High Speed Rail (London-West Midlands) Bill
Tuesday 10th January 2017
(7 years, 11 months ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 83-II Second marshalled list for Grand Committee (PDF, 154KB) - (10 Jan 2017)
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Geddes) (Con)
My Lords, it is now 3.30 pm and, as is usual at this time, I must advise the Grand Committee that if there is a Division in the Chamber while we are sitting the Committee will adjourn as soon as the Division Bells are rung—or as soon as your Chairman sees that they are being rung—and resume after 10 minutes.
Clause 1: Power to construct and maintain works for Phase One of High Speed 2
Amendment 1
Baroness Randerson
“(a) a spur from Old Oak Common in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham to a junction with the West London Line south of North Pole Road on the boundary between the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham and the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea; and(b) ”
Baroness Randerson (LD)
My Lords, I shall speak to the amendments in my name in this group. I start by assuring the Minister that we are not seeking to rewrite the Bill. These are very much probing amendments, which I want to use to reveal some of the reasoning behind the government decisions on links between HS1 and HS2 and, most importantly, to gain some assurances on future plans.
Amendment 1 reinserts into Clause 1 the concept of the link between HS1 and HS2, which was dropped during the Commons debates. We acknowledge that there are practical difficulties associated with providing that link which would make it difficult and therefore costly. There are, however, huge practical difficulties associated with the proposed—and very costly—Euston development but that does not seem to have deterred the Government or HS2 Ltd. Ideally, when HS1 was built a box should have been built at Stratford. The idea was there originally but it was abandoned to save what was actually a small amount of money and it would be very difficult to do that now with an operating system.
I acknowledge, too, that surveys some years ago showed that the number of passengers wanting to travel directly from the north of England to the continent was not really large enough to justify major investment. Things have changed since then, however. Rail passenger numbers have soared and the Government have committed themselves to the development of the northern economy. Nevertheless, I recognise that Brexit, particularly a hard Brexit, will probably impact on passenger numbers to the continent, which will be lower than they would be in other circumstances. Surely, however, whatever those circumstances, the numbers will be considerable, so their needs should be considered.
The West London Line Group has proposed a short double-track link between Old Oak Common and the West London line north of Shepherd’s Bush. This would provide more choice all round of routes across London and further afield. There is an important point of principle: this would reduce the number of changes that people have to make. More than one change and you probably go by car instead, rather than choose to take the train. The proposed link would not only connect areas north of London to the continent but improve links with southern England generally. We are interested, therefore, to hear the Minister’s explanation of exactly why the idea of a direct HS2-HS1 link was dropped. As a result of that decision, one assumes passengers will now have to walk from Euston to St Pancras. I say that one assumes they will walk rather than be carried in any sort of transportation, but maybe the Minister can provide that information.
Euston Road is already very congested and if you have walked along it recently you will know that it is quite difficult to get down. I believe the committee’s report said that 61,000 passengers are now arriving at Euston per day. We are talking about only a proportion of those passengers but that is still a significant number and those travelling from HS2 to HS1 will, almost by definition, have luggage. Factoring in the points at which you alight from the HS2 at Euston and get on to the HS1 at St Pancras, the distance is more than a mile. The distance between the front entrances is 0.6 miles. Although my noble friend Lord Bradshaw will speak more about this issue, our point is that without a clear, comfortable, speedy and weatherproof interchange, the use of HS2 and HS1 as a route from north to south, or from the north to the continent, will be seriously undermined. So, I ask the Minister to provide us with details of the plans.
My noble friend will also say more on the use of Old Oak Common as an interchange into London but I want to underline its strategic importance, and thus the importance of developing it in a robust and flexible manner that will ensure it withstands the test of time. Many passengers will decide to leave their HS2 train at Old Oak Common rather than travelling on into Euston, and they will be able to take Crossrail from there, for instance. Indeed, it will be situated in a spider’s web of railway lines and will be very intensively used, so it needs to be up to the job and its regenerative potential for the area in which it is situated must be maximised. I ask the Minister: why were the original plans to link HS1 to HS2 dropped and, importantly, could they be taken up again if demand was at such a level that that would be justified; what firm plans exist for the trek along Euston Road; and can he assure us that Old Oak Common will be built with maximum capability and flexibility for expansion? I beg to move.
Lord Bradshaw (LD)
If I may just follow up a few of the points made by my noble friend, we have discussed before the question of a link between Euston, St Pancras and King’s Cross. When I was deputy general manager at Euston back in the far-off days, it was being discussed—it is one of these projects that seems always to be under discussion but is never carried out. I am looking for something like the link you get between terminals in airports; that is, a wide, well-lit way of getting between the two stations with a travelator or similar device for your luggage. I am not looking for some form of futuristic railway, just a convenient, out-of-the-weather way for moving you and your luggage between the two places.
There will be a lot of time to think about this, because there will be a long period when Old Oak Common will be the London terminal for HS2. There can be dispute about how Old Oak Common could be used, but there will be six platforms there and the trains from Birmingham, which will take only 38 minutes, can almost be described as commuter trains. They will not require huge amounts of servicing at Old Oak Common, it will be possible to turn trains back there very quickly, and Euston may well not be needed until after phase 2A of HS2, so there is plenty of time to think about it and get it in place.
My noble friend commented on connections to HS1. I know that people in the south of England feel that it is very difficult for them to use it: they have to make a big journey. That will be alleviated if the Government could—again, they could work on this contemporaneously with the work on HS2—strengthen the link along the south coast between Brighton and Ashford. There are bits of that railway that need sorting out. I hope we can get some sort of assurance about what the Government intend to do.
Those are questions, not things that we will have disputes on, but we want to know what the Government envisage that they will do, in the long term, about the problems here.
Lord Berkeley (Lab)
My Lords, my Amendment 9 is grouped, although I am not sure it is closely connected to what the two previous speakers have been discussing. It would delete one of the amendments that the Select Committee proposed in its report. Let me make it quite clear: I do not criticise the Select Committee on this issue; I am sure its amendments are just what is needed. I ask the Minister, however: is it not a bit unusual for a Select Committee’s amendments to be incorporated in a Bill without debate? I had assumed that they might have been tabled for debate today, and we could have debated and no doubt approved them, but it was surprising that a new issue of the Bill was published in the past week as a result of the amendments being included. This may not be a question for the Minister—it may be a question for the Chairman of Committees or someone else—but it is something that we should debate. Perhaps it will be different next time, if there are to be more committees such as this.
While I am on my feet, the Minister kindly briefed us on progress just before we broke up for Christmas. One question that many asked him was: were the Government going to respond to the excellent report from the Select Committee? It would have been nice to have their response before Committee today. We have not had it, but can he assure me that we will receive it in good time for Report?
Lord Snape (Lab)
I support the amendments tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, and her colleagues. There are few benefits in old age but I am told that one is that one’s long-term memory improves, sometimes at the cost of one’s short-term memory. I suspect that I am the only Member present here today who served on the original Channel Tunnel Bill, and I well remember the promises made at the time about the connection between HS1and HS2. Even back in those days, there was lots of criticism about the apparent devotion to expenditure on railway and transport in the south of England at the expense of the rest of the country. Assurances were given at that time that there would be genuine benefits from the Channel Tunnel and the associated high-speed lines that would spin off to both the Midlands and the north.
Lord Berkeley
My noble friend did not mention the chord that received permission under the HS1 Bill, built between the London end of High Speed 1 and the North London line. It is there, with tracks and electrification. It has no signals, so it would need a couple of those. We could run trains on the west coast main line from HS1 to Birmingham tomorrow. I do not know how much it cost, but it was a lot as it is quite a complicated piece of construction. It was built as a result of lobbying from the north-west in particular, led by a man called Ken Medlock, who is still alive aged 102 and still very interested. The problem is someone needs to run trains on it.
Lord Snape
I bow to my noble friend’s expertise on the geography of this stretch of railway line. I was aware that it was a single track; there was much mocking at the time because it was and it led to the North London line, with the consequential speed restrictions and additional traffic. There was concern that this was not an adequate link, but it is a link nevertheless. I am not blaming the Minister for having the line built—I might blame him for various other decisions he has taken—but perhaps he could tell us whether it is feasible to add signals to this line and give us some connection. Surely the Midlands, the north-west and north-east of England, and perhaps Scotland, deserve better for their taxes than to be told when they arrive in Euston, “Put your bags under your arm and catch the Northern line if you wish to proceed further towards Europe by train”. Surely the Minister and the country can do better than that.
Lord Adonis (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I declare an interest as the Secretary of State who started HS2, and as a member of HS2 Ltd. I apologise to the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, for missing the beginning of her remarks. I know the whole Committee will want to pay tribute to the Select Committee, which put an astonishing amount of work into the Bill. I cannot think of a more onerous duty that Members of your Lordships’ House take on than being members of hybrid Bill Committees. At the very least they require some kind of parliamentary medal for endurance, which I hope will give them some special form of extended life that ensures they will definitely see the opening of this line all the way through to Manchester and Leeds in 2033. That is the least they deserve.
There are two different issues here and it is important not to mix them up. The first is through trains from Paris to the great cities of the Midlands and the north, which my noble friends Lord Snape and Lord Berkeley rightly said was envisaged in the original scheme for the Channel Tunnel Rail Link. The trains were built, but the services were never run. The second is the lamentable connections between Euston and St Pancras. The two issues are separate for this reason: with the best will in the world, the economic case for running through services from Paris and Brussels to Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds is very weak indeed.
If I may detain the Committee with a story, when I was Secretary of State I tried to persuade Eurostar to run services to Birmingham once the upgrade of the west coast main line had been completed, which would have made it possible to run a service once that and the High Speed 1 line to St Pancras had been completed. It ought to have been possible to run a service from Paris to Birmingham in three and a half hours, which I thought would have been competitive with the plane and played a very big part in changing the whole mentality of people in respect of high-speed rail and connections with the continent. I simply could not persuade Eurostar to run even one service a day without public subsidy because the traffic projection figures were so low.
If noble Lords stop and think about what has happened on that line, it is not so difficult to fathom. Although HS1 has been a great success in engineering terms and has played a useful part in linking two of Europe’s great cities, it is way off all the projections of traffic between London and the continent. I do not think it is yet even at half the level of the projections of what the traffic should have been. There is still only one service an hour between London and Paris for most of the day. Often those services have quite light loads. The London to Brussels service, which is also about hourly, is often barely half-full. Eurostar told me that there was not enough traffic to fill even one train a day between London and Birmingham and it would do it only if I was prepared to give it a very large subsidy. I had so many other parts of the railway I was seeking to subsidise, including many of the parts that my noble friend Lord Snape has mentioned because the lines in the Midlands and the north require great subsidies to be maintained, that I simply could not justify a public subsidy to do it.
It is important to be frank about this because everybody pays lip service to the benefits of linking HS1 and HS2. On the face of it, it seems absurd that there is not a connection between the two but because the service would be so intermittent—with the best will in the world, only a few trains a day would run on that service—I very much doubt it would be taken up in any big way. While we have cheap airlines that offer very frequent services to Manchester and Birmingham—both are highly successful airports, which are expanding and have significant capacity that they can make available to flights to the continent—it is unlikely that such a line would be viable.
As a footnote, it is always the unexpected in life which changes the course of events, including in transportation. The big unexpected event of HS1 was the massive development of domestic services on the high-speed line—all those Javelin trains—which has made the whole thing much more viable than it would otherwise have been and was not expected on anything like that scale. The other great unexpected gain of HS1, which nobody projected at the time—and who knows what the unexpected gains of HS2 will be?—was the Olympic Games. When the decision was taken to give the Olympics to Stratford, a critical part of the decision was the connectivity that the Javelins provided going out of St Pancras. I am not criticising the decisions to build HS1 or the Channel Tunnel, which were visionary and historic decisions, but unfortunately a link between HS1 and HS2 would be hugely expensive —running into many billions because it would have to be tunnelled. The economic benefit would be limited without massive subsidies. Given the huge costs already in the HS2 scheme, it would be hard to justify those expenses.
My noble friend Lord Snape referred to the plan for a kind of patch-and-mend link between HS1 and HS2 using the North London line. There was a plan for that in the original HS1 scheme, linking to the conventional lines. There was also initially from HS2 Ltd a plan for it in respect of the HS2 line. It has to be said that nobody much liked this. It would have been a very slow connection, weaving its way up to the North London line, across and down, which would have made the line even less competitive with the airlines. When the trains were running, it would have used a lot of capacity on the North London line, which, as noble Lords will know, is now an integral part of the Overground service and a major freight artery. That would have been highly inconvenient. Even that required the building of a substantial single-bore tunnel at a cost of more than £1 billion. The view was taken that rather than expend a large sum of money on a very unsatisfactory patch-and-mend link between the two, which would barely be used in any event, it would be better to wait until some point in the future when our relations with Europe reach a new and glorious period, in which traffic between the major European cities flourishes on a scale never seen before and might then make it economically viable to construct a link between HS1 and HS2.
However, only a tiny fraction of those people who wanted to connect between Euston and St Pancras would have been using direct services to the continent in the first place so the issue of connectivity between Euston and St Pancras, which I think everyone will accept is still highly unsatisfactory, is there in any event. There is a long-term solution: Crossrail 2, which will have a single station serving Euston and King’s Cross St Pancras, and will connect the two underground. That will make it much easier to get to them; it will give big dispersal capacity at Euston when phase 2 of Crossrail is completed in 2033, which is hugely important; and, as I say, it will connect the stations because the entrance at one end will be at Euston and the entrance at the other will be at King’s Cross St Pancras.
Although this degree of work has not yet been done, my assumption with the planning of Crossrail 2 is always that it will be possible to use it also as a pedestrian tunnel with a travelator for getting from Euston to St Pancras. The transport planners are not wildly keen on that idea because it will add to the cost of Crossrail 2 and they want a more limited scheme that has access only for transport users. But it looks patently obvious that if you have a Crossrail 2 station serving the two stations, and you have this underground link, putting in a simple travelator and making it possible for people to connect between the two stations underground must be sensible.
Lord Rosser (Lab)
I will just make one or two relatively brief observations. I add my thanks to those already expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, to the Select Committee for the work that it did. I know it took up a considerable amount of its members’ time, and I was extremely grateful that I was completely disqualified from sitting on it, for more than one reason, and so was never faced with any request that I should do so.
Clearly, the discussion that we have had, and the amendments that we are considering, have homed in particularly on whether, at some stage, there will be a link between HS1 and HS2. I hope when the Minister comes to respond that he will address the specific terms of the amendment that has been moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson. It has a specific proposition in relation to the creation of a link between HS1 and HS2 which is different from it simply going as far as Euston and St Pancras, in that it provides opportunities for interchanges in south London. I hope the Minister will address that point when he comes to respond.
Most speakers, including the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, in a sense raised this point. The noble Lord, Lord Adonis, made the case that there would not be sufficient demand to run through trains—or that was the basis of one of the key points he made—but under the proposals as they stand we face having not only no through services but also no easy interchange between HS1 and HS2, precisely because one is coming in at one station and departing from another, further down the Euston Road. It would be helpful to hear from the Minister in his response what the Government’s intentions are on improving the interchange link between HS2 and HS1, if they are not looking at going down the road of running through services.
In London transport in recent decades—it is has not happened overnight—we have seen an increase in the number of lines going through and across London, which we used not to have. We have seen Thameslink and the West London line; Crossrail is coming in and Crossrail 2 is projected; the DLR manages to cross the river and go from one side of London to another; there are improvements on the London Overground and the East London line. Improving transport links between one side of London and the other has been a feature of recent decades. It does not appear that this will be repeated with high-speed services.
I have one or two questions about Old Oak Common, which will clearly play a pivotal role in HS2. There are some proposed links to what one might describe as the classic network but, as has been said, there are quite a large number of suburban lines around the Old Oak Common area. Presumably, one of the advantages of HS2 in improving transport links would be good connectivity between those suburban services and HS2 at Old Oak Common. Are the Government looking at improving connections between HS2 and other suburban lines in the vicinity to improve access to HS2 for people in a much wider area of London as a result? As has rightly been said, one thing that attracts people to a service is either not having to change at all—you can run through from A to B—or, if you do have to change, it is straightforward and easy. Will the Minister comment on that aspect as well?
Finally, the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, referred to the Javelin trains—I hope I am not misinterpreting what he said—and the commuter network that has built itself up around HS1. I have always thought that one of the reasons for so much opposition to HS2 is that there are no proposals whatever for any stations in a large number of the areas it runs through. People therefore see the line as a fairly negative factor. It runs through their suburban area or part of the countryside but they do not get any access to it. I appreciate that the Government are not contemplating it at the moment but, in the longer term, do they intend even to consider whether in time there may be a case for additional stations on the HS2 route? I do not profess to be an expert on this, so I may be wrong, but my understanding is that since the high-speed line opened in Taiwan, more stations have opened on the line. I am not starting from the stance that the Minister should be standing up now and announcing new stations all over the place, but is this something the Government will be looking at in the longer term, in the light of what is happening with Javelin trains and what is happening in another part of the world which has seen a relatively recent development of high-speed services?
I appreciate that the Minister has already been asked this question by my noble friend Lord Berkeley, but I too would like to know precisely when we will get the Government’s response to the report. There are recommendations and urgings—if I may use that expression—in it and it makes debate and discussion a lot easier if we know which of those the Government are picking up and which they are not. The sooner we know, the better it is.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Transport (Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon) (Con)
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate. Before I go any further, on behalf of the Government I join the noble Lords, Lord Adonis and Lord Rosser, in thanking the Select Committee. Members of the Select Committee did some incredible work and showed great dedication and devotion to the cause in terms of the petitions that were heard. I want to put on record my thanks and those of the Secretary of State and the Government as a whole for their work in that respect. I tuned into some of the sessions from afar, from my office at the DfT, and some very robust discussions took place in the committee.
The amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, goes to the very heart of the Bill. I thank the noble Baroness and acknowledge that these are probing amendments, seeking further clarification. As she rightly articulated, at Second Reading in the other place the principle of the Bill was agreed, and that did not include a spur such as the one being proposed. I empathise with her views and the views of those who support the amendment. I know that this is not the intention behind the amendment but if it was carried, it would have the result of re-hybridising the Bill. I am sure that is not the intention of the noble Baroness or those who spoke in support of the amendment.
Lord Berkeley
The question of hybridisation and additional provisions came up many times in the committee. The promoter wrote to me several times—this is one of the things I will talk about later—saying, “You cannot have an additional provision because it would have to go back to the Commons”. We knew all that but what nobody said was that there is a precedent for adding small works using the Transport and Works Act approval process. The argument that you cannot do something because it would turn it into a hybrid and send it back with additional provisions should not be used. If Ministers wanted to make a change, as they did with the HS1 Bill, when they added Stratford station under the Transport and Works Act, that would be a perfectly acceptable way of doing it. I hope the Minister will agree.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
I was alluding to the intent behind the noble Baroness’s amendment. I agree with the noble Lord inasmuch as the detail is something that we have debated before. I am sure that we will return to this this afternoon and, if we continue, on Thursday.
Turning to the nub of the proposals, the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, separated the issues very well. I would separate them further. There is the issue of having a rail link between HS1 and HS2, and then the link between Euston and St Pancras. The noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, and the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, articulated some ideas. The noble Baroness is correct that there were considerable practical details and environmental impacts in linking HS1 and HS2. However, notwithstanding the recent growth, the benefits of such a link, compared with the costs and impacts, were not considered to make the proposal viable. I will come back to that point in a moment.
There are some international comparisons. In France, for example, the TGV network functions effectively without direct links between the high-speed rail lines in Paris. I was a bit perplexed when the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, started talking about Taiwan; for a moment I thought we were going to get a very imaginative proposal for linking it to Euston—thankfully it did not come to that, but who knows what the future holds? Our perspective on the building of HS2 is certainly that all solutions for linking it to HS1 were considered. Indeed, an international connectivity study was also conducted on improving the potential rail links. One of the issues that arose was around cost. Some of the proposals ranged from about £610 million to £6 billion and it was therefore felt that they did not provide value for money.
Lord Snape
Before the Minister sits down, may I press him for on connectivity between HS1 and HS2? I presume he agrees with my noble friend Lord Adonis that there are problems with envisaging the number of passengers—let us say passengers between Birmingham and Paris—who would use such a link, but is there not something uniquely English about us having an existing link between the two lines that is not used? My noble friend’s argument was that there is no market for passengers between Manchester or Birmingham and Paris. How do we know that if there is not a direct link? The Minister has made it plain that he has three children. The last thing he wants to do is change between different modes of transport. I have every sympathy with him; I have only two and they are adults, but the last thing I would want to do is take them on such a trip. We have an existing link that is not signalled and not used, yet my noble friend, to whose work on this scheme I pay tribute, says that there is not a market for those passengers. If we do not run the services, how will we ever know? Only in England could we have a link, unsignalled, between two high-speed lines—one of them a prospective high-speed line—and say that we are not going to use it. On the economic arguments in respect of passengers taking a through journey, if the Minister moved from the wilds of Wimbledon to Birmingham, would he not find it more attractive to take his three children to Paris on a through train rather than using Euston and St Pancras, no matter how the two were connected?
When were the economic arguments made that there is not a market for the sort of travel that I am envisaging? They obviously did not occur until we had ordered the trains and built the depots. There must have been some feeling that there was a market when trains were built. If I recollect rightly, the Nightstar trains were virtually given away to the Canadian railways. I know that there is a big difference between Canada and our country, but they managed to find a practical use for them—so they should; they got them at cut price; the British taxpayer paid for them all. When did those economic realities first impinge on the decision not to have a link between the two? Will the Minister at least consider looking again at signalling that single line just to test the water and see whether we can have through trains connecting those taxpayers in Birmingham and Manchester, who are contributing to the cost of this whole thing, with Paris and Brussels—to name but two destinations?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
I appreciate the sentiments behind what the noble Lord says, and as I have already articulated, the Government did look at connectivity. The noble Lord, Lord Adonis, made a very valid point that before you build something, you have to look at the business case and the viability of it. I do not know what the future demand may be for links from other parts of the UK to the continent, and that may well be looked at on a future date. As I have already alluded to, building HS2 opens up doors of opportunity, in terms of the infrastructure connectivity and of course the speed of the link that it provides. I am sure that at some future point those will be looked at again. However, various reports have been conducted. I believe the Higgins report in 2014 advocated abandoning the link between HS1 and HS2, specifically on the issue of costs. That really underlines the Government’s thinking.
Finally, I thank the noble Lord for suggesting that I go from the wilds of Wimbledon up to the Midlands and that perhaps my children would want to go to the continent from Birmingham rather than from London. If I relied on the intention of my two younger boys, we would be chugging along on the Thomas the Tank Engine, which would not provide the kind of high-speed rail link the country desires, but I note what the noble Lord said. As I said, the Government have explored this during the various processes behind the planning of HS2 links, and various reports have been conducted. I have already indicated that the different links that were looked at were deemed not to provide sufficient benefits and not to be viable in terms of cost. I hope that provides, if not total reassurance, at least some answer to the noble Lord’s concern. With that, I ask the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment.
Lord Adonis
I just intervene to correct the record. I did not say there was no market—there clearly is a market, as Birmingham, Manchester, Paris and the other great cities of northern Europe are substantial cities. The problem is that the market at the moment is almost entirely taken up by the cheap airlines, and there is simply no way, unless there is a significant change in the economics of the transport sector—which may happen at some point in future—that you could justify the investment, based on the return from a very limited rail service. A wildly optimistic figure of £600 million has been mentioned, but once you start to tunnel around Euston and St Pancras and build connections with the North London line, you are really looking at many billions. I cannot emphasise enough that the single biggest threat to this project is cost overruns in building the core of it, between cities where there is massive traffic—namely, Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds and London. It would not be a sensible use of public resources at the moment to add in—on a wing and a prayer, because for sentimental reasons we think it would be nice to have one or two trains a day that start off from Manchester and have “Paris” on the front—the commitment to many billions further of public spending.
My noble friend may be able to make a case for it if something dramatic happens to the cheap airlines. I know that through his other connections he is very close friends with many of the operators of those airlines. If they cease to operate their services between Birmingham and Paris, or between Paris and Manchester, where they are offering seats for £10 or £20—sums which we are not remotely going to be able to offer by high-speed rail—then of course the whole thing may change, and at some stage we may be able to build these services. Meanwhile, this is why connectivity is so important. Provided that you have a good connection between Euston and St Pancras, you will get some passengers who do not want to fly who will connect between the two. What the Minister said about investment in resources to get a better walking connection was very welcome. As I say, at some stage there will need to be a fixed connection, and when that comes, it will also facilitate traffic between HS1 and HS2.
Baroness Randerson
My Lords, this has been a very interesting debate. As well as the fount of most of our information, the committee’s excellent report, we have had the benefit of background information from the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, as well as the Minister’s response.
I will briefly refer to a couple of issues. The noble Lord, Lord Snape, referred to the fact that promises were made about HS1 and HS2 links. That was fundamental to the case for HS2. Plenty of people still think those links will happen. When you tell them that they will not, they are very disappointed. I appreciate all the practical issues; I couched my comments to make that clear. Notwithstanding the comments about cost by the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, I fear that our successors, sitting here in 30 years’ time, if this House continues to exist that long—I bear in mind we have been trying to reform it for more than 100 years—will probably sit here and say, “Of course, it would’ve been much cheaper if they’d made that link at the time”.
We now have to accept that that link will not take place in the short term. Therefore, we have to concentrate on the obvious link—the trek down Euston Road. I am disappointed that the Minister did not come up with a full answer, but I appreciate entirely why he did not: there is no full answer. My fear is that people are saying that it is too early and this is something for later on. That has been said this afternoon. The trouble is, decisions made about the purchase and demolition of buildings and the reconstruction of Euston Station will be made without factoring in the answer to this problem. They will be based on the principle that people will walk up and down Euston Road.
I have real concerns about disability issues here, not just families with children and a lot of luggage. I have real concerns about how people with disabilities will make the link between the two stations. I also fear that because, as the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, pointed out, a number of players have responsibility for this, we could end up with a group of organisations none of which will shoulder the responsibility alone, quite understandably. Therefore, it might be difficult to make progress.
I remain dissatisfied on the link between the two stations. I look forward to the Crossrail station, which it appears will provide the tunnel at some point in the future, but in the short term there certainly will not be a satisfactory thought process to produce a really good link. I will continue to show an interest in this. Having said all that, I beg to ask leave to withdraw my amendment.
Lord Berkeley
“( ) Construction work otherwise authorised by this Act may not begin until— (a) the nominated undertaker has published an up-to-date estimate of costs for works authorised by this Act, broken down into geographical and system elements;(b) that estimate has been examined, reported on and approved by an independent expert panel appointed by the Secretary of State for that purpose; and(c) the report of the panel has been published.”
Lord Berkeley
My Lords, in moving Amendment 2 in my name and that of the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, I will speak to Amendments 3 and 4, which are in my name. I am getting very concerned about the costs of HS2. The reason for that is, as many noble Lords will know, that I with two experts, Jonathan Roberts and Michael Byng, came up with a scheme to provide a cheaper and more effective station at Euston for the end of HS2. I appeared with them in front of your Lordships’ Select Committee and, along with colleagues, pay tribute to the way that the members of the committee listened and took an interest. Frankly, I congratulate them on staying the course. If we ever get further such committees in both Houses, I hope that the House of Commons committees will learn something from the way that your Lordships’ committee operated, because it was really good.
I will not go into the detail of the scheme. We had a lot of support from people privately within HS2, Network Rail, TfL and Camden, but many of them are restricted from saying publicly what they felt. I believe it would work. We could never get a cost for the HS2 scheme out of HS2, so we ended up costing it ourselves with Michael Byng, who is a real expert in railway costing and has written the textbook on costing railway works for Network Rail, which is being implemented—not before time, I would say—and has a lot of credibility. We ended up demonstrating that we could probably save the Government £1.8 billion by putting all the trains into Euston and giving the west coast main line services a new station on top, so to speak, alongside the HS2 station. On a like-for-like comparison, the saving was £3 billion to £4 billion. Interestingly, HS2 never challenged any of the costs in the committee, which surprised me.
The reason I tabled Amendment 3 was to suggest that, before the Government embark on construction work on the ground, they need a comprehensive, up-to-date and independent cost estimate of the section between Old Oak Common and Euston. Having got some further information from HS2 since we appeared in front of the committee, we understand that it will cost £8.25 billion at 2014 last-quarter prices. This includes contingencies, risk compensation and everything else one might want.
The problem for me, and perhaps for the Minister, is that in a Written Answer he gave me on 21 December, the equivalent cost for the whole phase 1 scheme was £24.3 billion, on the same basis. That means that the section from Old Oak Common to and including Euston is about 34% of the total cost. That leaves £16 billion for the remaining 200 kilometres of line.
I am sure that this is not how it has been thought about, but one sometimes gets the feeling that, “Well, London’s expensive to build in, but when you get north of the countryside in Northamptonshire and Buckinghamshire, it is quite easy”. The Committee should be aware that this is a line connecting the two major cities in this country. A tunnel has been proposed through the suburban areas in London, but not for the Birmingham area, from Water Orton to Curzon Street. It has to cross three motorways and several major railway lines and rivers. In fact, 40% of the total length is in either tunnel or viaduct, so it is a complicated structure. It will probably need new signal boxes and more power supply: my colleagues have calculated that the power needed for these high-speed trains is equivalent to half a Hinkley Point, when phase 2 is finished. It is a very big project.
We have got £16 billion to build 204 kilometres of line. Mr Byng has priced this, on the same basis that he presented to the Select Committee, pointing out that the cost of land acquisition, permanent and temporary, and disruption in the open areas is very expensive. We talked once to Professor McNaughton about the amount of compensation that was needed around Euston alone exceeding £1 billion—that was just the compensation. The costs are obviously very high. Mr Byng has now come up with an estimate, on the same basis, that the total cost of phase 1 of HS2 would be £53.6 billion, which is about double the figure that was in the Written Answer. Jonathan Roberts, who is a very experienced railway man, has compared those. I am not a cost engineer, but I respect the view of these two people. The costs when we started off at Euston have never been challenged. I want this scheme to happen, but I worry that there is no way that any bit of phase 1 can be completed at the price of £24 billion quoted in that Written Answer.
I believe that HS2 has spent about £1 billion on consultancy since it started, but why have they not done any credible costings on it? It is a very complicated route, but why have they not done it. We get back to the issue of value for money and business case, which my noble friend Lord Adonis mentioned earlier. Noble Lords will be aware that the chairman of the House of Commons Treasury Select Committee, Andrew Tyrie, wrote to Chris Grayling in the last week or so asking why they had increased the passenger number estimate, and whether it was just to improve the business case. I have not seen any answer, but I expect there is one. If one is going to increase the capital cost by anything approaching the figure I have given, that does not do a lot of good for the business case, because it goes down the other way. What can be done, because I do want this to happen? The first thing is to get a credible estimate by independent experts. I hope that Ministers will avoid the temptation of shooting the messenger, because it is important to get the figures right.
What can be done in a more positive way? As noble Lords have already said, one thing is to slow the trains down a bit, because the running costs of going at 400 kilometres an hour, or even 360, are extremely high, as are the capital costs of the trains and the track. Does it really matter if it takes two minutes longer to get to Birmingham? My view is that it does not, especially when you have got to walk 20 minutes from the new Curzon Street station to New Street, though that is a separate issue. You could leave out everything from Old Oak Common eastwards, as the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, mentioned earlier. He said it would work and I agree. Or we could adopt the cheaper scheme that we proposed for going to Euston. You could leave out the Handsacre link, which is not so expensive—maybe £1 billion—which links the top end of phase 1 to the west coast main line. It is a particularly worrying design because you have got six tracks coming together into three.
Beyond Handsacre, going towards Stafford, there is a section of the west coast main line that is not four tracks but three. I am not quite sure why it is only three; I think that somebody who had a large estate did not want his land built on. Anyway, it has a serious effect on the capacity of the line. If you did not put in the Handsacre link and you carried straight on to Crewe, which is where it is needed, people in Stafford and Stoke-on-Trent might not be so happy; on the other hand, if the west coast main line is to operate well, as it does, they might be happy. That is another way of perhaps saving £1 billion.
Lord Bradshaw
I support what the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, has said. The scheme as envisaged is extravagant, and this is not a time when we can afford extravagance. There is a good case for having an independent assessment of the costs, particularly to consider such things as how long this railway can terminate at Old Oak Common, which would set aside a considerable sum of money. If a connection has to be made to Euston, how can that be done in the most economical way? I do not believe that that issue has been addressed. We are not talking about small sums of money; we are talking about billions of pounds.
One thing that I was told about the Bill was that people had made assumptions about the time it took to turn round a train from the north that was heading in the direction of London. I have run a lot of London stations. I can assure noble Lords that, with the number of trains that it is proposed to run from Manchester to Old Oak Common, it would be quite easy, given the six platforms there, to turn the trains round. What one has to factor in is the capacity at Old Oak Common. That means that there has to be a sufficient number of people to service the trains. Special attention also needs to be given to the access to and from the platforms.
I rather agree with the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, about the Handsacre link, which seems to cost a lot of money. I certainly agree on the issue about speed. There is a complete misapprehension of the value of journey time savings when we talk about savings of two minutes or less, yet that structure holds up the whole of our transport evaluation, whether in road, rail or anything else—the biggest factor to be taken into consideration is the value of the small time savings, which are all added together and form a colossal sum. However, people making a journey do not take into consideration whether they are going to be two minutes quicker, because in lots of modes of transport unpredictability is a much bigger factor than the journey time saving.
I also want to probe—to push very hard—on the time savings. We should be very careful about speeds which go much above 125 miles per hour, possibly up to 150. It costs a lot once you push speeds towards the upper end of the limit. I am happy to join the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, in his call for independent costings, but there is also a need for re-evaluation of the economic basis on which the line is to be built.
Lord Framlingham (Con)
My Lords, we have dealt with only two amendments so far, and any member of the public sitting listening to the Committee will be asking themselves: “Why on earth are you going ahead with this project?”. All we have are problems, which seem to me almost insurmountable; we have no answers to them. When we ask about the trek from St Pancras to Euston, the answer is, apparently, offer £3 million to the local authority as a prize if it can come up with the answer. That does not sound to me like much of a solution.
I know that this is not Second Reading, but we must ask ourselves whether there is any sense in going ahead with this whole project. We have not yet dealt with the environmental problems, which will be huge and last for years. We have heard from the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, whose amendment I support, that the whole scheme is not properly costed and nobody knows what will happen in the long run.
The Minister described it as a vital scheme. It is not. The money could be much better spent on all sorts of things: hospitals, schools, or Liverpool-to-Hull transport. If we pursue it, I think we will regret it for a long time. As this matter proceeds, I hope that your Lordships’ House will think it through very carefully and perhaps have second thoughts about proceeding with the whole scheme.
Baroness Mallalieu (Lab)
My Lords, I support all the amendments in this group, particularly Amendments 5 and 6, tabled in the name of my noble friend Lord Stevenson who, I understand, cannot be here today but will be here to make some remarks if Committee continues on Thursday. These amendments call for further things which need to be done before work starts on the project, the first being the cost-benefit analysis of the environmental impact of the work and the second being the traffic management requirements.
I apologise to the Committee: I was unable to speak at Second Reading and should therefore declare my interests. I lived in the Chilterns for 36 years, not in an area directly affected. Further along the proposed line, I know personally every one of the villages mentioned in the amendments on the Marshalled List today. Quainton, Twyford, Chetwode, Mixbury and Barton-Hartshorn—I know them all and have known them for 50 years. I do not just know the villages, their names and the roads; I know the farms, fields, the woodlands and some of the people still living there, and I have seen the devastating effect that the Bill is already having on their lives and their communities. The environmental, not to mention the social impact, is enormous. I know that I am not allowed to make a Second Reading speech, although I did not make one before, and I shall strain every sinew not to do so.
The Government tell us that the public have a right to require value for money, and I totally agree. The cost changes each time I see a figure, but £57 billion is the latest one, and no one with the slightest grasp of reality believes that it will stop there. This House, in the detailed report of the Economic Affairs Committee, chaired by my noble friend Lord Hollick, has already drawn attention to the need for a number of the central questions to be answered. Those questions were posed and not adequately answered by the Government’s very flimsy response in July 2005; nor do I believe they have been since, although I know the Minister said at Second Reading that he thought they had been. Where is the answer to a key question in that list, as to whether HS2 is the best way to spend £50 billion—although I up that now to £57 billion—to stimulate the UK economy?
One thing that has not been done is that the environmental impact has not been subject to any cost-benefit analysis. Surely the public, who are going to have to pay for this project in so many ways and relatively few of whom will see any actual benefit, are entitled to a proper cost-benefit analysis before our countryside is destroyed. As for the pressure to carry on with this project without a cost-benefit analysis, I will come to how it was conceived in a moment, but I understand from the noble Lord, Lord Mandelson, when he spoke in this House on an earlier debate on this topic, that the Labour Cabinet was searching for a legacy project and someone suggested that China and France had high-speed railways. I do not think the pressure for it comes from the rail users on Southern, from the commuters standing on trains day after day coming into London or even from those whose businesses in the north of England are hampered by the absence of a good trans-Pennine rail link. We are told there is going to be a lack of capacity, but it is not visible to me as I stand on the excellent Chiltern line stations and see an excellent service at present—not overcrowded —from London to Birmingham. What about spending money on capacity which is really urgent right now, as we have all been seeing in the last few weeks and indeed right up to today?
The reality is that, in choosing that legacy, scant consideration was given to the devastating environmental damage which will inevitably result to a very special piece of English countryside. My noble friend Lord Stevenson was going to talk about the Chilterns, and I will just say a few words about it. It is a unique area of beech wood but has also become, in the 36 years I have lived there, the lungs of London. Anyone who goes down to the Chilterns on a weekend will see people pouring out of London to walk and enjoy the peace which reigns over most of it. Beyond that, Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire, Northamptonshire and Warwickshire—the area I know well—is not tourist country. It is not even really walkers’ country but it is old England—the England that we ought to preserve and celebrate. If we destroy those things and take them away from the public, at vast expense and for relatively little benefit to very few people, without making a proper cost-benefit analysis of what we are doing, I do not think we will be forgiven. Indeed, not having such a cost-benefit analysis would be pure vandalism, and I hope the Minister will say that the Government will address all the things set out in the five amendments in the group before anybody starts work with the bulldozers and the concrete and does damage that can never be repaired.
Lord Snape
My Lords, my noble friend who has just sat down started her speech by saying she was not going to make a Second Reading speech and then, if I may say so, did exactly that. We can all make the sort of Second Reading speech that the noble Lord opposite made too, but we are supposed to be talking about particular amendments to the Bill. Thirty-something years ago, I made a speech in the other place in favour of the Channel Tunnel. The response, largely from my own side of the Chamber, was that there were lots of other priorities that we should spend our money on, such as housing, social services, hospitals, et cetera—the sort of speech that the noble Lord opposite has just made. It was Dennis Skinner who objected to my advocacy of the Channel Tunnel, so the noble Lord opposite has now become the Dennis Skinner of the Conservative Party—not a label I would have thought that he would go out to seek normally.
Lord Framlingham
I understand that this is not the place to make a Second Reading speech but we are entitled to talk about the value of these amendments in the whole scheme. What is being highlighted is that there are no solutions and that is very important.
Lord Snape
Again, with respect to the noble Lord, I do not mind him speaking about the amendments; procedural matters are not for me, anyway. But he said, in effect, that the money being spent—whether that is £50 billion as my noble friend said or whatever—would be better spent on other things. That, I have to say, is a Second Reading speech, and the question, “Why are you spending money on this rather than that?” could be asked in either Chamber in relation to any matter under the sun. As for my noble friend’s contribution, while I had better be careful that I do not make a Second Reading speech myself, I am somewhat sick of hearing about the enormous damage that is being done to an area of natural beauty by a two-track railway line.
Lord Snape
I will come to the tunnels in later amendments—my noble friend should not distract me just yet; I will deal with them in a moment or two.
As it was said, the garden of England, Kent, was not destroyed by High Speed 1, although I sat and listened for months on end to petitioners telling me that it would be. I am glad to say that was the last hybrid Bill I served on; I do not want to do another one after that experience. The destruction never happened, and, indeed, the economy of various parts of Kent has been boosted enormously by HS1, as we heard earlier. I do not know where my noble friend was when the M40 was being built. There are of course no tunnels on it, but I presume that it is a great asset to the Chilterns. I would have thought that objections to it, such as they were, would have been somewhat muted by the convenience to the objectors of getting their motor cars back to London from the lovely parts of the Chilterns in which they lived or were visiting.
Lord Framlingham
I accept what the noble Lord says about the building of a two-track railway, but surely given the size of this project he will concede that every possible effort should be made to ensure it has a minimum impact on the countryside. Given that huge size—£55 billion—even reasonable amounts of money should be given, without much discussion, to make sure the damage is kept to a minimum.
Lord Snape
I am immensely sorry to refute the noble Lord’s assertions but we spent a long time looking into this project and a considerable amount of money has been and is being spent trying to meet some of the objections that he outlined.
Those who, like my noble friend, were against the project denounced it for costing some £50 billion, yet with every speech they want to add to that cost because there is something in their area that they wish to preserve. I pay tribute, as others have, to the Select Committee, and note that my noble friend Lord Adonis has joined us. It spent months listening to various petitioners, many of whom were against the project, but all anxious for more public money to be spent on the bit they objected to. We could go on like this for ever and not build anything at all. Presumably that was the objective behind the speech of the noble Lord opposite. For my noble friend to pray in aid my noble friend Lord Mandelson by describing it as a vanity project—this from the man in charge of the Dome, a vanity project if ever there one—is, in addition to the other Second Reading speeches that have been made, of no great service to the Committee or the project.
I am fascinated by the agreement between my noble friend Lord Berkeley and the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw. My noble friend wants to extend the line from Hanslope to Crewe. I am not sure how much that would cost. He also wants to build a four-track railway to replace the short distance of three-track railway from Hanslope Junction—as he will recall, there is another three-track railway going north from Rugby. Although it is neither in the Bill nor his amendments, it should not be too great a project to build that replacement. The noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, meanwhile, wants to reduce the other end of the line to Old Oak Common. Yet they say they are in agreement with one another—by the sound of it, they both want to redesign the whole project. I am not quite sure how much that would cost, either.
I do not know whether there is any great merit in these amendments. I know that my noble friend and the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, spent a considerable time behind the scenes in the attempt to redesign Euston station and I am sure that we will come to that issue under a future amendment. However, it seems to me that this Committee will not make much progress if those who were against the project in the first place make similar speeches on every set of amendments between now and whenever the Committee adjourns later today or on Thursday.
Baroness Randerson
My Lords, I rise to make a short point following the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Snape. I recently went to the railway museum in Swindon, where I read all about the predictions of disaster for Brunel’s Great Western Railway and the huge opposition to it. In fact, the towns that accepted a station in their centre prospered; those that rejected a station did not prosper as much. We nowadays look on railways as an environmentally friendly way of travelling. I simply want to point out that I do not believe that amendments that question particular aspects of the Bill undermine the Bill; in our case, they are designed to strengthen it. Wanting to monitor the spending of money is a sign that we want the project to succeed. I want to make it absolutely clear that putting down an apparently critical amendment does not mean any lack of support for the concept of the project as a whole. We want it to succeed.
Lord Snape
I hope the noble Baroness will accept from me that I am not making that accusation. I am saying that I do not quite understand the agreement between my noble friend and her noble friend Lord Bradshaw on this group of amendments, but I am sure that they will explain it. I appreciate that there are genuine and legitimate concerns inherent in their amendments. My objection is to speeches that are meant to sabotage the whole project. We have had these debates on umpteen occasions. My noble friend mentioned the Economic Affairs Committee report, which was torn apart on the Floor of the House. I am not saying that my contribution made any difference, but the approach that was taken was enough for me. If we are going to judge every project on so-called value for money, no project would ever meet the criteria laid down by those who were against that project in the first place. Whatever you did, they would say, “This is not value for money”. As the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, said, some of the objectors to Brunel’s railway were thought quite credible. They gave evidence to a House of Commons Committee saying that trains passing through Box Tunnel on the Great Western main line at faster than 60 miles an hour would asphyxiate those on board. They were not particularly credible then, although they were listened to, and some of the objections that we have heard to this project are not particularly credible now.
