I am interested to hear that he is a considerable financial contributor to my party. I was not aware that we had any.

I accept, of course, that freight traffic is increasing. What I am saying is that it will increase still further if the terminal at Cheriton is built. We are saying that a rail-only link would help not to reduce the amount of freight traffic necessarily but certainly to slow down the inevitable increase in this freight traffic.

I return to the point that I was making before that rather lengthy intervention. It seems to us that for environmental, economic and numerous other reasons a rail-only link is the best alternative. We think that it can be seen as part of a national transport policy to which the hon. Member for Edinburgh, North referred and as an excellent opportunity for reinvigorating the British Railways system, which I believe the Minister now favours.

Finally, I turn to another point made by the hon. Member for Edinburgh, North. We believe that there should be the fullest possible public participation in the planning of this scheme, and I stress the word "public". When I last spoke on this subject a number of Government supporters insisted that there had been considerable consultation, participation and so on. Since that debate numerous people have written to me from Kent—not all of them Liberals—saying that there has been little public consultation in the planning of the scheme and that they have found it extremely difficult to get information in terms which they can understand. I am told that they have had very little opportunity to make known their views and to question the assumptions being made and the figures being produced. I am not convinced that this problem will be dealt with adequately by the Select Committee which the Government have appointed. It will accept objections from people directly affected by the scheme, but it will give no opportunity to people not directly affected by it to express their views and reservations and to question all the assumptions and figures produced by the Government. For that reason I still believe that an independent inquiry is necessary.

When we last debated the matter, I recall the Minister saying that he felt this to be unnecessary and not in the national interest. Perhaps the Minister is guilty of equating the national interest with the Governments' interest. They are not the same.

For all these reasons, my colleagues and I and, I am pleased to hear, Opposition Members will be going into the Division Lobby tonight to decline to give the Bill a Second Reading.