High Speed 2 (Scotland)

Mark Lazarowicz Excerpts

Wednesday 18th April 2012 Westminster Hall

[Lindsay Roy (Glenrothes) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship for this short debate, Mr Havard. I thank hon. Members for their attendance this afternoon and for their possible participation but, given the short time, I hope there will be only a few interventions.

To assist, I will briefly set out what I plan to cover. First, I will make a short reference to progress made in other countries, but principally I will put forward a case for the extension of High Speed 2 to Scotland, highlight some of the underpinning issues and, finally, pose some fundamental questions to the Minister.

High-speed rail is almost 50 years old, having been initiated in Japan in 1964, from Tokyo to Osaka. In its first year it carried 23 million passengers. Thirty years ago, France, Spain and Germany followed suit with HSR connections between and within those countries. There has been a quantum modal shift from aviation to rail, which has brought economic and environmental benefits. In those countries, passenger percentage to rail has increased dramatically and overall numbers have mushroomed. In addition to addressing capacity shortages successfully, new HSR demonstrated what can be achieved with economic growth and regeneration. In France, for example, HSR not only supported growth in already highly competitive cities such as Lyons, but improved the economic potential of previously declining urban centres such as Lille. There has been a big dividend to those cities and to Paris itself, and expanded tourist travel to Mediterranean countries.

Throughout that period, sadly, the UK seems to have existed in some kind of time warp, which beggars belief. The UK seems to have suffered from a condition called simultanagnosia, more commonly referred to as vision blindness or, as we say in Scotland, “cannae see the wood for the trees”. Despite the undoubted success of HSR in many countries over the past 30 years, successive UK Governments have been reluctant—indeed, remarkably resistant—to grasp the opportunities and undoubted dividends that HSR can bring. The only UK investment in HSR is the 69 miles from London to the channel tunnel.

[Mark Lazarowicz (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab/Co-op)]

The fact that the UK has been so slow to adopt more high-speed rail is surely a strong argument for starting to plan work for HS2 to Scotland. If it is left somewhere down the line for planning to start in 15 years, it will be the end of the century before HS2 goes to Scotland.

[Lindsay Roy]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. I could not agree more with his sentiments. There is huge potential in opening up the gateway to continental Europe, but we have failed so far to fulfil that potential.

It was refreshing to read in the coalition’s programme for government in May 2010:

“We will establish a high speed rail network as part of our programme of measures to fulfil our joint ambitions for creating a low carbon economy. Our vision is of a truly national high speed rail network for the whole of Britain.”

I emphasise the words “truly national network”. I welcome the belated commitment by the Government, and not just the present Government, to the programme, but the current programme seems to lack ambition in both the extent of the network and the time scale for implementation. As my hon. Friend said, now is the time to be bold, decisive and determined to deliver a high-speed rail service that meets the needs of the whole UK, not just south and middle England. Vision without action is sometimes described as daydreaming, so let us be clear that the vision is of an inclusive, first-class, high-speed rail service for the UK as a whole and in a much tighter time scale than has been proposed.