Does the Minister not accept that in many areas there is no alternative social rented accommodation to move to, and that, therefore, people will be expected to move from social rented housing to smaller, private rented accommodation, which will end up being more expensive and, therefore, increase the housing benefit bill, not decrease it?

Can we be assured that the transfer of staff from the Department to the CAA will not result in a loss of expertise in the security sector within the Department for Transport?

Under planned housing benefit changes, more than 2,000 of my constituents in social housing are expected to move to accommodation outside the social rented sector. They will be forced to move to smaller, more expensive accommodation in the private rented sector, thereby increasing the housing benefit bill. Is it not about time that the Minister for Housing and Local Government, along with the Department for Work and Pensions, scrapped those ludicrous plans for existing tenants?

Would the term "major redevelopment" be based on the proportion of business rates that were to be lost? If a redevelopment resulted in a small reduction in business rates, that would perhaps not be classed as a major redevelopment, whereas a smaller redevelopment could result in a bigger loss of business rates.

Will the hon. Gentleman say exactly what he defines as a major redevelopment scheme?

Does the hon. Gentleman not accept that most accidents happen during the period of the day that would benefit most from the change in time zones?

Does the Minister agree that no station operator should be allowed to close ticket offices where there are any real concerns about security and safety as a result of creating an unmanned station?

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what assessment she has made of legal advice submitted to her Department by Animal Defenders International on 7 June 2011 on the conformity of a ban on the use of wild animals in circuses with the (a) Human Rights Act 1998 and (b) European Services directive.

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many people were placed in employment through the future jobs fund in each parliamentary constituency since October 2009.

Does the Minister agree that local authorities such as Manchester City council should not be trying to pass on the cost of providing crossing patrols to local schools because schools should be using their additional pupil premium funding to improve educational attainment?

if he will bring forward legislative proposals to require local authorities to provide safety crossing patrols outside schools.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department pursuant to the oral answer to Baroness Parminter of 4 October 2011, Official Report, House of Lords, column 1014, on health: animal testing, what her policy is on the transposition of EU directive 2010/63/EU into UK law.

Before the election, an Opposition MP wrote:

"I share your concern about the potential implications of moving to the European standard of roadworthiness testing. It seems to me that the road safety and environmental costs of moving from annual to biannual testing, and extending the initial period from three to four years, may far outweigh the predicted costs savings."

Given that the right hon. Member for Tatton (Mr Osborne) is now the Chancellor of the Exchequer, will the Secretary

of State hold discussions with him in order to avoid the Government making a fundamental mistake on changes to MOT testing?

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will meet representatives of the learning disability sector to discuss implementation of the steps to provide services for people with a learning disability following the outcome of the Dilnot Commission.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Dorries. I shall be brief to allow others time to contribute. I am particularly pleased to have the opportunity to speak, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard), my colleague on the Transport Committee, on securing the debate.

It is good to see that the subject is the impact of high-speed rail in the north, rather than concerns about its impact on particular constituencies. I am conscious that the debate about high-speed rail has so far been dominated by MPs with understandable concerns about the effect of HS2 on their constituencies and the lives of their constituents. I would not decry any hon. Member for doing their job in representing the interests of their constituents. Any infrastructure project of this size will cause a significant amount of disruption and heartache for the people it affects.

I have personal experience of the issue in my constituency, because of the difficulties with the Metrolink extensions, which the hon. Member for Blackley and Broughton (Graham Stringer) has mentioned. Constituents have understandable concerns about changes to the local infrastructure and the impact of those changes on their lives. I understand why some residents turn against schemes that they support in principle, because of incidents in their area. That is why it is vital that the decisions that are made about the local environment and how it will be protected are clear and transparent to the people most affected on the particular route. No doubt we will have the same issue to contend with when there is more clarity about the exact routes through to the north of England, once the decisions about those routes have been made.

The last time that I took part in a debate on high-speed rail, it was timely because the Transport Committee was about to embark on its inquiry into high-speed rail. By coincidence, this debate comes the day after the Committee took quite some time to discuss the draft report. After listening to all the arguments, both for and against, I am even more convinced of the need to press ahead with high-speed rail to the north and beyond. I have always been a strong supporter of creating a high-speed rail network that connects not only Birmingham and the west midlands but the northern cities of Manchester and Leeds, and Scotland. There is clear evidence that a new network is required to cope with capacity demands in the future, which is the principal argument for supporting high-speed rail to the north.

