Mrs Cheryl Gillan (Chesham and Amersham) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Frank Dobson). If we had a secret, unwhipped ballot across the House, I think we may find less support for this project than those on the Front Benches would like.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) on bringing this Bill to the House and giving me and my colleagues the opportunity to sponsor it. My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve) was not free to sponsor the Bill, but it is good to have his affirmation that he would have added his name to it had he not been on the Front Bench. I have been liberated for some time, and fortunately I have been able to speak about this matter. For the first two years of this Parliament, however, owing to Cabinet collective responsibility and observing what is right and proper in the House, I was unable to air my views about this project on the Floor of the House.
Friday mornings are never convenient for Members who want to spend time in their constituencies, and it is commendable that colleagues have joined the debate this morning, probably on their way to their constituencies. My right hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Mr Lidington) has asked me to mention the strong feelings in his constituency about the huge cost of this project, particularly because the lack of any interim station means that local people are set to gain no benefit from the line, while facing massive disruption to their lives for years to come. I echo that point for my constituency and constituencies in Buckinghamshire that will be severely disrupted should the project go ahead. My hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy) supports the Bill but is unable to attend the debate, and I am pleased to put that on the record to show that many Members up and down the line—and now beyond the line—feel uncomfortable with the proposals.
That we are debating giving people a vote on this project is absolutely right, and if the Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr Hayes)—
The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Mr John Hayes)
Right honourable.
Mrs Gillan
I do apologise; I meant no disrespect. If my right hon. Friend realised how unpopular this project was, he might not make the speech he is about to make. I recall that while I was driving—I think I was listening to “Any Questions”,—one of the questions involved HS2. The audience on the radio booed, and I thought, “Well there’s a popular project for the Government to pursue, particularly in the light of its so-called limited cost.” This project has not captured imaginations up and down the country, and it is certainly not held dear by the people I talk to, including those way beyond being affected directly by the line.
The trouble is that HS2 is slipping under the radar in many ways. The organisation led by Buckinghamshire county council is an amalgam of many other organisations and, as I said earlier, it has called itself “51m”, because the equivalent cost of HS2 at the moment, if spread among our constituencies, would give each Member £51 million to spend in those constituencies. The right hon. Member for Holborn and St Pancras said that if we gave £10 billion to the five cities, they would not immediately club together and want to build HS2. In the same way, if constituencies up and down the country received £51 million, they would not immediately club together to build HS2.
Like the right hon. Gentleman, I wanted to find out what people thought about HS2, so I went along to the Institute of Directors. In Transport questions last March, I raised that issue because the IOD—the very business people to whom the project is supposed to appeal—surveyed more than 13,000 directors for its spring report last year to get their views on HS2. More than half those directors thought that HS2 was poor value for money, and more than 60% thought that the budget earmarked for the project would provide a better return if it were used to improve existing road and rail networks. Frankly, when our business community comes out against a project to that extent, I do not understand why the Government do not listen. I am not afraid of asking people what they think, and neither are most of my colleagues in the House. I therefore believe that the proposal for a referendum is well made and should be put, not least so that the business community can express its views.
It is all very well for the companies that are already earning highly from the project. I was amazed at some of the sums that have already gone to potential advisers and contractors on this project, all of which have been printed in Hansard in response to questions—I will not go into the details of the companies, but they are there if people want to look at them. Those companies are in favour of the project, as are Manchester and Birmingham, which see vast swathes of taxpayers’ money coming in their direction. Sir Albert Bore and Sir Richard Leese will be absolutely delighted and will put pressure on Labour Front Benchers to go along with the proposals, because taxpayers’ money will go into those Labour-controlled authorities, but what does that say to the rest of us?
The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Mr John Hayes)
This has been an interesting debate to which a number of Members have contributed. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) on enabling us to explore these important matters. They involve HS2, of course: that is the matter of substance, because the essence of the proposal in the Bill is that it is of such significance that it should be supported only on the basis of the consent of the people, sought and gained by means of a referendum.