Lord Adonis
My Lords, we have had a wide-ranging Second Reading debate. I sympathise completely with the noble Baroness, Lady Mallalieu, and all the communities that are affected. The golden rule of any construction project is that people would rather it happened somewhere else. The golden rule of high-speed rail is that people want the stations but they do not want the line, but the line unfortunately has to go somewhere. Every time that this has been looked at, still more of the line going through the Chilterns has gone into a tunnel to mitigate the impacts on the local community. None the less, the construction work will be a major inconvenience for local communities and I in no way underestimate that fact.
The House and successive Governments have had to address themselves to a particular issue. My noble friend referred to the Government to 2010, in which I led the work. I can tell her that it was absolutely not the case that this was generated as a vanity project. It was generated by looking at the options of further upgrades of the west coast main line. Noble Lords need to understand that the last upgrade of the west coast main line, which was completed in 2009, cost £10 billion —of course, inflation would make that figure much larger now. That was a modest upgrade to provide very limited additional capacity compared with what HS2 will provide. Unfortunately, there is no free lunch. We definitely need upgrades to parts of the Southern network —particularly the London to Brighton line, though if the trains were operating on that line at the moment most of the immediate concerns would be met. Upgrades are needed to most of the commuter lines coming into London. However, we are also going to need significant additional intercity capacity. My noble friend said that this is a line that very few people will use—these are the major conurbations of the country. Almost half the output of the entire country is generated between them by London, Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds. It is simply not conceivable that we will not need very significant additional transport capacity between those conurbations over the next generation. We will clearly not be flying lots of planes between them. We do not want to build new motorways: I know my noble friend will have views on the impact the M40 had on the Chilterns.
The only option is a significant increase in rail capacity and that can only come in one of two ways. It is not the case that this has not been examined; it was looked at exhaustively in the work that I and the subsequent coalition Government did. It can come from radically upgrading the existing lines. Options for this have been looked at, including four-tracking the Chiltern line—the impact of which on the Chilterns would be greater, out of all proportion, than HS2—and significant upgrades to the west coast main line. The sums required to conduct those upgrades would be approaching the levels we would spend on HS2. The noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, referred to Brunel. The London to Birmingham railway, linking the two major cities of the country, is not even a Victorian project; it is pre-Brunel. It was opened for the coronation of Queen Victoria in 1838. There are only four miles of the entire line going to Manchester which are straight, because most of it was built to get around the estates of many Members of your Lordships’ House. Building significant additional capacity on that pre-Victorian railway, including the required resignalling of almost the entire line, the relaying of the junctions for longer trains, and the rebuilding of the stations—starting with Euston, which is operating at twice the capacity for which it was built in the 1960s—are vastly expensive projects.
The question to which Parliament must address itself, and have a consistency of purpose on, is not whether something needs to be done—there would be a massive betrayal of our national economic future, particularly post-Brexit, if we do not have sufficient transport capacity between the major cities and economic centres of the country—but what should be done. Taking a longer-term view of investments will produce a step change in capacity between these major cities, rather than more patch and mend. Producing incremental increases in capacity will not be sufficient, including on commuter lines because the building of high-speed lines releases significant capacity on existing commuter lines.
Lord Snape
The noble Lord is making a much better non-Second Reading speech than I did. Does he agree that any upgrade of the existing railway lines could not be done at the same time as running the present intensive service? The short-sighted nature of debates in this House and elsewhere means that alternative routes have long since been closed—since the 1960s—so we would paralyse the west coast main line for a decade or so ahead while not having the benefits of any diversionary routes.
Lord Adonis
My noble friend is completely correct. Of the £10 billion spent on the last upgrade of the west coast main line, £1 billion was spent on compensation to train companies for not running services. The easiest way to make money if you are running a train service on the existing rail network is to have major upgrade work taking place, which means you get compensated. You get a huge and reliable source of funds for not running any services at all.
I do not want to go through these big arguments again. I come back to the Chilterns. The villages and settlements my noble friend Lady Mallalieu mentioned would not be the successful, vibrant settlements they are without the Chiltern line itself. It was the construction of the Chiltern line that put life-blood into many of these communities. Two sets of decisions were taken at the end of 2009 in respect of these lines, one of which has been hugely controversial, and will continue to be until it is open, when people will wonder what all the controversy was about, which is the construction of HS2. The other big investment that I authorised, which also took some persuading because there were alternative uses of the money, was a significant sum for the upgrade of the Chiltern line, which I assume my noble friend welcomes. That upgrade now enables services on the Chiltern line to run at 90 miles per hour. As my noble friend mentioned, it provides an economic alternative route to Birmingham, which was not possible before. We have just opened the new services going to Oxford, which will transform the connectivity of that area, including the construction of a great deal of housing.
All this is being made possible by significant investment in a major transport artery, including one that goes through an area of outstanding natural beauty. We cannot have successful communities and a thriving economy unless we have decent connectivity. The Chilterns knows that better than anywhere because it has one of the most successful and fastest-growing railway lines, in traffic terms, in the country in the Chiltern line. It is vital that we do not deprive our great conurbations and all those who depend on them, which are the life-blood of the nation, of the essential benefits of connectivity into the next generation.
What we need to do—huge attention has gone into this—is reconcile those big investments and the big projects with the amelioration necessary for the local communities. Nowhere in the history of the planning of railways has seen greater investment in tunnels to ameliorate the impact on the community than what is taking place in the Chilterns. A huge amount of work is going into ensuring that the impact of the construction work is reduced too, but it is important not to confuse these two essential points. The continuing work that needs to be done, which HS2 Ltd should do and which my noble friend is quite right to continue to press it on, is seeing that the impacts of the construction work on the communities affected are minimised. Equally, we as a Parliament need the resolve to see that we have the essential connectivity between our major conurbations in the next generation, without which our economy would be severely damaged.
Lord Rosser
I do not wish to make a Second Reading speech, but I simply say that at Second Reading we indicated our support for the Bill and the project. That is where we stand. Likewise, we accept the point made that that does not prevent amendments being tabled and debated to discuss issues of outstanding concern.
I wish to raise only one point in the context of my noble friend Lord Berkeley’s Amendment 3 referring to routes east of Old Oak Common. Do the Government intend now, in this debate, to address the point made in the Select Committee’s report in paragraph 178, or is their intention not to respond to this issue at this time, but when they produce their formal reply to the report? The issue I refer to is the point about the comprehensive redevelopment of Euston and this comment in the Select Committee’s report:
“The new station which will eventually emerge after so much expenditure of public funds and so much misery endured by Camden residents, ought to be a world-class railway station, and the splitting of its design into two different operations seems unlikely to assist in the achievement of that objective. We earnestly urge the Secretary of State to ensure that funding is provided for the second planning stage to proceed as soon as possible”.
What will the Government’s response be to that, and, indeed, to the views of Camden Council on this issue of ensuring the design and development of Euston as a coherent whole? Will they respond when they reply to Amendment 3, spoken to by my noble friend Lord Berkeley, or does the Minister—I would obviously accept this—wish to indicate that that will be covered in the Government’s response to the Select Committee report when it comes out?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
I again thank all noble Lords for their contributions. On the final point made by the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, I have already alluded to the fact that the Government will look to publish their response to the Select Committee report next week, which will certainly cover the two questions that he raised.
On the amendments, the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, talked about shooting messengers. It is certainly never the intention of government to indulge in such activity. We fully accept that there are challenges. There have been thorough reviews of the proposals behind such a large infrastructure project. I fully accept, too, that strong sentiments are associated with large infrastructure projects such as this, in their building and in the challenges posed in ensuring that we mitigate impact on the environment. As several noble Lords have said, such challenges should be looked at practically to see how best they can be addressed. Without such an approach, as the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, and the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, well articulated, many an infrastructure project, and perhaps our railway as a whole, might not be present today. I was once told by a Parisian that when the Eiffel Tower was being constructed Parisians at the time strongly objected to such a monstrosity appearing in the middle of the capital city. I wonder what they would think wherever they are now. Nevertheless, I note the concerns that have been expressed and will address some of the issues that have arisen.
A number of the amendments that have been tabled for this Committee stage of the Bill have been fully considered by Select Committees of both Houses and look to alternative proposals for aspects of the Bill scheme. I am sure noble Lords will appreciate that two Select Committees have already spent a combined period of more than two years hearing evidence and considering all aspects of the proposed Bill scheme and alternatives to it. Those committees received representations from more than 3,400 petitioners and made their conclusions having explored all the relevant issues. As we move through the different stages of the Bill, it is important that we draw a line under such considerations.
On a review of the costs for phase 1 of HS2, I assure noble Lords and, in particular, the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, that the costs have already been subject to intense analysis and review over several years and will continue to be reviewed for many years to come, and indeed during construction. Several noble Lords, including my noble friend Lord Framlingham, raised the issue of costs. I assure him and others that both the Public Accounts Committee of the other place and the National Audit Office, a body that already has a statutory function to examine proper allocation of public expenditure, have produced several publicly available reports on the costs of HS2. I am sure both bodies will continue to examine those costs as we move into the detailed design and construction stage and as more detailed costs information becomes available.
As noble Lords will be aware, an updated cost estimate for the project is also published at each new iteration of the business case, with the next such iteration due this summer. The project as a whole, including its cost estimate and business case, is subject to regular independent review by the Infrastructure and Projects Authority and the Commons Public Accounts Committee. I therefore do not believe or accept that further independent review is necessary at this time. The Select Committees and other committees that I have referenced have looked at the costs associated with the project. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, that we have produced high-level cost estimates for our Euston proposals as well, but we have to be mindful that we need to keep certain detailed cost figures commercially confidential as we go to market for the construction work. I am sure the noble Lord will acknowledge that officials in my department and the team at HS2 have sought to work with him and given time to listen to the proposals he has presented.
I also fully endorse the point that was well made by the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, that those who may be suggesting alternatives or being critical of certain elements of the construction of HS2 are not against the scheme as a whole. Indeed, I know that the noble Lord accepts that part of the reasoning behind building HS2 is the economic case in terms of addressing issues of capacity. I know that he, as a great champion of the freight industry, also accepts that once we see the extra passenger capacity on HS2 it will release extra capacity for freight on existing lines.
I assure noble Lords that we have produced various costs for both the Select Committees, including funding costs and costs for key elements, but we will provide more detail as we move forward. It is also worth noting that an independent review of the HS2 Ltd cost estimate of a bored tunnel through the Colne Valley has been undertaken. The outcome of that independent cost review, undertaken by the lead non-executive director for the DfT, Ed Smith, has been published and concluded that the HS2 Ltd cost estimates were both reasonable and consistent. Other than delaying the railway, and in doing so adding additional cost, it is not clear to me what benefit the amendment would bring.
With regard to the alternative routes into Euston and the associated request from the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, to consider a route east of Old Oak Common, I do not believe that this amendment is necessary or appropriate. The noble Lord knows that I respect his commitment to this subject. I know that he appeared before the Select Committees in both Houses to make the case for an alternative solution at Euston. Neither Select Committee saw fit to recommend his alternative solution, nor a value-for-money review as the amendment proposes.
Given that it is the role of the Select Committee to consider such matters and that both Select Committees, having considered all the available evidence on these issues, did not believe any further cost reviews were necessary, I do not believe that the amendment is appropriate at this stage. It would serve only to delay the beginning of construction once Parliament had authorised the project. Clearly, such a delay in and of itself would add additional and unnecessary costs to the delivery of the scheme, which I am sure is not the noble Lord’s intention.
The link to the west coast main line at Handsacre was also considered by the Select Committees of both Houses, which were the most appropriate forum for any subsequent amendments on this issue to have been made. It is also important to note that the link at Handsacre serves a dual purpose. It will allow services to run north following the completion of phase 1 but, following the completion of phase 2A, it will also allow high-speed services to continue serving Stafford, something that the people of Staffordshire value very highly.
As I said, the Select Committee of the other House spent considerable time hearing evidence from parties wishing to promote alternative environmental mitigation proposals, including tunnel options in the Chilterns. The noble Baroness, Lady Mallalieu, spoke with great passion on this issue. I assure her that this work included reviewing the cost-benefit analysis of the various options. Ultimately, the Select Committee of the other place requested a 2.6-kilometre extension to the Chilterns tunnel, at an additional cost of £47 million, and recommended a 100-metre extension of the Wendover Green tunnel, at an additional cost of approximately £15 million.
However, the committee was clearly of the view that the environmental benefits of further tunnelling did not warrant the significant additional cost. The cost of the other proposed tunnel options ranged from £82 million to £485 million. While I am sure that those who favoured an extended tunnel in the Chilterns will continue to be dissatisfied that their proposals were not supported, I hope that they—including the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, who could not attend this afternoon—would concede that the process allowed them to have their say and that we should now respect the outcomes of the process even if we do not always agree with them.
Lord Berkeley
My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken in this short debate. At one stage, I felt that I had really put the cat among the pigeons in an unacceptable way, but we have come back to the text of the amendments, and I am grateful for the Minister’s response. I want the scheme to go ahead. It is needed for capacity, as my noble friend Lord Adonis said. My worry is to do with the costs. As the Minister knows, I have been meeting senior officials of HS2 and his department, probably for two years. In connection with the Euston scheme, it was clear to me that there was no cost estimate for the AP3 scheme, as it is called; that is why we decided to price it for them. The figure came out at £8.25 billion. Because it was so high in relation to the total cost of phase 1, I thought it was very likely that there would be a serious cost overrun for phase 1, which could put the project at risk, which I do not want to happen.
If HS2 or his department have figures for costs, is the Minister willing to share them with us? We have a big schedule here of the costs of the whole project from railway control systems, train power, enabling works and building works to signalling. If we have got it wrong, I would like to know about it. We have a blank screen at the moment. Could we have a meeting on this before Report when we could share these costs with his officials?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
If there is anything that we can assist with between different stages of the Bill I would welcome meetings, either directly with myself or with officials, and if schedules allow we will arrange them. On the cost of the Euston AP3 scheme, an estimate of expense was deposited in September 2015, as required by Standing Orders, and I hope that the noble Lord is aware of this.
Lord Berkeley
I am grateful to the Minister. Perhaps we can follow this up afterwards. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Viscount Astor
“Benefit and cost review of a Wendover Mined Tunnel
(1) The Secretary of State shall commission a review of the potential benefits of constructing a Mined Tunnel at Wendover, Buckinghamshire.(2) The review shall have regard to possible alleviation of High Speed 2 construction and train operational noise, and to alternatives for such alleviation.(3) The review shall include estimates of the costs of construction of a Mined Tunnel and other relevant costs.(4) The Secretary of State must lay a report on the outcome of the review before both Houses of Parliament—(a) within three months of the passing of this Act; and(b) before commencement of any High Speed 2 construction works necessitating the movement of more than 24 heavy goods vehicle through Wendover per day.”
Viscount Astor (Con)
My Lords, my amendment—and possibly those that follow—may rehybridise the Bill. However, as this is Grand Committee there are no votes and that is not likely to happen today. I have tabled them to elicit a response from the Minister. While rehybridising and recommitment does not often happen, it is not unprecedented. As a Minister in a long-past Government, it happened to me on a Scottish transport Bill. Lord Burton put down an amendment about badgers and otters crossing roads—a subject which your Lordships would get rather worked up about. My speaking notes from the department at the time said: “Resist at all costs”, which I gamely tried to do. However, I was somewhat undermined half way through the debate by the noble and learned Lord who had chaired the Select Committee standing up and saying that there was an omission that the committee had failed to debate or look at. He therefore supported Lord Burton’s amendment that it be looked at again, whereupon I had to retire hurt. It did work, and the Bill finally came forward with Lord Burton’s amendment.
These amendments are important because the Select Committee had a very limited remit when it looked at the Bill. It could not stray from its rather narrow route. That said, it produced a good and admirable report. It made some general points about the promoter engaging in effective and timely public engagement and noted that it found the complexity of the process difficult for petitioners to understand. Petitioners sometimes also found the documentation provided by the promoter, “arcane, opaque and unhelpful”. They were also sometimes unfairly treated by late replies after months of silence, suggesting that their concerns had perhaps been met. I am sure the Minister will be the opposite this afternoon: clear, helpful and responsive.
In its report, the Select Committee noted the issues that surround Wendover and reported that it had directed a longer Chilterns bored tunnel, greater noise protection for Wendover and better construction arrangements in Hillingdon. It did not comment on the evidence presented on the proposed mined tunnel further along the route. It could not consider changes that require an additional provision without a direction from the House. We have the opportunity at a later stage of the Bill to give that direction for it to be looked at via a transport works order. The initial longer, mined tunnel was rejected by the promoter on grounds of cost. Although it is obvious that a longer tunnel is more costly and complicated, the promoter did not fully take account of the possible savings on the compulsory purchase of land and housing and the effect on the environment. There were two experts and, as we all know, experts on both sides of the argument hate being proved wrong. Those who wished for a longer tunnel provided an expert—described by the Select Committee as a credible witness—who disputed the costs. Indeed, those costs were not greater but actually a saving on the promoters’ costs. That is because the mined tunnel would be 4.2 kilometres long and it would save just over a kilometre of viaduct. As we know—as the experts tell me, anyway, and I think they are right—viaducts are expensive to build and maintain. There could be a saving on property, there could be a saving on costs, and it would solve noise issues. Mined tunnels are cheaper and have been done before. The area is virtually the same type of chalk as the other Wendover tunnel. Indeed, the water table does not present an insoluble problem.
I am no expert. I hesitate to say who is right between tunnelling and rail experts. I leave that expertise to the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, who does know about these things. But I do know that this is an issue that should be re-examined as there is clearly a difference between acknowledged experts. In the overall scheme of timing and costs, it is actually quite minimal but for the people of Wendover it is extremely important and there is no excuse for the Government and the promoters not to get it right. Those affected by the route have a right to have their case heard and their petitions properly scrutinised, not rejected out of hand for the convenience of the process. I have tabled this amendment to ask the Government to look again at the issues of cost and to ask the Minister whether he will consider having a short, quick, independent review into whether this is feasible. I beg to move.
Baroness Mallalieu
My Lords, I support the noble Viscount’s amendment. It appears that this provision was not in fact looked at by the Select Committee. It is a provision which, unlike the concerns that were raised by the noble Lord, Lord Snape, is likely to save money rather than cost more—
Baroness Mallalieu
My noble friend, I am sorry. On the face of it, it will not require any delay either. The Select Committee was not able to look at it. It was told that the proposal that was then before it was additional provision.
The end result is that Wendover, which I think members of the Select Committee will remember is the village from which they had the largest number of letters, received the benefits, I suppose you could call them, only of a rejection of any sound barriers, which, although they were thought by the committee to be effective, would have been visibly intrusive. It was told that the donation to the church of £250,000 was generous. It is a very musical church which is going to have great difficulty in continuing as the centre for various concerts and performances. A new cricket pavilion was to be provided by the promoters on an alternative ground. That was the end result of Wendover’s concerted effort to bring about some changes in the proposals.
This proposal—if it is right, and I have no means of knowing whether it is—would appear to be one that would have the support of that community, would go a considerable way towards helping to ameliorate some of the worst parts of the line and, as I said, would result in some savings and no delay. Surely it would be possible for the Minister to say that this is one of the proposals that, respecting what the committee has said, was not before it and should be looked at before it is rejected out of hand.
Lord Snape
My Lords, I do not necessarily oppose the amendment, although I listened with interest to what my noble friend said about how this would save money. I am not sure what costings the noble Viscount has carried out. There has been some criticism of the costings so far as the whole project is concerned, yet we are told by the noble Viscount and my noble friend that this will actually save money. Perhaps, for the clarification of the Committee, they could tell us how their conclusions have been arrived at. I am no expert. My noble friend Lord Berkeley might tell me. I am not quite sure what a mined tunnel is and what differentiates a mined tunnel from a normal railway tunnel.
Viscount Astor
As I understand it, a mined tunnel is where you use a digger to make a hole, as opposed to one of those circular machines that makes a round hole. Apparently it is a cheaper way of doing it than the other way, but I am not an expert.
Lord Snape
Though he is not an expert, the noble Viscount has done extremely well. I am enlightened.
Lord Berkeley
Maybe I can help. My noble friend at some stage probably came down the Channel Tunnel while we were building it. We had boring machines boring the tunnels, but there were two caverns for crossovers, which were mined using something called the new Austrian tunnelling method, which involves more or less what the noble Viscount said. It is a big digger on tracks with a revolving arm and cutters that stick out. Something then gets the spoil that goes underneath it, then you spray concrete with reinforcing mesh on it and put in in situ or precast concrete later. It is supposed to be a lot cheaper; you do not need a boring machine. My colleagues have looked at the costs and they reckon that there is about £750 million to save. It is a very good scheme.
Lord Snape
I am replying to an intervention on my speech. I will of course give way to my noble friend in a moment, but first of all I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Berkeley. He was very clear indeed. I have become an expert now on mined tunnels. I give way to my noble friend now.
Lord Adonis
I simply wished to make a point to the Minister. My understanding is that it is not correct to say that the Select Committee did not consider this issue of a mined tunnel at length. My understanding is that it spent a very considerable amount of time listening to the arguments. I find it inconceivable, with all the expertise my noble friend Lord Berkeley has been able to give us this afternoon, that we could substitute our judgments in the course of a debate of half an hour, or an hour, or an hour and a half for the huge attention that the Select Committee gave to this over many hours, as I understand it, seeking a very wide range of expertise. If it is the case that the Select Committee considered this and that my noble friend Lady Mallalieu was incorrect in suggesting that it was not considered, I cannot see that there is much point in us continuing this debate in the form that we are.
Lord Snape
I am rather sorry I got involved in this whole thing now. I make one plea on behalf of the train passengers, who will pay a substantial amount and a bit more besides as a premium. Part of the pleasure of taking a train journey is looking out of the windows. This obsession with tunnelling everywhere through the Chilterns means we will perhaps be denied the sight of my noble friend galloping across the rolling hills of the Chilterns in pursuit of the uneatable. Surely these are sights that people enjoy when travelling by train. Rather than confine train passengers in tunnels for miles on end, would not the noble Viscount be satisfied with some sort of noise barrier, rather than insisting that train passengers on this proposed high-speed line spend their lives in semi-darkness to avoid my noble friend and her colleagues?
Lord Young of Norwood Green (Lab)
My Lords, I hesitate to come into this debate, but I confirmed with my colleagues that I was not suffering from post-traumatic High Speed 2 Select Committee delusion. We spent an inordinate amount of time, quite rightly, looking at possible alternatives and at costings. We did not just take the promoter’s word for it. Whenever it put up its experts we looked at whether we could ascertain whether there was an independent corroboration of the costings. Indeed, the Minister confirmed that this was the case earlier when he talked about the possible tunnelling in the Colne Valley area. That was independently assessed. It was proved that the promoter’s costings were right. There were not any savings to be made, although there were lots of assertions that there were savings to be made.
I appreciate the thanks we have had for the amount of time we spent. There were times when I remembered the old Army adage, “Never volunteer”, but, despite that, for the most part we enjoyed it because it was expertly chaired. We ought to pay tribute to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Walker of Gestingthorpe, who carried out the task, in our collective view, skilfully and carefully.
On the final point in Amendment 7, there are no heavy goods vehicles going through Wendover. It was asserted on many occasions that there are alternative routes. Like my noble friend Lord Adonis, I am not trying to pretend that this project will not cause problems in its impact during the construction phase, but we at least ought to be accurate if we are putting down an amendment. I hope that that has helped noble Lords.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
I thank all noble Lords for their contributions. After the interventions by the noble Lords, Lord Adonis and Lord Young, I feel that there is little left for me to say except to clarify that they are both correct. It is important to underline that point for the record.
I will start with the amendment in the name of my noble friend. As he recognised, the issue would lead to a rehybridisation of the Bill. He talked of his own experience and I fully accept that it is procedurally possible for this to happen, but we need to think long and hard about whether such amendments should be made. I reassure the noble Baroness, Lady Mallalieu, that, as we heard from a member of the Select Committee, this was given a fair and detailed hearing by that committee, as well as in the other place. Despite not being able to consider changes that would require an additional provision without a direction from the House, your Lordships’ Select Committee nevertheless heard further arguments on the case for a mined tunnel at Wendover, on the supposition that an order under the Transport and Works Act 1992 could be used to enable further powers to be secured if needed. After that extensive and exhaustive review, neither Select Committee felt the need to recommend that additional work be undertaken to investigate the merits of or provision for a mined tunnel—we all know what that is now—at Wendover.
I reiterate that we have provided a range of additional assurances for the residents of Wendover, which, as well as the ones that I have spoken about, include noise barriers on the Small Dean embankment, an assurance relating to noise mitigation measures at Wendover Campus School and funding for a bespoke package of noise insulation at St Mary’s Church, Wendover, to allow it to continue to function as a concert venue. I have already talked about the 100-metre Wendover tunnel extension and the noise barriers that were secured in the other place. I have also alluded to the independent review of costs—the noble Lord, Lord Young, also mentioned it—conducted by the non-executive director, Ed Smith. I reiterate the hope that the noble Baroness will reflect not just on what I have said today but on the appropriate sections of the Select Committee report, which also considered this matter.
While I continue to recognise the valid concerns that my noble friend raised about remaining impacts on Wendover, the area has been given many commitments to manage the impacts of the new railway. I believe that this House should respect the decisions of the Select Committees in the House of Commons and in your Lordships’ House.
Baroness Mallalieu
I apologise for interrupting, but I just want to be clear about this. I am looking at the relevant section of the report—120—and it appears that the committee looked at a bored tunnel but not at a mined tunnel. If I am wrong about that, I would be grateful if I could be corrected. Notwithstanding the fact that the committee was in some doubt about whether it should look at it, it looked at a bored tunnel, whereas the proposal that is now being made by the noble Viscount is a somewhat different project.
Lord Young of Norwood Green
I can assure your Lordships that we looked at all the alternatives at great length on many occasions. Although I did not always enjoy the repetition, it was important that we heard the arguments. We heard from experts on both sides, so if there is one thing this Committee need not worry about, it is whether these alternatives were given a lengthy and fair hearing.
Viscount Astor
My Lords, I am grateful to everybody who has spoken. I particularly enjoyed the idea from the noble Lord, Lord Snape, that a four-kilometre mined tunnel would put HS2 passengers in darkness. If I have got right the speed that the train is going to go, in a four-kilometre tunnel, you only have to blink three times and you have missed it.
Lord Snape
I am sure that is right, although I am not sure whether it would stand up mathematically in a courtroom, but we are not talking about just this particular tunnel—there is lots of tunnelling through the Chilterns, which has come about as a result of demands, including semi-hysterical demands from a then member of the Cabinet, which in the view of many of us who have taken an interest in the project have added unnecessarily to the cost and makes travelling by train less pleasant. A lot of the people that the noble Viscount represents are against the project as a whole—a point that we have made time after time.
Viscount Astor
I am not going to get into that debate with the noble Lord, but I think I am right in saying that the purpose of HS2 was not to give travellers better views of the countryside but to get them somewhere more quickly and more efficiently, although I am sure it is an added bonus if they have a better view of the country.
To come to the point, there is a difference of opinion among experts. The noble Lord, Lord Adonis, does not like to see any criticism of this project and regards the promoter’s and the department’s experts as necessarily right. I do not know whether they are right. I did not say who was right; I said that during the Select Committee hearings there were a lot of conversations between experts that show there is a difference of opinion, as there have been since its report. All I am saying is there is an opportunity for the Minister and his department to look at this again. That is all I am asking. I am not saying who is right and who is wrong, but that there is an issue. It will not delay the Bill or the process. It is about whether the Minister’s department will look at the evidence and see whether it addressed all the concerns and issues.
Lord Adonis
I was not seeking in any way to say that one set of experts should be more highly esteemed than another. I was making the factual point that my understanding, which has been confirmed, was that the Select Committee heard experts on both sides. Indeed, it engaged its own experts because it was not going to take the word of one set of experts against the other. It spent many hours reviewing the case and reached its judgment. I was simply making the point that if that is established as a fact, I cannot see how we would be in any position to substitute our own judgment for theirs.
Viscount Astor
The Select Committee came to a conclusion, which may be right or wrong. But its members are not rail experts. I admire its distinguished report, but even they would not say they got everything right on every single issue. What I am saying is that during and since the committee, issues have arisen, and there has been further debate and work done on cost. My request to the Minister was whether his department would look at it without in any way holding up the process. Perhaps my noble friend might give this some thought between now and Report. Would that be possible?
Lord Snape
The noble Lord said that this mined tunnel would not, in effect, make much difference as far as the journey is concerned. Would he be interested in knowing—I have just been assured by an expert that these facts are correct—that out of the 210 kilometres of the high-speed line, no less than 47 kilometres is already in tunnels? If he does not mind me saying so, that is more than enough.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Snape, again for sharing facts. During the debates we have had this afternoon—
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
I am always grateful for the noble Lord’s interventions.
My noble friend talked about analysing and reviewing evidence. Let me reassure him that the Select Committees of both Houses have looked at this in detail and that it was an exhaustive process, as we have already heard from one member of your Lordships’ committee. It was not looked at only for a few seconds in passing—a blink and then you are through the tunnel, so to speak. This is the view of the department, the Government and myself, and we have to respect the decisions that have been reached by not one but two Select Committees on a process which they themselves—notwithstanding that there were additional provisions as part of the proposals—looked at. They considered the opinions and views of experts from both sides, as we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Young, and their conclusions after that exhaustive process need to be both reflected on and respected.
Viscount Astor
I have listened to what my noble friend said and will consider it carefully. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Viscount Astor
“( ) change the landscaping and other works, including shaping bunds to maximise the noise attenuation of the bunds by including steep sides, noise attenuation fences and trees, to mitigate any adverse effects of the construction, maintenance or operation of any of the works and of the operations of the railway authorised by this Act;( ) change the works for the benefit or better protection of property, people, farm animals in yards, woodlands, habitats or wild species affected by any of the works or the railway operations authorised by this Act;( ) reduce the extent of farm land taken for biodiversity where there is demonstrable equivalent local biodiversity capacity and considerate estate management and farming practices;”
Viscount Astor
My Lords, Amendments 8, 25, 26 and 27 have nothing to do with tunnels—I can assure the noble Lord, Lord Snape, about that. They are designed to make the route even more pleasant for those travelling on it and to protect those living alongside it.
My first amendment is perhaps more general, although it particularly affects Buckinghamshire, which, as your Lordships know, is a county with exceptional areas of outstanding national beauty. It does, however, have a dense population at the same time as having a wonderful countryside, and has some motorways and roads but also narrow lanes. One group that has been concerned throughout this whole process but has felt excluded is the parish councils. Some of them do not have the funds to enable them to take part and some do not have the expertise, and although there were community forum area meetings they did not always work or address all the issues. They certainly did not have some of the expertise that they required to make a good case. Local communities have knowledge of local traffic flows, school runs and public transport, and know what the effect of disruption is. If there was one noticeable point made in the Select Committee’s report, it was that the promoters had failed adequately to understand the long-term disruption, noise and pollution during the building stage of HS2. This amendment asks whether during this process adequate attention will be spent on these issues.
The next three amendments are more specific. Amendment 25 concerns the proposed Calvert infrastructure maintenance depot. The depot requires a large site that will serve as a base for the maintenance of the railway and for infrastructure projects. In the original plan an accommodation bridge was included as a substitute for a user-worked crossing—not being an expert, I had to ask someone what that was before I felt able to speak to your Lordships. The accommodation bridge has now been removed by the promoters, as stated in a recent letter that was received after your Lordships’ Select Committee’s petitioning stage, and so was not able to be considered. The alternative user-worked crossing was instead proposed. I do not know whether this late change was intended to be an improvement or was a cost-saving exercise but the result is that the effect on Doddershall has not been properly reviewed—certainly its residents do not think it has. HS2 at this point follows the Bletchley to Bicester to Oxford existing railway, which will form the new upgraded east-west line. That upgrade will be an added complication. The present ameliorating effects of the route will result in a much longer and more expensive journey for farm traffic crossing in and out of Doddershall. As it is not clear why the original accommodation bridge was removed, will the Minister look at this, and see why it happened and whether it makes sense? It is a detailed point but it has been put to me by those who feel that they have an important concern that was not able to be addressed because their letter was received after the Lords stage
Amendment 26 concerns the route and, again, local traffic problems. I have given the Minister notice of what I am going to say because this is a complicated local issue. He may wish to write to me with a detailed reply. It is about configuring the local roads between Quainton and Waddesdon; otherwise, an estimated 1,200 people will have a much longer, more difficult journey between the two, adding to traffic complications. It is a local issue and I am sure there are many local issues along the route and it would not make sense to bring up every single local concern about HS2. I have brought it up today because people in the area feel that the promoters changed the effects that this was going to have after the Select Committee process. Therefore, they were not able fully to address the issues.
Finally, Amendment 27 asks a question about the alternative route that was developed by Arup for HS2 and was presented by Twyford Parish Council in Committee in the Commons. It is a route that would save the demolition of houses. The promoters believe that it is straighter and less costly. Again, I am not an expert. I do not know. They also believe that it would remove noise issues along the route and the disruption to local residents and farmers would be much less. My point to my noble friend the Minister is: this is a local issue. It is not the biggest issue that affects HS2, but it is important to the people who live there. I have tabled these amendments to ask the Minister whether he will consider these representations to see whether they can be addressed to help those who are affected by HS2. I beg to move.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
My Lords, I thank my noble friend for tabling his amendments. I appreciate that he is seeking further clarification. I will take each amendment in turn.
First, the provisions set out in Amendment 8 replicate the powers already in the Bill under Clause 2(3). With respect to reducing the amount of land take, we are already under a general duty to minimise the amount of land we are taking for the railway if it is possible to do so without compromising the construction and implementation of the project in a timely and economic manner. Furthermore, we have given a general assurance to the National Farmers’ Union and the Country Land and Business Association that we will aim to further minimise the loss of high-quality agricultural land where there are opportunities to do so through the detailed design stage of the project. I therefore hope that my noble friend will feel reassured in that respect, and I am sure those discussions will continue during the design phase.
My noble friend also raised the issue of changes or alterations, referring to the area between Calvert and Doddershall. I inform him that the Bill scheme has not been altered in this area, as he suggested. The accommodation bridge to which he referred is part of the East West Rail scheme and not part of HS2, and as such will not be subject to this Bill. He mentioned a particular letter that was sent by concerned parties. I have briefly checked with officials and I have certainly not seen it. If it is available and he would like to forward it, I will respond appropriately to the matters raised in it.
Amendment 26 suggests a revised road layout in the Quainton area. As my noble friend may know, this issue was considered in detail by the Lords Select Committee, having been the subject of a petition and an evidence session. My view, which I reiterated in the debate on the previous amendment, stands: it is not appropriate to revisit here issues that have been discussed at length and in detail by the Select Committee. The considerable time that the Select Committee spent on those issues needs to be respected.
I also appreciate that this issue could be delivered outside the Bill powers, in which case it certainly does not require further consideration here. My noble friend recognised that but, as the requested road layout would require new land to be acquired, objections to the change would be expected, in particular from the Buckinghamshire Railway Centre due to the adverse impact on its operations and land use. I assure my noble friend that these issues have been fully explored by the Select Committee, which ultimately did not see merit in making a recommendation of the kind being sought by the amendment. It would create a requirement for significant works to the existing Station Road, where the proposed road layout would need to be raised to pass over HS2, taking land from the Buckinghamshire Railway Centre overflow car park and thereby restricting access to the adjacent industrial premises. It would also require substantial temporary diversion works to Station Road during the construction of the revised road alignment.
Amendment 27 seeks a review of the route alignment. Although I respect and appreciate my noble friend’s commitment to refining the scheme, as he notes in the amendment, the “route C” alignment was an option considered in 2010 as part of the appraisal of route options consulted on at that time. It was the subject of detailed consideration, but ultimately was not selected when the Government announced the route in 2012. At this late stage in the progress of the Bill it is inappropriate to suggest that we disregard all the previous work that has taken place. I respect the fact that my noble friend has sought clarification by tabling these amendments and I hope I have been able to provide it, at least in part. As I said, if there is a letter that has yet to be answered I will ask my officials to look at it and we will respond accordingly. I hope that, on the basis of the assurances I have provided and the clarifications I have given, he will be minded to withdraw the amendment.
Viscount Astor
My Lords, I thank my noble friend the Minister for his response, particularly to Amendment 8, which is very helpful. I will indeed write to him on Amendment 25 and the correspondence that has been received. I have one point to make about the Select Committee. The noble Lord, Lord Adonis, the Minister and the noble Lord opposite talked about it as though whatever comes out of it should be written in stone and never questioned, looked at or judged again. They forget, however, that the Select Committee had a very narrow remit; it could not look outside that very narrow route. It was restricted and could not look at lots of different possibilities because the remit under which it was set up did not allow it to do so, even if it wanted to. That was the issue that affected it. My noble friend has been enormously helpful. I am very grateful and do not wish to detain the Committee. However, although I understand why the committee had restrictions—otherwise the petitions would have gone wider and wider and wider—these prevented it looking at some of the issues that affected the route. I give way to the noble Lord.
Lord Young of Norwood Green
I did not want to intervene again, but I feel I must correct the impression that the noble Viscount is creating that we did not consider these issues. All the issues raised by the amendments were considered in depth. We were not restricted. We heard numerous petitions on the possible alternatives. In his opening contribution, the noble Viscount suggested that we somehow did not listen to parish councils. I assure him that we listened to them on many occasions. Inevitably, some were better than others. After some of the legal representation that we heard, I would have much preferred to hear from the parish councils again. The idea that because they did not have high-powered legal representation they were unable to make their case is not true. I just wanted to correct the impression that the Committee should look at this again because it was not given a proper searching examination by the Select Committee; it was.
Viscount Astor
All I can say to the noble Lord is that some of those involved in parish councils felt unable to present in the way that they should have; I quite respect what he said.
Lord Framlingham
I am sorry to speak again, but I am beginning to wonder what we are doing. If the Select Committee has done everything that needs doing and the Minister will not accept any of the amendments, I am not sure how this Committee will contribute much to the process.
Viscount Astor
I do not know whether my noble friend wants to answer that, but perhaps I may finish responding to the noble Lord. He is quite right that there were a lot of petitions, and I am not in any way criticising the Select Committee or any of the work it did, but the petitions affected the route as proposed. The committee was unable to look any wider into some of the other issues. That was the point I was trying to make. I was not disagreeing with the noble Lord, but I was pointing out that the Select Committee was under certain restrictions. Having said that, unless my noble friend wishes to say anything, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
“( ) In subsection (6), “the deposited book of reference” means the book deposited in November 2013 in connection with the High Speed Rail (London - West Midlands) Bill in the office of the Clerk of the Parliaments and the Private Bill Office of the House of Commons.”
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
My Lords, the amendments in this group in my name are merely corrections flowing from the passing of a new set of consolidating regulations for the environmental permitting regulations and the need to update the relevant references in the Bill. There is also a correction to clarify the date on which Clause 66M—the vocational qualification reporting duty—will come into effect, and a clarification of a reference resulting from a change made by the Select Committee. I beg to move.
“Phase One of High Speed 2 property bond scheme
(1) The Secretary of State must establish a property bond scheme in relation to the scheduled works.(2) Where—(a) the value of an interest in land is depreciated by the presence of any of the statutory nuisances listed in section 79(1)(a) to (h) of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 (statutory nuisances and inspections therefor); and(b) the nuisance arises from the construction or operation of the scheduled works,if the person entitled to the interest (“the applicant”) makes a valid application within the prescribed period, a property bond for that depreciation shall be issued by the nominated undertaker to the applicant.(3) The Secretary of State must make rules governing the making and approval or rejection of applications for property bonds under this section, including—(a) the contents of an application,(b) the evidence of open market value that is required to be provided,(c) the evidence of depreciation that is required to be provided,(d) any fee for making an application,(e) the process for assessing and deciding the open market value and the depreciation of the land, and(f) any minimum depreciation that is required for an application to be valid.(4) When the interest in land is sold the owner of that interest must decide whether to— (a) redeem the property bond and sell the land for its depreciated value, or(b) sell the property bond with the land and sell the land for its open market value.(5) If the owner of the interest in land decides to sell according to subsection (4)(a) the owner must serve notice on the nominated undertaker of the owner's intention to sell the land together with details of the property bond at least one month before selling the land.(6) If the owner validly serves a notice under subsection (5) then the nominated undertaker must pay the difference between the depreciated and open market value of the land to the purchaser of the land at the date of completion of the sale whereupon the property bond is redeemed.(7) A property bond shall be a local land charge until it is redeemed and for the purposes of the Local Land Charges Act 1975 the nominated undertaker shall be treated as the originating authority as respects such a charge.”
Lord Rosser
My Lords, my noble friend might have expected to be back by now, but my understanding is that it is accepted that he has other amendments which will be discussed on Thursday. Without wishing to move this amendment, he will speak on the subject then. For that reason, I do not seek to move the amendment on his behalf. He may address this issue in the context of amendments to be moved on Thursday.
Lord Hunt of Wirral
“For protection of Park Village Limited
(1) The Secretary of State shall make compensation to Park Village Limited and its successors and assigns in respect of any loss or damage (including, but without prejudice to the generality of the foregoing, loss of profits and damage to tenant’s fixtures and fittings and stock in trade) which it may sustain to its business, being the business now or hereafter carried on at No. 1, Park Village East, London NW1 7PX by reason of and during—(a) the exercise by the Secretary of State of his or her powers under this Act; and(b) the execution of works connected therewith by statutory undertakers being road works within the meaning of the New Roads and Street Works Act 1991.(2) Nothing in subsection (1) shall preclude the making of compensation under any other enactment or rule of law but compensation shall not be made in respect of the same loss or damage both under that subsection and that enactment or rule of law.(3) Any dispute arising on a claim for compensation under subsection (1) above shall be determined by the Upper Tribunal.”
Lord Hunt of Wirral (Con)
My Lords, my colleagues will know that I am a very strong supporter of this imaginative and important project. I proposed this new clause to highlight the unfairness of the compulsory purchase compensation code, which does not provide an adequate means of addressing the very real and present unfairness and inadequacies concerning the lack of access to compensation or suitable redress, in particular for small and medium-sized businesses greatly affected by the extent and duration of public works—in this case, phase 1 of the HS2 project as set out in the Bill—but which do not necessarily have any property interests. I believe it should be the promoter’s objective that no business is financially disadvantaged by significant loss of income or business as a direct result of the severity of impacts arising from construction activity.
I take this opportunity to say how strongly I believe, in the absence of such adequate compensation generally, that the promoter, in pursuit of fairness, should either agree a regime of compensation for the reimbursement of business and consequential losses in special cases where construction impacts are likely to be most severe, or accept a protective provision in the Bill for special cases.
Lord Hunt of Wirral
My Lords, there is a case for ensuring adequate compensation in special circumstances, and one such case is outlined in the proposed new clause. I understand that the company, Park Village Ltd, is and has always been acknowledged as a special case but is not necessarily being treated as such. It is a matter of public interest that this issue should be addressed during the progress of the Bill.
I am satisfied that Park Village Ltd is seriously under threat from the HS2 works. No adequate solution for the company’s plight has yet been agreed following the appearance of the company before both parliamentary Select Committees. I was very pleased that the Select Committee of this House referred to its sympathy so far as the company was concerned, but I am pleading for more than just sympathy.
The company suffers the dual misfortune of being sandwiched directly between the proposed utility and construction works in the street directly facing the premises and the demolition, excavation and construction works for the proposed new tunnel portal, head house and barrette wall, making it potentially the single most affected business in the street, in Camden and perhaps ultimately on the entire HS2 route. Without assessing any blame, I believe there has been a failure to grasp the seriousness of the impact of the extent and duration of the HS2 works on the viable operation of this distinctive and exceptionally sensitive business, which relies on the special character of the property and its peaceful and accessible location.
Compensation proposals put to the promoter in the event that mitigation cannot adequately resolve the impact of the HS2 works on the viability of the business have so far been ignored, leaving the company effectively at the mercy of HS2. There is the very real possibility that this exceptionally renowned family business will be unnecessarily lost to the scheme unless special measures are put in place to ensure its continuance.
Let me explain. Park Village Studio is a valuable local asset with a business that has attained international recognition for its exceptional work, but it is nevertheless a family-run, father-and-son business with only limited capacity to withstand externally undermining impacts on its viability brought about by the HS2 works. The studios provide an accessible, high-quality, characterful, tranquil and creative environment where films can be made in necessary peace and quiet, notwithstanding the proximity of the existing railway, which is in deep cutting.
