HS2: Revised Timetable and Budget

Liz Saville Roberts Excerpts

Tuesday 14th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Huw Merriman]

I fear that I am becoming a stuck record. I said that the document has cleared through the desk of the Department for Transport. The entire Government will hear the House loud and clear on its desire to see that published—I certainly do. On investment across the Pennines, like my hon. Friend, I have seen the extraordinary work that has been done, which will be transformative. We are fully geared to investing. I am happy to meet him to discuss that further.

[Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

The Minister comes to the Chamber unable to detail HS2 advantages to either north or south Wales. Not a single inch of HS2 track will be laid in Wales, yet it is considered an England and Wales project. That denies Wales any investment in return. The £20 billion already spent on the biggest white elephant in the Tory circus should have resulted in a £1-billion investment in Wales’s gutted railways. Will the UK Government therefore guarantee that Wales will receive that £1 billion?

[Huw Merriman]

I represent the good people of east Sussex, where not a single mile of track is being laid either. HS2 investment will be spread across the UK. I have deliberately used the figure of 29,000 jobs, because those are jobs across the whole UK. Some 2,500 businesses are working on HS2, most of them small or medium-sized. There are vast impacts for those companies and for the economy. I reiterate that, on funding, the Department for Transport funds Network Rail for England and Wales. That is not the case for Scotland, which has its Barnett consequentials to fund Network Rail. That is the difference between Wales and Scotland.