High Speed 2
Debate between Hugh Bayley and Roger Godsiff(13 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Godsiff
Time is limited, so my hon. Friend must forgive me.
No wonder an online survey by the Birmingham Post showed that 75% of respondents were against the project.
What other inflated claims are made for the project? It is said that it will help to diminish regional inequalities and promote growth, but there is no evidence of that. If we look at what has happened in Japan, Spain and France, we find that the high-speed connections there have benefited the hub much more than the outer communities.
What about the effect of the project on towns and cities that High Speed 2 will bypass? The deputy leader of Coventry city council says that the plans for High Speed 2 send a clear message that
“Coventry is not a place to stop.”
Bearing in mind what my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry North West (Mr Robinson) said about Birmingham, I suggest that that might not be a bad idea.
Where high-speed trains do work is in countries with large land mass, but in other, smaller countries they take resources from humbler but more needed schemes, such as the upgrading of existing networks, signalling and infrastructure. Unfortunately, however, we all know as politicians that unveiling a new signal box tends to appeal less than inaugurating a futuristic new service. The project’s other exaggerated claims have already been dealt with.
Hugh Bayley
Does my hon. Friend realise that the project is not a zero-sum game? As in any business, if one invests in a new product, one gets new customers and generates economic growth. We need investment in the current network, for sure, but that is no reason not to go ahead with High Speed 2.
Mr Godsiff
I am all in favour of infrastructure investment, but I can think of a whole host of infrastructure investment on which £32 billion could be spent in my constituency, my hon. Friend’s constituency and many other constituencies. This project is not good value for money, and it has not been thought through.