I hear my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown). It has just occurred to me that if HS2 did that and it went to Stratford, the most famous Englishman of all time might have ended up in a different Stratford from the one in which he was born and brought up. I think that would be a welcome move. I would ask anyone who thinks that we are going to see successful use of a travelator between Euston and St Pancras quite where this “covered way” is to be constructed. The proposal has been suggested about 25 times in the past and it has always been rejected as absolutely loopy.
Going back to the original proposition for the channel tunnel to come into King’s Cross, I remember moving an amendment to the effect that provision should be made to go from King’s Cross to the west midlands, but it was duly voted down. I have always been in favour of having proper connections. When the preposterous idea of placing a travelator along Euston road was proposed, it was received with mockery and derision then and it is still being received with mockery and derision now. The only way to avoid using Euston road would be to demolish even more houses in my constituency or to drill a hole through the British Library or through the Francis Crick Institute that is currently being constructed. I find it most extraordinary that some people think that a satisfactory link can be constructed.
I have noticed that the great hero of the hour is Sir David Higgins, so we are told that because he suggested the proposal, it must be a good idea. He suggested that the delay would be no more than that we
experience when we have to go from one terminal building at Heathrow to another one. They are not quite the same. Not much rain falls on people when they travel from terminal 4 to terminal 1 at Heathrow, but Euston road really can get pretty wet. I thus very much support the spirit of the amendment proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston, but I could not bear to support it in full because it still includes the possibility of facilitating
“the provision at a later date of the spur”,
which has rightly been abandoned.
On all these issues, I urge the new Minister to bear in mind that every time local people—and me in trying to represent them—criticised the link and every time we criticised the design for Euston, we were treated, frankly, with contempt. Now the contemptibles have turned out to be right, yet the people who treated us with contempt are now being asked to come up with alternatives to meet the requirements that everyone thinks are needed. The Minister needs to keep an eye on them: if they are the same people, the chances of them getting it right now are no better than the chances of them getting it right before.
My final point is this. The original proposal for Euston was to cost £1.2 billion. Eight months later, before anybody had done a trial bore or anything, the project came up with a revised costing of £2 billion. That is why the Minister needs to be very careful in entrusting the future of this project to people who can get a costing for a station £0.8 billion wrong and have to correct themselves within eight months. I offer friendly advice to a fellow Yorkshireman: “Have a good look at ’em, mate; have a good look at ’em.”
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