Flexible Ticketing: Rail Transport

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Thursday 10th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[James Cartlidge]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. When I had the pleasure of campaigning in his by-election, I remarked that I was in a beautiful part of his constituency.

Before turning to the points made by my commuting constituents, I want to set the context of South Suffolk. In many ways, it fits the pattern described by my hon. Friend. The key to its beauty is that although we are not that far from London in commuting terms, we really feel like we are in East Anglia. There are many beautiful counties in the south-east, but people feel the pull of the M25 and of London. Once they get to South Suffolk, they feel as though they are in a different part of the country. The area has beautiful ancient villages such as Lavenham and Long Melford, which are famous and attract many tourists. Nevertheless, from Colchester, which is an 18-minute drive from my village, we can take the express train and get to Liverpool Street in 47 minutes. Although we are a long way from London in one respect, we are certainly well within commuting distance.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing a timely debate. I do not wish to be political, but members of voluntary organisations, such as church people, who have to come to London from Coventry or Birmingham find their travel very expensive. Many of them have retired. Although the operating companies have assured us that they will provide cheap travel, they have not done so. Those people find that they are spending four times more than they would have spent in the past. What does the hon. Gentleman think about that?

[James Cartlidge]

The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point. Towards the end of my remarks, I will come on to the question of how we pay for cheaper travel, because the rail operating companies obviously have to find the revenue from somewhere.

I represent a commuting constituency, although fine manufacturing industries are based there, as well as agriculture. I was brought up in Barnet in north London and moved first to Essex. When Emily and I moved our family out to South Suffolk, it was because we wanted to be able to afford a house that had some land and was in a beautiful part of the world so that we could have that quality of life, and because we wanted to move out of the London rush, so to speak.

This issue will become ever bigger. Partly because of London house prices, there will be a great exodus, particularly of professional families, to Suffolk, Kent and so on, right up to Newark. People will move out in search of a better quality of life. If that is their motive, will they still expect to travel five days a week when they face such a long journey? As my hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick) said, many of them will travel four days a week, and that is my experience. I have noticed a marked number of people on my local trains doing four or three days because the journey is so long.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Thursday 10th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Jones]

I remind the hon. Lady that she was busy saying that we were going to completely cut and lose BSOG, but it has been protected. I am always pleased to hear that local authorities are supporting their bus services, because I value the role that buses play in local communities. We should be supporting local authorities in deciding their funding priorities.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

8. What funding his Department is providing to help refurbish railway stations.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Claire Perry)]

I am proud that under Conservative-led Governments since 2010, my Department has made almost £400 million pounds available for station improvements through programmes such as the national stations improvement programme, the station commercial project facility, the new stations fund and the Access for All scheme. In addition, we have many improvements delivered by operators through franchise commitments or through substantial local growth funding.

[Mr Cunningham]

What effort is the Minister making to ensure that the rail franchise holders pay their fair share to maintain the railway structure? Will she look at how the Nuckle project in Coventry is working out, in relation to the frequency of train stops at the Ricoh Arena? I believe that there are some problems there.

[Claire Perry]

We are clear in our franchising agreements that improvements to stations are absolutely part of those projects. The hon. Gentleman has benefited locally, with Virgin West Coast installation of automatic ticket machines at Coventry station. I was pleased to participate in the opening of the Coventry Arena and Bermuda Park stations, to which the Department contributed almost £5 million, the first stage of the vital Nuckle scheme. That scheme was 14 years on paper under Labour; delivered under this Government thanks to the amazing efforts of the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, my hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton (Mr Jones).

Cost of Public Transport

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Tuesday 19th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

I am sure my hon. Friend will be aware that senior citizens, who might have business in London working for charities, are finding it very difficult to afford to come here unless it is outside peak times, and they are often unable to arrange meetings at times that would suit the off-peak periods. Does she understand that and have a view on it?

[Lilian Greenwood]

My hon. Friend is quite right that it is indeed a concern that people who need to travel at peak times find it almost impossible to find an affordable ticket.

Bus fares have continued to rise, too—up by 26% on average, which is more than three times faster than wages. Some areas have seen much higher rises still. In the north-east, bus fares have consistently risen by 3% above inflation, and it is the non-metropolitan areas that have seen some of the steepest bus fare increases, including in the constituencies of many Conservative Members, with fares increasing by 27% on average.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Umunna]

rose—

[Mr Jim Cunningham]

rose—

[Christian Matheson]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr McLoughlin]

I will want to say something about the works on the rail network. The amount of work that is taking place will lead to some disruption but eventually will lead to a much better service for the hon. Gentleman’s constituents. The huge investment in London Bridge, for example, will cause disruption while it is taking place. I wish that that was not necessary, but people will get a much better service than they had before those improvements.

