Point of Order
Monday 17th July 2017
(7 years, 4 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)
I seek your guidance, Mr Speaker. On Friday, I was meant to meet the hard-working staff of Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service in Bennett House in my constituency. Bennett House is leased by the Ministry of Justice and is scheduled for closure, and I was meeting staff who have concerns about those plans in my capacity as the local Member of Parliament. The meeting had to be moved, as MOJ officials informed staff that I would not be allowed on site, and that if I tried to get on site I would be prevented from doing so. I seek your guidance on how best I can raise this matter with the Ministry of Justice, and seek to ensure that other Members of Parliament are uninhibited by the Ministry in going about their constituency duties.
Mr Speaker
If the hon. Gentleman—a new, or new-ish, Member of the House—is alleging a breach of privilege, that is properly raised with me in writing. I would then in turn address the matter in writing. However, as he has not specifically used that term or made that allegation, but complained of what might be called—in his mind, certainly—an unreasonable prevention, or some sort of let or hindrance, this is not strictly a point of order for me as Chair of the House. That said, I am rather concerned to hear that a Government Department has prevented his access to a Government building in his constituency. The hon. Gentleman has made his concern clear, and it is on the record. This is ultimately a matter for Ministers to determine, but let me say without fear of contradiction and very explicitly that this is pretty obviously an unhelpful attitude on the part of a Government Department, and I would hope that a Minister would direct the Department not to obstruct a Member going about constituency business in that way.
Bill Presented
High Speed Rail (West Midlands - Crewe) Bill
Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)
Secretary Grayling, supported by the Prime Minister, Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Secretary Greg Clark, Secretary Michael Gove, Secretary David Mundell and Secretary Alun Cairns, presented a Bill to make provision for a railway between a junction with Phase One of High Speed 2, near Fradley Wood in Staffordshire, and a junction with the West Coast Main Line near Crewe in Cheshire; and for connected purposes.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time tomorrow, and to be printed (Bill 6) with explanatory notes (Bill 6-EN).
High Speed Rail (West Midlands - Crewe) Bill
Tuesday 30th January 2018
(6 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
18:59 - The House divided: - Ayes: 295 / Noes: 12 - Question accordingly agreed to.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
I inform the House that the amendment has been selected.
The Secretary of State for Transport (Chris Grayling)
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
It is four years since my predecessor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire Dales (Sir Patrick McLoughlin), stood at this Dispatch Box to seek powers for a new railway line between London and the north, the first new major railway line north of London for 120 years. At that time, it was simply a concept—an important one but one that seemed a long way off. We have come a long way since. In February 2017, Parliament granted powers to construct phase 1 of the scheme, from London to the west midlands, and works on part of this route have now begun. This project is now a developing reality. We came a step closer to an operating railway when we announced the shortlist of companies that will bid for the west coast partnership and design, launch and operate the early passenger services on HS2.
This vital new rail capacity project, under construction from London to Birmingham, is only the first part of the project. We need to deliver capacity to our northern cities and bring our country closer together. I am pleased to stand here today, therefore, to start the next phase of this vital project. Phase 2a extends HS2 from the west midlands to Crewe. The first stage of the new line, which will take the midlands engine through to the northern powerhouse, connecting the two together, will accelerate construction of the first section of phase 2 by six years and bring us a step closer to delivering a complete brand-new high-speed line all the way to Manchester. That is the importance of today’s debate. It is this link that will take the railway line towards Manchester—finally to one of our great cities and industrial centres of the north-west.
Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)
As the Secretary of State will be aware, the statement of funding policy that accompanied the last comprehensive spending review awarded to Wales a 0% Barnett consequential rating for HS2, whereas Scotland and Northern Ireland both had 100%. Unless he can assure the House that Wales will get a 100% rating in the next CSR, my colleagues and I will have no option but to vote against the Bill this evening.
Chris Grayling
If the House does not support the Bill, the Crewe hub and the links to north Wales that it will provide will be simply an illusion, so the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues would be doing down Wales, which would be surprising—though, of course, it is typically Conservative Members who are the real champions of Wales. We will continue to ensure we provide the right connections to Wales.
Dame Cheryl Gillan (Chesham and Amersham) (Con)
I thank the Secretary of State for giving way so early in his speech, and I ask him to forgive me as I may not be able to be here for its entirety because I have other duties outside the Chamber, but I hope to return. He says he is very proud of this new railway the Government are building, but can he explain why he is building a railway with old technology? Back in 2015, the Japanese beat all their records with a Maglev train, whereas we appear to be building something from the last century, not something for the future.
Chris Grayling
It is interesting. I have travelled on the Maglev line in development in Japan. It is a project that has a role to play in the Japanese transport system, but, having studied it at first hand, I do not believe it is the right project for this country, and nor do I believe it could deliver the level of capacity that HS2 will. HS2, of course, is a capacity project that brings with it speed, not the other way around, and that is what our transport system needs more than anything else. It is crucial, too, to the development of the north of England, which has a population of more than 15 million and over 1 million businesses, and which has exports worth upwards of £50 billion. The north of England makes a huge contribution to the success and prosperity of this country, but it needs strong and effective new transport links, and this project will be an important part of that, which is why it is so important to the whole UK.
Dame Cheryl Gillan
The Secretary of State says this is now about capacity, but please can he not change history? When this was first proposed, including the route through my constituency, it was all about speed; otherwise it would not have been allowed to travel on a route that will cause so much environmental damage.
Chris Grayling
My right hon. Friend will know that I have been consistent all the way through in talking about this as a capacity project. I know that she and I are on different sides of the argument, but, from the time I was shadow Transport Secretary a decade ago, I have always talked about this improvement in terms of capacity, and I will continue to do so, because that is the most important part of it. We can debate the rights and wrongs, but I believe it is a capacity project—the speed is a bonus. I do not believe in building something with old technology—we should have a state-of-the-art railway—but the big difference this will make will be to capacity.
Mrs Louise Ellman (Liverpool, Riverside) (Lab/Co-op)
I welcome the Bill, but I note that the Minister referred to connecting the west midlands to HS2. What about the northern powerhouse and Liverpool’s connection to the new high-speed line?
Chris Grayling
I did mention the northern powerhouse. In terms of Liverpool, which, as the hon. Lady knows, is a city I have great affection for, as we move beyond the Bill and develop northern powerhouse rail and integrate what needs to be done in the north with the north-south routes and HS2, I believe that all the great cities of the north—Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, Newcastle, York, Hull—will benefit, as indeed will places further north, such as Carlisle and Scotland. I will come back to Scotland in a moment.
Sir Kevin Barron (Rother Valley) (Lab)
If that is the case and Ministers are concerned for the north, why has electrification between cities in the north been cancelled?
Chris Grayling
As I have said many times in the House, we are delivering a process of modernisation on the midland main line that will transform journey times and deliver much improved rolling stock and brand-new trains much sooner. Our proposed model will deliver the improvements people want in the early 2020s, which is sooner than any other project would have done.
Anna Soubry (Broxtowe) (Con)
I am grateful to the Secretary of State for giving way; he is being very generous so early in his speech. I agree with him: it is about capacity. We cannot have an effective, modern society unless we have capacity, and we have to have good infrastructure, which means connectivity. Would he therefore consider advancing the Government’s excellent plans for HS2 by bringing on the other piece of the Y to Leeds? I believe that people throughout the whole of the east midlands support HS2, and we want it as soon as possible, please, especially at Toton in Broxtowe.
Chris Grayling
I absolutely agree with my right hon. Friend. Toton is going to be a fantastic centre in the east midlands for commercial development—transport and residential—whose benefits will ripple out across the area and have a hugely positive effect on the whole of the east midlands. I understand her point. We are working as fast as we can to bring before the House the powers we need for the east midlands and Yorkshire leg. I want to get it right—there are sensitivities on the route, as she will know—and I have travelled much of the route myself and looked at the issues as and when they arrive. We will do everything we can to minimise the impact on residents—I understand that such major projects have a negative effect on some people—but I assure her that we will bring the measure for the rest of the route before the House as soon as we can.
I have talked a bit about the north. Let me now talk about Scotland, because I want it to benefit from HS2 on the day it opens. When the full Y network opens in 2033, HS2 trains will run seamlessly on to the west and east coast main lines from the network that is then built. My Department and Transport Scotland are working closely with Network Rail in looking at options that will go beyond HS2. We want to identify options for strong business cases that can improve journey times, capacity, resilience and reliability. Our ultimate ambition is for three-hour rail journeys between London and Scotland’s central belt—a further strengthening of the Union that we all hold so dear. That, I think, is the point: HS2 will be a transformative project for the entire United Kingdom, including the parts that it does not serve directly. The benefits in terms of job creation, business opportunity and technological development will be enormous for the whole country.
Andrew Jones (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (Con)
I strongly support the Bill, and agree with my right hon. Friend’s comments about capacity in our rail network and the positive impact that HS2 will have on our northern economy. Can he tell us a little more about the impact on job creation in the north and elsewhere outside London?
Chris Grayling
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for the work that he has done on this project. He has been a very distinguished Transport Minister. He has not only made a major contribution to its development, but has been immensely sensitive in dealing with residents. He should take great credit for that.
The point about jobs is crucial. Our industrial strategy sets out a vision of a Britain that is confident and competitive, a global trading nation that is in charge of its own destiny, and HS2 can play a big part in that. Last year we announced which train builders were vying for the £2.75 billion to deliver Britain’s state-of-the-art high-speed trains. That investment alone will create many opportunities in this country.
I have said previously that during the procurement process, as we pick the organisations that will build these trains, it must be clear that they will have to leave a substantial skills and technology footprint in this country. We will not countenance trains being built in another part of the world, put on a ship and delivered to the UK, with no benefit at all to the UK itself. This project will have a lasting impact. Indeed, the whole construction of this railway will create jobs, careers, technologies and expertise that will last a new generation of engineers for a lifetime. That is another reason why it is so crucial.
Michelle Donelan (Chippenham) (Con)
Siemens in my constituency has been shortlisted to provide the signalling for HS2, and Chippenham hopes to benefit from the fact that 70% of the new jobs will be outside London. Does my right hon. Friend agree that this project has the potential to benefit the south-west as well?
Chris Grayling
My hon. Friend is right, and I am delighted that Siemens has been shortlisted for that work. I want as much of the work as possible to be done in the United Kingdom, so that we can develop that skills footprint, developing those young apprentices and developing the engineering skills that we need for the future. That must happen throughout the United Kingdom: south-west, north-east, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales, south-east, midlands, the north and East Anglia. I want to see jobs and opportunities for British businesses, and businesses based in Britain.
Sir Patrick McLoughlin (Derbyshire Dales) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that we have Crossrail as a model? It is being finalised this year, and will be operating next year. That project was built on the use of suppliers in the United Kingdom, and the spread of its supply network throughout the UK. Although it was a London project, many parts of the country have benefited from it. What HS2 is doing is the natural follow-through from what Crossrail did.
Chris Grayling
Absolutely. Crossrail may be a project for transport in London, but it is also a project for engineering and industry in the United Kingdom as a whole. It brings benefits to all parts of the United Kingdom, and HS2 will bring benefits to all parts of the United Kingdom. Northern Powerhouse Rail, when it is built, will bring benefits in southern as well as northern England, and, indeed, throughout the United Kingdom. The more that we invest in these projects, the more economic benefits we will deliver across the UK.
Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)
May I ask my right hon. Friend not to take his eye off a distant ball, which is the future of the west coast main line after HS2 is constructed? More than 44 stations on that line will not be served by HS2. It is very important for passenger traffic to be maintained on the west coast main line, and to ensure that it is not used just for freight traffic.
Chris Grayling
My hon. Friend is right. As one who has sailed through his local station many times, on Pendolino trains, I believe that we can and should do better at such intermediate stations. We should provide better commuter links to Birmingham and to towns such as Northampton and Milton Keynes, and we should provide better links within the Trent valley—from Nuneaton to Lichfield, and up to Stafford. We will be able to do all those things to a greater degree in the future. Yes, there will be a freight benefit. We all want a freight benefit, because we want fewer trucks on the M6 and the M1, but the fact is that we can do both. Creating that extra capacity on HS2, or via HS2, is, to my mind, its great benefit. It will of course be a fast, state-of-the-art railway, but first and foremost it is about giving our transport system the capacity that it will need to enable us to grow in the future.
I know that there are people for whom this project is bad news. There are people who are affected by the routes, many of whom are in my hon. Friend’s constituency. I genuinely wish it were possible—I am sure that Members in all parts of the House wish it were possible—to deliver infrastructure improvements like this without human consequences, but it is not possible. What we must do is try to treat those people decently.
HS2 has not always got it right, and we will not always get it right, but I give the House today an assurance that I have given it before: when an injustice is being done, we will do everything we can as a ministerial team to sort it out. Members need only come to us and say, “This is unfair”, and we will look at it. Indeed, I have already done so in places up and down the route, and I will continue to do so, particularly in respect of this part of the project. A number of constituencies on the route from the Trent valley up to Crewe are affected. As the two Ministers responsible, the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Wealden (Ms Ghani), and I will happily talk to colleagues during this process. There will, of course, be many opportunities for them to make representations about the impacts to the Committee, assuming that the Bill is given a Second Reading today.
Maggie Throup (Erewash) (Con)
I appreciate what my right hon. Friend is saying today. We have also had many conversations about the ways in which some of my constituents are affected. That has been going on since 2013. We may get there in the end with compensation and agreements, but the problem is that it takes so long—far too long for some people. Some of my constituents are very elderly, and some are quite ill. Can my right hon. Friend reassure me, and my constituents, that we can improve the process?
Chris Grayling
I absolutely give my hon. Friend that assurance. There are processes that we must rightly follow to protect public money, but there are exceptions that always step outside what is planned. Part of the job that we have, as Ministers, is to ensure that when those exceptions arise—and I know that there are two in my hon. Friend’s constituency, which she and I have been talking about—we must resolve them before we reach a point at which those people are suffering in their lives. We are a little bit of time away from the phase 2 Bill and the process involved in phase 2b. As I have said to my hon. Friend and to other Members, we will try to sort out those exceptions so that people do not suffer inappropriately. I will continue to work with my hon. Friend to try to resolve the situation.
Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)
While the Secretary of State is handing out assurances, may I, on behalf of the people of Stoke-on-Trent, ask for an assurance that the existing direct and frequent services from Stoke-on-Trent to London, Birmingham and Manchester on the west coast main line will in no way be diminished or reduced as a result of HS2 taking up some of the capacity through the classic compatible services?
Chris Grayling
As the hon. Gentleman will know—and I have given this assurance to my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Jack Brereton)— I am acutely aware of the issues in Stoke-on-Trent. I want to ensure not only that the high-quality service that it deserves is protected, but that HS2 trains run through it, which is also what it deserves. I have given that clear commitment to the people of Stoke. I want them to have a first-rate rail service, and HS2 will make it possible for them to have an even better rail service than they have at present.
Let me say more about the affected communities. Last week we announced an additional £5 million for communities and businesses that are disrupted by the construction of phase 2a, which can be spent on public projects, community centres and so forth. That will add to what we have already committed in terms of the mitigation and compensation in place, and we will carry on looking at ways in which we can minimise the impact on local people and the areas affected.
Rebecca Pow (Taunton Deane) (Con)
I am totally in favour of the project, as train travel is environmentally friendly because it gets people out of their cars and on to trains. But will the Secretary of State reflect on the potential loss of ancient woodland because of HS2, and whether consideration might be given, where possible, to using tunnels so that we keep these wonderful, magnificent trees? We have only 2% of them left in the whole country. Will we consider doing this? If not, and if there is unavoidable loss, could we consider 30% amelioration, as recommended by Natural England, rather than the figures bandied about today?
Chris Grayling
I am very well aware of the potential impact on ancient woodland. We have already made changes to the design of the project to try to mitigate that impact, and there is an absolute commitment to look to plant afresh and to develop environmental measures to compensate for any loss of woodland. Also, there are some exciting potential projects on the route that can enhance the natural environment at the same time as we are having to make changes elsewhere. I assure my hon. Friend that we are very sensitive to the issue she mentions, and we will do our best to make this project in as environmentally friendly a way as possible. We cannot build something new like this across the whole country without having some impacts, but we can try to mitigate them and put money into positive alternatives. That is what we are committed to, and that is what we will do.
This is a step on the way towards creating a 21st century new rail network: phase 1 to Birmingham, phase 2a to Crewe, eventually phase 2b to Manchester and Leeds, and then across the top with Northern Powerhouse Rail, and then, through that, the connections to the north-east, which the shadow Secretary of State will hold dear, to Scotland—colleagues on both sides of the House representing Scottish constituencies are keen to see that connection put in place—and into north Wales through the Crewe hub that we are working on at the moment.
This project will provide the capacity our transport system needs in the 21st century. It will deliver better journey times and, particularly importantly, much better connections between our northern cities—Birmingham, Sheffield, Leeds—where there are poor connections at the moment; this will make a huge difference to them. But above all this is about making sure this country has a 21st century transport system. I hope the project commands support across the House. I know that some Members have issues both about the principles of the project and constituency impacts. To those with constituency impacts I simply say again that we will do our best to minimise those and to work as closely as possible with them to make sure that people who are affected are treated as decently as possible.
This Bill is enormously important to this House, to the future of this country, to our nation, to strengthening our Union, and to delivering economic growth across the whole country, and I very much hope that this House will give it its support today.
Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)
I am pleased to stand here today to support a project which was instigated by the last Labour Government. National infrastructure investment is too important to be left to the vagaries of the election cycle. It is to the Government’s credit that they have continued to back both HS2 and Crossrail since 2010. Labour has always maintained that HS2 must be built as a network rather than a standalone piece of infrastructure. It is this approach which will deliver the maximum economic benefits. Both main parties can agree that HS2 is about more than transport. High-speed rail is about unlocking the economic potential of the north and the midlands. It will drive a rebalancing of the UK economy by improving connectivity between the north and south.
Michael Fabricant
The hon. Gentleman talked about HS2 being an integrated network, but one of my criticisms of HS2 is that it is far from integrated. The original plan was for it to go direct down through the channel tunnel and into continental Europe and I can give other examples—I will probably will do so in my speech—but this is far from integrated: it is stand-alone, meets at Crewe and does not actually go into Birmingham New Street. Why is this?
Andy McDonald
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that intervention, and it is key that HS2 integrates. We have just heard words from the Secretary of State about the need to ensure that it does connect with our northern cities, but we are yet to see those plans unfurl. We have heard about Transport for the North’s aspirations, but this cannot be a stand-alone project; it is essential that it links into our great towns and cities throughout the nation.
Linking the great cities of the north and midlands is equally important and will bring much-needed economic benefits to those regions. Labour supports the nearly 30,000 jobs the construction of HS2 will deliver and the huge uplift it will give to apprenticeships and training, particularly outside London. It is not too early to consider how we will retain and develop those skills in the future in other infrastructure projects both at home and abroad. I would be interested in any comments the Secretary of State has on this point, particularly with regard to Northern Powerhouse Rail and Crossrail.
I also make a plea that we must not repeat the catastrophe of the Carillion experience with apprentices. Apprentices in my constituency are being left flapping in the wind, not knowing whether they are going to be paid. We hear today that their employment will come to an end at the end of this month. It is a disgrace that £6.5 million of public money has gone into an apprenticeship programme that leaves our apprentices short of their qualifications and without employment. The Government should intervene now to guarantee that those apprentices will receive that assurance from this Government today.
Chris Grayling
I am grateful to the shadow Secretary of State for giving way, and he and I share that view. I can assure him that, on the HS2 project, the apprentices who were employed by Carillion are migrating to work for Kier and those employed by Carillion have been moved on to the project with the other two partners. So not only should there be no hiatus in the work taking place, but, more importantly, the people on those projects are moving to different companies involved in them. There are obviously some very difficult circumstances elsewhere as a consequence of the collapse of Carillion, but I have been very keen with this project to make sure we have the seamless transition we contracted for last summer, and I am delighted to see the apprentices move on in a way that enables them to carry on with their apprenticeships.
Andy McDonald
I am grateful for that reassurance in the context of these projects, but I am particularly concerned about these apprentices in the here-and-now; there are 100 out of the 1,400 who have been prejudiced in my community and we want to see this Government respond by coming to the table and making sure those young people have a future. It is difficult enough to encourage people into these industries in the first instance without leaving them high and dry, as has happened on this occasion.
I welcome the commitments contained in HS2’s environmental principles. It is imperative that environmental standards and air quality are at the forefront of the project. Many of the arguments about why we need HS2, and why we do not, have been well rehearsed in this House over many years: passenger rail numbers have doubled since 1995; rail freight has grown by two thirds over the same period; and the existing network has been operating at full capacity for years. No amount of timetable-tinkering can change this; I trust that all Members are in agreement about that.
Although it is important to maintain our vital road network, there is an urgent need to secure modal shift across transport: we cannot build our way out of congestion on our roads, and we must be watchful about the sustainability of domestic air travel. In addition, we face the prospect of the population of Britain reaching 70 million by the end of the decade. So the question is: how are we going to move our people around our nation? It is no exaggeration to say that the very economic and social livelihood of this country is at stake. Our capacity to move people by rail and bus is therefore crucial.
