:00:42. > :00:45.Good afternoon and welcome to the Daily Politics. As you can see from
:00:45. > :00:49.the new scenery, we have had something of a refreshed over the
:00:49. > :00:55.Christmas holidays. There are critics of the Labour leader who
:00:55. > :00:59.think we should be doing the same thing. Ed Miliband is making a
:00:59. > :01:03.major speech on the economy this morning, about delivering fairness
:01:03. > :01:08.in straitened times. It is definitely not a relaunch, he says.
:01:08. > :01:13.In the words of Gordon Gecko, relaunch is for wimps. Ed Miliband
:01:13. > :01:16.would probably say it is the Prime Minister who has changed his tune,
:01:16. > :01:19.talking about curbing crony capitalism and declaring himself
:01:19. > :01:23.the enemy of excessive boardroom pay.
:01:23. > :01:28.Finally, a decision on high-speed rail. Trains will thunder through
:01:28. > :01:35.the countryside at to 100 mph so we can get from London to Birmingham
:01:35. > :01:40.in 49 minutes flat. -- 200 mph. But is it worth it?
:01:40. > :01:44.In the words of one former Labour minister, Ed Miliband has had a
:01:44. > :01:48.shaky start the 2012. Mutterings within the Labour Party about his
:01:48. > :01:52.leadership keep cropping up in the press. He has sought to get back on
:01:53. > :01:56.the front foot today, by making his first big speech of the year at the
:01:56. > :02:00.Oxo Tower in London. We will come to that in a moment but first of
:02:00. > :02:04.all, let's talk to our guest, Jon Moulton. Thank you for coming on
:02:04. > :02:08.the programme. Everything is about the economy. Ed Miliband has based
:02:08. > :02:12.his relaunch speech about the economy, and so have the other
:02:13. > :02:16.party leaders. How do you see it for the next year? Pretty grim. The
:02:16. > :02:20.most optimistic case is a modest amount of growth and the economy
:02:20. > :02:24.this year and only a modest increase in unemployment. It is
:02:24. > :02:28.very uncertain. It could be much worse than that if the eurozone
:02:28. > :02:31.actually melt down. Do you think we will get through 2012 without more
:02:31. > :02:35.countries going bust and possibly other banks? We have not been
:02:35. > :02:41.allowing them to go bust. But they have gone bust on paper to some
:02:41. > :02:45.extent. And we keep feeding them. Greece is absolutely bankrupt.
:02:45. > :02:50.Arguably Ireland, Portugal, and a few other countries are bust. But
:02:50. > :02:54.we do not actually call them bust. We are rescuing them, feeding them,
:02:54. > :03:00.providing them with surplus cash, often generated by some process of
:03:00. > :03:04.printing it. This is an odd characteristic of the current
:03:04. > :03:10.problem. We have low rates of corporate bankruptcy, we are not
:03:10. > :03:14.allowing companies to go bust, banks to go bust, and countries to
:03:14. > :03:18.go bust. Would you have wanted to see the Royal Bank of Scotland
:03:18. > :03:22.fail? Would you have allowed it to go bust? I would not have liked to
:03:22. > :03:25.see it fail, nobody in their right mind would. Nobody would create
:03:25. > :03:29.such an animal if we cannot take the pain of it going down. I
:03:29. > :03:33.believe we should allow more failure much earlier. It is too
:03:33. > :03:36.late now. Failure now will just make things much worse. You are
:03:36. > :03:42.predicting that if things are going to carry on that way, you would let
:03:42. > :03:46.more bikes go bust, you would allow countries like Greece to go bust? -
:03:46. > :03:52.- more banks. From the viewpoint of a young Greek person, letting the
:03:52. > :03:56.country go bust is probably a good idea, rather than 20 years of no
:03:56. > :04:02.growth, austerity. In a couple of years, at the serious grief, and a
:04:02. > :04:06.faster recovery, that would be the likely outcome. Default is not all
:04:06. > :04:09.bad, it depends where you are sitting. What about the talk now
:04:09. > :04:14.from all the party leaders and the Prime Minister about crony
:04:14. > :04:19.capitalism, excessive boardroom pay? Are they right? Does it need
:04:19. > :04:26.to be tackled? Yes, it does. It went out of control 10 or 15 years
:04:26. > :04:31.ago. Nobody complained about it then. A few people did. Those were
:04:31. > :04:36.the ones that did not get it! I am paid at the same rate as BBC
:04:36. > :04:39.presenters, not well paid at all! will tell you what I get paid
:04:39. > :04:43.later! We will come back to that later.