[Mr Jim Cunningham]

rose—

[Mr McLoughlin]

I want to make some progress.

Fuel prices are down by nearly 16% since 2010. The cost of driving licences has been reduced, the cost of the theory test is being cut and we have taken action to bring down the cost of car insurance as well.

There is another thing that the Opposition do not like talking about—the cost to our country of lost investment when they were in office, and the cost to jobs, businesses and growth. Britain slipped from 7th to 33rd in the World Economic Forum’s infrastructure league table when they were in government. They cancelled more than 100 major road improvement projects and did not invest when they had the chance. They electrified just 10 miles of railways, less than one mile a year. I was going to say that it was a snail’s pace electrification, but I have checked, and that would be unfair to snails. They go faster than the previous Labour Government went on electrification. No Conservative Member will take lectures from the Opposition about electrification. They did not invest, and they made the task of rectifying their mistakes much more of a challenge. The real benefit cannot be felt until all this vital but disruptive work is completed. No wonder Labour has been so reluctant to debate transport in this House. The shadow Secretary of State’s immediate predecessor did not even have a debate on transport. In fact there have been only three debates on transport since 2010. That is obviously because the Opposition are so embarrassed by their own record, and so impressed by our record.

The shadow Secretary of State has served on the Opposition Front Bench on transport since 2011. She is the fourth shadow Secretary of State I have faced across the Dispatch Box, and in that time there have been about as many changes in opposition transport policy as there have been shadow Secretaries of State.

[Christian Matheson]

rose—

[Mr Jim Cunningham]

rose—

[Mr McLoughlin]

I have got a choice; I will give way to Coventry.

[Mr Cunningham]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for giving way; I notice he has been avoiding me for the last five minutes. Will he have a look at the use of senior citizens cards, particularly in respect of certain rail companies? As I said in an intervention on my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood), some people badly need them; they do charity work and they need to come to London, but not at the times when senior citizens cards can be used. Will he have a look at that, and the different franchises and different uses?

[Mr McLoughlin]

I know the hon. Gentleman will want to support me wholeheartedly on creating more capacity. One way we are going to do that is by building HS2, which in the past he has not been quite so supportive of. It is very important that we look at these things, however, and of course I will look at the points he makes.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Thursday 10th December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

One wonders whether there is any limit to the talents of the Minister.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

What is the Minister doing to encourage negotiations between the DVSA and staff in relation to their dispute? There was a high turnout in the vote for industrial action. Will the Minister either refer the matter to ACAS or push the powers that be into negotiations?

[Andrew Jones]

I am acutely aware of the limits of my talents, Mr Speaker.

In answer to the hon. Gentleman, the Government are keen to see a settlement to that dispute, and I know that my colleague in the other House, Lord Ahmad, is currently working on that.

High Speed 2

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Monday 30th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr McLoughlin]

I very much welcome the fact that there is now a common agreement between the east midlands councils as to where the site will be. On my hon. Friend’s request for a faster decision, I will do what I can, but I have outlined the routes that we are going to take and the process that we are going to go through.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

I will hold back from wishing the Secretary of State a happy birthday unless he gives me good news. As he knows, I have raised this point many times before. I have constituents who live just outside the catchment area for compensation, but he has said that he intends to extend that area. Can he give me some good news on that now?

[Mr McLoughlin]

I am glad that the hon. Gentleman does not get a chance to come back with a further comment. The announcements that I have made today will make no difference to the route that is already before the House or to the scheme being investigated by the Committee that is dealing with the route from London to the west midlands. However, we have improved the compensation arrangements for the whole of the route.

Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [Lords]

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Tuesday 17th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Norman Lamb]

I think there is a progressive struggling to get out. I can tell that the right hon. Gentleman wants to support this. He sees the argument in favour and he rightly points to the low engagement of people under the age of 25, but we have to ask ourselves why. During their teenage years young people are denied any involvement in our political process. Perhaps, as happened in Scotland with the referendum, if we give them the opportunity to have their say at an earlier age and if we start to teach more about the political process in our schools, they might understand that by participating they get a greater say in society and their interests may be better met.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

I am sure that, like me, the right hon. Gentleman meets many sixth-formers when he visits schools and finds that they are often extremely well-informed. It is the older generation’s attitude to the younger generation that sometimes leads to young people becoming disillusioned. When knocking on doors during canvassing I often find that young people are very progressive-minded, certainly on matters such as climate change, the poor and poverty in the world.

