Part of the debate – in the House of Commons am 12:35 pm ar 16 Ebrill 2024.
I certainly take that point from my good friend. The hon. Member has worked tirelessly for the rail workforce, and I know that he means everything he says with passion and conviction. I have talked about the situation being a complex one from a legal perspective, and I would take him back to the contract award for HS2, which went to Alstom and Hitachi. That was challenged in court by Siemens; the Department succeeded on every single point, but that just shows how careful we have to be from a legal perspective during the tendering process, because it will end up in litigation. The worst thing would be to hand out contracts in a manner that is not legally fair and then find that they are being unpicked, which brings fresh uncertainty. Instead, we are looking at the entire order book to see where we can bring matters forward in the pipeline—matters that Alstom may be working on already. Where it is the fair and right thing to do, we are looking to see whether we can bring those contract orders forward in the pipeline.