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Transport (Investment)

To clarify, the scheme to which the right hon. Gentleman refers is one of the schemes in the pool of projects submitted to the Department before the cut-off date that we announced in June, but it has not yet been appraised by the Department. The Department will now make a rapid assessment of the scheme—the right hon. Gentleman asserts that it is extremely high value for money, but I can tell him that the promoter of every single scheme that I have come across asserts that their scheme is high value for money. A number of these schemes will then be accelerated into the development pool so that we can do further work on them with the promoters during 2011 with a view to allocating funding at the end of 2011. I would say to the right hon. Gentleman, as I said to my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood), that if a rail scheme is not successful in this funding process, it will of course be possible for it to be put forward as a proposal for the next control period of Network Rail's capital enhancement settlement.