I do not want to delay the House unduly, but my hon. Friend would expect me to deal with the question of why a referendum is an inappropriate vehicle for such a decision. The hon. Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood) focused on that—and, while I speak of focus, let me reassure her that no one’s focus is more laser-like than mine. She explained why she thought that a referendum was an inappropriate way of proceeding in respect of HS2. I intend to speak about that in some detail and at some length, and also with considerable respect for the argument advanced by my hon. Friend, the essence of which is that very big projects that have an environmental effect of this kind and an economic value of this type, and which involve costs of this scale, are of a character that necessitates a referendum.
Since I became a Transport Minister, straddling No. 10 and the Department, I have been associated with—indeed, I would like to say that I contributed to—our road investment strategy. The ideas for that began before my arrival, but I have been pleased to be very much a part of its formulation, and look forward to being part of its delivery. The road investment strategy, the biggest of its kind since the 1970s, looks forward to many decades: the effect of its provisions will last throughout my lifetime, and well beyond. It commits some £15 billion—indeed, a little more than that—to a plan that will affect places throughout Britain, consisting of 100 schemes.
Did we take the view that a referendum was necessary for that plan to proceed? Did my hon. Friend suggest that a referendum should be held in respect of a very large infrastructural scheme, which involved transport and would affect tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands, of our countrymen in connection with the works that would be carried out and the value that would result in the form of easier and better communications and safer and better roads? I have to say that the answer to that is no, at least as far as I am aware. The same might be said of a number of other infrastructural projects to which the hon. Member for Nottingham South drew our attention, Crossrail being a good example. I am not sure that a case can be made for a referendum in one policy area—indeed, one transport policy area—but not in others, when the drama, significance and scale involved are as great as what we saw in that road investment programme.
Mr Chope
My right hon. Friend surely needs to look at his own situation, because the Government say in respect of local authorities that may, for example, want to spend money on subsidising buses that if the consequence is that they are going to increase their council tax by more than 2%, they must have a local referendum. If it is good for local authorities, where the sums involved might be as little as £28 per household on average—if we take the average council tax—why is he saying that it is essential to have a referendum in that situation, but not in the situation we are addressing today?
Mr Hayes
My hon. Friend draws attention to the idea of holding a local referendum or plebiscite in a very particular area and on a very particular proposal. He does not propose in his Bill a referendum for those directly affected by HS2. He is not suggesting that we hold a referendum of the people of Birmingham, Warwickshire or Chesham and Amersham—or even Christchurch, although I am not sure they will be as directly affected as those in some of those other places. He is suggesting a national referendum, where people from Northern Ireland, for example, would have a vote on these matters, and he is doing so not because they are affected directly, but because of the cost.
Mrs Gillan
I think my right hon. Friend has lost his rapier-like focus, because every taxpayer in every corner of the UK is going to be paying for this project. Every single taxpayer will be making a contribution and, as I pointed out before, the sum is £51 million for every constituency, so I am afraid his argument falls at the first hurdle.
Mr Hayes
And that is true of the road investment strategy, too. It is certainly as true of the road investment strategy as it is of HS2—it is as true of the £15 billion-plus we are spending on roads across the whole country. That £15.2 billion for the road investment strategy does not just affect people in terms of the value it brings; it is also funded by taxpayers in exactly the way my right hon. Friend suggests.
Mr Hayes
What I am saying is that a referendum on this kind of matter is wholly inappropriate. The only referendum my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch cited in his speech introducing the Bill—and I understand why he has introduced it; it makes a perfectly understandable contention—was the referendum on what is now the EU. I have the Referendum Act 1975 with me and I also have a copy of the Second Reading debate when it was a Bill being discussed in this House. The arguments made then were that this was a matter of immense constitutional significance that affected the future of our nation as a whole in respect of its governance. That is a very different set of arguments from those, however well made, about the cost of a particular area of policy and the effect of that on a number of our constituents—and I include in that the effect, in the broadest terms, it has on the taxpayers contributing to it. That it is a very different kind of argument as my hon. Friend knows very well.
