Part of the debate – in the House of Commons am 12:00 am ar 5 Rhagfyr 1973.
The monitoring unit is already there. An elaborate organisation has been set up to take account of expenditure as we go along.
The hon. Gentleman went on to raise the question of electricity sources. These are matters of great difficulty and complexity. I must accept what he said, but they are matters for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry. I shall call them to my right hon. Friend's attention and ensure that the questions are answered.
I was particularly impressed by the full-blooded attack launched by my hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone (Mr. John Wells) on the bogus attitude, as he called it—I would not use such language—of those who oppose this project. He asked me to allay the fears of his constituents who will inevitably be affected by the construction of the project. All I should like to say to them, without the lavish use of adjectives, is that we shall do our best to ensure that people are treated fairly and we shall not turn a deaf ear to complaints and to any point of view which he likes to bring to us. He summed up the whole position of the Channel Tunnel vis-à-vis Kent very well by saying that, if dealt with sympathetically, the project will help his county.
We all enjoyed the speech of the hon. Member for Merioneth (Mr. William Edwards). We sympathised with the double confusion that he felt inflicted on him by the Liberal Party and also by the attitudes of his own party. I am sorry that his speech was not heard by more of his right hon. and hon. Friends, because they would have learned a great deal from his wise remarks. He would have warned them particularly of the danger of parochial judgments and of the feebleness into which we can easily drift if we allow doubts about our capacity as a nation to take root. He chided those who took that view for their failure to realise where they might have got to had they given strong support to the leadership offered by British Railways or the National Union of Railwaymen, from whom on this issue they seem to have cut themselves off.
I am sorry that I shall not be able to answer very fully my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough, West (Mr. Sutcliffe), but I shall endeavour to satisfy him on the questions he asked. I shall also endeavour to do the same for my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham (Mr. Moate), although I think it doubtful that I shall be able to secure from him the enthusiastic support for the project I should like.
The hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Mr. Ogden) said that the Liberal Party had shown its own opinion of its amendment because the Liberal Members withdrew en masse as soon as they had launched the wretched little thing.
The hon. Gentleman raised three points. One related to the people employed in this project. I should like to look into that matter. There is no reason why people should not come from the regions if they want to work on the project. In regard to control of expenditure, I referred a little earlier to the