Helen Morgan makes the case for reopening the line from Oswestry to Gobowen

Helen Morgan was granted a Westminster Hall debate today on the reopening of the railway from Gobowen to Oswestry.

BBC News gives the background to it:

The restoration of the link was approved last year as part of the Restoring Your Railway fund, but the new government confirmed it was cancelling the scheme.

That initiative would have funded 38 railway projects in total.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves has said the cuts were needed to address a £21.9bn black hole in public finances and the Department for Transport would assess each individual project as part of a review.

The previous government had announced in October the Oswestry scheme would be fully funded to completion.

Helen, the Liberal Democrat MP for North Shropshire, made the case for reopening in her debate:

Poor public transport removes opportunity. It hinders young people, limiting their options for further and higher education and restricting their access to culture and leisure. In short, barriers to mobility are barriers to social mobility. During a recent visit to the jobcentre in Oswestry, the brilliant staff there told me that the No. 1 barrier to people accessing work is poor public transport. 

Meanwhile, I have spoken to businesses in Oswestry that have reported real difficulties in recruiting. They need to be able to attract people to work from a much wider area than Oswestry and not just those who have access to a private car. That means we are in the ridiculous situation where employers cannot recruit and jobseekers cannot find jobs to match their skills because of the same problem of poor public transport.

In reply the transport minister Lillian Greenwood talked about the "£21.9bn black hole" and bus networks.

It's true the last government's Restoring Your Railway fund, which was talked up as a way of "undoing Beeching" by the ultras in a fit of nostalgic post-referendum euphoria, was never properly financed. But this government comes across as having little idea of how to achieve the growth it talks about beyond a promise of "stability".

And good public transport services look like a way of promoting growth rather than an obstacle to it.