High Speed Rail (Scotland)

Debate between Lindsay Roy and Sheila Gilmore

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.

High Speed 2 (Scotland)

Debate between Lindsay Roy and Sheila Gilmore

Wednesday 18th April 2012 Westminster Hall

[Lindsay Roy]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his helpful intervention. The Minister will no doubt want to respond to his suggestion, because high-speed rail should be for the whole UK, not just part of it.

Any interim measures to speed up conventional transport links on the west coast main line will be welcome, but high-speed rail north of Manchester must be a priority. The second-class hybrid system that was mooted recently will not meet the key objectives of increasing capacity, reducing congestion and reducing passenger travel times to just over 2 hours. Routes to and from Scotland are already significantly constrained, and running hybrid trains will not improve that. Furthermore, if Scotland is not included, Glasgow and Edinburgh will be comparatively further away than their main competitors, which will be served by truly high-speed lines. As the Minister said,

“If we sit back and fail to deal with the capacity time bomb set to explode within the next 10 to 20 years, we will do lasting damage to our economy.”—[Official Report, 2 November 2011; Vol. 534, c. 319WH.]

[Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on obtaining this debate, and I take on board fully his point that a hybrid system is wholly inadequate. Nevertheless, there are some issues, particularly for those of us on the east coast, because the suggestion seems to be that in the first phase the hybrid trains would run from Birmingham up the west coast. I am interested in his views on that. Would it be reasonable to reroute services to the east coast via that route because even a 30-minute reduction would make a substantial difference to some of the environmental choices that people make between rail and air?

[Lindsay Roy]

I thank my hon. Friend for her comment, and no doubt the Minister will want to pick that up. My view is certainly that we must consider not just the west coast main line option, but the whole UK. The case for high-speed rail is central not peripheral, and is overwhelming. US Vice-President Joe Biden reminded us recently that

“Public infrastructure investment raises private sector productivity”.