That kind of referendum has only been used in the way I describe. Indeed, my hon. Friend also mentioned the referendum by 2017 that has been pledged by the Prime Minister on our association with the EU, and which is of a similar kind to the 1975 referendum. There are many of us, including my hon. Friend, I imagine, who would argue that that new referendum is absolutely necessary because getting the fresh consent of the British people on the terms of our relationship with the EU is a matter of some urgency. I do not think, however, that one can argue that it is equivalent to the proposal he makes today.
Mr Chope
Are not the EU referendum and the referendum proposed in this Bill a lot closer than my right hon. Friend says? All the leading political parties’ Front Benches support our continued membership of the EU and it is time that the people had a chance to challenge that consensus in a referendum. Similarly with this Bill, the Front Benches all support HS2 funding to the extent of £50 billion-plus, but the people outside do not. Is this not a chance for them to express their own view on this matter?
Mr Hayes
My hon. Friend is a distinguished and experienced parliamentarian, but he is much more than that: he is both a wise man and a clever man—he will understand the difference between wisdom and cleverness —and he knows the argument he has just made is an argument not about equivalence, but about political coincidence. It is certainly true that the Front Benches at that time took a similar view, and the Front Benches do so now, too, as he heard when the shadow Minister spoke. That is a matter of political coincidence, however; it is not a matter of governance. I am arguing that the difference between this Bill and the 1975 Act that gave rise to the referendum in that year is that the advocates of that referendum made it absolutely clear that the referendum was necessary because it was on a constitutional matter of profound significance. I am not sure we can say that about a particular area of policy, however important it is. It would be unprecedented, as my hon. Friend knows, and in my judgment it would, for that reason, be ill-judged. Once we open up that hornet’s nest, I see the ugly prospect of plebiscites on every kind and type of subject. There are those who might welcome that, but I, as a confident exponent of the role of this House, would not do so. I think it is important that representative democracy is served by those who believe in—who have confidence in—the power of this House to take big decisions: to be bold, and to be sufficiently original to excite and inspire the people.
Stephen Pound
I did not wish to interrupt the right hon. Gentleman as the cloak of Chesterton falls about his shoulders, but would he not agree with the former Baroness Thatcher in her comment that these referendums and plebiscites are devices of dictators and demagogues?
Mr Hayes
There is no need to apologise, but the hon. Gentleman anticipates what I was about to say, and I did think, rather mischievously, as he intervened, of the Chesterton line that
“He who has the impatience to interrupt the words of another seldom has the patience to”
devise good ones of his own, but that is certainly not true of him, I have to say.
The point the hon. Gentleman is making is a perfectly decent one: once one gives way to the contention that every major matter—and I accept that this is a very major matter—not only requires the consent of this House, but furthermore, between elections, requires the consent through a referendum of the people as a whole, we have the dangerous beginning of a set of arguments which leads to the place suggested by the blessed Margaret Thatcher and the hon. Gentleman, which is almost one might say anarchic.
Mrs Gillan
I think that my right hon. Friend is taking this line because he is afraid that if a referendum on HS2 was offered to the people of the UK, they would vote firmly against it. Is he actually saying that an institution such as the City of Edinburgh council, which held a postal ballot referendum in February 2005 on its transport strategy, was wrong? I would say it was absolutely right.The people voted and rejected the proposals by 74% to 26%. The voter turnout was 62%. That vote gave people a chance to say how they wanted their council to spend money on a transport project. Is the Minister saying that Edinburgh council was wrong? Is not the truth that he is afraid that people would vote this project down?
Mr Hayes
It is not out of fear that I resist this proposal; it is out of courage. I am courageous enough to believe in the power, wisdom and efficacy of this place. I am not one of those politicians who is prepared to give ground to that destructive modern insecurity—that guilt-ridden doubt about our ability to originate, to invent, to inspire and to enthral—that so many of the governing class are said to feel. I believe that politicians can make a difference, and that they can take big decisions and be ambitious for what they can achieve for the country. So it is not fear that drives my resistance to my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch’s argument; it is courage, and the willingness to be bold and to have confidence in the decisions taken by this House. I emphasise the point about the decisions being taken by this House, because this kind of project can succeed only on the basis of consensus.
