High Speed Rail (London - West Midlands) Bill: Select Committee

Debate between Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston and Frank Dobson

Tuesday 29th April 2014 Commons Chamber

[Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab)]

I rise to speak in support of amendment (e) to motion 4 on the Order Paper, which is tabled in my name and that of five other right hon. and hon. Members from the west midlands representing the three main political parties. It is quite useful to have learned that to be on the Committee that will consider the Bill requires not only persistence, but also continence—in every sense of the word.

In speaking to the amendment, I am trying to prove a theory, namely that the greater and more significant the issue under debate, the fewer words will be used to discuss it. Debates about £20 fees and the Committee’s quorum may take up more inches in Hansard than this amendment. The amendment is quite simple and tries to suggest that when planning massive investment that will last for decades, it is foolish to constrain the project unnecessarily. Some 12 years ago, I was in Birmingham to discuss the revamping of New Street station and a question was asked about high-speed rail. Everybody around the table said, “You’re never going to get high-speed rail so you might as well forget about it.” We decided, however, that we ought to keep the corridor, so that high-speed rail could happen should it ever be cleared. The amendment asks that although the Committee will not be permitted to hear any petition to the extent that it relates to the

“the spur from Old Oak Common to the Channel Tunnel Rail Link referred to in the Bill”,

it should not be

“prevented by this instruction from hearing any Petition”—

and this is important—

“relating to the need for the Bill to:

(a) include an alternative to the spur;

(b) facilitate the provision at a later date of the spur; or

(c) facilitate the provision at a later date of an alternative to the spur”.

I was not born in this country. I was born in a city called Munich, which, when it was awarded the Olympic games, was synonymous with traffic jams. London transport engineers moved to Munich and managed to design an integrated transport system that is still serving its purpose 50 years later. The main thing was that Munich had planning laws that allowed for big decisions to be made. We should not have a high-speed rail line that has speed and ease of access, both national and international, as its whole purpose and that then asks passengers to get out of one train halfway through the journey, move across London and then go somewhere else. That may be how it is done in Paris, but it is still not a good idea. I want Ministers to consider the matter, because it is not just the Mayor of London who thinks that it is a bad idea. Birmingham city council’s view is that it is important not only for the region, but also for its provisions and planning for Curzon Street station and the international link.

Accepting the amendment or elaborating on what the Minister means by passive provisions would not close the door on something that it is so essential to the success of high-speed rail. I urge the Minister to ask himself why we are spending massive amounts of money so far into the future. We want to increase not only capacity, but also interconnectivity, both within the United Kingdom and with the rest of Europe. The Minister should consider the amendment with great care. If he can come back with some proposal that proves that the door has not been closed on what is an enormously important debate, I will be happy not to press the amendment to a Division, but he must be quite specific about what he means by passive provisions and how the link will be considered. That does not mean a specific link; it means linking HS1 and HS2 in a meaningful manner. If we do not do that, the whole purpose will be defeated.

[Frank Dobson]

As I hope I have already explained to my hon. Friend, I would happily accept paragraphs (a) and (c) in the amendment, but were the proposal to

“facilitate the provision at a later date of the spur”

accepted, we would create a situation in which people would be able to petition in favour of the abandoned spur, but the people affected by it would not be able to petition against it.

[Ms Stuart]

I fully accept that that is an argument. The main thing, however, is that I do not want the decision not to consider a link simply to be in the hands of the Secretary of State and Sir David Higgins; I want the decision to be made in a democratic way. I therefore want the doors to be kept open for the Committee to consider petitions to provide such a link. That is really the only point that I wanted to make today.