City MP elected to Commons role as ‘transport champion’

May 22 2008 Liverpool Daily Post

LIVERPOOL MP Louise Ellman was handed one of Westminster’s toughest jobs yesterday, when she was picked to follow the formidable Gwyneth Dunwoody as its “transport champion”.

The Riverside MP was elected as chairwoman of the powerful transport select committee, giving her responsibility for grilling rail company bosses, bus firm chiefs and government ministers.

MPs on the committee – from all parties – unanimously picked the 62-year-old Mrs Ellman to lead the committee she has sat on for more than a decade.

The MPs decided Mrs Ellman’s long service on the committee, plus her leadership of the all-party group on transport safety, made her Mrs Dunwoody’s logical successor.

Mrs Ellman got straight down to business after her election yesterday. She said: “It’s a great privilege to be selected to chair the committee. Gwyneth will be a hard act to follow, but I will do things my own way.”

At the start of the year, the Riverside MP joined the interrogation of Network Rail’s chief executive over the New Year chaos that shut down the Liverpool to London line.

The transport committee is currently investigating road safety, the government’s 30-year plans to expand the rail network and the disastrous opening of Heathrow’s Terminal five.

Mrs Ellman’s new job takes her overall Parliamentary pay to £75,533.