Orders of the Day — Channel Tunnel Bill

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons am 12:00 am ar 5 Rhagfyr 1973.

Danfonwch hysbysiad imi am ddadleuon fel hyn

Photo of Mr Fred Mulley Mr Fred Mulley , Sheffield Park 12:00, 5 Rhagfyr 1973

The House has had the subject of the proposed Channel Tunnel before it three times within a very limited period of parliamentary time, and it is perhaps inevitable that we should go over some of the old ground again. However, that is in sharp contrast to the extremely limited parliamentary opportunity to discuss the matter before firm decisions were taken, because this Bill is carrying us—as I accept it inevitably must—very much further than the decisions which we took on any of the previous occasions.

Indeed, in the first—and, in many ways, the most decisive—debate on the White Paper the Secretary of State said that he was really inviting the House only to approve a tunnel in principle. The Channel Tunnel (Initial Finance) Act that followed was limited to endorsement of phase 2—we seem unable to escape this phase 1, phase 2 and phase 3 terminology, which appears to be fashionable in parliamentary draftsmen's circles—and authorised the expenditure of £30 on the necessary exploratory investigation. I apologise for my mistake, because I should have said £30 million. I should be very much happier if the correct figure were £30, but I appreciate that that would be rather too much to ask.

That tempts me to tell a story which the House may already have heard. When the project was first talked about many years ago, a miner called at the Ministry and offered his services to construct the tunnel. He was asked how he would go about it, and he replied "I will start at one end and my son will start at the other end". They then said to him "Ah, yes. But suppose you do not meet in the middle." He replied, "Well, that is really our worry. You should not worry at all, because if that happened you would get two tunnels for the price of one." So perhaps in those days the tunnel could be thought of in rather smaller terms.

Today we are asked to take decisions, and, in a sense, we are taking the decision to go on to the final and definitive stage of the construction of the tunnel, because that is the subject matter of the Bill which we are now considering. As the Under-Secretary very fairly said, if this Bill is passed the treaty will be ratified, and, while on the one hand, theoretically, we are committed only to the end of phase 2 in the middle of 1975, I should have thought that if the whole apparatus involved in this Bill were set into operation it would be extremely difficult, no matter what may be the out-turn of the considerations in phase 2, to go back on the completion of the whole enterprise, which I gather from the concluding words of the Under-Secretary is what the Government have in mind. However, we are extremely grateful to the hon. Gentleman for the painstaking and full account of the various clauses of the Bill.

But I must say why the Opposition cannot support the Bill, and why I shall invite my right hon. and hon. Friends to support the reasoned amendment, if it is moved, and why, if that is not carried, I shall invite them to vote against the Second Reading of the Bill. We shall do so, quite simply, because we are not satisfied that the case has been made out for this tunnel. We are not any more debating the desirability of a Channel Tunnel—if we ever were. We are asked to approve the particular variant set out in very great detail in the White Paper, and now supplemented in further detail by the provisions of the Bill now before us.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Grimsby (Mr. Crosland) set out in his speech on 25th October the broad philosophy which brings the Opposition to their point of view. I would say on his behalf that he will be extremely grateful for the kind remarks made about his health by the Under-Secretary. I understand that he is making good progress and hopes to be back in the House next week. Certainly, but for his indisposition he would be here for this debate today