Mr Robert Goodwill (Scarborough and Whitby) (Con)
Given those circumstances and the pressure on the system, does the hon. Gentleman agree that the last thing this country needs is the nationalisation of our rail system?
Andy McDonald
I am grateful to the former Minister for his intervention. If he will be patient for just a few more minutes, I will happily address that point in full detail.
I was proud that Labour forced the Government to introduce much tougher reporting on HS2 spending through an amendment to the High Speed Rail (Preparation) Act 2013 before the previous Bill came to the House in 2014. I pay tribute to my predecessors, my hon. Friends the Members for Wakefield (Mary Creagh) and for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood), in that respect. We also amended that Bill to improve integration with existing transport networks and the specific reporting of the jobs and skills created by the project.
Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)
I do not want to digress too much, but this is all relevant. We only need an incident on the west coast main line for everything to stop, and that certainly needs to be looked at. Also, I have constituents who will not qualify for compensation as a result of this project.
Andy McDonald
One of the main points about this project is that it will allow us to build resilience into the network. That is not an either/or; this is not simply about building HS2. My hon. Friend is right say that we need to build greater resilience into our network. On the point about compensation arrangements, it has been noted on both sides of the House that we need to ensure that proper compensation is paid. These are really sensitive issues, and people should not be left wondering whether compensation arrangements will come forward. My hon. Friend is right about that as well.
I am keen to hear the Minister’s views on striking the right balance between HS2 services and freight on the parts of the network where high-speed trains will run on conventional tracks. HS2, the Department for Transport and Network Rail need to resolve the important concerns that are being expressed by freight operators. Elsewhere, there are significant questions to be answered about how the new high-speed railway will integrate with the existing rail network. During the Second Reading debate in 2014, the previous Secretary of State for Transport boasted that
“upgrading Britain’s rail infrastructure is a key part of this Government’s long-term economic plan”.—[Official Report, 28 April 2014; Vol. 579, c. 567.]
He also said:
“we will be electrifying more than 800 miles of line throughout the country”.—[Official Report, 28 April 2014; Vol. 579, c. 561.]
It is quite clear that the Government have broken those promises over the past four years. They made commitments on rail ahead of the 2015 general election, only to break them days later. The reality is that the last two Transport Secretaries have cut upgrades to rail infrastructure and cancelled the electrification of rail lines. Of course, HS2 is but one piece of the jigsaw. I am therefore concerned that if the other pieces are not right, the whole thing will not fit together properly.
The current Secretary of State for Transport came to the House in November to announce his strategic vision for rail. The problem was that his plan was neither strategic nor visionary. It was a smokescreen to cover up a blatant multibillion pound bail-out of the east coast main line franchise. It is clear to passengers and taxpayers that this Government are defending a broken franchising system. Under this Government, protecting private companies comes before the public interest. Giving Carillion a contract for HS2 last July while that company was imploding was an appalling decision, and the Minister’s legal justifications for that decision were risible. His bail-out of Stagecoach-Virgin on the east coast was yet another serious misjudgement in which his dogma won out over pragmatism and common sense.
Mr Bob Seely (Isle of Wight) (Con)
I think the hon. Gentleman has wandered into the wrong debate. We are talking about HS2, not about Carillion. Can we stick to the subject, please?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Order. That is a matter for me, actually.
Andy McDonald
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. The hon. Gentleman will find out what HS2 has to do with the east coast and west coast main lines if he can be patient just a little longer.
The Secretary of State’s promised east coast partnership between track and train by 2020 is unworkable and undeliverable. No one in the rail industry believes that it is actually going to happen. Another of his pet projects is the west coast project—perhaps the hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr Seely) will want to pay attention to this—which is going to be awarded later this year. The winner of that contract will run services on the west coast main line and oversee the introduction of HS2 services. The Government have a track record of accepting bids from the private sector that are either too high or too low, and the Department for Transport has proved unable to manage such projects. Given that the Secretary of State has been found wanting so often, what makes him think that his west coast partnership will work any better than his east coast partnership?
High Speed 2 will be the jewel in the crown of Britain’s rail network when it begins operations in the next decade. It will be a shining example of Britain’s capability and talent, and it will encapsulate our technological and engineering prowess. However, I can tell the Secretary of State that there will be uproar across the land, should this piece of the family silver be handed over to Virgin Trains, Stagecoach or others of their ilk. I can tell the House today that there will be no gift of HS2 to Richard Branson or Brian Souter under the next Labour Government. HS2 will be built with public money and it will stay in public ownership.
Sir Patrick McLoughlin (Derbyshire Dales) (Con)
I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State on bringing forward this Bill. I also congratulate all those people in the Department for Transport and in HS2 who are working to finalise these proposals. It is a pleasure to follow the shadow Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Middlesbrough (Andy McDonald), although I think he slightly spoiled his speech by going off piste and talking about electrification. We will take no lessons from Labour on electrification, given its record between 1997 and 2010, during which time it electrified 10 miles of railway. I would like to say that that was a snail’s pace, but I think that a snail would have travelled further in 13 years than Labour did with its electrification.
Andy McDonald
The former Secretary of State seems to have totally forgotten the 67 miles of HS1 that were electrified then. Those 67 plus 10 miles add up to a lot more than this Government have ever electrified.
Sir Patrick McLoughlin
I think that HS1 was operating before Labour came into government.
Sir Patrick McLoughlin
If the hon. Gentleman will allow me, I will make some progress.
It is right to say that we have seen a renaissance on our railways since privatisation, and that renaissance continued under the last Labour Government. Indeed, in their 13 years in government, they did not seek to change the franchising at all. They felt that that was the best way to operate the railways. We had the private sector and the public sector involved, and we saw our railways improve tremendously. If we get to a situation—I hope we do not—of the railways going back to a fully nationalised body, what happened in the ’60s and ’70s will happen again. Rail was always at the back of the queue for investment. Hospitals and education took priority; the railways were left without any priority whatsoever. There is no doubt in my mind that privatisation has led to the rejuvenation of the rail industry, and so much so that passenger numbers have increased from something like 700 million to some 1.6 billion, which speaks for itself.
I am pleased that the Bill has been introduced. David Higgins recommended that we should try to bring the investment and benefits of HS2 more quickly to the north. Should this Bill get its Second Reading today, it is worth remembering that we will see high-speed services to Crewe by 2027. In infrastructure terms, and given the necessary planning, that is not that far away, so I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State on bringing the Bill forward.
I know that the Government are well aware of this, but I want to talk about the importance of continuing to develop skills in engineering. The National College for High Speed Rail, which is based in Doncaster and Birmingham, will enable people to get the engineering skills that are so important. All that follows on from the remarkable Crossrail project, which will start to open to the public later this year. We saw such skills in the television programmes covering its development across London.
This important Bill is about capacity. There are those who say that the Department for Transport and its Secretaries of State have changed their mind and that they talk about capacity more than speed, but the very first HS2 document that was published referred to capacity, too. The west coast main line is one of the busiest lines in Europe, if not the busiest. We need a massive injection of infrastructure, and this Bill is the answer
Mr Jim Cunningham
The right hon. Gentleman is quite right that we want to speed things up and that the west coast main line is very busy, but to go back to the point that I made to my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough (Andy McDonald), what are we going to do about the bottlenecks? There were cancellations yesterday, and there only has to be one incident for everything to stop. That affects freight as much as anything else.
Sir Patrick McLoughlin
I completely accept that, but the simple fact is that that is one of the reasons for the new line. We want resilience, alternatives and something that is much more modern. We have spent a fortune on upgrading the west coast main line from Birmingham up to Manchester, although I understand that we did not carry out any upgrade south of Rugby. The upgrade was essential, and if the then Government had been a bit more forward thinking, they could have built a new high-speed line then rather than doing an upgrade.
An upgrade has been undertaken, however, and it is very visible near Lichfield, for example, where the bridge has been changed as the line goes through Armitage to accommodate four tracks instead of two. There has been a huge amount of investment in the west coast main line, and that answers the question asked by the hon. Member for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham) with regard to the need for greater capacity, more alternatives, and the modern engineering that we will get from HS2. I cannot remember the exact year, but there was a time a few years ago when every single railway line in the country had problems because of weather disruption apart from HS1, which was built to a high specification with modern engineering.
Anna Soubry
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for giving way and for his excellent speech. Does he agree that capacity and speed are not mutually exclusive? Not only will we get a world-class new line to deliver new capacity, but we are improving our existing lines. With that in mind, will he confirm how much is about to be invested in the new signalling programme in Derby, a place he knows very well?
Sir Patrick McLoughlin
More than £200 million is being spent in Derby on re-signalling and a new platform to ensure that London trains no longer have to cross the lines going to other parts of the country, thereby enabling those trains to go straight through on the main line. That is the kind of investment that is already happening in our railways up and down the country. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has been successful in securing extra investment not just for HS2, but for all the other railway lines that so badly need the kind of upgrades that we will see in Derby. We will no doubt complain when the station has to be closed for a period over the summer, but such a thing is inevitable if we are to achieve such overall benefit. We saw something similar just a few years ago at Nottingham station.
Mr Seely
My right hon. Friend speaks eloquently about busyness, capacity and bottlenecks on the west coast main line. Does he have anything to say about the south and south-west rail routes into London? Those routes are busier and have more capacity problems than many northern routes, but they will be unaffected by HS2 and might have their funding skewed because of it.
Sir Patrick McLoughlin
I do not think that that is the case, but there is nobody better than the Secretary of State to answer those points. The tremendous investment at Reading station has improved the whole network to the south-west. The investment at that station alone was in the region of £800 million or £900 million. Extra flyovers were put in to improve capacity down to the south-west.
Rachel Maclean (Redditch) (Con)
The improvement in overall capacity is brilliant for the people we represent in towns such as Redditch that are outside the major conurbations. The improved capacity will create an opportunity for more services from Redditch to Birmingham for commuting and jobs.
Sir Patrick McLoughlin
My hon. Friend is right that HS2 will free up a lot of capacity that is currently used not for local services, but for services from London to Birmingham and on to Manchester. That is one of the answers provided by HS2.
Gareth Snell
I thank the former Secretary of State for giving way. What does he think will be the extra capacity for commuter services around Staffordshire? There are no additional plans for commuter services under the proposals. There is no additional infrastructure, other than the HS2 route itself, so there is no immediate benefit.
Sir Patrick McLoughlin
Perhaps the hon. Gentleman wants us to have a detailed timetable for 10 years’ time, but extra capacity will become available for new services. I believe that Stoke-on-Trent will benefit greatly from HS2 because of its link, its service and its closeness to Crewe. We then have to improve some of the road structures in and around Stoke-on-Trent so that people can receive the benefit. That will represent far more investment than Stoke-on-Trent saw in any year under a Labour Government, so we can be rightly proud of what we are doing.
I fully accept—my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State addressed this—that any big infrastructure project will always lead to certain people being inconvenienced. If there were a way of ensuring that people would not be inconvenienced, we would all move for it. I am afraid that inconvenience is inevitable. It is worth remembering that the first time a railway was proposed between Birmingham and London, the idea was defeated in the House of Commons because everybody said that the canals were perfectly adequate. That was part of the problem with the west coast main line, and it is why certain diversions were built into it.
The line from the west midlands to Crewe will be of significant benefit to transport infrastructure in this country, the United Kingdom as a whole and our cities outside London by creating connectivity not just between London and our cities, but between those cities. The line is important, and it is moving in the right direction. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State on this proposal.
Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)
As we look at the current Secretary of State for Transport and his predecessors around him on the Conservative Benches, it is like old times.
The Scottish National party supports the development of the HS2 project, which we have discussed on a number of occasions. Even the Secretary of State would concede that the Scottish Government have worked very positively to advance the project, but that does not mean we are not critical of quite a number of aspects of it.
For HS2 to establish the benefits that have been suggested, it needs to be expanded much further and much faster—and, as we have heard, not just to Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds, but to Scotland, and with some haste. If this project was to be truly inclusive—the Secretary of State talked about the parity in this family of nations that we are supposed to have—there is a strong argument that HS2 should have started in Scotland and made its way down through the north of England, arriving eventually at London. The economic benefits would have been dramatic had that choice been made, and it was indeed a choice. Had the Government been serious about including the nations of the UK, that could have been done. While we are talking about being serious about being inclusive, let me say that if journey times are to be improved, perhaps one thing that would help to reduce delays dramatically, as this is one key reason for delays in Scotland, would be the devolution of Network Rail. Even at this late stage, the UK Government can make a difference if they choose to do so by committing to extending the service to Scotland without hesitation.
Mr Goodwill
The hon. Gentleman talks about starting the project in Scotland, but that is not a sensible idea at all. The whole point about capacity is that every morning we have 5,000 people standing on trains into London Euston and 3,000 standing into Birmingham New Street. If the project started in Scotland, that would just mean more Scottish people standing on trains as they tried to get into the capital.
Drew Hendry
The hon. Gentleman knows that I have enjoyed debating with him and that I respect him greatly, but we always end up highlighting the fact that none of that was even looked at. No research was conducted on it. Unless he is willing to intervene to tell me about research that was conducted—[Interruption.] That tells us everything about how—
Mr Goodwill
It is patently obvious from all the traffic flows and the passenger numbers that as one gets closer to the capital, the congestion due to passenger numbers builds. As I say, we have 5,000 people standing every morning into London Euston, and there would be more Scottish people standing if we did not start in London and work our way up. It is, however, great that the time saving is going to benefit people in Scotland from day one.
Drew Hendry
I wish to remain consensual throughout this debate, but I must point out, once again, that all the hon. Gentleman has done is to confirm that no work had been done to look at the economic benefits for Scotland and the north of England.
The Secretary of State’s argument that Scotland will already be on the HS2 line is weak. I agree that journey times to and from Scotland will be faster, by virtue of the increased speed in the south of England, but given that Scotland and its people are paying for a proportion of the new infrastructure, it would be wholly wrong for the new infrastructure not to come also to Scotland.
We support HS2 because of the benefits it could and should bring, but those benefits could be greater if the missing investment were made. Clarity is also required, and with some urgency, on the Barnett consequentials. The question of the Barnett consequentials has been raised again in this House today, yet the Government have failed time and again to answer it, despite being asked to do so on many occasions.
Although this will not be well received by Conservative Members, I agree with the shadow Minister that questions need to be asked about the governance and management of HS2, given the absolute shambles the Government have got themselves into with the contract—and, of course, the honours system as well. We are talking about £2 billion-worth of contracts awarded after profit warnings were issued. Why did the Government want Carillion to continue after a 70% drop in the share price and the issuing of profit warnings? Ministers need to give answers about that, and they should take the opportunity to provide them now. There are clear examples to show that the Government knew there were more than just superficial problems at Carillion, yet the contracts just continued. Why was that?
I said earlier that the Scottish Government are committed to working in a continuing partnership to reduce rail journey times—we are working closely with the Minister to hit the three-hour target—but the Government still have not recommended a route to Scotland. Is it going to be on the east or the west coast? They must now start to work on the best options for Scotland, consider the benefits and different business cases, albeit belatedly, and deliver so that people in Scotland get some value.
If the Government share the ambition of delivering sub-three-hour journey times, we will support that, but the project should not be about only times or the physical build. As the right hon. Member for Derbyshire Dales (Sir Patrick McLoughlin) said, we must consider skills and opportunities. He mentioned Crewe and other locations, but unfortunately he did not mention Scotland. This project can and should build skills, expertise, capability and jobs for a generation, but it also needs to be inclusive in terms of its opportunities and STEM objectives. We should be alive to the chance to provide opportunities to young people, especially girls and young women, who do not get mentioned enough in this context. Scotland has successfully delivered major infrastructure projects, with the Borders rail link a prime example among many others, and is already positioning itself as a hub for rail expertise. The Heriot-Watt high-speed rail centre of excellence has put Scotland firmly on the map as a place for specialist high-speed rail knowledge.
Let us expand the network to Scotland with some hitherto unseen urgency. Let us hear the answers on the Barnett consequentials. Let us have guarantees from the Government on the future governance of the project. If a true partnership is desired, as the Secretary of State has stated, let us see some ambition on the preferred route, a commitment to utilising the expertise and talent of the men and women of Scotland, and investment in our centre of excellence.
Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)
I beg to move an amendment, to leave out from “That” to the end of the Question and add:
“this House, while recognising the increasing need for additional north-south rail line capacity to relieve congestion on the West Coast Main Line south of the Midlands and to improve connectivity between major cities and with London, declines to give the High Speed Rail (West Midlands - Crewe) Bill a Second Reading because (1) there are better ways to address any rail capacity issues north of the Midlands, (2) the line set out in the Bill is routed through unspoiled countryside unnecessarily damaging the environment including wildlife habitats, ancient woodlands and waterways, fails to connect via HS2 Phase 1 with HS1, the Channel Tunnel and the European continent, fails to connect directly through HS2 Phase 1 with potential airport hubs for London and the south-east of England, and fails to connect directly to existing major mainline stations and the existing rail network, (3) the Bill provides inadequate compensation to those blighted by the route and those whose property is subject to compulsory purchase orders, (4) the Bill fails to provide for sufficient public transport to disperse HS2 passengers disembarking at London Euston, and (5) the Bill does not implement a more environmentally sympathetic, better integrated, and more cost-effective route, such as the route originally proposed by Arup which would have used existing transport corridors minimising environmental damage and reducing costs by around £10 billion, and which would have connected directly with HS1 and the continent, London Heathrow Airport, Birmingham International Airport, and major conurbations.”
First, may I say how much I welcomed the Secretary of State’s answer to my question about Lichfield? Many of my constituents will be reassured by what he said. If he is half as good as his predecessor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire Dales (Sir Patrick McLoughlin), he will be very good indeed.
Having said that, I am afraid that I must now destroy the cosy consensus that seems to be prevailing on the Opposition and Government Benches. I shall explain why. When HS2 was first envisioned, people spoke about people in Manchester, Leeds and Birmingham being able to get on to a high-speed train and end up in Paris, Lille and, indeed, even Berlin, with Deutsche Bahn. But that is not to be. We heard from the shadow Minister that HS2 is an integrated railway, but it is not. It is nothing like that at all.
Let me present a hypothetical situation. One of my constituents from Lichfield, together with his wife, two children and all their luggage, decide that they are going to give up travelling by dirty aircraft and will instead travel by clean rail down to Paris. What is the reality going to be? Imagine my constituent, the wife, the children and the baggage. They get on the train at Lichfield City station—although this applies to stations up and down the country—and end up at Birmingham New Street. Then what happens? They have to leave Birmingham New Street with the two children and all their bags and walk for 22 minutes. At this point, I wish to praise Councillor Tony Thompson in Lichfield who has done the walk and timed it. Without the children and all the bags, it took him 22 minutes to tramp across Birmingham to get to Curzon Street to the proposed HS2 station.
After all that, can the family then relax, knowing that they will end up in Paris? No, they cannot—because, instead, the train arrives at Euston. My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary, when he was Mayor of London, pointed out, quite rightly, that Euston has a capacity problem—not with trains arriving, because Euston is to be extended, but with getting people away from Euston, because there is not the public transport. Even if there was sufficient capacity, the family then have to tramp, yet again, either down a series of escalators and back up again, with children and with all the bags, or they walk across London to get to St Pancras.
Michael Fabricant
I will give way in a moment.
Finally, when they get to St Pancras, they can settle on the train. So much for a quick and easy journey from the north-east down to Paris.
Michael Fabricant
I will give way to the hon. Gentleman who has been trying to get in.
Ian Mearns
For 15 months, I was a member of the HS2 Bill Committee, and I did that very walk myself. I did not get a friendly councillor to do it for me; I did it myself. It took about six to eight minutes top whack. I know that, in future, the route will be better than it was then because an awful lot of construction work was going on around New Street at the time. It was six to eight minutes top whack.
Michael Fabricant
But the hon. Gentleman is thin, lithe and athletic. I am talking about a harried husband, a wife, squabbling children and loads of luggage. That is what I am talking about.
Chris Grayling
May I take my hon. Friend slightly closer to home, not perhaps in his own constituency, but alongside? Those people who seek to commute from Rugby, Coventry, Birmingham International and intermediate stations into Birmingham find that their daily journey is delayed by the fact that this line, which is two-track only and which can only be two-track, has express trains, local trains, intermediate trains to Northampton and even some freight trains on it. It is chaotic and jammed all the time. HS2 takes off the express trains and gives those people a better commute into Birmingham. Is that not something that the west midlands should champion?
Michael Fabricant
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right about that. I do not think that there is any argument about the capacity problem. It was he, or perhaps it was my right hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire Dales, who said that the west coast main line is operating at 100% capacity and that it is the busiest line in Europe. In fact, it is a triumph in that people have moved on to those trains in their millions since the time when a Labour Government were in power, and certainly since the time of nationalisation—and we all remember those curling sandwiches. Of course there are advantages, too, but it could have been done in a much better way. It is not a connected service. What do we have now? The genesis of it all was Lord Adonis who, in 2007, came up with the idea of the route. I can tell Members that he was astonished when the Conservative Government accepted that route. Again, let me say very clearly that I am arguing not against HS2 itself, but against the way in which it is being executed. That is what I am criticising. Lord Adonis wanted an ultra-high-speed line. As a consequence, he got rulers on maps, drew straight lines, crashing through countryside, which had previously not been damaged, destroying ancient woodlands, and generally messing up the entire area.
