High Speed Rail (West Midlands - Crewe) Bill
Debate between Michelle Donelan and Rachel MacleanTuesday 30th January 2018
(6 years, 3 months ago)
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Rachel Maclean (Redditch) (Con)
I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this important debate, and I commit my support for the Bill’s Second Reading. I have listened with interest to the entire debate, and I want to thank all those Members who have talked about the changes that need to be made. As a former resident of Birmingham, and someone who now lives close to it, I endorse what colleagues have said about connectivity across that city. I very much hope that the issues can be addressed in the final plans. We have heard arguments about how long it takes to walk between Birmingham New Street and Birmingham Curzon Street. My hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield (Michael Fabricant) is obviously a very speedy walker; other Members walk more slowly. If that route could be joined up, it would be beneficial for everyone who passes through what is one of our nation’s great cities.
I want to touch on the question of productivity, which is a key theme in the debate and links closely with what we are trying to achieve with transport infrastructure in this country. This is the main reason why I am supporting the Bill tonight. The Government brought forward many measures in the industrial strategy to boost productivity across the country. That is really important to all of us who live outside London and the south-east. We all acknowledge that wealth, jobs and productivity are not spread evenly across our country, and one of the major things that we can do to address that is to build a decent high-speed train service that will enable our constituents, wherever they live, to travel up and down the country to access jobs and opportunities. The Government are making a fantastic commitment to this project, which underpins their mission to spread wealth and growth across the country.
Michelle Donelan
Is my hon. Friend aware that this is the biggest infrastructure project in Europe?
Rachel Maclean
I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention, because she reminds me of the significant amount—about £100 billion, I think—that Governments, including the previous Labour Government, have put forward. We have not built any new railways in this country since Victorian times, so it is really important that we are committing this funding now and in the future to build our railways. The project will be important to our constituents’ quest to travel not only from London to the midlands, but from the midlands up to the north. It will also help our quest to take pressure off the overheated south.
Rachel Maclean
I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. I am sure that many of her constituents, like mine, have to travel to the nearest big city or town to get to work or leisure destinations. The project will help to free up capacity on those secondary lines.
The project will make an important contribution to our global competitiveness as a nation. Thanks to the Government’s economic programme and their management of the economy, the UK is seen as a highly attractive destination for business investment. I want to see that continue. When foreign investors look at our country, they consider the transport links, because they want to invest in places from where it is easy to get around the country so that people will find their businesses attractive and want to work for them.
HS2 will benefit not only my constituents in Redditch, but the country as a whole. Although we will not benefit directly from HS2, we live only a short distance away from Birmingham, which will be a major stop on the line. Many of my constituents work, play and socialise in Birmingham, and the economic prospects of a place such as Redditch are intertwined with those of Birmingham and the larger west midlands conurbation. When the project is completed, we will see benefits for business and residents, and transport routes up and down the country will be opened up.
Michelle Donelan
Does my hon. Friend share my passion for the National College for High Speed Rail? It will not only help to fill the skills gap for high-speed rail, but train people so that we deal with the long-term skills gap in the engineering, design, technology and construction sectors.
Rachel Maclean
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. I confess that I am not sure that I entirely followed its logic, but I think I get the point he is trying to make. There will be opportunities for small businesses, even if not directly—I am thinking of first contractors and even the supply chain further down, because many of these contracts involve a multitude of contractors. It is important that the Government look at this area, as I am sure that the Minister will. There will be a benefit for people and businesses in my constituency, and we hope there will be a particular benefit for women. Although the HS2 college is located in Birmingham, I hope that it will see what it can do to spread its opportunities for training beyond Birmingham city centre.
I have mentioned the process of contracting already, but I wish to touch on it again briefly. I am a member of the Select Committee on Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, and just this morning we held our joint inquiry with the Select Committee on Work and Pensions on the collapse of Carillion. We have questioned the regulators and we will shortly be questioning the Carillion directors. Clearly, there are many lessons to learn from this collapse, which has affected many businesses and people, including those with pensions. I very much hope that when the Government award contracts for HS2, they will learn those lessons quickly so that we do not see the sorts of decisions that enabled companies such as Carillion to continue operating in a way that put pensions and small businesses at risk. I very much hope that the Minister will address those concerns, which I am sure we all have.
If this project is done right, we have an opportunity to do contracting right, and to boost not only small businesses but larger businesses up and down the country, providing opportunities for people to gain new skills. I am talking about apprenticeships, and getting more women in engineering and new sectors such as the rail industry. Such sectors might not have been traditionally attractive for people to consider, so let us make careers in them something to which young people aspire, so that we are going forward with the jobs of the future.
Michelle Donelan
Does my hon. Friend agree that one area that has been neglected in today’s debate is the social and wellbeing aspect that the project can bring to people? We talk often in this place about loneliness and boosting tourism around the country, and improving our connectivity in the UK is an example of how we can achieve that.
Rachel Maclean
My hon. Friend makes an extremely perceptive point and I completely agree with it. My hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Mr Seely) was talking about the investment figures, and sometimes there are intangible benefits that are not always captured in an economic forecast. I hope that the Government are looking at that and looking at how we can maximise what my hon. Friend the Member for Chippenham (Michelle Donelan) describes. Loneliness is a real scourge and when people who live in London can get on a train and go to Birmingham, or vice-versa, and people can to go from Birmingham to the north, they can explore new parts of our beautiful country. We can also reduce the carbon footprint that would come from their getting on an airplane. Let us have more staycations. Let us explore our country, because we are blessed in our island nation with some of the most beautiful landscapes. Sometimes that tourism benefit is lacking from our debate. How much better it would be if we could encourage holidays at home and boost the tourism—