It is a pleasure to be called to speak in this debate by you, Madam Deputy Speaker, in your first session in the Chair. I congratulate you on your new role. It is also a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown). I also congratulate the hon. Members who have made their maiden speeches today—we have heard some excellent ones.
One of Cornwall’s earliest tourists was the spirited and adventurous Mary Kelynack, a Cornish fishwife who in 1851 travelled to London to visit the Great Exhibition. That took her longer than some say it should have done, but then again she did walk the 600 miles there and back, and she was 84 years old. At the time, Cornish travellers did not have many other options. Some will try to give the impression that little has changed when it comes to travelling out of Cornwall today, but that would give the wrong impression because, thanks to the support of this Government, Cornwall is enjoying record investment in our transport infrastructure.
If Mary had made her journey today, she would have had several options. She could have travelled by road, in which case she would have seen the soon to be completed upgrade of the A30, with the dualling at Temple that will be opened in just two weeks’ time. My hon. Friend the Member for Hereford and South Herefordshire (Jesse Norman), the roads Minister, is in the Chamber, and I acknowledge and welcome the Government’s announcement today of their support for the next phase of the upgrade of the vital A30, the main road through Cornwall.
Mary could have travelled on one of the new Great Western Railway’s bullet-style Hitachi trains, the first of which we saw in Cornwall just over a week ago—a
£146 million investment in our railways which will be fully rolled out next year. Or she could have taken one of the three aeroplanes a day from Newquay to London.