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Channel Tunnel Rail Link (Supplementary Provisions) Bill

The hon. Gentleman did raise that point a moment ago, and I am tempted to give the same answer as the hon. Member for Wimbledon (Stephen Hammond). First, the planning should have started some time ago. Secondly, of course there are constraints further back at Clapham Junction and elsewhere—I accept that. However, this is a feature of the Government's rail policy. They are attempting to get as much as possible out of the network through signal improvements and so on, which is fine, but they have not yet grasped the nettle and recognised that we must invest significantly in the rail network to deal with the modal shift from road and air to rail travel, which is needed for climate change reasons, and to deal with the increase in passenger numbers. We will have to spend money on places such as Clapham Junction. There is no getting away from that. If we do not spend it now, we will spend it in 10 years' time. Such forward projections ought to be made by the Department for Transport, but it has not made them. It has failed to make projections far enough ahead about what will need to be done, including about such changes as those at Clapham Junction. The Department is still working on the presumption that oil will be $50 a barrel in 2025; that is the official DFT position. It was hardly surprising, with such inputs, that its answers were wrong. Yes, there are problems at Clapham Junction. They need to be dealt with. They should have been thought about before, but they were not. It is a complicated matter, but it all needs to be dealt with. It is insufficient merely to leave the platforms empty—or worse. One written answer that was referred to a moment ago, which I saw in Hansard the other day, talked about ““passenger circulation space””. To me, that is rather a worrying phrase. It conjures up ideas of Birmingham New Street, where a lot of money is spent to provide not very much space for trains and quite a lot of space for people to sit and wait for trains. I wonder whether passenger circulation space actually refers to the idea of building a shopping mall and a couple more McDonald's or Kentucky Fried Chicken outlets where passengers can wait in comfort for trains running from platforms one to 20, rather than using the platforms from 20 onwards for more trains. I hope that the Minister will confirm that there is no intention permanently to remove the platforms above platform 20 from Waterloo international and that that will not happen. I need not detain the House much longer. The hon. Member for Wimbledon made a good case, and if the House divides, my colleagues and I will support him.