The highly intrusive and lengthy programme of demolition, street utility diversions and construction works proposed by HS2 on virtually all sides of the property, including impacts above and below, will cause the business to suffer significant noise, vibration and pollution impacts. Of particular concern is the proposal by HS2 to deny vehicular access for months at a time to either or both of the studios’ main access doors from Park Village East, which will render the studios incapable of use or hire. No compensation is offered from the promoter.
Indeed, this sort of problem has already arisen. HS2 I understand has subcontracted Thames Water to carry out a major utility diversion now. Park Village Ltd has already lost business before the Bill has even been passed. In essence, the statutory compensation code compensates for the loss of property value, but not for the loss of business income or damage caused to business.
Lord Hunt of Wirral
Where, as in the case of Park Village Ltd, no land is taken, albeit that the property may be immediately adjacent to HS2’s major construction works with resultant significant impacts, the position is different. The only compensation ordinarily payable comes after completion of the works—in this case, perhaps in excess of eight years and then only in respect of some aspects of the operation of the project—not their construction. Paradoxically, greater loss can be suffered by being adjacent to works than by being in their way.
Relocation of the studios on a temporary basis for short periods of time at HS2’s cost remains a possibility but it is highly unlikely that the promoter or the company would be able to find a comparable location offering the distinctive qualities of the Park Village Studio. Just to give an example, the dry hire business would be lost, for which there would be no compensation; nor would there be any compensation for the disruption to the in-house production part of the business.
The assurances offered to Park Village Ltd set out a regime in which mitigation, but not compensation, might be taken forward, but then only on a conditional basis. What has been offered provides no guarantee that the business will be able to remain in the property on a viable basis. More especially, the company remains rightly concerned that in the event that its expectations are borne out and any mitigation that might be provided fails to enable it to carry on its normal activities and continue to attract custom as now, there is no right of redress or recompense. The promoter now needs to act to ensure that, in the acknowledged special case of Park Village Ltd, this business can continue to operate viably throughout the lengthy period of works.
The special report of the House of Lords HS2 Select Committee states at paragraph 196 that,
“the owner-occupiers of Park Village East are among those who will be most severely affected by the works, and to whom we recommend that the Secretary of State should provide further compensation going beyond what is at present proposed”.
I believe the same should apply to the business at 1 Park Village East but this is not currently the case. In the absence of sufficient consideration being offered by way of an agreement that provides for the reimbursement of business and consequential losses arising from the impacts of the HS2 works, a new clause giving such protection should be included in the Bill on a similar basis to the protection provisions given to businesses in similar circumstances in another example of public works. I have done some research. I found Section 16 of the London Transport (Liverpool Street) Act 1983, which is an example of what I am arguing for. Parliament considered it necessary to do this then; it is open to Parliament to do it again.
Through no fault of its own Park Village Ltd, which is a highly reputable and respected company within the UK’s film and recording industry—it is on its own at the top; it is not in a dead heat with anybody else: it is an incomparable and outstanding company—may unnecessarily become a casualty of HS2’s works and the inadequacy of the compulsory purchase compensation code to provide sufficient remedy should mitigation fail.
If I can go back into the history books, having been a Minister for 16 years without a break and without ever having been sacked, I have immediately to stress that I believe the Government’s reluctance to depart from the statutory compensation code is understandable, but they should nevertheless be willing to deal fairly with a recognised special case. When the Bill was first introduced the then Transport Minister said that compensation should be full and fair. More recently, the current Transport Secretary said:
“Where compensation is due, it’s right that we pay, and that we are generous”.
Park Village Ltd is asking only for fair treatment through me, not generosity. For these reasons, I plead with the Minister to acknowledge properly and substantively that Park Village Ltd is a special case. It is a very important provider of jobs locally and significant on the international scene. As no adequate fallback arrangements have been offered, please would he agree to this proposed new clause, because it would give the company the protection it needs and deserves? I beg to move.
Lord Sharkey (LD)
My Lords, I will say a few very brief words in strong support of the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Wirral. I live in Camden. I know the location of Park Village very well. I can quite see how the works associated with HS2 would effectively put the company out of business. That is quite apart from the disfiguring of a particularly attractive corner of what is not always the most attractive borough.
I have also worked with Park Village over two decades or so. My companies and their clients have been enthusiastic users of the studio, which plays an important part in London’s creative industries. It generates significant revenue. It has an international reputation. It contributes to Camden’s creative life and its stock of jobs. London is quite rightly seen as the leading creative city when it comes to advertising and perhaps photography. Park Village Studios is part of this. It would be a very bad idea to lose the studio. It would be a bad and quite unjust idea to lose it without appropriate compensation.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
My Lords, before I continue there is one point I want to clarify from my noble friend Lord Framlingham that came up in a previous debate. He asked about the purpose of the Grand Committee in relation to the work of the Select Committee. In general terms, a Select Committee in consideration of such a hybrid Bill normally looks specifically and primarily at private interests raised by petitioners, which gives it a very exhaustive opportunity to look at the different options. The role of the Grand Committee is what it traditionally is: to consider the public law clauses of a Bill, not the specific details of a private petition. We have certainly discussed those and I hope my noble friend feels that the issue has been clarified. I thought it was important to clarify that point.
Turning to the amendment, I apologise to my noble friend: I know he has written to me on this issue. I am assured by officials that a letter will be on its way shortly to address the specific issues he has raised in his letters. I hope that what I say will, if not totally, partly reassure him with regard to the concerns he has raised. As my noble friend acknowledged, this issue was considered fully by the Select Committees of your Lordships’ House and the other place. It received lengthy hearings. A number of assurances have already been given to the proprietors of Park Village Ltd regarding the compensation of losses.
Those assurances set out in detail that the Government will aim to avoid or reduce any impacts on the operation of the business and, if it becomes necessary to do so, will compensate losses suffered by the business under a number of scenarios. This compensation, which my noble friend referred to, will be determined in accordance with the compensation code, which, as I believe he acknowledged, is a tried and tested method of establishing such losses. This system has developed over many years and seeks to address the very concerns he has raised.
Notwithstanding those comments, during the recent Lords Select Committee hearings, the Government gave further assurances to the proprietors of Park Village Ltd to manage the impacts from construction works at Euston on the business. Additionally, we will keep open the possibility of relocating the business should that become necessary. In its recent report, the Lords Select Committee noted that the best course was for the proprietor,
“to work with the promoter to find ways of continuing to carry on the business where it is. Only if this proves unworkable should relocation, at least on a temporary basis, be considered”.
This matter is on the Government’s agenda and the Select Committee had specific views on it. I hope that my noble friend is partly reassured by what I have said and the fact that in the determination of the Lords Select Committee on this matter it has been aware of the challenges that the business is facing. Based on those reassurances, I hope my noble friend is minded to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Hunt of Wirral
My Lords, it will come as no surprise to my noble friend that his reply to my points raised more questions than answers. While I recognise that he quite rightly quoted from the report of the Select Committee, he did not actually quote the point that the Select Committee made when it said:
“We are sympathetic to Mr Webb”,
but he did raise the point about relocation.
The problem, as I understand it and the noble Lord, Lord Sharkey, also mentioned, is that sadly it is not possible to transport this business easily to another location. Although the Select Committee may well have hoped that it would be possible, I understand now that it is impossible without very substantial cost and expense to a company that could not possibly manage that cost and expense. As the noble Lord pointed out, it has a marvellous location, offering jobs and a business that has been built up and is of international repute. Therefore, there is a need to revisit this issue. I hope my noble friend will agree to hold some further discussions in an effort to find a solution.
With the latest action of Thames Water, the business is effectively going to have to close. Before we allow that to happen, there should be some way of negotiating a solution, and I once again plead with the Minister to see me, Park Village and other noble Lords who have already indicated to me their support for this amendment, to see if there is a way through before this goes back to the other place.
No doubt the local Member of Parliament, Sir Keir Starmer, who has already taken up the cudgels on behalf of Park Village East, will want to be involved in any such discussions. There must be a solution, and perhaps before I move to a decision my noble friend the Minister could indicate whether his door is open.
Baroness O'Cathain (Con)
One of the problems with this whole Committee today is that there are only four or five of us here who know exactly what happened, what exactly the atmosphere was and how we dealt with particular circumstances. This was certainly one which we spent a lot of time on. It might help take some of the heat out of this question if people actually read through the verbatim report of that day, which I am sure is available. It is just an idea, but I feel as though we are being accused of doing down—
Baroness O'Cathain
There is the suggestion that we should have come up with a solution. But we came up with the only practical solution at that stage and did not rule out there being another practical solution. When it comes to the tenor of the conversation, I am sure other members of the committee will agree with me when I say people should not be too harsh. It happened on one or two occasions earlier in this meeting today and I decided not to talk about it, but I think we were all really striving to deal with this, and I am sure the people from Park Village East realised that. I just wanted to make that point.
Lord Berkeley
Is the noble Lord aware of proposals for altering the routes of the tunnels under Park Village East to try and avoid that awful birdcage structure, which I believe can be done without an additional provision? I have heard that they are looking at it. I do not know enough about it to know whether that improves the situation or not, but I know there are moves afoot, because that birdcage is a very tricky structure to build and could put all those houses and Park Village East at risk due to settlement, because it is a tricky piece of construction.
Lord Hunt of Wirral
I am very grateful to the noble Lord for the suggestion he makes, which rather reinforces my plea to the Minister for an assurance that his door is open.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
I say to my noble friend and indeed to all noble Lords that doors are always open. My noble friend Lady O’Cathain made a very appropriate and pertinent point in this respect. I deliberately listened in to the live deliberations of the committee and the tone that was set on certain issues, including this one, was not just sympathetic but—I have used this word repeatedly because I have seen it in action not just in writing—exhaustive when it came to considering the concerns raised by petitioners. The Government fully acknowledge the areas of concern that the Select Committee raised. If we can explore other areas further in discussions or meetings with appropriate parties without impacting any of the additional provisions, I am of course willing to listen and hear more—as I say during the passage of any Bill.
I do not want to give false hope that I can give any new commitments, but I reassure my noble friend and the noble Lord, Lord Sharkey, who also raised concerns, that we are live to the issues of this particular business—other petitions have been raised as well—and we will, as I articulated in my response to his amendment, be looking to ensure that we not only minimise and mitigate the effects but seek to work with the company to address any issues on an ongoing basis. This is not a fait accompli in the sense that the decision has been taken and there is nothing more that can be done.
I reiterate that we will continue to work with the company to ensure that its concerns can be addressed head-on. I asked officials briefly about the issue around Thames Water which he raised and I will seek an update on that. I have yet to sign the letter: perhaps we can reflect on those comments in it as well. I fully accept that my noble friend will not be totally reassured by what I have said, but I hope that at this juncture he will be partly reassured by the fact that the Government are live to this issue and respect the conclusions and recommendations of the Select Committee in this regard.
Lord Rosser
As the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Wirral, has already said, the comments are contained in paragraph 197 of the Select Committee’s report. This follows 196, which deals with a different issue—the owner-occupiers of Park Village East—and recommends that,
“the Secretary of State should provide further compensation going beyond what is at present proposed”.
When the Government respond to the report they are, presumably, going to address the comment the Select Committee made in paragraph 196. In view of what has been said in the discussion about Park Village Studio, and the fact that the Select Committee included a paragraph on this issue, when the Government respond to the report will the Minister also be responding to what is in paragraph 197?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
That was also a reflection of the issues raised by the report about residential properties that are impacted. As I said, if the noble Lord will bear with us, the Government’s response will be available in a week’s time.
Lord Hunt of Wirral
I am grateful to my noble friend the Minister and to my noble friends who sat on the Select Committee. The solution they were hoping for has not proved to be possible and that is why I am so pleased that not only is the Minister’s door open but he is determined to find a solution to the problem that I raised. This will come as a great relief to all those in the area. Perhaps we can now look at all possibilities and, however big his office is, ensure that everyone who is affected is able to hear from him directly on the sort of solution that he would propose. Those of us who are raising this are very strong supporters of the project and I am grateful that the noble Lord who is a director of HS2 has been here listening to the discussion. I would have thought that HS2 itself would want to ensure that a case as special as this is not ignored. In the light of the Minister’s kind agreement to take this further, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
“Duty to have regard to minimising number of gantries
In exercising its powers under this Act, the nominated undertaker shall have regard to the desirability of minimising the number of gantries to be installed to provide power to the railway, in particular in areas of outstanding natural beauty designated by statute and in other areas of particularly high environmental value and sensitivity, and shall consult local communities when designing plans for gantry installation.”
Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab)
I will move Amendment 15 in the name of my noble friend Lord Stevenson who, as the Committee has heard, could not be here today and speak to my Amendment 28 which is grouped with it. I declare my interests as chairman of the Woodland Trust, president of a local wildlife trust, vice-president of RSPB and a former chairman of the Government’s wildlife adviser and regulator.
Had my noble friend Lord Stevenson been here I am sure he would have waxed lyrical about gantries and the need for the undertaker to ensure that gantry selection is as sympathetic as possible. I shall not try to emulate what he would have been saying so lyrically. I will instead focus on my amendment, Amendment 28, which is about ensuring that the nominated undertaker deals with the commitment made that HS2 phase 1 would result in no net loss of biodiversity, and particularly dwell on HS2 Ltd’s approach to the impact of the project on ancient woodland.
As the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, pointed out, HS2 is an extremely important infrastructure project—that is my only Second Reading remark—but ancient woodland is pretty important too. To refresh the Committee’s memory of why, ancient woodland is defined as woodland that has existed since 1600. Some ancient woodlands are tens of thousands of years old and they are an irreplaceable resource of undisturbed soils, biodiversity and community that have existed for many centuries. They are redolent with history as well as biodiversity, and they are irreplaceable, as cathedrals are irreplaceable—they are the cathedrals of our natural world. Yet, more than 600 of them are currently under threat from development, and we are now down to less than 1% of the land surface of this country, which used to be substantially covered with wild wood, now remaining as our ancient woodland.
The impact of HS2 phase 1 on ancient woodland is considerable. It damages 34 ancient woodlands directly and 29 are further affected by noise, light or construction impact; there is more than 30 hectares of total loss. HS2’s commitment to no net loss of biodiversity is impossible, because any damage to ancient woodland is irreplaceable, so the Select Committee in the other place directed the promoter to identify an independent arbiter to review the methodology for assessing no net loss, and suggested the Government’s nature conservation adviser, Natural England, which has a statutory role in that respect. Natural England did the review and submitted its report at the end of July. Unfortunately, ongoing discussions with the Department for Transport meant that it was not published until 9 November, which did not leave the Lords Select Committee much time in which to consider it.
The Natural England review had three key conclusions. The first is that ancient woodland is indeed irreplaceable and that the ancient woodland calculation should be taken out of the metric on no net loss. I would applaud that.
Secondly, where loss of ancient woodland is unavoidable, the terms of compensation should be 30 hectares of new woodland created for each hectare lost. That is in line with Defra’s draft biodiversity off-setting metric, which was developed in 2012. That sounds like a huge scale, but it is necessary due to the irreplaceability of ancient woodland. These are hugely rich areas, with their complex networks of biodiversity both above and below the soil level. Providing brand-new wood, which will be thin on biodiversity, not have those complex networks and take decades—centuries even—to come to a respectable level, means that you must provide an awful lot more that you have destroyed to be in even remotely the same ballpark for compensation.
Natural England was absolutely right to have that high ambition, based on the evidence which it had used to help Defra deliver its original off-setting metric in 2012. Apart from that, it would be apposite for HS2 to provide a positive legacy for the natural environment communities along the route. Alas, the current compensation ratio proposed by the promoter is less than five hectares for every hectare destroyed.
Baroness Pidding (Con)
My Lords, in the unavoidable absence of the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson of Balmacara, and with his permission, I will speak to his Amendment 15, which I support. I must first declare two interests. First, my partner is a Lloyd’s underwriter and is part of the tendering process for the insurance provision for the construction of HS2. Secondly, we live in an area affected by the project.
The amendment raises the issue of the design for the gantries being used in the Chilterns AONB from the point at which it emerges from the bored tunnel and proceeds on the surface to Wendover. My appeal to the Minister is that the promoter and the nominated undertaker should think very carefully about the appearance of these intrusive overhead power lines. In particular, they should explore the possibility of removing as much as possible of this unappealing infrastructure to compensate for the imposition of the railway on the sensitive landscapes of this precious part of our countryside. There is, I accept, a design panel and I am sure it will do what it can to mitigate these unwelcome intrusions of which I speak. But we must all do what we can to protect this rural environment.
I look forward to hearing my noble friend the Minister’s response and hope that he has it in his power to give undertakings: that sensitivity will be used in design; that local people will be consulted; and that all efforts will be made in the Chilterns AONB to conceal power lines, which currently, on the design presented by HS2, will be attached to towers twice the height of the existing pylons. Of course, the ideal solution would be to bury overhead power lines associated with this project in the AONB underground. Will he indicate whether this would be a possible solution?
Lord Berkeley
My Lords, I follow my noble friend’s example. While I fully support her wish to have woodland preserved, I do not know much about it. I think it is a very good idea and I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response. I hope that it will be in the response next week. However, I have problems with Amendment 15. Overhead power lines for railways are a necessary part of making the trains run, unless you use diesels. Diesels are not only polluting, they are very heavy and they do not really like going as fast as is planned for HS2.
Noble Lords may be aware that when the east coast main line was electrified—before my day, but perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Snape, was around then—it was done on the cheap and the wires do come down with depressing regularity. Network Rail, in electrifying the Great Western, have therefore gone to the opposite extreme and put up some pretty hefty towers, supported on piles in the ground, and the wires will be so strong that they will probably resist a good hurricane. But then the people of Bath said that they did not want wires on the railway going past the beautiful city of Bath. When Bath was built, there was not a railway, was there? But a railway was put through it so that the good people of Bath could get to Bristol and London and other places. They did not want a catenary at all; they wanted a third rail because you would not see it. It would have cost billions to develop a special train to go just there so you would not see the wires. The later idea was that the people of Goring, somewhere between Didcot and Reading, did not like the look of these posts and so they are taking legal action, I believe, against Network Rail to have the posts redesigned.
If we want to move around in a modern way, we need electric wires to move the trains. The further apart you put the posts, the more the wires are likely to come down when there is any wind. There has to be a compromise. Yes, we have railways going through AONBs and other places but if you go to places such as the Swiss Alps, the Austrian Alps or other beautiful parts of the continent, all the lines are electrified and the wires just blend in with the rest of the infrastructure. I would strongly resist HS2 being told to have special architect-designed posts for a particular area. It will not work. It will cost an enormous amount of money. These things will fit in with the surroundings quite well. Frankly, when 40% of the line is in a tunnel anyway, you are not going to have too many posts around to look at.
Lord Rosser
I want to make just one or two comments about Amendment 28, to which my noble friend Lady Young of Old Scone has spoken. Obviously, I am aware of the comments that have been made by the Select Committee, which was not, let us say, fully enamoured of the report by Natural England. Equally, as I understand it, it was a report that Natural England was asked to produce in relation to this issue. As my noble friend has said, it has made its recommendations. The Select Committee took the view that it did not feel the reference to a scale of 30:1 was evidence-based. Before I go any further, I accept that I was not a member of the committee and therefore do not know everything that was said when evidence was taken. I do not doubt in that sense that the committee had good reason for making the point it has.
I hope the Government will look sympathetically on the amendment. Certainly, I, too, wish to hear what their response is to the report and the review by Natural England. If their view is that they do not feel they can go down the road of that report, I hope they will set out very clearly what their reasons are and perhaps whether they have alternative propositions to those that have been made. I hope the response will be, at least in large measure if not in its entirety, that they would be willing to accept what was in the report that Natural England was asked to prepare.
Baroness Buscombe (Con)
I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in the debate. I begin with the amendment proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, and supported by my noble friend Lady Pidding. I immediately declare an interest. My full title is Lady Buscombe, of Goring. Therefore, the reference the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, made to gantries affects me directly and is one of the reasons why I was very keen to speak to the amendment on behalf of the Government.
As the noble Lord said, we are dealing with an engineering issue that is largely based on safety. While I completely empathise with my noble friend, the number of gantries needed is based on a strict engineering and operational specification. Most of my friends and neighbours in Goring have come to terms with this now, because the reality is that if you have too much distance between each gantry there would be a slack of the line, which can be whipped up by the wind, as the noble Lord said. There would therefore be a genuine safety issue. That is something we have sought to take on board. Any variation in this specification would introduce reliability issues on the railway.
The ability to reduce the number of the gantries is therefore limited. However, the project is committed to mitigating the visual impacts of the railway through, for example, providing screen planting along parts of the railway to help obscure the overhead line equipment where it is likely to cause a significant visual effect. The phase 1 route has been developed specifically to minimise its impact on landscape and visual amenity, and, where possible, to make a positive contribution to it. This includes the decision to keep the railway as low in the landscape as is reasonably practicable. That is something we did not achieve with Network Rail through the AONB known as the Goring Gap. This is a huge step forward in mitigating the sight of the gantries. The use of earthworks and tree planting will help integrate the railway into the landscape and obscure features such as gantries. I hope what I said will reassure my noble friend such that the proposed amendment is unnecessary. I therefore hope that it will be withdrawn.
With respect to Amendment 28, proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Young, and supported by other noble Lords, I very much empathise with what she said, but I hope that I can persuade her that this amendment, too, is inappropriate, as it seeks to impose a requirement whose merits were fully examined and rejected by the Lords Select Committee. As noble Lords are aware, toward the end of last year, Natural England produced a report, referenced this evening, that reviewed the Government’s proposed metric to achieve no net loss of biodiversity. The primary recommendation of that report, which was markedly different from its previous standing advice, is that where new woodland planting is used to compensate for ancient woodland losses, 30 hectares should be planted for each hectare lost, as the noble Baroness said.
Baroness Young of Old Scone
My Lords, first, I apologise to the noble Baroness, Lady Pidding, for stealing her thunder in moving Amendment 15 and apologise for the fact that, under the conventions of the Committee, I now cannot speak about my own amendment but have to reply on Amendment 15, if I understand it correctly. I am sure that had the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, been here, he would have been disappointed at the Government’s response to the amendment on the number and style of the gantries, as I am sure the noble Baroness, Lady Pidding, is.
I thank noble Lords who spoke in support of both amendments, and the Minister for her thoughtful response, although I look forward to the Government’s response to the Lord Select Committee’s report and hope that, in the intervening period, there may be further consideration of whether there is any scope between the 30 times and the five times compensation ratio for something as important as ancient woodland. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
“Traffic regulation
Schedule (Traffic regulation) contains provision relating to traffic regulation.”
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
As noble Lords will know, traffic regulation orders, or TROs, are a mechanism for local highway authorities to make temporary or permanent restrictions on the use of highways in their area to control traffic. They can include stopping up roads, restricting roads to one-way operation or restricting roads so that they cannot be used by lorries. Such orders could frustrate the construction of the railway by, for example, putting lorry bans on a road that is needed to reach an HS2 phase 1 construction site or point. We have already seen one example of a road in London that we intend using for construction traffic being made one-way, despite our intentions being in the public domain for more than three years.
The new clause and schedule will ensure that local highway authorities consulted the Secretary of State for Transport before making any orders that affected either specific roads identified for use by HS2 or other roads related to HS2 construction works, thereby avoiding this problem. It also allows the Secretary of State, if required, to make TROs, and to prohibit or revoke TROs that unnecessarily hinder the delivery of the railway. The Secretary of State already has the ability to prohibit TROs under specific circumstances, but this power will make that process less convoluted, which is necessary to ensure we do not create unnecessary bureaucratic delays and associated costs in the delivery of the railway.
Clearly, we hope that the regular meetings taking place with local highway authorities to consult on, agree and monitor local traffic management plans will ensure that there will be no need to rely on this provision. However, given the impact such TROs could have on the overall construction and delivery of the railway, we feel that it is both prudent and necessary for such a power to be included.
While a power in relation to TROs has not been required for previous hybrid Bills, given the scale of the project and the risk of issues that could arise during construction, we believe that it would be prudent for the will of Parliament and its approval for this project to be constructed not to be thwarted by a TRO. Therefore, I beg to move the amendment.
Lord Brabazon of Tara (Con)
I am grateful to my noble friend for having explained the new schedule, which extends to four-and-a-half pages of quite draconian powers being asked for by the Secretary of State. It is most unfortunate for it to be introduced now, after the Bill has been through the hybrid Bill committee in both Houses, therefore denying the highway authorities the opportunity to petition against it, which I think I can say authoritatively that they would have done. I have been briefed by Camden Council, which says that it would have petitioned against the new clause, and I think the same can be said for Transport for London and various other highway authorities along the route, notably Buckinghamshire County Council.
It is most unfortunate that my noble friend should be introducing four-and-a-half pages of such a draconian new schedule but not allowing the people involved to petition against it. I would also like to know whether the Minister has actually consulted on the new schedule with any of the highway authorities that are likely to be affected by it. My understanding is that no consultation has taken place so far. I also rather wonder what the purpose is of HS2 information paper E13, which deals with the management of traffic during construction and how much of it is now being negated by the introduction of the new schedule. I hope my noble friend will consider whether it is really necessary or whether he might not just drop the whole thing and rely on the powers that the Government already have.
Lord Berkeley
My Lords, I echo the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Brabazon. I have had communications from Transport for London, Camden Council and the West Midland Transport Authority, all expressing serious concerns about both the procedure being used and the practicality of what is proposed. In his opening remarks, the Minister said that the size of this project was unprecedented and therefore all these special regulations were needed to make sure you could get along the road. It is bigger than HS1, but not that much. Crossrail, going all the way through London was a pretty major project, too, and had many traffic issues. I was vaguely involved in both of them. As the noble Lord, Lord Brabazon, said, that begs the question of why, if this legislation was thought necessary, it was not in the original Bill so that local authorities could petition.
In terms of consultation, I have a letter here from Transport for London, dated 6 January, to the Department for Transport expressing concern that it had a meeting before Christmas where the consultation consisted of bringing up this draft regulation under AOB and that was it. It states that the discussion focused on the removal of vehicles and did not cover the amendments. So there was no consultation. Camden, in particular, must be worried about lorries: the latest figure for the borough is 1,500 per day. We shall probably come to that in a later amendment. It is no good HS2 trying to ride roughshod over TfL’s Safer Lorry scheme or using bus lanes for its heavy commercial vehicles. For a bus user, why should HS2 trucks get in the way of buses? London has to continue to operate. The cycle superhighway network—which I love, of course—is apparently going to be affected. None of these organisations appears to have been consulted.
There is a way forward. All these organisations—and I am sure Bucks county council and others are the same—want to consult and find a solution. I urge the Minister to withdraw the amendment and organise some far-reaching and comprehensive consultations so that, if there has to be legislation, a new draft can be brought forward on Report. If he does not withdraw the amendment, I shall oppose it.
Baroness Randerson
My Lords, I share the serious concerns that have been voiced around the room this evening. The way in which this is being attempted undermines trust in the whole process. We just heard the noble Baroness go to great lengths to reassure us about the care and concern that has been taken over an issue such as ancient woodland, and we are all very pleased to hear that. However, then to hear that the lives of thousands of residents and many thousands of drivers could be seriously affected by the introduction of changes to traffic regulations that have been subject to virtually no scrutiny and are contrary to the wishes of the local councils and traffic authorities means that the whole approach is unbalanced. I urge the Minister to think again, to reach out and discuss it with the authorities concerned and give them an opportunity to put their case. Some form of compromise can probably be reached. At least they will have been properly consulted. If that is not done, it feels a bit like sharp practice. I dare say that it is the result of people thinking about the need for this rather late, but I also tend to think that it is an overreaction and probably is not needed. As the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, said, other big schemes have managed without it.
Lord Snape
My Lords, I will be extremely brief. I agree with the sentiments expressed on both sides of the Committee. My question to the Minister is: why this particular schedule, and why now? I served on the Crossrail Bill. As my noble friend said, many roads in the centre of London were affected. Any of us who have travelled between Westminster and Euston will know the years of dislocation caused by all the Crossrail work at Tottenham Court Road, yet we seem to have coped reasonably well during that time. Now, out of the blue, after a protracted parliamentary process, this draconian measure is put before us. Surely, under his existing highway powers, the Minister could act against any deliberate attempt to forestall proposed works along the route of HS2. If he goes ahead with this, I suspect there will be a further long debate on Report. I cannot forecast the future, but I suspect the Government will lose.
Lord Jones of Cheltenham
I add my voice to those who are asking the Minister to think again. Having served on the Select Committee with colleagues who are now friends, I must say that there was no hint of such a late intervention into traffic management. People should be consulted before it goes ahead.
Lord Rosser
My Lords, I add my support the views expressed. Frankly, it does not look as though we will go much further with this because my noble friend Lord Berkeley has indicated that he will object to the amendment and, as I understand it, if the question is put, a single voice against an amendment causes it to be negatived in proceedings in Grand Committee. My noble friend has made his position quite clear, and I must say that I support him and so many others who have spoken, significantly including members of the Select Committee, who are clearly less than impressed by what has happened. I do not think it is misrepresenting the position to say that the Select Committee faced a number of people who were less than impressed by the way that HS2 itself had conducted some of the consultation processes and sought to address some concerns.
The question has been asked why the amendment has come late. I am sure other Members of the Committee have also received the letter of today’s date which has been sent from HS2 by Mr Roger Hargreaves to the leader of Buckinghamshire County Council. He writes: “The need for these proposed amendments arose late in the Bill process, and I am sorry that this did not leave time for the level of engagement with the local highway authorities that we would have liked … Parliamentary convention is that government amendments should be moved at the Grand Committee stage, which unfortunately left little time”. Unfortunately, if the Committee does not like what is happening and one Member chooses to object, that negatives the item. I finish by saying that I sincerely hope that the Minister will take the fairly strong hints that have been given to him during this debate and agree to withdraw the amendment, hold the consultations that have been referred to—which, as I understand it, is what people are really seeking—and come back with it on Report or at Third Reading.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
My Lords, I have always been very respectful of views that are expressed in your Lordships’ House, and today is no different. The Government have outlined their position, which I articulated in my opening remarks, on their concerns about project delivery being held up unnecessarily by a TRO. However, I have listened very carefully to the views of my noble friend who served on the Select Committee in particular, and to those of other noble Lords, and without prolonging debate on this point, I will reflect on the comments that have been made. On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
High Speed Rail (London–West Midlands) Bill
Thursday 12th January 2017
(7 years, 11 months ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 83-II Second marshalled list for Grand Committee (PDF, 154KB) - (10 Jan 2017)
Lord Berkeley
“Restrictions on lorries and road use
Within three months of the start of the scheduled works, the nominated undertaker must publish a plan setting out, for each construction site being used or to be used for the scheduled works, how the number of lorries delivering to or from the site will be limited in order to meet the following restrictions by weight of materials transported by road—(a) no more than 25% of excavated spoil and demolition material;(b) no more than 25% of concreting materials; and(c) no more than 50% of all other materials;and the remainder in each case must be carried by rail.”
Lord Berkeley (Lab)
My Lords, Amendment 17 is to do with the restriction of lorries and road use. I declare an interest as chairman of the Rail Freight Group. The committee obviously spent a long time considering this, as it covers about 12 paragraphs in its report. Probably as a result of its questioning, HS2 has considerably improved its offer of the proportion of freight that will be taken by rail rather than by road, particularly in the Camden area.
My reason for putting this amendment down was to try to cover the whole of the route of phase 1 rather than just Camden. I point out that the reason we are in this situation is that HS2 did not start off the project by thinking, “It is clearly unacceptable to have 1,500 or 2,000 trucks a day going through Camden for several years, so how can we design a station and its approaches in such a way that you could use rail freight?”. In fact, Network Rail said that it did not want any rail freight into Euston, because it might delay the passenger trains. Since there are not any passenger trains at night, it is difficult to accept that that was a sensible argument. However, we are where we are.
HS2 has come some way at Euston. Given the pressure it has taken to get it this far, it would be a good idea if one could put some percentages in the Bill of what it would be required to do to move materials by means other than road. We are not just talking about spoil and demolition material; other materials can easily come in on rail and be trained off. Then there is the whole question of concrete, bringing in the aggregates and maybe the cement, and having a batching plant on-site. I remember saying to HS2, “Why don’t you put a batching plant there?”. I was told, “We’re going to put a generating station there”. I said, “But you could have thought of putting a batching plant there first”. “Well, we didn’t”. That was the kind of discussion that went on.
We can talk about this for a long period. HS2 is in discussions with the train operators now, and I hope that it has enough rolling stock to do it now. Again, we asked, “If you want to suddenly move all this material by rail, is there enough rolling stock in the country, or should somebody pre-order it?”. It did not want to pre-order it and influence what the contractors might say or do, and it will probably be all right. Outside London, it is unclear what could happen, so there is a strong argument for making sure that HS2 sticks to these percentages. We can debate whether they are the right ones, but we need to hold it to account. On Tuesday we heard about trucks in Wendover, and we heard about other places. We even heard, in the last amendment, that HS2 wanted to run trucks down the bus lanes in London because the trucks were more important than buses. It would be useful if some sort of legislative grip was taken on the provider as regards this serious and very important issue because otherwise we could still have 1,500 trucks a day going through Camden and a similar number going through other places that are equally congested and in need of protection. I beg to move.
Baroness Randerson (LD)
My Lords, I start by referring to the excellent committee report which refers to this issue in detail, and I am delighted to support the amendment. The committee notes that some areas of Camden, along with other urban areas, suffer levels of air pollution that are in serious breach of EU limits. It calls the haulage by road of materials to and from the construction sites,
“one of the gravest problems of the project”.
As the project has developed, the Government have made a commitment over time to more and more tunnelling in order to alleviate the problems of noise for residents in other areas, but that in itself creates another environmental problem because the excavated soil will have to be moved over long distances. Add to that the cement, aggregates and steel for tunnels and bridges and so on, plus building materials for several new stations, and we are talking about very significant amounts.
The committee’s comments on Euston concentrate on the level of disruption over a period of more than a decade which involves the demolition of a large office block as well as other homes. It is critical—I urge noble Lords to read paragraph 178—of the impact on local people and is particularly critical about the idea of rebuilding Euston station in two stages. I am using this opportunity to urge the Minister to press his colleagues in government and HS2 to ensure that a co-ordinated approach is taken, and I also urge the Government to bring forward the funding so that planning and rebuilding can be done together to limit the problems for local residents. Both Camden Council and the Regent’s Park Estate tenants gave evidence to the committee, as did the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley. It is noted that the shortest journey by road from Euston to the nearest landfill is 26 miles one way. In contrast, one train can move as much material as 124 HGVs, so to my mind there is absolutely no argument about the need to transport more materials by train—or indeed by river. Given the strong words of the committee, I was very disappointed that no clear recommendation was made about transporting the soil and that the committee simply resorted to exhorting HS2 to do better than the 28% of excavated soil and 17% of construction materials it guarantees to move by rail. Euston may, as has been stated, be a congested site, so I would argue that there is all the more reason to apply the highest standards.
It is also important to learn the lessons of the past. For both the Olympics and Crossrail, which in many respects were similarly congested sites, a political decision was taken to minimise transport by road and to set targets. As a result, some riverside wharves that would otherwise have been sold off for housing were retained to enable transport by river.
We need the Government to aim high. I believe that exhorting HS2 to do better will not maximise the use of rail for transport in this regard or, indeed, encourage it to consider river transport either. We need to set targets and there needs to be a political decision on this. This is all the more important because of the protracted nature of the plans for Euston. I take this opportunity to ask whether the Minister can confirm the rumours circulating in the Euston area that HS2 is considering moving the portals of the tunnel from which the proposed new HS2 line will emerge to the west of Euston station about one kilometre nearer to the station. Local residents would be very supportive of that because they believe that it would reduce the disruption caused by the removal of materials. Therefore, if that rumour is accurate, we will be pleased.
As regards whether it is appropriate to set targets for this issue, obviously some sites will be more difficult than others in terms of removing spoil by road. It is not practical to address this on a completely comprehensive basis but it is entirely reasonable to tell HS2 that it should have overall targets so that it achieves an overall picture.
As I said, from time to time the Government have acceded to requests for tunnelling and increased compensation, particularly in rural areas. That is laudable and we appreciate that responsiveness. However, the committee itself suggests that some aspects of the compensation schemes are unbalanced, favour rural areas and do not pay sufficient attention to the disruption caused by the construction process. Therefore, as well as addressing the issue of fairness in the compensation arrangements, I urge the Government to take a much more fundamental approach by reducing the disruption altogether. Transporting as much material as possible by rail would reduce that disruption.
In conclusion, although I have emphasised Camden and Euston, this issue applies throughout the length of the project, particularly in other urban areas as well.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Transport (Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon) (Con)
My Lords, first, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, and the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, for their contributions. I say at the outset that I fully appreciate the intent behind their amendment in terms of maximising the use of rail for the transportation of material in relation to HS2. Both the noble Lord and the noble Baroness rightly focused on the concerns that have been raised, particularly in the London Borough of Camden and in Euston. However, the majority of construction sites for HS2 phase 1 are in rural areas and, practically speaking, do not have ready access to an existing rail network. Put simply, imposing the limits proposed in the amendment would mean that it would not be possible to construct HS2. However, it is important to take on board some of the points that have been made and answer them directly.
I of course share the concerns about the impacts of HS2 construction on the road network, as do the Government. As noble Lords may be aware, the Government have already made commitments with similar intentions. We have committed to maximise the volume of excavated and construction material to be brought in and removed by rail. This will need to be done while balancing the wider environmental impacts on the local community and on passenger services.
Specifically on the point of spoil by rail, the noble Lord and the noble Baroness talked about targets, and the Lords Select Committee was mentioned in the noble Baroness’s remarks. I am sure that noble Lords have also reflected on the committee’s note. Again, I thank the committee once again for its exhaustive work in this respect. Paragraph 411 of its report says:
“We are satisfied that HS2 is taking this responsibility seriously”,
and the report goes on to say that it saw,
“no useful purpose to be served by attempting to set fixed targets. It would be little more than plucking aspirational figures out of the air”.
Lord Berkeley
I am grateful to the noble Baroness for supporting the amendment and for the Minister’s response, which goes a little further than we have heard before. Of course, I accept that in some places you have to take everything away by road. Similarly, in other places you can probably take it all by rail. It is clearly something that people want to keep an eye on, which is reasonable—that is what the whole process is about. The last amendment that we discussed on Tuesday was to do with traffic management plans and who had priority on them. I hope it will not be used as a stick to beat the local authorities into taking more trucks because the rail system has not been made to work.
The Minister will be aware that the Government are responsible for Network Rail and for many of the passenger train operators, as well as for HS2. Therefore, it is in their gift to get it right. The last big one was, as the noble Baroness said, the Stratford Olympics, and even on that we caught the contractors chucking something like 10,000 tonnes of contaminated waste, all the way to Teesport, even though there was a rail freight siding at both ends. This will need very careful watching, but, for the moment, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Berkeley
“Establishment of Regional Integrated Command Centre
(1) Within three months of the passing of this Act, the nominated undertaker must establish a Regional Integrated Command Centre to include representatives of Highways England, local highways authorities, emergency services, Transport for the West Midlands, Transport for London, transport operators and the nominated undertaker’s contractors.(2) The role of the Regional Integrated Command Centre shall be to ensure that the works authorised by this Act are co-ordinated so as to minimise the adverse effects of the works on other rail or road operations.”
Lord Framlingham (Con)
My Lords, could I have an explanation on a point from Tuesday’s meeting of this Committee? I want clarification on a point that arose when I asked a question about the workings of this Committee. The Minister responded by saying that:
“In general terms, a Select Committee in consideration of such a hybrid Bill normally looks specifically and primarily at private interests raised by petitioners, which gives it a very exhaustive opportunity to look at the different options. The role of the Grand Committee is what it traditionally is: to consider the public law clauses of a Bill, not the specific details of a private petition”.—[Official Report, 10/1/17; col. GC 95.]
Will the Minister define for us what a “public law clause” is? Presumably the amendments before us have been accepted and put down in the right order and can be discussed and decided upon later, but I would particularly like to know what a public law clause is and how it applies to the workings of this Committee.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
As I said on the previous Committee day, looking at public law clauses is what a Committee and a Grand Committee do; that is, it looks at the implications overall of any Bill that is presented. The difference with a Select Committee is that it provides an opportunity specifically for petitioners who have an issue to raise that requires more detailed scrutiny to present their case in detail to Members of your Lordships’ House. The specifics of their particular petition are given an exhaustive review, and that is the difference. It allows for a much more detailed analysis of the private interests behind a petition. This is a normal and standard procedure used for Bills that are of an infrastructure nature. It is not new or novel but something that has been used previously. I trust that that provides further clarification but, in the interest of moving forward on the Bill, I am quite happy to provide a more detailed response in writing.
Lord Berkeley
My Lords, Amendment 18, standing in my name and that of the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, is to do with traffic and transport issues during the construction of phase 1. It came from a conversation I had with people at the West Midlands transport authority—I think that is the right name; it has just been changed—who expressed concern that the Bill could allow HS2 to restrict the flows on motorways or national rail services as it felt necessary without any consideration for the needs of other rail travellers or drivers on the motorway and local roads. They felt that the consultation had been not that comprehensive to start off with and they were really quite worried about this issue, which they say could cause major trouble and problems for traffic on rail and road during the construction. It seems that Camden Council has similar worries and I think that TfL probably does, too. Their solution was to propose this idea of a regional integrated command centre. I do not know whether that is the right term. It is not a sort of Army command centre but a co-ordination body to bring all the bodies which I have listed, including,
“Highways England, local highways authorities, emergency services”—
the transport authorities local and regional—
“transport operators and the nominated undertaker’s contractors”,
and probably a few more, together on a regular basis to plan what is going on and minimise the adverse effect of traffic and transport on the users.
We can debate whether there should be one centre covering the whole route or several. The amendment I have tabled says that there should be one but that is for discussion. This is one of those things which, if it does not happen, probably would happen several years on when there had been a crisis or disaster. My suggestion is that it should be set up from the beginning, whether that takes three months or six months or whatever. I hope that it would be funded by HS2; after all, they are the people causing the problem. I think this would be welcomed by all the different users and could be a major benefit to the communities along the route and the longer-distance travellers, who would see all the obvious problems which come with construction mitigated to some extent. I look forward to some interesting comments and debate on this proposal, which would be extremely cheap to run and very beneficial. I beg to move.
Lord Bradshaw (LD)
I shall speak very briefly. The Minister has already said in reply to a previous amendment that local authorities would have substantial powers in organising traffic. I am anxious to have some assurance that HS2 Ltd will not, as it were, have overriding powers which prevent the proper processes taking place.
Baroness O'Cathain (Con)
My Lords, perhaps we could probe this amendment. A lot of the work that we did on the Select Committee referred to HS1, Crossrail and the tunnel. With all his expertise and knowledge, can the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, tell me whether this actually occurred in the case of HS1—the Channel Tunnel route—and Crossrail? Perhaps we should benefit from that, because we frequently went back to the experience of those two projects. There was no point to going through them if you were not going to get some learning from them. Are we trying to reinvent the wheel here or was there a separate way of doing it, which the noble Lord thinks was not good enough and is why he has tabled this amendment?
Lord Berkeley
I am grateful to the noble Baroness for that question because she is absolutely right to seek a precedent for this. Of the projects that I have been involved in, the Channel Tunnel was of course just in Kent so the discussions were with its highway authority, which was Kent County Council. HS1 was to a large extent in Kent and then in London. It was cut into two halves; again, Kent County Council was the highways authority and we talked a lot about transport, the mitigation, routes and everything else there. I think it did very well on that. Crossrail is of course not entirely within the TfL area but quite a lot is. Most of the discussions on transport took place, as I recall, with Transport for London. When Crossrail gets outside London, it mainly runs on existing railways so the problem is less acute.
What we have here, as we discussed previously, is a much longer route—200 kilometres long—which goes between two pretty massive conurbations: London and the West Midlands. As I think I mentioned the other day, there are several motorways and national railways to cross. It would be a shame if the motorways were all closed at the same time. I am sure they would not be, but they should not be. This is why I said, in my opening remarks, that maybe there should be three of these different, smaller co-ordination centres: one for the West Midlands, one for the London area and one for the middle bit. Again, it may seem bureaucratic, but it will mean less work to do. It is just a suggestion, and the Minister may say, “We are doing it anyway”. In that case, it is absolutely fine. I hope that is helpful.
