High-speed Rail

Mark Pawsey Excerpts

Tuesday 10th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

In terms of costs, there is safety in two things. High Speed 1 was delivered on time and on budget by the last Conservative Government. I aim to have a much better performance than we saw from the Labour Government on the west coast main line, where a £2 billion planned upgrade mushroomed to £9 billion. Finally, I can assure the hon. Gentleman that his constituents will see the benefit of phase 1 from day one. In many cases, the HS2 trains will be through-running trains that, having saved that time on the high-speed network, will continue their journey further north on conventional lines. I think that will benefit far more cities than just London and Birmingham.

[Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)]

May I advise the Secretary of State that today’s announcement will be heard with concern in Rugby? We currently have an excellent service to London on the recently upgraded west coast main line, but we will be completely bypassed by High Speed 2. What steps will be taken to ensure that cities and towns on the legacy line will retain the speed and frequency of their existing rail links?

[Justine Greening]

High Speed 2 is critical for places such as Rugby, which have been so constrained by capacity on the conventional line. One of the benefits of HS2 is that it will free up capacity for better connectivity to places on existing lines, just like Rugby.