:04:43. > :04:48.There have been mutterings within the Labour Party about Ed
:04:48. > :04:51.Miliband's leadership in the press. He tried to get back on the front
:04:51. > :04:56.for today by making his first big speech of the year at the Oxo Tower
:04:56. > :05:03.in London. Can he battled the critics swirling around him? He was
:05:03. > :05:07.criticised by Lord Glasman, the founder of the Labour. He said that
:05:07. > :05:11.Mr Miliband had flickered rather than shone and nudged, not led.
:05:11. > :05:15.Other big beasts have also weighed in. Alan Johnson said the public
:05:15. > :05:22.remain suspicious about Labour. Labour is actually ahead in the
:05:22. > :05:26.polls, with an average of 2% lead over the last month. But his
:05:26. > :05:30.approval ratings are poor. One survey over the weekend showed that
:05:30. > :05:33.only 20% of voters thought he was doing a good job as leader. 21%
:05:33. > :05:38.thought the same of Nick Clegg and 44% thought that David Cameron was
:05:38. > :05:42.doing a good job. Can he turn things around? There is evidence
:05:42. > :05:46.that his argument on responsible capitalism is getting across.
:05:46. > :05:49.Indeed, David Cameron has launched his own so-called war on crony
:05:49. > :05:53.capitalism over the weekend. Here is what Ed Miliband had to say a
:05:53. > :05:59.short while ago. When there is less money to spend, fairness starts
:05:59. > :06:04.with how you are treated when you spend the money you have. And we
:06:04. > :06:07.need a big change in the approach from Government, too. When big
:06:07. > :06:12.companies use their dominant position to charge too much, we
:06:12. > :06:17.must not be afraid to intervene. No company that is engaging in
:06:17. > :06:22.predatory behaviour should be too big to challenge. That was Ed
:06:22. > :06:24.Miliband. We are joined now by the Labour MP Tristram Hunt and Michael
:06:24. > :06:29.Fallon, deputy chair of the Conservative Party. Tristram Hunt,
:06:30. > :06:36.first of all, why do only 20% of people believe that Ed Miliband is
:06:36. > :06:38.doing a good job of his role as leader? What he has done
:06:38. > :06:41.successfully is lay out the intellectual terrain. When you
:06:41. > :06:45.think about the squeezed middle of responsibility at the top and
:06:45. > :06:51.bottom, when you look at what David Cameron is now saying about crony
:06:51. > :06:55.capitalism, actually the political train has been set out by its Ed.
:06:55. > :07:01.Our challenge now is to make sure that people say that Ed is the
:07:01. > :07:03.leader. This is a process. We have a five-year fixed Parliament. When
:07:03. > :07:08.you lay down the intellectual foundations, which is what Ed has
:07:08. > :07:12.been doing, then you can make the political capital. At the moment
:07:12. > :07:16.the message is right but not the messenger? The message is right but
:07:16. > :07:19.not the messenger. Not according to the surveys. Don't worry about the
:07:19. > :07:23.surveys that come and go. I am not worried about them. We are not
:07:23. > :07:26.worried about them either. This is a fixed-term parliaments so we have
:07:26. > :07:31.five years to make sure that people get to know Ed and understand that
:07:31. > :07:35.they are on the same side as him. He is laying out the big issues of
:07:35. > :07:38.today, which is about laying out the terms of modern contemporary
:07:38. > :07:42.capitalism and have Government deals with that. So you expect to
:07:42. > :07:45.see an improvement in the opinion polls. Now the intellectual
:07:45. > :07:54.foundations have been made, you think there will be an upturn in
:07:54. > :07:57.the opinion polls. There has not been. Insisting Nancy has not -- in
:07:57. > :08:05.his 16 months there has been no improvement. But you think that
:08:05. > :08:11.will change. Of course. You when politics on the big ideas, which is
:08:11. > :08:17.the message of Thatcher and Tony Blair. On the big issue of economic
:08:17. > :08:20.growth and tackling the deficit, Conservatives have got it wrong. We
:08:20. > :08:24.got it right. We were going to halve the deficit, we were not
:08:24. > :08:30.going to cut of growth and demand. That was the Big Issue and Labour
:08:30. > :08:34.was right on that. Labour was right on that. OK, Ed Miliband has not
:08:34. > :08:37.broken through so far but he will go up in the approval ratings.
