High Speed Rail (Preparation) Bill

Eric Ollerenshaw Excerpts

Thursday 31st October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Gillan]

The right hon. Gentleman makes a good point, but the Government recently produced the new business case, and I believe that there is doubt over the timing used for Edinburgh to London. I have been informed by a commentator that they failed to take into account the new rolling stock and the existing time savings from improvements being made to the line. I stand to be corrected—perhaps the Minister can tell us—but I believe that there has been an error in the calculation.

I would like the Bill to refer to Scotland, because it is important that a definite intent be put in the Bill. It would send a good message to Scotland, at a time when we are trying to keep this United Kingdom together, in the teeth of opposition from the nationalist parties, and I think it should be in the Bill simply for that reason.

[Eric Ollerenshaw (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Con)]

I sympathise with the spirit of my right hon. Friend’s amendments, and obviously many of us who support HS2 hope it will go through to Glasgow and Edinburgh and cannot understand why we do not start building from there now. But be that as it may, I am a bit worried because her amendment 18 would remove the “at least”. I read “at least” to mean that HS2 could stop at more stations. Were we to accept her amendment 18 and then her amendment 13, which would add the words

“and one or more towns or cities in Scotland”,

it would leave out everything between Manchester and Glasgow as a potential stop on a high-speed line to Glasgow. That is my understanding of her amendments.

[Mrs Gillan]

My amendments are intended to probe the Government’s intention. I believe that they should have made provision to include more stops on the line. For example, I would have thought that between Manchester and elsewhere, there could have been other stops giving greater benefit to some of the areas that will be destroyed by the line.

I tabled an amendment in Committee, and it must have struck a chord, because the official Opposition have tabled something very similar, and I am delighted to say that the Government, in an attempt to hug the Opposition closer, have now signed up to it and it has become a Government amendment. I congratulate the shadow Secretary of State on her victory. One of the major problems is with the connectivity of HS2. If it is not fully connected and integrated into our transport system, it will be the white elephant that so many of us believe it will be.

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[Eric Ollerenshaw]

It is a pleasure to be called in this debate and to follow the hon. Member for Luton North (Kelvin Hopkins) who has obviously thought the issue through. Some of his proposals are quite interesting, but the fact of the matter is that the success of privatisation and competition means that we will need the capacity—we might need the hon. Gentleman’s suggestions on top of HS2.

I will support amendment 17, and I thank Ministers for finally including the Y route in the Bill. Two years ago when this scheme was first suggested, there was a great debate between Ministers and civil servants about whether we should build a line just to Birmingham, and a separate one to Manchester and Leeds. I am really grateful to Ministers that the Bill includes London to Birmingham, East Midlands, Sheffield, Leeds and Manchester. I would of course suggest that the left side of the Y could be built faster and quicker, and would be far better, and I agree with the right hon. Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms) that we need to look seriously at the connection. International business men and foreign tourists will want to get on trains in Europe, bypass London and go straight beyond Manchester on to the spur to get to central, rural Lancashire and see the delights available. The sooner we can get that done, the better.

[Mrs Gillan]

If HS2 is going to be built, will my hon. Friend support my suggestion that it is started in the north? That would enable the Howard Davies commission to report, we could look at airport capacity in the south, and my hon. Friend would get his wish much quicker because connectivity among northern cities could be established.

[Eric Ollerenshaw]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that intervention. I always thought that was my suggestion, but never mind. I do not know how the engineering will be done—I assume it will start in many different points and I agree with my right hon. Friend. One of my earliest interventions in a debate on this issue—two years ago, I think—was to suggest that we start construction now in Glasgow and Edinburgh, while the southern counties make up their minds which back garden HS2 is going to go through.

[Mr Brian Binley (Northampton South) (Con)]

Is not the fact of the matter that the real bottleneck is Birmingham? If we follow the suggestion that we start the project from the north, Birmingham will become an absolute nonsense in terms of railway transport.

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[Eric Ollerenshaw]

I thank my right hon. Friend for bringing us back to reality—[Interruption.] Sorry, he is my hon. Friend, soon to be right hon. Friend.

We must be serious on capacity. I and fellow Lancashire Members have been fighting for some time for a direct train service from London Euston to Blackpool. We had the agreement of Virgin, and a cross-party group was involved, including me, my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard) and the hon. Member for Blackpool South (Mr Marsden). We thought we were there, but only a month ago, Network Rail said, “We cannot put on two direct trains per day from Euston to Blackpool because the line cannot cope.”

[Mr Straw]

I confirm what the hon. Gentleman says, although I would much prefer all trains to turn right at Preston to go to Blackburn. The truth is we all have an interest in the prosperity of Lancashire as a whole. I would like the line to start from the north, but all the economic arguments say that it should start from the south. Does he accept that the benefit of the reduction in journey time to Preston is one of the best in the plans for the area? The journey time is improved by 44 minutes—it is cut to an hour and a half—which will have a dramatic impact not only on Preston and central Lancashire, but on the whole county.

[Eric Ollerenshaw]

Lancaster is not on the line yet—it might be eventually, and I might stand here in future asking for a stop there—but we will reap the benefit, as the right hon. Gentleman says. The spur line that will be built means that high-speed trains will enter the normal west coast main line just above Wigan. We will enjoy the benefits of that service, which will be fantastic for the economy of our area.

