Posted on 2013-11-04 | 12:41

Speaking in a House of Commons debate last week on the High Speed Rail (Preparation) Bill, Roger once again made clear his opposition to spending ever-increasing amounts of taxpayers’ money on a project of doubtful benefit.

Speaking in the Chamber of the House of Commons, Roger pointed out to the Government that even their own conservative figures for the cost of HS2 are shooting upwards at an alarming rate. The Department for Transport has upped its estimate to £42 billion, and a previous Chancellor of the Exchequer estimated a cost of an astonishing £80 billion before withdrawing his support.

Roger pointed out that big infrastructure projects have a track record of wasting enormous sums of taxpayer’s money, and reminded the Coalition that the millennium dome ended up wasting £600 million. “That is what happens when we go in for a vanity project without proper costings”, Roger commented in his speech.

If HS2 is such a great bargain for the taxpayer and for this country, why is it not being financed by private capital or foreign sovereign wealth funds?

Roger also contrasted the massive investment of public money in HS2 with the Government’s reluctance to finance the UK’s new power stations using public enterprise. “Why is private capital not coming into this project?” asked Roger. “If this is such a great bargain for the taxpayer and for this country, why is it not being financed by private capital or foreign sovereign wealth funds? The Government are no great lover of public enterprise.”

He continued: “The Government are quite happy to have a new generation of nuclear reactors built by a state-owned Chinese company that is answerable to the Chinese politburo, yet this project needs to be paid for with public money. I suspect the reason is quite simple: private capital will not touch it with a bargepole, because those involved know that it cannot be done within the figures that have been talked about. It will go massively over budget and they are not going to pick up the bill.”

Roger concluded by warning that if there is no pull-out figure for this project, then the Government are essentially signing a blank cheque which must be paid by the taxpayer. He said: “If we go along with the Government and costs escalate… what will the pull-out figure be? What will happen if we get half the line built and all of a sudden the figure shoots up to nearly £100 billion? What will we do then? Just continue?”

You can read Roger’s full speech in the debate here.