:08:37. > :08:42.There is a point when in terms of talking about responsible
:08:42. > :08:48.capitalism, David Cameron has moved into Ed Miliband's ground. Is that
:08:48. > :08:54.true? First of all, this is the six relaunch in 13 months as leader of
:08:54. > :08:59.the Labour Party. He is still denying that there is a deficit
:08:59. > :09:02.problem and there was before the financial crisis erupted. He is not
:09:02. > :09:07.backing the spending cuts that are necessary to deal with that deficit.
:09:07. > :09:12.He is still committed to extra spending. There is nothing new in
:09:12. > :09:18.terms of an intellectual framework, nothing new at all. What I think Ed
:09:18. > :09:23.was very clear about was that the crisis that the British economy
:09:23. > :09:33.faces was not as a result simply of, for example, the first two hospital
:09:33. > :09:34.
:09:34. > :09:37.in Stoke-on-Trent for one and a than 40 years. Lehman -- 140 years.
:09:37. > :09:42.Lehman Brothers did not collapse because we build schools for the
:09:42. > :09:46.future. There was a global financial collapse. There was a
:09:46. > :09:51.deficit and we have been absolutely clear that we did not spend every
:09:51. > :09:54.single pound wisely, necessarily. That was on the margins. The big
:09:54. > :10:03.issue was the global financial crash which we had not seen since
:10:03. > :10:07.the 1930s. The question now is what to do for the next Government.
:10:07. > :10:13.Ed Miliband did say was that if the coalition listened to Labour and
:10:13. > :10:18.cut a little less quickly and less steeply, then suddenly the economy
:10:18. > :10:22.would be transformed. Do you believe that? Let's be clear. We
:10:22. > :10:26.left a growing economy, falling unemployment. Is Ed Miliband trying
:10:26. > :10:32.to convince everybody? We know that Labour would make cuts. You have
:10:32. > :10:38.admitted it. Also, we would not been wasting money on a massive NHS
:10:38. > :10:42.reorganisation. Referendums that people do not want. We would be
:10:42. > :10:50.spending taxpayers' money wisely which this Government is not doing.
:10:50. > :10:55.What would you be cutting? Defence. Legal aid. Welfare reform. Winter
:10:55. > :10:59.fuel allowance. We could go on and on. Welfare reform, what would you
:10:59. > :11:04.have cut? You voted against the bill for welfare reform. You voted
:11:04. > :11:11.against our cuts, did you not? have our own process of welfare
:11:11. > :11:15.reform but we are absolutely clear that there would be cuts there. The
:11:15. > :11:18.big issue here is that you do not get rid of the deficit by the
:11:18. > :11:22.narrow little cards that you are thinking of. You get rid of the
:11:22. > :11:26.deficit by economic growth. This Government has cut off economic
:11:26. > :11:33.growth. You should not be in the studio, you should be out there
:11:33. > :11:39.creating wealth. I am not sitting where you are, collecting my index-
:11:39. > :11:46.linked pension in due course. That may be a fatuous point. Let him
:11:46. > :11:51.make his point. The level of cuts that we actually need are much
:11:51. > :11:55.greater. You are putting debt into the economy. That debt has to be
:11:55. > :12:01.serviced by the people that come after you. Which is as a waste of
:12:01. > :12:05.money. It is immensely immoral. By stacking up the debt, you reduce
:12:05. > :12:10.future growth at the expense of the current. It is wrong to think that
:12:10. > :12:14.you get rid of it by salami sliced cuts. You get rid of it by economic
:12:14. > :12:23.growth. That is what the Labour Party is about, getting people back
:12:23. > :12:27.into jobs. You can pray for growth. With the public sector making up
:12:27. > :12:32.50% of the economy, growth is quite unlikely. That is the history,
:12:32. > :12:38.observed economic fact. You would grow the public sector beyond 50%.
