High Speed Rail (Preparation) Bill

Debate between Steve Barclay and Frank Dobson

Thursday 31st October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Frank Dobson]

It may interest the hon. Gentleman to know that about 220 households in my constituency will need to be re-housed at the expense of HS2. The authorities were rather shocked to discover that a one-bedroom flat in a block recently built in the locality is currently going for £482,000. Most of the people who need to be re-housed need a family-sized flat.

[Stephen Barclay]

The right hon. Gentleman brings great expertise to these issues. That takes me back to the reference to a blank cheque: my concern is that the House is being asked to exercise blind faith, which will have a hugely distorting effect on transport schemes elsewhere in the country—as pressure grows, for example, for Crossrail 2 to connect not at Tottenham Court Road, but at Euston. Other schemes in the system, such as the one in my area of Cambridgeshire, will be asset-stripped of what they rightly deserve.

Let me leave the House with the image that we look like someone coming down the platform with five business cases, while the train has already left the station and we are waiting for the announcement of whether we will hit our destination, which will be given next year not by the Government, but by the shadow Chancellor. I do not think that is the right way to proceed. We need to be far more careful with controlling the costs.