Frank Dobson
Lots of people pull into Euston, and they want to continue to do so without being interrupted for the next 15 years by the works on HS2. In relation to the impact on my constituency, surely the point is that although all the proposals in the Bill—which the House has apparently seriously considered—have been abandoned, the work around Euston has not. There are no proposals for the people or for this House to consider at the moment, and no such proposals are expected until September, even though they were originally promised for last October.
Mr Hayes
The people of Holborn and St Pancras, in their wisdom, have chosen the right hon. Gentleman—for whom I have a great deal of respect, as he well knows—to speak for them. Members of this House are elected to voice the concerns of their constituents. My right hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs Gillan) finished her speech by saying that she would give way to her constituents and allow them to have the final word on this matter. Other Members have argued that they speak boldly for their constituents. My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve) said the concerns of those who have doubts about HS2 were being disregarded because they were seen solely as concerns about the constituency. I do not disregard them on that basis; those Members are doing their duty and their job in making the case for the people they serve, and they do so in the spirit—the Burkeian spirit, dare I say—that should drive all of us who believe in representative democracy and the role of Parliament.
The intervention by the right hon. Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Frank Dobson) brings me to the matter of Euston, about which he spoke at considerable length—understandably, given his long association with that place. He will know that part of the advantage of the HS2 project is that it involves the redevelopment of Euston. He will also know that that will, in turn, involve the rebuilding of the Euston arch. There are those in Warwickshire, and in Chesham and Amersham, who might say that their local concerns are far greater than any consideration of what might happen at Euston, but I say that the emblematic significance of rebuilding the Euston arch will send a signal out across the whole nation that the Government are doing the right thing.
Frank Dobson
The Euston arch could be rebuilt tomorrow. We do not need a huge engineering project to justify it. We could simply dig the stones out of the canal and rebuild the arch where it used to stand, and we could do that tomorrow.
Mr Hayes
As the right hon. Gentleman knows, the rebuilding of the Euston arch is associated with the redevelopment of Euston station, which is at the very heart of the HS2 project. Of all the London stations, perhaps the one that demands redevelopment most of all is Euston. I know that he would not eschew the opportunity to see the benefits of that regeneration not only for rail travellers but for the whole of that part of his constituency. I know that he was not dismissing the redevelopment of Euston or the rebuilding of the Euston arch. I think that, at heart, he is something of an aesthete. Surely he knows, however, that if the project does not go ahead, Euston will not be redeveloped in the way that it could be.
Frank Dobson
I fear that the right hon. Gentleman has been very badly briefed by his officials, because he ought to know—his officials certainly ought to know this, although they probably do not, if my experience is anything to go by—that there were outline proposals for the redevelopment of Euston station that virtually everyone in the locality approved of. They would like that particular redevelopment to go ahead, because it would not involve a vast amount of redevelopment around the station. Sir David Higgins appears to believe, based on his experience with the Olympics in east London, that the area around Euston is a brownfield site, but it is not. It is full of people, and they want to be left alone.
Mr Hayes
I want to say two things about that. First, the right hon. Gentleman knows that those redevelopment plans have been given life only as a result of this project. Secondly, I concede that it is important that any redevelopment should take full account of the interests and wishes of the people in the immediate vicinity. He made a strong case for them in his speech. It is critical that the communities that will be directly affected by that development should be integrally involved in what takes place there. He has been making this argument for some time and, as a result of the overtures that he has made today, I will commit the Government to engaging with those communities, to ensuring that what is done matches the local interest, and to involving him in that process. I am more than happy to have further discussion on the detail of the development of Euston, given what he has offered this debate today. In that spirit, I say to him that its development can be a good and indeed glorious thing; it does not have to be bad news for him, his constituents or the people in that vicinity.
