High Speed Rail (Scotland)

Lindsay Roy Excerpts

Tuesday 6th November 2012 Westminster Hall

[Sheila Gilmore]

I thank the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) for his intervention. I am sorry, but I was reading out a quote; it was the speaker of those words who stopped at Britain and did not talk about the United Kingdom. I think that any options that can be built in for some of these things would be very useful. Anyone who has ever travelled to Stranraer using the current arrangements will know just how difficult that is. It is a big disadvantage for both Northern Ireland and Scotland that we do not have a particularly good rail link down to the ferry ports.

In the debate in April, we talked about getting the journey time down to three and a half hours—that is what the previous Minister said—but a commitment to bring it down to three hours is a welcome further step in the right direction. That would hugely enhance connectivity. It would improve links, not just the Scotland-London link, but links to other parts of England and the major conurbations, which would make Scotland a much more attractive place to do business. It would boost jobs and growth throughout the country.

[Lindsay Roy (Glenrothes) (Lab)]

In the event of separation, what incentive would there be for the rest-of-the-UK Government to extend high-speed rail beyond Manchester to Carlisle and further north?

[Sheila Gilmore]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. I shall go into that in a little more depth later. It does reveal the issue that we might be faced with. The importance of the scheme, particularly the northern part, to Scotland is probably greater, at this stage at least, than it might seem to be to what we are tending to refer to as the rest of the UK at that point. I certainly hope that the situation alluded to is not one in which we find ourselves.