High-Speed Rail

There is certainly a case for not necessarily starting all the construction work in London and coming north. I do not know whether it should start in Scotland, Warrington or Manchester, but there is a case for going both ways. Let me come back to this timing point. There could be a decade of benefits accruing to Birmingham in inward investment, and a decade of benefits accruing to the west midlands in better links. We are all guilty in this debate of talking about links to London. It is about links not to London but to the continent of Europe through St Pancras. That decade is a worry. Given the current fashion for bringing forward infrastructure projects and the fact that the business case for this project is stronger than that of Crossrail, will the Minister tell us why we are not taking the opportunity to start some of the construction work in the north more quickly? That would take away the problem of the lost decade, which, without wishing to sound as if I lack confidence in our project management abilities, can sometimes turn into a lost decade and a half. Therefore, I am interested in hearing what the Minister has to say about the timing of the project. We also need to pin down some of the existing uncertainties, especially on the north-south dimension. I may be wrong, but I do not think that it has even been accepted for certain that Piccadilly will be the final destination. That needs sorting out, as does the link to the airport. I do not want to become embroiled in the arguments about having a third London airport, but if we have a high-speed link between Manchester airport and Heathrow—a journey of, for example, 60 or 70 minutes, which would not be much slower than the journey to Gatwick—I find it difficult to see how there will not be some impact on, or some marginal benefit to airport congestion in the south. The whole issue of Scotland needs to be sorted out, at least in relation to the north. We have a plan—a business case—and we are beginning to understand where the route will be. However, I also want some assurance about when the route north of Birmingham will be set out, because we can then start to plan and to put in place the sort of local initiatives that we need to make the whole project work. Finally, on local initiatives, I was struck by evidence that the north-west is a little different from Birmingham in terms of shape. Manchester and Leeds sit at the bottom of the north-west, which has a much longer shape, so connectivity matters much more, while Birmingham is more central to the west midlands. The northern hub has been mentioned, as has the need for it to be clearly linked with the whole project. I completely agree with that point, but I also agree with those who have said that we cannot just do nothing until everything is sorted. I am keen to hear assurances from the Minister on those three points.