By pressing ahead with a high-speed rail network, we can ensure sufficient rail capacity for the foreseeable future. Some opponents of high-speed rail have argued that upgrading the existing main line networks would deal with any capacity constraints, but that would only address the problem in the short term. Ultimately, at

some point a high-speed rail network will be necessary. For a change, we are considering long-term need rather than short-term necessity.

Some £10 billion has already been spent on upgrading the west coast main line, but on 1 March this year the new chief executive of Network Rail made it clear that the west coast main line would be at full capacity within six to 10 years. In answering my question, he said that

"the West Coast line, within 10 years at the absolute maximum, and probably six years, will be at capacity, and that is with additional carriages included in the area. We can look at other tactical interventions in that line to put more capacity in there, but in the end it comes down to capacity: we will, across a number of key parts of our network, run out of capacity."

The chief executive of Network Rail is absolutely clear that, even with extra costly improvements, the west coast main line will not have enough capacity to deal with growth in rail travel. We need the high-speed rail network to accommodate future rail travel.

Competing services and franchises are already battling for space on the existing network. We in Manchester are lucky that we have three trains an hour to London-a train every 20 minutes. Due to the success of that franchise, Virgin wanted to extend the service to four trains an hour, but doing so would have adversely affected both local and regional services, and so Virgin's plans were opposed locally. At every review of timetables, certain services lose out. As attempts are made to tweak the timetable to optimise capacity and services, local trains are always the losers. The creation of a high-speed rail network will release significant capacity on the existing network, allowing the expansion of those regional and local services that are completely constrained at the moment by the needs of longer-distance inter-city services.

High-speed rail is about not only improving capacity, but economic benefits. The HS2 business case concluded that phase one to the west midlands would generate £20 billion in economic benefits, and the total benefits for the "y" network to Leeds and Manchester were estimated at £44 billion, including an estimated £6 billion in wider economic impacts. Geoffrey Piper, the chief executive of the North West Business Leadership Team, has argued that HS2 is

"vital for the long term prosperity of the region."

The hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys has rightly mentioned our visit as members of the Transport Committee to France and Germany, where there are clearly big differences in the economic benefits of high-speed rail between different areas. What is certain, however, is that high-speed rail brings economic benefits.

My only word of caution about high-speed rail relates to the potential impact on investment in the classic railway network. The north of England is crying out for investment in the rail network, and we are desperate to see the announcement of funding for the northern hub in the next control period. Opponents of high-speed rail sometimes argue that we should not proceed with the scheme because it will result in a lack of investment in the existing network as all the money is diverted into paying for the high-speed network. That must not happen, and I hope that the Minister can assure us that it will not happen.

The coalition Government have already shown a commitment to investing in rail infrastructure despite the difficult economic times. In Manchester, we all

warmly welcomed the announcement in the Budget of funding for the Ordsall curve-or the Ordsall chord, or whatever people might want to call it. That project will have a dramatic impact on capacity and journey times. The investment in high-speed rail must not come at the expense of investment in the existing rail network. Instead the two must go hand-in-hand to ensure that Manchester and the rest of the north of England reap the full benefits of high-speed rail.

As a fellow member of the Transport Committee I, too, was on the visit to which the hon. Gentleman refers. Although we heard that argument made in Lille, in Frankfurt we heard a counter-argument: the Frankfurt to Cologne line had a significant impact in improving the whole region, not just the two places where there was a station. People argued strongly in Frankfurt that there was a benefit for the whole region between those two areas.

To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change whether he has any plans to reduce the future rate for feed-in tariffs; what timetable he has set for any such reduction; and what the feed-in tariff rate will be in each of the next three years.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many people of working age with a learning disability in each local authority area who are known to social services are in (a) paid full-time, (b) paid part-time, (c) unpaid full-time and (d) unpaid part-time work.

Will the Minister ensure that the revenue raised by pay to stay is ring-fenced for social housing?

To ask the Secretary of State for Health what plans he has to improve access to specialist physiotherapy services for people with rheumatoid arthritis.