation of her beliefs clearly demonstrate that her electors have made the right choice. I am sure that I heard her use the ““S”” word—Skinner—twice. Her connection of North-East Derbyshire’s regeneration to the Thames Gateway might have looked tenuous on paper, but she made it work very easily. She will clearly be an asset to her constituents, and all my colleagues here have said that they look forward to her future contributions. My hon. Friend spoke about involving and equipping young people. We are trying to raise the standard of learning, the work-related skills and the employability of young people. We are increasing access to education and skills including, most excitingly, three new universities in east London, Southend and the Medway, so this is a big issue for the Thames Gateway and its development. Yesterday, I drew attention to the ability of the hon. Member for Brent, East (Sarah Teather) to annoy the official Opposition; today, she invoked their sympathy with her coughing—so much so that the hon. Member for Poole acted as water carrier, which I thought a very gallant gesture. The hon. Lady asked a number of questions to which I will try to respond. On housing growth, I can assure her that we are not engaged in urban sprawl. Housing in the Thames Gateway will be focused on six strategic development locations in five urban renewal areas. The six locations will have a combined capacity to deliver 113,000 homes. Those sites have been chosen for their developable brownfield land, and we are focusing services and infrastructure around those areas and creating accessibility.