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Railways

My Lords, I fear that the noble Lord is asking me to comment in a little bit too much detail about HSR beyond Manchester. As noble Lords would expect, I do not agree with the objections to our thinking expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw. It is not ““either/or””, our national rail system and HSR need to be enhanced. The Government have repeatedly failed to take steps to preserve disused lines, despite many warnings from the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, the Transport Committee and Network Rail. The Government are ““keeping an open mind”” on whether they should safeguard this capital stock. Perhaps the Minister could explain why the Government will not immediately adopt the Conservative proposal to impose a two-year moratorium on the sale of disused lines in order to prevent the elimination of future developments. The Government’s continued hesitancy to consider a high-speed rail link is a continuation of a transport policy that not only fails to deliver current targets but would be completely unable to meet the needs of the future. Our railways have a proud heritage and could have a bright future, helping us to meet our climate change and economic development objectives. The next few years will be vital. We need to be imaginative about the changes that may be required to deliver this bright future. We need to harness the ambition and creative thinking that exist within the industry so that it can deliver for us all. This debate has gone one way: high-speed rail.