---

Coastal Towns

I am glad that the hon. Gentleman acknowledges Blackpool’s good road links, and I do not dispute anything that he says about the problems with roads in the south-east. However, there is another side to the coin. Getting to Blackpool by road from London may be relatively easy, but getting to Blackpool by public transport is anything but. That is a legacy of the failure of 1970s Conservative Governments to invest in the west coast main line, and sadly, of our general problem over the past 20 years in making Governments of all hues recognise the importance of public transport—in particular the railway network—to seaside and coastal towns.