---

Transport: High-speed Rail

My Lords, I am very grateful for my noble and learned friend’s remarks. Perhaps it is just about in order for me to say to the House that my noble and learned friend’s son is one of my officials in the Department for Transport, so the praise that he is showering on my officials is praise that should be widely distributed within his own family as well. His son does a great job in the department. On the serving of Stratford by high-speed trains, the Javelin trains, which are providing an excellent new high-speed service to destinations in the Medway towns and east Kent, stop at Stratford and are hugely boosting the regeneration taking place there. There is an ongoing debate about Eurostar serving Stratford, but were there to be through high-speed trains from the High Speed 2 line to the High Speed 1 line, there would be a strong case for some of them stopping at Stratford.