Lord Young of Norwood Green (Lab)
My Lords, we have had extensive discussions on HGV routes and the role of the highways authorities. HS2 cannot override them, as I am sure my noble friend Lord Berkeley knows. There was a throw-away remark that the organisation he proposes would be modest. I must admit that, when I look at the coverage and the number of people involved, it does not look very modest to me in terms of the number of people that could attend. We know where the problems are going to be: HS2 has already had extensive discussions with Camden and other highways authorities on HGV routes and so on. We know that there is a construction complaint commissioner so that, if there are any problems, there is a 24-hour helpline. We have been through this over and over again. With due respect to my noble friend, if you were going to suggest a structure to deal with this, I could not think of anything more bureaucratic and, I suspect, expensive, when you look at the range of people who could potentially attend. I agree that there is going to be a significant responsibility on HS2 and its contractors to ensure that they minimise disruption, be it to motorways or local highways, which is why they have to get agreement from the local and county authorities, but in my view this is not the way forward.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this short debate. I recognise and endorse the underlying objective behind this particular amendment: to minimise, as we all desire, the impact of construction traffic through appropriate co-ordination with bodies. The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, has suggested the creation of a command centre. In that respect, I disagree with him.
I wish to go into a few of the specific points that have been raised. First, on the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, to which we have already heard a response, I concur with the noble Lord, Lord Young of Norwood Green. The Bill includes specific powers for the control of construction traffic by qualifying planning authorities. This means that the routes to be used by heavy goods vehicles must be approved by the qualifying planning authority where the volume of large goods vehicles—specifically, those over 7.5 tonnes—exceeds 24 one-way trips per day. The consent of the relevant highway authority is also required for the provision of any new or altered work site access to and from a highway.
My noble friend Lady O’Cathain raised the important issue that, as we move forward on these projects, we must learn from experience of what has happened before. The Crossrail project was cited. In that regard, we have already developed a code of construction practice, which requires the appointed nominated undertaker to prepare a route-wide traffic management plan in liaison with highway and traffic authorities, not forgetting the emergency services as well. This is an approach that was followed during the construction of Crossrail and worked well. We believe it will also work well in this respect.
The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, also raised the issue of Crossrail traffic management. Although he is absolutely correct that TfL managed the strategic roads, there was still the need to manage traffic flows on the local roads, and those were very much managed by the local boroughs and the construction of Crossrail had a direct impact on them. We are proposing to use the same tried-and-tested method which, as I said, worked well for that project in this respect as well.
The route-wide traffic management plans will include, for example, managing and monitoring lorry flows, requirements for preparing workforce travel plans and the strategy for design and consultation regarding traffic management. In addition to this route-wide plan, the code of construction practice, which I have referred to, also requires the appointed nominated undertaker to prepare local traffic management plans in liaison, as I said, with the relevant highway and traffic authorities and the emergency services.
Once appointed, contractors will also be required to hold regular local traffic liaison meetings with highway authorities, public transport operators and, of course, the police. These will provide an opportunity for contractors to present proposals for future works affecting the highway, including methods of construction and the proposed programme. I hope that this demonstrates that the Government are very much committed to the sentiments behind the noble Lord’s amendment. However, we have learned, and continue to learn, from experience. The Crossrail project has been a positive one and the learning from it will certainly be applied to this project. I hope that that demonstrates to the noble Lord that his amendment is unnecessary.
Lord Berkeley
I really am grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken because I think their words, experience and responses will give a lot of comfort to those who have been pressing me to table these amendments. I do not want to see an enormous bureaucratic nightmare created. On the other hand, I do not want to see the promoter being stupid and closing two parallel motorways at the same time, which they obviously fear. So I am grateful to all noble Lords who contributed and to the Minister for his response. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Berkeley
“Application of relevant provisions of Railways Act 1993 to Phase One of High Speed 2
All relevant provisions of the Railways Act 1993 including regulations made under that Act shall apply to the railway operated as Phase One of High Speed 2, including determination of access charges, safety and reporting.”
Lord Berkeley
My Lords, for the convenience of the Committee, I can speak to Amendments 19 and 20 together, which should save us a little time. This is a very short and probing amendment which comes out of experience with HS1. When the HS1 legislation was going through, Ministers seemed to have a lot of intentions to set it up so that it could be sold to the highest bidder in the shortest possible time and at the highest price. They seemed to think that if they did not have independent regulators keeping an eye on what was going on, that would dramatically increase the sale price. Anyway, the Bill received Royal Assent and it all happened, but a few years later we realised that, having no regulator with any teeth at all, the infrastructure manager, which could have been in the private sector, could charge exactly what it liked for the trains to run on it, could close it when it liked, and did not have to justify its costs of operation or anything else. All I have put down in these amendments is simply to probe the Minister to ensure that he is not trying to do that this time. I have no evidence that he is at all but I just wanted to probe to make sure. We spent an awful lot of time in the years after the HS1 Act—the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, and I did a lot of it together—bringing in regulations, which the Government accepted, to right the mistakes of the first Act.
Lord Bradshaw
Perhaps I may just draw the Minister’s attention to the large number of occasions on which Ministers of both parties have committed themselves to the fares on HS2 not being excessive and taking into account ordinary people and various other things— I have about 20 of them. This is not a railway that is apart from the rest of the railway, I hope.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
My Lords, I thank both noble Lords and I shall turn first to that final point. There are other Ministers taking part in the Committee today. I back exactly the sentiments of the noble Lord and would add my name to the list, in the sense that the HS2 project underlines the importance of the railway infrastructure as a whole. We have discussed in previous debates the importance of the building of HS2 not just for itself but also in terms of the impact it will have on the railway infrastructure.
I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, for explaining that the amendment is probing in nature, but perhaps I may refer to the specifics. With respect to the Railways Act 1993, only one minor change is being made, which is a partial disapplication of the licensing provision so that the pre-operation testing phase does not require a licence. It is simply not considered to be necessary during that period. As I have said, we learn from experience; such a change was made for the Crossrail Act 2008 and a rather wider disapplication was also included in the Channel Tunnel Rail Link Act 1996, in which I am sure both noble Lords are well versed. The Bill would also disapply closure provisions in the Railways Act 2005 in the case of closures that are necessary because of the construction of the works. In this regard there is only one closure, that of the Wycombe Single to allow Old Oak Common to be constructed. This has already been discussed in the Select Committee of your Lordships’ House on the Bill, and it was decided that the closure procedures in the 2005 Act should not apply as Parliament will have already approved the closure. As I say, such a provision was also included in the Crossrail Act.
I appreciate that in the interests of time the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, has spoken to Amendments 19 and 20. Specifically on Amendment 20, I can confirm that the existing safety and economic regulatory regime for the railway is unchanged by the Bill and so it would continue to apply to HS2 in the same way that the regulator, who as he pointed out has an important role, sees fit. For these reasons, we believe that this amendment is unnecessary.
Lord Rosser
On the question of the Government’s intentions in the longer term for HS2, recently we had an announcement from the Secretary of State about a new link between Oxford and Cambridge. As I understand it, the company running the line would also be responsible for the track. Are the Government intending that the arrangements for HS2 will be on a similar basis to that project?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
My right honourable friend the Secretary of State referred to a specific line. I am sure that the noble Lord will acknowledge that other announcements also made by the Secretary of State in this regard refer to the importance, whatever governance structure is set up, of those who are responsible for running the railway line and the rail service working together in an integrated fashion. The underlying purpose is that common objectives can be set. At this juncture, I cannot give the noble Lord a complete answer on the running of HS2 in terms of who will run the service and who will run the lines; there are, of course, other ways in which services across the country are run. The Secretary of State has underlined the importance—and it is his intention—that, whatever the governance structure, there should be an integrated way of running lines and train services, with common objectives being set if different companies are running different services.
Lord Berkeley
My noble friend has to some extent pre-empted my Amendment 23, but we will come to that shortly. I am most grateful to the Minister for his response to Amendments 19 and 20 because it has given me a certain amount of comfort. I shall read what he said with great interest, but I look forward to not having to press him to bring in regulations later to right some mistakes in what will then be the Act. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Berkeley
“Control and management of infrastructure
(1) Once constructed, the operation of the infrastructure of Phase One of High Speed 2 shall be controlled by the network system operator.(2) Once Phase One of High Speed 2 is operational, the infrastructure managers of Phase One of High Speed 2 shall have a duty to seek to work together with infrastructure managers on the rest of the UK rail network, as relevant, in relation to timetabling, temporary closures, enhancements and technical issues in order to seek to provide a reliable, cost effective and convenient structure to support passenger and freight services on the Phase One of High Speed 2 route.”
Lord Berkeley
My Lords, again, I shall try to be quick. This amendment possibly links to what my noble friend Lord Rosser just mentioned. Noble Lords will be aware that Network Rail is in the process of restructuring itself into regions or zones, or whatever you might call them, with more autonomy over what it can do, and how it can make changes to timetables, maintenance and things like that. The plan is to create a control centre in Milton Keynes so that all the timetables for the whole country are integrated and you do not find problems at frontiers, which one is always worried about. The plan is that you will not find, as happened about 10 years ago, that the only two lines between England and Scotland are closed on the same weekend and there happens to be a rugby match on in Scotland. That was not very clever, and that was without separate regions or zones. Something needs to be done. Network Rail is going ahead with this, and I am sure that it will work fine.
It is the infrastructure that is being built under this legislation—we are not talking about trains much. We do not know yet who the infrastructure manager for HS2 will be; perhaps the noble Lord can give us some thoughts on that, but it does not really matter for the moment. The purpose of this amendment is to make sure that HS2 and the rail network talk to each other and work together. I have seen examples of this not happening in the past. In previous discussions with HS2 about timetables, it said, “When we get to the end of our line, it is up to Network Rail to timetable it”. I said, “Yeah, but you have to talk to each other, otherwise your trains will stop at a red signal and Network Rail won’t come along until the next week or whatever”. It is a simple thing, but they have to talk to each other. I am sure they will want to, but perhaps commercial pressures will mean that certain lines are closed on one day, and the other operator will want to close their lines at the same time. In this amendment, therefore, I am trying to argue that, whoever is the infrastructure manager for HS2, the timetabling, maintenance, closures and everything else must be integrated with the Network Rail operation and organisation system in Milton Keynes so that we end up with one network being run. I beg to move.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
My Lords, again, I note very carefully what the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, has suggested. I cannot disagree with his sentiments about the need for and emphasis on an integrated approach; indeed, we perhaps touched on it in the previous debate in response to the question raised by the noble Lord, Lord Rosser. HS2 services will run on Network Rail’s infrastructure as well as on the new railway. I assure the noble Lord that the management of the HS2 infrastructure and HS2 train operators will need to work closely with Network Rail and other train operating companies to manage all operational interfaces. As he suggested, work on the timetabling is an important part of that, and is already very much part of considerations.
In addition to day-to-day rail operations, and as the noble Lord alluded to, co-operation will be needed in respect of the wider network roles undertaken on the railway by Network Rail. He raised the issue of a rugby match in Scotland. I am not a rugby fan but I am a football fan, and therefore can imagine having to face a similar challenge. This is a frustration that arises for many people, not just sports fans—when you are visiting family and friends up and down the country, you want to know that there is an integrated approach to the railways. Therefore, I agree with the noble Lord that part of co-operation with Network Rail includes long-term planning, timetabling and co-ordinating network-wide responses, particularly at times of major work or disruption. The need for infrastructure managers to work together and co-ordinate was also emphasised by the noble Lord. He will be aware, as will others here this afternoon, that that is already addressed under the Railways (Access, Management and Licensing of Railway Undertakings) Regulations 2016. I hope that, given the assurances I have provided, and following reflection on the regulations I have pointed to, the noble Lord will be minded to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Rosser
Can I be clear about what the Government’s intentions are, or whether they have still to be determined? Is the Minister saying that once HS2, or at least the first part of it, has been built—we are talking about that part of the track which is unique to HS2—there will be no involvement of Network Rail in the maintenance and upkeep of that track?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
I am not sure that the noble Lord heard me correctly. I am saying that an integrated approach to future management will be required as regards the new track, the existing tracks run by Network Rail and those who operate the new services on HS2. The noble Lord is fully aware that Network Rail currently has responsibility for the rail network of the country. As I said, operators need to work in an integrated fashion across the network and to have common objectives, whether it is Network Rail or another company running a franchise on a particular line. I cannot go further than that except to say that these common objectives are aligned under the specific regulation to which I have alluded.
Lord Berkeley
I am grateful to the Minister for most of that response although we may come back to some of it on a later amendment. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Berkeley
“Disapplication of regulation 25 of Railways (Access, Management and Licensing of Railway Undertakings) Regulations 2016
Regulation 25 (Declaration of specialised infrastructure) of the Railways (Access, Management and Licensing of Railway Undertakings) Regulations 2016 does not apply to new infrastructure for the use of trains on the Phase One of High Speed 2 route.”
Lord Berkeley
My Lords, the Minister kindly referred to the Railways (Access, Management and Licensing of Railway Undertakings) Regulations 2016. This is another probing amendment to ask whether the Government intend that the High Speed 2 line should be declared a specialist infrastructure, which is allowed under these regulations. Regulation 25 states that the purpose of such a declaration is so that priority can be given,
“to that specified type of rail service in the allocation of infrastructure capacity”.
That all sounds fine, but it could become anti-competitive. That is certainly the case in many parts of the continent. I assume that more than one train operator may win the franchise, or whatever it is, to operate trains on HS2. I believe the Government’s intention at the moment is to have the west coast franchise on the west coast main line but also to operate the trains on HS2 as one franchise, which I think is a very good idea. Even so, there should be no need to give that operator priority over anyone else who might want to run trains on these lines—for example, an open-access operator.
Again, you have the problem that the Government, who probably not only own the infrastructure but also may have a financial link with the franchising process or perhaps a commercial link with the train operator, may want to give priority to their own operator. The latter may be in competition with an independent operator that wants to run trains on the relevant line. We have this situation on the existing network on the east coast main line and the west coast main line, and the regulator tries to ensure that there is fair play. I hope that would also happen in this case, but I would be very pleased to hear the Minister’s views on whether the Government have thought this through yet. I do not think that this has anything to do with who operates the infrastructure that we discussed a few minutes ago, because it is a question of the allocation of capacity and who gets priority. It is a very interesting question which will probably need further debate at some time. In the meantime I beg to move.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
My Lords, with respect to this amendment, I should note that it is slightly at odds with the amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, seeking that the existing regulatory regime should apply to HS2. He referred to a particular provision; the provision in question enables the HS2 infrastructure manager to designate the railway as specialist infrastructure and thereby prioritise the type of rail services that have access to it. I know that the noble Lord and I, and others, have discussed before his keen support for the freight industry—indeed, his commitment to and passion for it. I fully recognise that. The business case for HS2, as the noble Lord is aware, is in supporting a significant level of public investment in HS2 to be used for high-speed passenger services. Each freight path on HS2 would use up to five passenger paths and cause significant delay and disruption to the planned operation of services, and in turn the business case for HS2. Running freight overnight would also not be possible, given the need to carry out the intense regular maintenance that this high-speed line will require overnight. Let us not forget the strict noise commitments that HS2 will work within, which do not include freight use of the line at night.
As the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, knows, the real prize for the freight industry, if I may term it thus, will be the additional opportunities for freight services on the existing network once HS2 frees up capacity. The use of this released capacity will be determined via existing industry processes. Initial illustrative work suggests that once HS2 commences operation, it is not unreasonable to assume that between 20 and 26 additional rail freight paths per day could be made available on parts of the west coast main line.
Decisions regarding the appropriate operational commercial structure for HS2 will not be, and do not need to be, taken until we are much closer to the operation of the railway. We will consider whether HS2 or Network Rail should discharge that function.
Revisiting this issue, which I know the noble Lord has raised previously, illustrates that while the primary purpose behind building HS2 is focused on passenger services, there is a benefit to be had for the freight industry as well. I hope that he is therefore minded to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Berkeley
I am very grateful to the Minister for giving me that update on the freight situation. My amendment did not actually mention freight; I mentioned the open access passenger operator, but I take his point. This is something to discuss and keep warm. I thank him very much and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Berkeley
“No financial or managerial link between rail infrastructure owner and train operating company
No owner of the rail infrastructure connected with Phase One of High Speed 2 may have any financial or managerial link with any company with a licence to operate trains on that route.”
Lord Berkeley
To some extent, one or two of my noble friends have already alluded to the matter in Amendment 23. Are we to have a vertically-integrated high-speed line or not? It links with some of the previous amendments we have had. At the moment, the legislation says that you shall have separate organisations running the infrastructure from those which operate trains on it, be they passenger or freight. Having got the legislation right, the need and desire for them to talk to each other is absolutely fundamental. It has been tried with alliances: South West Trains was probably the first one. It is interesting that that alliance ended after four years because they said that it did not bring any benefit, but they were talking to each other anyway.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
My Lords, the noble Lord did mention freight on this occasion, but I will not go beyond the mere mention of his mention. In both tabling his amendment and in his subsequent contribution, he has answered the amendment that he has proposed. I can merely confirm what he has already shared with noble Lords: such connections between infrastructure owners and train-operating companies are already prohibited under the existing regulatory regime. However, as I have already said, and as the noble Lord and other noble Lords have acknowledged, an important element is that we see greater integration in the setting of common objectives of those who run the infrastructure and those who run the train services. I hope that with that reassurance, the noble Lord will be minded to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Berkeley
I am grateful to the Minister and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Berkeley
“High Speed 2 trains to have flexible space
All trains procured to operate passenger services on the Phase One of High Speed 2 route must be provided with flexible space covering at least 10% of the internal floor area of the train for the use of cycles, pushchairs and small items of freight.”
Lord Berkeley
My Lords, I am sorry to go on so long but we are nearly getting to the end.
Noble Lords may wonder why we have tabled this amendment. For the last 20 years we have had freight trains and passenger trains. They are separate, regulated separately if they are regulated, and they mostly operate on the same tracks. More recently, there has been greater pressure on passenger trains to carry bicycles—obviously, wheelchairs are allowed for anyway—but they have also started to take small packets of freight. I think many Ministers have agreed that that is a good way of getting small consignments off the road and on to rail at very little marginal cost. It happens on the midland main line now, with parcels, medical samples and things like that, and as noble Lords may know, it happens with crabs and lobsters from the West Country—Penzance—some of which are alive. That is extremely successful.
There is a lot of pressure from some people in the industry, both on the freight and the passenger side, to develop this quite dramatically. Eventually, you could use an old multiple unit train, put roll cages in there, take it up to a main line station and deliver things in a very much more environmentally friendly way than you could by running big lorries in all the way. However, there is a half-way stage of not having enough volume to justify a complete train but having more volume than goes in a suitcase.
It would be interesting to explore whether Ministers think that all new trains—of course, the trains in this amendment will have to be the High Speed 2 ones, although I hope it could be extended—would have some flexible space. At night, when there is not much traffic, there could perhaps be freight in the end coach; in the daytime there could be bicycles—there is a big demand for carrying bicycles; and for anything else that comes along, they could still have flap-down seats when not too many people need to stand.
This is therefore an opportunity to look at the design of coaches again with regard to a changing demand for both passenger and freight. I beg to move.
Lord Berkeley
The noble Lord is tempting me to get on to the issue of guards, which I shall not do. The answer is yes—but it is not for the guard but for other things. But there are not many left.
Baroness Randerson
My Lords, I recall the old luggage vans, although the Minister is far too young to remember things like that. I was travelling on a train in Australia a couple of years ago which still had a luggage van, and it was used for two things. First, it was used for people to put long-distance small packages on. They were not travelling on the train themselves; they were simply sending their package. That might be a company or a private individual. It was also used in the same way as we check our luggage on to an aeroplane—you checked your luggage on to the train. It transformed the experience of sitting on a crammed carriage with people jockeying for position with their luggage. I fully accept that that model is probably not acceptable or appropriate in the UK, but we need to move on from our fatal tendency to cram as many seats into the space as possible while ignoring the requirements for luggage space. I am sure that your Lordships will all have sat on a so-called express train to an airport—by definition in a scenario where you are likely to have quite a lot of luggage—and seen people sitting with large suitcases on their laps because there is absolutely no space left in the tiny amount of room allocated for luggage on those trains.
I support the amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, because I think that we need to be more far-sighted on this. His suggestion on flip-down seats is extremely interesting and a useful compromise, because it provides seats where they are needed, when flexible space is not needed, allowing for change in future. Buggies are not going to go away. People are going to go on having children and using buggies and needing to put them on trains.
I want to use this opportunity to explore the issue of wheelchair space. By legislation, there will be such a space, but the Minister will remember that we had the discussion on the Bus Services Bill about what happens when two people in wheelchairs wish to travel together. Wheelchair spaces are very often a solitary allowance, so flexible space would allow additional space for wheelchair users. HS2 will be an absolute boon for wheelchair users; the current railway system is often difficult for people in wheelchairs to navigate, if not impossible. Air travel is very difficult for them. Many people in wheelchairs simply cannot drive a car. So this will be a huge opportunity for wheelchair users to undertake long-distance travel in comfort, and we need to ensure that the trains are designed in such a way that they are flexible enough to accommodate more than one wheelchair user at a time in a carriage.
Given that there has been so much publicity lately about the availability of toilet facilities for people with disabilities—noble Lords will recall the very distressing story of one of our Paralympic athletes who was put in a very undignified position by the fact that the sole disabled toilet on the train was not functioning—can the Minister clarify that these trains will have a modern and respectable level of toilet facilities for disabled people? I would like to feel that all the toilets were accessible for disabled people. By the time it is built, it will be the middle of the 21st century, and we really cannot have only a single available toilet on a train.
Lord Adonis (Non-Afl)
My Lords, the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, and my noble friend Lord Berkeley are well taken, particularly in respect of facilities for the disabled, flexible space for carrying light freight and proper facilities for families and those looking after young children. There has been a tendency on the part of the railways to move in the Japanese direction of regarding freight and luggage as a bad thing and making it almost impossible for passengers to carry such items in comfort. I do not think that that is a direction in which we want to go.
However, the area where I am more doubtful is about facilities on high-speed trains or the next generation of trains in general for the carrying of bicycles. It is not that there should not perhaps be some facility at the margin for doing so—though I am not sure, even with the great wisdom and expertise of your Lordships’ House, that trying to design a train by committee is a good idea, so the figure of 10% that my noble friend Lord Berkeley has specified might be a bit too precise. If there is spare luggage space on a train that is suitable for carrying bikes, then that is fine. But the real issue in terms of encouraging much more bicycle use in relation to trains—which is out of all proportion more important than the capacity to carry bikes on trains themselves, which will only ever be marginal, particularly with very busy trains loading and unloading hundreds of people at a time—is decent cycle storage and rental facilities at stations, so that passengers do not need to convey bikes on the train in the first place. With the best will in the world, you are only ever going to be able to carry a handful of bikes on trains, but you can have thousands of bicycles, either privately owned or for rental, provided for at stations. By and large, our mainline stations, which were not designed for bicycles or indeed anything else modern, including in most cases decent retail facilities, have lamentable facilities for storing bikes. It is a telling indication of the big problems that we have in managing bicycles, even with all the improvements in London, that the cycle rental scheme does not embrace most London termini, because how to deal with the big issues of location and of shipping bikes backwards and forwards has not yet been worked out.
The contrast with best European practice in this area could not be more stark. I shall never forget visiting Amsterdam station and other major stations in Holland. Where you come out of the station, you have huge areas reserved for bikes, including rental schemes, along with bike workshops, so that you can get repairs done, and proper supervised bike facilities. It is a completely different situation from the one we have here. We are not yet at the stage of detailed station design plans for HS2 but I hope that, when it comes to the design of these hugely forward-looking stations that we want to see at Euston, Old Oak Common, Birmingham Curzon Street and other locations going north, there will be exemplary facilities for cyclists with significant space made available for cycle storage, repairs and rental schemes. In terms of a path-breaking approach to integrating cycling with railway use, seeing that there are state-of-the-art and capacious cycle facilities at stations is far more important than any provision that it might be possible to make in respect of the trains.
Lord Young of Norwood Green
My Lords, as somebody who puts his Brompton bike on a train every day when I come here, I partly disagree with my noble friend, not on the substance of the point that he makes—that we cannot accommodate hundreds of bicycles on the train; there is a balance to be struck—but in that there are a significant number of people like myself who ride to the station and put their folding bike on the train and then get off at the other end and cycle a bit further. The other usage that I have is on my annual cycle tour, when I do want to take a bike on a long-distance journey on a train. At the moment, the facilities are very limited; you have to reserve in advance, which is probably what will obtain. While I agree with my noble friend that trying to design a train by committee is not a wise thing to do, it is wise to have this debate and raise these issues, which are important.
I certainly concur with the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, on disability. It is not just about the number of wheelchairs—it is about ensuring that you have level surfaces so that you can go from platform to train in an easy and effective manner, rather than what you see at the moment. I think that we briefly raised that in one of the Select Committee sittings, but I am not absolutely sure about that. I look forward to the Minister’s response.
Lord Bradshaw
Just to have a bit of up-to-date experience, I always travel on the bus in the morning. Yesterday, there was one wheelchair, three buggies and two ladies with wheeled trolleys. The driver should not have taken them, but he did. As time goes on, we are going to have to get round this issue of flexible space—perhaps it is a little more sophisticated than using tip-up seats. We have to adjust what we have got to take account of the traffic on offer.
Lord Rosser
Can the Minister provide an assurance— I am sure that he will be able to—that these facilities will be available on the high-speed trains, including for wheelchair users, and that there is no possibility whatever of anyone seeking to argue that, since other services will be running between Birmingham and London, Manchester and London and Leeds and London, on what is described as the classic network, people with bicycles, wheelchair users and people with pushchairs will have to go on those services rather than on HS2?
Baroness Buscombe (Con)
My Lords, this has been a very useful debate, which gives us the opportunity to explain exactly what is going on and what is planned.
With respect to the amendment, I can assure noble Lords up front that, in procuring the rolling stock for HS2, we will be fully mindful of the need to ensure access for all and to improve overall passenger comfort. That, of course, includes giving consideration to the needs of people with disabilities, cyclists and parents with pushchairs, as well as the need to provide adequate space for luggage. I should say straightaway that it brings to mind—certainly to me—the contrast in thinking over time from when the Gatwick Express came into use, which my noble friend Lady O’Cathain has referred to in your Lordships’ House. There is a dreadful lack of facilities for people to manage their luggage, which the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, has also referred to. Times and thought processes have changed, and the Government have taken that very much on board. Indeed, when the Heathrow Express came into service, I think we all clapped our hands when we discovered that on that train we have amazing space for luggage. It makes the whole difference, making what can be a nightmare journey into a very comfortable journey. The Government are very mindful of that. In fact, my noble friend the Minister has said to me that he has had the experience of getting on to one of the Crossrail trains that is being adapted on this basis—with, for example, flip-down seats—to make the whole process of being more flexible a possibility.
Baroness Buscombe
Oh! I beg your pardon. My noble friend has confirmed that he actually drove the train.
The good news is that we are already consulting with user groups as we consider the design requirements for the rolling stock to include freight and, yes, parcel logistic operators—a very helpful point made by the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley. That is proof that, over time, requirements change and we have to be flexible. Of course, this is why we do not want to be tied down by putting it in the legislation. I say from a lawyer’s standpoint that the sooner one pinpoints too carefully how things should be, the more one is constrained. Flexibility is important. We are also holding detailed discussions with the market to see what is practically possible. It is only through this extensive testing of the market and understanding of passenger need that we will be able to understand the correct specification. In any case, although I recognise the importance of the issue, noble Lords have amplified this afternoon the reasons why we need to keep this flexible.
One or two other important points were raised by noble Lords; for example, relating to the provision of decent toilet facilities. The Government are taking that very seriously. In fact, there will be a briefing session with the industry in the next two weeks to discuss this very issue and to ensure that there are more than adequate toilet facilities, bearing very much in mind the need for those with disabilities to be able to cope properly and comfortably on these trains. I hope noble Lords will accept that the whole issue of disability has developed so much more than in the old days, when it was impossible for anyone with a disability or in a wheelchair to contemplate travelling by train. This is very much at the forefront of HS2 and the Government’s mind in terms of the proposals going forward.
On that basis, I hope noble Lords will accept that we are doing everything we can think of to prepare for the future specification of the rolling stock for HS2. Following on from what the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, said about cycle provision, I would add that the detailed design of stations has not yet started, but I reassure noble Lords that best-in-case cycle provision examples have been looked at and the need to provide for cyclists will be fully integrated into station designs. I very much hope that the noble Lord will feel more assured by what we have said this afternoon and withdraw his amendment.
Lord Berkeley
I am grateful to all noble Lords who contributed and to the Minister for her response. My noble friend Lord Adonis was absolutely right about what happens in Amsterdam. There are several different stories of enormous great buildings of bicycles, but bicycles are also allowed to be carried on trains—I think there might be a charge for them. That allows cyclists to be flexible: they can leave their bicycle at the station and get another one at the end of the journey or, as my noble friend Lord Young pointed out, they can take their own bicycle on holiday if they want to. We need to be flexible and I think that our discussions this afternoon have gone some way towards that.
We must also recognise that, yes, HS2 will be a lovely service, but it will be a commuter service to start with—Birmingham to London. It will probably be not that different from any other commuter service, except the trains will hopefully be a bit nicer and might go a bit faster, and sometimes you will be able to look out because you will not be in a tunnel. However, the facilities will be the same and passengers will do the journey every day. They might want to take a buggy or pram or wheelchair or anything else, but I do not think that the design is that much different from any other modern commuter service train in other parts of the country.
I have to challenge the Minister on this. I think she confirmed that we are not going down the route of having an appraisal methodology, which requires good value for money. This means that you have to have as many bums on seats as possible, crammed sideways and frontways, to get some Treasury-induced figure to justify it. It would be much better to have some flexible seats. I do not know whether flip-down seats are included in the Treasury’s methodology but I hope that we can move on from that. I have got the impression that there are to be some rather nice trains with lots of flexible space, so on that basis I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Berkeley
“Timetable for new railway and affected existing routes
Within 12 months of the passing of this Act, HS2 Ltd must publish a comprehensive and detailed working timetable for the railway approved by this Act and for all the routes of the existing railway network that will carry through trains or whose services will be affected by the new railway, in order to—(a) illustrate the offer of service that travellers between any relevant pair of stations can expect at its opening,(b) identify the paths that will be available for freight trains,(c) demonstrate the operational practicality and robustness of its plans, (d) provide data for a reworking of the business case, should the findings require that, and(e) enable an informed debate about the proposals and their implications.”
Lord Berkeley
My Lords, this is my last amendment in this section and it is to do with timetabling. Again, we had this experience with Crossrail and the great western route. We were pressing for a long time, saying, “You’re adding extra trains on to the great western. Where will all the freight trains and the intercities go, as you’re not building any more tracks?”. I said they had to produce a timetable. The first timetable produced for the great western between Reading and London was wonderful but it had only Crossrail trains on it. They said, “That’s the timetable” and I said, “What about the other trains?”. They said, “Oh, we haven’t put them on”. I said, “If you’re running a railway, you’ve got to put every train on the timetable. Don’t be silly, go away and do it again”. After about a couple of years, they came back and said. “Here it is”.
I gave their timetable to my experts and said, “Is the freight capacity that the Government have committed to on the timetable?”. They said, “Well, you’ve got 22 freight trains a day on it and you asked for 26”. I said, “Where are the others?”. They said, “Crossrail says they are on the timetable”. They were, but for a different line that went across the great western route on a bridge, so it was completely irrelevant. I got pretty angry then and said, “Can they go the other way?”. They said, “We haven’t checked that but it’s on the timetable”. They were adamant that they had to get priority for the Crossrail trains to Reading on the slow lines. They really wanted all the other trains to go on the fast lines. I got as far as telling some Members of Parliament in Cardiff and Bristol that they were going to have one train an hour and not two, because Crossrail was going to take all the paths. Eventually, the infrastructure manager was told by the Government to do a comprehensive timetable, which is Network Rail’s job. That is what should happen.
Here, we have HS2 and the west coast main line. As I said on Tuesday, you have six tracks at Handsacre junction going into three for a bit, so there may be a traffic jam of trains. It is reasonable to have a draft timetable produced either by HS2 or Network Rail, or hopefully by both, to demonstrate how many of the trains that everybody wants to run can actually run up there. I argued against Handsacre on Tuesday but if it happens, we have to have a timetable because otherwise something will go wrong. It should be up to the regulator to decide which trains have priority and who can run them.
This is very much a probing amendment. The Minister may say that it is happening already, although I would slightly challenge that. If it is not, perhaps he could say a few words to the relevant people to make sure that it does happen quite quickly and that there is good consultation with all the operators. I beg to move.
Lord Adonis
My Lords, unless I mistook what was going on, I have a feeling that the Minister has already replied to this amendment. I feel that the reply he gave to Amendment 22 was in fact a reply to Amendment 24A, hence the reference to freight paths and to keeping arrangements flexible in advance and not making commitments this far out. It may be that he has more to add on these issues.
I would make just two points. It is not clear to me why my noble friend thinks that publishing a draft timetable nine years before the line opens is a good idea. This would build up a whole set of debates, expectations and controversies long before the likely pattern of demand and usage is clear. Was there some particular reason why he was so keen that this work should be done so far in advance of the opening of HS2?
The second point that the Minister replied to earlier was about freight use, but of course it is not envisaged that there will be any freight paths on HS2. Perhaps my noble friend will say why he thinks there should be, because the released capacity on the west coast main line will provide very significant additional freight opportunities, and of course freight trains do not run at the speeds achieved by passenger trains, so they would significantly disrupt the operation of the high-speed service if they operated during the day. Moreover, as the Minister also said earlier, I understand that the custom and practice on most high-speed lines is that maintenance work will be done overnight and it is therefore essential that the lines can be closed for that purpose. So I was not quite sure about some of the points made by my noble friend—why he wants either to set these in stone now, or in the case of freight, to build up expectations that there would be freight services on this line, which is quite unlikely to be the case.
Lord Framlingham
My Lords, I rise briefly to disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, and to support what the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, is trying to say. This is a long and complicated process and however far in advance one talks about timetables, surely there is little point in building something if it will not deliver what one wants at the end of the day. One must look at the end as well as the beginning to make sure that one gets the system right.
Lord Adonis
My Lords, just to be clear, the illustrative timetables have been published already and, indeed, have been a part of the business case. What my noble friend’s amendment refers to is a comprehensive and detailed working timetable, which, as I say, will greatly build up the expectations of those who will benefit and lead to big and controversial campaigns by those who will not. In some areas, particularly with regard to freight trains, I am assuming that they would not feature in any event.
Lord Framlingham
I hate to labour the point. I can understand why detailed timetables would not be wanted, but surely identifying possible bottlenecks and flaws well in advance is absolutely essential.
Baroness Buscombe
My Lords, I thank noble Lords who have spoken in this brief debate. Perhaps I may say that the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, is correct in saying that much of this has already been responded to in speaking to Amendment 22. However, I can understand and empathise with the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, as to where he is coming from in the need to ensure that thought is being given to the timetables. Indeed, dare I say it, I recall the experience of when Reading station was opened by Network Rail and there were no timetables for half of the stations. The service was extremely unreliable and uncertain, so experience encourages one to consider these issues with care to ensure that the Government are thinking all this through.
I am pleased to say that, as set out in a Treasury minute published on 19 December last year, the Government have already committed to developing an integrated train plan for the entire west coast corridor from 2019 and will consult on that plan. This work will be led by the recently announced West Coast Partnership franchise. It would not be possible to do the work earlier as the West Coast Partnership will not be in place until 2018.
The key point is that a number of well-established statutory and regulatory procedures are in use on the railway to ensure that timetables are developed in a considered and structured way. This amendment appears to cut across that process, and given that the Government have already committed to a timeframe for a timetable, I hope that the noble Lord will see fit to withdraw his amendment as, again, we feel that it is not necessary; in fact, it would be otiose to legislate.
Lord Berkeley
I am grateful to the Minister for that response. Indeed, I was not aware of the Treasury paper, which is good news and rather justifies me tabling the amendment. The noble Lord, Lord Adonis, may be wondering why the Treasury is moving so early. He said that a timetable is needed for the business case and yes, of course it is needed to build a new line. I am not talking in particular about freight on the high-speed line. If that does develop, it could run at night, but it is not that significant. However, for the west coast main line, a lot of people will be looking for business cases to work out how they will respond not only to the west coast franchise but to other franchises and freight. Ministers have said for many years that there will be so much space on the west coast main line that you will be able to run a lot of freight trains, and we hope that that is true. However, I recall that, a few years ago, other Ministers promised services on the west coast main line with a 10-minute frequency, non-stop from Milton Keynes. The number of non-stop services from the constituencies of particular Members of Parliament can cause a bit of congestion near London.
As the noble Lord, Lord Framlingham, said, if any investment is required—even for just a small set of points or something like that—it takes a long time. We can debate why, but it does. In particular, if a freight service that goes up the west coast main line wants to run a new service between a port and an inland terminal and signs a contract with a customer for 10 years, it will want some comfort that it will be able to run that train for 10 years. Unlike passenger services, which can run when they are empty if they are told to, a freight train will not run unless it is full. It is therefore good news that the process has started, and I shall follow it with great interest. On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Lord Rosser
I will make a point on Clause 53, which, if I have understood correctly, is one of the clauses that is covered in the report from the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee. It may be that the Government have already given their response, in which case I would be grateful if the Minister could remind me what it was, particularly bearing in mind that the report was published on 16 November. However, my question is purely to ask where we are with the Government’s response to that committee’s report. With regard to two particular paragraphs, have the Government responded and, if not, will they, or it is up to us to put something down on Report if we want to go down the road suggested?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
I am just checking as I do not have a response. However, the Government will respond and we intend to publish that before Report.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
Lord Berkeley
“Complaints Commissioner
(1) Within three months of the passing of this Act, the Secretary of State must appoint a Complaints Commissioner. (2) The role of the Complaints Commissioner shall be to receive and deal with complaints about any part of the works authorised by this Act.(3) Each year, the Complaints Commissioner must prepare and publish a report on the activities of the Commissioner during that year.(4) Each report must be submitted to the Secretary of State, who must lay the report before each House of Parliament.”
Lord Berkeley
This is a probing amendment to find out from Ministers whether we intend to have the same kind of complaints commissioner as we did for Crossrail, HS1 and the Channel Tunnel, whose role was to receive any complaints from the public, local authorities or anyone else located near construction activities. That system worked well, and the commissioners produced an annual report. On one or two of those projects, the Minister of Transport of the day used to chair a meeting where everybody could come along and the complaints commissioner could give his report. That is one way of doing it, if it was thought necessary. I believe the Minister said that there is going to be a complaints commissioner, in which case I am very happy. If there is not, perhaps he would consider it as a really good way of stopping complaints escalating unnecessarily into nasty local press stories and resolving them instead. I beg to move.
Baroness Pidding
My Lords, I have amendments in this group to which the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson of Balmacara, has also added his name. Before speaking to those amendments, I remind noble Lords of my declaration of interest recorded when I spoke on Tuesday.
A point I made at Second Reading is that an ongoing theme throughout the process of this Bill has been the scarcity of meaningful scrutiny of HS2 Ltd and the apparent lack of trust that residents have in the current system. My amendments would provide for a completely independent regulatory body to review and monitor progress during construction and to hold HS2 Ltd to account to deliver what has been promised in terms of environmental and other mitigations. This body would also be able to act, with teeth, when there are problems during the construction period—for instance, if the code of construction practice is not being adhered to correctly.
Unfortunately, there are concerns that the construction commissioner will not have the remit or capacity to monitor such a large project effectively. Indeed, a permanent construction commissioner has not yet been appointed and, as far as I am aware, no supporting staff are yet in place. Independent scrutiny by an independent body will be critical, perhaps with a panel with relevant expertise and, most importantly, enforcement powers.
The importance of the history of this project cannot be underestimated. HS2 Ltd has consistently been criticised for its poor engagement, as evidenced in the reports of the House of Commons Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee and the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman. Residents are rightly fearful that they may end up doing the policing themselves and may be at the mercy of poor communication and conduct for many years as construction is carried out.
Currently, many residents have such little faith in HS2 Ltd that they go straight to their Members of Parliament, local authorities or action groups for assistance. Up to this point, there has been scarce belief that complaints will be dealt with swiftly or fairly by HS2 Ltd. This is why an independent body is so important to restoring this trust and ensuring that residents are not left high and dry. This is already proving a problem in my local area, where HS2 contractors are failing to clean up after themselves following their initial groundwork investigations, causing significant mess and hazardous conditions on local roads in Chalfont St Giles. Predictably, once again the burden has fallen on local authorities, which have to deal with this at their own expense. Residents were forced to go to their local councillors and MP to complain, as they were simply unaware of any other route by which to escalate the issue. A wall was badly damaged by a contractor’s lorry in the same area. Although that situation is now being sorted out, there is little to no reassurance locally that such issues will be resolved fairly without influence from HS2 Ltd.
I am also very concerned that environmental measures may not be put in place appropriately if there is no one to enforce them. HS2 and its contractors, while required to adopt measures to reduce the adverse environmental effects reported in the environmental statement, only have to do so,
“provided that such measures are reasonably practicable and do not add unreasonable cost or delay to the construction or operation of the project”.
In effect, this could give the nominated undertaker a “get out of jail free card”. Presumably, it could be frequently argued that almost any environmental mitigation could cause delays to the project and add cost, which would therefore not be “reasonably practicable” to implement.
Similar amendments to these were put to a vote in the other place by the right honourable Cheryl Gillan. Although they did not pass, I believe that it is more important than ever to ensure that we get it right in this House to ensure that residents are fully protected.
My amendments provide for a truly independent body—a body with teeth—to take this project in hand and make sure that it is built properly and to the highest standards. Perhaps the body could also report regularly to Parliament on the progress of construction and make any appropriate recommendations. If HS2 or its contractors do not comply with requirements, there should be recourse and a means of meaningful enforcement. I do not accept that this role is covered in the remit of the construction commissioner—that is simply not the case. The project has desperately needed close scrutiny and independent oversight for many years, and it is time to ensure that the residents affected by it are not let down anymore.
Baroness Randerson
My Lords, we need something to deal with this issue, whatever form that “something” takes, and we need it to be independent and to have a responsibility to provide reports and analysis of the issues and problems as they occur.
The committee’s report is very critical of the record of HS2 so far. The committee said:
“The promoter has attracted a good deal of criticism from some petitioners for lack of engagement”.
HS2 Ltd has now made a commitment to put in place a strategy for community engagement, including for vulnerable residents, and has employed someone to deal with community engagement and complaints. However, it has a lot of ground to make up in terms of public trust. Indeed, the final amendment that the Minister put forward in our previous debate, which was a last-minute change of approach in terms of traffic regulation, does not inspire one with confidence that the Government are looking ahead at what they need, or if they are looking ahead, that they have raised the issue in time for full consultation on it. I am not sure which of those two scenarios is the more disturbing. As I say, HS2 has ground to make up. Throughout the project residents have a right to expect a good, simple, straightforward and independent process when concerns arise and they have complaints. I believe that a similar process was followed in relation to Crossrail. However it is done, we need intelligent mediation on this.
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)
My Lords, I apologise for not being present at Tuesday’s Committee debate due to private reasons. I have subsequently read the report of the proceedings and very much appreciate the contributions made by my noble friends Lady Mallalieu, Lady Young and Lord Rosser. I particularly appreciate the Minister’s contribution as he covered some of the points I would have made had I been present, and did so very well. Of course, now that he has declared that he is a would-be train driver, I am sure that he will be disqualified from any future activities with regard to transport, but while we have him, we should cherish him.
I declare my interest as a resident of Little Missenden in the Chilterns AONB. I have also been involved in some of the campaigns associated with Little Missenden. My private interests were dealt with during a sitting of the Select Committee in your Lordships’ House. However, I think that, to the extent to which they were able to help, those matters are extinguished. Therefore, I am not dealing here with private interests but with the fallout from the issues that occur to me as a Member of your Lordships’ House in relation to some of the processes that I have been able to observe from a variety of positions.
I am speaking to Amendment 30, dealing with a complaints commissioner; to Amendment 31, in my name and that of the noble Baroness, Lady Pidding; and to the associated amendments relating to those. Amendments 30 and 31 relate to issues that stem from some of the processes that have been established to try to progress the Bill through a hybrid arrangement. The noble Baroness, Lady Pidding, made a very good speech in which she tried to identify where the gaps occur from a local perspective. I should have mentioned in my opening remarks that I thank her for speaking on Tuesday on another amendment. Noble Lords may not be aware that she rushed here, almost straight from the airport, and had not even unpacked before she arrived, and yet she was still able to give a very substantial speech, and I thank her for that.
