High Speed Rail (London – West Midlands) Bill

Sheila Gilmore Excerpts

Monday 28th April 2014 Commons Chamber

[Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)]

Infrastructure projects in the UK appear to follow a pattern, as I have experienced with our trams project in Edinburgh. The trams project, when we consider the size of the spend as a proportion of Edinburgh’s economy, is probably quite similar to HS2 in the UK.

We often start with questions, and this is what happened with the trams in Edinburgh. Why do not we have the things, such as trams, that they have in Europe? Why are we so far behind? Why do we build new housing developments on the edge of the city that do not have good transport links? Why are we suggesting regenerating our riverfront and docks area without putting in good transport? Why have we built a huge office park on the edge of the city when there are not good transport links? Surely they should have gone in first.

Once the project is proposed, it all gets a lot more complicated. At that point, it begins to suffer from almost going into stasis as people say, “No, not that bit,” or, “Yes we want it, but we do not want it to follow that route.” It was interesting that a lot of people in Edinburgh seemed to rediscover how wonderful our bus services were, whereas previously they had not been so complimentary. So that people could say that they did not need trams, the argument became that we had a splendid bus service so the project would be a total waste of money and we could do everything with what we had already.

Sometimes such projects do not go ahead and, sadly, our tram project has been truncated. Trams are running in the city, but they are not yet carrying passengers because they are being tested. Within the next month, they will be fully operational but on a much shorter route than was originally planned. At that point, we end up asking why Edinburgh and the UK are so bad at running such capital projects. It is not always the case that every detail is right, but if we do not go ahead with such investment we will rue it when people turn around and ask why things were not done and why the UK is so pathetic at getting people on board with such projects.

Of course, HS2 is not coming to Scotland at this stage. I would be happy to see something being built from the north, and, of course, if we wanted to start in Edinburgh I would be happy to see that. HS2 will have an advantage for Scotland and Edinburgh. Even with the first phase, journey speeds will be cut by half an hour, and they will be cut by more subsequently. That is important because a city such as Edinburgh wants business and investment. We want people to come to a place where there is development space and a well-educated work force that is ready to be employed. We want to encourage those people to think that they can make those fast links with the rest of the UK and, of course, with London. I would much prefer that linkage to be by train, not by plane, and to stop the unnecessary environmental damage that is caused to a small country such as the UK by people taking internal flights.

There is a strong economic advantage to my city and to Scotland in going ahead with this project. It is not necessarily perfect, but if we are not careful we will end up in the position that we have been in far too often before, when, in the face of all the argumentation, people get cold feet, they retreat, and another 20 years go by before another set of politicians starts to ask why the country does not have a high-speed rail network.