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Transport: High-speed Rail

My Lords, I have huge admiration for my noble friend and any advice that he gives I take immensely seriously, but I fear that I cannot promise any immediate change of government policy on that front. My noble friend speaks from a position of great experience in dealing with environmental projects and I welcome his response to the Statement. It is possible to reconcile our environmental objectives with the provision of this new infrastructure, but I accept that it will require a process of prolonged consultation and engagement, including on how we can best mitigate the impact that the construction of a high-speed line will inevitably have. Set out in the Command Paper are the comparative figures for different modes of transport in terms of carbon emissions per kilometre. They are very striking. A car with average occupancy has average emissions per passenger kilometre of 128 grams of CO2. For a Eurostar train, the range is between 8.1 grams and 17.6 grams. For domestic flights, the average is 171 grams. The carbon advantage that we gain by carrying large numbers of passengers between our cities by high-speed rail is therefore very great, which is a good part of the environmental case for a high-speed rail line.