The process we have been through reveals the need for either a complaints commissioner or an adjudicator. I absolutely agree with the points made by my noble friend Lord Berkeley and the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, on these issues. During the Select Committee phase, the focus is on the personal interests of those who are directly affected by the Bill. The problem is that, even if you are trying to argue a more general public interest case, what you can do is narrowed down by the fact that the opening position and arrangements against which those presentations are made relate to your residence and propinquity to the line.
I am conscious that there are members of the Select Committee here today, and I do not in any sense want to do anything to suggest that I do not hold them in the highest regard or do not think that the report was an excellent summary of the work that they did. However, I found it a very difficult experience, and I am not an inexperienced public speaker. If I found it difficult, it is fair to say that other petitioners will have found it the same. It is a very adversarial process, focusing on private interests, and therefore mitigation, rather than on the broader issues that exist. There is no equality of arms because the process is done in a court-like setting with very highly trained, and presumably quite expensive, advocates against you.
The particularity of the situation in the Lords was that the committee, for reasons that I understand, had decided that it would not hear cases that involved alternative provisions. That meant that most of those who wished to speak, certainly those from the Chilterns, felt that they could not raise all the issues they wanted to. I could go on—I could mention that the lack of action groups and the reliance on parish councils was reflected, but I do not wish to get into that area. I just want that to be noted as the background. Looking back at the process, it seems to me that important issues have fallen by the side. It is not clear to me how those can be picked up, except through this process. This process is dealing with the public aspects of the Bill, but it engages with issues that could be regarded as private, even though they are germane.
I appreciate that this is quite a difficult point to get across and I have no doubt that I will be attacked for it. However, there is a gap around the need to regard what local expertise and understanding can bring to the broader picture. That is not the same as private interests. The issues faced by those trying to petition the Select Committee were no different from the issues faced by those arguing more generally against the Bill.
The Bill will go through—there is no question but that the Government will get their Bill. Therefore, it is now a question of how best to improve it for the future for all people. However, in the absence of the ability to get direct cost information about what is involved, we were constantly frustrated. How could it be that decisions were being reached that balanced the direct costs of building part of the railway and the adverse costs that would occur if the environment were destroyed? This obviously applies to the Chilterns, but there are other areas in which this is also a responsibility. We could not get that cost information: we lacked the ability to do so through the private sector and we have not been able to do it in any public way. That is a problem. I am not saying that were the information to be made available it would change anything, but we cannot get it and the decision is not transparent. There is no information available in the public sector about the trade-off that needs to be made—as I understand it, through the legislative process—between the responsibilities the Government have to maintain AONBs and the need to have the infrastructure of a railway. I have come to terms with the fact that there will be a railway and it will go through the Chilterns. However, I do not have the information to understand better the mechanics of how a decision was reached that it was too expensive to continue the tunnel past Wendover, for example.
There are some difficulties here. It may be that the review which is to be carried out on how we deal with these issues and how lines are to be built will pick up on the point, although I certainly understand that it is probably too late to look at this particular railway. But I want to put on the record that, from my experience, there are difficulties here.
My real point is one I mentioned earlier. It is about the way in which local experience about the problems and the pinch points cannot be built into the process. Some very good examples were given to the Committee in the sitting on Tuesday. The noble Viscount, Lord Astor, in what was a series of powerful and appropriate contributions, talked about the tunnelling at Wendover and the issues that have arisen from knowledge about a cheaper version which simply is not being discussed, along with the issues at Doddershall and Quainton. As the noble Viscount explained, these are all extremely pertinent in the local context, but there are wider issues about whether they are the better solution to the problems being faced by the proprietor in putting forward the railway. Like the noble Viscount, I do not understand how it is that these decisions are taken in the absence of information and in the absence of a process under which better interrogation could take place.
I shall mention two or three other matters although I do not wish to go into any detail and I am not looking to the Minister to make a response to them. However, I have been copied into correspondence from people living near Savay Lake and Savay Farm, which I know the committee heard about at length. As I say, I do not wish to go into the detail, but it seems that there may be a miscarriage here which is of an extent that might require, for instance, an independent adjudicator to take some interest in further down the line. That is why I support the proposal. The question about the haul road in Great Missenden for which there seemed a solution brokered outside the Select Committee in order to ensure that there would be a programme to mitigate the damage to Great Missenden collapsed and there seems to be no way to retrieve it because the system simply does not provide an opportunity to do so.
All these issues—there are others; I could mention the question of more issues closer to Great Missenden at Hyde Heath and further up the line as referred to by the noble Viscount, Lord Astor—show that the detail is not needed to make the general point that there is no body, no person, likely to be able to take account of redress where there is environmental impact as mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Pidding, or impacts on communities which occur after the Act is passed but during the process and before the line is opened. That is because the system does not seem to permit it. It will be, as it were, cast in concrete as soon as the Bill gets through. That seems wrong and therefore I agree absolutely with the idea that there should be some form of complaints commission. However, the noble Baroness, Lady Pidding, made the right point when she said that we need something with teeth, and therefore her proposal for an independent adjudicator may be the right way forward.
Before I close on this perhaps I may mention a point that was raised by my noble friend Lord Rosser on Tuesday. Many of the complaints that arose in the original hearings and in both Select Committees were about compensation. I think we have all had experience of how difficult that can be to apply. There is a proposal which I would commend to the Minister to take on board. I do not think that it could necessarily be available on this project, but it might be appropriate for phase 2. It could be of more general interest and I would ask him to take it away because I am not looking for a response today. It stems from a Private Member’s Bill tabled around 18 months ago in the other place. The idea is a property bond approach through a substantial fund that would be controlled by a mutual on the basis that where a person has a property which is affected by some form of infrastructure arrangement, it would not be necessary for the promoters of the scheme to provide a direct contribution towards the replacement costs should that property be required. There is too much detail for me to go through at this point in the proceedings, but I would like to leave the proposal with the Minister and I am happy to write to him and attend meetings if he feels that it is worth following up.
The difficulty that has bedevilled all the compensation schemes in the Chilterns has been around propensity to the line. Setting an arbitrary figure of so many metres before someone can qualify for one or other of the various arrangements was always going to cause problems, and that is a general observation rather than applying just to this line. If it could be possible to arrange matters, perhaps through some form of mutual obligation on all property owners, so that anyone affected by waterworks activity, electricity, railways and roads is covered for the diminution in the value of their property because of the works, that would lift a huge weight from those who are affected by infrastructure arrangements and, I think, it would help the Government to gain support for their projects. The proposal comes under the general idea of a property bond, but it is really related to the blighting effect of infrastructure projects. I commend it to those who might be interested and I will be happy to follow it up later.
Lord Young of Norwood Green
My Lords, I do not know where to start on the amendment after that omnibus. However, first, in response to the noble Baroness, Lady Pidding, I do not think that having another independent adjudicator as well as the complaints commissioner is a good idea. It will confuse the situation. I agree with her on the substance of the point: a complaints commissioner should be appointed, as one will be, and that individual should have teeth. However, we really need to correct the notion that there is a “get out of jail free” card simply because we occasionally see a reference to doing everything practically possible in relation to the environment and that there are no requirements on HS2’s contractors to take care of the environment. Hundreds and hundreds of assurances have been given and they really have to be adhered to. I have said that many times to petitioners. We had petitioners from Camden who said, “Oh, there are a few assurances”. There were 100 assurances given to Camden Council and I pleaded with them to look at what is already available. We went over the environmental concerns meticulously. There is not an animal or insect that we have not considered, from hedgehogs to crested newts and barn owls or whatever, and rightly so. We paid them a lot of attention.
It is unfortunate that my noble friend Lord Stevenson of Balmacara was not here on Tuesday because we had the same allegation from the noble Viscount, Lord Astor, that we did not debate this. We did: it did not matter whether they were additional provisions, we debated them at length many times. As for the costing, we did not take the word of the contractors or the promoters. We looked carefully, by an independent assessment, to see whether that could justify their view of extending the tunnel. Do not forget that this tunnel has been significantly extended, as a result of the debate in the Commons, and at significant expense. My noble friend shakes his head; I do not know why. It is not enough because we know what the objective is. He wants to tunnel right the way through it but did not achieve that objective. As for the idea that my noble friend somehow could not make his case, I find that hard to understand. He had plenty of opportunity.
On the idea that we in the Select Committee would somehow pay more attention to the barristers, believe me: we were bored out of our skulls by barristers on many occasions and often paid more attention to people who represented their case effectively, whether they were from the parish council or just individuals. The main thing they had to do was to focus on what they wanted the Select Committee to do, and when they did we supported them. In many cases, that was on compensation as well. It really is wrong to tell this Committee that somehow we did not have an opportunity to look at these issues. We did, again and again. In fact, it is probably lucky that I was not chairing it because I would have been more ruthless. We allowed lots and lots of people to present their case, including in locus standi hearings. We made sure that whether it was on environment or noise, or whatever it was, we gave people the opportunity to make their case—not just once but on many occasions.
It should not be suggested to this Committee that individual petitioners somehow had not had an opportunity to present their case or were browbeaten by the barristers. Of course it was a robust environment; I do not deny that but we took account of it and listened carefully. My noble friend shrugs his shoulders; I do not know whether that means that he disputes the integrity of the committee or our attempts to give a fair hearing to petitioners. I do not know why he does that.
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara
I made it perfectly clear that I was in no sense criticising the committee. Obviously, I have let the noble Lord speak, but I was trying to say that there was a gap in the ability of those who wished to make points broader than their private interests, the cause of which obviously did not lie with the committee. I am not blaming the committee, which did exceptional work, and was fantastic. I felt—the noble Lord, Lord Young, can read the transcript; he was there—that I could not say the things I wanted to say. Indeed, the chairman stopped me and said, kindly, that he was taking account of my experience and presence in the House, and would listen to me, but that he wanted me to stop. I cut out two pages of what I was going to say. I am not saying that it was good or bad—it just happened. I am trying to get behind that to say that the committee’s process did not engage sufficiently with the issues that could have been considered. I am trying to play back to the amendment proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Pidding, as I think that that will continue, and in the future an independent adjudicator would be a good thing.
Lord Young of Norwood Green
I am afraid that we will have to agree to disagree, because they did have the opportunity to make wider points on many issues. On the fact that my noble friend was stopped from speaking, I cannot remember precisely why, but it may well be that we had heard those points on many occasions and reiteration did not necessarily produce a better impact for the committee. However, again, I refute the idea that my noble friend is promoting: that this was an unfair environment in which petitioners were not able to address the wider case. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Walker, was meticulous in allowing people to develop the whole case even though we had heard the same issue on many occasions, whether it was the requirement for extra tunnelling or a whole range of issues. Inevitably, if you look at the geography of the petitioners, we heard the same case again and again.
I am not saying that the Select Committee procedure was perfect but I refute that petitioners did not have the opportunity to make their case and address the wider issues. They did. We heard them and wherever we could, if anything, we leaned towards the petitioners. We knew that if people had taken the time and trouble to come to Westminster to make their case, they were entitled to a fair hearing. In fact, the pressure was more on the promoters to prove that the petitioners were wrong than the other way round.
Baroness O'Cathain
My Lords, I must correct two points that my noble friend made. The first was that the HS2 people did not communicate with the residents of various places. They held meetings and sent leaflets and the response was totally pathetic, particularly in the Camden area. It is not unreasonable to think that the response would be pathetic, because we were talking about something that would not go through their patch for seven years, so people thought, “I can’t really be bothered”. That was the information we got from HS2, and the petitioners did not correct us on it.
Secondly, on a point I made on Tuesday, in numerical terms we had over 100 meetings and produced a 60,000-word report, and the verbatim of all those meetings is available. It would be jolly nice if noble Lords tried to look at the various areas about which petitioners now say, “Well, of course they didn’t listen” or “They didn’t do this”. We bent over backwards, to the extent that sometimes I felt that HS2 would get fed up with the committee members trying to understand the various differences between the petitioners. There was just one QC who flung the file at Mr Mould, the HS2 barrister, because he simply could not understand his way of thinking, and that was wrong.
The noble Lord, Lord Young, has explained it completely. I feel utterly traduced, having spent all that time on it. We worked from May through to December, relentlessly, four days a week. We did our best. The noble Lord and I were both worn out. I think I remember him saying, “If I die, Wendover will be written on my heart.” On another occasion, he said, “If I ever hear of Wendover again, I will go mad.” We spent hours on Wendover, and on the Chilterns—and then the noble Viscount, Lord Astor, said that there should not be a tunnel anyway because the people who travel on the train want to see the scenery. To hear this kind of thing after all the work we have done frankly made me want to give up. I lost the will to live at one stage. It had an effect on us. We were getting colds. We were tired. Our weekends were spent in a daze wondering how to recover. I am not trying to plead a special case, but to hear this sort of stuff coming out is not at all rewarding to people who went there, unpaid, and gave up a huge amount of their private life for it.
Lord Berkeley
Noble Lords will be aware that there was a consultation on the hybrid Bill procedure, which closed just before Christmas and on which the clerks can provide us all with details. I think that is the forum for discussing how the procedure works, whether improvements could be made, whether everybody was treated fairly, and so on. I suspect it will be the first of a number of inquiries. We all learn from these processes, but I am not sure that today’s Committee is the right forum in which to discuss them in detail.
Lord Framlingham
My Lords, in a sense this goes to the point I was trying to make when we first started about the function of this Committee. We are dealing with a huge, modern project within a Victorian legislative system, which will be improved in time—but not in time to take care of the problems that face us. We all ought to bear that in mind. I, like every other member of this Committee, I am sure, have no wish to denigrate the work of the Select Committee. We acknowledge all the hours its members put in and what they went through. But if this Committee today is to have any function or usefulness at all, then it has to deal with and reflect on what they thought, what we think and how things should go forward.
We are talking about the biggest infrastructure project this country will ever undertake. It is an enormous project. The work involved will have a huge impact on both the urban and rural environment. Surely we must leave no stone unturned to ensure that it is correct. The Select Committee may think it has done that, but if anybody has more concerns, as we have today, they should be able to express them. This project is going to last for years. It will affect thousands of people’s lives for years in all sorts of ways. It is all right having a complaints system but complaints happen after the result, when the damage is done.
I am talking today about awareness: making HS2 aware of its obligations from the beginning and having someone—an adjudicator, or whatever you want to call it—to keep an eye on it from the beginning. People also need to be reassured that the adjudicator, or whatever official we decide upon, will support and defend their interests. I declare my own interest: I have always been interested in trees. I am an ex-president of the Arboricultural Association and I like ancient woodlands. Believe you me, an hour’s work with a JCB in the wrong place will do untold and irreparable damage that no amount of money, apologies, complaints or acceptance of responsibility by HS2 will put right. From the very beginning, if it is to work at all—I still do not want it to go ahead—there must be an awareness on both sides. That means, on the part of HS2, an awareness of its obligations on every little detail so that the general public are reassured that their interests will be properly defended. What structure or person that would need, be it an adjudicator or whatever we like to call it, I am not sure, but that mechanism must somehow be put in place.
Lord Rosser
Perhaps I may raise one or two points on the issue that is set out in the amendment, which as I understand it is about the procedure for dealing with issues that people have during the construction process and what kind of redress is available to them. I raise this in the context of asking the Minister to clarify what those processes will be. I shall start with the context set out in the summary of the Select Committee’s report, which states:
“As the railway is constructed over the coming years, it will be imperative that the promoter engages effectively with all interested parties to ensure that, as far as possible, disruption and inconvenience are kept to a minimum. In this regard, the promoter faces an enormous task and we cannot stress enough the importance of effective and timely public engagement, something which, we were told time and again, could be improved upon”.
As an example of what I am asking, I refer to paragraphs 155 to 157 of the committee’s report. These relate to an issue which, as far as I am personally concerned, is fairly close to home; about a third of a mile, to be precise. The committee states at paragraph 155 that it had,
“heard some powerful and entirely credible evidence about traffic congestion in Ickenham”,
while paragraph 156 states:
“That is the background against which, as we are satisfied, the promoter has made determined and realistic efforts to reduce the numbers of HGV movements on the roads of Ickenham. The promoter’s original estimate was of 1,860 two-way HGV movements a day. That has been progressively improved, first to 1,460, then to 1,060, and finally to 550 two-way HGV movements a day. That last figure appears in the assurance (in terms of “reasonable endeavours”) embodied in clause 7 of the draft contract giving effect to the agreement mentioned in paragraph 150 above. It is expressed as a limit of 550 HGV movements a day at Swakeleys Roundabout and, as a separate undertaking, a reduction (“so far as reasonably practicable”) in the number of HGVs using the roundabout at peak morning and evening hours on weekdays”.
The committee goes on to say:
“This remarkable improvement in the target, although obviously welcome, has been criticised by some petitioners as having emerged only at a late stage, after much uncertainty, and as still having an element of contingency”.
I have no doubt that it was not only as a result of the representations made but from the questioning and the interest taken in it by the committee, which were probably quite significant factors in getting the numbers down.
I use this simply as an example for the question that I want to raise. If, for example, residents in the area—it could apply to any area—where commitments have been given have suspicions that rather more than 550 HGV movements are taking place, I would be grateful if the Minister could set out what redress those residents would have in that context. They have made representations and obviously have had help from the committee, but what happens if, when the work starts, they subsequently feel that the commitments are not being adhered to? What redress can those residents take, or what could they seek to obtain?
Baroness Buscombe
My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken to these amendments in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Berkeley and Lord Stevenson of Balmacara, and my noble friend Lady Pidding. The Government share the concerns that noble Lords have highlighted through the tabling of this amendment, and I fully acknowledge the importance of residents and businesses along the route knowing they can seek fair and independent resolution of complaints, if necessary—the word “independent” has come up several times, as it is important.
I will immediately address points made by the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson. I hope that he will recognise, as indeed he said in his speech this afternoon, that the Minister addressed a number of the issues that the noble Lord raised this afternoon during our first day in Committee on Tuesday. However, I shall quickly reference a couple of things he talked about. One is with regard to engagement on wider issues. While he is correct that the Select Committee focuses on private interests, there has been frequent consultation on the scheme at a detailed level, even as it evolved and changed through additional provisions. Consultation responses, which numbered nearly 23,000, were analysed and reported on by an independent assessor appointed by Parliament. Six reports are available in the House Library for the noble Lord to consider. In addition, the noble Lord referenced property bonds, which I shall refer to. I hope he will be reassured by the fact that we will review the full suite of HS2 discretionary compensation schemes later this year, and as part of that, I can confirm that we will consider arguments with regard to a property bond option.
I acknowledge several helpful interventions made by the noble Lord, Lord Young of Norwood Green, and my noble friend Lady O’Cathain, in amplifying, illustrating and helping us through this process by referencing so much that took place during that whole process when they sat on that Select Committee. We must be mindful of the enormous amount of work that they achieved and of course the considerable care they took to ensure that people were genuinely listened to.
The Government want to reassure noble Lords that these amendments are unnecessary, as we are already putting in place comprehensive measures to address these concerns in the guise of a construction commissioner. The construction commissioner will fulfil the requirements that noble Lords are seeking in their proposed amendments, and more besides. The commissioner will mediate in unresolved disputes between the project and individuals or bodies relating to the construction of HS2 and will be able to receive and deal with complaints about the construction of the railway on an independent and impartial basis. Furthermore, the commissioner will have a role on advising on actions the nominated undertaker and contractors can take to reduce the number of complaints they receive. The commissioner will also have a particular role in determining complaints which are made under the small claims scheme—this point makes immediate reference to the question raised by the noble Lord, Lord Rosser—which provides a simple and informal basis to recover losses up to £10,000 for each individual claim.
The construction commissioner will be independent of the Secretary of State and any nominated undertaker appointed to construct the proposed scheme. We have already appointed an interim construction commissioner, Mr Gareth Epps. A permanent appointment—to reassure my noble friend Lady Pidding—will be made following Royal Assent, when the Secretary of State will establish an independent body to appoint the construction commissioner and determine its precise terms of reference, including its regular reporting requirements. The independent body will be made up of a range of stakeholders, including representatives of local authorities affected by HS2 phase one. The commitment to appoint a construction commissioner is a binding one, made to Parliament and recorded in the register of undertakings and assurances. Given that we are already addressing this issue, I hope that noble Lords will accept that legislation is unnecessary and not press this proposed new clause.
With respect to the issue of an independent adjudicator, I note that this amendment was previously tabled during the Public Bill Committee in another place. I am not convinced on the need for an HS2 adjudicator. There are already extensive checks and balances built into the Bill, based on the regime adopted by Crossrail and the Channel Tunnel Rail Link. The regime has proved effective for those projects and we see no reason why it would not be effective for this project. This issue was raised before your Lordships’ Select Committee, which also saw no need to impose such a role. I do not believe that this Committee should either.
This amendment, as well as being unnecessary, is unwelcome, as it would effectively create a quango with all the unnecessary cost and bureaucracy that this would entail. I cannot resist citing the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, who, at the beginning of this afternoon’s Committee, said on his second amendment that he is not in favour of creating an enormous bureaucratic nightmare. These amendments would create just that.
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara
I am sorry to interrupt the Minister’s peroration but, while I understand the point about the construction commissioner, who may well solve a lot of the difficulties raised today, who is going to take responsibility once construction is completed for ongoing concerns and issues? She mentioned current practices in Crossrail, which may have a resonance for us. Without having to spend too much time today, perhaps it would be possible for her to write with details of what that might contain for us.
Baroness Buscombe
My Lords, in response to the noble Lord’s question, it will continue to be the construction commissioner. In fact, if I could continue my response to noble Lords it would perhaps be helpful.
There are a considerable amount of checks and balances already established by the Bill and the environmental statement, which protect the natural environment and communities from the impact of construction works. The Bill sets out the detailed controls and planning approvals needed for construction works, such as the limits on land that can be taken for the railway and where and how works can be constructed. There is also a strict envelope of environmental impacts within which HS2 has to be built or it does not have planning permission. Furthermore, there are requirements for the Government to gain approval from local authorities under the planning regime on specific issues, including the approval of construction traffic routes.
Additional commitments have been made during the parliamentary process: literally thousands of individual undertakings and assurances that are a matter of public record. These commitments are either legally enforceable through the courts or matters for which the Secretary of State will be answerable to Parliament if there is any breach of them. These commitments also include those relating to the environmental minimum requirements, which have been developed in consultation with local authorities and others. The code of construction practice, which forms part of these commitments, sets out detailed standards of work that will be adopted by contractors throughout the construction period to control potential impacts on people, businesses and the natural and historic environment. This code also sets out the mechanisms that will be used to engage with the local community and their representatives throughout the construction period.
Let us not forget all the existing legislation that will continue to apply during the construction of HS2. This includes the Control of Pollution Act 1974 and the Environmental Protection Act 1990, which give necessary roles to statutory bodies that will all play a role in regulating HS2. The Freedom of Information Act and all its requirements will, of course, continue to apply to the Department for Transport and to HS2 Ltd. These existing protections will be reinforced by the dual roles of the residents commissioner and the construction commissioner. The residents commissioner ensures that the Government are communicating with affected residents in the clearest and plainest language possible. The role of the construction commissioner is to mediate unresolved disputes between HS2 Ltd and individuals or bodies and to provide independent, impartial decisions.
Lord Young of Norwood Green
The Minister has comprehensively covered most of the territory, but I want to address the point that the noble Baroness, Lady Pidding, and my noble friend Lord Rosser raised. There is a code of practice, and they have had the communication—hopefully, because they were not always as good as they should be on that, which is why we made that comment—but there is also the 24-hour helpline. This is the first recourse that people have. If something is going wrong—for instance, as the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, said, if a resident wishes to complain that they were told there would be only 500 lorries but 1,000 have already passed through—there is an immediate requirement for the contractor to respond and to take remedial action. If it fails to do so, then the matter can be taken to the construction commissioner. What people are concerned about, and what we have heard about time and time again and rightly so, is whether what is on paper will happen in practice, and the noble Baroness gave some examples. We must ensure that HS2 abides by the terms and meets the commitments, part of which is that immediate response.
Baroness Buscombe
I am extremely grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Young of Norwood Green. He is absolutely right that there will be a 24-hour helpline and dedicated community liaison officers there to assist and respond to people’s concerns. I hope that, following this debate and the helpful interventions, noble Lords will accept that we believe that we should avoid creating unnecessarily what would amount to a quango. I hope, therefore, that these amendments will be withdrawn.
Lord Berkeley
My Lords, I am very grateful to the Minister for her response and to colleagues for their comments. My intention in putting down this amendment was to probe what has already been done and I am fully satisfied. I did not want to build up a big, bureaucratic exercise. It worked very well on previous projects and I am sure it will work well today, given the right will. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
““deposited statement” has the meaning given by subsection (5);”
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
“2_ In section 7(2)(acquisition of airspace), for paragraphs (a) and (b) substitute—“(a) Schedule 2A to the Compulsory Purchase Act 1965 (counter-notice requiring purchase of land not in notice to treat);(b) Schedule A1 to the Compulsory Purchase (Vesting Declarations) Act 1981 (corresponding provision in case of general vesting declaration);(c) section 153(4A) of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 (blighted land: proposed acquisition of part interest; material detriment test).”2A_ In section 8(2)(acquisition of subsoil or under-surface), for paragraphs (a) and (b) substitute—“(a) Schedule 2A to the Compulsory Purchase Act 1965 (counter-notice requiring purchase of land not in notice to treat);(b) Schedule A1 to the Compulsory Purchase (Vesting Declarations) Act 1981 (corresponding provision in case of general vesting declaration);(c) section 153(4A) of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 (blighted land: proposed acquisition of part interest; material detriment test).””
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
My Lords, as noble Lords know, the Bill applies the statutory compulsory acquisition regime to enable the land required for the railway to be acquired. However, the Housing and Planning Act 2016, which was recently considered by your Lordships’ House, made some amendments to that regime and how it operates. The amendments tabled in my name to Schedule 14 update the Bill to take account of the amendments included within the Housing and Planning Act 2016. As such they are technical in nature and merely bring this Bill into line with the Housing and Planning Act 2016. I beg to move.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
(a) in a case where the notice to treat relates only to one or more of the following—(i) the acquisition of subsoil or undersurface of land, where the subsoil or undersurface lies more than 9 metres below the surface;(ii) the acquisition of airspace over land;(iii) an easement, restrictive covenant or other right over land;for “3 months” substitute “1 month”, and(b) after “11A(4)” insert “or (6) and (7)”.”
(a) in subsection (1)(a), after “land” insert “under that provision”,(b) in subsection (2), after “land” insert “under that provision, to the extent that the newly identified person is the owner, lessee or occupier of the land,”,(c) in subsection (4)(a), for “14 days” substitute “7 days”, and(d) at the end insert—“(5) Subsections (6) and (7) apply for the purposes of determining the period to be specified in the notice of entry under section 11(1) served on the newly identified person in a case where subsection (4) does not apply.(6) The period specified in the notice must be—(a) in a case where the notice to treat relates only to one or more of the following—(i) the acquisition of subsoil or under- surface of land, where the subsoil or undersurface lies more than 9 metres below the surface;(ii) the acquisition of airspace over land;(iii) an easement, restrictive covenant or other right over land;a period that ends no earlier than the end of the period of 7 days beginning with the day on which the notice of entry is served, and(b) in any other case, a period that ends no earlier than the end of the period of 28 days beginning with the day on which the notice of entry is served.(7) The period specified in the notice must end no earlier than the end of the period specified in any previous notice of entry given by the acquiring authority in respect of the land.””
(a) omit paragraphs 1(2) and 14(2), and(b) at the end insert—“PART 4INTERPRETATION30_ In this Schedule, references to entering on and taking possession of land do not include doing so under Schedule 16 to the High Speed Rail (London - West Midlands) Act 2017 (temporary possession and use of land).””
“DUTY OF CARE AND LIABILITY OF SECRETARY OF STATE 1 The Secretary of State and the nominated undertaker, and their contractors and sub-contractors, are, when dealing with persons whose land is subject to the exercise of powers under sections 4 to 19 or whose land is otherwise affected by the construction of the scheduled works, subject to a general duty of care to those persons.2 The general duty of care includes requirements to—(a) act fairly and in good faith at all times;(b) minimise so far as reasonably practicable the acquisition and temporary occupation of land of third parties;(c) minimise so far as reasonably practicable the impact on third parties of the carrying out of the scheduled works;(d) act transparently;(e) for not less than five years after the completion of the scheduled works, provide an information and assistance service for those affected by the scheduled works;(f) pay fair compensation promptly;(g) consult affected persons before and during any process of compulsory acquisition;(h) provide accommodation works during the construction of the scheduled works where reasonably required.3 Notwithstanding any agreement to the contrary between the Secretary of State and the nominated undertaker or any contractor or sub-contractor, the Secretary of State is liable to third parties for the actions of the nominated undertaker and his or its contractors and sub-contractors in exercising the powers conferred by this Act and carrying out the scheduled works. 4 It is the duty of the Complaints Commissioner appointed by the Secretary of State under section (Complaints Commissioner) to determine how the Secretary of State and the nominated undertaker must observe the general duty of care created by this Schedule.”
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara
I beg to move this amendment standing in my name. I realise that my following remarks risk throwing petrol on an already blazing flame and that my great friend and former colleague my noble friend Lord Young will probably never speak to me again. However, I say again that I fully acknowledge that the committee did exactly what was required of it and went to extraordinary lengths and made a huge personal commitment in doing so. In no sense was anything I said on the earlier amendments meant to imply anything other than huge admiration for what it has done. I hope that point is well taken. However, I was trying—obviously ineffectively—to argue that the work of the committee, however good, could never address the sorts of issues that I was trying to articulate as they concerned private interests.
I follow the noble Lord, Lord Framlingham, in saying that a 19th century Victorian approach to dealing with the vested interests of private landowners is being used in a situation where it is completely inappropriate. It is not in any sense the committee’s fault that we are today talking about the issues that it may feel it knocked on the head and put to bed. There are still issues out there and they were raised by my new friend, the noble Baroness, Lady Pidding, because she has experience, as I have, of how they will operate in practice. This issue is about structure.
I have submitted evidence on all this to the committee that was set up to look at hybrid Bills. I hope that it will consider that evidence as we go forward. Why have we not had an opportunity to discuss the committee’s report? That could still be done. It is the biggest gap of all. As I understand it, there is no procedure as regards discussing the excellent report, which I have read. I have looked at every piece of evidence the committee received and I have read every transcript of the events, so I am not unaware of its work. I almost died but I did it. However, the report will never be discussed. That seems an extraordinary lacuna in the process of looking at the Bill. It needs to be picked up because there are things in the report which ought to be brought out and discussed. There are things which perhaps we could agree to disagree about but at least they could be aired and ventilated in a discussion. That is a terrible mistake. I move on.
My last point concerns an issue that came up and reflects points made on it both today and on Tuesday.
Lord Framlingham
I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord, but he was not here on Tuesday, when I think that the Minister gave us assurances that the response to the report will be available before the Report stage.
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara
I have taken note of and am aware of that, but a response is not a debate. While of course I am looking forward to the response and will read it with considerable interest, it will not give us the opportunity to debate and discuss all the other issues, and that is disappointing.
The amendment before us asks whether a duty of care should be placed on the promoter and the nominated undertaker in relation to the acquisition of land by compulsory purchase and associated issues. The reason for tabling it stems from our discussions on questions of how HS2 has been dealing with the people with whom it has to engage around the acquisition of land in preparation for the construction phase. It is clear that the ability to purchase land compulsorily should always be used with a sense of great responsibility and as a last resort. The ability to purchase the property of another against their will is a really substantial power and one hopes that it will be used and exercised with care.
When the Bill before us today receives Royal Assent, HS2 Ltd will have compulsory purchase powers. However, many people feel that the organisation has not really earned the right to move ahead in the way it has done because of how it has operated before in terms of dealing with them. Those most affected by the scheme seem to be the most upset about it, and that is obviously a concern which perhaps will be picked up by better and more informed engagement, but the more that people push top-down on engagement, possibly the less effective it will be. This duty of care is not about disrupting or delaying the Bill—we are not in any sense trying to do that—but introducing a set of standards against which HS2 Ltd can be judged; that is, how is it treating those who are losing land or property to the scheme?
Examples which have led to this amendment have been reported to me and I am happy to share them with the Minister if he wishes me to do so. I am keeping them neutral at this stage, but there is evidence to back up what I am saying. Examples include landowners finding out about significant changes to the design of a scheme only once the information has been released to the public. In some cases, landowners have had meetings with HS2 representatives only shortly before changes were announced, but at which it was denied that any changes were forthcoming. There has been a refusal to engage in extensive discussions with landowners, and that is obviously very frustrating. If adaptations to the design are going to be made, previous plans will not necessarily follow. This has often meant that almost fake meetings have been set up where discussions have been held, but it was clear that another agenda was in place which had not been revealed to the landowner.
There are examples of the failure to pay properly for access to land. Some landowners have agreed to allow HS2 Ltd access on the basis of a fee, but those fees have still not been paid. That seems to be a very poor practice. Some sense of a duty of care being overseen by an independent complaints commission of the type talked about by the noble Baroness when she addressed the last amendment may be a way forward on this, and I am sure would help, but it may mean that the whole process needs to be stiffened by having a formal duty of care. I do not think that this should be seen as being in any way bureaucratic, because obviously that is not allowed. It also should not be seen as in any sense a way of slowing down the scheme. In fact, in some ways a duty of care might actually set standards that would improve the quality of the process between landowners and HS2 Ltd. It is important to look at whether that might be the right way forward.
There is a lot of uncertainty up and down the line about how much land will finally be taken, for how long, on what basis it will be paid for, and how the timing of those payments will work out. This is not helping in terms of making the scheme a success. It would be sensible to have the basic structure of a duty of care as provided for in this amendment, which I commend. I beg to move.
Lord Rosser
In part, the amendment moved by my noble friend Lord Stevenson of Balmacara, relates to an issue I have asked about previously, which is also contained in the Select Committee’s report on page 97, on permanent or temporary land take. Certainly, the Country Land and Business Association, for example, believes that HS2 is seeking powers to take land permanently which it needs only temporarily, and that this is leading to a highly unsatisfactory situation. I would be grateful if the Minister can reconfirm what I believe he has already said, that when the Government come to respond to the Select Committee’s report, they will address what the Select Committee had to say on the issue of permanent or temporary land take, on pages 97 to 99 of that report. It may well be that, in the light of what the Government have to say, an amendment on this issue will need to be pursued on Report. Therefore, I want that assurance that those paragraphs which the Select Committee included on permanent or temporary land take will be commented on in the Government’s reply.
I appreciate that I am stretching things a bit in raising this, but the noble Baroness, Lady O’Cathain, asked a question earlier about the moving of the portals of the tunnel at Euston. I too have had an email which said that there is a suggestion that staff at HS2 Ltd have indicated that consideration is being given to moving the portals of the tunnel from which the proposed high speed line will emerge to the west of Euston station, about one kilometre nearer to the station. Can the Minister say whether that is correct and whether consideration is being given to this?
Lord Berkeley
To add to that, I have also heard that same rumour from some of the local residents. It is particularly unfortunate if we hear stories like that from residents and we cannot get the answer from Ministers, so I am sure that the Minister will do his best to respond.
On the compulsory purchase and compensation side, I have heard allegations that some of the land subject to compulsory purchase in the Old Oak Common area will be allocated or transferred to a separate company—many of the directors of HS2 seem also to be on its board—and then used for, shall we say, non-railway purposes. Surely compulsory purchase for railway schemes is designed for railway purposes, but if this is to be used for other purposes, it begs a lot of questions as to whether that is an appropriate methodology. If the Minister cannot answer that this afternoon, I am sure he could write to me, if that will be possible.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, for his contributions, and the noble Lords, Lord Rosser and Lord Berkeley, for their questions. To take the final issue first, because that is quite a specific matter, I will write to the noble Lord. I think the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, raised the issue of what had been heard from residents. I appreciate that that has been received in a positive light and that is taking place, and I hope that that addresses one of the points that the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, raised on that.
On the proposal for the duty of care, the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, said that he had read all elements of the Select Committee’s reports, and we shall of course be testing him on his verbatim knowledge of them at the end of this afternoon’s proceedings—I shall not hold him to that. I am sure that he recognises— I have said this several times, but I shall not tire of saying so—that the Select Committees in both Houses looked at this issue closely among other areas, and the proposal for a duty of care was considered.
The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, again rightly raised the specific issue promoted by the Country Land and Business Association in its petitions. Let me assure both noble Lords that this matter received lengthy hearings and the Government have now given more than a dozen assurances to the association in response to its concerns. The noble Lord referred specifically to the Select Committee report in this regard, as set out on pages 97 to 99. As I have said previously and will now repeat, we shall respond to those points when we publish our response to the report next week. However, notwithstanding what I have just said, there were no specific recommendations from either committee on the need for such a duty.
As the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, may well know, the compensation code which I alluded to in our debates on Tuesday, is both understood and has been developed over time. It has been further refined through the Housing and Planning Act 2016. Furthermore, the Government are already working to an existing commitment, reinforced by several assurances on the formal register, to minimise likely areas of permanent and temporary land take where it is practicable to do so. We have also developed a series of environmental minimum requirements, while the code of construction practice already provides a series of protections for those who may be affected by the construction of the scheme. It is already the case that, if contractors engaged in the construction of the railway fall foul of the expected standard of reasonable care and skill, they will find themselves exposed to claims of negligence which will be actionable through the courts in the ordinary way.
To prevent the need for people to seek redress through the courts, as my noble friend Lady Buscombe mentioned in her response to the previous debate, the Government have provided an alternative remedy in the form of the role of the construction commissioner who is able to receive and deal with on an independent and impartial basis any complaints about the construction of the railway. As my noble friend has already said, the commissioner has a particular role in determining complaints that are made under the small claims scheme, which provides a simple and informal basis to recover losses of up to £10,000 for each individual claim. To emphasise that point, the construction commissioner will also be independent of the Secretary of State and any nominated undertaker appointed to construct the proposed scheme.
Wider protections are already included in the Bill, such as the enforcement of planning controls, which will rest in the ordinary way with the responsible planning authorities. We have talked during our various debates today about the important role that local planning authorities and related agencies will have as we build and construct HS2. I am sure that noble Lords will also be aware that previous hybrid Acts referred to in our debate, such as the Crossrail Act and the Channel Tunnel Rail Link Act, did not include the provision of a duty of care to ensure that those affected by the construction of these projects were sufficiently protected. I hope that the noble Lord is reassured by what I have said and is therefore minded to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara
I thank the Minister for that full response. I think that one would be more inclined to accept it if there was a good record of engagement on the part of HS2 Ltd across the range of the piece that we have been talking about today and which I am sure was touched on last Tuesday, but of course the reality is that that is not the case. There have been too many mistakes, too many issues, too much neglect and too much arrogance in terms of assuming that people will just go along with what is being said. These are all words that have been used to me, and I am sure that they are not strange to the Minister’s ears. The point is that this is something that really does have to be handled carefully. On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Berkeley
Lord Berkeley
My Lords, I think this is the last amendment of the day. My reason for putting this down was to probe the rather obscure wording in Schedule 17 that allows in the included ancillary matters the,
“handling of re-useable spoil or topsoil”.
I am not sure what that means—perhaps the Minister can help me to define it. For me, the word “spoil” could include all the material coming out of a 10-mile-long tunnel bore—probably several million tonnes. If HS2 is to be allowed to deposit this stuff wherever it likes because it can give itself planning permission, that does not seem a good idea to me. Maybe it does not cover such large volumes, and it will just be small bits of excavation here or there which do not matter very much. Paragraphs (2)(b) to (g) include what are normal construction activities, such as storage sites for construction materials, construction camps, works screening, lighting and dust suppression. I feel comfortable with their being in the schedule. However, the word “spoil” hit me, and I wondered what it included. If the Minister cannot answer that question today, he can always write to me. It is not the end of the world, but it would just be nice to know. I can always bring it back on Report if I have to. On that basis, I beg to move.
Baroness Buscombe
My Lords, it is important that I get this right. This amendment seeks to restrict the ability of a local planning authority to consider the handling of topsoil or other reusable spoil when being asked to approve construction arrangements. Matters over which local authorities—who have requested to be nominated as qualifying authorities—have a right of approval or have enforcement over have been the subject of a tried and tested practice that has worked well on both the Crossrail and the Channel Tunnel rail link projects.
I say to noble Lords, and in particular to the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, that my impression was that the amendment is linked to Amendment 17, which dealt with restrictions on lorries and road use for the removal of soil and topsoil. We discussed those similar issues when dealing with that amendment earlier this afternoon. The issue relates to storage; for example, of spoil, which is then reusable, as well as topsoil. For example, we spoke on Tuesday about the whole issue of woodland. It is important, where possible, that HS2 has an ability to allow those who will plant the trees to use reusable topsoil—some of which is precious, not least for the regeneration of wildlife and so on—around ancient woodland and new woodland, where it can be transferred. Therefore, on the meaning of “reusable spoil and topsoil” there is nothing one should worry too much about.
Lord Young of Norwood Green
I think I can be of some help, because we had significant discussions on this issue. Some of the spoil is indeed reusable—for building embankments, for example. Other types, such as slurry, are not particularly reusable. We had a lot of debates on this because some petitioners were convinced that the promoter had got it wrong and that they did not have to transport some of this spoil over a distance. However, they did; they needed to get it to a site because it had the right components to enable it to be used for building embankments. This is a complex issue. Certainly, however, contractors do not have the right to dump loads of spoil wherever they like—that will be highly controlled and regulated. I hope that has been of some help.
Baroness Buscombe
I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Young of Norwood Green, for his very helpful intervention. In addition, local authorities will of course be best placed to decide where best to store the reusable soil, whether it be spoil or topsoil. The important point also to make, and which I hope will reassure the noble Lord, is that the nominated undertaker would be required to get disposal plans approved by qualifying local authorities. As the noble Lord, Lord Young, said, it would not be possible for contractors just to dump it or leave it anywhere they felt like. I hope that, on that basis, the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Berkeley
I am very grateful to the Minister. I had hoped that that would be the answer and it gives me great comfort. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
High Speed Rail (London-West Midlands) Bill
Tuesday 24th January 2017
(7 years, 10 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 92-I Marshalled list for Report (PDF, 105KB) - (20 Jan 2017)
17:03 - Division on Amendment 1 - Ayes: 80 / Noes: 261 - Amendment 1 disagreed.
19:03 - Division on Amendment 8 - Ayes: 63 / Noes: 161 - Amendment 8 disagreed.
Lord Bradshaw
“( ) Construction work otherwise authorised by this Act may not begin until—(a) the Secretary of State has commissioned a review of the merits of establishing Old Oak Common station as an interim eastern terminus for Phase One of High Speed 2, with the provision of convenient access arrangements with London Overground routes to the east and west of the station, and(b) the report of that review has been published.”
Lord Bradshaw (LD)
My Lords, I would like to make it absolutely plain at the outset that we wholeheartedly support the intentions of the Bill. We are concerned, for example, that all the routes out of London to the north are now overloaded. They are unreliable and extremely difficult to expand. There would be absolutely years and years of delay if such expansion were attempted. Our concern is that the HS2 scheme as it now stands, and as we now understand the costings to be, does not comply with the funding envelope contained in the Minister’s answer to this House in December of last year. We do not believe that the costings of HS2 are soundly based. We will explore in more detail why that is, but they are not up to date and have not been prepared by people who are absolutely competent to do so. A question of financial propriety is involved as regards whether the Government should get involved in the scheme as it now stands with such flimsy cost estimates. We further believe that if economies are not made now in the part of high-speed rail that goes from London to Birmingham, there will not be enough money in the funding envelope to extend HS2 north of Birmingham. As that is the principal purpose of the line, it seems rather odd that we would not manage to complete the line as planned.
The principal economy that it is possible to make concerns Old Oak Common, where the first London terminal is, and Euston station, which it is proposed will be reached at a further stage. Old Oak Common is a large area. It is connected to Crossrail 1, Heathrow and, obviously, to Canary Wharf. I further suggest that that station should be designed so that it is easy to turn trains around there, provided that there are sufficient staff; and that the connections between Old Oak Common station, the West London line and the line from Richmond —the two lines of London Overground—would in fact give a lot more facility for people to be dispersed from the railway. This would require Old Oak Common to be the interim terminus in London. While most people do not even know where Old Oak Common is, it is not far from London; it is well connected by road; and because of the good connections which I have described and the potential good connections which could be provided, I do not believe that when trains come from Birmingham or the north, if they could go to Euston, people would choose to stay on them as far as Euston. They will get off at Old Oak Common and disperse from there.
