Oral Answers to Questions

Alex Norris Excerpts

Wednesday 16th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Yes indeed. I know that my hon. Friend, as a doctor, knows the vital importance of medical research and pure science. That is why this Government are investing record sums in science R&D—£14.6 billion in 2021-22. That is going to support all the life sciences sectors. If anybody wants evidence of why it is so vital to support those sectors, they have only to look at the events of the last few months.

[Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)]

HS2, in full, will transform the east midlands and the north, reversing a 40-year trend of losing skilled work. In February, the Prime Minister promised that it would be built in full. Yesterday’s National Infrastructure Commission review reduces the eastern leg to a small line between Birmingham and the disliked station at East Midlands Parkway. That will not deliver the connectivity or the economic uplift that the midlands and the north need. Will the Prime Minister reaffirm his previous commitment and reject the NIC’s plan, or is this yet another broken promise to our community?

[The Prime Minister]

I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman is quite wrong. What the NIC is saying is that there are other things we can do as well, including massively improving the midland main line—I think everybody would want to do that—but the ambition to do the eastern leg, as I have said in the House before, remains absolutely unchanged.