High Speed Rail (London-West Midlands) Bill

My Lords, I rise to make a short point following the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Snape. I recently went to the railway museum in Swindon, where I read all about the predictions of disaster for Brunel’s Great Western Railway and the huge opposition to it. In fact, the towns that accepted a station in their centre prospered; those that rejected a station did not prosper as much. We nowadays look on railways as an environmentally friendly way of travelling. I simply want to point out that I do not believe that amendments that question particular aspects of the Bill undermine the Bill; in our case, they are designed to strengthen it. Wanting to monitor the spending of money is a sign that we want the project to succeed. I want to make it absolutely clear that putting down an apparently critical amendment does not mean any lack of support for the concept of the project as a whole. We want it to succeed.