HS2 Update

I met my hon. Friend the new Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Jack Brereton) today to talk about the need to make sure that there is an HS2 service for Stoke-on-Trent, and I have given him that commitment. [Interruption.] Labour Members may chunter, but I remind them that my hon. Friend has been the transport spokesman for the ruling group on Stoke-on-Trent City Council, so he is eminently well qualified to make this case, and is already doing a first-rate job as representative of the Stoke-on-Trent South constituency. I have been pleased to give him a commitment about the services for Stoke. I am also pleased to give the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell) a commitment that the whole point about HS2 is that it frees up capacity for these extra freight services and extra local passenger services. That is one of the reasons we are doing it.