Mrs Gillan
I am sure everybody, particularly the right hon. Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Frank Dobson), appreciates the assurances the Minister is trying to give him. However, I understand that the designers have downed tools on Euston, because they were trying to do it within a £2 billion budget and they cannot redesign and deliver anything meaningful within that. So I would love to know what budget the Minister has set in the Department for the redevelopment, because this is a golden opportunity to inform people of the new budget for any redevelopment at Euston.
Mr Hayes
Let me tell hon. Members what I think about the redevelopment of Euston. This will perhaps come as news to my right hon. Friend and others, but I am absolutely determined that the development of Euston should be ambitious and bold in the way she described. I am absolutely determined that we should end with something that takes its inspiration from the arch. We do not want some vile, low-budget, modern monstrosity. We want a building that is grand and fit for the future, that is a landmark destination and that is as glorious as the new redevelopment of St Pancras or the addition to King’s Cross. We have a good recent record on what can be done at these large London stations. Let us do nothing less than that at Euston—indeed, let us try to do more. So, I will not be constrained in my ambitions in the way she says, and I could hardly be so, given that I claimed earlier to believe that politicians in this place should be bold, courageous, ambitious and inventive. I want a neoclassical building on a grand scale at Euston, and it does not take a lot of working out to realise that the inspiration—the genesis for that—should come from the redeveloped arch.
The right hon. Member for Holborn and St Pancras was saying that although he understands that there will be a totemic significance to that building, we also need to consider its environs. I have pledged to him that we will engage with the local community, with local representatives and with him to make sure that the views and representations of the people in the surrounding area are built in to our thinking. I do not think we can say fairer than that.
Frank Dobson
The sort of thing the Minister is now saying is what HS2 has been saying endlessly to people and then ignoring them. The people in the area—not just their MP but the people themselves—were promised that the revised proposals for Euston would be made public for consultation in October last year and are now being told that these things may be available in September this year. That shows the quality of the consultation that has been going on—it has been listen and ignore.
Mr Hayes
The right hon. Gentleman understands that those are not matters for which I was responsible, but I am here today and I can seize the responsibility for saying to him that we will make those proposals available for local consideration and consultation, and I do not think it is unreasonable to say that we should do that by September. What I do not want to get to is a further statement in September saying that they have been further delayed. He is a very distinguished and experienced local representative. The way these things work best is when draft ideas—plans—are put forward, to which people can then add, and they then develop incrementally. That cannot be done until the conversation is started in the way he describes. So I think we need to move ahead with greater alacrity than he suggests has been the case so far.
Mrs Gillan
I am sorry to press the Minister further, but I am interested in what he is saying at the Dispatch Box because the rumours are that the budget for any development at Euston is going to increase to about £7 billion. I stress that that is a rumour, but I hope he will be able to comment on it. He seems to be adding another layer of consultation and another delay to this project, which will of course add cost to it, so I would like him to set out the timetable for that consultation on Euston and tell me what sort of delay there will be on it. Will it be delivered in September? What is the budget? What are the proposals? If he is going to be able to say what he has said so far at the Dispatch Box, he must have that detail available. I think it is only fair he does this because any changes at Euston will, of course, delay the entire project between Birmingham and London.
Mr Hayes
Let me leave Department for Transport officials quaking when I say that I will give these commitments: the arrangements I have set out in respect of the further discussions and consultation with the people in the area that the right hon. Member for Holborn and St Pancras represents should be completed speedily; they should certainly be done within existing budgets; and the proposals should be brought forward no later and the measures I have set out should begin no later than September, as he requests. That seems to me to be perfectly reasonable, and I am happy to confirm that that has become the Government’s position, because I have said that it is the Government’s position.
I have clearly made the case that the Bill is an inappropriate means to consider HS2 further, on the grounds that a referendum is not the best way of moving forward. I think that I have begun to offer some reassurance to the right hon. Member for Holborn and St Pancras about Euston. I know that he is not entirely convinced, but I hope that he will count it as progress that the Government have recommitted to the kind of proper discussion with the local community that will allow it to shape plans as they move forward. Although I do not wish to delay the House unduly, I shall now move on to other matters arising from this wide-ranging debate that need to be explored.