[Norman Lamb]

I agree, and I think it is condescending in the extreme to suggest that someone aged 17 is not capable of making a decision about, for example—in the context of this Bill—who their local councillor should be, for goodness’ sake. Ultimately, that is what the Conservative party is saying—that they cannot be trusted to vote to elect their local councillor.

High Speed Rail (London - West Midlands) Bill

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Tuesday 15th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Mr Robert Goodwill)]

I beg to move,

That it be a further Instruction to the Select Committee to which the High Speed Rail (London - West Midlands) Bill is committed–

(1) that the Select Committee have power to consider–

(a) amendments to accommodate changes to the design of Euston Station in the London Borough of Camden;

(b) amendments to accommodate the requirements of landowners and occupiers and changes to the design of the works authorised by the Bill in the London Borough of Camden;

(c) amendments, to accommodate the requirements of landowners and occupiers, relating to:

i. the London Boroughs of Brent, Ealing, Hammersmith and Fulham and Hillingdon and the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea;

ii. the District of Three Rivers in the County of Hertfordshire;

iii. the parishes of Ellesborough, Great Missenden, Stone with Bishopstone and Hartwell and Wendover in the County of Buckinghamshire;

iv. the parishes of Aston Le Walls, Boddington and Chipping Warden and Edgcote, Greatworth and Marston St Lawrence in the County of Northamptonshire;

v. the parishes of Coleshill, Cubbington, Kenilworth, Long Itchington, Offchurch, Stoneleigh, Ufton, Water Orton, Weston under Wetherley and Wormleighton in the County of Warwickshire;

vi. the parishes of Balsall, Berkswell, Dickens Heath and Hampton-in-Arden in the Metropolitan Borough of Solihull;

vii. the City of Birmingham;

(d) amendments, to accommodate changes to the design of the works authorised by the Bill, relating to:

i. the London Boroughs of Ealing, Hammersmith and Fulham and Hillingdon;

ii. the District of Three Rivers in the County of Hertfordshire;

iii. the parishes of Amersham, Calvert Green, Denham, Preston Bissett, Quainton, Steeple Claydon and Wexham in the County of Buckinghamshire;

iv. the parishes of Boddington and Culworth in the County of Northamptonshire;

v. the parishes of Burton Green, Coleshill, Cubbington, Curdworth, Ladbroke, Lea Marston, Middleton, Offchurch, Shustoke, Southam, Stoneleigh, Water Orton, Weston under Wetherley and Wormleighton in the County of Warwickshire;

vi. the parishes of Hints with Canwell, Curborough and Elmhurst, Drayton Bassett, Fradley and Streethay, King’s Bromley and Lichfield in the County of Staffordshire;

vii. the City of Birmingham.

(e) amendments relating to the extension of the Chiltern tunnel in the parishes of Amersham, Little Missenden and Great Missenden in the County of Buckinghamshire;

(f) amendments for purposes connected with any of the matters mentioned in subparagraphs (a) to (e);

(2) that any petition against amendments to the Bill which the Select Committee is

empowered to make shall be referred to the Select Committee if–

(a) the petition is presented by being deposited in the Private Bill Office not later than the end of the period of four weeks beginning with the day on which the first newspaper notice of the amendments was published, and

(b) the petition is one in which the petitioners pray to be heard by themselves or through counsel or agents.

That these Orders be Standing Orders of the House.

Before I start, may I welcome the hon. Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood) to her post as the shadow Secretary of State in the new politburo—sorry, shadow Cabinet? She is already on record as continuing to support HS2, which will be music to the ears of her Labour colleagues who run our great cities in the west midlands and the north. I look forward to working with her. Indeed, many of the momentous decisions facing us will have implications for our infrastructure for many years to come.

The motion instructs the Select Committee on the High Speed Rail (London - West Midlands) Bill to consider two sets of amendments: the first set relates to changes at Euston and elsewhere in the London borough of Camden, and the second set to changes along the rest of the route. These are the third and fourth such additional provisions that have come before us, and I am sure that many in the House will now be familiar with the hybrid Bill process. However, for the benefit of new Members, I hope that the House will indulge me if I give a brief explanation.

