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Regeneration

I am all in favour of HS2, which will be good for growth in northern cities, such as Sheffield. I am a strong supporter of that and have been for a long time. When considering specific areas—coming back to the point made by the hon. Member for Halesowen and Rowley Regis (James Morris)—regeneration is a response to market failure, as we saw in Burnley, where houses were sold for next to nothing. To take the point made by the hon. Member for Gillingham and Rainham (Rehman Chishti), there is a wider issue of failure of environment, dereliction, failure of skills and lack of employment opportunities.