Anna Soubry
My hon. Friend makes a very important point. I do not agree with the overall drift of where his speech is leading us to, but he makes a very good point, which is about the importance of connectivity. There is no point in spending billions of pounds on a brilliant new service unless the connectivity is there. Does he agree that, when we look at other projects, we know that the ones that work—wherever they are in the world—are ones where a person can get off one line, and move swiftly and easily, in comfort, to another line, or another piece of transport.
Michael Fabricant
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. And that, really, is my main criticism of HS2—that it is not integrated. We cannot get on in Birmingham and end up in France and it does not connect with HS1. The sadness is that Arup originally came up with a proposal that would have done just that. The original Arup proposal would have been more on the surface, using existing transport corridors, so it would have been £10 billion to £12 billion cheaper. At the same time, it would have been less environmentally damaging, and that would have made sense. Under Arup’s plan, we would have been able to get on a train at Birmingham New Street and, as a consequence, end up in France. But no—because we were at that point obsessed with running at ultra-high speed, we decided that we would do this project with straight lines going through virgin countryside.
Thank goodness that there will now be kinks and loops—thanks, in part, to my right hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire Dales—so that HS2 does not go smashing through the middle of Lichfield cathedral or, indeed, so that it does not damage Tatton. I remember that my former right hon. Friend, George Osborne, managed to get a few kinks in the line as well. But do you know what the irony is, Madam Deputy Speaker? The irony is that, because of all the kinks and loops, HS2 trains cannot now travel at ultra-high speed. Quite frankly, with the benefit of hindsight, we could have had a more connected train service that was less environmentally damaging and £12 billion cheaper than the present one. At the same time , it could have been something that people would cherish in years to come. Yes, they may cherish the route from Coventry to Birmingham, but I think that young people wanting to travel seamlessly to the continent by train will be sorely disappointed.
Now, I mentioned how phase 2a would affect Lichfield. By the way, Lichfield has had a double whammy because we were affected by phase 1 and are now being affected by phase 2a. Phase 2a will cause the loss or damage of 18 ancient woodlands—just on that short route—and the loss of 27 veteran trees between Lichfield and Crewe.
Michael Fabricant
Twenty-seven, yes. Do not knock that, though. We are talking about ancient trees and woodlands, which cannot be repeated. We cannot dig them up and then replant them because—hey!—they are not ancient anymore. The definition of an ancient woodland is that it has to be 400 years old with a soil structure that can only be generated when it is 400 years old. As the Secretary of State said, all large infrastructure projects will cause damage, and of course I accept that. But if we had gone with the original Arup route, which Lord Adonis thought would be far too slow—it would only run at high speed, not ultra-high speed—we would not have had so much damage.
I am very pleased to see my hon. Friend the Member for Poole (Sir Robert Syms) in the Chamber. He ought to be a right hon. Member because he chaired the High Speed Rail (London - West Midlands) Bill Select Committee for phase 1. I praise all the Members who served on that Committee, because at least I can offer my constituents the hope that, if the Committee that will be set up if this Bill goes through Parliament is half as good as his Committee, there will be improvements. If people petition and petition well, there will be changes to the route.
Finally, I re-emphasise the point I made earlier in a question to the Secretary of State. It is important that we do not lose sight of the west coast main line and continued passenger services. I believe that 44 railway stations on the west coast main line will not be directly affected or served by HS2. We still need our Virgin trains and our slower trains including the excellent service that is now being provided by London Northwestern Railway, which succeeded London Midland, which, incidentally, started off badly but improved a lot during its franchise period.
There will come a time when the Pendolinos will become unusable because they have reached their age limit. It is hugely important that the Department for Transport begins to start thinking about a replacement for that high-speed service, because Lichfield commuters do not just commute into Birmingham, Stafford and places like that—they are commuting down to London daily. One very senior guy at the BBC said to me, “Michael, I don’t have to send my kids to a private school”—this is the BBC for you, but we know about their salaries—“because the schools are so good in Lichfield, and I can afford to live in a large house with lots of land around me, which of course I could never do in London.” That is thanks to the Pendolino service.
Rachel Maclean
With regard to broadcasters and where they could be located for their jobs, does my hon. Friend not think that HS2 is a great argument for Channel 4 to be relocated to the west midlands, because the Channel 4 executives could commute from London, or wherever they like to live? They could be based in Lichfield and make their programmes there.
Michael Fabricant
They could be based in Lichfield, yes, or in Birmingham. I hope that Channel 4 will indeed move out of London. I know that this is completely out of order, Madam Deputy Speaker, but I am now putting in our bid for the west midlands on that.
I have explained why I cannot support this Bill. I will not press my amendment to a vote, but if, as I expect, there is going to be a Division on the substantive motion, I am afraid that I will have to vote against the Government on this occasion.
Michael Fabricant
It is a shame, as my right hon. Friend says. I very rarely vote against my own Government, because we are so successful in what we do, but there is this blindness about the design of HS2—and it has permeated across to the Labour Front Bench as well. I could not believe it when the hon. Member for Middlesbrough (Andy McDonald) said that it is an integrated railway line, when it very clearly is not. I will vote against this Bill, and I hope that other colleagues in the House will join me.
Laura Smith (Crewe and Nantwich) (Lab)
I am pleased to follow the hon. Member for Lichfield (Michael Fabricant). I am not sure if my speech will be quite as colourful, I must say.
The significance of this Bill for my constituents cannot be overstated. Crewe is a proud railway town. In fact, it is believed that Crewe was named after the railway station, rather than the other way around. The current station was completed in 1837 and has been recognised as one of the most historically significant railway stations in the world. Crewe was chosen after the nearby town of Winsford rejected an earlier proposal, as had landowners in Nantwich, which is also in my constituency. Nowadays, there are 23 trains passing through the station every hour, with additional, less frequent, services. The railway has shaped our history, our heritage and our culture in my constituency. It still plays a part in our local industry at Crewe Works, which has been owned by Bombardier since 2001. At its height, Crewe Works employed more than 20,000 people, but that dropped to fewer than 1,000 just over a decade ago. That gives a feel of just how much my constituency has changed.
Many of my constituents see HS2 as an opportunity for Crewe to regenerate economically and reconnect with its identity as a key player in the country’s national transport strategy. Today, I will set out the reasons why I support the Bill and the case for HS2—a project that was, indeed, proposed by a Labour Government. In doing so, I hasten to add that my support for the project is not unconditional.
One reason why HS2 has had support in my constituency is that it is not simply another project designed for the benefit of the south-east, but would benefit regions across the country. However, there are concerns in Crewe and Nantwich that as the project increasingly comes under budgetary strain, the Treasury might lack the appetite for the level of spending needed to deliver the greatest return on investment.
I am particularly concerned by comments made previously by the Secretary of State for Transport that decisions regarding the future of my constituency will be subject to affordability. We cannot afford not to get this right. As such, I ask the Secretary of State to clarify today when we will hear the outcome of the Crewe hub consultation and the Government’s plans.
If all that HS2 achieves is a fast track between London, Birmingham and Manchester, there is a very real possibility that it will reduce my constituency to little more than a bedsit on a commuter belt, where the next generation are priced out of living in the towns that they grew up in.
Helen Jones (Warrington North) (Lab)
I apologise that I could not be here for the beginning of the debate. I fully support my hon. Friend on the need for a proper, integrated hub at Crewe, not least because that makes the spur that was proposed through Warrington absolutely redundant. A proper hub would enable many more towns in the north-west to benefit from HS2.
Laura Smith
I agree, and I will come on to connectivity shortly.
Such short-sightedness would be a huge strategic miscalculation and a missed opportunity to future-proof towns such as those in my constituency from the troubling economic trends that we face. This cannot be about helping to expand the cities at the expense of squeezing out growth in the communities that I represent.
Limiting the service to two stops per hour at Crewe is simply a nonsensical proposal that will not only hold back my constituency for generations but will have consequences for areas beyond the north of Crewe and north Wales. For Government to overlook the clear business case for seven stops per hour at Crewe, or to act as a barrier to the strong local and regional ambitions, would be unforgivable.
Regional inequality is a major threat to the UK economy. Despite talk of a northern powerhouse, we are being presented with further evidence that the north-south divide remains as deep as it has ever been. Many living in left-behind towns look to the past with nostalgia and to the future with cynicism—and who can blame them? Their communities have suffered all the worst consequences of aggressive globalisation, and for very little reward. In Crewe and Nantwich, there are almost 4,000 children living in poverty, and wages are below the UK average. In fact, 28% of workers are paid less than the living wage, which is worse than the average for the north-west. Young people struggle to see a future filled with opportunities, and work no longer provides an escape route from poverty for struggling families.
In many ways, it is getting worse. A report this month by IPPR North suggests that the attainment gap between the north and the rest of England has widened to 5% at NVQ4 level, setting the north up to be the worst affected by an adult skills crisis. Another report this month by the Centre for Cities predicts that the rise of robots will deepen the economic divide if current trends continue, with almost a third of jobs in the north and the midlands vulnerable to automation and globalisation. Another report by IPPR North this month indicates that planned transport investment in London is two and a half times higher per person than in the north of England.
Many northern towns and cities are still struggling to recover from the industrial decline of the 1970s and 1980s, and this north-south divide threatens to hold back our national productivity. Some businesses choose to pay almost four times as much per square foot for their premises in London and the south because of poor connectivity in the north. Decades of inaction by successive Governments have left the north at the mercy of the markets.
There is no greater example of the need for Government intervention and strategic economic planning than the unsustainable situation we find ourselves in. The market has failed to provide any answers for the north, and HS2 provides one way in which the Government can begin to address this problem as part of a wider strategy. If delivered properly, this project will place my constituency at the heart of the UK’s most vibrant economic area, providing a successful and sustainable future for the next generation. Britain’s future in the world is surely as a knowledge-based economy, excelling in areas such as high-tech manufacturing. Such an economy will require a national transport strategy that prioritises high levels of connectivity. This requires increasing capacity and reliability, not just decreasing journey times.
Crewe is already a gateway station for the north-west, with regional and long-distance connections to the wider north-west, the east midlands and Wales. The phase 2a link will help to provide much-needed additional capacity for freight and will improve reliability for commuter services. It should be welcomed that the Government have brought forward the opening of the phase 2a link to 2027 as that will provide benefits to the north-west and beyond. Making the most out of connecting HS2, classic rail and the motorway network at Crewe could create 120,000 jobs across seven major local authority areas. Work undertaken by the Constellation Partnership indicates that 20,000 jobs would be created at the Crewe hub campus alone, with 17,000 additional jobs in the wider area.
My vision for HS2 is not as an end in itself, benefiting only businesses and commuters, but as a catalyst for the radical rebalancing of our economy, redistributing wealth from London to places such as Crewe and Nantwich and the rest of the UK. I must stress that this is not about asking London to lose out to the north; it is simply about achieving sustainability for London while allowing the north to achieve its full potential, which will benefit our entire country.
I want everybody in my constituency to feel the benefits of HS2, even if they never ride a train in their lives. Rail lines from Crewe reach out across to the smaller towns of Cheshire, to Warrington and the Wirral, to Manchester and Liverpool, to Lancashire, Shrewsbury, Derby and Stoke, and even to Scotland and Wales. A proper regional hub at Crewe, with a new northern junction to allow for maximum onward connectivity, will provide unrivalled opportunities for the whole of Cheshire, north Staffordshire and beyond. It is imperative that Crewe has direct high-speed services to key destinations, including London, Old Oak Common, Birmingham, Manchester airport, Manchester Piccadilly, Preston, Liverpool, Glasgow and Edinburgh.
As such, I support not only this Bill, but expanding the scope of the current HS2 programme to enable the interventions needed to deliver the services I have described. Although the services that run on our high-speed network will not be determined by statute, our legislative framework will determine what we are capable of achieving. It is vital that this Bill is supported today, and that future Bills do not limit our options. A proper regional hub could take advantage of existing connectivity and extend the benefits of HS2 to millions of people in the north, including those in our often forgotten towns beyond the major cities.
Mr Bob Seely (Isle of Wight) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Laura Smith). May I welcome my hon. Friend the Member for Wealden (Ms Ghani) to her new role and wish her all the best? It is very good to see her on the Front Bench.
I welcome the Government’s very considerable investment in our rail system—it is very good to see—and I support their ambitious railway agenda. There are lots of good things happening in our railway system. However, I find it hard to believe that the £52 billion being spent on HS2 could not have been better spent more broadly across the system.
I am not opposing or voting against the Bill, because I think there is little point: HS2 is going to happen. However, I think it would have been significantly better for our economy to have prioritised HS3, which is a good idea and clearly important for the north of this country, and then, if HS2 was to be built, to have started in the north and worked south, rather than the other way around.
What seems to be clear is that HS2 is extraordinarily expensive. There are poor returns, and by the Government’s own admission, a 1:2.3 ratio of return is extremely poor. HS2 harms the environment. It seems to be a bit of a muddle. Once we had straight lines and we were going superfast. Then we had bends and we could not go superfast. Then the stations did not quite integrate, and there does seem to be a problem with that integration up and down the network, which other Members have rightly spoken about.
However, my main concern is the cost to the other parts of the rail network. Again, Members have spoken eloquently about the need for greater capacity. HS2 does nothing for capacity for southern rail or for south-west rail. The south-west rail network is crying out for investment. We need rail flyovers at Woking and at Basingstoke to get more services on that line. We need to update the signalling system between Waterloo and Woking, and eventually elsewhere on the line, to improve speeds and services. We need infrastructure on the Portsmouth line, to increase capacity. Getting from London to Portsmouth, you travel at an average speed of around 45 miles an hour, and the idea that we are spending billions building a rail network to go superfast up north when we are still travelling at branch-line speeds on mainline routes in the south of England is very galling to very many constituents in constituencies across southern England.
We need also, probably, to double the track between Southampton and Basingstoke. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State talked about a bright new future for the railways. We do not see that on southern, and we do not see it on south-west rail main lines. If I remember correctly, my right hon. Friend, whose agenda I very strongly support and for whom I have a high regard personally, has assured me that south-west rail projects are not affected by the HS2 project. So can he—or can she—put on record a confirmation that HS2 has not delayed, or has not affected the funding and supply of, south-west rail mainline improvements, or of Crossrail 2, which will benefit the users of south-west rail, if they use Clapham?
Michelle Donelan
I agree, and I want to see benefits to connectivity in my constituency, including a new station in Corsham. But will my hon. Friend accept that HS2 does benefit the UK as a whole, in the form of jobs, as I said, or because we all have a wealth of SMEs in our constituencies whose supply chains and customers are based throughout the UK, and they can only benefit from this extra connectivity?
Mr Seely
In principle, my hon. Friend makes a very good point and I thank her for her intervention. The problem is this. I return to the profit ratio—or the cost-benefit ratio. If any of us were to go to a Minister or Government Department and say, “This is a fantastic project and it has a ratio of 1:2.3,”—which are the Government’s own figures for HS2—we would get laughed at. To get a project off the ground, according to Green Book assessments, a ratio of 1:5 upwards is needed, and preferably 1:7. So 1:2.3 is a very poor return for Government money by the Government’s own figures. Anything that helps, within reason, expenditure and our economy is to be welcomed, but by the Government’s own figures this cost-benefit is dubious. I thank my hon. Friend for the intervention.
If HS2 will cause no delay to south-west rail projects, will my right hon. Friend commit to prioritising the necessary work on the south-west rail route that could speed up journey times between London and south coast destinations such as Portsmouth, Southampton, Bournemouth and, yes, the Isle of Wight—my constituency? I know that my right hon. Friend is a user of south-west rail and feels the pain of the half a million people who travel in to Waterloo every day. Will he—or will she— consider setting Network Rail and the new franchise a speed target of a 60-minute service to Southampton and Portsmouth? You can get two trains an hour down the main line to Southampton. They take about one hour 17 at the moment. If we are interested in high-speed rail, can we set a new target of getting people to Southampton and Portsmouth within the hour?
In addition, I will write to my right hon. Friend tomorrow in connection with the Island. He has been kind enough to sound positive about the needs of my constituents for better public transport, especially since we get precious little infrastructure money. In my letter, I will ask about the programme of reopening branch lines and investing in the Island line. Earlier this month, Isle of Wight Council voted to support a feasibility study on extending the branch line in possibly two directions and, working with our wonderful heritage line, the Havenstreet steam railway, to get people into Ryde, which would be very important.
My letter will cover support for investment, support for a feasibility study, and, dependent on the results of that study, support for the branch line and capital work on Ryde Pier Head to ensure that the railway line there stays feasible, continues and has a future. I am supportive of my right hon. Friend on his agenda, which is excellent, but will you assure me, considering that you are spending £52 billion on one line, that the Department will not tell me that you cannot afford a feasibility study?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)
Order. If the hon. Gentleman is referring to the Minister, he must say the Minister, not you. I apologise for interrupting him, but this is becoming a widespread habit of Members all around the House and it must not go on. I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman is the person who is hearing this, and I am sure that other people will now be rather more careful. He is not a consistent offender; he is normally very proper in his behaviour.
Mr Seely
Thank you very much, Madam Deputy Speaker. I do apologise; I had noticed that I had written a few yous, and I scrubbed them out and put hes and shes. If my notes still contained a few yous, I apologise. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is not here, I was trying to work out whether I should be using he or she, or whether we have reached a post-gender age for Ministers as well as for the rest of us.
Madam Deputy Speaker
Perhaps I can help the hon. Gentleman and the House. The word “Minister” is very useful, because it covers just about everything and anyone, no matter which gender they might be on that particular day.
Mr Seely
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. On that point, I will wind up.
I am very supportive of the Minister’s agenda, whichever one we are talking about, but given that we are spending a great deal of money, will the Minister assure me that the Department will not be telling me that a feasibility study is not possible because of cost? Will the Minister assure me that if a feasibility study recommends extension of our lines, that will be supported, given that the costs involved, £10 million to £30 million, are margins of error in Government accounting in the Department of Transport? Will the Minister assure me that there will be support for infrastructure projects both for the South Western Railway network and the Island line, notwithstanding the considerable amounts of money that are been spent elsewhere?
Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)
What a pleasure it is to follow the hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr Seely). If he will forgive me, I might disagree with him on one point. In my view—the figures are overwhelming—the investment in infrastructure in London and the south-east, although it perhaps does not extend entirely down to his patch, is around nine or 10 times as much as that in my area in the north-west and the north of England. Plenty of people will look at the HS2 expenditure and say it is about time that the north-west of England got some expenditure.
In principle, I am very much in favour of HS2—and HS3, HS4 and HS5. Infrastructure spending is good for the economy; it generates growth, it drives growth and connectivity, and it is a good thing for the whole country. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Laura Smith), however, I share the concern that what we might get is, to coin a railway phrase, the wrong type of HS2, on the basis that all we will have is a fast line linking London, Birmingham and Manchester, and no benefits will accrue to the surrounding areas. In terms of growth in this country, the cities are already overheating, whereas towns and counties—
Kevin Hollinrake
Does the hon. Gentleman therefore welcome the £300 million that has been set aside to connect HS2 with HS3—also known as Northern Powerhouse Rail—which will stretch from the west coast of the north to the east coast?
Christian Matheson
I will welcome it when it is built and when we actually have something going. HS3, or Northern Powerhouse Rail, is a slogan rather than a railway, and I look forward to its being a railway rather than a slogan. There is a real danger that the benefits that accrue will not do so for the whole country. This is a national project and the benefits that derive from it should be national, too.
In particular, I want to discuss the Crewe hub, which I was pleased to hear the Secretary of State refer to several times. We get lots of positive, warm words—if that praise is not too derogatory—about the importance that Ministers at the Department for Transport attach to the Crewe hub. However, time and again, after two years of pressing, we still have had no firm details about what format it will take or how it will integrate into the rest of the network.
I was pleased to hear my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough (Andy McDonald), the shadow Secretary of State, talking about the need for HS2 to be integrated into the rest of the network. The hon. Member for Lichfield (Michael Fabricant) might have misunderstood, but that was very much my understanding, and that is exactly where the Crewe hub would come in. With the greatest respect to my good friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Laura Smith), Crewe does not have a large enough population to justify an HS2 station, but the lines and connectivity radiating from it as a central hub in that part of the north-west and the north midlands would provide the services and the weight of gravity to make the Crewe hub essential to HS2.
Michael Fabricant
What the hon. Gentleman says about Crewe is absolutely right, but does he understand my disappointment that there will be two separate stations in Birmingham and two separate stations in London, instead of it being integrated there as well? While the north is important, so are the midlands and the south.
Christian Matheson
I do understand the hon. Gentleman’s disappointment. Actually, I share some of it, and if he bears with me I will come on to that in a moment.
The lines that would radiate from Crewe would include the existing west coast main line, which my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North (Helen Jones) talked about, so Warrington, Wigan and south Lancashire would benefit, as would my constituency and hopefully, the north Wales line. Again, I say to Ministers that for the real benefits to accrue, the Chester and north Wales line would need to be electrified; I have not given up on that, even if they have.