The purpose of this motion is to bring within the scope of the Select Committee any petitions from those who may be affected by the proposed changes.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

May I ask the hon. Gentleman what the requirements are of the landowners and occupiers? Is this related to compensation, as many people in my constituency have been badly hurt by the lack of compensation?

[Mr Goodwill]

This is not specifically related to the compensation issue. This is about the minor changes and some other more substantial changes that we are making. This is about the principle of the hybrid Bill Committee being allowed to consider these changes and about people being given the opportunity to look at the environmental statement, and also to petition the Committee if they are affected. Indeed, the purpose of this motion is to bring within the scope of the Select Committee any petitions from those who may be affected by the proposed changes.

High Speed Rail (London – West Midlands) Bill: Instruction (No. 3)

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)]

I am glad that we are holding this HS2 debate on national women in engineering day. I am sure the whole House would agree that the Government’s investment in rail must be used to encourage more women to take up careers in engineering and in the rail industry.

I welcome the Minister back to his place. I had, of course, hoped to be speaking from his side of the House after the election. I was relishing the possibility of taking ministerial responsibility for the content of each and every one of the Bill’s 50,000 pages, but I reassure the House that the Opposition will continue to subject the Government’s delivery of this important project to close scrutiny.

I want to express our gratitude for the work undertaken by the Bill’s Select Committee, including the Clerks of the Committee, my hon. Friends the Members for Gateshead (Ian Mearns) and for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi), the hon. Members for Poole (Mr Syms), for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley) and for North West Norfolk (Mr Bellingham), and Mike Thornton, the former Member for Eastleigh. I am sure the whole House will want to place on record its appreciation of the time and effort spent by residents and other affected parties who appeared before the Committee, and to thank the outside bodies and Members of this House who provided support to petitioning.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

I would like to put on the record my appreciation for the Select Committee, which visited some of the problem areas that we have in Coventry and also visited those people the wrong side of the dividing line who would not qualify for compensation. I hope that the Committee, the Minister and the Secretary of State will remember that a lot of people’s livelihoods depend on this, and their property has been rendered valueless.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lilian Greenwood]

It is vital that the Minister and HS2 Ltd set out precisely the implications for the roads affected in my hon. Friend’s constituency and the compensation that residents are entitled to. It is vital that those who live in the streets next to Old Oak Common, and other urban areas, are treated fairly. Perhaps the Minister will agree to meet her to ensure that she understands those implications.

[Mr Jim Cunningham]

As I said, and I hope my hon. Friend agrees, Ministers should look again at the compensation package. I have constituents who will not get a penny out of this. In particular, it lowers the value of their housing. They are just outside the catchment area and have been treated very unfairly; they cannot qualify for compensation from anybody.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. We are straying outside the area of discussion, which is very tight. There are MPs who want to discuss areas of theirs that are affected. I want to be as generous as I can, but it would be wrong of me to allow us to move into areas that are not for discussion today.

Infrastructure Bill [Lords]

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Monday 26th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Amber Rudd]

The short answer to that is yes. The purpose of HSE inspections is to ensure that there is safety and clarity. I believe that my hon. Friend will be reassured about that when he takes a closer look.

On new clause 19(c) and (d) and amendment 117, I reassure Members that we support the use of baseline monitoring. At issue is the appropriateness of the monitoring period and the requirements involved. The Environment Agency has the power to require baseline monitoring under the conditions that are set in the environmental permit. The operator reports that information to the Environment Agency, which places it on the public register.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

rose—

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Amber Rudd]

Thank you for that clarification, Mr Speaker.

On the announcement I made in Committee, the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs will direct the Environment Agency to require operators to undertake the three months’ baseline monitoring. That is a minimum of three months so, in practice, the Environment Agency may require a longer period of monitoring where appropriate.

[Mr Jim Cunningham]

Earlier in the Minister’s speech, she mentioned that she would use the Health and Safety Executive. There have been cuts to its budget and numbers. It is reduced to doing just the occasional health and safety spot-check. How can that organisation be competent to monitor the provisions in the Bill?

[Amber Rudd]

The hon. Gentleman makes an interesting point. It is essential that the HSE can do its job well. We have had conversations with it and there is no suggestion that it cannot do its job well, but we will keep that under review.

