Geoffrey Robinson
Main Page: Geoffrey Robinson (Labour - Coventry North West)Department Debates - View all Geoffrey Robinson's debates with the Department for Transport
(12 years, 7 months ago)
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Mr Geoffrey Robinson (Coventry North West) (Lab)
The purpose of asking yet again for a debate in the Chamber on high-speed rail was that, having had two very successful earlier debates in Westminster Hall, we knew that there was a great deal of interest throughout the House among Members representing virtually all the constituencies that have an interest in it. I am very pleased to see the remarkable attendance we have this afternoon, and to follow the hon. Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom), who has just opened the debate.
Those who attended the demonstration in Old Palace Yard this morning will have seen that there was a good turnout and a lively response from lorry drivers and others in relation to what we still call HS2. I am pleased to say that one lot from your constituency, Mr Speaker, remarked that they were anxious to speak to your good self about it, and I carry their best wishes and thanks to you. I said that you would almost certainly be in the Chair for the debate today, so I am pleased to see that you are indeed there.
The various points that have consistently been made against this project remain, but they have not been answered in debate or by the Government. The hon. Lady covered virtually all those points in her opening remarks. I am limited for time, and I intend to stay well within the 10 minutes because I know that a lot of Members wish to speak, but let me say that although the point about people being local or nimbyish about this issue is fair, I do not think that any MP who sticks up for his constituency should be at all apologetic about it. That is what we are sent here for, and if we do not do it, why are we here?
We have to take into account the national dimension, but I am prepared to say that I, and my Labour colleagues from Stoke and Coventry, certainly will not benefit from this project at all. I can see the arguments for Manchester, York, Leeds and other areas, which are well represented on the Opposition side, but it seems to me that we are doing things the wrong way around. I can see some benefits—although not the regional benefits that the Government claim—for Manchester, Leeds in particular, and York of being connected to a high-speed link to Birmingham and from there to London, but I think we should start the whole “Y” the other way around. We should start the line where it is most needed and most appreciated—from the north to the south. What is very clear, if we are honest about this, is that we do not desperately need the line from London to Birmingham. We are well served with trains every 20 minutes, and we are only going to get 30 minutes off the journey at best.
Mark Lazarowicz (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab/Co-op)
Will my hon. Friend give way?
Mr Robinson
I will in a moment if my hon. Friend will hang on just a tick. I have only got 10 minutes, and time taken now will shorten someone else’s time.
We really do not need this project. What we need is for the pinch points to be relieved and some of the capacity bottlenecks to be relieved, and we could get the whole capacity increase we need on that line. Centro, which is responsible for the west midlands portion of the line, has said that it desperately needs that to be done now. That is the way to do it, not to wait until—
Richard Burden (Birmingham, Northfield) (Lab)
Will my hon. Friend give way?
Mr Robinson
I will give way in a moment, but I know what my hon. Friend is going to say because he represents a Birmingham constituency. I take those points too, but on the argument about this being a regional policy, let me say that any remotely sensible study that has been done on it says that 75% of the jobs are going to be created in the south-east, so we should forget the idea that it is a regional policy: that does not stack up. It is a convenience for certain metropolitan centres in the north, and the idea is that if ever it gets up to Edinburgh and Glasgow it could be a spinal cord that unites the country despite the tensions we feel at present—so why not start it up there? Why not start it from Leeds or York? That is what needs doing—and urgently—but of course they will not do that, because everyone knows that the subsidy for that area would be enormous and could not be justified. It can be justified only for the small London-Birmingham stretch where the subsidy will be highest, and it will not benefit ordinary travellers in any sense. It will be subsidised to a massive extent by the taxpayer and, by those businessmen, and others—
Mr Robinson
I know that my hon. Friend has been trying to get in, so I will give way just this once and then I will make progress.
Mark Lazarowicz
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way. Some of his points about where the benefits would flow with high-speed rail are important, but surely what he is assuming is that people would just build the line and there would be stations but nothing else would happen. The whole point is that high-speed rail offers opportunity for much more comprehensive economic planning built around a high-speed rail network. It is not just a high-speed railway and stations on their own; it is part of a much wider approach that is required.
