High Speed 2

Phil Wilson Excerpts

Thursday 13th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Dr Huppert]

As ever, I am delighted to agree with everything my hon. Friend says. Her constituents will benefit and the scheme will eventually need to continue, and I hope that it will be sooner rather than later.

There have been debates about the economics of High Speed 2, and I think we all agree that it is absolutely right that we scrutinise them. The solution to our chronic capacity problem must deliver value for money. We have heard debate about the exact facts and figures. The ones I have seen place some reliance on or about the generation of 40,000 jobs and £44 billion for the economy, but the real economic impact of high-speed rail lies in changes that are harder to quantify. For far too long we have focused on London and the south-east, and it is key that high-speed rail helps to address that problem. High-speed rail will enable businesses in our major cities to compete with those in the capital and south-east. It will provide larger talent pools and more potential clients, improve domestic tourism and help us to rebalance our economy away from the City.

We also need to look at the issue raised by the hon. Member for Wirral West (Esther McVey)—rail freight.

[Phil Wilson (Sedgefield) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Dr Huppert]

I am afraid not; I do not have enough time.

The number of container freights on a north-south axis has grown by 56% in the past eight years, leaving freight services, particularly around Liverpool, in a complete bottleneck. There are companies that would like to use rail freight much more, but simply cannot find the space to put the containers on the railway. We constantly have this tricky balance between keeping commuter services for those travelling to London and ensuring that businesses in the north have access to the freight services they need. We need both. In an advanced country that cares about sustainable growth in every region, this is not the trade-off we need.

I wish I had more time to talk about the environmental consequences, but I would hope that all hon. Members agree that decarbonising domestic transport is a crucial measure that needs to be taken and that modal shift is important in achieving that. A shift of 6 million air trips and 9 million road trips on to rail is definitely a significant step forwards.

High-speed rail is not some idealistic dream based on shaky, long-term assumptions; it is a logistical imperative. High-speed rail is vital for the long-term sustainability of our country’s infrastructure. The arguments for it heavily outweigh those against it, and I am delighted that the Government are taking it forward. I look forward to working closely with the Department for Transport, the Minister and other stakeholders to ensure that this project goes ahead and provides value for money for taxpayers and passengers alike, as well as providing the sustainable and efficient transport infrastructure that Britain is desperately lacking.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tom Greatrex (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to be able to contribute briefly to this debate. A number of points have been made by other hon. Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Mark Lazarowicz), and I will not repeat those. However, I wanted to have the opportunity to make a couple of other points, particularly about Scotland.

First, I want to make the point clearly that better transport links have many and varied benefits for business and the wider economy, and that is as true in Scotland as it is in other parts of the United Kingdom. Sectors of the economy that are particularly important in Scotland—finance, tourism and the food and drink industries—respond positively to improvements in transport links. That is part of the case being made by business organisations, trade unions, Glasgow city council and Edinburgh city council, and a range of bodies in Scotland that very much support HS2. The hon. Member for Wirral West (Esther McVey) is no longer in her place, but I accept her point that a high-speed network alone does not draw business to the UK, and is not the complete answer. However, it is an important part of the answer, for Scotland as well as for the rest of the UK.

I wish to discuss the points made by the hon. Members for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom) and for Banbury (Tony Baldry) about the 40,000 jobs that would be created across the UK during the construction phase. I think I am right in saying that they both intimated that those jobs would be in the south-east of England. I say to both of them that that is not my experience of the jobs associated with other projects. For example, London 2012 work has gone to construction firms based in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Carlisle, Manchester, Newcastle—and, no doubt, many other places.

[Phil Wilson]

It is not just the route and its construction that are important; the rolling stock is important too. Hitachi, which is going to build a rolling stock factory in Newton Aycliffe, in my patch, has already said that it will bid to make the rolling stock for this route. That means that the north-east would benefit even before the route actually got to the north-east of England and created thousands of jobs.

[Tom Greatrex]

My hon. Friend makes an important point, and I thank him for his intervention. What he says is also true of other firms—for example, those in my constituency that make the toughened glass for the windows of the rolling stock. A range of other supply chain benefits will accrue to a number of industries and companies, and will help to increase employability and skills in the economy.

Secondly, I wish to discuss the environmental impact. I do not want to talk about the number of trees that will be planted along the line, but there is an environmental impact and benefit through getting people to shift from air to rail. From my constituency it is about a 90-minute flight between Glasgow and London, and I have to admit that I fly more often than I probably should. Even when we take into account the time taken getting to and from airports, flying is still quicker than using the fastest of the trains on the west coast.