Member

Noble Lords will understand, therefore, that I share the doubts and scepticism of my noble friend Lord Harper as to whether this project can be financed purely on that basis. Bear in mind that there is the HS2 problem, whereby £49 billion is just a starting figure. Our anxiety is that this project gets a certain way and the Government become implicated in it because it becomes a policy to deliver it. Then, as the project stumbles on, the Government are drawn into having to finance it.