A huge amount of money is involved in the extension of High Speed 2 from Old Oak Common to Euston, and that represents a large economy, which would help the project to stay within the funding envelopes which the Government are providing. It is therefore time to re-examine and reappraise the Euston connection to see what benefit it will bring. However, there is no reason in the interim why Network Rail should not get on and modernise Euston station, which sadly needs it, and of course it would provide an interval during which people could decide whether extending the railway from Old Oak Common to Euston was a good proposition. I have set out simply what we are trying to do: we are trying to protect HS2 in its projection to the north of England, and to bring financial discipline to the whole project, which has not been done. I beg to move.
Lord Berkeley (Lab)
My Lords, Amendments 1 and 6 are also in my name. The noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, has set out the reasons behind them very clearly, but there is a continuing worry about what is proposed at Euston. I think this is the eighth attempt by HS2 to come up with a scheme. If you produce something eight times, you begin to wonder what the problem is. The latest scheme is going to cause 19 years of construction or rebuilding of the station itself. That is a very long time for any project—very much longer than London Bridge, and that is not a great success—and there are ways of doing it much more cheaply. It would work to do it more quickly and within the Euston width —many people have heard us speak about that before—but my worst worry is about the cost, and I shall speak on that more generally in a minute.
In one of his helpful responses in Committee, the Minister said that lots of cost estimates had been done for both Euston and the whole scheme. The fact remains that the last one that was published—Additional Provision 3, issued about 18 months ago in September 2015 by Simon Kirby, the then chief executive of HS2—said that the total cost of the additional provisions was £66 million and that the cost of compensation was £97.8 million. Only a few months later Professor McNaughton, who was the man leading on HS2, told me and several colleagues that the compensation cost was actually going to be £1 billion at Euston. I cannot see how anyone can be happy with something that is out by a factor of 10. I think that there are still civil engineering problems there and, as one noble Lord asked about in Committee, that there are still plans to redesign the portal; we hope that it will be an improvement. It would be nice if noble Lords were told about this. There are quite a few residents I know in Camden who know about this, but none of us has been told, in spite of quite a lot of asking.
Euston may well be the right location, and we can debate the best way into Euston. In France and Germany, when a high-speed service has been built over the years, the last few miles into the city centre have generally been on the classic tracks because of the cost and disruption of knocking down enormous numbers of properties. Why we should be different, I do not know—we can ask ourselves the question. The reason for this amendment is to try to squeeze out of the Government their plans for Euston. If they do not have any, let us see if we can have an interim station that would really work at Old Oak Common, as the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, said.
Amendment 6 is grouped with this amendment. I will not repeat what I said in Committee, because it is clearly on the record. We organised costings with Michael Bing, a quantity surveyor who has written the textbook of costings for Network Rail; that is two years old now, so I hope that it will implement it soon, because there are problems with costs on the classic network. He concluded that the cost of HS2 at Euston, with the tunnel as far as Old Oak Common, was £8.25 billion. That did not fit well, in my mind, with the total committed expenditure limits from the Government for the whole of phase 1 of £24 billion, because it is about one-third of it for eight kilometres out of 200. So I asked the same gentlemen, using the same methodology and rates, to cost the whole of phase 1, and it came out at about £54 billion, which is actually double the Government’s estimate they published in a Written Answer to me on 21 December.
I am very grateful to the Minister: we had a meeting on this last week and agreed to look at it further. However, my worry is that the original costings that we produced have never been challenged by government. You would think that the Government would have come to me or my colleagues to say, “You’ve got it wrong. You are using the wrong assumptions and the wrong design”, or whatever. Well, we could not use the wrong design—it was their design that we were using—but nobody has come back to me to say that we got it wrong. That rather leads me to believe that we probably got it quite right—or nearly right. The consequence of that is that the £54 billion we have calculated for phase 1 is actually the total expenditure limit that the Government have announced for the whole project, including phases 2 and 3. As the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, said, we do not want to stop at Birmingham. It is the sections north of Birmingham that are, in my view, more in need of improvement—at Manchester, Crewe, Leeds and beyond—than the southern sections are in the first phase.
It is very important that we get a handle on the costs. It is right that we should be talking about this at Report because it is surely up to us as parliamentarians to challenge the Government so that they know what the costs are before they start work. It is very easy on a project to start work and, then, after a few years, to scratch your stubble and say, “Oh dear! I got it wrong”, and go back for more money. It is quite possible to get the costings right. Noble Lords may have heard somebody from Crossrail on the “Today” programme this morning talking about its success. It really is a success: it is on time, I believe, and it is certainly on budget. So it is possible to do it. My argument, and my plea to the Minister, is: can we not get the same discipline attached to HS2, before it is too late?
Lord Brabazon of Tara (Con)
My Lords, I have one question. Perhaps it is for my noble friend the Minister or perhaps it is for the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw. My understanding was that if Old Oak Common were to be used as the terminus for this railway, even in the interim, a completely different design would be required for Old Oak Common than is currently in the Bill. It would therefore require the Bill to be re-hybridised, and would put an almost endless delay on the whole thing.
Lord Snape (Lab)
My Lords, I find it somewhat bizarre that we should be discussing these particular amendments at this particular time. I find it even more bizarre that these amendments should be moved by the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, and my noble friend Lord Berkeley—both of whom are normally extremely supportive of railway matters. The effect of accepting either or both these amendments, as I am sure the Minister will tell us, would be to delay considerably the project as a whole. I am sure that that is not the noble Lord’s intention, but I hope he will agree with me that that would be the result. He shakes his head—he can come back to me on that in a moment.
I do not think that you could have a re-costing of a project this size and then say, “We will have Third Reading of the Bill in a week’s time, and that’s the end of it”. If the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, is saying that, he is an even bigger financial genius than I thought he was previously. The fact is that there would be further delay. It is seven years since my noble friend Lord Adonis, as a Minister in the last Government but one, came forward with the project—and here we are at the end of a seven-year period discussing two amendments that would, I would guess, have the effect if not of putting the project back another seven years then certainly putting it back for some considerable time.
As far as Old Oak Common is concerned, I say again to the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, that he has to answer the point put by the noble Lord, Lord Brabazon, a former Transport Minister. The fact is that Old Oak, as it presently is, is in no way suitable to be a main terminal. I do not mean to be facetious when I say that if you asked people coming to London where they were going to when they got there, comparatively few would say Old Oak. In Great Western days there was a steam engine shed there, I understand, so trainspotters might well have gone there 50 years ago—but I cannot see there being a great demand to terminate trains at Old Oak, no matter how good the connections will be.
The noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, talked about developments at Euston. He has an amendment which I am sure we will be discussing later about access around Euston station, which is the natural terminus. He makes the very relevant point that, for example, on the TGV in France, high-speed trains stop short of the main terminus, which is the reason for the delays that quite often occur. It seems to me to be a much more sensible engineering prospect to run high-speed trains into the centre of a city rather than making them share crowded tracks with other trains, as they do in other countries. So perhaps on this occasion we got it right.
Finally, whatever estimates are made of these projects often turn out, in the long term, to be unrealistic. My noble friend talked about Crossrail. I was on the Crossrail Bill, and it was said at that time that the estimates for Crossrail were unrealistic—but they proved not to be so. With all due respect to my noble friend’s opinion, he is no better a financier than the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, as far as this project is concerned. So if the noble Lord presses this to a Division, I hope that those of us who want to see this project, after seven years, get the go-ahead will vote in the Not-Content Lobby.
Baroness O'Cathain (Con)
My Lords, I am disturbed that this amendment has come up because, first of all, we have no figures for people who would be very pleased to be dispersed—as the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, said—at Old Oak Common. Having been to Old Oak Common on one of our visits, I would not like to be lumbered with getting from Old Oak Common to anywhere in London; it just seems crazy. Secondly, the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, said that the forecasts were not up to date. He also cast aspersions on the people who did the forecasts. He said that the forecasts were prepared by people who were not capable and that they were flimsy. This is really too late in the project to make those sorts of comments.
The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, said that he was interested in financial discipline; we are all interested in financial discipline. But not making any forecasts of the people who would be,
“dispersed from Old Oak Common”,
just does not make sense. It seems to me to be a delaying tactic, without actually getting the basis of proper forecasts of people who are going to use Old Oak Common. Coming from Birmingham to Old Oak Common? I ask: who would really want to?
The Earl of Glasgow (LD)
My Lords, I support the amendment of my noble friend Lord Bradshaw and the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley. This seems an eminently sensible suggestion. At the moment, people are trying to make out that this is an attempt to delay HS2; that is the last thing that I would like to do. The amendment would in fact allow it to go ahead. They are talking about a temporary terminal there, for possibly five years or maybe even less.
There are three very good reasons why this is a sensible idea. The first is that we have not yet decided how the route of HS2 will go from Old Oak Common into Euston. There are two or three different routes and I do not think we should be delayed any further on that. That can carry on after the Bill has already gone through. The second thing is what the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, said. This is a way of cutting costs, if necessary. The five miles between Old Oak Common and Euston are almost certainly the most expensive five miles of the entire route. Therefore, if we can delay the building of that but still continue with the Bill and get the rest of HS2 on the move, so much the better.
The third reason that this is a good idea is that we will have to make a decision about something that is not part of the Bill at the moment. Some time in the future we will have to join HS2 to HS3. One way would be through Old Oak Common, where it can join the present HS1. It is going to be very difficult to make that join somewhere in Euston or St Pancras station. So the amendment is eminently sensible. It has nothing to do with delaying anything: it is very much the opposite. It makes it possible to start the building of HS2 almost immediately.
Lord Snape
Has the noble Earl read the amendments that he has just spoken to? Amendment 1 states:
“Construction work otherwise authorised by this Act may not begin until”.
That is, the works at Old Oak Common. Amendment 6, in the name of my noble friend Lord Berkeley, states:
“Cost estimate … The nominated undertaker must not commence any Phase One construction work until the Secretary of State has published”,
and so on. It goes on to talk about a review of the finances. That is not a couple of weeks’ delay; it is years. For the noble Earl to suggest anything different indicates to me that he has not actually read the amendments he supports.
The Earl of Glasgow
There is a huge amount of work to be done in building HS2 and we should be able to get on with that. If what the noble Lord is saying is correct, I may have misunderstood.
Baroness Buscombe (Con)
I intervene to remind noble Lords that this is Report. The rules of debate state:
“On report no member may speak more than once to an amendment, except the mover of the amendment in reply or a member who has obtained leave of the House”.
Lord Faulkner of Worcester (Lab)
Will the noble Earl take the trouble to read the very wise words of the noble Lord, Lord Brabazon, who spoke a few moments ago about the consequences of accepting these amendments? If one of them were passed, the Bill would have to be re-hybridised. It would have to go back to the hybrid Bill Committee and months and months would be taken up by looking at the Bill again with these provisions in it.
I cannot believe that the House would want to do that, bearing in mind the exceptionally good job that the hybrid committee did. I see a number of its members are in the Chamber at the moment and they deserve the thanks of all of us for looking at this Bill in such detail and displaying such patience in listening to huge numbers of petitions and far too many lawyers who were presenting them on behalf of people with, in some cases, entirely spurious objections. The committee went through that very well and came up with a series of recommendations for change, and the Government, to their great credit, have accepted them all either in spirit or literally. The fact that the committee has done that job and we have a Bill to which we can give Third Reading and get work under way is very important.
Old Oak Common is a wonderful place. It is where my great-grandfather lived in a Great Western Railway house when he was a top link driver on the railway in the early years of the 20th century. But it is not a place where people want to go when they are travelling on high-speed trains from Birmingham or the north of England. Indeed, the practicality of finishing a journey there has been addressed by Transport for London. It answers the point made by my noble friend Lord Berkeley about Crossrail. Yes, Crossrail is going really well and will be a great success. But when HS2 arrives at Old Oak Common, it is estimated that about a third of the passengers will get off, get on to Crossrail and go into the City. However, if they were all required to go on to the City, the difference between these two—HS2 terminating at Euston or at Old Oak Common—would, in the words of Transport for London, be the difference between Crossrail coping and Crossrail falling down. That would be the implication of accepting this amendment.
Lord Young of Norwood Green (Lab)
My Lords, it is nice to be thanked for one’s work. I see several Lords from the eclectic group who served on that committee, including the noble and learned Lord, Lord Walker of Gestingthorpe, whom I must congratulate on the way he handled both the hearings and the committee.
I have recently been reading a book—I hope this slight digression will be acceptable, as it relates to this amendment—called Mr Barry’s War, by Caroline Shenton, one of the archivists. The bit that I like is when she talks about an attempt by Barry and a group of architects—someone called William “Strata” Smith, a great geologist, was also involved—to find stone to build this place. They travelled all over the UK. They get to Lincoln, with its magnificent gothic minster, the Ancaster stone quarries—said to be Roman—then Grantham, Stamford and nearby Burghley House. Once they get through Kettering and Northampton by coach, they,
“made their way back to London by the novel means of Robert Stephenson’s thrilling new London and Birmingham Railway, which had opened along its whole length just five days previously on 17 September. This was the first London intercity rail line, and Euston station the first mainline terminus in a capital city anywhere in the world. Its magnificent Doric Propylaeum”—
I do not know if I pronounced that correctly—
“or entrance archway, made of millstone grit, stood for 125 years until pulled down by modernist planners in 1962”.
I could not help feeling that that was rather a propitious bit of reading prior to this debate.
We did not debate the overall cost—that was not in the committee’s remit—but we certainly debated some costings by my noble friend Lord Berkeley and his expert witnesses. I regret to say, however, that they did not stack up. Neither did Old Oak Common. I had to smile when someone said, “It’s just an interim stop”. We all know that if it finishes at Old Oak Common it will be a real stretch of the imagination to believe that that will be interim.
The noble Earl, Lord Glasgow, said that the route had not been decided. It has been decided, and we had a debate, I assure noble Lords, on whether it would be more desirable to terminate at Old Oak Common. That was not the view of the committee after listening to a range of expert witnesses and for some of the reasons cited by my noble friend Lord Faulkner.
We can all have a view, if you like, about people’s motives and intentions—I will assume that they are motivated by the best of all reasons—but one thing you cannot assume is that the process would be speedy, for either the first or the sixth amendment. This will be a lengthy process, and, as has been said, we are now seven years—I was going to say “down the track” but that is an unfortunate pun; if only we were. We have some way to go. As someone who, like the noble Lord, served on Crossrail, I remember just as many criticisms of that. Now it is all enthusiasm, but it was not at the time, I assure noble Lords; there were just as many doubters and naysayers.
My view—and you have heard from other colleagues on the committee—is that we gave this a thorough examination, and I am certain that we also debated it in Committee. I cannot remember how many times I have heard this debate. As a former Attorney-General once said, repetition does not necessarily enhance the value of your contribution. I am beginning to feel that way in this case. I hope noble Lords will not support these amendments; I do not believe they add anything to the existing analysis. As I recall, in the recent Grand Committee debate the Minister reported to us that the National Audit Office has run its calculators over this. Every time there has been a challenge on the costings done by HS2—the classic one was on the tunnel costings in Wendover, which we may unfortunately return to again—they were independently checked. The proposed tunnelling at Colne Valley was independently validated and HS2 was found to be correct in those circumstances. I listened carefully to the argument but I incline to the views expressed by so many of my fellow committee members, and by my noble friend Lord Faulkner.
Lord Adonis (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I echo my noble friend Lord Faulkner’s thanks to the Select Committee. There are no greater tasks which Members of your Lordships’ House take on than being members of these hybrid Bill Committees, which are like the Committee of Public Safety. I think they were sitting for four days a week over many months. Those noble Lords made a huge commitment to the work of the committee and at this very late stage—this last stage of the Bill’s passage through the House—we should certainly not seek to substitute our judgment, on the basis of a short debate, for the exhaustive examination which your Lordships’ Select Committee gave to this issue, among many others which are on the Marshalled List for later in our debates.
I hesitate to arbitrate between my noble friends Lord Faulkner and Lord Snape on the beauty of Old Oak Common, which depends very much on whether you have a great admiration for railway architecture of the Victorian age. It will become a thing of great beauty when the High Speed 2 station and all the wider development is completed there, but that will take some time. I do not think anybody could pretend now, when passing through it at not particularly high speeds on trains coming out of Paddington, that it is a great beauty spot—it is next to Wormwood Scrubs. However, a critical issue for us to consider this afternoon is its utility as a transport interchange. That was the issue considered by the Select Committee.
It is important for the House to understand that once HS2 is completed, we would be talking about all the traffic from Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds and the East Midlands coming in to one terminus if you allow only for Old Oak Common to be built. That is the equivalent of the entirety of the intercity traffic which currently goes into Euston and a good part of the intercity traffic which goes into King’s Cross. All of that would be going into one terminus station and all served by one line, Crossrail. As my noble friend Lord Faulkner emphasised, the resilience of that arrangement could not remotely be regarded as adequate for all the traffic going from the Midlands and the north into one station.
The estimate has been made that a third of passengers will transfer to Crossrail. I think some will get off at Old Oak Common and transfer on to Heathrow, which will be 10 minutes away in the other direction, but most of them will transfer on to Crossrail going east. That proportion may be higher. It is hard to know what transport patterns will emerge but when that interchange is available, it will be an extremely rapid and efficient connection not just to the City but to the West End as well. The next stops up from Paddington will be Bond Street, Tottenham Court Road, Farringdon and then Bank. It then goes on to Canary Wharf, so it will offer a range of fast and high-quality connections.
However, even if you stretch that third to a half—since no one can be sure what patterns will develop—still a very substantial proportion of the passengers would, on the projections made, wish either to regard Euston as their destination or to interchange there. By having the interchange at Euston we would then serve another large swathe of London directly, including that huge and important centre which Euston, King’s Cross and St Pancras will form themselves. Massive development work will be taking place there, which will be attracted there in no small part because of the development of the HS2 station. We also have there the Victoria and Northern lines, and in due course Crossrail 2, which will serve the new Euston terminus as well. When one considers that these termini will have to deal with all the traffic coming not just from Birmingham but from Sheffield, Crewe, Manchester and Leeds, as well as services going further north up to Scotland, it looks as though there will be a requirement for more than one dispersal point.
All these issues were gone into at great length by committees of both Houses. Their conclusion was that the Government’s proposals were correct in requiring an extension from Old Oak Common through to Euston. At this very late stage in the passage of the Bill, to pass an amendment calling for a further review—the only impact of which could be substantial delay and uncertainty—would not be wise.
Lord Rosser (Lab)
My Lords, after what has been said, I suppose I ought to add my thanks to the members of the Select Committee. In saying that, I did express my thanks to them in Committee. I also expressed my relief that I was disqualified from sitting on the committee at all.
The amendments in this group call for,
“a review of the merits of establishing Old Oak Common station as an interim eastern terminus for Phase One of High Speed 2”,
with construction work not beginning until the report of the review has been published. This debate has not done much to put Old Oak Common on the tourism map, despite the later comments of the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, about its future.
We had some discussion about Old Oak Common in Committee. An amendment was moved calling for a spur from it to the West London line north of Shepherd’s Bush to improve access to HS2 for people to the south of London. I seem to recall that I asked the Government if they were looking at improving connections between HS2 and other suburban lines in the vicinity of Old Oak Common to improve access to HS2. In his response, the Minister said that the West London Line Group, which had put forward proposals for the link from Old Oak Common to the West London line, had met DfT officials to discuss their proposals and that those discussions would continue. Perhaps the Minister could give us an update on the progress being made in these ongoing discussions.
I understand that the issue of Old Oak Common was considered during the Lords Select Committee hearings—noble Lords on the Select Committee confirmed that in their contributions today. The committee has not made any recommendations on this matter nor suggested that the Government should consider going down the road called for in the first amendment. In the light of this, we do not intend to either.
The second amendment in this group calls for an estimate of the costs for carrying out all the phase 1 works, with the breakdown set out in the amendment to be published, and the construction work not starting until that has been undertaken. What has prompted both the first and second amendments in this group is a view that the work cannot be carried out within the overall figure given by the Government. In Committee, the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, said that there was a good case for having an independent assessment of the costs and particularly for considering such things as how long HS2 could terminate at Old Oak Common. This could, perhaps, be a considerable period of time which could save a considerable sum of money. Costs are vital. The noble Lord, Lord Adonis, said in Committee:
“I cannot emphasise enough that the single biggest threat to this project is cost overruns in building the core of it, between cities where there is massive traffic—namely, Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds and London”.—[Official Report, 10/1/17; col. GC 62.]
The Government have committed themselves to a figure for the construction of HS2 stage one. Different bodies, including the National Audit Office, have looked at the figures and some have produced reports. The costings will, I understand, continue to be the subject of consideration by these bodies as the work progresses and more detailed figures are available. If the overall figure for the cost of construction is breached, it is the Government who will be held accountable—not least by us—since it is the Government who have said that the figures are accurate and can be trusted. They will have to explain why they got their figures wrong if the overall cost is breached, and why it would not have been possible to have got those figures right before construction started.
We do not want to go down the road of further amendments that could delay the starting of this project, which has already been the subject of so much consideration by so many people and bodies, including a Select Committee of this House. If the Government want to go down the road of the second amendment in this group without delaying the start of the project, that is a matter for them. However, one suspects that the production of further figures that have not been produced already, which presumably is what is being sought, would not bring the issue of costs to a conclusion, since there would inevitably then be challenges to the further breakdown of costs provided and the basis on which they were calculated. Our position, as I have said, is that we do not wish to see further delay to the start of this project, and behind the first amendment is clearly a major potential change.
On costs, at this late stage after so much consideration and examination of the project, it is now the Government and the Government alone who will be held accountable for any figures that prove significantly wrong and for any consequential cost overruns, since they have a responsibility to satisfy themselves that the cost estimates they have given are credible and accurate.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Transport (Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon) (Con)
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have participated in the debate on these amendments. I join other noble Lords, including the noble Lords, Lord Faulkner, Lord Adonis and Lord Rosser, in adding my thanks—I did so in Committee and I do so again—to the Select Committee and all its members, some of whom are present, for their diligence, perseverance and indeed thorough examination of the raft of different petitions that were presented to them. Indeed, we have reflected on them already in Committee.
I start with an appreciation. The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley—and, in moving the amendment, the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw—made it clear in their overall intent that they are both supportive of the Bill and indeed of the construction of HS2. Indeed, the majority in your Lordships’ House recognise the importance of this railway in terms of our future railway infrastructure.
I turn to the amendments. Whether there is an advantage in using the proposed new station at Old Oak Common as a temporary London terminus for phase 1 of HS2 was, as we have heard, examined in detail by Select Committees not just in your Lordships’ House but in the other place. As was set out, the proponents of this option believe that using Old Oak Common as a temporary terminus would provide several advantages, including less impactful construction works at Euston, less disruption to services on the west coast main line and the opportunity to allow a more comprehensive redevelopment of Euston to be undertaken. I do not dispute the intentions behind the amendment but it is for that reason, as noble Lords will appreciate, that the Government have already investigated these proposals in detail. I am minded to agree with my noble friend Lord Brabazon, who speaks with great expertise in this area, that the implication of accepting such an amendment would impede the progress of the Bill.
I will go briefly into the detail of this. We looked at many options put forward by petitioners to the Committee in the other place about options for terminating HS2 services at Old Oak Common temporarily or permanently, as well as splitting the termination of services between Old Oak Common and Euston station. I do not wish to go into the detail on the permanent use of Old Oak Common as a terminus or a splitting of services, as those issues are not the subject of the noble Lord’s amendment and would go against the principle of the Bill as has been agreed by both Houses. However, I note that the overall outcome of the work that was undertaken on those options demonstrated that a complementary solution of two stations at the start of services in London would be the best for HS2 passengers. Putting all our new passengers in one station would overload that station, and it is also important for the strategic objectives of HS2 to bring the benefits of the new railway to as wide an area as we can.
Permanently terminating a portion of HS2 trains at Old Oak Common, in order to be able to descope the proposed Euston station and reduce its footprint as a result of having to cater for fewer passengers, was also considered. The conclusion was that this would, as we have heard from my noble friend Lady O’Cathain, still result in most of the passengers who terminated at Old Oak Common having to change trains in order to reach Euston and incurring several minutes of additional journey time and inconvenience in doing so.
The detailed work that the Government undertook to investigate using Old Oak Common as a temporary terminus, primarily in response to the petitioners from the Camden area, looked at a number of scenarios and demonstrated that using Old Oak Common as a temporary terminus would not eliminate the construction effects and impacts in Euston. This was because there would still be a requirement to construct the tunnels into Euston in order to facilitate the fit-out of the railway further south—that is, the long rails, the overhead line and the other control systems that go with it—which as I understand it will go through sequentially from Old Oak Common, indeed from the depots north of Old Oak Common. It would not be practical to do that fit-out once we had started running trains in any economic fashion.
We also considered using a temporary terminus at Old Oak Common to allow staging of works if one part of the railway construction was slightly delayed by a few months or to facilitate a kind of test-run phase. We concluded that while it would be possible to turn round a few trains at Old Oak Common since the station will have the resilience to do so, this is not the same as turning round trains to a timetable or turning them round without delay. Old Oak Common has been designed as a through station. It will have the ability in emergency situations, such as security or safety events, to be used to get people off trains and turn trains round. However, that is an emergency situation, not a timetabled commercial service situation. I also note that while Crossrail would be able to provide onward journey opportunities for passengers alighting at Old Oak Common, if HS2 passengers consumed the capacity to get into the city centre it would be to the detriment of the capacity and growth opportunities which would otherwise be possible on that new Crossrail service.
The new station at Old Oak Common will facilitate an interchange between HS2 services and the national rail and Crossrail networks on the west coast main line. We consider that between a quarter and a third of all HS2 passengers will choose to use Old Oak Common rather than come to Euston, mainly for those destinations best served by the new Crossrail line. The remaining two-thirds of passengers who are still on the train beyond Old Oak Common will, as we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, have good access across both central London, London suburbs and to other mainline stations.
I hope that by listing the consideration that was given, I have demonstrated that the temporary termination of HS2 services at Old Oak Common has already been fully explored. That work showed no further merit in investigating this option further and indeed as neither of the Select Committees of either House that also examined this issue saw fit to make any recommendations regarding it, I suggest that the details of this amendment have been looked at. I therefore hope that the noble Lord will withdraw it.
With respect to the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, on cost estimates, as the noble Lord himself acknowledges, last week I met him to discuss the work that he had commissioned on the costs of phase 1. Indeed, Mr Bing, to whom he referred, was also present with officials from my department and from HS2. I disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, when he says that the figures presented are flimsy. They are not. I am confident of the robustness of our costs. Indeed, Mr Bing himself acknowledged the expertise of those present from HS2 in terms of providing and determining these costs. What was clear from the costs that Mr Bing had presented vis-à-vis the costs that the HS2 technical experts were presenting was that there was a difference in the basis on which they were detailed. That said, we are confident of our own cost analysis. In response, and in the spirit of openness that I hope I have demonstrated during the passage of this Bill, I have suggested to the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, further work on how the differences in cost estimates occurred so that these issues may be addressed. I believe that he has taken up this offer with Mr Bing.
The Government in no sense underestimate this issue of costs. Infrastructure projects are a serious matter and—as the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, has acknowledged on the Crossrail project—their costs are a major determinant of their success. Therefore, as many will be aware, an updated cost estimate for the project is being published at each iteration of the business case, the next such iteration being due in the summer of this year.
The project as a whole, including its cost estimate and business case, is, as we have heard from several noble Lords, subject to regular independent reviews from the Infrastructure and Projects Authority and the Public Accounts Committee. Having illustrated the checks and balances and our continued belief in the robustness of the costs that have been presented—a point validated in the assessments made by various other bodies, including the Public Accounts Committee—I do not feel that a further independent review is necessary and hope that on the basis that I have detailed, the noble Lord will be minded to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Bradshaw
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his response. First, in answer to the noble Lord, Lord Brabazon, I have checked that the termination of trains for a period at Old Oak Common would not rehybridise the Bill, because it would not deviate from what has already been agreed. Secondly, I fully go along with the urgency of the project. It is a very sensible project and I have always thought it necessary; I do not argue with it. I am concerned that it will be subject to a lot of cost overruns because I do not believe that the preparatory work has been done as thoroughly as it should.
Reference was made to Old Oak Common by the noble Baroness, Lady O’Cathain. I have managed the railway at Old Oak Common. It has never been a station. It has been a locomotive depot with lots of sidings, but it gives an opportunity. It is a vast area. There are no buildings of architectural merit there, so it is possible to clear an area. There is no reason why a station should not be constructed at Old Oak Common so that trains can be turned around. In phase 1, the trains from Birmingham will be no more than commuter trains. If they take 30 or 40 minutes to get to Old Oak Common, that will not be a long journey and it will not be difficult to turn them around and send them back to Birmingham quite quickly.
I want real attention focused on how we get economically from Old Oak Common to Euston, because I very much fear that the costs of that last bit as they now stand will explode the issue and, as I said, unless the Government make more money available, stop the extension beyond Birmingham.
These are serious issues. I have listened carefully to what the Minister said. However, I started with the issue of financial propriety. I think it is our duty to say to the Government that this has not been properly costed from one end to the other. We should get on with the bit that we know—or think—is sound, and push the other one, not to a long delay, but until such time as the figures can be agreed. I beg to test the opinion of the House.
“( ) The scheduled works may not commence until the nominated undertaker has consulted appropriate bodies representing the interests of landowners about its disposal of surplus land policy, and has published a report on that consultation.”
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara
My Lords, I draw your Lordships’ attention to my interests as declared at the Committee stage of the Bill and earlier. The subject of the amendment was discussed in Committee and the Minister made a helpful response at that time. The issue was also raised in the Select Committee of your Lordships’ House, as it engages the private interests of many petitioners, and that committee made a strong recommendation, to which I wish to refer. We also now have the Government’s response to the Select Committee, which raises the point that I want to raise with the Minister.
The Crichel Down rules have governed the selling of surplus land following compulsory purchase for over half a century. Although there are said to be problems with them—that is perhaps a matter for another day—they are respected as the rules of the game. This issue has great importance, as there is no real accessible right of review once land has been taken, as judicial review is effectively out of the financial reach of most landowners.
The problem is that HS2 Ltd has decided that, rather than simply follow the Crichel Down rules, as has been the established practice, it will introduce alongside those additional exceptions under which it will not offer, in the first instance, land that it has compulsorily purchased back to the original landowner. These exceptions include, it says,
“where it makes sense to pool the land with adjoining ownerships in a joint disposal”.
What this might mean, of course, is that where HS2 Ltd thinks that it will be better for it financially to keep the land it no longer needs and sell it in a different parcel, it will. It will not be offered back to the owner whose land it was originally. The Lords HS2 Select Committee recognised this and recommended in its report:
“We strongly urge the Secretary of State not to add further exceptions to what is already … a long list of cases … in which the original owner will not be given first refusal to reacquire the land at its then market value. Apart from other more principled reasons, which we need not repeat, it would be odd if one Department of State had its own version of the rules”.
The Government say at paragraph 122 of their response:
“The Promoter is prepared to reconsider the additional exceptions set out in the Information Paper in the particular circumstances of each case”.
It is that phrase to which I would like a response from the Minister. Obviously, if that means that no decisions will be given in general but only in particular cases, there is no certainty for the landowner, who would have to wait each time for HS2 Ltd to decide, presumably towards the end of the time for which it needed the land, whether to keep it. HS2 Ltd would still have the power to keep any land it wanted—for example, for a development—which it would have acquired at much below the market rate. Is that fair?
HS2 Ltd has provided no details of what criteria it would use to undertake case-by-case reviews. If a case-by-case approach is used, these criteria should surely be in the public interest. That makes the case. I look forward to hearing from the Minister. If he cannot agree to review, perhaps he would be prepared to write giving examples of what criteria would be used. I beg to move.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
My Lords, as I am sure the noble Lord is aware, the policy regarding the disposal of surplus land received an extensive examination by the Select Committees of both Houses with regard to individual cases, to which he referred, and more broadly when they heard from representative bodies such as the National Farmers’ Union and the Country Land and Business Association. I am sure the noble Lord has noted this, but I say for the benefit of your Lordships’ House that paragraphs 417 and 421 of the Lords Select Committee’s report set out its conclusions in detail.
The Secretary of State is under a general duty to minimise land take for the railway, whether permanently or temporarily. In general terms, any land that is surplus following construction will be disposed of in accordance with the Crichel Down rules. These rules provide for the circumstances in which land acquired by compulsory acquisition, but no longer required, will be offered back to the former owners. The rules have been developed over the course of half a century and have been endorsed by previous Governments. The basic principle is that former owners will, as a general rule, be given the first opportunity to repurchase any surplus land at current market value provided it has not materially changed in character since acquisition, such as new buildings having been built on it.
The rules set out a number of other exceptions to this general principle, which HS2 follows, but have also added two further exceptions to cater for the special circumstances of the HS2 scheme. These exceptions would allow the Secretary of State to retain land acquired for the project where a site is needed for regeneration or where it is needed for the relocation of a business directly affected by HS2. The Select Committee report recommended that the project remove these two additional exceptions. In their response, the Government have noted, and agreed to reconsider, the additional exceptions in the particular circumstances of each case.
I hope the fact that we are proposing to use a very well-established approach for this policy and have further agreed to revise that approach to make it further in line with the original policy demonstrates that this amendment is unnecessary. I hope that the noble Lord is minded to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara
I thank the Minister for that response. I look forward to reading it in more detail in Hansard. For the moment, however, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
“( ) Before the date on which the nominated undertaker commences any works authorised by this Act, the Secretary of State must publish a cost-benefit analysis of the environmental impacts of the proposed works within Phase One of High Speed 2 and connected construction works in the Chilterns Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.( ) The report must include an explanation of the methodology used to value the savings in environmental impact that would have arisen from more extensive tunnelling.”
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara
My Lords, I will speak also to the other amendments in this group. We are at the end of a very long and extensive planning process, which, while not as lengthy as the planning inquiry for T5, I think could be agreed all round to have been quite a marathon. Despite the scrutiny of the public aspects of the Bill in this House and in the other place—and in particular, the excellent and thorough work done by the Select Committees, which was heroic in all respects, and to which I have already paid tribute in Committee, and about which others have spoken again today—I have a view that the public interest has not yet been fully satisfied. So I would like to make a couple of points arising from these amendments.
There are, of course, a number of problems to do with the hybrid Bill process. This has been described in earlier discussions as a hangover from the Victorian era, and it is probably going to be reviewed in the light of the fact that a Joint Committee has been set up of both Houses. We are aware that comments in the Select Committees of both the Commons and the Lords have been also been made, and it is a matter of some regret that your Lordships’ House has not had the opportunity to discuss the report of the Select Committee of the Lords that looked at this Bill in detail. If we had had that chance, some of the points that I am going to make could have come up at that time. I am not going to continue on process issues, however, because I think that they will be the subject of a report from the Joint Committee, and I hope that this House will have a chance to discuss this later on. I myself have submitted evidence, and I know that a number of other noble Lords have done so as well.
My argument in very skeletal form—and I hope that I am not engaging with any of the points that might be raised by members of the Select Committee who are present today, because this is a matter about public interest, not private interest—is that the procedures of the two Houses, more by accident than design, dealing with the public aspects of the planning Bill as in the case of HS2 through the Public Bill procedure, and the private aspects through Select Committees, somehow manage to exclude a full consideration of public interest issues. I want to argue that point in relation to these three amendments.
My three areas of concern are not matters that I expect your Lordships’ House to consider for amendment to the Bill. They were not put down as wrecking amendments; they are not intended to delay the progress of the Bill through to Royal Assent. But I hope that, at some point in the future, they will be open to interrogation by those responsible for delivering the Bill. They might well ask themselves important questions about whether what has been decided in the Bill through the processes that I have described is in the best possible form that it could be.
In Amendment 3, my question is not whether we should open the case for a through-the-Chilterns tunnel but to ask for transparency over how that decision was reached. Everyone will say that the Select Committee process, both in this House and in the other place, has done this issue to death. My point is that it probably has done it to death from the point of view of the private interest—but not from the point of view of the public interest. This is partly because the process engages with private interest from the start, and that tends to drive the way the debate is going. It is also a reflection of where we are today in relation to public bodies funded from public funds, which find it very difficult to put up arguments that are opposed to those that are made by a government department, such as the Department for Transport in relation to HS2. In that sense, there is a danger that the public interest would not be fully considered.
So I have two particular questions for the Minister. We are told in two or three places in the Bill documents that the statutory tests that are required by the Countryside and Rights of Way Act were undertaken by the Secretary of State. This was referred to by the Lords Select Committee. But what precisely were the tests and why is the information that was used to determine these points not made available? Surely it would be in the public interest to be transparent on this point, and I look forward to hearing from the Minister on this.
We read in both Select Committee reports—from this House and the other place—that a full-bore tunnel through the Chilterns AONB was considered, but rejected on cost grounds. If that is so—and I have no reason to doubt that it was done properly—why is that information not published and made available? The amendment states:
“The report must include an explanation of the methodology used to value the savings in environmental impact that would have arisen from more extensive tunnelling”.
Again, this is a matter of public interest, and I would be grateful if the Minister could respond. These requests are not disproportionate; they are in the public interest and should be answered, and I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say about them. If he chooses to write in more detail, I will be happy to receive a letter from him at a later date.
On Amendment 4, the arguments are much the same —although, because it is a modest project, the costs here are much less. Again, we find that the tiny village of Chetwode, which is in north Bucks, argued persuasively for a bored tunnel, which was refused by the Commons Select Committee “on grounds of cost”. The Lords Select Committee also received this and said that it,
“reluctantly reached the same conclusion”.
We have not seen the figures. Again, that is an issue of public interest, and I would be grateful if the Minister could provide them now—or, if he wishes, in a letter.
Lord Berkeley
My Lords, since we appear to be merging the two groups together, I will speak briefly to Amendment 5, which is about Wendover. I do not want to rehearse what we have already spoken about this afternoon or elsewhere. However, I have a question for the Minister. Now that we are moving towards Royal Assent—this may come up in discussions about any changes that may happen at Euston to keep the trains running, which is in a later amendment—to what extent is the successful contractor able to come up with his own ideas for either doing some of the work more cheaply or with less environmental impact? Wendover tunnel comes to mind, because I am advised that building a tunnel in place of the open cut and viaduct is cheaper—and of course it has a much reduced environmental impact. Provided that he does it within the limits of deviation and all the other limits on the drawings, presumably it is up to the contractor to propose it to HS2—which presumably will accept it if all those conditions are met.
Alternatively, is there another way to do this? I will be interested to hear the Minister’s response, because tunnels are cheaper—somewhat surprisingly, but we discussed it in Committee—and would obviously have a reduced environmental impact. If it is within the limits of deviation and the other limits on the legislation, it would be good if the contractor just chose to do that—in which case there would be benefits all round.
Baroness Pidding (Con)
My Lords, I support Amendment 3, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson of Balmacara. Before speaking, I draw noble Lords’ attention to the declaration of interests that I made in Committee.
I am aware that this issue was raised in Committee, but I fear that we did not get the fulsome response that we hoped for from the Minister. I would hope that all Governments, particularly a Conservative Government, would be interested in value for money. As the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, said, we are told what the total cost of the railway is—although it seems to change every time I see a figure, and few believe that it will stop there. But surely this is only half the issue. The environmental impact of this line, particularly over the Chilterns AONB, has not been costed, and the Government have been strangely reluctant to provide figures or the methodology used. Can the Minster let us have this information? At this stage a full explanation is imperative.
If the people of this country are going to get behind this project, surely we ought to be transparent about the figures that have been used to decide that 8.7 kilometres of additional tunnelling, which would preserve the AONB, is “too expensive” because the benefits to the environment are insufficient to outweigh the additional cost of tunnelling. If the figures stack up—I have no idea whether they do—we will at least have been transparent in the process. Surely the public, who will have to pay for this project in so many ways—and of whom relatively few will see any actual benefit—are entitled to a proper cost-benefit analysis before our countryside is destroyed.
If we destroy the AONB—and it will be destroyed—without making a proper cost-benefit analysis of what we are doing, we will not be forgiven. Indeed, not having such a cost-benefit analysis would be regarded as pure vandalism. I urge the Minister and the Government just to do what is requested in this sensible amendment.
Lord Young of Norwood Green
My Lords, I am surprised that yet again we are exploring the wonders of Wendover—which was one of the many exotic foreign trips we went on. It was important that we went out to see these places. I think it was a slight exaggeration when the noble Baroness, Lady Pidding, said that the area of outstanding natural beauty would be destroyed. There will be changes, but I do not believe that the area will be destroyed—and neither do members of the committee.
I return to the point made by my noble friend Lord Stevenson, who says, yet again, that we have not fully and transparently explored this issue. In fact we did—and of course it was done not only by us but by the Commons, who after two years of hearing petitions extended the tunnel by a significant amount. The next challenge that was put to us when we examined this in Committee was a challenge to the promoters’ assessment of tunnelling costs: “They would say that, wouldn’t they? They would make them come out cheaper”. The integrity of that costing procedure was disputed. In a way, that was a useful challenge, because we needed to be assured that that costing gave us a fair and accurate cost comparison of whether extending tunnelling even further—whether it was mined or bored—would achieve savings, which my noble friend Lord Berkeley also insisted would be the case.
That was a legitimate question until we got to the point of the proposed Colne Valley viaduct, where petitioners were asking for a fully bored tunnel instead of a viaduct. Those HS2 tunnelling costs were assessed in an independent cost analysis and were validated. So the idea that at this stage we have not had a full debate on this is preposterous, given everything that has happened—and, again, the idea that the public interest has not been protected is fallacious.
It is true to say—perhaps it is the one point on which I agree with my noble friend—that the hybrid Bill process is not ideal. We and the Commons agreed on that. As a committee we put in our view of how this Victorian process, as my noble friend rightly called it, could be improved. But that is one thing; it does not take away the main point of this amendment, which somehow seems to suggest to the House that, first, the public interest has not been fully served, and, secondly, that this has been a flawed process. I and the rest of my committee colleagues do not believe that to be the case. Again, I trust that noble Lords will reject this amendment.
Baroness O'Cathain
Maybe my memory is deceiving me, but the mined tunnel was through chalk, was it not? There was a problem about the slurry and it would not have been a practical proposition to go through—rather than a bored tunnel. I would like clarification on that, specifically the mined tunnel. Can the noble Lord, Lord Young, help me?
Lord Young of Norwood Green
No, I am not going to because I have just remembered that Peers are allowed only one contribution on an amendment.
Lord Snape
My Lords, I am not quite sure whether I can help the noble Baroness. I asked the same question about a mined tunnel in Committee and the noble Viscount, Lord Astor, explained it all to me. The problem is that I have forgotten the explanation. It sounded very plausible at the time. I am sure if the noble Baroness consults her noble friend she will get all the details of what should be done.
I listened to the noble Baroness who spoke earlier from the Conservative Benches. She made a fleeting appearance in Committee and said pretty much the same thing; I hope she will forgive me for saying so. I do not think emotive language about a two-track railway destroying the countryside takes this House or this debate any further forward. What did she say: “Just another 8.7 kilometres of tunnel”? That is in addition to the 47 kilometres of tunnel out of the 210 kilometres of the high-speed railway line. This is expensive lunacy in my view. I make a plea again on behalf of those who travel by train. People do not travel by train to gaze at a tunnel wall. Some of the semi-hysterical comments—I exempt my noble friend Lord Stevenson, he will be relieved to know—about the damage that the railway line will do to the Chilterns are just that, sheer hysteria. They were all made 30 years ago at the time of High Speed 1 across Kent, and none of it proved true then. Indeed, the economy of Kent has benefited enormously from High Speed 1.
The secondary point—the great unmentionable in this debate on the demand for tunnels—is of course that some people making these points about additional tunnelling do so on the grounds that there is no benefit from high-speed rail passing through the Chilterns to those who live there because there are not any stations. Well, there may be at some time in the future, as we have heard. Again, I exempt my noble friend from that; he is my Whip and I had better tread carefully. Once you get out of London, the M40 passes through the Chilterns without a mile of tunnel. Has that motorway destroyed that part of the world? I do not think it has. My noble friend nods his head but I do not think most people agree. Mind you, of course many of them use the M40 and that they are not going to be able to use the train is behind a great deal of the opposition, in my view. I hope that the Minister resists temptation. Whether it is cheaper to build a mined tunnel or go ahead with the existing proposals, as the Select Committee recommended, I know not. Nobody could have worked harder than the committee to look at those objections. I think there is quite sufficient tunnelling already so far as this high-speed railway is concerned, much of it expensive and unnecessary.