:12:38. > :12:48.Economy would grow more slowly. We would end up even weaker. Why do
:12:48. > :12:50.
:12:50. > :13:00.you think we would grow the public sector by 50%? You have set up some
:13:00. > :13:00.
:13:00. > :13:07.cuts, but not with much detail. Why come back to this point, whatever
:13:07. > :13:11.you are saying is not cutting through. Why not? As the Labour
:13:11. > :13:19.Party, the Labour movement, we need to get on the front for it to show
:13:19. > :13:22.whether his Government is wasting money. -- front foot. You have
:13:22. > :13:27.spelt out 1 billion of cuts in defence and in policing. Why not
:13:27. > :13:31.spell out the rest? We have spelt out more than that. You have sat
:13:31. > :13:39.through many years of opposition. The point is to hold the executive
:13:39. > :13:42.to account. It is not to turn up on a programme like this and...
:13:43. > :13:48.are laying out the intellectual background. The can do that on this
:13:48. > :13:51.programme or anywhere as far as I am concerned. We are not doing a
:13:51. > :13:55.line-by-line assertion. The fundamental point of getting rid of
:13:55. > :13:59.the deficit is using economic growth. This Government has no plan
:13:59. > :14:03.for growth. We left a growing economy and falling unemployment.
:14:03. > :14:13.We have heard that. You will hear more of it. I am sure we will over
:14:13. > :14:18.
:14:18. > :14:22.the next for years. It would Labour -- four years. In terms of trust in
:14:22. > :14:25.the economy, the public still trust David Cameron and George Osborne
:14:25. > :14:30.more. That would not be the case of any of what you have said so far
:14:30. > :14:34.was believed by the public. We were in office when a major economic
:14:34. > :14:40.hurricane hit the British economy. All right. The let me answer the
:14:41. > :14:48.question. Go on. In the public mind we are associated with that, fairly
:14:48. > :14:54.or unfairly, and fairly in my view. We have to work extra hard to set
:14:54. > :15:00.out our plans for cutting the deficit and encouraging growth.
:15:00. > :15:05.That was in 2007. You did not look at it until 2001. There is a view
:15:05. > :15:10.which says who cares where Ed Miliband is? If people still decide
:15:10. > :15:18.to vote Labour, two points ahead is enough if it is translated into
:15:18. > :15:23.seats at the general election. The Tories they to be 11 -- need to be
:15:23. > :15:28.11 points ahead. Putting is not popular, of course. You have not
:15:28. > :15:32.answered my question. When it comes to an election, at the moment
:15:32. > :15:42.Labour would still have a good chance, looking at the points, all
:15:42. > :15:47.of a majority. They are closer to There would not be relaunch if they
:15:47. > :15:53.thought they were in a winning position. We are the ones doing the
:15:53. > :15:58.work and taking the tough decisions. They are the wrong decisions.
:15:58. > :16:02.are not. You know Alistair Darling would have had to cut. If you do
:16:02. > :16:05.not think Ed Miliband is laying out that framework, why are you talking
:16:05. > :16:13.about crony capitalism and excessive boardroom pay, things Ed
:16:13. > :16:18.Miliband set out a while ago? Cameron's first speech seven years
:16:18. > :16:23.ago was on a moral capitalism. We have been introducing proposals for
:16:23. > :16:27.more competition and proposals on excessive pay. They could have done
:16:27. > :16:32.this in government. So it is the "economy, stupid", and
:16:32. > :16:36.who can run it that defines the political battles ahead. That is
:16:36. > :16:40.Babbs why we have heard both sides aggressively staking out who can
:16:40. > :16:44.reform capitalism. Giles has been talking to the MP who coined the
:16:44. > :16:47.phrase crony capitalism to find out what went wrong.
