It is an honour to follow the right hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Dame Cheryl Gillan). I too welcome the Minister to her post and wish her very well.
In the UK, we are rightly proud of our status as the birthplace of the railways. However, our rail infrastructure —much of it from the Victorian era—requires significant investment if it is to continue to serve the people of Britain in the 21st century. In our 2017 manifesto, Labour promised to create a national transformation
fund to invest some £250 billion over 10 years, and we remain firmly committed to investing in our nation’s infrastructure.
HS2 represents one of the largest infrastructure projects in Europe. The scheme will provide much needed capacity to support future demand for rail services, and it aims to deliver wider economic benefits to the regions that it serves and beyond. Although very few would argue against those goals, it is crucial that the project is conducted in the right way: by providing jobs and opportunities to our young people, minimising the disruption caused to our communities and protecting our precious environment.
Although I support the HS2 project in principle, I think it is important to focus on a number of issues. London’s economic output is more than double the rest of the UK average. For the country as a whole to prosper, the balance needs to be redressed, not to the detriment of Londoners but for the benefit of all. According to Government figures, when HS2 is fully completed, it will deliver a benefit-cost ratio of 2.3 when wider economic impacts are included. I want to make sure that those benefits are shared by as wide a group as possible, and especially the areas that are directly affected by the construction of the line. Billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money is being spent on this project; that money must benefit more than just the shareholders of a handful of large companies.
Both the Birmingham chamber of commerce in my constituency and the Greater Birmingham and Solihull local enterprise partnership support HS2, recognising the economic benefits that better connectivity will bring. I want Birmingham’s economic output to continue to grow, its people to find well paid, secure and skilled jobs, and the city’s potential to be further recognised as a result of the project. I want to see the construction of HS2 ignite greater interest in engineering among our young people, and apprenticeships to be made available to all young people in our communities, whatever their background.