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High-Speed Rail

I shall say a word in favour of nimbyism in a moment. Yes, it is true that my constituency will suffer no loss of property, and I am obviously delighted by the fact. Indeed, 5,000 jobs and a minimum of 1,600 homes will be created by the new infrastructure. It will be a positive development in one of the most deprived areas of the country—White City, Shepherds Bush and Old Oak. I should say that I live five minutes from there, but it will put my constituents 10 minutes from Heathrow and just over 40 minutes from Birmingham. These are the sort of projects of which the country used to be proud, and it used to seek mitigation for them rather than avoiding them altogether on the basis that such decisions are difficult to make. Having said that, I believe that the project is good not only because the route and the interchange have some parochial benefit but because they give direct access to the Great Western line, Crossrail, the Heathrow express and HS1 just a few minutes outside central London. That is an improvement. I have two caveats for the Minister, if she will take the advice. First, the Government need to look for friends wherever they can, but they have not done that so far. Last year's debate was on 11 March, almost a year ago, and the Minister was then Opposition spokesman. Her aggressive stance rather belied the fact that she supported the announcement made by Lord Adonis. Her questions then are ones that she could answer today. She asked:"““Will they match our commitment to start work immediately on taking the line beyond Birmingham to Manchester and Leeds as part of stage 1?...Why will they not match our commitment to start construction by 2015? What guarantees can they give that fares will be kept within the reach of ordinary families on modest incomes?””" Those are all questions that the Minister might want to answer today. Rather churlishly I thought, she then said about Old Oak:"““Although we do not rule out use of that site for dispersal, the idea that some kind of 'Wormwood Scrubs international' station is the best rail solution for Heathrow is just not credible.””— [Official Report, 11 March 2010; Vol. 507-08, c. 450.]" I remind the Minister of this every time the subject comes up, and I know that she is happy to eat those words.