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Mr Burns), the previous Minister. I congratulate him on his incredible speech and I am grateful for the support he has provided all the way through the process to get the Bill right.

Another issue is the north-south balance. People in some areas of the north ask why we are spending that money. I am grateful for what appears to be an outbreak of political consensus. Some Government Members and some northern Members were worried that the consensus would break down, but from what right hon. and hon. Opposition Members have said today, it looks like the consensus is restored, for which I am grateful.

[Charlie Elphicke]

I, too, am pleased to hear of consensus. Does my hon. Friend share my concern at the comments of the shadow Chancellor, who says that the money would be better spent on roads, cross-country rail, affordable houses, hospitals and schools rather on important and essential infrastructure for our children and grandchildren?

[Eric Ollerenshaw]

I am tempted to go down that line, but, given the outbreak of consensus, I will stick with that. To be fair, northern MPs of every party have sat on the all-party parliamentary group on rail in the north, and fought together to get the northern hub from the Government—an £800 million completed deal. They have fought together for electrification of the connection between Liverpool, Manchester and Sheffield. Southern and London MPs should realise that, on the current system, I can get to London quicker than I can get to Birmingham, Sheffield or Leeds. That must be ridiculous in the 21st century. The Bill is part and parcel of such connectivity.

[Mr Betts]

I reassure the hon. Gentleman that, in parts of the north such as Sheffield, the consensus has never broken. We have always been firmly in favour in principle. The city’s MPs, the city council—unanimously —and the chamber of commerce, and the local enterprise partnership support high-speed rail as a matter of principle.

[Eric Ollerenshaw]

I would assume nothing less, having worked with the hon. Gentleman and fellow northern MPs to get that extra investment. To be fair, the Government have delivered in the non-high speed section across the piece. In my small patch, they have agreed to electrification from Blackpool to Preston. Only a few months ago, nearly £1 million was spent on Lancaster station to enable trains to turn round. All those improvements are happening as I speak. They are all part of the connectivity in the Bill, which provides preparatory expenditure for the

“network referred to in subsection (1)”

and expenditure on the network that

“connects with the existing railway transport network.”

For me, and for parts of the north where the high-speed rail will not reach, that is the key to our support for the Bill.

I am grateful for the cross-party support, but some hon. Members rightly have concerns in their constituencies. I ask them to look at the proposals in the context of the north-south situation. Currently, it seems to my constituents that, when London demands something, things suddenly happen. Perhaps that is an exaggeration, but Crossrail cost £16 billion, and nearly £6 billion has been spent on Thameslink—we will take its second-class trains, which will apparently be marvellous for us.

[Nick de Bois (Enfield North) (Con)]

If only it were so easy for London! It has taken 14 years to get investment on the Liverpool street east coast line. I am very grateful to Ministers for it, but it was not provided instantly.

[Eric Ollerenshaw]

That could be a benefit of having a Conservative London Mayor. From my perspective in Lancashire, I see that the Olympics cost £9 billion; there are continual tube upgrades; I do not know how much is spent on subsidising bus fares in London; HS1 into London cost £6 billion; we are immediately talking about Crossrail 2. I am not complaining—they are all marvellous things.

[Mr MacNeil]

I am enjoying the hon. Gentleman’s broadcast on behalf of the Lancashire national party. Perhaps there will be a letter to Scotland asking to come and join us. Do not the spend on high-speed rail and the debate it generates pale into insignificance compared with the money we spend in the blink of an eye on nuclear weapons? At the very least, the spend on high-speed rail will leave something tangible in the country. That cannot be said of some of our spending.

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[Eric Ollerenshaw]

I assumed we were already joined to Scotland. That could be an exaggeration—[Laughter.] For some of my constituents, it is not an exaggeration.

For coalition Members, one key thing was to rebalance the economy of this country. For me, high-speed rail is a key part of that. I am grateful for Ministers’ work in getting us this far on the Y shape. I wish we were already into a third high-speed rail or whatever, but High Speed 2 is fundamental to our commitment to deliver a rebalanced economy between the regions and London. I will support the Bill tonight.

[Mark Lazarowicz]

A number of amendments in the group deal with the extension of HS2 to Scotland. Unsurprisingly, I shall concentrate my remarks on the case for the building of HS2 and the benefits it will bring to Scotland and my city of Edinburgh.

It is patently clear that the improvement to the railway system that HS2 will deliver will benefit Scotland. At the moment, we suffer from capacity problems further south on the rail network. Unless something is done to deal with them, as rail demand increases, journey times and railway services to Scotland will be affected. We will obviously benefit from the reduction of 45 minutes that will be brought about by HS2, and I hope that further reductions will be achieved in the fullness of time.

We will also benefit from the way in which HS2 will help to rebalance the economy towards the north of Britain. The development of HS2 will lead to a reduction in the pressure for growth in domestic air travel, which will have other advantages. Extending high-speed rail to the points proposed by HS2 and beyond will also improve the business case for high-speed. All the evidence suggests that the business case for the improvements further south will be strengthened by extending HS2 to the points currently provided for and beyond to Scotland as well.