High Speed Rail (London – West Midlands) Bill

Baroness Laing of Elderslie Excerpts

Monday 28th April 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mary Creagh]

Absolutely. [Interruption.] I pay tribute to the Network Rail staff whom I visited out by Reading and who worked around the clock in difficult circumstances to open the route—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Order. I hesitate to interrupt the hon. Lady, but there is a low level of conversation going on around the Chamber. This is an important debate. If Members wish to have conversations, by all means they can leave the Chamber to do so. If they are in the Chamber, they should allow the hon. Lady a fair crack of the whip.

[Mary Creagh]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Alison Seabeck) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw) who have continued, along with the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Oliver Colvile), to raise the need for resilient transport links in the south-west. I gently say to the hon. Gentleman that his Government previously promised his community £31 million of funding for rail resilience works, including at Cowley bridge outside Exeter—money that failed to appear in last year’s autumn statement and which was brought forward only after the devastation at Dawlish in February this year. However, he makes the important point that today’s vote is not about choosing between HS2 and other rail projects, and his great western main line will be electrified over the next five years. The Government have repeatedly raised expectations in the south-west and said that money will be found to make the transport infrastructure more resilient. Perhaps in his closing remarks the Minister will tell the House when we can expect some of those scenario planning options, which I know Network Rail is acting on—I think there are three scenarios at the moment.

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[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Order. The House will be aware that a very large number of colleagues wish to speak—over 50 Members have indicated that they wish to speak in the debate. I am therefore obliged to impose a time limit of five minutes for Back-Bench speeches. Members will be aware that the five minutes is increased if they take interventions. Of course Members need to take interventions, or we will not have a debate, but I ask them, if at all possible, to keep within the five-minute limit out of consideration for other Members of the House. I am certain that we will have an exemplary performance to begin with from Mr Simon Burns.

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[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

The right hon. Lady makes her point very well, but she and the House will know that that is not a matter on which I can make any ruling whatsoever from the Chair.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

My speech is just like one of the train journeys from Market Rasen to London—it is a bit of a stopping service.

I was making the point about capacity. Frankly, this proposal would have got through without any controversy if railway economists had started by making a careful case for capacity and if we had considered things such as better signalling, reducing the number of first-class carriages and the M40 corridor. There are many other proposals for lines—the hon. Member for Luton North (Kelvin Hopkins) has proposed improving the service from Birmingham Snow Hill to London—but there is an element of suspicion among the general public, is there not, that this is now a political project that we have to proceed with at all costs. I am not sure that that is the best way to invest in the public infrastructure of the future. Surely the best way to make decisions is to base them on careful, transparent and open studies, and that is what I urge the Government to do.