:16:47. > :16:51.To all three years ago, when it became clear the scale of the
:16:51. > :16:56.credit crunch debt crisis, our entire financial situation, there
:16:56. > :16:59.was a lot of anger about at those greedy beggars who had stolen our
:16:59. > :17:05.future, the bankers who gambled our money and then begged to be bailed
:17:05. > :17:12.out. But there was also a deeper concern that this was a failure not
:17:12. > :17:15.just of the market and capitalism, but -- but of capitalism itself.
:17:15. > :17:19.But today politicians are not talking about the solution being
:17:19. > :17:22.the scrapping of capitalism. Both Labour and the Conservatives think
:17:22. > :17:26.it should just be better. But how did they get there, and are they
:17:26. > :17:30.talking about the same thing? Capitalism is the greatest force
:17:30. > :17:35.for economic development and wealth-creation that has ever been
:17:35. > :17:40.developed. It is the strongest form of social advance that has ever
:17:40. > :17:44.been created, and it is a moral institution because it relies on
:17:45. > :17:48.trust. But trust me, most of those who do not trade millions, what the
:17:48. > :17:51.electronic exchanges and inhabit the plate glass cathedrals of
:17:51. > :17:55.financial Commerce think it is an ugly idea made a peer by bonuses
:17:55. > :17:59.and reward packages that would embarrass a footballer. What
:17:59. > :18:04.happened over the last ten years is that this country has slipped into
:18:04. > :18:08.what I call a kind of crony capitalism, which is not real. It
:18:08. > :18:12.is not about a day's work for a day's pay and taking real risks
:18:12. > :18:16.with your money, it is about using other people's money to play the
:18:16. > :18:22.financial markets and taking a lot of the gains for yourself. That is
:18:22. > :18:26.the kind of crony capitalism we are talking about. To reform that,
:18:27. > :18:30.don't you then have to regulate it, which is presumably what a free
:18:30. > :18:36.enterprise group of Conservatives does not like? There are different
:18:36. > :18:40.kinds of free enterprise. The kind I am advocating is not devil take
:18:40. > :18:45.the hindmost social Darwinism, libertarianism, no rules and lace a
:18:45. > :18:49.fair, it is properly governed markets to produce specific things,
:18:49. > :18:53.and people acting according to respect and trust and institutions
:18:53. > :18:58.that discharge their duties, governed by institutions like the
:18:58. > :19:02.Treasury and Bank of England. so much of modern politics, that
:19:02. > :19:06.all seems a reflection on less of a clash of ideals, but a perspective
:19:06. > :19:10.over the management of the same ground. I disagree. There is
:19:10. > :19:14.something different going on here. We do not know what Labour mean
:19:14. > :19:17.when they talk about predators first as producers, but we assume
:19:17. > :19:22.it means more state intervention and socialisation of these things.
:19:22. > :19:25.I think that is not right. We should set up efficient
:19:25. > :19:29.institutions to crack down on things like pay, but through
:19:29. > :19:33.corporate governance, not necessarily legislation.
:19:33. > :19:39.Jon Moulton is still with us. Don't we have corporate governance now? I
:19:39. > :19:43.do not understand the difference. It is quite bizarre. Executive pay
:19:43. > :19:50.started to roar out of control in the public world when we introduced
:19:50. > :19:53.remuneration committees. The arrival of corporate governance
:19:53. > :19:55.resulted actually in the acceleration of executive pay.