The Crewe hub would mesh nicely with the Growth Track 360 proposals that leaders in Cheshire West and Chester and across the border in north Wales have put together to really try to mesh our railway offerings. I know that Ministers have seen those. My hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State was extremely helpful when I talked to him about my concerns. He took them to HS2 Ltd, which was asked about the benefits that somebody from Chester might gain. This is where I come back to the hon. Member for Lichfield. Apparently, under the current HS2 proposals, those benefits would include HS2 freeing up capacity on the west coast main line, so that more trains would be able to go through, between Chester and Lichfield, on that line. He talked about the potential, over time, for the west coast main line to wither on the vine, and I share that concern. Those of us who are not in London, Birmingham or Manchester may not get the full benefits, because we will be asked to take the benefits of the west coast main line instead. Much as those are benefits, that is not the high-speed line on offer.
I detect a certain disconnect—I ask Ministers to look carefully at this—between HS2 Ltd and its proposals and the plans from Network Rail and the Department for Transport for the development of the railways. HS2 Ltd has been tasked with building the HS2 line and some amorphous idea of a Crewe hub, but we are still not sure what or exactly where it is in Crewe or of the layout of Crewe station. The plans do not fit in with the broader sub-regional plans for the growth of the railways. All HS2 Ltd seems concerned with is the delivery of the new high-speed line. I urge Ministers to look carefully at ensuring that the proposals for HS2 and others, such as Growth Track 360, mesh together in the connected way that my hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State talked about; otherwise we will not accrue the full benefits.
I welcome the Minister to her place, and I make this plea to her: I ask that she think carefully about how the Crewe hub can be given a reality that benefits not just the big cities but north Shropshire, south Lancashire, all of Cheshire, all the railway lines radiating from Crewe, and particularly—as far as I am concerned—the Chester and north Wales line. It has to mesh together. At some point, we have to stop kicking this particular can down the road and come out with firm and deliverable proposals for a Crewe hub that will share the benefits of HS2 that will not otherwise accrue.
Maggie Throup (Erewash) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for City of Chester (Christian Matheson) and to contribute to this debate. I too welcome the new Minister to her place. I am sure we will be having many conversations over the coming months and years.
I would like to speak specifically to the reasoned amendment in the name of my hon. Friends. Although I cannot support it, I have some sympathy with it, specifically on the issue of property compensation. The compensation packages agreed under the Bill will have a significant impact and influence in the future when similar measures are agreed for phase 2b, which affects my constituency. It is extremely important, therefore, that we get it right now for those affected by phase 2a and phase 2b.
I am sure that my residents are not unique in their frustration with the process, but what are unique are the specifics around the property market in Long Eaton. The plus 10% on offer through the express purchase scheme for residents in the safeguarded area is not enough for many of my homeowners to buy a new home just two streets away. This is not acceptable. These residents, some of whom have lived in the same home for many years—often 40 years and more—are losing their homes, and for them their home is their castle. There must be an alternative for my constituents, and I hope that a way forward can be found.
I am sure that my right hon. Friends the Secretary of State and the Prime Minster agree, as they have both said in this place, that no one should lose out as a result of HS2. On 17 July last year, the Secretary of State said:
“I am clear that I do not want people to lose out as a result of this”—[Official Report, 17 July 2017; Vol. 627, c. 674.]
On 11 October, in a response to a question of mine, the Prime Minister said:
“my hon. Friend the Rail Minister is determined to see that fair and comprehensive compensation for those directly affected by the route is paid, and it will be paid as if HS2 did not exist, plus the 10% and reasonable moving costs.”—[Official Report, 11 October 2017; Vol. 629, c. 328.]
I would suggest that Long Eaton is the town most affected by HS2 across the whole of the country along any part of the line. It may not have a long stretch of the rail line—indeed, it is estimated to be only 3.3 miles—but those 3.3 miles will be directly through the town on a 16-metre high viaduct. That is why it is so important to get it right for residents who are losing their homes and those left behind, and why I ask the Minister to take another look at the compensation packages, not just for my constituents but for those affected along the whole line. For residents in relatively low-cost housing areas, such as New Tythe Street and Bonsall Street in Long Eaton, I would like to suggest a scheme that encompasses an equity share option. We should also recognise, however, that it is not just about money; it is about keeping communities together, and I believe an equity share scheme would do just that.
HS2 Ltd has a specific question to answer about why it is pursuing and progressing with special measures for the Shimmer estate in Mexborough but not applying the same principles to Long Eaton. I am also concerned by the way it is interpreting current guidelines and so often appears to be working against residents rather than with them.
It is also important to consider the impact that HS2 will have on businesses that are blighted by the project. For my local businesses, the uncertainty has existed since early January 2013. It has been over five years, with no end in sight yet. It is imperative for HS2 Ltd to improve on its poor record of engagement by engaging in early and meaningful interaction with businesses on which compulsory purchase orders have been served.
Michael Fabricant
It was certainly my experience with phase 1 that the constant changes of personnel within HS2 Ltd caused problems. There was not just disengagement between HS2 and our constituents, but, apparently, disengagement between HS2 personnel themselves, with one hand not knowing what the other was doing.
Maggie Throup
Not just people but processes seem to change, and HS2 Ltd is not passing the information on to the chartered surveyors who are working on its behalf or to those who are working on behalf of the residents.
The Country Land and Business Association has reported that rural business owners who go through the compulsory purchase process find it difficult to secure funding to develop their businesses, or have existing finance agreements reviewed. Whether it is rural or urban, the problem is the same, as some of my local businesses in Long Eaton have discovered.
The Country Land and Business Association has also told me that the Government have committed themselves to enacting legislation to provide for advance payments, and I ask the Minister to comment on that today. Business cannot continue to be successful with such uncertainties hanging over them. As many Members know, all successful businesses have short, medium and long-term business plans but they cannot operate, given the current air of uncertainty.
Let me issue one final plea. At present, many of the areas affected by the line of route have only a very narrow safeguarded area on either side of the line. I ask the Minister to urge HS2 Ltd to be realistic about the amount of land take required, and take action now to safeguard the true area needed so that residents can get on with their lives.
Dame Cheryl Gillan
I do not know whether my hon. Friend agrees with me that, so far, HS2 Ltd’s approach has been to limit the amount of compensation that it pays, and reduce it. Although it has, I believe, acknowledged that it may need to pay more to finalise claims, it is the interruption to lives, businesses and landowners that is causing so much aggravation. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government should immediately enact the legislation to provide for advance payments, and that that really must happen soon?
Maggie Throup
I completely agree with my right hon. Friend. We need to get these things moving. I know residents whose properties, under the need-to-sell scheme, were being valued at over £200,000, but under the express purchase scheme, they were offered £140,000 for the same properties. Many of these people are elderly, and they are often quite ill. It is really distressing to see what they are going through.
In 2015, the then Secretary of State—my right hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire Dales (Sir Patrick McLoughlin), who is no longer in the Chamber—said that the Government were committed to going above and beyond what was required by law, including discretionary measures to help more people. That is what we are talking about today—going “above and beyond”.
The HS2 residents charter aims to ensure that residents are treated in a fair, clear, competent and reasonable manner. I hope that, as we debate this hybrid Bill today and when, in the future, we debate the hybrid Bill providing for phase 2b, the charter will feature front and centre in the treatment of constituents along the whole HS2 route. They deserve that: it is the least we can do for them when we are taking their homes away.
Sir Kevin Barron (Rother Valley) (Lab)
May I begin by making my apologies, Madam Deputy Speaker? I was present for the opening of the debate, but I had to leave afterwards because I had a meeting with Mr Speaker. May I also welcome the Minister to the Front Bench?
I supported HS2 for many years. I truly believed that it would help to bridge the divide between the north and London in the south. I even defended the astonishing cost to my constituents, as I thought that it would benefit people in my constituency. However, I now believe that the case has become flaky at best, owing to a number of factors.
A Public Accounts Committee report raised a number of serious issues. It said there was a
“serious risk of fraud, corruption and error”
due to a combination of poor financial controls and other systems. It highlighted the fact that HS2 was set up eight years ago with substantial Government backing yet still shows a lack of organisational maturity. Given the huge budget that HS2 has been provided with, this is truly concerning.
The Government currently say HS2 will cost £55.7 billion to build. The costs originally started at £32.7 billion in 2010 and were last updated in 2015. Yet the National Audit Office stated in 2016 that HS2 was running £7 billion over-budget, which is not contested by HS2. This should put the official cost at £63 billion. I believe we can do so much more with this money, in particular on the electrification that this Government scrapped.
Most business leaders believe that if the north is to thrive the links between northern cities need to be improved, not just by having another route to London. Another Public Accounts Committee report says that HS2 made £1.6 million of unauthorised payments to staff during 2016-17; that is not a massive amount of money, but it is a shocking waste of taxpayers’ money. The report states that the unauthorised schemes proceeded due to weak internal processes and that there is no means for these sums to be recovered. It should concern us all that we have an organisation spending public money in such a way and that those sums cannot be recovered.
Both the Department and HS2 need to address these issues as a matter of urgency, and I believe that the relationship between the Department for Transport and HS2 was an unhealthy one and the necessary checks and balances were not in place. I do not think they are now either, but I will not raise issues that concern me at a local level because we are discussing a different part of the plan.
With all this in mind, I no longer believe that HS2 is likely to fulfil the aims it was designed to achieve. I will therefore vote for the amendment declining to give the Bill a Second Reading. I no longer have confidence in HS2 Ltd or the Government’s ability to oversee it.
Sir William Cash (Stone) (Con)
I want to make clear straight away, on behalf of my constituents and in the light of my personal views on this Bill, my vehement objection to the proposals before us. I will vote against the Bill if there is a Division, which I rather think there will be. I have discussed my objections on various occasions both before the House and locally; they derive from the vast impact on my constituents in Baldwin’s Gate, Bar Hill, Whitmore and Madeley and the surrounding area, and Yarnfield and Stone and surrounding areas, as well as from my scepticism about the Government claims on the benefits of the HS2 scheme in general.
The Government in their 2012 national planning policy framework set out the three pillars of economic, social and environmental factors that all new plans must satisfy. I find it incomprehensible that the Government can so ignore their own framework on a national scale in relation to the HS2 scheme.
First, I shall comment on the lack of benefits in the proposed phase 2 scheme. Its cost is £3.48 billion, a figure that is bound to rise as the project proceeds. This has not been enough to stop it being characterised by the Country Land and Business Association as full of
“delays, secrecy, broken promises, and poor management.”
This has directly damaged already-strained relationships with those most affected by HS2 and is preventing the complaints of those involved from being heard effectively.
Moreover, the actual overall costs, which are escalating all the time, are incredibly badly accounted for. As the right hon. Member for Rother Valley (Sir Kevin Barron) indicated, we have seen report after report, including economic reports and independent assessments, from the Public Accounts Committee and all kinds of other committees, and it is inconceivable that the amount of money that is currently expected to provide for all this will be adequate.
There is also the problem of providing proper compensation for those affected, including advance payments, as was said by my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham (Dame Cheryl Gillan). I also understand the concerns being expressed by some of my constituents, who are deeply worried about the possibility of terrorist threats to the service. Associated with those threats is the inevitable delay that will be built in to the security needed to avoid them. That will increase the amount of time it takes people to get on to the trains. HS2 might go very fast, and it might increase capacity, but there is no doubt that there will also be an enormous amount of delay, because its security arrangements will have to be similar to those used for other methods of travel such as air.
Phase 2 of HS2 will also have an immensely destructive effect on the environment. The Woodland Trust has noted that, unbelievably, given the impact on the environment that phase 1 will have, phase 2a will be more destructive per kilometre. The whole scheme will damage or destroy 98 ancient woods, with 18 alone coming from phase 2a. Over 10.5 hectares of irreplaceable ancient woodland will be lost in phase 2a, as well as at least 27 ancient and veteran trees. That loss is completely unacceptable.
The environmental impact does not end there. The National Trust has stated that phase 2a of HS2 will
“impact adversely on the conservation of the special places”
that it is charged with conserving, operating and managing,
“affecting both the experience of our visitors and the lives and livelihoods of our agricultural and residential tenants.”
The preservation of our natural heritage will be jeopardised by this project.
Michael Fabricant
I am listening to my hon. Friend with considerable interest. Does he not agree that the saddest thing of all is that Arup came up with an alternative proposal that would not have damaged all those ancient woodlands because it would have used existing transport corridors? We could have done this so much better.
Sir William Cash
I absolutely agree, but unfortunately that advice has not been taken.
Secondly, I have no confidence whatever in the Government’s stated outcomes for HS2 phase 2 in building costs or in social and environmental impacts. This comes from the dismal experience of their failures over their own reports on phase 1. The House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee cast doubt on phase 1 from the beginning of the process, arguing that the evidence used to calculate the magnitude of benefit was out of date and unconvincing. The Library briefing shows how the benefit to cost ratio of phase 1 has fallen consistently over time. Nothing has been done to address these flaws in the economic modelling.
Progress on the delivery of phase 1 is similarly criticised by the National Audit Office in its 2016 review, which stated that the Department for Transport had
“set HS2 Ltd a schedule for achieving delivery readiness that was too ambitious”,
and that:
“There is a risk that the combined impact of cost and schedule pressures result in reduced programme scope and lower the benefit cost ratio.”
It also stated that:
“Effective integration of High Speed 2 with the wider UK rail system is challenging and poses risks to value for money”.
The NAO attacks the cost estimates for phase 2, which it says are
“at a much earlier stage of development than phase 1”,
with some elements currently unfunded. For the past four years, the Infrastructure and Projects Authority has put HS2 just one step above appearing what it defines as
“unachievable unless significant, urgent and often substantial action is taken.”
I ask the Minister what evidence there is that this will be done.
Cost overruns and delays have long been associated with public construction, but HS2 dwarfs the problems of the past. Think about the amount that could be made available to the public services if these billions and billions of pounds went towards something other than this white elephant in the making. We are doomed to exist in a perpetual cycle of departmental over-promising and under-delivering. In the light of concerns about the phase 1 Bill, it is impossible to trust the Government’s assertions as to the benefits of phase 2.
Thirdly, I must cast doubt over the ability of HS2 Ltd. The Public Accounts Committee accuses HS2 Ltd of having a culture
“of failing to provide full and accurate information to those responsible for holding it to account”
and states that it
“does not have in place the basic controls needed to protect public money.”
There cannot be a bigger condemnation than that. Those basic failures underline the incompetence with which the project has been conducted. Most damningly, the PAC accuses both HS2 Ltd and the Department of not appearing
“to understand the risks to the successful delivery of the programme”.
This is a Second Reading debate, and I am saying that all the reports indicate that we can have no trust in how the principal objectives of the project are being conducted. That is evident in the employment of Carillion as a key contractor on the project. A clear lack of oversight and due diligence has jeopardised public money. Those arguments mean that the Bill fails to meet the standards required of this House.
Moving to the local issues that affect my constituents, I am thoroughly dismayed with the entire project. Not only does the proposal carve through my entire constituency from top to bottom, without any immediate benefit to my constituents in terms of communication or railway stops, but many will acknowledge that the current west coast main line provides a good service and short journey times. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham has indicated, this HS2 project will be overtaken by new technologies, such as the possibility of a maglev system or a hyperloop system, and the technology used in the HS2 project is increasingly out of date. Within the timespan for the completion of the project, the money would be better spent on other programmes and public services.
Dame Cheryl Gillan
Does my hon. Friend agree that if the project involved running autonomous passenger and freight vehicles or other vehicles of the future up and down the line, it would probably be slightly more popular? The trouble is that the technology and the whole approach involved will produce something that is from the last century.
Sir William Cash
That is completely right. It is also perhaps true that travel times were quicker in those days than they are now. This project is about not simply capacity but efficiency, and I do not believe that its objectives will be achieved.
Turning to my local objections, a railhead will be established at Yarnfield during the construction period and will later be turned into a permanent maintenance facility. The relocation of the planned facility away from the original destination in Crewe has caused massive consternation to all my constituents in Stone and Eccleshall, and in all villages around the area, particularly Yarnfield. On 24 November 2016, I secured a half-hour Adjournment debate on the matter, and I have spoken in a variety of meetings both locally and in the House since then. Most recently, I had a meeting with the Stone Railhead Crisis Group on Friday 19 January. I will be offering help with petitions to anybody who wants it. I have invited the Clerk of Private Bills to meet the group, and I hope that that meeting will take place soon.
I reiterate that the way in which alternatives to the final proposition were considered was appalling. The original proposal for the railhead to be at Crewe was not selected. I believe that there has been serial misdirection and misinformation about employment and environmental issues. Crewe would have been far better, but now HS2 has decided to go for Yarnfield and the vicinity thereof, which will do appalling damage to my constituents, and their traffic and schools. Every single aspect of the development will have the most serious and deleterious effect on my constituents.
The disruption due to works at Norton Bridge has already started, and the HS2 works at Stone and Swynnerton belie the notion that disruption will be minimised—it is liable only to get worse. The HS2 phase 2 environmental statement draws attention to lighting being visible along Yarnfield Lane and on the north eastern edge of Yarnfield itself. That is on top of the significant and noticeable noise that the facility will generate, the destruction of woodland, the destruction of visual landscape and the substantial noise from construction traffic.
I am also deeply concerned about the impact on the elderly, and it is shameful that retired people who seek a peaceful rural life will find their area violated. I am also concerned about the communities that are being directly destroyed, such as two properties in Shelton under Harley. There will be noise from construction on Pirehill Lane. There are also problems for several grade II listed buildings, including Blakelow farm, the water tower on Stab Lane and the Swynnerton Heath farmhouse, in addition to non-listed heritage sites such as Darlaston pool, the milestone near Cash’s pit and areas of the Shelton under Harley farm. That is yet another example of the damage that will be done.
In an update statement on 17 July 2017, the Secretary of State for Transport assured me that Yarnfield Lane will remain open. I am afraid to say that that assurance is useless without any consideration of the impact of heavy goods vehicles travelling along that narrow road, rendering it impassable during peak hours as if it were fully closed. That is bound to have a very bad effect on my constituents’ health and welfare. The proposal to use Eccleshall Road as an access and supply route will block the whole area, which is already oversubscribed.
Cold Norton is a cluster of 40 dwellings within 500 metres of the M6, but it does not appear to be included in the documents. If the works lead to the closure of the B5026 and Yarnfield Lane, my constituents in Cold Norton, Norton Bridge, Chebsey, Yarnfield, Swynnerton and Eccleshall will not have access to their main travel route into Stone. There will also be an impact on Great Bridgeford and many other areas in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy).
Trains will go straight down my entire constituency, from top to bottom. Baldwin’s Gate, Bar Hill, Whitmore and Madeley are in a rural area of outstanding natural beauty. The proposed scheme will cut straight through it, with two viaducts at the River Lea valley and Meece brook valley, and two tunnels along the way. There will be an enormous amount of construction work in a delicate area.
I will meet the Whitmore2Madeley action group on Friday 2 February to examine the proposed Whitmore construction site. I met the group in July 2017, and I have organised a meeting so that the group can meet the Clerk of Private Bills.
The environmental impact assessments show there will be significant quality-of-life problems at the Stone railhead. The views from Rectory Lane, Manor Road, Madeley cemetery, Madeley Park, Bar Hill Road and Wrinehill wood will all be negatively affected, and there will be traffic problems, too.
Then we have the A51 London Road and A53 Newcastle Road to consider. At least five footpaths will be closed in the process of construction. Communities and cultural heritage in the area will also suffer. Viaducts at Lea valley and Meece brook will prove to be eyesores. Nine properties will be permanently affected, including Rose Cottage and Wood Croft. Construction will cause impossible chaos for 29 residential properties in Whitmore and Whitmore Heath, 20 on Manor Road, 43 on Bar Hill Road and Mallard Close, and five at Moor Hall and Bower End farms. Furthermore, Hey House, a grade II listed house, will have its setting permanently degraded.
I now turn to the environmental cost in the area. Most prominent is the destruction of at least part of two woods—Whitmore wood and Barhill wood. The Woodland Trust points out the possible cost of this damage, noting that the
“Stone constituency will suffer loss or damage to 11 ancient woodlands, totalling 8.9 ha of loss. Whitmore Wood will suffer the greatest single loss of ancient woodland on the entire HS2 route. Tunnelling must be considered to avoid this loss.”
That is an attack on our woodland environment.
An additional 0.2 hectares will be lost at Barhill wood to allow for the Madeley tunnel portal. This forms just a small part of the argument for a longer, deeper tunnel to limit the environmental damage of the scheme, which I know that the Minister is examining. Such a tunnel would not completely remove the damaging local impact of this proposal, but it would nevertheless prevent the inefficient upheaval generated by involving multiple sites. There is an argument about this tunnel and I have been given certain assurances, but I am deeply concerned about whether the money will be made available in any case—we have no certainty about that at this stage. More specifically, the proposal for a tunnel from Whitmore to Madeley would, it is argued, avoid the destruction by HS2 works of 33% of Whitmore wood, the viaduct and embankments in the Lea valley, and the disruptive work on Manor Road. This has to be pursued vigorously so that we get to the bottom of exactly what will be involved. I understand the assurances that have been given, but there are also complications due to the relationship between the northern part and the southern part of my constituency, which will doubtless be the subject of petitions from the two groups in question.
