High-speed Rail

Debate between Justine Greening and Alison Seabeck

Tuesday 10th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

High Speed 2 is critical for places such as Rugby, which have been so constrained by capacity on the conventional line. One of the benefits of HS2 is that it will free up capacity for better connectivity to places on existing lines, just like Rugby.

[Alison Seabeck (Plymouth, Moor View) (Lab)]

Warrington gets its journey cut by half an hour—lucky Warrington. Plymouth is a bigger city than Warrington and we have no high-speed link to the south-west. As regards the concern raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman), the Chair of the Transport Committee, will the Secretary of State confirm that top-slicing will not happen to other budgets and that the south-west main line down to Penzance will still get further investment?

[Justine Greening]

We are about to continue the process on the high-level output specification, or HLOS2, and that will consider future investment in lines such as the great western line, which will be connected to HS2 via the Old Oak Common interchange. That will benefit the hon. Lady’s part of the country as well as everybody else’s.

M5 Motorway Accident

Debate between Justine Greening and Alison Seabeck

Monday 7th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

I agree with my hon. Friend. Critically, we must bear in mind that safe driving on motorways is not simply about the maximum speed limit; it is also about smart driving—not driving too close to people in front and braking in a way that is not too quick and that surprises motorists behind. There are an awful lot of different aspects of safe driving on motorways. In fact, we are already considering whether we can ensure that learner drivers have some experience of driving on motorways as part of their training. That proposal has been put to us. We can do a number of things to improve the situation. Clearly, it is important for individual drivers at all times to bear in mind that although there is a speed limit, they must drive according to the conditions of the road and the weather.

[Alison Seabeck (Plymouth, Moor View) (Lab)]

May I thank both Front Benchers for voicing so clearly the sentiments felt on both sides of the House for all those involved? Crash barriers save lives, and they are particularly well designed in the UK. We can see from the pictures that the crash barriers prevented vehicles from going on to the southbound carriageway. However, a degree of compression was caused by having crash barriers on both the hard shoulder and the central reservation, where we expect them to be. Such compression exacerbates the potential for fire to spread, as people are funnelled into a particular spot. As part of the Secretary of State’s investigation, will she look at whether having crash barriers on both sides of the road had any impact on the spread of fire among vehicles?

[Justine Greening]

The hon. Lady is right to point out that the Highways Agency must manage risks. The crash barriers are on the side of that particular stretch of motorway because there is a steep bank. She raises the issue of the compression of vehicles, but alternatively, had the barrier not been there, the risk is that vehicles would have gone down the bank. Nevertheless, the police were quite careful to ensure that they looked around the banks to see whether there were any injured people or fatalities who were not on the motorway itself. The Highways Agency takes a risk-based approach to such things, which is what it had done on that particular stretch of motorway.