:19:55. > :20:01.Isn't that because the wrong people sit on those remuneration
:20:01. > :20:05.committees? Partly, and also because having set up remuneration,
:20:05. > :20:09.they also had to come up with policies, so most of them set up a
:20:09. > :20:14.policy saying, we will be in the top half of the industry, and then
:20:14. > :20:16.they just let go for each other. But isn't it because it is the
:20:17. > :20:23.chairmen and chief executives giving each other the same sort of
:20:23. > :20:29.pace? That is only part of the issue. Nobody wants to inflict pain
:20:29. > :20:37.or be an unpopular member of the board by saying the CEO is overpaid.
:20:37. > :20:40.The whole structure does not work very well. You need to have
:20:40. > :20:47.institutions with teeth. I am in favour of getting more shareholder
:20:47. > :20:51.power. But there has always been shareholder power, and the evidence
:20:51. > :20:55.shows that shareholders have rarely turned down pay packages of their
:20:55. > :21:01.top executives. So why would that change? They have rarely had the
:21:01. > :21:10.opportunity of voting on them. Only in the last year or two have they
:21:10. > :21:14.been given a non-binding vote on the remuneration committees'
:21:14. > :21:18.proposals. The contracts are already in place. As an institution,
:21:18. > :21:24.you have to sit there and say, we have to tell the CEO he has to have
:21:24. > :21:27.his salary reduced. It is not easy. Predators and producers - do you
:21:27. > :21:31.think Ed Miliband was talking about you? He might have been, but he
:21:31. > :21:35.does not know the difference. The now, in 14 years' time, you
:21:35. > :21:38.should be able to travel from Birmingham to London in under 50
:21:38. > :21:42.minutes, because the Transport Secretary Justine Greening, who
:21:42. > :21:45.says she is following in the footsteps of Victorian railway
:21:45. > :21:50.pioneers, has given the high-speed rail link the green light. The
:21:50. > :21:54.Government says the project will cost over �32 billion and deliver
:21:54. > :21:58.economic benefits worth �44 billion. But the claims have been disputed
:21:58. > :22:02.by opponents of the link. One of those opponents is Martin Tett,
:22:02. > :22:05.leader of Buckinghamshire County Council. He joins me from Great
:22:05. > :22:10.Missenden in the Chiltern Hills, one of the areas likely to be
:22:10. > :22:18.affected by the high-speed rail line. Are you going to take Justine
:22:18. > :22:22.Greening to court over her decision to give a chest to the go-ahead? --
:22:22. > :22:27.HS two? Before you get on two issues about taking anyone to court,
:22:27. > :22:30.we will have to look at the decision and understand the detail.
:22:30. > :22:34.We are used to take in controversial decisions as local
:22:34. > :22:37.authorities. If there was a good business case behind this, we would
:22:37. > :22:40.not have too many grounds for opposing it. But both our experts
:22:40. > :22:44.and virtually every independent analyst who has looked at this
:22:44. > :22:48.agrees that this is a flawed business case that does not deliver
:22:48. > :22:52.good value for money in terms of what will be in excess of �32
:22:52. > :22:59.billion worth of public expenditure. At a time of austerity, we have to
:22:59. > :23:03.make sure this is justified. Andrew Adonis said on the radio this
:23:03. > :23:07.morning - the whole business case rests on the fact that could every
:23:07. > :23:12.minute spent on a train by a businessman is wasted. That does
:23:12. > :23:16.not stack up in an era of iPods and iPhones and mobile phones. It is a
:23:16. > :23:20.flawed business case and there are better alternatives. Andrew Adonis
:23:20. > :23:25.is here and we will ask him about that in a moment. But it sounds as
:23:26. > :23:32.if you are planning to go to court over this decision? I did not say
:23:32. > :23:39.that. We will listen to what has been said and take advice from
:23:39. > :23:41.legal and technical experts. A lot will depend on the detail. There
:23:41. > :23:45.were 55,000 respondents to this public consultation that was
:23:45. > :23:49.carried out. What were the results of that consultation? The
:23:49. > :23:53.Government places a lot of store by localism and listening to people.
:23:53. > :23:57.What was said by those people? Where is that within the document
:23:57. > :24:01.that has been published today? We would like to see how the
:24:01. > :24:04.Government has responded to those concerns. The government would say
:24:04. > :24:11.they have listened to those concerns by delaying his
:24:11. > :24:15.announcement. By about a month? That is not listening to concerns.
