High Speed Rail (Preparation) Bill

I thank the Secretary of State for giving way and for his generous offer of coming to visit and see the lie of the land in north Staffordshire and east Cheshire. He will appreciate after our meeting that it is difficult for Members from north Staffordshire to support HS2 as it stands because it may very well, on the current modelling, reduce the number of direct trains from Stoke-on-Trent from 31 a day to just three a day. This knock-on issue is relevant to people from Stockport all the way down to Coventry, as he will see from the amendment. What assurances can he give that the west coast main line in the future, after HS2, will not become the ghost train line running a skeleton service, as the projections currently suggest?