A Labour minister was called out by LBC’s Nick Ferrari for not knowing basic details about a major new infrastructure project in a car-crash interview. Treasury minister Emma Reynolds struggled to answer questions about the Lower Thames Crossing, which is being given government cash.
She could not say the precise location of the project, which aims to reduce congestion at the Dartford Crossing, or how much it would cost. Asked where the new crossing would start and end, she said: “You’ll forgive me, I can’t recall the exact landing zone.”
A stunned Ferrari replied: “So the crossing you’re talking about, you don’t know where it is?”
Ms Reynolds said: “It’s the Lower Thames Crossing, which has been in planning for many years and it is to enable essentially people to not have to take the Dartford Tunnel, which is a huge problem, and it’s to enable business, lorries, people doing business, who are coming from the Midlands and the North to key ports in the South-east.”
The LBC host responded: “It’s almost as if you were reading from a piece of paper there, isn’t it? You don’t actually know where it takes off from and where it lands, do you?”
Ms Reynolds said: “You’ll forgive me, but this is part of a broader 10-year infrastructure strategy that we will be launching later this week.”
Ferrari then told her that it would link Gravesend in Kent and Tilbury in Essex.
Asked how much it was going to cost, she said it would be “quite a lot of money” before suggesting it would be “several billion pounds”.
A stunned Ferrari said: “I don’t wish to be rude to you personally, but is there much point continuing this conversation because you don’t know where a bridge starts, you don’t know where it ends and you don’t know how much it costs, so is there any point continuing?”
After more back and forth, he added: “It’s £10billion, to put you out of your misery. So it’s not several, it’s 10. What does it say about the economic stewardship of this country that someone in your position of importance, you don’t know where a bridge starts, you don’t know where it ends and you don’t know how much it costs?”
The LBC presenter was also forced to correct the Labour MP when she referred to the existing crossing being the “Dartmouth tunnel”, apparently confusing the Devon town with Dartford.