Channel Tunnel Rail Link (Supplementary Provisions) Bill

I am sorry. Railtrack caused us nightmares. Network Rail needed to be created and we now have a system that is working well. The Minister pleased me when he said that it would be allowed to bid. I shall be interested in the financial arrangements that will allow it to do so. That is good news. Now that we have High Speed 1, we must develop high speed 2—somebody mentioned high speed 3, but we do not yet have high speed 2—and bring the line from St. Pancras to the north. One or two hon. Members have mentioned that there is some resentment in the rest of the country about the amount of money that has been spent on infrastructure in the London area. The public transport system in London is very good. In my constituency the only alternative to a bus is to walk. I chaired a meeting yesterday on Thameslink, which seems a good idea that will bring benefits not just to London but to the south-east, and Crossrail is to go ahead as well. There is a feeling that the north is being left out. I can become obsessive, as I did in about 1992 about the upgrading of the west coast main line. I am still obsessive, as the Minister will know from our meeting last week. Through the work of colleagues, many others and myself, we now have a railway line on the west coast that we can be proud of. The Government provided £89 billion to upgrade it to my constituency and to yours, Madam Deputy Speaker, but we still need a link from St. Pancras up to the north that will take my constituents and others to the continent, or perhaps to Heathrow. One of the proposals, from Greengauge 21, sets that out. Some comment has been made about the Eddington report. I was part of the Select Committee that questioned Sir Rod Eddington and I pressed him on the need for a high-speed link. Despite the reports in the press that the idea had been discarded, he said that there was a role for a high-speed link and that the planning for it should start now. High Speed 1 is tremendous. The Government and the country can be proud of it. The improvement in St. Pancras is welcome, but we must go beyond that and take those advantages to the north. I shall comment briefly on Stratford. I went there to see the opening of the station. It is a totally different sort of station—it is modern, and it is a credit to those who designed it and to the Government, who funded it. However, as we know from the Olympics plans, it is only seven minutes from St. Pancras, and Eurostar will not want to stop at Stratford. It might make one stop as it comes into Kent and continue to St. Pancras. I am not sure whether the Bill can do anything about that. Will the Minister clarify that? It is a technical Bill and needs to be examined carefully, as the financial implications of getting it wrong could be costly. I return to where I started—the Bill is before us as a result of a successful project which is a credit to the country. I am sure the technical aspects of the Bill will be sorted out and the maximum benefit given back to the taxpayer who, through the Deputy Prime Minister at the time, had to bear the risk at the early stage. I welcome the Bill and I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister has been listening to the calls from all parts of the House for the high-speed link to continue to the north.