HS2

John Bercow Excerpts

Thursday 5th September 2019 Commons Chamber

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Mr Speaker]

As colleagues will be aware, there is pressure on time today, because there are several further pieces of business to follow, but equally and understandably there is intense interest in this monumental mess and I know that the Secretary of State is very keen, to his credit, to answer questions, so I shall do my best, as always, to accommodate the understandable interest of colleagues.

[Dame Cheryl Gillan (Chesham and Amersham) (Con)]

Mr Speaker, I was just about to say that there are Members affected by this project who do not have a voice, and I was going to include you, but clearly that is not the case. Of course, there is also my right hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom), who has always joined me in the fight against HS2.

In welcoming the Secretary of State to his position, may I also welcome my constituency neighbour, my right hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Mr Lidington)? It is so good to hear his voice raised in this Chamber against this dreadful project, and I endorse everything he said. It applies to my constituency as well.

The Secretary of State also needs to look at the national rail travel survey, on which one of the raisons d’être for this project is based, but which has not been updated since 2010. In answers to me, the Department does not appear to know how much it would cost to update it. That, coupled with the fact that we are still not allowed to see the passenger forecasting documentation, means that transparency is far from the watchword of HS2. Pages right the way through the chairman’s stocktake have been redacted. Transparency is not the order of the day.

The Secretary of State should grasp with both hands this opportunity to review the project entirely and review the nationwide transport and communication policy. I urge him to take a deep breath and carry out a comprehensive assessment across car, bus, train and air, as well as new technologies such as 5G and broadband, because it is essential that we look at the technological advances before we let this project go any further.

As the carriages being built for Crossrail pile up in Worksop because we cannot get that project right, let us draw a deep breath, cancel this project, start again and get a decent comprehensive transport policy.

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[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. There is a further urgent question after this and there are then three ministerial statements before we get to the Backbench business. Therefore, there is a premium upon brevity from Back Benchers and Front Benchers alike. For the avoidance of doubt, what I am looking for from colleagues is not dilation and not preamble but single-sentence questions, which will be brilliantly exemplified, I feel sure, by the right hon. Member for Derbyshire Dales (Sir Patrick McLoughlin).

[Sir Patrick McLoughlin (Derbyshire Dales) (Con)]

Thank you for that challenge, Mr Speaker. May I first welcome my right hon. Friend to his position?

The easiest thing for the Government to do is to cancel this project. That would be easy to do, but it would be the wrong thing to do, for this reason: I would find it ironical that, as we leave the European Union, I can get a high-speed train to Paris or to Brussels but not to Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds or Sheffield. My right hon. Friend talks about the overspend, but we seem to be able to accommodate at the drop of a hat the overspend on the Crossrail project, which is overrunning. That is a London project that is incredibly important for London, but we do not take a similar view of a project that has been long thought out and is absolutely essential for the major cities outside London.

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[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Mr Speaker]

Reiterating my plea for brevity, I hopefully call Sir William Cash.

[Sir William Cash (Stone) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. First, I welcome the Secretary of State to his new position. Secondly, I entirely endorse the views of my right hon. Friends the Members for Aylesbury (Mr Lidington) and for Chesham and Amersham (Dame Cheryl Gillan). The reality is that this whole project is completely out of control. The costs have gone up repeatedly. I voted against it. There is a petition in the House of Lords, which my constituents were absolutely right to pursue. This whole project is a complete white elephant and should be cancelled.

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[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Mr Speaker]

Colleagues should now follow the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) with single- sentence questions. If they do not—let us be absolutely clear—they are stopping other colleagues taking part. It is as simple as that.

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

Will the Secretary of State commit to look at any new major transport infrastructure projects in line with the 2050 net zero carbon target that this House has set itself?