Mr Robinson
I am delighted to hear my hon. Friend talk about economic planning. I think that, sadly, that went out in 1966, when the Labour Government ditched the national plan. Let us be hard-headed and realistic about this. HS2 will have some benefits, and certainly it will help businesses to travel more quickly to London, but that is about all we can say. If I were a Manchester MP I am sure I would be supporting it, but below there it does not make any sense at all.
Julie Hilling
I thank my hon. Friend for giving way, because I want to challenge his view that there is no benefit for Birmingham. I would much prefer the track to start in the north, but the reality is that the capacity issue is on the bottom part of the line and that if we do not do something to free up capacity there—and the bodged bits that people are talking about doing would not be adequate in the future—we will not have local trains running either.
Mr Robinson
I do not accept that at all, and the hon. Lady should look at what Centro and others have said. There is a capacity problem. The Government’s capacity projections are way over the top, just as they were for HS1, which was the biggest flop ever. Their capacity projections said that the minimum would be a fifth of the maximum, but they could not even get the capacity up to that level. It lost money from day one, and it was flogged off recently to someone in Canada who has no interest in it at all, at a whopping loss of £2 billion or £3 billion. That is the truth.
Mr Robinson
I just mention in passing that when I was being selected—those few years ago—
Mr Robinson
I will give way in a moment—no, I will not give way, sorry.
As a prospective Coventry candidate, I was told, “You’ve got to remember one thing, Geoffrey: the only good thing that comes out of Birmingham is the Coventry road”—but I will leave that there.
In all seriousness, with £33 billion of capital expenditure, this is the largest capital project that this country will ever have engaged in. That money could be better spent elsewhere. Dealing with the capacity problems between London and Birmingham and increasing capacity by 47% can be done now. The plans are there; they are shovel ready.
Mr Robinson
It will. Taking a realistic view of capacity, of course it will solve the problem, particularly if we are set back by a 16% output gap, thanks to the recession. Even the Government have had to revise their plans. Does my hon. Friend really believe that we will have more than a 50% increase in capacity in the next 10 years before the project comes in? We need an increase now. We can get 50% by lengthening platforms, without the huge tear-up in London and elsewhere, or the cost that HS2 would involve.
I will mention a few other points that I think are relevant. I happen to agree with those who feel that HS2 would involve the unnecessary tearing up of some of the most beautiful country that we have. This morning, Mr Speaker, your constituents were waxing lyrical about their village. I feel for those who will have their houses smashed and repossessed—all for no good. If we were at war and had to move ammunition, as we probably did in those days, there would be a case for HS2. There is no case now. As I have said, it is not the best way to increase capacity. That could be done in the shorter term and much more cheaply. It will not benefit ordinary people, and it will not help the north-south divide.
Above all—I say this in all seriousness to my colleagues from Manchester, Leeds, York and others who are here today—I fear that the real danger is that the line will not get built up there. They will find that the cost of getting the line to Birmingham will be blown up beyond all the estimates. Everyone will heave a sigh of relief and say, “We don’t have to go on. This is the profitable part.” In all likelihood, that is what will happen.
As for the environment, the hon. Member for South Northamptonshire made it quite clear that even the Government, and now Greengauge and the other lobby action groups in favour—paid by the Government, of course, or by the company itself—have admitted that HS2 will not do anything for the environment. One is at a loss to know why the Government are doing this. The whole cover was blown by the hon. Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Angie Bray), who said that the Government reached a deal to oppose the third runway at Heathrow and have HS2 instead. It was a £30 billion election bribe. Whether or not it won them any seats I do not know, but the cover was blown earlier, in that intervention on the hon. Member for South Northamptonshire.
I put it to the House that I do not think that many hon. Members are in the mood to listen the arguments today. It is perfectly legitimate for them to seek to push their constituency interests, but let us go from legitimate constituency interests to a sane, objective assessment of the problems of the capital project, and the hon. Lady exposed the myths that lie behind that project.