26 June 2013
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown backs the HS2 project but urges the Government to reconsider the route to that it can link to Heathrow airport and also to the high speed rail link HS1.
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Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con): In the light of your entreaty and decision to cut us down to four minutes, Madam Deputy Speaker, I have binned my speech.
I say to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State that I am going to support this Bill because I believe strongly in the principle of a superb infrastructure to enable this country to be competitive in the 21st century. I hope, however, that he will regard me as a critical friend, because I think that his proposed route contains two fundamental weaknesses.
Before I talk about that, I would like to concentrate on the costs. In discussing this Bill which we are, I hope, going to pass, we need to know precisely what costs we are dealing with. My right hon. Friend has now given us two lots of costs, and I hope that he or the Minister of State will clarify exactly what those costs are. I believe that we are now talking about £42 billion for phase 1 and phase 2, plus some £9 billion for rolling stock, making a total of about £51 billion. It would be enormously helpful if he could clarify those costs.
It was not an idle intervention that I made on my right hon. Friend earlier. I do think that money should be available from Europe in the transnational networks, and I hope that he and his Department are urgently investigating that. As the hon. Member for Clwyd South (Susan Elan Jones) said, a lot of the superb high-speed rail network was funded by Europe.
In the very short time I have available, let me deal with the two fundamental flaws in the proposed route. First, it is completely wrong to have an holistic transport policy that does not link HS2 with our major hub airport. Sir Howard Davies and his airport commission will not report until after the next election, so how can it make sense to fix a route when we do not know where the hub airport will be? If, for example, he favours—I make no recommendation as to which option he should favour—an estuarial hub airport solution, the current route would be in completely the wrong place.
The other fundamental flaw in the route is that it does not properly link HS2 and HS1. Other Members have talked about this, particularly the hon. Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown). I would say to her, and to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, that they should look at the process that was involved with HS1. The then new Secretary of State, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kensington (Sir Malcolm Rifkind), very late in the day, called in all the evidence and changed the route. That route, which had been designed by British Rail, went right through south London and was going to blight large numbers of houses, and he changed it at the very last minute. If he had not done so, Stratford International would never have come into being and the Olympics would never have taken place. I say this to my right hon. Friend: do please look at the route, because if we are spending this vast amount of money, let us, as a nation, get the maximum out of it.
I commend to my right hon. Friend a solution proposed by Ove Arup—the Heathrow hub. A Heathrow hub would produce a truly holistic transport policy integrating road, rail, freight and air. Above all, it would benefit my constituents in the west, because the newly electrified west coast main line would go into the Heathrow hub rather than having to go into Paddington and out again, as is currently the case if people want to get to Heathrow by rail. A Heathrow hub would also benefit my right hon. Friend—my good friend—the Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs Gillan), because the route could be altered to be taken along the M40. I ask my right hon. Friend to think about existing transport networks, as with HS1, because if HS2 is run along existing motorway links, each one cancels out the other.
I believe in this new HS2 project, which will put Britain into the forefront of competitiveness in the 21st century, but will my right hon. Friend please have a look at the route?
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Earlier interventions in the same debate
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: My right hon. Friend knows, as does the rest of the House, that much of that high-speed European railway was built with European money. How much investigation has he done with the European authorities into how much he might be able to reduce the enormous £32 billion cost of the railway?
Mr McLoughlin: We will be looking at that. I will say a bit more about costs a little later, if my hon. Friend will wait. As always, we will look at how we finance, and not necessarily just in respect of the area to which he has referred. We could see private sector investment in some of the stations that we are going to develop. I will say something more about the stations in a few moments.
| Hansard
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con): Does the hon. Lady agree that, if we are going to spend this large amount of money on HS2, we should get the maximum benefit from it? At the moment, it is planned to connect HS2 with HS1 only by a rather tortuous single-rail route, but there is a better, double-rail solution available. Would it not make more sense to fully integrate HS1 with HS2?
Maria Eagle: I have a great deal of sympathy for the hon. Gentleman’s point. It makes no sense to me at all that passengers from the south-east should have to change trains in north London to reach towns and cities in the midlands, the north and up to Scotland. We do not see this connection as an optional extra that can be delivered in a patch-and-mend way; it needs to be re-thought.
| Hansard
| Parliament TV
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con): In the light of your entreaty and decision to cut us down to four minutes, Madam Deputy Speaker, I have binned my speech.
