HS2: Delay

Lord Snape Excerpts

Friday 10th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

I really do not know why Yorkshire has been excluded from it. I fully accept that it would be wonderful to have an advanced railway system throughout the country: living as I do in the west of Wales, I would love to see it down there as well. It is a matter of investment, a matter of money. I go back to the point that we are currently in a difficult situation in terms of the economy, and we will do the best we possibly can, where we can.

[Lord Snape (Lab)]

I express my sympathy with the noble Lord who has been lumbered with this job. It really is not fair, and it is a discourtesy to the House, to send a Whip—not untalented—to reply to a series of technical questions about a major construction project. Will the noble Lord tell us why the Minister who serves this House from the Department for Transport is not present this afternoon?

On the project itself, will he reply to his noble friend and tell us of any major construction project in the world that has benefited financially from a long-term delay in its completion? Does he accept that much of the tunnelling that is being done through the Chilterns was unnecessary and created entirely by the opposition of nimbys, who presumably did not want the M40 motorway, which does much more damage to the environment than a twin-track railway line? They did not insist on that project being in a tunnel.

Finally, can he see any benefit, seriously, in someone taking a supposedly high-speed train from the centre of Birmingham to Old Oak Common, leaving the train and getting on either the Elizabeth line or the Underground to come into the centre of London? Is he aware that this announcement this morning makes us the laughing stock of the railway world?

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

First, I am sorry the noble Lord is disappointed that I am at the Dispatch Box today. Secondly, I am not a tunnelling expert and cannot give him an answer to that question. On his third point, on whether there has been any project in the world, I could not tell him: as I say, I am not a construction expert, but I am sure that somewhere along the line this must have occurred. As for this project, as I say, the Government are committed to delivering it. He mentioned the fact that delivery to Old Oak Common was perhaps unsatisfactory. Well, it is the first phase. The Government are completely committed to delivering that to Birmingham, and eventually, of course, we will have it to Euston.