Craig Tracey
Main Page: Craig Tracey (Conservative - North Warwickshire)Department Debates - View all Craig Tracey's debates with the Department for Transport
(3 years, 1 month ago)
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The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Andrew Stephenson)
It is a real pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Mundell. I thank the hon. Member for Coventry North West (Taiwo Owatemi) for opening this debate, and right hon. and hon. Members for their contributions.
I welcome the continued public scrutiny of the high-speed rail programme. I will address some of the key issues raised during this debate, although I probably have only about seven minutes left to reply.
Craig Tracey (North Warwickshire) (Con)
Unfortunately, I did not get called in the debate, but the Minister already knows my strong opposition to the scheme. I want to press him on the benefit-cost ratio. The Oakervee review said it had already dropped from 2.3 to 1.1, and post pandemic we can expect it to come down even further. Does he agree that we need another review so that we can properly assess the value of the scheme?
Andrew Stephenson
I thank my hon. Friend for that point. I will talk about the benefit-cost ratio if I get there in time. The last benefit-cost ratio for the scheme was of course published when the last full business case was published in April 2020. It is worth saying that this is a long-term investment in the future of our country, and we should not base long-term investment decisions on what has been happening over 18 months.