Sir Alan Haselhurst (Saffron Walden) (Con): In view of the continued drift from north to south, which has been a characteristic of this country for many decades, and which places enormous pressure on services and facilities in constituencies such as mine, should not HS2 be hailed as the most dram

Sir Alan Haselhurst (Saffron Walden) (Con): If I am pressing my right hon.

Sir Alan Haselhurst (Saffron Walden) (Con): I acknowledge that my hon. Friend probably has as deep an attachment to this issue as any other colleague, and many hon. Members have spoken with great knowledge about the issue today.

Sir Alan Haselhurst (Saffron Walden) (Con): Does my hon.

Sir Alan Haselhurst (Saffron Walden) (Con): In the meantime, noting the results announced by the owners of Gatwick airport yesterday, does my right hon. Friend believe that competition is an important element in trying to ease the capacity problems in the London airport system?

Sir Alan Haselhurst (Saffron Walden) (Con): I am grateful for this opportunity to contribute to the debate initiated by my hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel). Infrastructure is probably too grand a word for the transport arrangements in our county.

Sir Alan Haselhurst (Saffron Walden) (Con): Accepting that half a loaf is better than no bread, will my hon.

Sir Alan Haselhurst (Saffron Walden) (Con): Mrs Riordan, you and I are in an unusual position, in that for several years our roles were normally the other way round, but I am delighted to see you occupying the Chair.

Sir Alan Haselhurst (Saffron Walden) (Con): To those who continue to doubt whether, in this time of austerity, we should stick to our eminently worthwhile target, is it not worth pointing out that 99.3% of gross national income will still be available for all other purposes?

Sir Alan Haselhurst (Saffron Walden) (Con): Has my right hon. Friend’s attention been drawn to BAA’s advertisement claiming that the regular train service to Stansted takes 47 minutes, which is not universally correct across the timetable and in any case is too long?