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Mr. Snape: Will my hon. Friend give way?
Mr. Sedgemore: No. My hon. Friend made a long speech and I need to be short.
Mr. Snape: I wanted to answer some of my hon. Friend's questions.
Mr. Sedgemore: I have met that one before.
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael J. Martin): Order.
Mr. Sedgemore: My hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich, East (Mr. Snape) is getting a bit excited. I know that he is a railway buff and I am keen on railway lines too, but that is no reason for him to think that the lives of people in south Hackney should be destroyed or not properly considered in this House.
Mr. Snape: Will my hon. Friend give way?
Mr. Sedgemore: The hon. Gentleman's hon. Friend will not give way.
The environmental statement does not even consider the effects of the extra traffic on Hackney residents. That is appalling. Worse, it makes no attempt to justify the assumptions used and provides no explanation of how the predicted traffic flow has been derived from those assumptions. There are six people sitting up there. Perhaps they can advise the Minister as to the answers to those questions and explain why assumptions have been made without justification.
Mr. Deputy Speaker:
Order. The hon. Gentleman should know that the only people present here are right hon. and hon. Members.
Mr. Sedgemore:
You are quite right, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I used to sit up there when I worked in urban planning. That is why I am so excited about the issue.
Mr. Snape:
My hon. Friend made a great success of it, too.
Mr. Sedgemore:
Actually, I worked in that Department under a Conservative Government.
It would have been possible to make a number of different assumptions about traffic flow. I can think of at least five. First, there could be more car trips from the west, particularly central London. Secondly, there could be more than nine international trains a day and three trains per hour using the station. Thirdly, more than 50 per cent. of international train passengers might use the station. Fourthly, more than 40 per cent. of international passengers might travel by road and fifthly, more domestic passengers than expected might travel by road. Variation in one or more of those assumptions could change significantly the predicted traffic flows. In fact, the environmental statement makes no reference to any of those possible variations.
Worse, the current proposals make no predictions as to the traffic flows that will result from the associated private developments. That leaves a gigantic black hole in the environmental statement, which refers to very small figures and makes no attempt to justify the assumptions it makes, but when one also considers the private developments and the cars travelling not through Newham, but through Hackney, it is clear that a miserable hell will be created for the people of south Hackney if the associated developments are sufficiently successful for the Minister to claim significant job creation.
I shall not oppose the order, but I believe that the public inquiry should closely examine 10 factors. First is the lack of explanation for the assumptions and conclusions used in the environmental statement concerning traffic and transport. Second is the proposed compulsory acquisition of part of Waterden road. Third is the consequential need to improve the rest of Waterden road up to the Lea interchange and the M11 link. Fourth is the loss of allotments with no compensating proposal for their replacement, on the grounds that such loss of open space cannot be justified without replacement elsewhere.
Fifth--a number of hon. Members have referred to it--is the possible need for additional works on the north London line in the vicinity of the connection and Camden
Road station to ensure that international services do not interfere with the operation or expansion of local services to and from Hackney and vice versa.
Sixth is the desirability of ensuring that the proposals for the station allow for the addition of a new surface station on the existing line across the Stratford railway lands to serve their development and the channel tunnel rail link station and further their accessibility by and the promotion of the use of public transport.
Seventh is the desirability of an additional access road from the surrounding road network to the station to enable it to be better served by public road transport, particularly buses. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich, East for mentioning that.
Eighth is the possible need to limit or reduce the size of the station car parks to discourage travel to the station by road and to encourage access by public transport, but I fear that the hon. Member for Eastleigh has given the game away. The car maniacs are always there and they always win.
Ninth, the gradient of the channel tunnel rail link west of Stratford station should be examined on the grounds that it inhibits the nominated undertaker in fully meeting the undertaking given to Hackney council in the other place concerning the depth of the tunnel beneath Trowbridge estate.
Mr. Andrew Rowe (Faversham and Mid-Kent):
Coming from a party that has no understanding of internal disputes, I listened with astonishment to the contest that was developing during the speech of the hon. Member for Hackney, South and Shoreditch (Mr. Sedgemore). I found it significant that, at that moment, the Minister for sport entered the Chamber, no doubt looking for some gladiatorial contest. I hope that he was not disappointed.
I must be one of the two longest-serving members of the group that wanted a station at Stratford. It may be surprising to some hon. Members to learn that I first became interested in Stratford when I was trying to persuade British Rail that the channel tunnel rail link should have been on a different route from the one that was finally chosen, and that Stratford was a manifestly sensible place for a station.
British Rail and its successor, Union Rail, had a wonderful preoccupation with what they both termed an aeroplane on wheels. They felt that any stop between terminuses was a total economic disaster and the idea that trains might pick up passengers was an aberration. I am pleased that, over the long years during which the project has been coming to fruition, there has been a change in the undertaker, which has moved from thinking that passengers who got on anywhere other than the starting point were a nuisance to at least giving the impression that passengers should be picked up at several places. That is progress indeed.
It is my first chance to welcome the Under-Secretary to her responsibilities, and I do so gladly. I very much hope that her Government will continue the work of the
previous Government in trying to ensure that projects of such a size progress rather faster. This one is doing all right. So far, it will have taken only 17 years to reach its projected final date, but the amount of grief that such a time scale causes to large numbers of our constituents while decisions are taken and the blight settles is intolerable. I hope that we can re-establish the all-party parliamentary group on blight, as we were beginning to make progress towards relieving that burden.
I received the information about the order about two days before I saw the newspaper reports that London and Continental Railways' takings from Eurostar were so poor that the company was likely to defer any works and was certainly deferring its flotation. That worried me considerably, so I got in touch with the company.
Yesterday, I had a long meeting with its representatives, who gave me firm assurances that the company is on track for flotation next year. They were confident of finishing the line and making it operational by 2003. They told me that revenue from the Eurostar services, although somewhat disrupted by a French strike two Christmases ago and by the fire in the tunnel last Christmas, are nevertheless sufficient to give them the confidence to go ahead. I wanted to spell that out, as it would be a betrayal of everyone along the route and everyone affected by the proposal if London and Continental Railways was unable to honour those pledges. It gave them to me in the most firm manner.
One of the great advantages of Stratford is that it will allow international passengers to be carried from one end of the United Kingdom into mainland Europe much more effectively than under previous plans. That is admirable. What bothers me a little is that the promoters say that the channel tunnel link will free up capacity on commuter routes. I was gently derided by Conservative Ministers for many years for suggesting that one day the pattern of commuting would change. I cannot believe that the information technology revolution will not eventually have a dramatic effect on patterns of travel to work.
It is interesting that, after those years of derision, British Telecom at least has thought it worth spending a large sum of money on an advertising campaign that points out that it can now provide offices at home for people who currently commute, thereby allowing people to commute either much less often or not at all. I hope that the Government are taking seriously that possibility.
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