High Speed Rail

John McDonnell Excerpts

Monday 20th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

And now the ever-patient John McDonnell.

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I say to the Secretary of State that I am just grateful we are getting a train set for Christmas and not a third runway at Heathrow. He has referred to the Heathrow link, the Mawhinney review and the Arup proposals for a transport hub near Iver and has concluded that there should be a spur to the airport running close to the M25. Does that mean that the Iver hub will or will not take place?

[Mr Hammond]

We do not favour the proposal for the Iver hub as a way of delivering high speed rail passengers into Heathrow. It is worth noting that the proposals that Arup worked up on its own account—it was not commissioned to do so—around the hub at Iver were originally intended as a proposal for getting traffic from the Great Western main line into Heathrow. HS 2 came along as a bit of an add-on to that proposal, and Arup may still wish to pursue it as a proposal that is of interest for that purpose, but it is not our preferred route for getting high speed rail passengers into Heathrow.