Lord Greaves
Main Page: Lord Greaves (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Greaves's debates with the Department for Transport
Railways: High Speed Rail
Lord Greaves Excerpts(11 years, 3 months ago)
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Earl Attlee
My Lords, I can assure my noble friend that there are ongoing discussions on that particular issue between my right honourable friend the Secretary of State and the Scottish Government. The southern portion of the HS2 system has the better business case and therefore it makes sense to start that first, safe in the knowledge that Scotland will still benefit from the reduced journey times to London.
Lord Greaves
My Lords, this is a visionary and exciting day, but is it not ironic that most of the existing railway network in this country outside London was built in about 20 years in the Victorian period, whereas it is going to take 20 years to build one and a half new lines now? Is it not time that people started to look at a long-term vision of high-speed rail in this country, extending from the north-east of Scotland to the south-west of England as well as routes to London?