High Speed 2

My right hon. Friend has been a good friend since 1992 and a doughty fighter on this particular campaign. On the point that she just made, is she also aware that many people in the midlands, while having to put up with HS2 crashing through their constituencies and countryside, were at least offered the chance of going to a railway station, say, in Birmingham in the morning and waking up in the afternoon in Paris or Lille? However, not only does it not connect with London in the way in which we thought, but it does not even connect with the channel tunnel.