High Speed Rail (Crewe - Manchester) Bill — House of Commons, 2022-06-20
Topic: Transportation
Christopher Mark Clarkson (Conservative, Centre-right): It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Reading East (Matt Rodda), who made some very interesting and worthwhile points about how HS2 will be delivered and especially on talking to the team behind Crossrail. Crossrail had its own teething problems, as has HS2, so if we can learn some of those lessons, that would be excellent It is also a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Dr Mullan), who made some excellent points. He has been a doughty champion on this issue for a long time, although unfortunately he did misspeak when he said that Crewe and not Heywood should be the home of Great British Railways. I will forgive him I completely understand the concerns expressed by the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne) about the effect of suspending Metrolink. I have been having my own battle to get it to my constituency, so I definitely understand why he does not want it to go anytime soon This is a very timely, some might say slightly overdue, Bill and I welcome it very warmly. For some of us, getting HS2 to Manchester has been a labour of love for well over a decade. I think back to my time in Salford town hall, having these debates and talking about, "Oh, it’s only a couple of years down the track." Of course, then it was a couple more years and then a couple more years, so it is very nice to be here debating this Bill in this Chamber At the heart of the Government’s manifesto at the last general election was the commitment to level up the UK. The Bill is evidence of that commitment. The industrial revolution began in Manchester. It was the world’s first industrial city and it should be at the heart of the next industrial revolution and the industrial revolution after that. Of course, the unspoken truth is that for a very, very long time investment in this country was tilted very heavily towards the south, creating the perverse situation where what was once the cradle of this country’s productivity was dependent on handouts from the part of the country that we dragged kicking and screaming into first the 19th century and then the 20th century. HS2 is an investment in infrastructure that the north of England desperately needs. We are not talking about the old "teach a man to fish" argument. We know how to do that. We basically invented fishing in this scenario. We just want our fishing rod back One of the most spurious arguments against the project is that the time it takes to get from Manchester to London is already a little over two hours and that HS2 will not really make a big difference. That, of course, spectacularly, and often deliberately, misses the point. This is about capacity, not just speed. The demand to do business up north far outpaces our ability to deliver, because we are choked off from the vital infrastructure we need to compete. It is a fact that HS2 will not just enable better north-south connectivity; by doubling capacity between London and Manchester, regional lines will also be freed up for more east-west and local services, too.