High Speed Rail (Crewe - Manchester) Bill: Committal

Debate between Robert Goodwill and Graham Stringer

Committal (to a Select Committee)
Monday 20th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)]

There are three possible positions to take on the Golborne link. There is the position that my hon. Friend the Member for Makerfield (Yvonne Fovargue) has just put very convincingly that it should still be able to be considered during the passage of the hybrid Bill and that one should be able to petition against it. She made the powerful case in support of it, not just the facility to talk about it.

There is a second case, which the hon. Member for Leigh (James Grundy) made in the previous debate, that there was significant disturbance to his constituents and that on their behalf, which he is completely entitled to do as a constituency MP, he objects to the Golborne link. That is a completely reasonable position to take, although, when it comes to building high-speed lines that are good for a region or the whole country, it is inevitable that there is little immediate benefit for many constituents. It is the nature of high speed that it will go “whoosh” past a lot of places, and people will not be able to get the normal benefit they get from a train service by going to the local station. This is a particularly difficult project for national, and not local, benefit.

[Sir Robert Goodwill]

Is it not the case, though, that by having a high-speed network we will take the pressure off the existing Victorian network and allow more routes for passenger services and particularly for freight, which will help us to reduce our carbon footprint?

[Graham Stringer]

Absolutely right. I was talking about the inconvenience and disamenity there is to a local community. In many cases, they will not be able to get on the high-speed link, because it will have very few stations—if it had a lot of stations, that would defeat the objective of high speed. The hon. Member for Buckingham (Greg Smith) made a strong case against the whole of high speed 2, which, again, he is completely entitled to do. However, a previous Member for Buckinghamshire, Cheryl Gillan, managed to get a great deal of money out of the Government for tunnels under Buckinghamshire, and one point that could be made is that not only are we unable to discuss the link, but we will not be able to discuss amelioration of that route.

I am left with those two cases, put by my hon. Friend the Member for Makerfield and the hon. Member for Leigh. The third case has not been put. We have not heard at all from the Minister about what the alternative is—just that he will have a look at it. That is a strange way for Government to do business. “We have a perfectly good line that will cause some disruption; we will not allow you to talk about it and we will not pursue it, but we don’t know what we’re going to do instead or how much it will cost.” That is not a good way for Government to do business.

I am left thinking that maybe there are other reasons, and I have two suspicions. One is that we suddenly get that change not because of the powers of persuasion of the hon. Member for Leigh, strong as they may be, but because of the desperation of a Prime Minister under pressure, wanting votes from his Back-Benchers before a vote of confidence within the parliamentary Conservative party. That may be over-cynical, although I suspect there is an element of truth to it. The other side of the argument is that this is not a cut of £3 billion that is waiting for another scheme yet to be specified by the Government, but simply a cut.