As she has done a number of times, my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham made a spirited case on behalf of her constituents, and she cannot be criticised for inconsistency in her argument. She suggested that we were—I hesitate to use this phrase, but I will do so, for the sake of clarity—hiding costs by using 2011 prices. She will know that estimates are presented in 2011 prices to ensure that costs can be consistently compared as the project progresses. That is a standard approach for large projects that stretch over many years.
My right hon. Friend also talked about VAT. Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs recently confirmed that HS2 Ltd can reclaim VAT. As she will know, that took effect at the start of 2014-15. As the National Audit Office has pointed out, VAT is an internal transfer within government, rather than an additional cost, so it would not be right to include VAT in construction cost elements.
Mrs Gillan
I did not raise the matter of VAT, but it is always good to have that information. However, the permanent secretary to the Treasury has given evidence to the Public Administration Select Committee and undertaken to provide us with the costs at today’s prices.
Mr Hayes
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for clarifying her position.
My right hon. Friend did speak about ancient woodlands—at some length, and understandably so. I agree that it is vital that we value ancient woodlands. Whenever possible, it our intention not to destroy ancient woodlands. Furthermore, it is important that we take whatever mitigating measures we can along the line as a whole to deal with environmental effects. I will be speaking shortly at a platform provided by the Campaign to Protect Rural England about aesthetics and infrastructure, and the importance of ensuring that good design characterises all that we do in major projects, whether rail or road. For too long we have assumed that the ergonomic argument was enough or, worse still, that it was enough to make the case just on the basis of utility, but all great infrastructure projects should have a positive effect with regard to what is built and what that looks like. Of course, it is not possible to avoid all destruction of existing landscape, but I nevertheless value my right hon. Friend’s contribution on ancient woodlands and I have something exciting to say in a moment about a particular tree about which there has been a national campaign.
Mrs Gillan
The Minister is going down a route which encourages me. Will he support me in calling for the full tunnelling of the area of outstanding natural beauty, and can his Department say now that it accepts full tunnelling of the AONB, as it is a precious piece of landscape that he obviously would want to protect?
Mr Hayes
There is already an immense amount of tunnelling in my right hon. Friend’s constituency. I have the map here. Although I cannot give any further commitment today, the Government always have at their heart a desire to do the right thing by the environment. In that spirit I shall speak about the Cubbington pear tree.
As I said, ancient woodlands are an important part of our natural heritage so they need to be protected wherever possible. The best way of doing that is to avoid them in the first place, as my right hon. Friend argued, where that is practical. I repeat that a robust assessment of environmental factors must accompany all aspects of this scheme. As part of that, there has been considerable debate about the 250-year-old pear tree in Cubbington wood. It is not in my right hon. Friend’s constituency but in Warwickshire, but I know she will care about it because she is a great admirer of ancient trees. That pear tree, the second oldest in Britain, I am told, has been the subject of a considerable campaign.
I have asked for a new arboreal study to see whether the Cubbington pear tree can be moved. I do not know if that can be done, but as the rail Minister for the day, I am delighted to say that we will commission that study. If it can be moved, the Cubbington pear tree will be saved. We have already committed to take cuttings if it cannot be saved, but I want to go further and make that commitment in the course of this debate.
The other central element of the debate has been cost. The question that has been raised is why the scheme is going to cost so much and why the target price for phase 1 has gone up. In fact, the target price for phase 1 has come down. It is now £16.34 billion, not the £17.16 billion figure that was originally published. I know that my right hon. Friend and my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch will intervene in a moment and say yes, that is because of the removal of the HS1/HS2 link, and that is true. None the less, although we have increased the scope of the work that HS2 Ltd must deliver for the target price—the target price now has to include rolling stock, for example—we are determined that despite that bigger ask, there should be a new laser-like focus, to use the words of the shadow Minister, to ensure that this project is conducted as cost-effectively as it can be.
