High Speed Rail (London – West Midlands) Bill

Guy Opperman Excerpts

Monday 28th April 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr McLoughlin]

I was happy to give way to my hon. Friend, but I am mindful of what he said about me yesterday on Radio 4, bits of which I agree with and bits of which I am slightly worried about. He said:

“Patrick McLoughlin is an excellent Cabinet Minister”—

I agree with him on that—

“and a former Chief Whip of the Conservative party. Indeed, if you had a difficult policy you wanted to push through Parliament, Patrick is your man. I would maintain that if the PM wanted the Herod Bill, Patrick would be the man to see that through Parliament.”

I am not quite sure whether to take that last bit as a compliment. When I talk about the need for capacity, I am talking about the need to free up capacity on other lines as well.

One of the great successes in the rail industry in this country is the massive growth in the railways, and I shall say more about that later. If we look at the tables, we see that 20 years ago, rail passenger numbers in this country were constant. Over the past 20 years, however, the numbers have risen from 750 million to 1.5 billion passenger journeys a year. The numbers continue to grow, and we need to address that fact. That is why we are right to do what we are doing with HS2.

[Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)]

All the northern councils and chambers of commerce back HS2 unequivocally as a source of growth and extra capacity. Is it not the case that all major infrastructure projects are objected to at the time of their creation, and that 50 years on, the objectors fully support what took place?

[Mr McLoughlin]

I understand and respect those people who object. If some new piece of infrastructure is going to have an impact on their lives, there will be a fear of what might come. As we saw with HS1, there was a fear of what might come, but once it had been built, people said that it represented a vast overall improvement to this country’s rail network.