Lord Grocott (Lab)
Will my noble friend answer a question that I feel I should know the answer to? How much has all the additional tunnelling that has come on as a result of the various stages of this Bill added to the cost of HS2? I have a slight suspicion that there may be the odd person—I am sure no one in this House—who has demanded a tunnel, for whatever reason, and then complains about the overall cost of the railway once the tunnelling has been accommodated.
Lord Snape
I am sure that the Minister, who is listening, will be able to give my noble friend a detailed answer to that question. We see with this project, as we have seen with others, that many of those against the project as a whole for reasons including its cost are the first to demand special provision in their part of the world, regardless of the additional cost. I hope the Minister will resist temptation, as 47 kilometres out of 210 is—I repeat—quite enough for me. Whether or not I will be around in 2026, who knows, but I will do my best and I wish the same to other noble Lords on both sides of the House. I think we deserve better than an extended view of a tunnel wall. Let us see this glorious countryside, that we hear so much defence of in the context of this Bill—mistakenly in my view.
Lord Faulkner of Worcester
My Lords, I pick up the theme of my noble friend Lord Snape and express my disappointment at the lack of ambition that some Members of this House seem to demonstrate towards our capacity as a nation to build wonderful railways. Some of the finest structures created in the 19th century were built by railway engineers, whether it was viaducts through the Peak District or magnificent railway stations. To have such a lack of ambition and to say, “Gosh, this new line must all go in tunnels because it’s going to be so obtrusive”, is very disappointing. Also, as my noble friend says, it is very expensive. I remember at one of the early briefing meetings given by Sir David Higgins I asked him, “Wouldn’t it be possible to reduce the cost of the project if we didn’t have so much tunnel in it?”. He said, “Yes, but I’m not allowed by the Government to answer that question”. I am not sure whether it was this Government or the previous one who made it impossible for him to answer, but it has undoubtedly added to the cost.
I also make a plea for the people who like travelling by train and love the Chilterns and want to be able to see them. There is no reason why we should not be able to see them rather than the inside of a tunnel from the railway. Look at the other engineering projects in the Chilterns. The M40 is a six-lane motorway which carved a swathe through the Chiltern escarpment, and probably the largest intrusion into an area of outstanding natural beauty in the south of England. There was a lot of objection. It is used by very large numbers of people, but it still causes an intrusion and environmental damage far greater than the two-track railway that we are discussing this evening. Wendover benefits from a new bypass, which is being constructed to one side of the existing Chiltern railway line and is producing a huge amount of noise and traffic. It is very nice for the town because traffic is taken out of the town, but the new railway is going to go alongside that as well. Why is that somehow unreasonable compared with the road that is already there?
The Chilterns are beautiful. The environment of the Chilterns will be enhanced by the building of the railway, and many more people will be able to enjoy them. There is no need for these amendments.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords for their participation and contributions to the debate. I am minded to start with the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Snape. Certainly when he suggested that I should not be tempted by these amendments, I was reminded that we start proceedings in the House every day with the Lord’s Prayer, which says:
“Lead us not into temptation”.
I will fulfil that prayer’s requirements in my response this afternoon.
We have already touched, even this afternoon, on the cost of HS2. I say again to all noble Lords that the costs of HS2 have been the subject of intense analysis and review over several years, as we have already heard. As I indicated earlier this afternoon, we will continue to review costs for years to come. Let me once again praise the incredible work done collectively by the two Select Committees of both Houses. Let us put this into perspective: it is a combined period of two years of hearing evidence, considering all aspects of the proposed Bill, and on many occasions reviewing the costs for elements of the phase 1 scheme when asked to consider potential alternative options. It is sometimes suggested, and has been suggested again, that somehow there has not been an exhaustive examination; I challenge that. The best way to do so is to read the detailed analysis, recommendations and reports of both Select Committees. I recommend that to all noble Lords who have not yet had the pleasure.
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Young of Norwood Green. As he noted in Committee, and as he has reminded us, the Select Committee considered all options that were presented for additional lengths of tunnelling in the Chilterns and in Wendover. It was not convinced of the need to recommend any further work on any of these options. As I have already said, these were exhaustive discussions, and I believe that that decision should be respected.
The Select Committees of both Houses also considered in detail the provision of additional environmental mitigation measures. It pains me to say it, but I disagree with my noble friend Lady Pidding that the Government have not published details of how certain things have been considered during the process of the Bill. It is worth noting, as I hope my noble friend will acknowledge, that many assurances have been given to the areas covered by the Chilterns area of outstanding natural beauty, including the provision of a £3 million fund for additional environmental mitigation measures.
My noble friend raised the issue of publishing tunnelling costs. The information used to assess the decision on whether it is appropriate to undertake a bore tunnel past Wendover and an extended bore tunnel through the Chilterns was published as part of the exhibits placed before both Select Committees that were used to establish the Government’s position regarding the decision not to provide any additional tunnelling. It was that information that the Select Committee—I refer to the Commons Select Committee here—used to recommend an extended tunnel in the Chilterns and an extension to the tunnel in Wendover. The exhibits included figures for several Chiltern tunnel options, which I mentioned in Committee. They range from £82 million to £485 million. The additional extension of 2.6 kilometres to the Chilterns tunnel, which I hope my noble friend acknowledges, was agreed following a specific recommendation from the Select Committee in the other place. That was at a cost of £47 million.
Turning to the costs more generally, an updated cost estimate for the project is published, as I said earlier this afternoon, at every iteration of the business case. I repeat that the next iteration is due for publication in the summer of 2017. The project as a whole, including its cost estimate and business case, is subject to regular independent review from the Infrastructure and Projects Authority—
Lord Grocott
I could not keep all those figures in my head. Will the Minister be able to tell us at some stage, not necessarily now, the total additional cost of tunnelling on top of the other costs of the railway?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
I referred to the specific addition, but I note what the noble Lord has said. I will write to him in that respect and ensure that a copy of the letter is laid in the Library of the House for the benefit of all noble Lords. I reassure noble Lords that this is an area that the Government have considered very carefully. Indeed, it has been scrutinised specifically by the Select Committees of both Houses.
I want to pick up on a couple of points that have been raised. The noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, asked specific questions. I will write to him in detail on some of the issues that he raised, but my understanding is that the response on Section 85 was set out in the Government’s response to the 2011 consultation, which was subsequently published in January 2012. The other issue, of environmental mitigation, is also included in the business case, as was assessed according to the department’s guidance. As I said, the noble Lord raised some specific points and I will write to him in that respect.
The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, raised the issue of the ideas that contractors may put forward. As I am sure the noble Lord is aware, contractors come under the powers in the Bill, including the limits on deviation. Contractors are also limited by the environmental statement. Within those limits, contractors will be encouraged to be innovative. Indeed, a key commitment to Parliament in the environmental minimum requirements is that we will seek to reduce the environmental effects beyond those in the environmental statement itself. That will be done by innovation, much akin to what the noble Lord suggests.
I reiterate the point that the Public Accounts Committee in the other place and the National Audit Office will continue to examine the costs of HS2 as we move into the detailed design and construction stage and more detailed cost information becomes available. I hope my detailed response demonstrates what has been done, the analysis that has been undertaken and the revisions that have been made in response to issues that have been raised, particularly in the area of the Chilterns. I hope it demonstrates to noble Lords that the tabled amendments before us this afternoon are unnecessary. I underline that these issues have been fully examined, not by one Select Committee but by two. I have already underlined the amount of time they took and detail they went into in their careful consideration. As a Government, we feel that any further cost review at this stage would serve only to delay the railway, which I am sure is not the intention of the majority of Members in your Lordships’ House. I hope that, with the detailed explanation I have given, the noble Lord is minded to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara
I thank all noble Lords who contributed to this brief debate. I expected to be vilified and attacked, and that all happened in due order. I have no comments to make on that—it goes with the burden of trying to stand up for things that you believe in. At least my noble friend withdrew the idea that I might be hysterical, which was only marginally worse than getting a low 2.2 for drafting when we introduced the discussions on the higher education Bill a few weeks ago.
I had a good response from the Minister on the particular questions I raised, and I thank him for that. On whether the statutory duties required under the CROW Act had been dealt with, he said he thought that they had been published. I would be grateful if we could perhaps have a further discussion on that when I have seen the letter that he will write. My impression was that they were not spelled out in the detail that I am looking for. I am sure that we will get to that point, so I am not worried. I look forward to corresponding with him on that.
The second point is on the cost of tunnelling, a question that came up several times from noble Lords. I understand the point that has been made but, as was said, I think, by the noble Baroness, Lady Pidding, to know the cost of building the whole railway is important, but it is not the only factor that we need to know. What savings have been built into the overall cost by not doing other things that would have cost more money or, indeed, less? It is that argument that we are lacking information about. If it is true that the tunnelling is providing environmental benefits, those benefits need to be taken into account in the total value for money—a point that was made. It is that issue that we do not get.
For instance, my noble friend Lord Young raised the issue of the Colne Valley, which was not part of the amendments I put down, although it could have been. He said, as has been said elsewhere, that this was independently assessed and so is okay. But when you learn that the independent assessor was a non-executive director of the Department for Transport, which authorised the review, you wonder whether that is truly independent. Again, the point is: what does that show us? If the figures provided by the promoter are correct, that is one aspect, and it is very useful. But it does not tell you what would have been the cost had it been done a different way, such as by tunnelling. If you do not cost in the environmental benefits, that is an issue.
The Minister mentioned a range of costs for different tunnels. The figure that we most often hear, and therefore the one we are using, is about £485 million—I do not want to go into this in any detail—for the extension of the tunnel from where it comes out in the AONB in the Chilterns to Wendover. It is that figure that I want to measure against the savings that would occur from the environmental benefits preserved—the lack of building of viaducts and the requirement not to build bunds and sound-proofing. That is the figure we never hear.
Lots of people who have been engaged in the process say that they have read the reports and seen the figures. They always say that it is okay, but they never tell us what the figures are. Do noble Lords not find that just a little odd? That is why I say that the public interest needs to be satisfied and why I put down these amendments. However, I am satisfied that we have had the debate that I wanted to have at this stage. I look forward to the letters from the Minister and, with that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
“Traffic regulation
Schedule (Traffic regulation) contains provision relating to traffic regulation.”
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
My Lords, I will speak also to the amendments tabled in my name. Amendment 7 seeks to ensure that traffic regulation orders—or TROs—which are a mechanism for local highway authorities to make temporary or permanent restrictions on the use of highways, do not frustrate the construction of the railway. These orders can be used to stop up roads, by restricting them to one-way operation or restricting them so that they cannot be used by lorries. A local authority could, therefore, put a lorry ban on a road that is needed to reach an HS2 phase 1 construction site or point.
Before I go any further, it is important to say that this amendment replaces the one put forward by the Government in Grand Committee, where several noble Lords on all sides of the House, including Members of your Lordships’ Select Committee, expressed a number of concerns. Indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, expressed concern at the lack of consultation with the local authorities. I withdrew the amendment at that time, and I agree that the lack of consultation was regrettable and is not the way that amendments should be developed or presented; for that, I apologise. However, I am happy to confirm that, even while the Grand Committee was taking place, my officials were having constructive discussions with local authorities, and these amendments are the result of those discussions.
We believe that the amendments address the substantive concerns that local authorities were expressing. This new clause and schedule will ensure that the local highway authorities consult the Secretary of State for Transport before making any orders that affect either specific roads identified for use by HS2 or other roads related to HS2 construction works, avoiding the risk that TROs could inadvertently cause problems for the construction of HS2. It also allows the Secretary of State, if required, to make TROs himself, and to prohibit or revoke TROs that unnecessarily hinder the delivery of the railway.
We have accepted that, as previously formulated, the relevant roads to which the provisions would have applied were too broad. The revisions we have made to the amendment include enabling the Secretary of State to specify particular roads that the provisions will not apply to and removing the specific issue of the,
“1 kilometre from the act limits”,
boundary for relevant roads. We have also revised the amendment to allow the Secretary of State to specify types of traffic regulation orders that we will not be concerned about, which will provide further clarity to local authorities. Furthermore, we have introduced into the provisions a sunset clause relating to the consultation requirement. This means that the Secretary of State will need to make a Statement when consultation is no longer required in a local highway authority area due to the phase 1 construction having been completed in that area. The circumstances in which the Secretary of State may use these powers has been tightened, so the Secretary of State must consider that the use of the powers is necessary for the timely, efficient and cost-effective construction of HS2 and is reasonable in the circumstances.
Additional changes include a duty that will mean that any temporary traffic regulation order that the Secretary of State asks a local highway authority to make is for only a reasonable period of time, with reference to the length of the relevant construction works. The amendment also requires the Secretary of State to produce guidance on how these powers will operate. In addition to these revisions, we have agreed to provide specific undertakings that these powers will not be used to affect any existing busways, cycleways or the London Safer Lorry Scheme. Clearly, we hope that there will be little or no need to rely on these powers, as the regular meetings established with local highway authorities will be used to consult, agree and monitor local traffic management plans. However, these powers are needed to ensure that if these arrangements fail, HS2 can be delivered in an efficient manner.
Given the impact that traffic regulation orders could have on the construction of HS2, it is prudent for us to take these powers, and the changes that we have made will now provide the local authorities with the clarification and additional protections they sought in relation to these provisions. I note that the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, has tabled several amendments regarding this amendment that are listed further down the Marshalled List. I will be happy to address the issues raised in those once the noble Lord has had an opportunity to speak to them. I beg to move.
Lord Berkeley
My Lords, I will speak to the remaining amendments in this group, starting with Amendment 14. First, I should express my gratitude to the Minister for the way he took on some of the comments and criticisms in Committee. I am aware of a number of meetings that have taken place between his officials and representatives of some of the local authorities up the route—from Transport for London to the West Midlands and some in between—and I think there has been a lot of progress.
The problem for these authorities is that this kind of detailed legislation should have been in the Bill before it even started its passage through either House, so that the local authorities could have prepared petitions if they did not like it and had a detailed discussion in either or both of the Select Committees. It is quite difficult and time-consuming to try to resolve these issues on Report. I received a number of comments from local authorities, some from TfL in particular, which are quite important. They would be much happier if all these issues could be resolved before Third Reading and would be happy with the undertakings that I believe the Minister said he would offer—although I have not seen them, so I cannot comment on them. As a matter of principle, I hope that the Government will not do this again—rush something as complicated as this at the very last stage. I am sure they had a very good reason for it, but perhaps we will learn from the next stages of phase 2—phases 2A and 2B—and anything else that happens, such as Crossrail 2. As the Minister said, there is a need to ensure that what is required on the traffic side to build HS2 is not compromised. However, it also needs to be balanced by the needs of local people getting to work, driving up the motorway or using local train services, and that is what these regulations are designed to do. There are a few other things that probably need doing.
The Minister invited me to speak to these amendments. I will do so in four small groups, as quickly as I can. Then I hope he will be able to say what he can do and whether he agrees with them or not. Amendments 14, 15 and 16 involve a duty to consult, the power to direct and vary TROs, and so on. We are getting down to the definition of what is called a “relevant road”—at which some noble Lords might start glazing over and wonder what we are talking about, but it is quite important. HS2 has already sought approval, in Schedule 17, for many roads. In respect of Transport for London, it sought approval in respect of the entire GLA road network, which covers all the red routes in London. That seems a little excessive because there are an awful lot of red routes in London, and not many of them are near Euston or the roads in. I am sure it will not need to use these roads, but the burden of consultation on the local authorities is quite severe. This amendment is intended to reduce the need for consultation once HS2 has decided where it wants to run its tracks and other transport. It will not restrict the use of these roads to other traffic by having these requirements on all the red routes through London. I understand that the department has offered an undertaking to TfL, but I hope that this could apply in a similar way across the country, from the West Midlands downwards and to all the local authorities in between.
Harking back to the last debate about tunnels, we forget that nearly all the tunnels are in the southern half of the route—we can debate the reasons for that. But the line goes through a lot of urban areas in the northern half of the route and to some extent the transport problems may be even worse there than in the south. I hope the Minister will consider this amendment as a way of restricting the amount of consultation required. Consultation is obviously a good thing, but there is a limit to how much a local authority can cope with consultation on these TROs. They have to do many other bits of consultation at the same time. The amendment is therefore intended to give local authorities much greater certainty and avoid an excessive, disproportionate and unjustifiable burden on them.
When he introduced this group of amendments, I think the Minister hinted about Amendment 17. There is already a need for the Secretary of State, when he makes, varies or revokes a TRO, to consult with a traffic authority. The purpose is currently limited to ensuring public safety, reducing public convenience and taking into account the requirement to which the traffic authority is subject. But there is nothing that says account should be taken of the environmental effects. That should be added, because some of the plans—which may or may not be necessary—could have a significant, adverse environmental effect if there is too much construction traffic. I know there has been a very full environmental study of the whole route, but when we are getting into the detail, people will worry locally about where the traffic is going. If the environmental effects are not allowed to be considered, that would cause problems locally.
Amendment 18 relates to deadlines for the release of guidance. The proposed new schedule includes an obligation on the Secretary of State to prepare a guidance statement under paragraph 13, having consulted traffic authorities in respect of a traffic authority’s duty to consult under paragraph 1(2) and how the Secretary of State proposes to exercise his powers in respect of making, varying or revoking TROs under the schedule. This requirement is a welcome step. It ensures that the traffic authorities have the opportunity to be consulted, give their opinion and so forth. But what is missing is a deadline within which this guidance should be offered.
I have received strong pressure from some traffic authorities, saying that they need the guidance statement to be produced within three months of Royal Assent. As I said, they often have to process hundreds of these TROs a year. It is a big workload. They do not complain because it is the right way of doing things, but it would be good to have the guidance at an early stage so that they can take it forward in a structured way. I understand that the department has offered, in the form of an undertaking to a number of traffic authorities, an obligation to produce the guidance within three months. If the department is happy to offer that deadline, it raises the question of why that cannot be included in the Bill. Maybe I am too late with that, but it is a pity it was not included in the Bill.
I have nearly finished. Amendment 20 is confined to London roads. It comes from the fact that the road structure in London is different from the rest of the country. The duty to maintain a public highway falls on a number of different public bodies. The Secretary of State is of course the highway authority for motorways and trunk roads. Outside London, the county council, metropolitan council or unitary council has responsibility for the roads in the relevant area, except for motorways and trunk roads. But in London it is slightly different. TfL is the highway authority for Greater London Authority roads and then each London borough is the highway authority for all other roads in its area. Generally, the highway authority is also the traffic authority for the road. Traffic authorities have the power to manage traffic and can make TROs.
Baroness Randerson (LD)
My Lords, as I have not spoken before at this stage of proceedings, it is appropriate to me to preface my remarks by joining others in thanking members of the Select Committee for all their hard work and truly amazing perseverance with the Bill. The report is excellent in many respects. There is no doubt about the thoroughness of it. But of course the amendments in the name of the Minister relate to something that the committee did not examine.
That previous set of amendments was brought forward in Committee without prior consideration. I am, therefore, pleased to see that considerable progress has been made since the Minister agreed to withdraw them. Camden Council is undoubtedly very much happier with the new set than it was with the previous set.
There are, however, outstanding issues, some of which the Minister referred to, including the impact on bus lanes, cycleways and the Safer Lorry scheme. He did not, however, unless I missed it—and I was listening carefully—refer to the congestion charge zone, and I would welcome clarity on whether these powers will affect that.
He also made it clear that there were issues where there was some distance between the Government and Camden Council and others. Can I have the Minister’s assurance that discussions are ongoing, and that the Government are looking for further progress? Although his assurances are very reassuring, they do not go the whole way towards addressing the concerns of the areas that would be considerably affected by these traffic regulations.
Lord Rosser
I will make a few brief comments. First, I thank the Minister for the consultation that has taken place since Committee with local highway authorities, and for the retabling of the new schedule. Certainly, as a result of what has happened since Committee, a lot of the sting seems to have been taken out of the issue.
However, as the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, said, there are still some outstanding issues. The noble Baroness mentioned Camden Council. It has indicated to us—and to the noble Baroness—that it is still pursuing certain points with the promoter. It has indicated—no doubt to all of us—that it wants the Secretary of State to provide a justification when using the powers around traffic management in the new schedule.
The noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, referred to the issues of bus lanes, cycleways, the Safer Lorry scheme and the congestion charge zone, and the Minister has already touched on that. However, Camden Council, as I understand it, is asking the Government to agree to specific provisions to ensure that these powers will not affect bus lanes, cycleways, the Safer Lorry scheme and the congestion charge zone, and I would be grateful if the Minister could say whether he feels that he has already met, in his earlier comments, the wish of Camden Council for those specific provisions.
The third request by Camden Council is for an assurance that the promoter of HS2 will meet the costs incurred by local authorities in putting in place, and removing, traffic regulation orders required by the Secretary of State. Perhaps the Minister could comment on that. If he feels that he covered it in his introductory comments, I apologise for raising them again. I am, however, raising them just to make sure that they have been covered.
Will the Minister also say how many organisations or local highway authorities are still making representations to him on this issue? Is the number considerable, or is it fairly limited? Is the number of outstanding points fairly limited? As I understand it—as others have said—discussions are still taking place, and it would be welcome if the Minister could let us know, either now or at Third Reading, whether those outstanding issues have been addressed. It is not unreasonable to ask the Minister to say something at Third Reading, bearing in mind the late arrival of the amendment in Committee and the fact that the Minister agreed to withdraw it and we are having our first discussion on the schedule only today. In that context it is not unreasonable to ask the Minister to update us today, and indeed at Third Reading, on whether there are outstanding issues with local highway authorities.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
My Lords, again I thank the noble Lords, Lord Berkeley and Lord Rosser, and the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, for their contributions, and for making time to meet me and my officials to discuss this issue. As I said in introducing the amendments in my name, I have made full acknowledgement, both in Committee and earlier this afternoon, about the way the amendments were originally presented. We learn from some of the issues that arise both from the legislative process and from the scale of a project such as this. As the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, said, there are occasions when challenges arise and we try to deal with them. Equally, with infrastructure projects—not just HS2 but other projects coming forward—it is important to learn from experience, as we have from Crossrail. We have been putting in place much of what we have learned from the Crossrail experience, which has been positive, in our discussions.
I will speak to the specific amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, and I will address some of the issues raised by the noble Baroness and the noble Lord on issues around existing provisions and assurances. First, I put on record my thanks to the noble Lord for his specific help with the further development of the Government’s amendment on TROs. As I noted earlier, I totally understand the sentiment and I acknowledge the contributions made in this regard.
The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, asked about ongoing discussions. My understanding is that there are ongoing discussions but that they are mainly with TfL. Indeed, the latest meeting took place only a few hours ago—and, as I told the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, outside the Chamber this afternoon, these discussions are going forward in a positive way, in terms of understanding and taking account of the concerns of, in this case, TfL. I will check, but my understanding—as I said to the noble Lord, Lord Rosser—is that the discussions are only with TfL and that the concerns of other local authorities have been addressed. If that is not the case I will confirm it to the noble Lord, as he suggested.
Lord Berkeley
We are all rushing to get the latest information, but I understand from my meeting with TfL and others yesterday that most of the issues under discussion cover the whole route, except for my last amendment, which was specific to TfL—but I may be wrong.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
I will address those points specifically as I come to each amendment.
Amendment 14 affects only TfL and no other traffic authority. My officials have now shared a draft undertaking with TfL which addresses this issue and indeed goes further than what was raised. The amendment agrees a number of London boroughs in which the Secretary of State will issue the notice that this consultation requirement will not apply. Given that this issue, in terms of the undertaking, is already addressed in a legal contract, there is no need to include this proposal in legislation.
Similarly, Amendments 18, 19 and 20 are included in the same undertaking, which deals specifically with the concerns in a manner that will also avoid any issues with the potential rehybridisation of the Bill at this late stage—which I fully acknowledge is not the intention of the noble Lord.
Amendments 15 and 16 relate to roads on which the secretary of State can exercise his powers to make TROs, and seek to limit these to roads in relation to which a local authority must consult the Secretary of State. In this case I can assure the noble Lord that, as I said in my opening remarks, the powers of the Secretary of State to direct can be exercised only in the limited circumstances where it is necessary for HS2 and deemed reasonable. If it is necessary for the timely, efficient and cost-effective construction of HS2, and reasonable, the Secretary of State will be able to make the TRO.
Baroness Randerson
“Plan for restrictions on lorries and road use
Within three months of the start of the scheduled works, the nominated undertaker must publish a plan setting out, for each construction site in the Euston area being used or to be used for the scheduled works, how the number of lorries delivering to or from the site could be limited in order to meet the following restrictions by weight of materials transported by road— (a) no more than 50% of excavated spoil and demolition material;(b) no more than 25% of concreting aggregates;with the remainder in each case being carried by rail.”
Baroness Randerson
My Lords, Amendment 8 is in my name and that of the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley. It seeks to reduce the impact of many years of construction work on the residents of Euston and on our environment generally. In the light of earlier amendments, there is no way in which this amendment could be argued to be delaying anything going ahead with HS2. It is a detail relating to the operation of construction works. It is clear from the committee’s report, which goes into this issue in great detail, that it has concluded that the impact of construction works on the Euston area will be massive. We discussed the issue of compensation in Grand Committee, when the Minister said that he hoped to be in a position to produce further information about the compensation scheme that the Government are considering for the Euston area. Is he able to give us further information now?
In Committee, we put down an amendment that dealt with the transport of materials along the whole line but today we are concentrating on Euston, which is where the impact will be greatest. However, I argue that the same principles should apply throughout the whole project. Put simply, this amendment seeks to reduce the impact of construction on the beleaguered residents of Euston and the surrounding area by reducing the quantity of spoil and construction materials carried by road. The committee itself noted that areas of Camden suffer levels of air pollution well in excess of EU limits, which is a compelling reason to choose to transport by rail whenever possible.
The Euston area will suffer from more than a decade of disruption. Homes will be demolished, as well as a large office block, so there will be a lot of spoil as well as the building materials required for the new part of the station and the line itself. Your Lordships should bear in mind that after the HS2 part of the station is built, residents face disruption from the promised rebuilding of the existing station. The committee’s report notes that the shortest journey by road from Euston to the nearest landfill site is 26 miles, one way. As I said in Committee, one train can move as much material as 124 HGV lorries so the argument is very strong: as much material as possible must go by rail. If not by rail, it needs to go by river, which would of course necessitate putting the spoil or material into a lorry first to take it to the Thames. It would therefore not be as good as putting it straight on the railway.
HS2 is currently committed to moving 28% of excavated soil and 17% of construction materials by rail. It simply must do much better than that. Disappointingly, the committee did not recommend targets but major recent construction projects demonstrate that it is reasonable to expect a much higher percentage to go by rail. I give the House the examples of the Olympics, the tideway tunnel and Crossrail as construction projects which have been very successful in transporting by rail. Crossrail managed 80%, so the 50% target in our amendment is not that ambitious if looked at in that way. These figures are certainly not plucked from the air, as the Minister suggested in his response in Committee, but based on previous large construction projects and what could be reasonably expected.
In his response in Committee, the Minister also warned of the potential disruption to other rail services of using freight trains for this work. At the rate I quoted, with one train potentially carrying the load of 124 HGVs, we are talking about a small number of trains per day—say four or five. That is as nothing compared to the disruption to London traffic from many hundreds of HGVs every day. The Minister told us that it was premature to set targets but I was certainly not clear from his answer whether the Government intend to set targets at any stage. I believe that targets are a useful tool for encouraging HS2 to think more ambitiously. I am not clear whether HS2 is going to set the maximisation of spoil removal by rail as a requirement of its contracts with contractors. I am interested in whether the Government consider that this is something that they should be doing. There is also the issue of the control of subcontractors. Corners are often cut in large construction projects at this level.
I am certainly not arguing that transport by rail is the only measure needed. There are many others, as the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, indicated in Committee. As yet, there are few signs that HS2 is taking the holistic approach to environmentally friendly construction that is desperately needed at this complex and congested site. Best practice at other large construction sites in central London demonstrates that this is perfectly feasible. TfL is leading the way in working with other contractors. For example, at one large building site near the Shard, it is estimated that 876 HGV trips were saved by a variety of other complementary measures. On its own, each one is simple and common sense, but easily ignored in the pressures of a large project where the requirement is to cut costs and keep to time. I am talking about limiting the empty running of vehicles by ensuring that reverse loads are available. There is the use of consolidation centres, so that lorries always arrive on site absolutely full. Of great importance to Camden residents will be strict enforcement of rules to prevent the running of engines in stationary vehicles. Fundamental to all this is the better use of arisings, such as the recycling of concrete and the better use of inert earth, for example for flood defences and landscaping.
All this requires imagination and co-operation, not just between HS2 and its contractors, but with other development sites and other local authorities. So far, the stated aims of HS2, the responses of the Minister and the evidence of the committee’s report, have not convinced me that HS2 is prepared to push the boundaries of best practice. This is what they need to do, because this is an extraordinarily disruptive development in Euston and the surrounding area. It should be the role of government to defend its citizens; I would say that the citizens of Camden do not feel that they are being defended at the moment.
I will listen carefully to see whether the Minister is able to give us greater assurances than he was able to give in Committee. I am grateful to the noble Lord for the time he has given in meeting me to discuss various issues associated with this Bill. But I regret that f he is not able to give greater assurances, I am minded to divide the House on this amendment.
Baroness O'Cathain
My Lords, every time we talked about how to get the spoil from the site through to the rail holding, the fundamental issue we discussed was moving more by rail. The problem is that people think a great job was done with the Olympics and with Crossrail. As was pointed out by the proposer, the geography of the area from where the spoil would have to be removed means that it was nothing like as easy. In some cases it would take a double journey to get the spoil to the railway. Every sinew was strained to overcome this. I hope that some other noble Lords who were on the committee will say how it was; the first thought was getting the spoil to a railhead or to a railway and reducing the number of HGVs on the road. I am sure that there must be something in our report on this—I will find out.
Lord Young of Norwood Green
My Lords, to concur with what the noble Baroness, Lady O’Cathain, said, we did discuss this at great length in the committee. A target of 28% target has been set; it is certainly not a maximum, as I am sure the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, knows. Most of the points that she made are valid, except for the comparison. We are not comparing like with like. In Crossrail, for example, although a significant amount of spoil was shifted using the river, it had to get to the river first. That was part of the problem. This is an unrealistic target, which does not mean to say that we should not be ensuring that the contractors make every effort to take the maximum amount by rail. They have an incentive to do so but there are limitations—for instance, as to how much you can take out of Euston by rail and the times at which it can be done. All that was discussed.
Although it appears reasonable to set this kind of target, I concur with the noble Baroness, Lady O’Cathain, that it is not the right way to go about it. There should be—the Secretary of State will ensure that there will be—very significant pressure on the contractors to take the maximum amount off the road, for all the reasons that the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, said. I look forward to hearing what further assurances the Minister can give.
Camden may not have got everything, but it received 100 assurances, which were legal requirements, given by the promotor during the course of its own negotiations, and further additions that we made as the result of our hearings.
Lord Berkeley
My Lords, I declare an interest as chairman of the Rail Freight Group. I think I have some good news. I pay tribute the Select Committee’s work on this. I know that it tried very hard and quizzed lots of people as to how it could be done. As is so often the case, when it gets to the stage of involving contractors, sometimes contractors have good ideas. I was talking to some of them and their specialists last week. One of the key ideas is if you bore tunnels from Old Oak Common to Euston and you complete at least one at any early stage, you can take the spoil out through the tunnel. This is a very good idea because you can then deal with it at Old Oak Common. I am told it is possible; they are trying to work it into the programme. If it is possible, the figure for getting spoil and demolition out would probably go up to above 50%—I was told 70% or 80%—which is really good news. In other words, they have come up with some creative ideas. Maybe we were wrong to criticise HS2 in the past for not coming up with such ideas. It has given us a lot of debating time and the committee several days of discussion, but at least people have come up with a good idea. I think four contractors are tendering and I do not know whether they will all adopt this, but it demonstrates that it is possible. I hope Ministers will do all they can to encourage the contractors to be similarly creative.
There is another issue. In Committee we discussed concreting materials and other materials. The present amendment covers just concreting materials. The creative people are now saying, quite rightly, that they cannot bring cement in by train because it takes too long to unload, but that they can bring in most of the concreting aggregate by train and they can put a batching plant for mixing it somewhere on site. I am sure the committee looked at different locations for that; I have, and it is possible. As the noble Baroness said in her opening remarks, there is not a capacity problem for these trains going into Euston at night. It could easily be done.
I hope the Minister will accept these amendments as pointing the way forward to encouraging HS2 to continue to be creative like this. We do not want 1,500 trucks a day in Camden because the construction will last for 19 years—not that all those trucks will be there for 19 years, but they will still there be there for a considerable period. The basic movement out of spoil and demolition material by rail and bringing in concreting aggregate by rail would make a lot of people happy. I am convinced that the project can be done on that basis without any adverse effect on its programme or cost. If it is set up to do that, the contractors will do it well and it will work well.
Lord Rosser
As has been said, the amendment calls for a plan to be published for each construction site in the Euston area to show how the number of lorries delivering to or from the site could be limited to meet laid-down restrictions by the weight of materials transported by road, with the remainder being carried by rail. As has been said, this is an issue to which the Lords Select Committee, on which the three main parties and the Cross Benches were represented, gave consideration. The committee said in paragraph 411 of its report:
“We are very strongly of the opinion that as much material as possible should be moved by rail, so as to reduce road traffic congestion and air pollution. However, we are convinced by the evidence that this aim will be significantly more difficult to achieve at Euston, as compared with most of the other projects referred to by Mr Dyer and Lord Berkeley. We are satisfied that HS2 is taking this responsibility seriously, and we are hopeful that significant progress will be made as the time comes for contractors to be appointed and become involved in the detailed planning. In the meantime we see no useful purpose to be served by attempting to set fixed targets. It would be little more than plucking aspirational figures out of the air”.
We do not diverge from the position of the Select Committee. Since it is also our view as much material as possible should be moved by rail, we will not vote against the amendment if it is put to the vote. Indeed, we want to see the “significant progress” made with contractors to which the Select Committee referred in its report.
The amendment does not indicate what should happen once the plan has been published. The plan would be required to set out how the number of lorries could be limited to deliver the restrictions on movement referred to. Presumably, this would be without any detailed reference to costs or any other potential implications. Frankly, rather than the terms of the amendment, with what the Select Committee might or might not regard as its aspirational figures, surely what is required to deliver for the citizens of Camden is a firm commitment from the Government to hold HS2 to the undertaking it has given to maximise the movement of materials by rail, including in the Euston area, despite the difficulties referred to by the Select Committee, with a view to its going well beyond the guaranteed baseline for moving materials by rail of 28% of excavated soil and 17% of imported construction materials. Paragraph 117 of the promoter’s response to the Select Committee’s special report says:
“The Promoter reiterates its overarching commitment to continue to seek to maximise, as far as reasonably practicable, the amount of material that can be moved by rail, and the underlying commitments it has given the London Borough of Camden”.
I hope the Minister will address this point about how the Government intend to ensure that maximising the movement of materials by rail is delivered.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate. I do not think there is a difference of opinion over the intent here, whether in the amendment that the noble Baroness has tabled, in the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, with which I find it very hard to disagree, or the findings and recommendations of the Select Committee. As I noted in Committee, I agree with the ambition to maximise the use of rail for the transportation of material in relation to HS2. The Government absolutely share the concerns about the impact of HS2 construction on the road network, and have already made commitments with similar intentions. I assure the noble Baroness that we have also committed to maximise the volume of excavated and construction material to be brought in and removed by rail. This will need to be done while balancing the wider environmental impacts on the local community and on passenger services.
In moving the amendment, the noble Baroness talked about specific infrastructure projects; indeed, she mentioned Crossrail. Firm targets on this issue are not the manner by which previous infrastructure projects, which she mentioned, were managed, and that includes Crossrail. The amendment as tabled suggests those particular targets. It is not that we are shying away from targets but, as I have said—perhaps I can reassure her again—we are already committed to work with local traffic management authorities in developing plans in liaison with the relevant highway and traffic authorities, which will be the means by which we agree, manage and monitor lorry traffic flows. Ultimately, and I emphasise this point to the noble Baroness, it is also the local authority that must approve the local routes used in connection with HS2.
The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, asked about the Government’s position. A commitment is an assurance to Parliament, and all assurances will be passed to the contractors in the contracts that are negotiated.
To come back to Crossrail, what worked so well was the fact that the agreements were locally negotiated. I totally concur with the conclusions of the Select Committee, which the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, alluded to in his comments; he mentioned quite specifically that setting targets now would mean plucking figures out of the air. This does not take away from the importance of HS2; indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, talked in his contribution about the intent that has already been shown in the response to the Select Committee by HS2 regarding the important issue of moving material as much as possible by means other than roads. I come back to the key point that those local plans must be agreed by the local authority.
I hope the noble Baroness is not just assured but reassured by the commitments that I have given. I have listened very carefully to her contributions and those from the noble Lords, Lord Berkeley and Lord Rosser, and I do not think there is a difference of opinion about material—excuse the pun—or the substance of what is being proposed and the way forward. This is about ensuring that HS2 works hand-in-glove with the local authorities to ensure that, whatever local targets are set, it maximises the use of alternatives to roads, and that any roads that lorries may use in removing such soil is approved by the local authority and the local traffic management authority. I hope that, with the assurances I have given, the noble Baroness will be minded to withdraw her amendment.
Baroness Randerson
My Lords, there is a certain irony in building a railway but not using rail to transport materials because it is too difficult. That idea has been suggested by some noble Lords in this debate.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
The noble Baroness has made a point, and I would like to provide clarification. As I think that the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, mentioned, HS2 is very much committed to using alternative sources. We need to put any other suggestion to rest. In no way are either the Government or HS2 suggesting that we look towards the roads. Indeed, I emphasise again that we shall maximise alternatives to roads and ensure that spoil can be removed accordingly. I hope that the noble Baroness accepts that point.
Baroness Randerson
I accept that point, but the noble Baroness who was a member of the committee talked about the complexities of carrying materials by rail in this case, and the committee’s report refers to this. I accept that Crossrail and other sites that I mentioned are not the same. Of course they are not, but Crossrail achieved 80%. Therefore in terms of percentages, our amendment is relatively modest.
The Government face a huge problem with air quality in central London. They need to do everything in their power to encourage every construction site to transport as much as possible by rail or to use environmentally friendly methods. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, that the experience of other sites shows that the type of measure to which I referred in my speech, including transport by rail, reduces overall costs. However, to the Minister I make the fundamental point that the idea of targets has been accepted. HS2 has targets. It is simply that these need to be more ambitious. Locally agreed targets and arrangements were of course appropriate for Crossrail because Crossrail affected diverse areas across London. Our amendment refers only to Euston. Therefore I am disappointed that the Minister has not come up with definite arrangements to improve the plans that have been put forward so far by HS2. On that basis, I seek to test the opinion of the House.
Lord Berkeley
“West Coast Main Line trains at Euston
The nominated undertaker must, within three months of the passing of this Act, publish plans demonstrating how, during any works supporting the construction of Phase One of High Speed 2, at least four tracks serving the West Coast Main Line trains in and out of Euston station would remain open at all times, except for the normal possession periods of Network Rail of nights, weekends and public holiday periods.”
Lord Berkeley
My Lords, I promise that I will be quick. This amendment concerns the need to keep the west coast main line trains running into Euston while HS2 is constructed. When the Minister kindly met me last week, I showed him a cross-section drawing that I received some time ago from HS2 which described building what most people call a bird-cage—it is a hell of a big bird-cage; it is several train storeys high—near Park Village East. It shows how HS2 trains have grade separation, but it is all underneath three or four tracks of the west coast main line. I cannot see how you can build this bird-cage underground and keep the trains running on top. I have not had a sensible answer from anyone as to how it will be done. Perhaps the bird-cage is being redesigned; perhaps the tracks will be moved over, if that is possible; but it is important that the Minister can confirm that the west coast main line trains will keep operating during construction, because the poor old commuters and long-distance passengers will not be very pleased if it is closed for six months.
I have not received any later drawings of that cross-section. Perhaps it has changed but, under the version I had, I should think that you would have to close Euston for about a year. I hope that that is not the case, and I am sure that HS2 is coming up with alternative designs, but somehow those four tracks going into Euston must be kept operational—except for the odd weekend or night. I beg to move.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
I think the noble Lord just spoke to Amendment 10. I am just checking to make sure.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
Although the majority of HS2 phase 1 construction work will not affect the existing railway, possessions will be needed where works to the existing railway are necessary, such as around Euston and Old Oak Common, to build junctions or indeed to cross other lines. However, we believe that the amendment is unnecessary as the design in the Bill retains the approach tracks, and our design development of Euston is exploring further work to ensure that all six approach tracks can be retained. This will enable the existing level of service to operate in and out of Euston until the opening of HS2 phase 1 in 2016.
We have also asked HS2 Ltd to undertake further design development with the object of minimising the impacts on the travelling public, protecting the current levels of train service and minimising the impact on local communities. I assure the noble Lord that possessions needed will be booked by or through Network Rail in accordance with standard industry processes. The possessions planning process includes consultation with the wider railway industry, including operators and users, to ensure that the relevant travel information is communicated to passengers and that possessions are considered in the context of wider railway operations.
For any such possessions, Network Rail will work with the industry to agree how and when to take such possessions to allow HS2 construction works to be undertaken. We will be able to take these possessions only with the agreement of passenger and freight train operators—but they cannot unreasonably withhold access. The decision on whether possession is agreed to or not will be driven by the train operators being satisfied that the possessions are necessary and efficiently planned, and that suitable passenger mitigations are in place to minimise disruption to services—which I know is the noble Lord’s concern. I assure him that we are working collaboratively with the railway industry to develop a route-wide communications plan to prepare passengers when engineering works take place.
We have previously talked about other infrastructure projects. This will include the lessons learned from experience of the London Olympics and other significant closures—the noble Lord mentioned London Bridge. Further work is under way so that we can understand passenger circulation while Euston station—a specific concern of the noble Lord—is being constructed. There will of course be regular discussion and consultation with operators of passenger and freight services as we move forward with planning and detailed design stages of the project, but I return to my initial comments about ensuring that those tracks are retained to ensure access to Euston.
Based on the details I have given, I hope that the noble Lord will be minded to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Berkeley
I am grateful to the Minister for that answer—and I am reasonably comforted. The procedures he outlined for taking possession, after consultation, are certainly what would be expected from a major project; they are the right way to do this and I am very glad that he outlined them. However, he did not quite say how we will get around this problem. This part of the project will involve digging a hole about 20 metres deep, and the final cross-section shows that it will be underneath two of the tracks. That is not a weekend possession. It will probably take the best part of a year—unless the plan is to move the tracks over and, presumably, pay for that to happen. So I will reflect on what the Minister said, but I will remain worried until and unless I see a new design from HS2 which solves the problem. I think that the present design is frankly insoluble without closing the west coast main line for a year—but I shall pursue this issue outside the Bill. On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Viscount Astor
“Review: Calvert Sidings
(1) The Secretary of State must commission a review of the proposed construction and route variation required for Calvert Sidings, covering construction and noise impacts which have not hitherto been considered.(2) The review must also consider impacts—(a) on affected communities, farms and estates;(b) of the movement of farm vehicles, works traffic and other traffic;(c) on bridle ways and footpaths crossing the railway route.(3) The review may recommend whether a Transport and Works Act order should be made, under the provisions of section 52, to authorise adjustments relating to Calvert Sidings.”
Viscount Astor (Con)
My Lords, we debated this amendment in Committee. I put it down again in the hope of getting a response to the letter I wrote to the Minister before Report. I would like to thank him for his letter, which I received last night and which was enormously helpful.
The reason that this rather particular amendment relating to the Calvert sidings is important is that this community already has a railway line going through it: the Aylesbury spur. Before HS2 came along, the promoters of the east-west rail scheme said that they were going to upgrade this line as part of the railway across England. Where there is currently a level crossing, because hardly any trains use the line—perhaps one or two a week—they proposed to construct a bridge. This would have satisfied those who live either side of the line.
It is quite tough having one main line across your farm or farms, but even tougher when someone comes along and says, “By the way, we are going to put another one across—HS2”. One person will have the east-west line 100 yards to the north of him and HS2 100 yards to the south. The promoters of HS2 and the Select Committee looked at this and said that they did not think it was necessary to build a bridge. That was the decision of the Select Committee and I will not argue with it—to be perfectly honest I do not know whether it was right or wrong. What happened then was that East West Rail said that it would not build a bridge, either, and withdrew its proposal. As a result, we will have a community that will be hemmed in on both sides.
