High-Speed Rail

Baroness Bray of Coln Excerpts

Thursday 31st March 2011 Westminster Hall

[Andrea Leadsom]

I thank my hon. Friend for those remarks. Ever since Lord Adonis introduced the proposal, I have opposed it, as I am sure my right hon. Friend the Minister will recall.

[Angie Bray (Ealing Central and Acton) (Con)]

The proposal was, of course, in our manifesto. That is a particularly important point for my constituency because we were deadly opposed to the third runway at Heathrow. One of the most important alternatives our party suggested was putting people on trains rather than planes. I appreciate that the proposal will not make a difference to travel from Birmingham, because there are no planes from there to Heathrow but, when we push up north, it could make a significant difference to the use of domestic flights to Heathrow. For that reason alone, it is very easy for me to support the proposal.

[Andrea Leadsom]

I agree absolutely with my hon. Friend. We desperately need to improve dramatically the capacity in our train infrastructure. I hope that she will bear with me, because I intend to show that we can achieve that without needing to spend the amount of money that we are talking about for high-speed rail.

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[Frank Dobson]

I do not wish to be rude, but the only thing to add to the hon. Gentleman’s contribution is, “Or I will eat my hat.” I do not have the faintest idea which of those estimates is true, and the odds are that neither will prove true. He knows that as well as I do. We should not be whacking in all this money on the basis of estimates that nobody can back up. All we are really faced with is the proposition that we should support a fast shuttle between Birmingham and London.

[Angie Bray]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Charles Walker (in the Chair)]

Order. We are now in the 11th minute of the right hon. Gentleman’s speech. If hon. Members wish to speak they should stop intervening. If they do not want to speak, they can continue to intervene.

[Angie Bray]

I will be very brief. The right hon. Gentleman’s case seems to be that we should never do anything on the basis that we might not be absolutely certain about it. Sometimes projects have to be started. If we never start a project, we will never get any progress.

[Frank Dobson]

I will finish on that point. I was always a strong supporter of the channel tunnel and the channel tunnel link. When the same preposterous railway strategists came up with a proposal to place the terminus for High Speed 1 in a cave under King’s Cross station, I was among those who led the opposition to that and proposed St Pancras station instead; we were not entirely nimbyist. Whatever anybody says, that has been a brilliant success. I do not believe that the people who come up with these proposals have done the work properly. If we are to have a proper high-speed network, this is the last way and last place in which to start it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Graham Evans]

I am most grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention. Varying and conflicting figures are bandied around, but there is a fundamental issue that was mentioned earlier. These train stations will not be built and these train lines will not reach my constituency until the 2020s. I have a young family and I am thinking of the futures of my children and my children’s children. It is very important that we make these very difficult decisions now. We could argue all day about conflicting figures, but it is very important that we push ahead with this project, which is important for our country’s future, including that of our children and our children’s children.

High-speed rail gives businesses the gift of time. Anyone who has a business background, as I do, knows the truth of the old saying, “Time is money”. In this case, that means more than slashing travel times to less than 80 minutes between Manchester and London. Neil Stephenson, the chief executive of a Newcastle-based IT firm, put it best in a recent article. He wrote:

“The failure of Britain’s transport system translates into missed meetings, unexpected overnight stays, disappointed customers and frazzled staff. A quick, cheap, reliable train service means I can build a customer base in places our employees couldn’t previously service without expensive hotel bills and missed night-time stories for their kids. And it means I can recruit from the high-end IT talent pools of London. These are tangible benefits that will help me build my business.”

[Angie Bray]

Would the business case for high-speed rail be even better for some of the businesses up north if there was a stop on the main route at Heathrow? Part of the case that is made for extending high-speed rail up to the north is that business men who want to travel abroad and need to get to Heathrow could go on a train rather than a plane. Therefore, would it not be sensible and would it not make the business case even more persuasive if Heathrow was on the main route, which of course it was in some of the alternative proposals?

[Graham Evans]

I am most grateful to my hon. Friend for that very good point, but perhaps the Minister can answer her question in her summing-up.