High Speed Rail (London – West Midlands) Bill

Liam Byrne Excerpts

Monday 28th April 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr McLoughlin]

I will come on to compensation in a little while, but I am slightly constrained in what I can say because the issue is being consulted on.

[Mr Liam Byrne (Birmingham, Hodge Hill) (Lab)]

I am glad that the Secretary of State wants to keep an open mind about getting the final designs right. High Speed 2 will be of huge benefit to the city of Birmingham, but we must not leave east Birmingham behind. The current proposal to destroy a space the size of 105 football pitches, where we have plans to create 7,000 jobs in the worst unemployment hot spot in the whole United Kingdom, is not a good idea. Birmingham city council will oppose the proposal during the petitioning stage. Will the Secretary of State keep his mind open to the idea that there could be a better site for the rolling yard that would not destroy east Birmingham’s economic future?

[Mr McLoughlin]

I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman, and indeed Birmingham city council, is very supportive of the overall scheme. Of course we will want to make those presentations to the Select Committee during the passage of the Bill. That site was looked at very carefully when we considered those that were available, because a new railway line requires areas where trains can be serviced. A number of people can argue about whether we have the right sites or the wrong ones, and of course that will be taken into consideration.

Of course I understand the depth of concern that the line has caused in some places, which is why I have made it clear to my officials that there is no place in the Department or in HS2 for talk of luddites or nimbys. We must respect people and try to meet their concerns.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Liam Byrne (Birmingham, Hodge Hill) (Lab)]

I want to add my voice to those here tonight who support High Speed 2. I was a strong supporter of the proposal when it came to the last Labour Cabinet, and I am a strong supporter of the position taken by Labour Front Benchers. My right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) got it right when he said that it is welcome that those on both Front Benches have united in their agreement to support the proposal, whatever the outcome of the next election, when no doubt Labour will be returned to government.

I am a supporter because I see the chance for High Speed 2 to add real booster rockets to a city that is now back on the move. Since the new Labour council took office in May 2012, we have had a city that is growing once more. The year of infrastructure, which imaginatively brings together major projects in the middle of our city, is creating real momentum behind the delivery of Grand Central, the metrolink that is now going through the middle of our city, and the new New Street station, which I was so proud to help secure when I was the regional Minister. We are now the start-up capital of the country outside London. More new businesses opened their doors in Birmingham than anywhere else outside London last year, and we are now at the heart of the region that boasts the biggest export surplus anywhere in the country to the fast-growing market of China.

If we are to restore ourselves to our rightful place as the workshop of the world, we need new infrastructure, and that is why High Speed 2 is so welcome. It is welcome because it cuts our journey time to London, but it also cuts our journey time to Canary Wharf to 65 minutes. That is very important to a financial and legal services community as big as Birmingham’s. It is important because it puts our airport within reach of the airports of the south, and it is important because it could create 50,000 to 60,000 jobs in our city and the region beyond.

Those are the prizes on offer, and they need to stay within reach, not just to some but to everybody in our great city. That is why it is so important that in the debates that follow in the House and elsewhere we remove the crazy, idiotic, nonsensical idea of destroying one third of the available industrial land in Birmingham to lock up as a scrap yard for High Speed 2 between now and 2026, and then to minimise as a marshalling yard for the period of the railway’s operation over the subsequent years.

The Secretary of State said that getting the path of the track right is difficult and important. Of course it is. I am glad that he started his story in 1832 when the railways were first proposed, because when it was first proposed that the railways would come to Birmingham, they had to take an interesting bend to avoid Aston hall, which was then in the hands of the descendants of the inventor of the steam engine, James Watt. I propose a slight modification of this track, not to save a view but to save the prospects of east Birmingham. The proposal for a marshalling yard in the middle of the inner city takes out a space that is the size of 106 football pitches. It is a site, currently in the hands of three owners, that has come together like a great jigsaw puzzle for the first time in a century. It is a site on which we could put 7,000 jobs, not at some remote point in the future, but now, during the next four or five years.

We have already turned away proposals for a million square feet of industrial use which could have brought hundreds of jobs to the inner city. There is nowhere more in need of these jobs than inner-city Birmingham. This site is at the junction of three of the most unemployed constituencies in the country; 17,773 people are unemployed in the constituencies of Hodge Hill, Ladywood and Erdington. That is nearly one half of all the people who are out of work in the city of Birmingham. Yet we are turning away businesses that want to create jobs on this site in the middle of this community today because of the High Speed 2 proposal. The Secretary of State says quite rightly that the marshalling yard has to go somewhere, and it should: it should go much closer to the airport or up in Crewe—or even, if my hon. Friends who represent Stoke get their way, closer to Stoke. Let us not put it in a place where we need the jobs.

Birmingham city council is perfectly prepared to petition against this proposal during the months to come. It would be better all round if it did not need to do that, but so far the guarantees that are needed from High Speed 2 for early release of land, minimisation of the land-take and maximising the number of jobs have not been seen. I want those proposals on the table, otherwise we are in for an almighty fight over the months to come.