High Speed 2

Ronnie Cowan Excerpts

Wednesday 10th July 2019 Westminster Hall

[Ronnie Cowan (Inverclyde) (SNP)]

I will be very brief —unlike HS2, I plan to run to a timetable. The project could, should and would have worked had it been run properly. Instead, we have burned through £10 billion of taxpayers’ money, including some £600 million for consultants—£600 million for consultants, but not one mile of track laid. If the UK Government want to see how to run an infrastructure project, they should look no further than the SNP Government and our investment of more than £8 billion in Scotland’s railways, including the border railway, the longest new domestic railway to be built in Britain in more than 100 years, on time and on budget. Thank you and goodnight.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ms Ghani]

As I mentioned, NDAs are used to deal with commercially sensitive or personal information. This is a large project involving a large chain of people and companies. We will put into the public domain any information that we can. We will respond to all queries from Members of Parliament within the allotted time.

Arguments have been made for and against HS2. I want to explain why this Government are committed to HS2. Every time the House has voted on this project, the Government have always won with a stomping majority. Our current infrastructure is 150 years old. It is an overstretched Victorian network. Passenger numbers have doubled in the past 20 years, and on key routes in the west coast inter-city corridor they are set to triple.

We have an overused and overcrowded railway, which is also one of the oldest. With HS2 in place, we can deal with the pressures on express trains, freight trains and slower local commuter services, which are already operating at peak capacity. That is just one of the reasons why HS2 is crucial: to solve our chronic capacity problems. I was intrigued by the argument that there will not be as many passengers using our railway network in the future. I hope this Government will not make the argument for people to stand still, but will encourage people to go out for social and work reasons.

HS2 is a new dedicated railway for fast inter-city express services, no longer encumbered by the inevitable inefficiencies associated with mixed-use lines, which will also free up huge capacity on the existing railway for more local trains, including for services to places such as Milton Keynes. In fact, 70% of the jobs created across our economy will be outside London, bringing prosperity to the north and the midlands, just as the first railways did, and not only to the cities on the high-speed line. HS2 trains will call at over 25 stations across the UK, from London to Scotland. It has already created 9,000 jobs and 200 apprenticeships. We expect that to rise to 30,000 jobs at peak construction, including over 2,000 new apprentices, many of whom will be trained at the national colleges in Doncaster and Birmingham.

[Ronnie Cowan]

In 2009, the Labour Secretary of State for Transport, Geoffrey Hoon, said that

“a new company, High Speed 2, has been formed to develop the case for high-speed services between London and Scotland.”—[Official Report, 10 March 2009; Vol. 489, c. 144.]

Will this Conservative Government reinstate that aspiration?

[Ms Ghani]

Indeed, because the full stretch of HS2 will go up to Scotland. One of our ambitions is to reduce the journey time from London to Scotland. That is why we are continuing to ensure that we get through all the legislation and that the line stays on track.

HS2 will have a big impact on local jobs. At present we have over 2,000 businesses in the supply chain, 70% of which are small and medium-sized enterprises. That is what comes of building an ambitious railway line connecting eight of our top 10 cities.