Daniel Zeichner

I was expecting an intervention from the hon. Gentleman because we have discussed this issue before. I absolutely disagree with him, not on some of the points of detail, but on the benefits that railways bring. This is absolutely the right approach, although we can argue about the details. There are people in this room who are more expert than I am on the battery technologies that are now available, which I think will be the solution. Partly due to the hon. Gentleman’s hard work, this whole project came close to being scrapped a few years ago. I remember well that the then Transport Secretary, Grant Shapps, in a famous intervention—possibly by Zoom—gave a thumbs down to the project, which was widely taken to be the end of it at the time. I now have to praise a leading Conservative politician, the then Chancellor, the right hon. Member for Godalming and Ash (Sir Jeremy Hunt), who got the argument about how important this was, not just for the arc but for the wider economy. I remember having a number of coded exchanges with him across the Chamber, and being greatly reassured. So the project survived, much to the disappointment of the hon. Member for North Bedfordshire (Richard Fuller). I was delighted to join the Minister for Rail, Lord Hendy, in Cambridge a couple of weeks ago to unveil the latest stage in the process. It feels that we are getting past the debate about whether it is going to happen and moving on to how we make it happen. To go from concept to action will, of course, take some years yet, but we are building a piece of transport infrastructure that will be transformational. There is so much more to the corridor debate than the rail line. The housing opportunities are significant and the knowledge clusters that are likely to emerge are exciting. There were times when the previous Government seemed enthusiastic. I remember MPs along what was then described as the arc being invited to attend a drop-in at the Minister’s office. I turned up, expecting a healthy queue of people, only to find a slightly bemused Minister, who shall remain nameless, looking amazed that anyone showed up, doing his constituency correspondence. We had a perfectly civilised conversation and I queried who they were thinking of appointing as the recently announced business tsar. It was clear that insufficient preparatory work had been done, because he gently asked if I knew anyone who might interested. I came away fairly convinced that there was a lack of grip associated with the project. Others were more organised. When the project was under threat, the University of Cambridge put on its best Rolls-Royce operation and got involved, with some excellent work from the then pro-vice-chancellor, Andy Neely. That was instrumental in keeping the project alive at a key moment. With others, it then helped to bring together universities along the corridor to pool their efforts. Much more could be said on that, and there are many other players to be acknowledged, but I hope, Sir Jeremy, you get my drift: this has been long in gestation.