HS2 Funding Referendum Bill

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Friday 23rd January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

First, let me thank my right hon. Friends the Members for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs Gillan) and for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Sir John Randall), and my hon. Friends the Members for Lichfield (Michael Fabricant), for North Wiltshire (Mr Gray), for Welling- borough (Mr Bone) and for Isle of Wight (Mr Turner) for their support for this Bill. I am pretty certain that, had he been free so to do at the time, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve) would also have been sponsoring the Bill, and I am delighted to see him in his place today. I am also sure that if the right hon. Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Frank Dobson) had been on my radar when I was collecting the signatures, I would have been able to recruit him, too. Again, I am pleased to see him in the Chamber.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

What about me? The hon. Gentleman has mentioned my right hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Frank Dobson), but I have consistently opposed this high-speed rail.

[Mr Chope]

I plead guilty to a serious omission, as I should indeed have mentioned the hon. Gentleman, as Coventry is one of the areas that is probably going to suffer as a result of HS2; not only is it not going to benefit from HS2, but there will be an adverse economic effect on Coventry. We may hear a little more about that later.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Chope]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right that we need to look at proposals on an integrated basis. That is one of the messages that comes out loud and clear from today’s report by the Transport Committee, “Investing in the railway”, which was published just after midnight. The Committee emphasises the importance of planned investment right across the railways to maximise the benefits of that investment. It is critical of the idea of just putting a certain amount of money into the HS2 project on its own.

When the Government realised that the project could not be justified on the basis that it would reduce demand at Heathrow airport, they started the line that it would reduce long-distance journey times. However, it was clear that the cost-benefit analysis that was carried out overvalued business time on the basis that business men did not spend any of their time on trains working. All the benefits were calculated on the basis of an improvement in speed that would mean that 15 minutes could be knocked off the time it took to get from London to Birmingham. My constituency is about 100 miles from London. This morning I got on the train at Hinton Admiral and arrived here two hours and 10 minutes later. Given the nature of a lot of our rail infrastructure, people expect to spend that sort of time travelling such distances.

[Mr Jim Cunningham]

As a result of HS2, the existing frequency of services on the west coast main line could be curtailed, to say the least, while fares would rise. While we might now have three trains an hour, that could go down to one an hour or even fewer, and yet, as the hon. Gentleman knows, fares are far too high—beyond the public’s reach.

The first person I ever heard proposing HS2 was the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, when she was shadow Transport Secretary, although the hon. Gentleman is right that Labour picked up the idea. To return to the point made by the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies), a lot of the money for HS2 could be spent on increasing nurses’ pay and stopping cuts to local authority budgets, and therefore providing better public services.

[Mr Chope]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. He will be aware that the New Economics Foundation published a report in June 2013 entitled “High Speed 2: The best we can do? Creating more value from £33 billion”. The essence of this debate is that if we are to spend that amount of taxpayers’ money—assuming that that is affordable—are there better ways in which to do so?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Grieve]

I agree entirely. One of the difficulties we have is that when we ask questions and seek further information, it seems that we extract it by dribs and drabs. One of the great merits of my hon. Friend’s Bill is that it would have the valuable consequence of crystallizing debate and obliging those who wish to promote the project to come forward with all the detail that we have so much difficulty extracting when we write letters and which the Select Committee considering the hybrid Bill, which I know is doing sterling work, also has great difficulty in obtaining.

Let me give the House one example, which is particularly relevant to my constituency. My constituency will be principally affected by a viaduct that will be built over the River Colne. It cuts through a site of special scientific interest. The Colne valley is a regional park, the landscape of which, it has long been acknowledged, should be protected even when development goes on around it. But the theme that has been put forward consistently by the Government and the proposers of HS2 is that tunnelling under the Colne is entirely out of the question. The two arguments advanced are that the cost would be entirely disproportionate to the environmental gain—it was estimated that it would cost around £1.5 billion more, which I accept is a substantial sum—and furthermore that there would be major engineering problems connected with it, because there has to be an area which is outside the tunnel where the Heathrow spur link joins up at the tunnel mouth going into the constituency of my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs Gillan).

Those are two proper contentions, but the more this debate has gone on, the more I have come to realise that those assertions, which have been made to me repeatedly, do not bear close scrutiny any more. For example, the latest figure that I was able to glean for the differential cost between the viaduct, which apparently is a major piece of engineering of the highest complexity, and tunnelling under the River Colne is only £200 million. In the context of a project costing £50 billion and rising, that starts to make it look almost affordable. When will we get some clarity about that, without having a referendum to get people to come out and demand that proponents of the scheme explain what they are about?