In conclusion, I will be voting against the Bill, as I did on the previous Bill for phase 1. My constituents will be petitioning against the Bill and will appear in front of the Select Committee. I urge the Government and that Committee to do all they can to pay the most careful attention to these petitions if this Bill goes through today, and to provide my constituents with every opportunity to be heard. This is a very, very big thing for them—it is massive. Hon. Members should think what it would be like if this were to happen to any other constituency on the scale it is happening to mine, which is similar to the situation in the constituency of my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham. She has done a fantastic job and we will try to do the same in our area. At the moment, I am deeply disappointed with these proposals and I shall be voting against them.
Mrs Louise Ellman (Liverpool, Riverside) (Lab/Co-op)
I, too, welcome the Minister to her place. I support the Bill because it brings the potential benefits of HS2 to parts of the north earlier than was envisaged—2027 is a lot better than 2033. HS2 is visionary, but that vision will be realised only if the high-speed network is linked to the existing classic network and if regeneration takes place not just at high-speed rail stations, but in areas around those stations and beyond, in supporting transport links and investing in businesses. Local enterprise partnerships, perhaps working together and looking across regions, need to put together regional strategies to ensure that transport investment leads to more opportunities for business, employment and skills.
We have said a great deal about the importance of high-speed rail, and HS2 specifically, in bringing new capacity on to our rail line. That is, in essence, what this is all about. But in ensuring that that increased capacity is maximised, we have to look at how we can develop services on the classic line once the high-speed line has been built. We also have to remember the importance of developing freight links, as freight routes are essential. In areas such as Liverpool, among others, where port trade is developing, it is crucial that new freight lines are made available. One of the strong reasons for HS2 is that the existing lines running passenger services on the west coast main line are virtually full and there is simply no space for freight. As we develop HS2, it is essential that thought is given to freight.
Let me turn to some specific issues that affect the north in general and Liverpool in particular. I emphasise the importance of Northern Powerhouse Rail, which has already been mentioned, for people throughout the north. I certainly welcome Transport for the North’s having been put on a statutory footing in the past couple of weeks. Nevertheless, when will the transformational changes promised by Northern Powerhouse Rail and Transport for the North actually be realised? It is important that those changes happen so that places such as Liverpool, Manchester, Sheffield, Newcastle and Hull have much better lines of communication between them as part of the development of their economies.
I welcome the setting up of Northern Powerhouse Rail because it goes beyond the parochial and shows that we are looking at things on a regional and cross-regional basis. That is the only way we are going to bring real economic changes to our communities, but those changes have to take place in a reasonable timescale. They must not remain simply promises for the future that do not actually happen. It is important to restate that although Northern Powerhouse Rail is extremely important for Liverpool and for the north, it is not an alternative to HS2. It is foolish for people to suggest that.
Mary Robinson (Cheadle) (Con)
I, too, welcome HS2 for the very same reasons. There needs to be investment in the north. What with the £70 billion of investment in Northern Powerhouse Rail over the next 30 years, we have an opportunity to get the vision off the ground and really make a difference in the north of England.
Mrs Ellman
I agree with the hon. Lady. It would be a grave mistake to have a new high-speed line from London to Birmingham that stopped there and left the rest of the country to deal with lesser investment that will bring fewer economic development returns. We need both.
The case has long been argued that Liverpool needs a direct link to the new high-speed line. I recognise that the existing plans will bring benefit to Liverpool in terms of increased capacity and quicker journeys between Liverpool and London and between Liverpool and other cities. Nevertheless, for Liverpool to benefit in a way that is comparable to other major cities, there needs to be a direct link. Proposals have been developed for a new line so that Liverpool can have a direct link to both Northern Powerhouse Rail and HS2. However, the exact status of those proposals is unclear to me. They have been worked up in considerable detail and put into various potential plans, but will the Minister tell me exactly what their current status is?
I asked the Secretary of State about this at the start of the debate. I welcomed his comments about his support for Liverpool—indeed, he said that he was very fond of Liverpool and reiterated that it would benefit from HS2—but he was not specific about how anything was going to happen. What progress has been made on linking Liverpool directly with both HS2 and Northern Powerhouse Rail? Liverpool is increasingly successful, partly because of its transport links, but for its potential to be realised fully, we must improve this even more, which means having a proper connection to high-speed rail, along with investment in the classic rail system and in Northern Powerhouse Rail.
Liverpool’s new deep-water container port is extremely important. It is important to have freight links to the northern ports. We are developing as an increasingly important logistics centre and as a visitor destination, and the growing cruise line sector is extremely exciting, which means that Liverpool needs to maximise its transport links. I hope that I will get a proper answer from the Minister on those issues.
I will just refer, too, to some concerns about how the Crewe hub is intended to develop based on the information that is available now. There are proposals to do with splitting trains at Crewe, which could adversely impact on current plans for high-speed Liverpool to London journeys. I query whether improvements will be made on Liverpool to Birmingham journeys in the way that they were first envisaged. I ask for that to be looked at again during the further discussions that will inevitably take place.
In summary, I welcome this Bill. It is a great step forward. I support high-speed rail; I think it is visionary, but for that vision to be realised, there must be continued investment in the classic line, new lines where they are required and business regeneration connected with that transport development to develop new regional economic strategies that will help to transform the north.
Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)
I rise to oppose the Second Reading today for reasons very similar to those given by my hon. Friends the Members for Lichfield (Michael Fabricant) and for Stone (Sir William Cash). I echo the words of my hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield—I am not at all opposed to additional rail capacity, or indeed to relatively high-speed rail capacity. The problem with the Bill before us now is that it is capable of pretty much no amendment. Yes, there can be very small adjustments made, but none of them would do anything for my constituents who are hugely affected by this development.
First, I want to talk about why the Bill, and indeed the whole project, is wrong in principle; secondly, about the specific problems that we face in the Stafford constituency; and thirdly about some suggestions for how those problems might be ameliorated. We do not need a 400 km an hour line in the United Kingdom, with the little connectivity that these proposals give us. As my hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield has said, the line is forced to go so straight that it does not take the most appropriate and sensitive route. A line of 250 km to 300 km an hour would have been easily adequate. In fact, it is very unlikely that the trains will ever reach anything more than that.
In my constituency, the line seems to head straight for the villages, and not for the open countryside. It affects four villages directly, and it is adjacent to a fifth. I would welcome any hon. Member who wants to come for a visit to note the impact on this part of the world—in Staffordshire and in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Stone. Lots of alternatives have been put forward. We have already heard about the Arup alternative. There is also the High Speed UK alternative, which provides much better connectivity between 32 prominent cities of the UK. I have looked at it in some detail. I am sure that holes can be picked in it, but those holes will be considerably smaller than the ones that can be picked in the proposals that are before us now. This is the wrong solution to a problem that we undoubtedly have.
Just before people say that this is simply a nimby attitude, I point out that both my hon. Friend the Member for Stone and I have supported an extremely large rail project in our constituencies, which came at some inconvenience to our constituents, but nevertheless we saw the benefit of it. That was the Norton Bridge junction, which has increased speeds on that line, and increased capacity on the west coast main line. Indeed, before I was elected, I supported the proposal of the previous Government on the Stafford bypass, which also had an impact on my constituency.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
I was in Committee upstairs, and came down particularly to hear the hon. Gentleman’s speech. He knows that I passionately oppose HS2. I applaud his opposition, and would love to make the visit to his constituency to see the degradation, because £100 billion of expenditure should go not on this, but on a decent railway service across the north of England.
Jeremy Lefroy
I am most grateful to the hon. Gentleman. He is welcome to visit my constituency; we will make an arrangement. He will see the beautiful countryside of the upper Trent Valley, and I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Stone would also show him across Swynnerton Park and up towards Madeley, so that he can see the effect of the line on those areas.
The business case is another reason I believe this is the wrong project. We have heard from other hon. Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Mr Seely), that the business case is not particularly compelling. In fact, our former colleague and former Chair of the Treasury Committee, Andrew Tyrie, said that HS2
“has the weakest economic case of all projects”
within the infrastructure programme. As has been mentioned, there is a hole in the business case. That is, there is no business case that I can see for the continuation of the existing west coast main line without the revenue from the high-speed services that currently use it and generate most of its revenue. How will that line be maintained? Will it be maintained purely with the revenue from local and regional services, on which prices can be extremely low? Will that generate enough revenue? Alternatively, will it be maintained using revenue from freight services? I do not know, but there is not a business case. I have asked for it and it has not been provided. I urge the Government—particularly if they are about to put out to tender for the package of HS2 and the west coast main line—to insist that we have a proper business case for the entire package, not simply for HS2.
Sir William Cash
Does my hon. Friend agree that this has all the hallmarks of a vanity project and that that is why there is not a proper business case? To a certain extent, that answers his question.
Jeremy Lefroy
Well, I am not sure that it is a vanity project because, if constructed, it certainly will bring benefits to the country, although probably at much more expense than it should and at a huge cost to our constituents. When I challenged a very senior person who has been involved in this project in the past, they said, “Well, actually, it’s gone too far. We wouldn’t have started it here but we have gone too far.” The west coast main line was started, I think, in the 1850s—possibly even earlier—so this project will last for 200 years. What is a few years to get this right and to put it in the right place? I shall return to that point.
On the problems, let me start with the problems for people because people are the most important. I get pretty frustrated when HS2 staff come around to count bats. Yes, bats have importance, but my constituents are more important. HS2 is prepared to spend an awful lot of time and money counting bats and various other things, but not talking to my constituents. I have constituents who have waited for a visit for a year. These constituents have dairy farms, and HS2 wants to take 100 acres away from their farm, which would make a dairy farm unviable. Only last week, a constituent of mine suddenly received a letter from HS2 indicating that his entire property was needed, when it had previously only needed a very small part. I have a strong objection to the uncertainty and inefficiency with which my constituents have been handled. That is not to criticise every single employee of HS2. I have met some extremely good ones. There have been some who I would praise for their work, but there have been others who, I am afraid, have fallen short.
Dame Cheryl Gillan
I do not entirely agree with my hon. Friend that bats have no importance whatever, but I do agree with him that people are important. He may actually experience what I experienced in my constituency, whereby HS2 implied and said that it was going to take a property and then decided that it was not going to take it, which can also have severe implications for businesses affected in that fashion.
Jeremy Lefroy
I entirely agree. I apologise if I gave the impression that I do not care about bats at all, but I care about my constituents a little bit more. There are also the issues of the slow process, the lack of engagement, totally unnecessary arguments over valuations and a lack of knowledge. For example, one constituent of mine was not aware of what was going on. He sold the property after the line was announced and made a huge loss, but was then unable to claim for that loss because he was told that he should have gone through the process. This elderly gentleman was basically robbed of tens of thousands of pounds simply because he did not quite understand the system. Will the Minister see whether there is some way that we can get compensation for my constituent, who deserves it? I have constituents, an elderly couple, whose property is going to be boxed in by the works on HS2—literally boxed in. Yet, as things stand, they are not going to be allowed to sell their house to HS2, for reasons I fail to understand.
Then there is the impact on communities and the environment. The line runs adjacent to Great Haywood. It goes through Ingestre, Hopton, Marston and Yarlet. These are mainly old and ancient villages with strong communities. Hopton has lost a lot of its population already because people have moved out. There is not the community there that there was, because HS2, although it is renting out to people some of the properties that have been sold to it, is not doing so quickly. Naturally, the people who are coming in, perhaps for the short term, are not able to join in the community as much as others would.
Sir William Cash
Does my hon. Friend recall the impact that this will also have on Yarlet School, which is a very serious problem for those who have this fantastically good school and the facilities that go with it?
Jeremy Lefroy
I do indeed. The line goes pretty much straight through Yarlet School, and not only that but through Yarlet wood, which is one of our ancient woodlands. I think it is even noted in the Domesday Book, so it is the best part of 1,000 years old.
Another very important part of Staffordshire life that the line goes straight through, or almost straight through, is Staffordshire showground, which hosts not just the county show but hundreds of other events every year, with probably the best part of 300,000 or 400,000 people attending. It is a very important employer and economic entity within my constituency.
The line goes very close to Shugborough. The irony of this is that when the west coast main line was put through Shugborough in the 19th century, the Earl of Lichfield persuaded the railway company to build a cut-and-cover tunnel through Shugborough, which one still sees when going on the main line up to Liverpool. We have been unable to persuade HS2 to provide such tunnelling for my constituents. Clearly, where the railways would listen to the Earl of Lichfield 150 years ago and more, they do not listen to the ordinary people today who would like to have some protection from this line. The line also goes pretty much straight through the beautiful Ingestre and Tixall parklands and landscapes.
The next issue is transport infrastructure. The line cuts straight across several major roads, including the A51, the A518, the A34 and the M6, and goes over the west coast main line. As far as I can see, HS2 and Highways England do not seem to have a plan on how to manage the inevitable disruption to local, regional, and indeed national transport that is going to be caused. I hope they do have one, because the M6 must be, if not the busiest motorway in Europe, then one of the busiest, and the A34 is a kind of relief road for the M6. If both of those are going to be disrupted, particularly if it happens at the same time, the consequences for the regional and national economy, right up to Scotland, will be quite substantial.
Another problem is connectivity after HS2. Clearly, connectivity from Stafford will be better. There will be a faster journey from Stafford to London than at present. It is already an extremely good and fast journey—nobody has complained to me about it in the past—and it will, I admit, be a few minutes faster. Northbound, we are really concerned about connectivity, because we understand that the trains through Stafford and Stoke will end at Macclesfield. I have nothing against Macclesfield; in fact, it is a wonderful town. However, most of the time my constituents tend to prefer to go further to Manchester and Liverpool rather than to stop at Macclesfield. As I say, I have nothing against Macclesfield.
The next problem is the impact on businesses. Last week, I heard from a business that received, out of the blue, a letter saying, “We want all your land.” This business employs a large number of people in a rural area; it is possibly the biggest employer in that area. Yet suddenly, with literally no notice, we are suddenly told that HS2 needs the entire plot that it is working from, without any alternative.
Mr Sheerman
I rarely agree with the hon. Member for Stone (Sir William Cash), but I do in this case, about this being a vanity project. Does the hon. Gentleman accept that this is not really about connectivity or helping local industry? As he says, it will damage local industry. The French experience already shows that it does not liberate and rejuvenate the provincial cities and towns. It actually drains even more power and influence down to London and the metropolitan area around the south-east.
Jeremy Lefroy
I largely agree with the hon. Gentleman. I fear that that will be the case unless, as speakers both in favour and against have said, connectivity is taken much more seriously. I urge Ministers to look at the proposals of High Speed UK, even if they do not like those proposals, because it has some extremely important points to make about connectivity for other major cities in the UK.
If the line goes ahead—it seems there is a majority in the House at the moment for it, but that may change— I would like to make some proposals. First, for my constituents and my colleagues’ constituents, we must employ full-time sympathetic and responsive liaison officers who work together with businesses and constituents to ensure that problems are dealt with quickly, efficiently and compassionately. We must also give additional support to local health services. Quite a large number of my constituents have found this a very difficult time and have needed additional support, particularly with their mental health, and local surgeries have not necessarily had the resources to provide that.
It is very important that local people see that there are local jobs in this, and that people are not just brought in. Obviously we need the right skills, but as far as possible, local businesses and local people must be employed.
On the issue of mitigation, I urge the Minister, who I welcome to her position and congratulate on her appointment, to look at more tunnelling, particularly in the area of the Staffordshire showground, Hopton, Marston and Yarlet. I think it is possible. A green tunnel was proposed for Hopton, but it was removed on spurious grounds, or at least grounds that could have been overcome.
I ask the Minister to ensure that we have full planning well in advance for local, regional and national transport, including additional roads. I suggest a link between the A34 and junction 13, just as we have a link between the A34 and junctions 14 and 15. The very long viaduct at Great Haywood must be of outstanding design and faced with traditional stone or brick. I also suggest that the bridge constructed over the M6 for the railway or at least the supports for it should be put in place when the M6 is widened between junctions 13 and 15, rather than having to close the motorway for two separate civil works.
In conclusion, I would rather the Government paused, rethought and built for the whole country, with much better connectivity than this proposal gives us. If this goes ahead, at least for the time being, I ask that all the mitigations that my colleagues and I have put forward be taken seriously, because to date, they have not been.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Speaker
Order. I remind Members that, as they can see for themselves, seven hon. Members are still seeking to contribute to the debate, therefore there is a premium on reasonable brevity. If each contributes for no more than 10 minutes, all should have the chance to do so before the winding-up speeches begin.
Jo Platt (Leigh) (Lab/Co-op)
You will be glad to hear, Mr Speaker, that I intend to speak only briefly, to raise one particular concern that I believe needs urgent consideration by the Government as the HS2 process continues.
HS2 has the ability to rejuvenate the northern economy, bringing with it the much-needed investment, jobs and social transformation that the north deserves. However, to me, HS2 is not just about connecting businesses and bolstering economies. It represents a crucial mechanism to connect people with the skills, education and employment opportunities that could improve life chances.
As I have been clear since my election to this House, connectivity into HS2 stations must be addressed by the Government, because unless connectivity is adequately addressed, HS2 is at risk of becoming a token flagship project that will fail to produce the important benefits we are promised in the north. Such connectivity means connecting our towns and outer cities seamlessly into our HS2 stations, creating a united and interconnected northern economy.
As my hon. Friend the Member for City of Chester (Christian Matheson) so rightly pointed out, the Government need “to stop kicking this…can down the road”. At the Tory party conference, the Transport Secretary announced that £300 million would be allocated to HS2 connectivity in the north. However, inspection of the detail of the announcement showed that this money was already allocated to just six city hotspots across the north, totally neglecting the economies and opportunities of our northern towns.
Furthermore, the new Minister suggested two weeks ago that my constituents could access HS2 from Manchester airport, but Manchester airport is a one hour 30 minute bus trip away. How can the Government ever claim to be committed to our town economies when they believe that that is acceptable and that, despite HS2 cutting through the middle of my constituency, it will take longer for my constituents to connect to HS2 at Manchester airport than to travel onwards to London?
The connectivity plans as they currently stand are completely unacceptable to our region, but it is for the young people in Leigh that I wanted to speak in this debate. They are growing up in the context of an evolving economic landscape that they will not easily be able to participate in. In the words of the former Conservative Education Secretary, the right hon. Member for Putney (Justine Greening), the
“bottom line is that while talent is spread evenly in our country, opportunity isn’t”.
Until the Government either invest in our northern towns or provide our transport bodies with the funding to do so, these enormous infrastructure projects will benefit only those growing up in our inner cities. The divide between our towns and our cities is growing ever larger under this Government. This will restrict the life chances of an entire generation who are being held back solely because of their postcode. I therefore urge the Government to review their connectivity plans and seek to widen the opportunities that HS2 could provide to our young people.
Dame Cheryl Gillan (Chesham and Amersham) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Leigh (Jo Platt). I share her pain, because HS2 phase 1 goes right through the middle of my constituency and brings no benefits, just burdens. I think there are many such seats, as we have heard from other hon. Members on other occasions, as well as today. I agree with her about the north. My father was in steel in the north of England, and we have always known that to assist in increasing the prosperity of the north of England, the cross-Pennine links should have been prioritised a long time ago. It is a pleasure to follow her short but elegant speech.
May I welcome the Minister to the Front Bench? My hon. Friend the Member for Wealden (Ms Ghani) is an extremely capable person, although I have to say that I do not envy her her task. She follows in the footsteps of no less than—let me see—one, two, three, four, five Secretaries of State and one, two, three, four, five, six junior Ministers. Since 2010, it appears that no Minister has managed more than two years in this position in charge of HS2. I would not have wished HS2 on her, but I hope her ministerial career will last a great deal longer than that. I wish, however, that her colleagues would listen and that we could have a Minister dedicated to HS2 on its own, because this project is such a gargantuan one that it really deserves to have ministerial attention focused on it completely. If we look at the project’s history since its inception, with the catalogue of failures and problems it has thrown up, we can see that a Minister dedicated to it is much needed and would be very welcome.
Mr Speaker, I feel like saying, “Here we are again, and yes, I am on my feet.” I think we probably do divide into sheep and goats on the Floor of this House as far as HS2 is concerned. Whether I am a sheep or a goat I do not know. I am probably an old goat, but I am happy to stand up here with some other old goats, like my hon. Friends the Members for Lichfield (Michael Fabricant), for Stone (Sir William Cash) and for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy), and even the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman)—most of whom happen to be in the Chamber at the moment. I have been really heartened by the support that I have had over the years as I have tried to fight this project, and then tried to have it altered and modified so that it did less harm than was envisaged.
Mr Sheerman
In passing, I congratulate the right hon. Lady on becoming a dame. Is it not a fact that she and I have campaigned against this project for a very long time, on the grounds that it will not deliver, it will never deliver, by 2033, and it will be superseded by different forms of transportation by 2033, and also on the grounds that £100 billion of national treasure that could have flowed—I say this as a Labour MP—into the national health service and transport across the north will have been wasted?
Dame Cheryl Gillan
I am loth to agree with the hon. Gentleman entirely, but I find myself tempted to do so, because the first point I want to mention is cost.
