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Transport: High-speed Rail

My Lords, I congratulate the Secretary of State on his visionary approach. However, the experience of past large infrastructure projects is that invariably the outturn costs are more than estimated costs. He is talking about a £30 billion project; this Government are already borrowing one pound in every four spent. Can he say a bit more about how it is to be funded? Apparently, he has rejected the idea of rail bonds. He has touched on the idea of finding ways of securitising some of the income. Given the position with banking and the availability of finance, it would be helpful to hear more about how this will be funded and how the project is to be brought to fruition.