:24:15. > :24:19.Andrew this morning was arguing that there is no alternative to
:24:19. > :24:22.this. If the business case falls away and you do not accept that
:24:22. > :24:27.people do not work on trains, the only other argument is about
:24:28. > :24:34.capacity. We have shown that you can meet all of it past the growth
:24:34. > :24:39.that is required by upgrading the existing line. This is a much less
:24:39. > :24:43.expensive, better value for money way of upgrading the existing line.
:24:43. > :24:47.You can then invest in the road and rail infrastructure around the
:24:47. > :24:52.entire country, in the north-east, the north of England, Wales and
:24:52. > :24:57.Scotland, which is what we need to generate jobs and economic growth.
:24:57. > :25:01.Andrew Adonis, a former Labour transport secretary who announced
:25:01. > :25:05.the original plans for a second high-speed rail line, the business
:25:05. > :25:09.case does not stack up? understand what Martis signed on
:25:09. > :25:13.behalf of Buckinghamshire. The international rule of high-speed
:25:13. > :25:18.rail is that everybody wants the stations, and nobody wants the line.
:25:18. > :25:23.But the line has to go somewhere. It is no surprise that Martin is
:25:23. > :25:26.opposing it in defence of the Chilterns. Concentrating on the
:25:26. > :25:30.business case, he says it does not stack up and that the amount of
:25:30. > :25:34.money that would be made would not be as great as the Government says.
:25:34. > :25:38.The facts are clear. To provide two-thirds of the capacity which
:25:38. > :25:43.this train line provides, two thirds would cost more in cash
:25:43. > :25:48.terms than building this line. It is inconceivable that we will not
:25:48. > :25:53.need that capacity over the next generation. So we face a choice.
:25:53. > :25:59.You can do patch and mend, and we could get through the next 10 or 15
:25:59. > :26:03.years by changing here and there. But if you want to put right this
:26:03. > :26:08.issue of capacity between the two largest conurbations in England,
:26:08. > :26:12.London and the West Midlands, you have to either do a repeat of the
:26:12. > :26:16.�10 billion upgrade of the West Coast Main Line, which produced
:26:16. > :26:20.chronic disruption for ten years and still did not sort out the
:26:20. > :26:24.capacity demands that will be required, or you do what every
:26:24. > :26:27.other developed country in Europe and Asia is doing, which is to
:26:27. > :26:31.build state-of-the-art infrastructure and modern
:26:31. > :26:35.technology which will put in place the capacity required for the next
:26:35. > :26:42.generation. Taking the capacity issue, that is a strong case by
:26:42. > :26:46.Andrew Adonis, that purely looking at capacity, there is a sealed case
:26:46. > :26:56.for this train line to go ahead. Patch and mend would cost a fortune.
:26:56. > :27:11.
:27:11. > :27:17.I have read all this stuff. I do I do not find the arguments about
:27:17. > :27:24.capacity compelling. It looks like an reasonable assumptions you get
:27:25. > :27:34.through at least 20 years without getting to the train line router.
:27:34. > :27:38.We have to do something in that period. We do not need to look at a
:27:38. > :27:48.crystal ball here. We have just spent �10 billion upgrading the
:27:48. > :27:49.
:27:49. > :27:57.West Coast main line. You are doing open heart surgery on a Victorian
:27:57. > :28:07.railway. We would be doing the same if we went down this patch and mend
:28:07. > :28:12.
:28:12. > :28:22.route. But you are guessing. Estimates are always out by a
:28:22. > :28:23.
:28:23. > :28:27.bloody mile. We can be sure that just one patch and mend will cost
:28:27. > :28:33.many billions of pounds. That is before you get to any of the
:28:33. > :28:39.additional requirements. Do you really feel that it will be built?
:28:39. > :28:43.It will be built. The question is whether it is built in the 2020s or
:28:43. > :28:48.the 2040s. It would be better sooner rather than later. That is