David Mowat
Main Page: David Mowat (Conservative - Warrington South)Department Debates - View all David Mowat's debates with the Department for Transport
(13 years, 9 months ago)
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Andrea Leadsom
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that point. He is right—high-speed rail has to go in a straight line and it is much more expensive to create that, which greatly limits the number of stops. I have heard it said that the line needs to go from London to Birmingham for the purpose of speed and to solve the north-south divide. I agree with those hon. Members who have said that that alone will not solve the north-south divide and that other decisions will need to be taken. We need to consider the whole of Britain. From the point of view of many constituencies along the way between London and Birmingham, if the line were to be made viable with interim stops, so that there were some sharing of the benefit, it would be more attractive.
David Mowat (Warrington South) (Con)
No one would claim that high-speed rail on its own could solve the north-south divide. I do not think that anyone in the Chamber, including my right hon. Friend the Minister, would attempt to do that. However, will my hon. Friend admit that the creation of 40,000 jobs—that is KPMG’s estimate—in the north-west, north-east and Yorkshire as a result of high-speed rail would contribute to it? She said that other projects could be equally effective in helping to solve the north-south divide. Perhaps she will say which of those she would put her money on. Finally, three or four hon. Members have made the point that incremental improvements in rail are very effective in the short term. That is correct, but we cannot just make incremental improvements for ever—at some point, the Government have to call it.
Andrea Leadsom
I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. However, I am not of the old USSR view that we should just do public project after public project for the sake of creating jobs. There needs to be a clear rationale for having the high-speed line in the first place. Any project needs to stand on its own merits and not be done just because it creates jobs, so I do not agree with my hon. Friend in that respect.
I have seen evidence—I hope that the Minister will comment on it—that the west coast main line, through incremental improvements that would not cause disruption, could come very close to providing the same increase in capacity as HS2. My central point is that that would be a much cheaper and less disruptive alternative means of achieving the same improvements in our rail infrastructure.