There is ample evidence that the Heathrow spur is not needed. The mood music is clear that the success of the Old Oak Common interchange, which may be hugely advantageous to the borough in which it is located, and the train times into Heathrow airport mean that no one is interested in it any more. And if people are not interested in it, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham said, we could remove planning blight over a substantial part of my constituency in Denham and Iver, where properties cannot be sold because people believe that trains will run either through them or under them.

[Mr Jim Cunningham]

The right hon. and learned Gentleman raises an important point. I have people in my constituency, such as Mr and Mrs Elliot of Coventry, who have invested their life savings in their property but, because they are outside the formula area, do not qualify for compensation.

[Mr Grieve]

The hon. Gentleman is right. I will come to another point about compensation in a moment.

If the Heathrow spur is not needed, the junction at the entrance to the tunnel into the constituency of my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham is not needed, which would make the tunnelling even easier. I am a constituency MP, wanting to do right by my constituents and trying to apply myself rationally to the fact that areas sometimes have to be disadvantaged to promote national infrastructure projects that may be in the wider public interest. The House will understand my frustration at being unable to get any clarity on these really key issues, which must be resolved if there is to be informed debate, and my real anxiety that, although we will go through the entire hybrid Bill process—through the Committee, with the evidence taking—when we get to Third Reading all sorts of issues will just have been left hanging in the air.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Jim Cunningham]

My right hon. Friend mentioned disruption caused by this proposal. If it went ahead in Coventry, it would seriously affect some of the finer scientific measuring equipment that is used at the university of Warwick

[Frank Dobson]

Yes, indeed.

Apart from those who are paid supporters of the scheme, it has virtually no supporters. When I say “paid supporters”, I am including some of the civil engineering advisers and consultants who are producing reports in favour because they are paid to do so. There is a danger that they are damaging the reputation of British civil engineering consultants.

--- Later in debate ---

[Frank Dobson]

There are mandates and there are mandates, are there not?

One of the problems is that as each argument in favour of this ludicrous proposition fails, the proponents come up with another. The first one was speed. Oh, it was wonderful! People would be able to speed to Birmingham —or speed from Birmingham to London, but that tended not to get mentioned too much. Time would also be saved for business people. The first calculations were based on time saved when using motorways, but people are not supposed to read when they are driving, so there is a considerable gain in getting from A to B as quickly as possible, whereas on a train they can do some work. The calculations were modified, but even then they were wrong.

The next argument was that the proposal was going to add to train capacity. The proponents then had to admit that sorting out two or three particular bottlenecks on the west coast main line, which they intended to do anyway, would add considerably to the line capacity. They have never done a calculation—this would be of interest to those who use the west coast main line—of the incapacity that the massive engineering works at Euston will force on the line. These works will result in a lot of interference to access to and egress from Euston. People’s journeys from the midlands and the north-west will be interfered with one way or another for the best part of 15 years, but that is not part of the capacity argument.

[Mr Jim Cunningham]

Although the situation in Coventry is not exactly the same as that in Euston, there will still be major effects on the traffic flow and major disruption in Coventry. That could go on for many years, and blighting is another issue we will have to address somewhere along the line.

[Frank Dobson]

The other problem is that the people behind the proposition live from hand to mouth. They said, “There’ll be a way around this, because we’ll be able to divert quite a lot of the local services that come into Euston to Old Oak Common and therefore relieve the pressure on Euston during the works period.” They have now admitted, however, that they cannot divert the local services to Old Oak Common to bring about that relief, so they are still lumbered with the fact that they will louse up access to Euston station for the next dozen to 15 years.

I am sure my hon. Friend will agree that an alternative option for improving the passenger service from London to Birmingham would be substantially to improve the performance of the Chiltern line and thus relieve a lot of passenger need on the west coast main line. All over the country, minor improvements to the track, signalling and electrification could bring about big improvements for passengers. As a lad originally from just outside York, I am always conscious of the fact that the east coast main line is electrified from King’s Cross to Leeds and from King’s Cross to Edinburgh, but that the link between York and Leeds is not electrified. Consequently, anyone who wants to go to Leeds from Edinburgh, Newcastle or Durham cannot do so on an electrified train; they have to change at York or find one of the trains that are still diesel.