The Minister has been enormously helpful and said that East West Rail intends to consult on the proposed changes later in the year, which will give those affected a chance to have their views heard. This issue fell between two railway lines, as it were, and so was not considered by the Select Committee. I wish that the noble Lord, Lord Young, were in his place so he could hear that—but perhaps he might read Hansard later. Some of us who are concerned that HS2 will be successful are also concerned about the effect on the people and communities who will live alongside it—but what the Minister has said is a huge improvement and I thank him for that.
The Minister also said that objections to the Calvert sidings could be made as part of a Transport and Works Act order. I have to admit that I do not know very much about such orders. When I looked up the question of whether they have to be approved by Parliament on the Government’s website, the answer was that they do not normally have to be presented before coming into force but that they can occasionally do so through a special parliamentary procedure. If the Minister cannot tell me now, could he write to explain what the process will be: that is, whether it will come before Parliament or not? That way, we can help that community to plan to protect itself. I look forward to the Minister’s response and beg to move the amendment.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
My Lords, I thank my noble friend for his amendment. His comments reflect that we have clarified some of the issues, and he has articulated part of the response that I would have given. I therefore also thank him for accepting the Government’s explanation.
The noble Lord did mention two outstanding issues. There will of course be a consultation, as I said in my letter, and East West Rail intends to consult on the change more broadly later this year. At that time, any concerned parties will have the opportunity to make their representations. He also mentioned the Transport and Works Act order for the provision of sidings, primarily to facilitate the business of the FCC waste facility, which is also in this broad location. All the relevant impacts on local communities and farming interests of the works purposed as part of that order, in addition to the comprehensive assessment undertaken as part of the environmental statement for the Bill scheme, have already been taken into consideration.
The noble Lord asked specifically about the process hereafter and I will of course write to him to clarify that. But I hope it is not pre-emptive to assume that the noble Lord will withdraw the amendment because we have answered the questions he raised.
Viscount Astor
I am very grateful for the Minister’s answer and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Snape
“Protected species
The nominated undertaker has a duty to take reasonable and cost effective steps to deal appropriately with protected species.”
Lord Snape
My Lords, I was moved to put down this amendment by a report that appeared in the Times on Saturday 14 January, an extract of which I will read in a moment. The proposed new clause says:
“The nominated undertaker has a duty to take reasonable and cost effective steps to deal appropriately with protected species”.
My concern is as much with the reasonable steps as it is with the protected species. The article in the Times, under the by-line of Mr Ben Webster, the environment editor, says:
“The biggest badger relocation project yet attempted is about to get under way along the route of HS2, the high-speed rail line. More than a thousand badgers in a hundred local populations will be affected by phase one of the line, from London to Birmingham. They will either be moved to new artificial setts or protected from the impact of the line by tunnels dug beneath it. The multimillion-pound publicly funded operation comes weeks after the government said that 11,000 badgers were shot last year to protect cattle from tuberculosis”.
My first question is whether the Minister can guarantee that saving badgers from the shovels and bulldozers of the high-speed train will not risk them falling under the guns of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs—that would be an odd way to spend millions of pounds. After all, I understand that licences have already been granted to cull badgers in no fewer than 10 areas in Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Gloucestershire, Herefordshire and Somerset. Can the Minister assure us that none of these displaced badgers will be moved to these areas where they will be gunned down by another department? That would not be the best example of joined-up government I have ever seen.
Lord Berkeley
Following my noble friend’s excellent description of bats, is it true that they have found a type of bat directly on the centre line of the route which had never been found before? How much does it cost to move the bats? My noble friend has asked about the cost of removing badgers so they can be culled somewhere else. Nobody is going to cull the bats, of course, but there must be a cost to moving them too.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
My Lords, I always say that your Lordships’ House serves as a great place of education. I praise the way in which the noble Lord, Lord Snape, introduced his amendment. As we come to the conclusion of our deliberations on Report, it is much appreciated and I commend his style. I turn to the specifics of the amendment. As many noble Lords will be aware, the environmental statement for the Bill ran to some 50,000 pages and exhaustively examined all potential impacts from the Bill scheme and provides the necessary mitigations, including, of course, for protected species.
The noble Lord, Lord Snape, mentioned specific protected species that could potentially be affected by phase 1 of HS2 and these include a number of bat species—I do not have immediately to hand information about the specific type of bat that has been found and the associated costs but I will write to the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley on that. The protections also cover otters, badgers, barn owls, not forgetting the notorious great crested newts. I am not going to claim to have seen one, but I assure the noble Lord that I will attempt to do so before Third Reading. On a more serious note, it is important that species are protected. The noble Lord mentioned the badger cull and asked for an absolute assurance. As a Minister responsible for steering the Bill through your Lordships’ House, I can assure the noble Lord and all concerned that the badgers moved for HS2 are intended to be moved only a short distance. None of them will be moved to the cull areas which the noble Lord listed. I have just had an update on the bat issue.
Lord Snape
Before we move on to bats, could the Minister elaborate on enticing the badgers from their present lairs? How is it to be done?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
I will write to the noble Lord on that, if I may. Perhaps it will serve as an education for all of us. As I said, I have an update on the bats: I feel a bit like breaking news. I have been assured that there is no breed of bat on the line that has never been discovered before. However, there are a number of rare bat colonies near the line of the route and the mitigation measures that have been created include bat bridges. I expect the next question will be: do I know what a bat bridge looks like?
Lord Berkeley
Is the Minister aware that, about 10 years ago, his department constructed two bat bridges in Cornwall, at a place called Dobwalls bypass—which I go under most weekends. At that time, they cost £300,000 each and I asked a load of Written Questions asking how many bats used it and how many did not bother and just flew across the road. I got the number of bats that used it, but not the ones that flew across the road. Do we really need more of these bat bridges?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
These are merely mitigation measures. It cannot be the Department for Transport’s responsibility, once we have constructed the bat bridges, to ensure that all bats use them, rather than fly. We leave that matter to the freedom and liberty of the bats themselves. It is important that mitigation measures are in place for all the different habitats. For all potential impacts, we are proposing extensive mitigation measures, including creation of alternative habitats to link isolated areas of existing habitat and the provision of underpasses or green bridges to help maintain movement of species in the landscape.
We deem the amendment unnecessary due to the significant statutory provisions which I am sure the noble Lord is aware are already in place for protected species. We will, of course, need to comply with these during the construction and operation of HS2. These include the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, the Conservation of Habitats and Species Regulations 2010, the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 and the Protection of Badgers Act 1992. The requirement to comply with this legislation is built in to the HS2 code of construction practice and the project will need to obtain a licence from Natural England for any occasion at which there is a plan to disturb or remove wildlife or damage existing habitats. We have had a very educational—and for me personally an enlightening —debate on this amendment. I hope the noble Lord is reassured by our commitments in these areas and that, on that basis, he is minded to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Snape
I thank the Minister for his comprehensive reply, but I warn him that I might well return to this subject at Third Reading, if only to ask: if bats can fly, why do they need bridges? If we have bat bridges, why not starling bridges or sparrow bridges? Surely there is some discrimination involved if the bats are being singled out in this way. Nobody could ask for more than the Minister promising to find out exactly what a great crested newt looks like. We are all familiar with colonies of them appearing as soon as there is a major project, but nobody has ever seen one. Given the comprehensive reply from the Minister, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
“TRAFFIC REGULATIONTraffic authority to consult Secretary of State before making traffic regulation order
1_(1) This paragraph applies where—(a) the traffic authority for a relevant road is a person other than the Secretary of State,(b) the authority proposes to make a traffic regulation order in relation to the road, and(c) it appears to the authority that provision made by the order could significantly interfere with the use of the road by heavy commercial vehicles for the purposes of the construction of Phase One of High Speed 2.(2) Before making the order, the authority must consult the Secretary of State (in addition to any other person the authority is required to consult under or by virtue of Part 3 of Schedule 9 to RTRA 1984). (3) In this paragraph—“heavy commercial vehicle” has the same meaning as in RTRA 1984 (see section 138 of that Act);“relevant road” means a road, other than a special road or trunk road, which falls within one or more of the following paragraphs—(a) a road which is part of a route identified in a deposited statement as a construction traffic route;(b) a road which is part of a route in relation to which approval has been given under paragraph 6 of Schedule 17 (routes for transportation by large goods vehicles);(c) where a request for approval under paragraph 6 of Schedule 17 has been made but not determined, a road which is part of a route to which the request for approval relates;(d) a road any part of which is within the Act limits.(4) For the purposes of the definition of “relevant road”, “special road” and “trunk road” have the same meanings as in the Highways Act 1980.2_(1) The Secretary of State may by notice designate—(a) a road, or part of a road, in relation to which paragraph 1(2) does not apply;(b) a description of traffic regulation orders in relation to which paragraph 1(2) does not apply.(2) A notice under sub-paragraph (1)(a) has effect until further notice.(3) The Secretary of State must give a notice under sub-paragraph (1)(a) to the traffic authority for the road (or part of the road) to which the notice relates.(4) A notice under sub-paragraph (1)(b) may have effect generally or in relation to areas specified in the notice.(5) The Secretary of State must give a notice under sub-paragraph (1)(b) to every traffic authority which would be affected by the notice.(6) Failure by a traffic authority to comply with paragraph 1(2) in relation to a traffic regulation order does not affect the validity of the order.3_(1) Paragraph 1(2) ceases to apply in relation to a traffic authority if the Secretary of State gives the authority a notice stating that—(a) no further works are proposed to be constructed under this Act in the authority’s area, and(b) the use of relevant roads in the authority’s area is no longer required by heavy commercial vehicles for the purposes of the construction of Phase One of High Speed 2.(2) Paragraph 1(2) ceases to apply in relation to a particular part of the area of a traffic authority (“the relevant part”) if—(a) the Secretary of State reasonably considers that the relevant part can be treated separately from the rest of the authority’s area for the purposes of paragraph 1(2), and(b) the Secretary of State gives the authority a notice stating that—(i) no further works are proposed to be constructed under this Act in the relevant part, and(ii) the use of relevant roads in the relevant part is no longer required by heavy commercial vehicles for the purposes of the construction of Phase One of High Speed 2.(3) The Secretary of State must give a traffic authority a notice under sub- paragraph (1) or (2) as soon as reasonably practicable after the Secretary of State forms the view that the applicable requirements are met.(4) For the purposes of sub-paragraph (3), the applicable requirements are met— (a) in a sub-paragraph (1) case, if sub-paragraph (1)(a) and (b) apply in relation to the authority’s area, and(b) in a sub-paragraph (2) case, if sub-paragraph (2)(b)(i) and (ii) apply in relation to the relevant part.(5) In this paragraph,“heavy commercial vehicle” and “relevant road” have the same meanings as in paragraph 1.Power of Secretary of State to direct traffic authority to make traffic regulation order
4_(1) The Secretary of State may give a direction to a traffic authority requiring the authority to make a traffic regulation order if the Secretary of State considers that the making of such an order is—(a) necessary for the purposes of the timely, efficient and cost- effective construction of Phase One of High Speed 2, and(b) reasonable in the circumstances.(2) Paragraph 1(2) does not apply (if it otherwise would) to the making of a traffic regulation order in pursuance of a direction under this paragraph.(3) Where a traffic authority makes a traffic regulation order in pursuance of a direction under this paragraph (a “relevant order”), the authority may not without the Secretary of State’s consent make a further traffic regulation order which contains—(a) provision varying or revoking the relevant order, or(b) provision as respects any length of road for any purpose where—(i) an order has been made as respects that length of road for a similar purpose, and(ii) that order has been varied or revoked by the relevant order.(4) The power to give a direction under this paragraph includes power to vary or revoke a previous direction given under this paragraph.5_(1) This paragraph applies where, in pursuance of a direction under paragraph 4, a traffic authority is required to make an order under section 1, 6 or 9 of RTRA 1984.(2) The order is to be treated for the purposes of Part 3 and paragraph 28 of Schedule 9 to RTRA 1984, and regulations made under Part 3 of that Schedule, as if it were required to be made in pursuance of a direction under paragraph 2 of that Schedule.(3) The provisions mentioned in sub-paragraph (2) have effect accordingly, but as if—(a) paragraph 26(1) of Schedule 9 to RTRA 1984 (which requires the Secretary of State to take account of objections) were omitted,(b) for the purposes of the application of paragraph 28 of Schedule 9 to RTRA 1984 (provision about the variation or revocation of certain orders)—(i) the reference in that paragraph to Part 2 of that Schedule included a reference to paragraph 4(3) of this Schedule, and(ii) any reference in that Part to paragraph 13(1)(e) and (f) of that Schedule were read instead as a reference to paragraph 4(3) of this Schedule, and(c) any provision in regulations made under Part 3 of Schedule 9 to RTRA 1984 relating to the holding of a public inquiry were omitted.(4) Paragraph 35 of Schedule 9 to RTRA 1984 (provision for questioning validity of orders) has effect, in its application to the order, as if—(a) the reference in sub-paragraph (a) to the relevant powers were to those powers as they apply in the case of an order made in pursuance of a direction under paragraph 4 above, and (b) the reference in sub-paragraph (b) to the relevant requirements were to those requirements as modified by sub-paragraph (3) above.6_(1) This paragraph applies where, in pursuance of a direction under paragraph 4, a traffic authority is required to make an order under section 14 of RTRA 1984.(2) Section 15 of RTRA 1984 (duration of orders under section 14) does not apply to the order.(3) The order has effect for the period specified or described in the direction.(4) The period specified or described by virtue of sub-paragraph (3) must be such as the Secretary of State considers is reasonable for the purposes of the construction of Phase One of High Speed 2.Further powers of Secretary of State (including in relation to variation or revocation of orders)
7_(1) The Secretary of State may direct a traffic authority to revoke a traffic regulation order made by the authority in pursuance of a direction under paragraph 4.(2) The Secretary of State may direct a traffic authority to vary a traffic regulation order made by the authority in pursuance of a direction under paragraph 4, where—(a) the Secretary of State considers that the variation is—(i) necessary for the purposes of the timely, efficient and cost-effective construction of Phase One of High Speed 2, and(ii) reasonable in the circumstances, or(b) the effect of the variation is to remove or relax a restriction imposed by the order on the use of any road.8_(1) Where a traffic authority fails to comply with a direction under paragraph 4, the Secretary of State may make the traffic regulation order required by the direction.(2) Where a traffic authority fails to comply with a direction under paragraph 7, the Secretary of State may by order vary or revoke the traffic regulation order (as required by the direction).9_(1) The Secretary of State may by order made by statutory instrument vary or revoke a traffic regulation order (whenever made) if the Secretary of State considers the variation or revocation—(a) necessary for the purposes of the timely, efficient and cost- effective construction of Phase One of High Speed 2, and(b) reasonable in the circumstances.(2) This paragraph has effect without prejudice to the powers conferred on the Secretary of State by paragraphs 7 and 8.10_(1) This paragraph applies to an order under paragraph 8 or 9.(2) Paragraph 4 of Schedule 9 to RTRA 1984 (reserve powers of Secretary of State, including power to recover expenses) applies to the order as it applies to an order made by virtue of paragraph 3 of that Schedule.(3) Parts 3 and 4 of Schedule 9 to RTRA 1984, and regulations made under paragraph 24 of that Schedule, apply to the order as they apply to an order made by virtue of the relevant paragraph of that Schedule, but as if—(a) any provision in the regulations relating to the holding of a public inquiry were omitted, and(b) for the purposes of the application of paragraph 28 of that Schedule (provision about the variation or revocation of certain orders)—(i) the reference in that paragraph to Part 2 of that Schedule included a reference to paragraph 10(5) of this Schedule, and (ii) any reference in that Part to paragraph 13(1)(e) and (f) of that Schedule were read instead as a reference to paragraph 10(5) of this Schedule.(4) For the purposes of sub-paragraph (3), “the relevant paragraph” of Schedule 9 to RTRA 1984 is—(a) in the case of an order under paragraph 8 of this Schedule, paragraph 3 of that Schedule, and(b) in the case of an order under paragraph 9 of this Schedule, paragraph 7 of that Schedule.(5) Where the Secretary of State makes an order to which this paragraph applies, the relevant authority may not without the Secretary of State’s consent make a further traffic regulation order which contains—(a) provision varying or revoking the Secretary of State’s order, or(b) provision as respects any length of road for any purpose where—(i) an order has been made as respects that length of road for a similar purpose, and(ii) that order has been varied or revoked by the Secretary of State’s order.(6) Paragraph 16 of Schedule 9 to RTRA 1984 (powers of Secretary of State where an order is submitted for consent) applies for the purposes of sub- paragraph (5) as if the further traffic regulation order had been submitted for consent under Part 2 of that Schedule.Power to restrict traffic authority from making or implementing traffic regulation order
11_(1) The Secretary of State may give a direction to a traffic authority prohibiting the authority from making or bringing into operation a traffic regulation order (whenever made) if the Secretary of State considers that such an order could significantly interfere with the use of any road for the purposes of the construction of Phase One of High Speed 2.(2) A prohibition imposed by virtue of this paragraph may be expressed—(a) so as to have effect generally or for a period specified in the direction;(b) so as to prohibit the making or bringing into operation of a traffic regulation order without the Secretary of State’s consent.(3) The power to give a direction under this paragraph includes power to vary or revoke a previous direction given under this paragraph.Consultation requirements applicable to Secretary of State
12_(1) The Secretary of State must consult a traffic authority—(a) before giving a direction to the authority under paragraph 4, 7 or 11, or(b) before making an order under paragraph 8(2) or 9 in relation to a traffic regulation order made by the authority.(2) The purpose of consultation is—(a) to ensure public safety and, so far as reasonably practicable, to reduce public inconvenience, and(b) to take account of the requirements (however expressed) to which the traffic authority is subject under an enactment or under an agreement or undertaking entered into in pursuance of an enactment.Guidance
13_(1) The Secretary of State must prepare a statement setting out, in general terms—(a) guidance in connection with the duty under paragraph 1(2)(which requires a traffic authority to consult the Secretary of State before making a traffic regulation order), and (b) how the Secretary of State proposes to exercise the powers conferred on the Secretary of State by the preceding provisions of this Schedule.(2) The Secretary of State may from time to time revise the statement.(3) In preparing or revising the statement, the Secretary of Sate must consult—(a) the nominated undertaker, and(b) those traffic authorities which the Secretary of State considers are likely to be subject to the duty under paragraph 1(2) or to be affected by the exercise of the powers mentioned in sub- paragraph (1)(b)(or both).Removal of vehicles
14_(1) An authorised person may remove a vehicle, or arrange for its removal, where conditions 1 and 2 are met.(2) Condition 1 is that the vehicle has been permitted to remain at rest, or has broken down and remained at rest—(a) on any road in contravention of a prohibition or restriction imposed by a traffic regulation order, or(b) on any road which is stopped up under paragraph 2 or 6 of Schedule 4.(3) Condition 2 is that it appears to the authorised person that the vehicle is likely, if it is not removed—(a) to obstruct the carrying out of any of the works authorised by this Act, or(b) to be at risk of being damaged in consequence of the doing of anything for the purposes of the construction of Phase One of High Speed 2.(4) References in sub-paragraphs (1) and (3) to the removal of a vehicle are to its removal to another position on the road in question or to another road.(5) Before exercising the power under sub-paragraph (1), an authorised person must give notice to—(a) the local authority (as defined by section 100(5) of RTRA 1984) in whose area the vehicle is situated, and(b) the chief officer of the police force in whose area the vehicle is situated.(6) A person removing a vehicle under or by virtue of sub-paragraph (1) may do so—(a) by towing or driving the vehicle, or(b) in such other manner as the person thinks necessary,and may take such measures in relation to the vehicle as the person thinks necessary to enable its removal.(7) This paragraph is without prejudice to provision made by regulations under section 99 of RTRA 1984.(8) In this paragraph—“authorised person” means a person authorised by the nominated undertaker for the purposes of this paragraph;“vehicle” has the same meaning as in section 99 of RTRA 1984.Interpretation
15_ In this Schedule—“road” has the same meaning as in RTRA 1984 (see section 142(1) of that Act);“RTRA 1984” means the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984;“traffic authority” has the same meaning as in RTRA 1984 (see section 121A of that Act);“traffic regulation order” means an order section 1, 6, 9 or 14 of RTRA 1984.”
High Speed Rail (London–West Midlands) Bill
Tuesday 31st January 2017
(7 years, 10 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 93(b) Amendment for Third Reading (PDF, 97KB) - (30 Jan 2017)
15:56 - Division on Lord Framlingham’s amendment - Ayes: 25 / Noes: 385 - Amendment disagreed.
Lord Taylor of Holbeach (Con)
My Lords, I have it in command from Her Majesty the Queen to acquaint the House that Her Majesty, having been informed of the purport of the High Speed Rail (London - West Midlands) Bill, has consented to place her interests, in so far as they are affected by the Bill, at the disposal of Parliament for the purposes of the Bill.
Motion
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Transport (Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon) (Con)
My Lords, at the final stage of this important Bill in this House, I take this opportunity to thank all noble Lords who have contributed to its passage, and without whose efforts we would not have been able to make such excellent progress. I thank my noble friends Lord Younger and Lady Buscombe for their diligent work in assisting me during the Bill’s passage. I greatly appreciate their support.
On behalf of the House—indeed, I believe I share the sentiments expressed by all Members across the House—I thank the Select Committee, which was so ably chaired by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Walker of Gestingthorpe. His resolute, compassionate and pragmatic approach in handling the business before him was impeccable and held in high admiration by petitioners, by the Government as the promoter of the Bill, and by his fellow committee members.
I also thank other members of the Select Committee for all their efforts and hard work. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady O’Cathain, for her contributions, particularly in Committee and on Report; the noble Lord, Lord Young of Norwood Green; my noble friends Lord Brabazon of Tara and Lord Freeman; and the noble Lords, Lord Elder, and Lord Jones of Cheltenham. The committee served diligently for eight months, hearing over 300 petitioners, and made extremely valuable interventions both in Committee and on Report. I also thank noble Lords from the Opposition Benches. I have sat with the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, in sessions both in and outside your Lordships’ House, trying to address issues on which we did not quite agree. I thank him, and the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson—who unfortunately is not in her place—for their helpful interventions and the co-operative and positive approach they adopted in resolving any final differences that remained on the Bill.
I also thank all other noble Lords who have contributed to debates on the Bill and helped the Government make valuable improvements. It would be remiss of me not to make special mention of the noble Lord, Lord Adonis. Some things are originated by one Government and then handed over to another. I am sure the noble Lord will reflect with satisfaction on the fact that this baton has been passed on successfully. What now remains is the important work of getting HS2 built, and I thank him for his efforts. Outside this Chamber, I thank the officials at the Department for Transport and HS2 Ltd, some of whom have been working for over five years on the preparation and passage of this hugely complex Bill, for their dedicated and conscientious efforts. I also thank our parliamentary agents, our counsel team and my private office for their help and advice in preparing the Bill and during the Select Committee phase.
Amendment to the Motion
Lord Framlingham
As an amendment to the motion that this bill do now pass, leave out “now” and insert “not”.
Lord Framlingham (Con)
My Lords, I am well aware of the gravity of the amendment I have tabled. I hope the House will understand that I have only decided to do this after long and careful consideration. I have been a Member of your Lordships’ House for six years, but I was a Member of the House of Commons for 27 years and a Deputy Speaker for 13 of those, so I am well aware of the proceedings and conventions surrounding the passage of a Bill. What we are doing today is a rare occurrence, but not without precedence and quite in order. Sometimes desperate situations require desperate remedies. In this case, your Lordships are all that stand between the wishes and welfare of the people and a folly on the greatest scale imaginable.
I have followed this issue carefully since it arrived in this House. I spoke against it at Second Reading, during the Queen’s Speech debate and in Committee. During all those stages I heard nothing but criticism of the project from every corner of the House, but noble Lords were still, for some reason, reluctant to speak against it in principle. So we arrive at the situation we face today—all the scheme’s credibility has long since gone, yet it is still bowling along with a momentum all of its own. It has been compared to Alice in Wonderland or the emperor’s new clothes. One journalist described it as the “zombie railway” that refuses to die. How has it got so far? The originators of the scheme, all those years ago, were bewitched by the idea of speed. They had looked at high-speed railways in France and Japan and thought we should do the same here, with speeds up to 250 miles per hour. This was the original motivation for the whole scheme and when the claims for speed were eventually discredited, the promoters started talking about capacity. Now that the figures on where capacity is needed most have been queried, confirming a report by Sir Rod Eddington, the former head of British Airways, there is little or nothing to be said for the scheme at all. In his report, Sir Rod also challenged the cult of speed for its own sake, pointing out that above 150 miles an hour energy use soars and rates of return plummet.
Baroness Mallalieu (Lab)
My Lords, I understand that this House will be reluctant to vote on a Bill at this stage, particularly one which has seen detailed scrutiny in both Houses—which, I have to say, was mainly directed at the line of route. However, despite all that, and despite the fact that those who served on those Select Committees devoted a considerable amount of time and that the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, has sought to be helpful and open, and indeed has been patience itself at every stage in steering the public Bill through this House, I cannot but support the amendment.
I do not live in fairyland, and I suppose that there is little realistic chance of the amendment being passed if it is pressed to a vote, because the Whips on all sides of the House are apparently intent on nodding the Bill through. However, I would see it as a failure of my position as a Member of this House if I did not speak now and vote if necessary later in opposition to the passage of the Bill.
As I have done before, I declare my interests as president of the Countryside Alliance and someone who knows personally much of the stretch of countryside between London and Birmingham which is about to be devastated, and many members of the rural communities which will be destroyed along that route. However, I am speaking today not to repeat my views on the devastating environmental damage but because there is a question which surely must be answered before the Bill—this folly—goes any further. That is, simply: does HS2 phase 1 now represent value for money? Is this the best way to spend £55.7 billion—the National Audit Office figure—of taxpayers’ money?
The project we were originally sold was to cost £30 billion in 2010—these are the Department for Transport’s own figures. By 2015, the estimate had risen to £57 billion. Independent estimates are now in the order of £80 billion, or £87 billion if it is adjusted for inflation. The estimate for both phases 1 and 2, taking this railway line on beyond Birmingham, is somewhere in the region of between £138 billion and £147 billion.
The original project was sold to us as one which would have direct trains through to Heathrow and also to the Eurostar, both of which have been ditched. The original argument was based on reducing the journey time to Birmingham by, as I recall, about 20 minutes. When, not surprisingly, that found little favour, the argument became about the need for future capacity—that is despite the urgent immediate need for capacity on trans-Pennine routes, with all the people standing like cattle on trains coming into London day after day.
The train, we were told, was going to run into central London. What is not widely understood, however, is that the present plan goes only as far as Old Oak Common station. It is planned to end there for a good seven years after phase 1 is completed—that is, seven years after the projected completion of phase 1 in 2033. The MP for the area, Sir Kier Starmer, believes it will cause “decades of blight”. The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has called for the redevelopment to be put on hold unless less disruptive plans can be made.
The cost of making the necessary acquisitions for taking the trains on into Euston with rising London property prices are frankly unquantifiable. The reality is that it is likely to be cheaper to fly than pay the fares which will have to be charged on this line. So where does the demand for this now come from? It comes from politicians who have put reputations on the line —some of them the most articulate of advocates. It comes from people who have already put money into trying to sell this project. And it comes from people who are hoping to make money, either from the construction work or from the developments around the out-of-town stations—that is, the few of them that are on the route.
Yet ex-Treasury Ministers of all colours have said that more, smaller, infrastructure projects are of greater value to the public and to the country as a whole. This project has already gone badly wrong, as a range of those who have examined it have pointed out. The Treasury Select Committee, the Public Accounts Committee and the Economic Affairs Committee of this House—as has already been mentioned—as well as the Infrastructure and Projects Authority, which only last year gave it an amber/red warning, have all cautioned that it is not likely to be on time or within budget.
The warnings are all there and senior personnel have gone very recently, including the chief executive. A financial crisis during construction, which will require major curtailing of the present plans, or a bailout, and the likelihood of there being insufficient money for phase 2 from Birmingham Northwood, are increasingly odds-on prospects.
The Prime Minister, on taking office, called in and re-examined the Hinkley Point project. She then let it proceed. This project surely must be called in to answer the question: does it still represent value for money? We keep saying, to critics of this place, that the value of this House is to hold the Government to account. If we let this through without raising our voices, we will have failed in our purpose.
Lord Young of Norwood Green (Lab)
My Lords, as someone who spent six months of my life serving on the Select Committee, I feel I have to answer some of the points that the noble Lord made, in particular that the Bill has not been scrutinised. It had two years’ scrutiny in the Commons and a further six months on every aspect imaginable. Whether concerns were about the environment, noise, or construction, every aspect of the route and its impact was carefully examined. There will always be those who argue against infrastructure expenditure, especially on the levels that we are talking about. When it started, Crossrail was by no means universally accepted, yet now it is praised to the skies as a scheme that was necessary and was delivered on budget and on time.
This is the first railway out of London in something like 120 years. Whether or not the proposal started from the point of view of increasing speed, there is a capacity argument and this project will relieve capacity. It was certainly news to me when my noble friend suggested that the trains would stop at Old Oak Common. If they do, that will be a new development. We debated that not long ago and rejected amendments to that effect from the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, and I believe that my noble friend Lord Berkeley was associated with that as well. Therefore, we examined the impact of the line very carefully. Can it be accommodated at Euston? Yes, it can. Allowances have been made for the integration of Crossrail 2 and a new classic railway station.
Thousands of jobs are dependent on this scheme. Somehow we seem to have lost the vision that we started off with in terms of what we need in infrastructure capacity. I suppose that that is not surprising when one looks at the length of time that the scheme has been under consideration. I sincerely believe that the House will recognise that this Bill has been scrutinised in great depth and that it would be a decision of great folly to follow the advice of the noble Lord, Lord Framlingham.
Lord Adonis (Non-Afl)
My Lords, this is a huge investment and the noble Lord, Lord Framlingham, need not apologise for putting down his amendment or opening this debate. Given the views that he holds, I think he is absolutely right to require the House to come to a decision after a debate and without simply proceeding straight to a vote before such an investment is made involving an important strategic departure from our transport policy.
The noble Lord and my noble friend Lady Mallalieu made two claims: first, that this project is somehow undemocratic because it has not properly been considered by Parliament and the people; and, secondly, that I and those who followed me were somehow bewitched by trains doing what they seem to do in most of the rest of the world—that is, running at 200 miles per hour and linking up the principal cities of countries with economic geographies similar to our own. Perhaps I may deal with those two points in turn.
I was responsible for publishing the Command Paper that began the process for HS2 in March 2010. I can tell the House frankly that there was a debate inside the Government at the time as to whether we should publish the Command Paper before or after the election. I can also tell the House frankly that a key factor in that discussion was whether the route should be published before the election or after it. The route had been prepared in detail by High Speed 2 (HS2) Ltd and indeed, following all the scrutiny since 2010, it has survived with hardly any variation, except for the addition of a considerable number of tunnels.
I was very firmly of the view—and the Prime Minister at the time, Gordon Brown, came to the same view—that it would be profoundly undemocratic to announce an intention to build such a major infrastructure project as HS2 knowing what the route would be but hiding it until after the election from the people and, in particular, from those who lived in the constituencies affected. So we published the route before the election.
All three major parties had a commitment to HS2 in their manifestos for the 2010 election. Because of the public meetings that I conducted in the 2010 election, I know that it was—how can I put it?—a very live issue in that election. I remember addressing one meeting where I said that I thought that HS2 would be on my tombstone and somebody from the back shouted out, “Not soon enough”. So there is no way that this scheme was disguised from the people in the 2010 election, and an overwhelming majority was returned supporting HS2.
That then led to exhaustive consideration by the House of Commons and a Select Committee of the House of Commons. There were thousands of petitions against the scheme and the Select Committee considered the Bill in detail for the best part of two years. When the House of Commons had considered the report of that committee, it voted by 399 votes to 42 in favour of the passage of the high-speed 2 Bill. After another general election, HS2 was in the manifestos of the major parties, and all the detail relating to it, including the detailed parliamentary consideration, could be considered by voters
It is hard to see how the noble Lord, Lord Framlingham, can sustain a charge of a lack of democracy in this process. It has been almost a model of democratic engagement: there have been two general elections; two parliamentary committees; thousands of petitions, which were considered patiently by members of a Select Committee in both Houses; and two votes in the House of Commons—on Second Reading and Third Reading—in which the Bill passed 10 to one, with very large numbers voting.
We now come to my bewitchment. To clear up one factual error, it has been stated that at the beginning HS2 was about trains running very fast and that it became about capacity when that argument fell apart. That is completely untrue. The opening words of the 2010 Command Paper which launched HS2 are:
“the Government’s assessment is: … That over the next 20 to 30 years the UK will require a step-change in transport capacity between its largest and most productive conurbations”,
that is, London, West Midlands, the north-west, and Yorkshire. It continues that alongside such additional capacity—let me repeat those words—
“alongside such additional capacity there are real benefits for the economy and for passengers from improving journey times and hence the connectivity of the UK”.
The argument could not have been clearer. Capacity was the first and overriding consideration. But because a new railway was being built it was clearly sensible and right that Parliament authorised it to be built with 21st-century technology not 19th-century technology, the cost difference between the two not being great in any event.
The noble Lord and my noble friend spoke as if there might be a free lunch—if we do not build HS2 we will save large sums of money. I freely confess that constructions costs are high. If someone could wave a magic wand and reduce them I would be glad to hear from them and I think the House and Parliament would be well served. The two key points in relation to the costs are these. First, if HS2 is not built then other, very expensive interventions, which will probably end up costing about the same amount of money, will be needed to systematically upgrade the west coast main line to meet the requirements of the next generation. Those upgrades will not produce anything like the capacity that could be produced by building a new railway to 21st-century specifications.
The first function I performed as Minister of State for Transport was opening the refurbished west coast main line. That line is often described as Victorian. It is in fact pre-Victorian; it was opened for the coronation of Queen Victoria in 1838. Only four miles of the line—between London and the extension north from Birmingham, built after the coronation—are straight, because it had to be built around the estates of Members of your Lordships’ House. I can assure the House that in earlier hybrid Bill Committees, noble Lords were extremely good at getting compensation for the building of the line—much greater in real terms than is available to those affected now, which is of course part of the reason that the project is controversial. They were also good at making the line take detours.
Upgrading a pre-Victorian railway is a very difficult task. It has been described to me as like performing open-heart surgery on a moving patient. It is also very expensive and complex. The completion of the last upgrade of the west coast main line, which produced only a fraction of the additional capacity that HS2 will produce, cost, in pre-2010 prices, £10 billion—in post-2010 prices that figure would be significantly higher. Of that £10 billion, £1 billion alone was for paying the railway company not to operate services at all in compensation for the disruption. For HS2, with the scale of the work that would be required, the proportionate figure would be larger still.
If an alternative scenario to HS2 were to be carried out—upgrading the existing railway—the estimate that was made for me by officials in 2010, and which has been done again since, is that you would have to spend half as much as on HS2 for a quarter of the capacity, and of course the sum is a moving target because of construction costs and inflation. The idea that this is good value for money is for the birds. It is good value for money only if the limit of our horizons for the modernisation of this country and of the transport links between our major conurbations stops in 10 or 15 years’ time. If we are doing what I regard as our job as parliamentarians—looking to the longer term—then it is very poor value for money.
I should add that the alternative scheme involved the complete rebuilding of Euston station, which will need to be done anyway. The great monstrosity that is Euston station was built for half its current capacity in the 1960s. I am glad to say, for those with a sense of history, that the Euston arch will come back when the station is rebuilt. The scheme also required hugely difficult and expensive work that would involve weeks on end of closures to realign tracks and signalling, extend platforms at all the main stations going north from Euston and so on. Those of your Lordships who used the west coast main line when the last work was being conducted will know that the disruption was chronic for the best part of a decade. We would be looking at something significantly worse than that if we were to seek to modernise the west coast main line on the scale required for the additional capacity.
It is not just the west coast main line that would be affected. In order to provide that 25% extra capacity, the Chiltern line would need to be substantially four-tracked throughout. I am not the most popular person when I appear in the Chilterns to explain the benefits of HS2. However, I can tell your Lordships that if you were to go the Chilterns to suggest that the existing railway be four-tracked, all of which goes above ground and which would have a significantly worse impact on the environment than HS2, I wish you luck in conducting those public meetings.
The choice that we faced was between building a new line between the major conurbations of the country to provide three times the existing capacity and the essential economic backbone for interchange between those great conurbations for the next generation, or conducting yet another patch and mend of a pre-Victorian railway at huge expense and offering a fraction of the capacity. I believe the decision that we took, which the coalition Government and now the existing Government have stood by, was exactly the right one, looking to the long term. The big mistake that has been made was the failure over the previous 40 years to adequately modernise the railways and, instead, to make do with patch-and-mend solutions that were hugely expensive and did not meet the exigencies of the case.
Let me make one final comment. My noble friend said that there were other pressing investment requirements for the railways, and she is correct. The London to Brighton main line, which was mentioned earlier, is one among many lines that have huge capacity constraints, and I am entirely supportive—as is the National Infrastructure Commission, which I chair—of what has been called the east-west Crossrail of the north; that is, the upgrading of the lines between Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds and Hull. But these are not choices. We can actually manage, as a country, to conduct more than one big infrastructure project at a time—most other developed countries have been managing it for the past 50 years. The idea that it should be an ambition beyond the reach of this great country that is now looking to forge a path in the world on its own as a great economy is, of course, nonsense. It is perfectly possible for us to carry through and pay for HS2 over the next 15 years, the completion of Crossrail, the next Crossrail scheme, the Crossrail of the north and other essential modernisations. What we need is proper planning, the right level of ambition and to stand by our duty to the country to see that we do not have to put up with, in the next generation, second-rate infrastructure that holds back the economy in the way that we did for too much of the post-war period. That is the issue that faces us, as a House and as Parliament. I hope that your Lordships will rise to the challenge.
Lord Rosser (Lab)
Although the amendment is listed as changing one word, it would in fact change just one letter; it would substitute “t” for “w” in the word “now”. In so doing, it seeks to consign HS2 to the dustbin.
HS2 was initiated by a Labour Government and was taken forward first by the coalition Government and then, following the general election, by the present Government. There is clearly a mandate to proceed. The Bill has been debated and considered both in this House and in the Commons and has been the subject of detailed consideration by Select Committees of both Houses. I hope that the Government will look favourably on the outstanding compensation issues that have still to be determined.
The Companion to the Standing Orders indicates that, on an amendment of this nature at this stage:
“Any remarks should be brief and should not seek to reopen debates at previous stages of the bill”.
Consequently, my remarks will be brief. First, I thank the Minister, his ministerial colleagues and the Bill team for the way in which they have dealt with the debates as the Bill has progressed through this House and for the full responses that they have sought to give to issues that have been raised both in the House and at meetings. I also thank my noble friend Lord Tunnicliffe for his most welcome and much-appreciated advice and guidance and Hannah Lazell in our office for the considerable work that she has put into the Bill, which has been of such help to me. Finally, I thank the members of your Lordships’ Select Committee, who considered the Bill in detail over some months, for their invaluable and painstaking work.
The amendment is fatal and hardly appropriate for the unelected House to pass, even more so when the Bill has already been passed in the Commons by, as the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, said, an overwhelming majority of over 350. HS2 will bring a major and much- needed addition to this country’s transport infrastructure, including relieving the increasing pressure on the west coast main line—an issue that has to be addressed and cannot just be ignored and waved away. The pros and cons of HS2 have been considered and debated for a number of years. Inevitably, there will be some who will never feel able to agree to it, but the time has now come to make a decision. That decision must be to proceed. We can do that now by ensuring that the amendment, if put to a vote, is defeated and that the substantive Motion that this Bill do now pass is agreed.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have spoken in the debate. I recognise the strength of feeling expressed by my noble friend in raising this issue. Indeed, I met him again only yesterday to see whether we could allay some of his concerns. I do not share the experience that he cited of the passage of the Bill in your Lordships’ House; I am sure that most noble Lords across the House share my sentiment. Several noble Lords have rightly, at various stages of the Bill’s passage, challenged aspects of cost and detail, but—I look across the House to the noble Lords, Lord Berkeley and Lord Bradshaw—they made it clear that, while challenging key aspects of the construction of HS2, they did so with the understanding and absolute assurance that they were committed to the project.
The noble Lord, Lord Adonis, clearly articulated the benefits of HS2 and I thank him for putting the whole project into context and correcting some of the history of railways in our great country. He talked about the time pre-1838, before Queen Victoria’s coronation. I am surprised that the noble Lord, Lord West, is no longer in his place, but I am sure that he made a particular note of that.
My noble friend Lord Framlingham rightly raised the issue of costs and the control of costs. It is right that your Lordships’ House challenges the basic element of costs. However, given the recent experiences of infrastructure projects and the intense debates, discussions and scrutiny in Select Committees of both Houses on the Bill, it was very clear that that issue would be addressed. Noble Lords from across the House quoted the positive nature of projects such as Crossrail that are running to time and budget. The noble Lord, Lord Adonis, talked about the brave new world in which our country finds itself. It is projects such as Crossrail that we are taking to the world to showcase the best of British engineering, supply chains and apprenticeships. I believe earnestly that HS2 provides opportunities of this magnitude. For example, the training facilities associated with the skills element of the HS2 project are an important legacy of any infrastructure project.
I assure my noble friend again that the scrutiny of costs will not only be internal. As I am sure he is aware, the Commons Public Accounts Committee and the National Audit Office have already produced several reports on the costs of HS2, which are publicly available. These bodies will continue to examine the cost of HS2 as we move forward and as more detailed costs on the project become available.
I am mindful not to detain your Lordships’ House longer than necessary. It is important that this project is supported across your Lordships’ House, as it is in the other place. My noble friend Lord Framlingham raised the issue of the CBI and the BCC. They are fully supportive of HS2 and have gone on record to say that the additional capacity it will create is vital.
We have debated, discussed and scrutinised this Bill and this project in the true traditions of parliamentary democracy. In closing I again pay tribute to the incredible work that the Select Committees of both Houses have done. My noble friend has been a Member of both Houses and is testament to the incredible work that Select Committees do in scrutinising petitions to ensure that, whoever the petitioner is, their voice is heard, considered and validated. If valid concerns are raised, Bills and projects can be amended—and the same is true of HS2. If you look at the course of the Bill and its progress through your Lordships’ House—I commend the Select Committee analysis of the various petitions—you will see the detailed scrutiny, analysis and recommendations of your Lordships’ Select Committee, all of which the Government have accepted. As I said, there were differences of opinion and we have sought to resolve them. I thank all noble Lords who worked on a constructive basis in that sense.
As I said to my noble friend, both in your Lordships’ House and in other meetings we have held, I appreciate that he has been consistent in his position in opposing this project. However, we have addressed and scrutinised this issue and the project and we have put in place the checks and balances necessary to ensure that the cost implications of the project have been fully considered and will continue to be so. I implore my noble friend, even at this late stage, to consider carefully the responses I have given and the valid processes, checks and balances that we have put in place. As we have heard, this project is not only necessary for investment in our railways but is important to ensure connectivity, capacity and that our country is truly a 21st century country on the world stage.
My noble friend has made his consistent position absolutely clear. He knows that I have respected his position throughout the process, as I assured him again yesterday. However, when he reflects on the debate this afternoon, the other debates and scrutiny that have taken place and the assurances that the Government have given, I hope he will be minded to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Framlingham
My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for his words. He has been diligent and gracious throughout. He asks me to reflect on my words and my actions today. I have done little else for quite a few days now and I would not have done what I have done unless I really believed it was the right thing to do—for me, for this House and for the country.
I hope that noble Lords in the House will be sure, when they leave the House, go outside and talk to other people, that they have done the right thing today. This is going to last for at least 10 years. I do not want to rehearse all of the arguments again, because I can pretty well tell when the House has had enough, and I am not going to refute all the arguments—although I could. I understand why other people want to put their points of view, and I am grateful to the Minister and particularly grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Mallalieu, for supporting me so well and being very much a kindred spirit in this. There are more of us around than I think anybody really appreciates. I say to the House, with all sincerity, that I have heard nothing this afternoon that makes me change my view that the HS2 project is fatally flawed and should not be given the blessing of your Lordships’ House. I want to test the opinion of the House. I beg to move.
Royal Assent
Thursday 23rd February 2017
(7 years, 9 months ago)
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