The cost of this project will go up exponentially. When it was first announced in 2013, the cost of the whole project was about £16 billion, and by 2015 those costs were updated to £55.7 billion. The National Audit Office published a report on HS2’s progress and preparations, and it highlighted the fact that the £55.7 billion funding package does not even cover the funding for the activity needed to deliver the promised growth and regeneration benefits that the hon. Member for Leigh so desperately wants for her young constituents. I think that still continues to be a problem, and I would ask the Minister to have a look at when she can update the costs of this project, and ask her to lay out clearly for the House what extra funding will be required from the Treasury to deliver those growth and regeneration benefits that have been so much boasted of.
I think HS2 will turn out to be, as Michael Byng said, the most expensive railway on earth, at £403 million a mile. In fact, Michael Byng, who created the method used by Network Rail to cost its projects, made the estimates for the DFT and said the line would cost double the official figure, and 15 times more than the cost per mile of the TGV in France. We need to be very careful about how those costs are escalating.
I want to mention the environment. I have had some notable gains in Buckinghamshire—our own county—to save the Chilterns from even greater damage than was first anticipated. I am grateful for the tunnelling. It saves some 9.2 hectares of ancient woodland in three separate woods, but the Woodland Trust has estimated that on phase 2a and 2b it is losing 24 irreplaceable woods, and we shall still lose 63 ancient woods on phase 1 to start off with. I say to the House: once they have gone, they are lost forever. You cannot replace ancient woodland, however much planting you do in other areas of the country.
I want to mention the process. I think the hybrid Bill process for phase 1 was a travesty of our procedures, and I pay tribute to the Chairman of Ways and Means and the House authorities who looked at the Standing Orders and changed some of the aspects of a hybrid Bill to improve the petitioner experience. I want to place it on the record that I think our Clerk who is no longer with us, Neil Caulfield, who was so excellent, would have been pleased to see adjustments to these procedures. Although it is still an arcane process, I think it was important that we fed back the agonies of going through the hybrid Bill process, and that the House responded. I think the positive changes that have been made, particularly the changes to the language, which will increase accessibility to the petitioners, will make a difference and protect the rights for petitioners to be heard. I also think that submitting petitions electronically is a way forward. I still think that the fee of £20 to fight for one’s house, business, land or property is insulting, and I see no reason why petitioners must pay £20 to have their case heard when the state is trying to take their property.
I also feel that corridor deals need to be stamped out. Corridor deals conducted by silks and barristers acting on behalf of the Government are completely opaque and have no enforceability. There is intimidation and pressure from the QCs and the legal teams, hustling up to people in the corridor right before their petition is heard. I hope that the Government will listen and ensure that corridor deals are stamped out completely in this next legislative phase.
I want to refer to engagement by HS2 and the attitude towards the people affected. My colleagues have spoken eloquently already about the ways in which HS2 and its staff and personnel still fail to engage with the people who are most affected by this project. I am still hearing of poor engagement up and down the line, and the Country Land and Business Association reports delays, secrecy, broken promises and poor management.
We are still waiting for answers on various matters, such as the incident that took place in the Colne Valley the other day. I asked for the outcome of the investigation, because I thought that was quite a serious incident. I have still not had any response outlining exactly what happened and why people behaved in such a fashion to people crossing land that would be affected by HS2.
I would also very much like to find out what is happening in my own constituency, in Buckinghamshire. The other day, the Secretary of State promised that I and other MPs would be informed where works were taking place and that has not yet happened. The Secretary of State gave a categorical undertaking at that Dispatch Box, but messages I have had none.
Only today, despite a clear, agreed contract with HS2, a constituent has found that the payment they were due to receive within 21 days is still outstanding three months later. I will give details to the Secretary of State because it came in just today, but that just proves to me that HS2 still cannot keep its commitments or treat the people who are being affected by the project in a rational, decent and respectful manner. It is a gross miscarriage of justice for people to be treated in such a way by the Government and by HS2 Ltd.
Michael Fabricant
Like me, my right hon. Friend has gone through the phase 1 experience—I am, of course, affected by phase 2a as well. Does she not think that HS2 as an organisation is dysfunctional? One official does not speak to another, the left hand does not know what the right hand is doing; surely that does not augur well for the construction of a railway line.
Dame Cheryl Gillan
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. A project of this nature needs to be run in the most professional fashion possible. It needs good governance. It does not need its top executives to be paid 10 times what an MP is paid. It has been criticised up hill and down dale. We have seen it handing out £1.7 million of unauthorised redundancy payments. We have seen the conflicts of interest that have caused major companies to pull out of the bidding process and the contractual process, the failure to carry out due diligence, a turnover of staff, and an attitude towards the people they deal with that can only be described as arrogant.
I still hope that this project can be pulled back into shape. That is why I encourage my colleagues to think about dedicating the Minister’s career over at least the next two years solely to looking after HS2. I thought long and hard, and I have the freedom of the Back Benches, which is a great pleasure, and it is with a heavy heart that once again I have to say that although I know that my hon. Friends will not press their amendment to a vote, if anyone does call a vote on Second Reading, I will again be forced to walk through the Lobby against it.
Preet Kaur Gill (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab/Co-op)
It is an honour to follow the right hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Dame Cheryl Gillan). I too welcome the Minister to her post and wish her very well.
In the UK, we are rightly proud of our status as the birthplace of the railways. However, our rail infrastructure —much of it from the Victorian era—requires significant investment if it is to continue to serve the people of Britain in the 21st century. In our 2017 manifesto, Labour promised to create a national transformation fund to invest some £250 billion over 10 years, and we remain firmly committed to investing in our nation’s infrastructure.
HS2 represents one of the largest infrastructure projects in Europe. The scheme will provide much needed capacity to support future demand for rail services, and it aims to deliver wider economic benefits to the regions that it serves and beyond. Although very few would argue against those goals, it is crucial that the project is conducted in the right way: by providing jobs and opportunities to our young people, minimising the disruption caused to our communities and protecting our precious environment.
Although I support the HS2 project in principle, I think it is important to focus on a number of issues. London’s economic output is more than double the rest of the UK average. For the country as a whole to prosper, the balance needs to be redressed, not to the detriment of Londoners but for the benefit of all. According to Government figures, when HS2 is fully completed, it will deliver a benefit-cost ratio of 2.3 when wider economic impacts are included. I want to make sure that those benefits are shared by as wide a group as possible, and especially the areas that are directly affected by the construction of the line. Billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money is being spent on this project; that money must benefit more than just the shareholders of a handful of large companies.
Both the Birmingham chamber of commerce in my constituency and the Greater Birmingham and Solihull local enterprise partnership support HS2, recognising the economic benefits that better connectivity will bring. I want Birmingham’s economic output to continue to grow, its people to find well paid, secure and skilled jobs, and the city’s potential to be further recognised as a result of the project. I want to see the construction of HS2 ignite greater interest in engineering among our young people, and apprenticeships to be made available to all young people in our communities, whatever their background.
Rachel Maclean
I completely agree with the hon. Lady about the benefits and how they should be spread across Birmingham and the region. Does she also agree that this is a great opportunity to capture the talents of women, particularly in engineering, in this Year of Engineering?
Preet Kaur Gill
I absolutely agree; we need to see more women coming into engineering.
However, one of my concerns is that the recent fiasco surrounding the east coast main line franchise, combined with the demonstrable success achieved after the last private sector rail bail-out by Directly Operated Railways, serves only to highlight the need for public ownership of our railways. At a time when living standards are squeezed, wage rises are not keeping pace with the cost of living, and rail passengers have just had to endure the largest fare rises in five years, it is not acceptable for private companies to table inflated offers for these vital services, extract the profits, and then simply walk without honouring their commitments.
Finally, this project should not come at the expense of our environment either. In future, when our children are using HS2, I want them to benefit from the cleaner air that the increased use of rail will bring, but I do not want the construction of the tracks that they are travelling on to have caused untold damage to the environment. Organisations such as the Wildlife Trusts have raised concerns about the loss of ancient woodland, sights of special scientific interest and nature reserves. The construction of HS2 should serve as an example of how large-scale infrastructure projects can be conducted in an environmentally friendly way—changing the environment, yes, but not destroying it. This is an opportunity to achieve a net gain for nature.
The sums of money involved are too great and the potential impact on communities too large to get this project wrong. That is why the Government need to ensure that the process is as transparent, cost-effective and environmentally friendly as possible, so that HS2 delivers for the many, not the few.
Jack Brereton (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Con)
As an enthusiastic supporter of improvements to our rail network, I welcome the principle behind the Bill—establishing a high-speed railway beyond Birmingham—but I have some concerns, so I welcome this opportunity to set out how I think the Bill could be improved, particularly for the ambitious and growing city of Stoke-on-Trent.
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, as a recent and welcome visitor to my constituency, will know exactly how ambitious we are. The scale of the local rail improvements we are seeking and planning for are, like HS2 itself, unmatched since the Victorian era. We are keen to embrace the many opportunities arising from HS2. HS2 is going to happen—that is no longer the debate; phase 1 preparations are already under way, and the actual building of phase 1 begins next year. Time is marching on. The section we are debating in the Bill, phase 2a, is due to open to passengers by 2027—the end of the next Parliament. We must get on with the Bill, or it will not be long before we are living with the consequences of getting it wrong.
The principle of a high-speed railway line from the west midlands conurbation to Crewe is sound—releasing capacity for passengers and freight services on the existing network, while cutting the fast times to Crewe from London to under an hour—and in principle I welcome it, but for the social and economic benefits of HS2 to be maximised in practice, there needs to be much better integration, as many hon. Members have mentioned. Improvements to infrastructure on the existing network around Stoke-on-Trent, as well as local rail improvements for connecting trains from Crewe, including the Crewe to Derby line, which serves Longton in my constituency, are vital.
The Secretary of State joined me on that service earlier this month and has seen at first hand the improvements needed on it. I welcome the much-needed investment in our local transport infrastructure that he proposed when he visited, but there is much left to be resolved around how the benefits of HS2 will be delivered in and for Stoke-on-Trent. As the briefing note that the public affairs department of HS2 Ltd kindly sent to MPs for this debate puts it:
“Detailed work and consultation is currently being undertaken on options for the development of the HS2 Crewe Hub, with the potential for a HS2 service at Stoke.”
That is a tantalising, and potentially a very lucrative, assurance for the city.
There is clearly a need for Stoke-on-Trent to be connected—it is fundamental to HS2 being of maximum benefit to my constituency. We are told by HS2 Ltd that the Bill “could” mean better commuter services and the potential for extra freight trains, and we are assured by the Rail Delivery Group that it “will” add much-needed space for more and faster trains. I say that it “must” deliver these benefits. To do that, the Government need to be clear that a viable option for the Stoke connector, as promoted by Stoke-on-Trent City Council, is firmly on the table, to ensure that the infrastructure around Stoke-on-Trent receives the vital upgrades it needs.
This would mean getting, in addition to the proposed Handsacre link, which is appropriate for Stafford, a low-impact five-mile line designed to take classic compatible HS2 trains from the main HS2 line through the very significant Stoke-on-Trent catchment and on to the rest of east Cheshire, Macclesfield and Stockport. Such a dedicated Stoke connector would provide the necessary link to improve connectivity and boost capacity. It would do so by getting around the bottleneck that will otherwise remain on the west coast main line to the south of Stoke-on-Trent. That is the way to maximise the full opportunities for more housing and jobs, and I will continue to pursue this matter as the Bill progresses.
It is also imperative that Stoke-on-Trent continue to enjoy regular fast train services to and from London—at least one service every half hour or more frequently. HS2 compatibility should offer my constituents improved journey times as well as helping us to maximise both housing and commercial development in the city, fully seizing the economic opportunities that Stoke-on-Trent offers.
It is essential to address the lack of fast, direct services between Stoke-on-Trent and Birmingham, to match the good quality of the services currently offered between Stoke-on-Trent and Manchester. Through the Bill, HS2 has the potential to address the severe overcrowding and poor connectivity that are currently experienced between Stoke-on-Trent and Birmingham. There is also the potential to improve connectivity further by providing the direct intercity services that are currently lacking between locations such as Stoke-on-Trent and Liverpool. That would fully exploit the potential for economic growth from the midlands engine and northern powerhouse initiatives, with Stoke-on-Trent as the gateway to the north.
As well as improving services, it is essential to do more to improve both the capacity and the offer at Stoke-on-Trent railway station. Although it is the main station serving the potteries conurbation, which consists of more than half a million people, it currently has limited platform and concourse capacity, as well as poor-quality retail facilities. Again, Stoke-on-Trent City Council has stepped forward with detailed proposals. The Stoke-on-Trent HS2 master plan sets out the ambition to transform the station, vastly improving capacity and facilities, and leveraging significant redevelopment in the wider area on the back of those improvements. It is important for those proposals to be realised if we are to ensure that the station is HS2-ready and playing a full part in the city’s regeneration.
I fully support the principle of the Bill, and it will receive my support tonight. I am a positive and enthusiastic supporter of improvements in our rail industry, and I am keen for us to finally emerge from the legacy of the disastrous erosion of Stoke-on-Trent’s rail network that we saw under nationalisation. I know that the Secretary of State is equally committed to large-scale improvements, and I thank him for the commitment to invest in our local transport infrastructure that he gave during his recent visit to my constituency; it was hugely welcome. However, I take very seriously the need to improve infrastructure interconnectivity, and further work needs to be done on that. I also take very seriously the opportunities promised by the Department for Transport and HS2 Ltd, which have said that detailed proposals will continue to be refined for HS2 as the Bill progresses. I look forward to playing my part in that process to the full.
Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a pleasure to follow my constituency neighbour, the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Jack Brereton), in this important debate. I disagree with him about the support that should be offered to the Bill this evening. The principle behind a high-speed rail network is absolutely fine, but the Bill should actually be entitled the devastation of Staffordshire Bill. It will lay an iron scar across our county, and it will bring very little in the way of economic benefits. All that it does is seek to take all the potential benefits and, through a bottleneck, funnel them down to London and the south-east, where there will be no benefit for my constituents or those of the hon. Gentleman.
I find myself in what some might describe as the invidious, or perhaps I should say unusual, position of agreeing with the hon. Members for Lichfield (Michael Fabricant), for Stone (Sir William Cash) and for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy)—the holy triumvirate of Staffordshire Members when it comes to matters of logistics—who have drawn attention to the fallacies in the Bill. Like the hon. Member for Stafford, I have no problem in principle with high-speed rail. I have no problem with the idea of providing additional capacity for the west coast main line and an opportunity for new rail networks to come through Staffordshire and service his constituency and mine. What the Bill does not do, however, is match that aspiration with reality.
The hon. Gentleman has already pointed out that the services that will be coming north from London through our constituencies will terminate at Macclesfield. If we were serious about how we could provide better economic benefits for Staffordshire, the line would go all the way to Manchester. Crucially, that would also offer a new opportunity for a direct service from Stoke-on-Trent to Manchester airport. That would provide a huge growth opportunity for business and tourism, and it is supported by Staffordshire chambers of commerce, which has done so much to promote the venture. It would not necessarily involve a high-speed link, but it would involve the wider issue of funding the regeneration of rail networks out of Stoke-on-Trent. We must not focus purely on high-speed rail enabling us to get to and from London quicker than we currently can. The purpose here is interconnectivity of the regions going north as well, and what we are being offered in this Bill does not provide any sort of hope for that.
I want to look at what I consider to be a mismatch in Government policy. The Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy highlights the potential benefit of a ceramic deal in Stoke-on-Trent, and the fact that Stafford is a growth point in our county and that we could have new jobs and regeneration and place-based economic growth through a potential ceramic park bordering my constituency and in the constituency of the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent South. Yet although we are told that a place-based industrial strategy is important, we are also told that Stoke-on-Trent station, which has 2.8 million rail users a year, is not worthy of anything other than a single one-hour service that will only go north to Macclesfield and will terminate in London, when the journey time of the current service to London is adequate and capacity on the Virgin line is not too much of a problem.
The bigger capacity issue in Stoke-on-Trent and north Staffordshire involves the line run by CrossCountry that services Stafford, Wolverhampton and Birmingham and Birmingham International, where it is often standing-room only in some of the most unpleasant circumstances we can imagine. Yet while we are talking about trying to bring Government policy on regeneration strategy together, there is no economic benefit not to having a greater presence in Stoke-on-Trent.
There is the issue of where the services coming north go to. The hon. Member for Lichfield rightly pointed out that there are potential benefits in using existing railheads, and I was glad to hear the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent South endorse the work done by Councillors Mohammed Pervez and Andy Platt on the Stoke option, which sought to use the existing rail infrastructure in Staffordshire to take high-speed trains north. The estimate done by the city council at that time suggested that that system could be delivered seven years quicker than the previous timescale and at £5 billion less.
We have here a system that does not necessarily deliver economic benefits for the people of Staffordshire, and it certainly does not help address the ecological issues raised by the hon. Members for Stafford, for Stone and for Lichfield, nor does it provide any great comfort that the northern powerhouse and the midlands engine will be properly connected.
The hon. Member for Lichfield stole most of the things I wanted to say, and he made the point that this is meant to be about connectivity but it really is not. Connectivity does not mean having to traipse across London to make a change, and it does not mean having to change stations outside Birmingham—and Birmingham Curzon Street to Birmingham New Street is quite a long walk for those carrying a bag or if there are a lot of people in the town centre that day.
The system does not address the east-west connectivity of Stoke-on-Trent, which is a greater issue. It does not look at the route that goes from north Wales all the way through to Derby. It does not seek to change the single-carriage railway we currently have that is often over-subscribed. It does not seek to deal with the fact that parts of the M6 are still not in the managed motorways system, so we drive north on the M6 and hit junction 13 and all of a sudden we drop down to three lanes and the traffic is a bit gnarly and not particularly flowing well, and then we reach junction 17 and all is fine again. That is part of the connectivity that we need.
The system certainly does not recognise the fact that junction 15 of the M6 is one of the worst junctions to navigate of all time. I have sometimes had to wait longer there to get on to the M6 than it has taken me to get to Birmingham once on the M6, simply because of the way that junction works. So if we are talking about connectivity and there being a need for greater integration of transport provision, we must look at that as well as looking at high-speed rail.
The Secretary of State is not in his place at present, but the new Minister is and I welcome her to her role. Can we get some clear and categorical commitments that the existing Virgin service that we have from Stoke-on-Trent will not be diminished? Every time we ask that question, we get a slightly different answer; we get some sort of, “Yes, but, maybe, if,” but those terms do not fill us with confidence that any options that come out of the Crewe hub will not lead to a reduction overall in rail service from Stoke-on-Trent. If we include journeys from the constituency of the hon. Member for Stafford, we find that 5 million rail journeys are conducted out of Staffordshire every year. That is a large number of people, and they deserve to know what the future of their rail service will look like.
I would be grateful to the Minister if she gave greater consideration to ensuring that trains going north go past Macclesfield. There is a genuine economic boom to be harnessed in north Staffordshire and south Cheshire if we can have a proper high-speed rail link to Manchester and Manchester airport. That is a proposal that the local chambers of commerce have been putting together. I would welcome any words from her or her colleagues in the Department for Transport about the managed motorways system on the M6. We need to take a holistic approach if we are to make north Staffordshire and south Cheshire a good place to do business, deliver economic regeneration and, most importantly for my constituents, provide the rail service that they need. I support the principle of the Bill, but I cannot support its content, and if there is a Division on it, I am afraid that I will not offer my support to the Government this evening.
Rachel Maclean (Redditch) (Con)
I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this important debate, and I commit my support for the Bill’s Second Reading. I have listened with interest to the entire debate, and I want to thank all those Members who have talked about the changes that need to be made. As a former resident of Birmingham, and someone who now lives close to it, I endorse what colleagues have said about connectivity across that city. I very much hope that the issues can be addressed in the final plans. We have heard arguments about how long it takes to walk between Birmingham New Street and Birmingham Curzon Street. My hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield (Michael Fabricant) is obviously a very speedy walker; other Members walk more slowly. If that route could be joined up, it would be beneficial for everyone who passes through what is one of our nation’s great cities.
I want to touch on the question of productivity, which is a key theme in the debate and links closely with what we are trying to achieve with transport infrastructure in this country. This is the main reason why I am supporting the Bill tonight. The Government brought forward many measures in the industrial strategy to boost productivity across the country. That is really important to all of us who live outside London and the south-east. We all acknowledge that wealth, jobs and productivity are not spread evenly across our country, and one of the major things that we can do to address that is to build a decent high-speed train service that will enable our constituents, wherever they live, to travel up and down the country to access jobs and opportunities. The Government are making a fantastic commitment to this project, which underpins their mission to spread wealth and growth across the country.
Michelle Donelan
Is my hon. Friend aware that this is the biggest infrastructure project in Europe?
Rachel Maclean
I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention, because she reminds me of the significant amount—about £100 billion, I think—that Governments, including the previous Labour Government, have put forward. We have not built any new railways in this country since Victorian times, so it is really important that we are committing this funding now and in the future to build our railways. The project will be important to our constituents’ quest to travel not only from London to the midlands, but from the midlands up to the north. It will also help our quest to take pressure off the overheated south.
Maggie Throup
My hon. Friend makes a very good argument. Does she agree that this is not just about freeing up the lines to the south, because there will be help for lines to some of the smaller stations where services do not stop at the moment? This is not just about people who want to travel from city to city; it is also about travel between towns.
Rachel Maclean
I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. I am sure that many of her constituents, like mine, have to travel to the nearest big city or town to get to work or leisure destinations. The project will help to free up capacity on those secondary lines.