The Department and HS2 have a constant strong focus on ensuring that the project will deliver maximum benefit for minimum cost. The development agreement continues this focus on cost control by making it a key requirement of the delivery arrangements. So yes, this is a very significant project; yes, the costs are very great, but we can deliver it within budget as cost-effectively as possible. Again, perhaps I believe that partly because I am a confident Minister in a confident Government. I am bold about what we can do. I am ambitious. I do not by any means disregard the concerns of Members about these matters because it is important that the Executive are held to account, particularly on issues of cost. But I do say this. Governments and politicians can take one of two views: a reductionist view of politics—a dull, rather mediocre view—or the view that I hold, which is that big projects, with all their economic value and effect on wider well-being, are what characterise big countries.
Mrs Gillan
I assure the Minister that I have never had any poverty of ambition either for my constituency or my country in all the years I have served both. He is claiming that the costs have now come down on phase 1. Will he tell us the new cost-benefit ratio?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Dawn Primarolo)
Order. The Bill suggests that we pose this question in a referendum:
“Do you support the use of …taxpayers’ money to pay for the construction of the HS2 railway?”
We are now drifting well away from the subject of the referendum and the total costs. We are discussing not the individual costs, Minister and Mrs Gillan, but that principle. I am listening carefully to the Minister, who could never be accused of not being ambitious and confident. I would like him ambitiously and confidently to return to the central proposition of whether there should be a referendum.
Mrs Gillan
I apologise, Madam Deputy Speaker; I have been leading the Minister astray. However, my points have been in the interests of the taxpayers who would be consulted in the referendum. I do apologise.
Madam Deputy Speaker
No apology is necessary; I am sure that nobody could lead the Minister astray even with the skills you show in representing your constituents, Mrs Gillan. Your points may be relevant, but we have been discussing only the minutiae and we need to return to the big picture.
Mr Hayes
If I may say so, Madam Deputy Speaker, you have done me a great service as well as the House—and not for the first time. Until now your generosity in allowing me to range widely has moved me. I anticipated that you would want me to return to the core of the Bill, and I will do so without further delay.
The core of the Bill is the proposal that a project—in this case HS2, but it could be any large infrastructure project—should proceed only on the basis of a further reference to the British people through a referendum. I flatly disagree with that, and it will not be accepted by the Government.
I was about to come to the end of my introductory remarks, but I am now inclined to make them my concluding remarks, given your advice, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am minded to draw, as I briefly did earlier, on Edmund Burke, who said in 1774:
“Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays instead of serving you if he sacrifices it to your opinion.”
Weigh those words—
“if he sacrifices it to your opinion.”
In other words, the representative must not lack the confidence, vigour, energy and vision to make a case on behalf of his constituents for the common good and in the national interest. It has been the business of this House for more than 150 years to usher in some of the greatest projects that the world has ever seen. Those include the railways built by the Victorians, which have stood the test of time and still prove themselves as the veins and arteries of this country. In their day, the same criticisms were made.
I have the railways Acts of 1833 and 1837 with me here today. I have seen the Second Reading debates. I know the criticisms faced by those who proposed that first generation of great railways—those big infrastructure projects; they were very like the criticisms made in the House today. Those debates were very like those that we have enjoyed about whether these things represent a threat or an opportunity. Those politicians, those Victorian leaders and those Governments did not duck their responsibility—they did what Britain needed. Today we remain grateful for their decisions, because we still benefit from them.
Let me be clear: the west coast main line, which despite having been upgraded since those Victorian times, has at last reached its capacity. Even on moderate forecasts, that line—the nation’s key rail corridor—will be full by the mid-2020s, despite the £9 billion-worth of improvements in recent years. We cannot continue to make do and mend. We must make a bold decision worthy of our nation’s future, in the spirit of those great leaders of the past, as ambitious and confident for the next generation as they were for us. As parliamentarians, we are elected to serve not only the constituents that live now but those yet to come, for the decisions we take will affect them too.
We have a duty to support this kind of infrastructural investment—to make the difference, to shape the future, not to hesitate to do the right thing—and that is precisely what we will do. That is why I ask the House to reject the arguments, however well meant and well articulated, made by my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch, and reject the Bill he has put before us.