Connecting Europe Facility

Debate between Peter Bone and Kelvin Hopkins

Thursday 19th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)]

I strongly support the amendment and its heavy emphasis on growth, because growth is the way to reduce deficits. Members who have seen The Independent today will know that our deficit is rather lower than those of many other major European member states, and that our biggest debt is located in the banks rather than in state spending. The fact remains, however, that the way to lower deficits is to achieve growth. Creating employment and ensuring that people pay taxes rather than living on benefits is the way forward.

I agreed with most of what was said by the hon. Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom), who is no longer in the Chamber. In particular, I agreed with the hon. Member for Portsmouth North (Penny Mordaunt), who pointed out that we do not need the European Union or the European Commission to tell member states what they need and what they should build, and to spend our money for us. Member states themselves know best what they need, and what should be done to meet those needs. International co-ordination is best achieved through bilateral and multilateral agreement and collaboration, rather than through the bureaucratic controls imposed by the European Union.

Big infrastructure has indeed been built by European national Governments, especially rail freight infrastructure. We have our own channel tunnel, which is a product not of the European Union but of a collaboration between France and Britain. We have the channel tunnel rail link, which is also nothing to do with the European Union. We have rail tunnels through the alps, built to a broad gauge that enables trains to carry lorries and double-stack containers and providing a freight link from southern to northern Europe. Those were built by states using state funds. The Brenner pass, a 28-mile tunnel built to a broad gauge through faulted rock, also carries freight between northern and southern Europe, and it too is the work of member states rather than the European Union. We have the Betuweroute, another broad-gauge freight route linking Rotterdam to the Ruhr. When I visited it, I asked who had paid for it. I was told, “The Dutch Government, of course.” The state bears the cost, not the European Union.

We know that the EU offers token amounts to investment projects to try to confer some relevance, presence and significance on itself, but that is not the real deal. The real deal is that states decide what they want and need and pay for it—sometimes with private finance, but largely with state funds—and, on occasion, collaborate with neighbouring states to ensure that things work well.

What the United Kingdom needs is investment in a dedicated rail freight line from the channel tunnel to Glasgow. Although we are somewhat peripheral to the continent in geographical terms, we need to be linked with its economy. I refer to the continent rather than the European Union because we are talking about the whole continent, which extends beyond the bounds of the European Union as it is currently constituted.

We need to be linked to the continent by freight as well as passenger rail, and that will be possible only if the delivery system on this side of the channel is capable of taking trains carrying lorries and full-scale and double-stack containers, and, indeed, continental-gauge trains, which cannot gain access to our platforms or our tunnels. In fact, I have been involved with a scheme—which I have mentioned in the Chamber a number of times in the past—to build a line from the channel tunnel to Glasgow, linking all the major conurbations of Britain and capable of doing all the things that I have just mentioned.

[Mr Bone]

The hon. Gentleman is making an enormously powerful speech, as he normally does on these issues. Does he share my concern about the fact that, although members of his party and the nationalist parties have been in the Chamber today and the Conservative Benches are full, not a single Liberal Democrat Member has been present? Given that the Liberal Democrats make such a fuss about Europe and restrict what the coalition can do about it, where on earth are they?

[Kelvin Hopkins]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point, but I have to say that the Liberal Democrats are in a coalition with his own party. It is his grief rather than ours, I think, so I will not intrude.

To an extent, work on a dedicated rail freight line has already begun. A terminal at Barking is taking trains from as far afield as Poland. However, although they can travel as far as Barking using the channel tunnel rail link, they can proceed no further because the gauge will not allow it.

According to an old chestnut, if we build HS2 we shall be able to take the passengers off the west coast main line and free it up for freight, but making that line capable of taking continental-gauge trains, double-stack containers and lorries would be prohibitively expensive. We need to build a line to take the freight off the west and east coast main lines and off our roads, so that the lines can be freed up for more and faster passenger trains and we can provide more capacity for passengers travelling to the north while taking as much traffic as possible off the roads. It is estimated that we could take 5 million lorry journeys off our roads simply by building that route, which would be economically viable and cheap to build.

The scheme has a precise route that uses old track bed and under-used lines, and requires only 14 miles of new track, mostly in tunnels. It will be easy to construct, it will not cause any environmental problems as the track bed is already there and it will be cheap to build. Some estimate that the whole route will cost as little as less than £4 billion. We have put in an estimate of £6 billion, which is still a third or so of what we will spend on Crossrail—I support Crossrail—and a tiny fraction of what will be spent on HS2, yet we would get an enormous advantage to our economy and transform road transport in Britain as we would not get the road damage caused by lorries, as the freight would be on trains instead.

The scheme would attractive to hauliers because they would not need to worry about drivers’ hours problems. They could put their lorry trailers on trains in Glasgow, south Lancashire, south Yorkshire or the north-east and, eventually, in the south-west and south Wales, and overcome such problems. On the question of unemployment, there is a shortage of long-distance lorry drivers because it is not a popular job. It takes people away from home and it is very difficult. The little group proposing the scheme even has a major haulier working with it.

That scheme is what Britain needs. It has nothing to do with the European Union, which would not pay for it—we would. It would offer value for money, it would be profitable and economical and it is vital for our future. I hope that both the Government and my hon. Friends on the Front Bench will listen carefully to our suggestion.