The project will make an important contribution to our global competitiveness as a nation. Thanks to the Government’s economic programme and their management of the economy, the UK is seen as a highly attractive destination for business investment. I want to see that continue. When foreign investors look at our country, they consider the transport links, because they want to invest in places from where it is easy to get around the country so that people will find their businesses attractive and want to work for them.
HS2 will benefit not only my constituents in Redditch, but the country as a whole. Although we will not benefit directly from HS2, we live only a short distance away from Birmingham, which will be a major stop on the line. Many of my constituents work, play and socialise in Birmingham, and the economic prospects of a place such as Redditch are intertwined with those of Birmingham and the larger west midlands conurbation. When the project is completed, we will see benefits for business and residents, and transport routes up and down the country will be opened up.
Michelle Donelan
Does my hon. Friend share my passion for the National College for High Speed Rail? It will not only help to fill the skills gap for high-speed rail, but train people so that we deal with the long-term skills gap in the engineering, design, technology and construction sectors.
Rachel Maclean
My hon. Friend is a great champion of engineering and I have been inspired by what she has done in her constituency. HS2 will definitely provide a boost for engineering careers. The hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey (Drew Hendry) rightly said that we do not mention careers for women in engineering enough, and I want to go at least some way towards rectifying that. I hope that the National College for High Speed Rail will have a mission to bring more women into engineering so that this project provides a boost to help to address the dire lack of women in engineering and construction, particularly given that it is the Year of Engineering and also 100 years since women got the vote. There are many reasons to focus on that issue and ensure that we get things right.
Maggie Throup
We need engineers to construct the line, but we need them in the supply chain, too. Bombardier’s base is close to my constituency, and I have met the female apprentice engineers who build the underground trains that we travel on every day. That is just one example of how much more we can do to spread the word that engineering is for men and women.
Rachel Maclean
My hon. Friend makes an extremely good point. We can all encourage employers to be role models and women to speak out. Businesses that value such careers should pay people decent salaries so that they do not all go off to work in the City. That is what this country needs. We need a dynamic economy that works for everyone.
Mr John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)
I was until recently the Minister for the Year of Engineering, and I looked at the possibility of establishing an advisory group to examine exactly the issue my hon. Friend describes: how groups that are under-represented in engineering can get a foothold and, beyond that, a greater share of the opportunities. I wonder whether the current Minister will take that up and perhaps establish such a group, which would be in the spirit of what my hon. Friend suggests.
Rachel Maclean
I thank my right hon. Friend for his work. He is a champion of women not only in engineering, but in all other spheres, and I hope that the Minister will take up that suggestion.
Redditch’s small businesses are hoping to take advantage of some of the contracts that are being awarded through HS2, both now and in the future. For example, Arrowvale Electronics makes world-leading equipment and hopes to benefit from the boost that an HS2 contract would provide. I know how hard it is for small businesses to tender for large-scale Government contracts, so I urge the Minister to say what she is doing to ensure that they can get a slice of the pie and benefit the diverse economy that we all want.
Gareth Snell
The hon. Lady makes the apt and correct argument that there ought to be opportunities for small and medium-sized enterprises to get government contracts. What I fail to see is the logic behind her support for both this Bill and that argument, because if there were other projects to deal with regional rail inequalities and road upgrades—other large infrastructure projects that were not HS2—such opportunities would still exist.
Rachel Maclean
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. I confess that I am not sure that I entirely followed its logic, but I think I get the point he is trying to make. There will be opportunities for small businesses, even if not directly—I am thinking of first contractors and even the supply chain further down, because many of these contracts involve a multitude of contractors. It is important that the Government look at this area, as I am sure that the Minister will. There will be a benefit for people and businesses in my constituency, and we hope there will be a particular benefit for women. Although the HS2 college is located in Birmingham, I hope that it will see what it can do to spread its opportunities for training beyond Birmingham city centre.
I have mentioned the process of contracting already, but I wish to touch on it again briefly. I am a member of the Select Committee on Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, and just this morning we held our joint inquiry with the Select Committee on Work and Pensions on the collapse of Carillion. We have questioned the regulators and we will shortly be questioning the Carillion directors. Clearly, there are many lessons to learn from this collapse, which has affected many businesses and people, including those with pensions. I very much hope that when the Government award contracts for HS2, they will learn those lessons quickly so that we do not see the sorts of decisions that enabled companies such as Carillion to continue operating in a way that put pensions and small businesses at risk. I very much hope that the Minister will address those concerns, which I am sure we all have.
If this project is done right, we have an opportunity to do contracting right, and to boost not only small businesses but larger businesses up and down the country, providing opportunities for people to gain new skills. I am talking about apprenticeships, and getting more women in engineering and new sectors such as the rail industry. Such sectors might not have been traditionally attractive for people to consider, so let us make careers in them something to which young people aspire, so that we are going forward with the jobs of the future.
Michelle Donelan
Does my hon. Friend agree that one area that has been neglected in today’s debate is the social and wellbeing aspect that the project can bring to people? We talk often in this place about loneliness and boosting tourism around the country, and improving our connectivity in the UK is an example of how we can achieve that.
Rachel Maclean
My hon. Friend makes an extremely perceptive point and I completely agree with it. My hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Mr Seely) was talking about the investment figures, and sometimes there are intangible benefits that are not always captured in an economic forecast. I hope that the Government are looking at that and looking at how we can maximise what my hon. Friend the Member for Chippenham (Michelle Donelan) describes. Loneliness is a real scourge and when people who live in London can get on a train and go to Birmingham, or vice-versa, and people can to go from Birmingham to the north, they can explore new parts of our beautiful country. We can also reduce the carbon footprint that would come from their getting on an airplane. Let us have more staycations. Let us explore our country, because we are blessed in our island nation with some of the most beautiful landscapes. Sometimes that tourism benefit is lacking from our debate. How much better it would be if we could encourage holidays at home and boost the tourism—
Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. I am trying to have the debate at least somewhere in scope, and I am sure the hon. Lady wants to get back on track —excuse the pun.
Rachel Maclean
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I apologise for deviating a tiny bit off the track.
As my right hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire Dales (Sir Patrick McLoughlin) said in his extremely eloquent speech, it is impossible to build a major infra- structure project in any country without it having some impact on people, but we have to make sure that it is managed sensitively, that people are treated well and that their voices and concerns are heard. I hope that the Government reassure us that that will be done properly.
Infrastructure underpins our productivity. There is a strong push in our country towards devolution, and investment in high-speed rail is critical to that. Will the Minister say how this project will link to the devolved combined authorities agenda? I am close to the West Midlands combined authority—Redditch is a constituent member—where the Mayor holds powers over transport. It is important that HS2 links to transport in the mayors’ regions so that we have an integrated solution to local transport issues. I have campaigned vigorously for better links between Birmingham and my town of Redditch, and I shall continue to do so. I hope that we see a push on that as capacity is freed up when the express trains leave the lines, thereby freeing up more scope for faster and better express services from secondary hubs into the main cities.
We in the west midlands are leading on jobs and growth. We have a booming economy. We are creating more jobs and more businesses are starting in our area than in any other part of the country. Redditch is on the edge of that, but we benefit from it and we want to harness it. We want our region to take control of our own destiny, as do, I am sure, colleagues from across the country. This high-speed rail project and other infrastructure projects will enable us to take charge of our own destiny and live our own lives and will encourage prosperity for all our constituents.
Andrew Jones (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (Con)
I rise to speak in support of the Bill. It is positive that we are debating it and I very much enjoyed playing a role in its development.
As my right hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire Dales (Sir Patrick McLoughlin) said, passenger numbers on our railways have grown from just over 700 million to nearly 1.6 billion. That is a fantastic turnaround for an industry that had seen decades of decline. The industry now faces the challenge of how to cater for the growth it is experiencing. It is a completely different mindset, so it is positive that we are seeking finally to bite the bullet and construct some new capacity in the UK rail network. We have deferred this decision for far too long. Things such as small upgrades to reduce pinch points and thereby increase capacity have only deferred the big decisions. If we consider the fact that we have not built a new railway line in England north of London since the reign of Queen Victoria, we realise just how overdue HS2 is.
Ben Bradley (Mansfield) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that part of the reason why we now face a capacity issue and need to deliver HS2 is that the frailties of the nationalised rail service caused the shutdown of so much of the capacity throughout the country?
Andrew Jones
My hon. Friend makes an insightful point. We had decades of decline when the rail industry was in public hands. The turnaround post-privatisation has been dramatic. Opposition Members take that for granted and suggest that nationalisation is a way forward, but they have forgotten the complete change we saw, with the focus on customers and growth, and how that has delivered and been a key part of the UK’s economic growth.
Christian Matheson
Will the hon. Gentleman not concede that that turnaround has taken place on the back of several hundred million pounds of public money being given to the train operators every year?
Andrew Jones
Well, the hon. Gentleman suggests that even more public money should go in, so I am not sure where his argument takes him, apart from round in a circle. We are seeing long-overdue public investment in the rail industry.
Sir Patrick McLoughlin
We do not want to spend too much time on this issue, but the simple fact is that in the past, when the nationalised railway had to rely solely on the Government, the Government cut off its funding. With privatisation, it has attracted funding. The truth of the matter is that that has seen growth in the rail industry that has made something like HS2 absolutely necessary.
Andrew Jones
My right hon. Friend is as wise as ever. Not only do we have public money going into our railways, but we are seeing private investment attracted into our railways and therefore more investment in aggregate. We have this urgent need for capacity within our network to cater for the growth both in passengers and in freight.
After years of decline, this decision has been taken to go for growth. The next question that successive Governments have faced is what form that should take. Should it be investment in the classic rail network, or should we be embracing new technology? Well, we should of course be embracing new technology. Perhaps it is again worth remembering that that has not always been the case under nationalised industries. The UK built its last steam engine in 1960, and it was only in 1964 that the Japanese introduced the bullet train. The Government are buying investment not in phone boxes, but in fibre broadband. Technology should of course be at the heart of our investment decisions.
Gareth Snell
I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way; he is being generous. I do not disagree with his arguments about the need for infrastructure investment or the need for additional capacity, but this Bill in particular is about the route between the west midlands and Crewe. The route that has been chosen is the most expensive that it could be, delivering the least economic benefits for Staffordshire and causing the most ecological damage. That is what we should be discussing this evening.
Andrew Jones
That has been part of the discussion throughout the day. I have to say that I missed some of the speeches. I am sorry to hear what the hon. Gentleman had to say, but I simply do not agree with his basic premise. I have travelled the route, met local communities along the route and met local government leaders and local businesses along the route. I simply do not agree with his premise.
The issues raised by colleagues along the line of the route are of course entirely fair and legitimate, and they are right to speak up for their constituents. It is difficult delivering infrastructure—whether it is transport, digital or housing infrastructure—without causing some environmental impact. It is clearly right for the Minister to listen to the concerns raised by Members and to respond appropriately. I know that when I was part of the Transport team, we did nothing but listen and try to address those issues. I know that the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Wealden (Ms Ghani), will be in the same grain.
Despite all the sensitivities that have been raised, it is very encouraging that we have a Government who are seeking to deliver HS2 as fast as possible and have brought forward HS2 phase 2a. Views have been well articulated today. The reasons why I am so supportive of the development are that it will deliver key strategic benefits for the UK in terms of economic growth and the skills legacy. I have visited the two HS2 colleges in Doncaster and in Birmingham—only during their construction phase; not since they have progressed further —and I was incredibly impressed by what I saw. They offer great facilities for skills development for people taking apprenticeships. They will learn all the skills that we will need not just for this project, but for future high-speed rail projects.
Rachel Maclean
I hope the House will forgive me for raising this issue again, but because he has visited the college and I have not done so, will he tell me what progress he saw on the initiative for getting more women into the train and engineering industry while he was there?
Andrew Jones
My hon. Friend makes a very interesting point. It was reasonably hard to see that from the project in development, but the teams I met working in the colleges were absolutely clear that they will be drawing on as much talent as possible, which will obviously mean bringing more women into engineering. We have a huge shortfall in the number of engineers in the UK. Historically, we have failed to draw on as wide a talent base as possible. The more we talk about the matter in this place, the more we follow it through within communities, and the more we offer a series of careers that can deliver high-quality jobs that solve community problems, the more women we will attract into the industry.
Mr John Hayes
Cutting-edge strategic decisions always bring with them a certain degree of contention, which is why Governments in democratic polities too rarely make such decisions. They also bring with them opportunity. One thinks of Crossrail. At the beginning, there were doubters, but Crossrail has, without doubt, led to the development of skills of the kind my hon. Friend described, the creation of opportunities, and the seeding of jobs, which have led to us being world beating. The same thing can happen in respect of HS2.
Andrew Jones
My right hon. Friend makes an interesting point. I entirely agree with him. For those who have not yet had the opportunity to go to see Crossrail, the opportunity may well occur again as Crossrail has been taking people down to have a look at its sites. What Crossrail has achieved is fantastic. I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Redditch will shortly be able to visit one of the HS2 colleges, where she will see just the difference that the project has made.
Dame Cheryl Gillan
I would just say in response to the previous intervention that there would have been far fewer problems had the tunnel gone the entire way under the Chilterns. It would have been advisable to do that. Does my hon. Friend agree that there is a real danger that we will not have the engineering capacity to complete these projects on budget and on time, and that, as we currently lack so many skills in engineering, it will be hard to make up that deficit?
Andrew Jones
My right hon. Friend makes two points. We have previously discussed the issue of tunnelling in the Chilterns. I feel more optimistic about the project as a whole. I do not feel that the current skills gap will hinder the delivery of the project, and I am clear that that will not happen because of the actions taken to bring more people into the sector. The fact that we have to deliver skills via building colleges suggests that the Government have been taking seriously the issue of skills in the railways.
The key reason that phase 2a is such a positive project is that more people will benefit from HS2. Crewe is a rail hub. More passengers will be able to access the benefits that the HS2 network will deliver. I want us to go forward to further develop high-speed rail in other parts of the UK. I am particularly thinking about Northern Powerhouse Rail across the Pennines. I look forward very much to seeing the progress of the Bill and the rail line that will come from it, and how the Government will work with local communities and local government to maximise the opportunities that this line presents.
The HS2 argument has changed from whether we should have it, to how we can maximise the opportunities when it arrives. Those opportunities will be commercial, environmental and in skills. I see huge opportunity throughout the project, which is why I will support the Bill should we divide on it this evening.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
I have listened carefully to today’s debate and thank all hon. Members for their contributions. I have heard the concerns and opportunities that the second phase of HS2 will bring. The high-speed rail journey began under the last Labour Government, who recognised the need for greater capacity and better connectivity.
The Victorian rail network has served us well, but nearly 200 years on it is overstretched. If we are to see a significant modal shift in the future—as Labour encourages—and if we want to see rail as the vehicle of choice for distance travel, we cannot stand back and do nothing, nor should we. It was from the Victorian age that our nation witnessed the foresight of a new generation of engineers to radically advance our country and the world. Yet today our trains are slow, crowded, and depend on outdated technology and infrastructure. It is therefore vital that, as a nation, we put ourselves in the driving seat again, strive to be world leaders and propagate the next generation of engineers, with both women and men taking on new careers in the sector.
Sir William Cash
Does the hon. Lady agree that it was not only the engineers of the Victorian age—great as they were—but also the capital that was provided which ensured that these schemes were actually put into effect?
Rachael Maskell
We could spend a long time talking about the shenanigans that also took place in this House over the creation of the Victorian railways.
Future capacity is vital. Although longer trains, digital signalling and infrastructure upgrades connecting with new rolling stock may get us through the current period, we will need more lines if we are to look further ahead. If we are to develop more lines, it is right that we seriously consider where they go.
HS2 gives us a real opportunity to think about the future of our country and how we connect it to address the unacceptable levels of inequality across Britain. HS2 is not just about the route itself but about freeing up capacity on the west coast main line and on our roads. This will bring benefit to current road and rail users, as well as creating new opportunities for further development of passenger and, importantly, freight paths on the west coast, as my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman) highlighted and my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell) asked for.
Of course, Labour would, as always, be looking at the bigger picture, embedding HS2 at the heart of a wider rail and transport strategy. It would be absolutely nonsensical to make such significant investment in a new rail line if we were not properly upgrading the north-west to north-east routes—the HS3 routes. The Secretary of State is not in his place at the moment, but I hope that he will take heed of this. It is not too late to reverse his decision to de-electrify the plans and put power back into the northern powerhouse. The cities in the north demand it. We believe that HS2, integrated with a new, dynamic rail plan, must bring economic investment to the midlands and the north, creating good jobs for a secure future, not least with the new skills required in designing and constructing HS2 through the 30,000 jobs it will create.
My hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Laura Smith) eloquently set out a strong economic case for proper connectivity through a regional rail hub at Crewe, this being at the centre of a network to feed Cheshire and the wider counties, and north Wales. That is vital for the future economy of Crewe. I can think of no better politician than my hon. Friend to speak up for her town and to make that case.
We must remember that HS2 is not an entirety in itself but a bridge to enable economic growth and industrial investment. My hon. Friend the Member for City of Chester (Christian Matheson) made a similar point, again focusing on how to build the economies of the north-west by ensuring connectivity. It is vital that HS2 talks to the region, and we must dissect this in Committee to ensure that it does. I note his calling for the line to north Wales through Chester. We should not dismiss this opportunity for some of the communities in the UK who most need this infrastructure stimulus. My hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (Jo Platt) also stressed the need to focus on connectivity. A clear call for integration has been made—one that Labour will support.
Phase 2a is set to deliver nearly £4 billion of benefits over the 60-year appraisal period, with a cost-benefit ratio of 1:9 and wider economic impacts. This indicates upper-end medium value for money, but accelerating this phase will represent very high value for money. Around Crewe, we will see 40,000 new jobs and 7,000 homes, opening up the life chances that have not been seen in the area before and starting to address the complete economic imbalance that we have in our country. Extending this to the Constellation Partnership will deliver 100,000 new homes and 120,000 jobs—20,000 in the Cheshire science corridor alone, putting the UK on the international stage in terms of science and technology.
I assure the House that Labour will never stand in the way of providing such opportunities to communities that have been crying out for investment—a point powerfully made by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Preet Kaur Gill).
Jonathan Edwards
I take the point that the hon. Lady is making. However, the KPMG report that looked into the impact of HS2 on various economies across the British state indicated that south Wales would be absolutely hammered. Is the Labour party not at all concerned about the economy of south Wales?
Rachael Maskell
Of course we are deeply concerned about the economy of south Wales. That is why we electrified the line to south Wales that helped to boost the economy in that region, and also ensured that HS2 fed into north Wales, helping the whole of the Welsh economy to grow.
We have some concerns, and it is absolutely right that there is tight scrutiny of every part of the project, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley (Sir Kevin Barron) highlighted. At a time when the economy continues to fail, not least in the north, Labour understands why people are questioning the economic benefit of spending £55.7 billion on a rail route. This 36-mile section will cost £3.5 billion. At a time when our public services are crying out for investment, it is right that critical questions are asked about the project. However, the benefits are also clear, and it cannot be an either/or. This is about getting the Government’s economic strategy right. We will make sure that every decision brings maximum inward investment, as the economic opportunity is already estimated to be £92 billion across HS2.
We hear the concerns about the environment. It is vital that real consideration is given in Committee to the impact of construction and of the final network on the environment. That cannot just be about mitigation elsewhere, and I will push for us to maximise this opportunity. I will also want to ensure in Committee that modern, advanced engineering is able to find answers to the many questions raised about the environment and how the habitats directive, no matter which side of Brexit we are on, is seen in its fullest sense.
The hon. Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy), who spoke particularly well on behalf of his constituents, highlighted how important it is to ensure that his constituents’ concerns are picked up. I assure him that in Committee, we will listen carefully to the points he has to make. The right hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Dame Cheryl Gillan) spoke of her vast experience in dealing with HS2. It is really important that lessons are learned and that there is good communication, and we must certainly end corridor deals.
Sir William Cash
The hon. Lady just said that in Committee, we will do such and such. I think she may have misunderstood the nature of the procedure. It will be a hybrid Bill Select Committee, not a Committee of the House.
Rachael Maskell
I thank the hon. Gentleman, but I do understand the process. Petitions will be brought forward, and we will listen carefully to them.
Labour will want to ensure that all opportunities for cyclists and walkers are harnessed from the HS2 route. Not much has been said about that to date. Labour is committed to cleaning up our air and our environment by cleaning up on the actions of Government when it comes to transport. Labour believes that investment in public and, I must add, publicly owned transport—we are not going back to the past, but moving forward to the future—is the way forward to deliver a rail system fit for the 21st century.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
It is with great pleasure that I close the Second Reading debate. This is my first Bill, so there is no pressure; I will try to do it some justice.
HS2 presents a huge opportunity for the country as a whole. It is a major undertaking but an essential one. Throughout history, improving connectivity has led to innovation, economic advancement and increased productivity. HS2 is no different. This project is a significant long-term capital investment in the country’s infrastructure. It will deliver substantial economic growth and returns, creating the wealth we need to spend on all our priorities, whether those are health or education programmes.
