High-Speed Rail

My hon. Friend's intervention brings home why all the things we are discussing matter. When I worked in the rail industry and spent a lot of time talking to engineers, I was constantly impressed by their abilities. However, sometimes I think that they forgot, a tiny bit, about the people. We should focus on articulating, as my hon. Friend has just done, issues such as being able to get swiftly to hospital. For people who live in Skelmersdale, having options in the current hard times in the labour market, and being able to get swiftly to the employment centres of Manchester or Liverpool, is crucial. We are not engaged in a dry discussion about the best way to engineer a railway; the discussion matters to our constituents on a daily basis, and my hon. Friend made that point well.