I say to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State that I am going to support this Bill because I believe strongly in the principle of a superb infrastructure to enable this country to be competitive in the 21st century. I hope, however, that he will regard me as a critical friend, because I think that his proposed route contains two fundamental weaknesses.
Before I talk about that, I would like to concentrate on the costs. In discussing this Bill which we are, I hope, going to pass, we need to know precisely what costs we are dealing with. My right hon. Friend has now given us two lots of costs, and I hope that he or the Minister of State will clarify exactly what those costs are. I believe that we are now talking about £42 billion for phase 1 and phase 2, plus some £9 billion for rolling stock, making a total of about £51 billion. It would be enormously helpful if he could clarify those costs.
It was not an idle intervention that I made on my right hon. Friend earlier. I do think that money should be available from Europe in the transnational networks, and I hope that he and his Department are urgently investigating that. As the hon. Member for Clwyd South (Susan Elan Jones) said, a lot of the superb high-speed rail network was funded by Europe.
In the very short time I have available, let me deal with the two fundamental flaws in the proposed route. First, it is completely wrong to have an holistic transport policy that does not link HS2 with our major hub airport. Sir Howard Davies and his airport commission will not report until after the next election, so how can it make sense to fix a route when we do not know where the hub airport will be? If, for example, he favours—I make no recommendation as to which option he should favour—an estuarial hub airport solution, the current route would be in completely the wrong place.
The other fundamental flaw in the route is that it does not properly link HS2 and HS1. Other Members have talked about this, particularly the hon. Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown). I would say to her, and to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, that they should look at the process that was involved with HS1. The then new Secretary of State, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kensington (Sir Malcolm Rifkind), very late in the day, called in all the evidence and changed the route. That route, which had been designed by British Rail, went right through south London and was going to blight large numbers of houses, and he changed it at the very last minute. If he had not done so, Stratford International would never have come into being and the Olympics would never have taken place. I say this to my right hon. Friend: do please look at the route, because if we are spending this vast amount of money, let us, as a nation, get the maximum out of it.
I commend to my right hon. Friend a solution proposed by Ove Arup—the Heathrow hub. A Heathrow hub would produce a truly holistic transport policy integrating road, rail, freight and air. Above all, it would benefit my constituents in the west, because the newly electrified west coast main line would go into the Heathrow hub rather than having to go into Paddington and out again, as is currently the case if people want to get to Heathrow by rail. A Heathrow hub would also benefit my right hon. Friend—my good friend—the Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs Gillan), because the route could be altered to be taken along the M40. I ask my right hon. Friend to think about existing transport networks, as with HS1, because if HS2 is run along existing motorway links, each one cancels out the other.
I believe in this new HS2 project, which will put Britain into the forefront of competitiveness in the 21st century, but will my right hon. Friend please have a look at the route?
| Hansard
| Parliament TV
Earlier interventions in the same debate
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: My right hon. Friend knows, as does the rest of the House, that much of that high-speed European railway was built with European money. How much investigation has he done with the European authorities into how much he might be able to reduce the enormous £32 billion cost of the railway?
Mr McLoughlin: We will be looking at that. I will say a bit more about costs a little later, if my hon. Friend will wait. As always, we will look at how we finance, and not necessarily just in respect of the area to which he has referred. We could see private sector investment in some of the stations that we are going to develop. I will say something more about the stations in a few moments.
| Hansard
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con): Does the hon. Lady agree that, if we are going to spend this large amount of money on HS2, we should get the maximum benefit from it? At the moment, it is planned to connect HS2 with HS1 only by a rather tortuous single-rail route, but there is a better, double-rail solution available. Would it not make more sense to fully integrate HS1 with HS2?
Maria Eagle: I have a great deal of sympathy for the hon. Gentleman’s point. It makes no sense to me at all that passengers from the south-east should have to change trains in north London to reach towns and cities in the midlands, the north and up to Scotland. We do not see this connection as an optional extra that can be delivered in a patch-and-mend way; it needs to be re-thought.
| Hansard