We are ambitious for our country. My hon. Friend the Member for Redditch (Rachel Maclean) spoke about productivity, being ambitious and ensuring that we train engineers for the future. We are ambitious for all of our country and determined to leave no one behind. HS2 is what the Government are all about, as it will enable future generations to thrive.
HS2 is a significant investment, but it is also a necessary one, and it is important that we get it right. With that in mind, I would like to thank all right hon. and hon. Members for their contributions. There were 21 contributions in all, and I will do my best to respond to all of them.
HS2 has the potential to transform our rail network. As a brand-new line, it is the best option for creating more space on our busy railways. By freeing up space on the west coast main line between the west midlands and Crewe, phase 2a has the potential to deliver much-needed additional capacity on a constrained part of our network—reducing overcrowding and making journeys more reliable, creating the opportunity for more varied and frequent services across the region, and benefiting Nuneaton, Tamworth, Lichfield and Rugeley.
The benefits will spread well beyond the railway itself. Faster and easier travel will put more opportunities within reach of millions of people. HS2 will connect people to jobs, and businesses to suppliers. It will bring new investment, employment and regeneration to towns and cities up and down the country. HS2 has the potential to support hundreds of thousands of jobs, including 2,000 apprentices. Most importantly—this was mentioned by many Members—70% of jobs created by HS2 will be outside London. It will help to train a new generation of skilled workers, including through the National College for High Speed Rail.
Many Members—such as the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman), my hon. Friend the Member for Redditch and the hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Preet Kaur Gill)—spoke about investment in the north. The north of England, in particular, stands to benefit from HS2. This part of the route, between Birmingham and Crewe, has been brought forward by six years so that we can deliver more of the benefits of HS2 more quickly.
We want to transform journeys for passengers and create the capacity the north needs to flourish, and delivering HS2 is an essential part of that. We are already carrying out the biggest investment in the north of England for a generation, spending £13 billion on northern transport, which is the largest such amount in Government history. This is not about the north against the south. Investing in our rail network is a key part of the Government’s plan for a connected Britain, and we are committed to improving journeys for passengers throughout the country.
HS2 will bring benefits to cities across the north before the construction of phase 2. Phase 1 will reduce journey times towards, for example, Manchester, Liverpool and Glasgow, and will release capacity between Birmingham and London. By shifting long-distance services on to the brand-new railway, HS2 will release capacity on existing routes and provide options for new or additional local, cross-country, commuter and freight services in many areas.
Phase 2a, between the west midlands and Crewe, will further improve journey times and bring more benefits to the north. HS2 is a key component in the delivery of Northern Powerhouse Rail, our vision for significantly improving journey times and service frequency between major cities in the north of England. This is why we have announced £300 million of funding to future-proof HS2 to accommodate future junctions. With Transport for the North and Midlands Connect, we are developing a clear set of proposals for connections that would allow Northern Powerhouse Rail and Midland Connect services to use HS2.
Several Members have spoken about Crewe and Stoke, and I hope to be able to respond to some of their questions. The HS2 business case has always included a plan to run high-speed train services to Crewe, but I know there is a strong ambition to achieve even more. I visited Crewe just last week, and I was impressed by the enthusiasm and commitment of Cheshire East Council and the Constellation Partnership to make the most of the opportunities that HS2 will bring, including jobs and homes.
I agree with the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Laura Smith) that a Crewe hub would generate significant opportunities not only for Crewe itself, but for the surrounding region. My hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Jack Brereton) spoke very clearly in support of Stoke being served by HS2. As the Secretary of State set out in his opening speech, we are very clear about the important economic role that Stoke-on-Trent plays in the wider region, and we want it to be served by HS2.
Gareth Snell
Under the current plans, Stoke will be served by just one HS2 train an hour. Will the Minister consider upping that to two an hour to generate the economic benefit she has just committed herself to?
Ms Ghani
We are a long way from the timetables, but if the hon. Gentleman will let me continue for a moment, I will talk about how and when we will respond to the consultation undertaken on this very section.
We are looking at what would be needed for phase 2a to support a future Crewe hub, but as the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich is aware, Crewe is a strategically important location on the rail network and the existing infrastructure is very complex. In our plans for HS2, we must ensure that we get things right. That is why last year we launched a consultation to look at whether we can provide an even better service to Crewe—one that could serve more destinations and allow more trains to stop. We are considering the responses, and will respond shortly. Realising the full vision would need the local council to work with us on funding, and my Department is working closely with Cheshire East on this. Some elements could be taken forward by Network Rail, under its existing permitted development rights, and we understand the whole-hub vision would require a junction north of Crewe back on to HS2, but that has to be a decision for phase 2b, as we will not build the relevant part of the HS2 line north of Crewe in phase 2a.
Laura Smith
I am wondering whether we can get some clarity as to when we will get the answer to this consultation —not a “You will get it in due course” answer. We would quite like to know when that will be.
Ms Ghani
We are working through the details. We will try and do it as quickly as we can, but it will be shortly—this year. I am sorry; I cannot provide more details now, but I will write to the hon. Member and let her know. This is very complicated and cannot be rushed. We need to make the decisions for the right reasons.
Dame Cheryl Gillan
I welcome the passion with which the Minister is approaching her brief, but may I bring her back down to reality? The constituent I mentioned in my speech, who has been so badly affected by HS2 phase 1 and so badly let down by HS2 Ltd, which is not paying the bills it promised, and is contracted, to pay, is now on antidepressants and fears that this sort of thing is happening to many other people up and down the line. Could the Minister put some of her passion for the project into protecting the people who are so badly affected by the project?
Ms Ghani
My right hon. Friend has raised many issues about HS2 Ltd, its relationship with our constituents and its poor performance in communication previously, with the Secretary of State and with Ministers who have held my current position. I will indeed endeavour to hold HS2 Ltd to account. I am more than happy to take on board any cases that my right hon. Friend wishes to present to me, and I am grateful for her words in opening her speech. I will do my best to outlive previous Ministers in this position.
To turn to the hon. Member for City of Chester (Christian Matheson), the consultation on the Crewe hub that we published last year included service pattern options that will reap benefits for Chester, north and south Wales, Shrewsbury and the wider region. As I mentioned, we expect to respond to that consultation shortly.
Sir William Cash
I think I can say this on behalf of all those who are liable to petition in Staffordshire, thus representing several constituencies here: will the Minister do everything possible to help those petitioners to present their case, and show maximum understanding of what is affecting them, right the way through from one end of Staffordshire to the other?
Ms Ghani
My hon. Friend has been a great champion for his constituents and has made his concerns known to me, the Secretary of State and previous Ministers. The Committee is the best place for him to represent his constituents and encourage them to petition the Committee.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham (Dame Cheryl Gillan) raised an incident in Colne Valley. I expect HS2 Ltd and any contractors to treat everyone with respect. The reported behaviour that she mentioned is completely unacceptable and falls well below the standard that I would expect. I am happy to take up the case on her behalf.
The My hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield (Michael Fabricant) gave a very passionate speech, which I believe is now trending on YouTube, with his walk back and forth in the Chamber. I am not quite convinced about his journey times within Birmingham, and as a proud Brummie I would not mind spending eight or 22 minutes walking around Birmingham as I think it is a great place to be, but HS2 is connected to existing rail stations up and down the network, including Euston, Manchester, Crewe, Leeds and Sheffield.
My hon. Friend the Member for Erewash (Maggie Throup) raised a number of concerns. I know that she has spoken repeatedly to me, my predecessor and the Secretary of State, and that too she is a strong champion for her constituents. On Long Eaton, HS2 Ltd has had meetings with my hon. Friend, valuation agents and residents to try to progress this issue. HS2 Ltd is mindful that there are elderly and vulnerable residents involved, and these cases are getting very senior attention within HS2 Ltd to try to find a resolution. I do not doubt that my hon. Friend will continue to work with me to ensure that her constituents are satisfied with the responses that they get from HS2 Ltd.
Let me turn to the points raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield and others about ancient woodland. Of course, ancient woodland is irreplaceable, and although we cannot fully compensate for all impacts, we have committed to use best practice measures, such as enhancing links between woodland, reusing ancient woodland soils and creating new mixed deciduous woodland. More than 75 hectares of new woodland will be planted along the phase 2a scheme to partially compensate for the loss of 10.5 hectares of ancient woodland. It is unfortunate, but we are doing our very best to compensate for the woodland that is being taken.
I am unable to respond to many other Members’ comments, and I will endeavour to write to them all, but I want quickly to move on to the question of engagement. Many Members mentioned that HS2 Ltd has fallen short of expectations as to how it should communicate with Members as well as their constituents. I expect HS2 Ltd to reach extremely high standards in all its engagement activities, and I say to the House that I am sorry if in any of these cases the level of engagement has fallen short. I encourage any Members with particular concerns to meet me to discuss them. I will listen, and I will endeavour to hold HS2 Ltd to account. As a project, we will continue to learn and improve.
There have been a number of conversations about the cost of the project. To clarify, the 2015 spending review reconfirmed the Government’s commitment to HS2 and set a long-term funding envelope of £55.7 billion. The Government are determined, and are on course, to deliver HS2 within this. HS2 is a major investment but a necessary one. For every £1 of investment, it will deliver more than £2 of benefits. That is more than £92 billion of benefits to this country before we even talk about the 100,000 jobs, 70% of which are outside London.
I fear that I have run out of time, so I must come to a close. We have made the case for HS2 and we now need to get on and build it. This country invented the railways, and we should be proud of our Victorian pioneers, but we cannot continue to rely on the network that they built. Around the world, our global competitors are already investing heavily in high-speed rail. We are now catching up, and I do not want us to be part of a generation that sits back while others move forward. I was touched by what my right hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire Dales (Sir Patrick McLoughlin) said: when trains were first offered from Birmingham to London, people said that canals were adequate. Let us not be that generation.
Let us make no mistake: this country can deliver major infrastructure projects, and we should have confidence that we can deliver HS2. We have already delivered the 2012 Olympics and Crossrail—two examples of what we can achieve when we are ambitious, believe in our ability as a nation to get big infrastructure projects done, and commit to investing in our country and in our future. This Government have a vision for a stronger, fairer country within an economy that works for everyone. Infrastructure is at the heart of our industrial strategy and that for the north—for a modern country with a modern transport infrastructure to match. HS2 will play a vital role in this. I therefore commend this Bill, my first Bill, to the House.
Michael Fabricant
As I intend to vote against Second Reading, for all the reasons I have given, and as that has the same effect, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Question put, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
High Speed Rail (West Midlands - Crewe) Bill (First sitting)
Tuesday 25th June 2019
(5 years, 4 months ago)
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The Chair
Welcome to the Committee’s first sitting. Would everyone please ensure that their phones are on silent? We will first consider the sittings and order of consideration motions, which stand in the name of the Minister, which I hope we can take without too much debate. I call the Minister to move the sittings motion.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
I beg to move,
That, if proceedings on the High Speed Rail (West Midlands - Crewe) Bill are not completed at this day’s sitting, the Committee do meet on:
(a) Tuesdays when the House is sitting at 9.25 am and 2.00 pm; and
(b) Thursdays when the House is sitting at 11.30 am and 2.00 pm.
Thank you, Ms Buck, for introducing proceedings. I look forward to working with all members of the Committee on the important process of line-by-line scrutiny of the Bill, and to hearing from Her Majesty’s loyal Opposition as part of that. I thank the High Speed Rail (West Midlands - Crewe) Bill Select Committee, chaired by my hon. Friend the Member for Rochford and Southend East (James Duddridge), which has heard from directly and especially affected petitioners over the past 15 months and has accordingly made changes to the scheme and the Bill. I am delighted that we can now move on to the next stage of consideration, which will enable us to take the benefits that the railway will bring further north.
The clauses and stages of the Bill follow previous hybrid Bills very closely, so they have already been approved by Parliament on several occasions. The functions of the Bill are: to authorise the compulsory purchase of the land needed, to give deemed outline planning consent to the phase 2a section of the railway, to give the nominated undertaker the powers to build and maintain the railway, and to modify existing legislation to enable this all to progress smoothly. Issues relating to the compulsory purchase of land and how that affects individuals, organisations and businesses have largely been dealt with by the Select Committee. What remains for this Committee are largely technical matters.
Question put and agreed to.
Ordered,
That the Bill be considered in the following order, namely, Clause 1, Schedule 1, Clause 2, Schedules 2 and 3, Clause 3, Schedules 4 and 5, Clause 4, Schedules 6 and 7, Clause 5, Schedules 8 to 10, Clauses 6 and 7, Schedule 11, Clause 8, Schedule 12, Clause 9, Schedule 13, Clause 10, Schedule 14, Clauses 11 to 13, Schedules 15 and 16, Clauses 14 to 17, Schedule 17, Clauses 18 to 21, Schedules 18 and 19, Clause 22, Schedule 20, Clauses 23 to 27, Schedule 21, Clause 28, Schedules 22 and 23, Clause 29, Schedule 24, Clause 30, Schedule 25, Clause 31, Schedule 26, Clause 32, Schedule 27, Clauses 33 to 37, Schedule 28, Clause 38, Schedule 29, Clauses 39 and 40, Schedule 30, Clauses 41 and 42, Schedule 31, Clause 43, Schedule 32, Clauses 44 to 62, new Clauses, new Schedules, remaining proceedings on the Bill.—(Ms Ghani.)
The Chair
We now begin line-by-line consideration of the Bill. The selection list for today’s sitting, which is available in the room, shows how clauses, schedules and amendments have been grouped for debate. Grouped matters generally deal with the same or similar issues. The selection and grouping is simple: schedules introduced by a particular clause have been grouped for debate with that clause. Decisions on each will be taken at the end of each debate in accordance with the order of consideration resolution just agreed by the Committee. The only amendments are new clauses, which will be taken in turn after the existing clauses and schedules have been dealt with. I will use my discretion to decide whether to allow separate stand part debates on individual clauses and their schedules in the light of preceding debates.
Clause 1
Power to construct and maintain works for Phase 2a of High Speed 2
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss that schedule 1 be the First schedule to the Bill.
Ms Ghani
The clause authorises the nominated undertaker to construct and maintain the works specified in schedule 1 for the construction of phase 2a of High Speed 2 and other incidental works. It is a standard clause found in all works Bills. Phase 2a sits between two larger phases of the HS2 project, so the clause makes provision to accommodate emerging design works for phase 1 at Handsacre junction and phase 2b at Crewe.
Schedule 1 sets out the construction requirements for the scheduled works and provides permitted limits of deviation from the siting of works as shown on the relevant plans. It also provides a description of the scheduled works. The permitted deviation limits have precedence in other railway Acts, most recently the High Speed Rail (London - West Midlands) Act 2017. The limits of the deviation reflect the fact that the design of phase 2a is, by necessity, at an outline stage—detailed design will come later—so some flexibility is essential. Any variation within the limits of deviation is controlled by the environmental minimum requirements.
Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)
Labour supports High Speed 2, as it will address the severe capacity constraints on our rail network and improve connections between cities in the midlands and the north. Any responsible Government must contend with the fact that commuter and freight services are being squeezed off the network due to lack of capacity. HS2 is vital for unblocking the railway and creating additional capacity.
The UK is off track to meet its emission reduction targets under the Climate Change Act 2008. Transport is the most emitting sector of the economy and the worst performing sector with regard to emissions—indeed, emissions have risen since 2010. HS2 will provide an alternative to domestic flying and will tackle that important issue. It will also allow for more reliable rail services.
It is vital that we get HS2 right. It is a tremendous opportunity to improve connectivity and we support it as part of a package of delivering transformative investment in our rail system.
Ms Ghani
I welcome the hon. Gentleman’s comments. We are debating a particular section of the line, and I welcome his support.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 1 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Schedule 1 agreed to.
Clause 2
Further provision about works
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
That schedule 2 be the Second schedule to the Bill.
That schedule 3 be the Third schedule to the Bill.
Ms Ghani
The clause authorises a nominated undertaker to carry out any necessary ancillary works for the construction and maintenance of phase 2a, as long as such works remain within the limits shown on the plans. That could be railway works as set out in subsection (1) or, as stated in subsection (3),
“landscaping and other works to mitigate any adverse effects of the construction”.
Again, it is a standard clause for works Bills.
Subsection (4) introduces schedule 2, which contains
“further and supplementary provision about works.”
It allows for certain protective works, such as the preservation of buildings, tree management and so on, to be carried out for works authorised by the Bill. Schedule 2 also describes how the nominated undertaker can access properties along the route to investigate land, carry out protective works and provide safeguards for the property owners. Subsection (5) allows a nominated undertaker to divert the electricity lines identified in schedule 3, and to carry out the ancillary works required for the diversions.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 2 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Schedules 2 and 3 agreed to.
Clause 3
Highways
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
That schedule 4 be the Fourth schedule to the Bill.
That schedule 5 be the Fifth schedule to the Bill.
Ms Ghani
Clause 3 introduces schedules 4 and 5, which allow the nominated undertaker to carry out works to and otherwise affect highways. That includes creating new or improving existing highways and highway accesses, and stopping up roads. It also requires the nominated undertaker to obtain the consent of Highways England before carrying out works to roads for which that body is responsible, for example motorways and trunk roads.
Matt Rodda
Developers can be overly dependent on road transport, which is ironic in a major rail project. I hope that the Minister will agree that as much freight as possible should be delivered by rail so as to minimise road use and the inevitable disruption to local communities. What steps have the Government taken to address that important issue?
Ms Ghani
The hon. Gentleman makes a valid point. We want the project to be as clean and green as possible, and freight capacity is a major issue that we are investigating to ensure that as much freight can be moved by rail as possible. I hope that provides him with the confidence he needs.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 3 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Schedules 4 and 5 agreed to.
Clause 4
Power to acquire land compulsorily
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
That schedule 6 be the Sixth schedule to the Bill.
That schedule 7 be the Seventh schedule to the Bill.
Ms Ghani
Clause 4 provides the Secretary of State with the power to compulsorily acquire land within the limits shown in the Bill, where such land is required for phase 2a. Subsection (2) introduces schedule 6, which describes some of the land to be acquired and the particular purposes for which it may be acquired. It is not land required for the scheduled works; it is land required for ancillary works, including environmental mitigation, utility diversions and borrow pits. The clause further provides that the normal legislative regime relating to compulsory acquisition is to apply, subject to the modification set out in schedule 7. The purpose of the modifications is to streamline the land acquisition process, as Parliament will already have given approval to the Bill.
Matt Rodda
Compulsory purchases and compensation have been an issue of contention during this process. For phase 1 it was initially decided that residents of urban areas would receive less compensation that those in rural areas—a decision that was eventually overturned. It is important that such issues are dealt with fairly, but it appears that tenants who are adversely affected by the scheduled works are not being treated fairly as there is no scheme to compensate them. Those who rent are already disadvantaged compared with those who own their own properties, and I believe that much more can and should be done. I will return to that issue when we discuss the new clauses.
Ms Ghani
The hon. Gentleman raises an important point. The purchase of land is essential to the completion of the proposed scheme. People directly and especially affected by the Bill have had the opportunity to petition the House and will have another opportunity to do so in the other place.
The project endeavours to use land as effectively and efficiently as possible. There are a number of places where compensation claims can be heard and settled by agreement, whereas disputes can be dealt with by the upper tribunal or by other factors that HS2 has put in place to deal with local communities and local people. Even though the project provides some disruption along the line, we want to ensure that we are doing the right thing by the communities we are working with.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 4 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Schedules 6 and 7 agreed to.
Clause 5
Acquisition of rights and imposition of restrictive covenants
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to consider the following:
That schedule 8 be the Eighth schedule to the Bill.
That schedule 9 be the Ninth schedule to the Bill.
That schedule 10 be the Tenth schedule to the Bill.
Ms Ghani
Clause 5 provides the Secretary of State with the power to acquire rights in land, such as access over it, or to impose restrictive covenants over land for the purpose of phase 2a, rather than acquiring the land itself.
Subsection (2) introduces schedule 8, which specifies land where powers of acquisition are limited to the acquisition of rights or the imposition of restrictive covenants for the purposes specified in column 3 of the table in that schedule. In particular, the restrictive covenants can be imposed for the preservation of ground re-profiling. This will ensure that no future changes are made that detrimentally affect the ability to deliver, maintain or operate phase 2a. Subsection (3) makes it clear that the Secretary of State can acquire rights or impose restrictive covenants for the benefit of another person, such as a statutory undertaker.
The clause also gives the Secretary of State the power to provide that a specified person may exercise the powers under the Bill to acquire rights to impose restrictive covenants. For example, it may be prudent to give a statutory undertaker the rights to impose restrictions so that they can maintain their own equipment on that land.
Subsection (6) introduces schedules 9 and 10, which contain provisions about the application of compulsory purchase legislation in relation to the acquisition of rights over land or the imposition of restrictive covenants. Subsection (7) amends section 5 of the High Speed Rail (London - West Midlands) Act 2017—the phase 1 Act—to make it clear that the Secretary of State can apply rights or impose restrictive covenants under that section for the benefit of another person, such as a statutory undertaker.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 5 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Schedules 8 to 10 agreed to.
Rachel Maclean (Redditch) (Con)
On a point of order, Ms Buck. Is it in order to have a second shadow Minister kneeling on the floor during the Committee’s proceedings? I would be grateful for your guidance.
The Chair
I understand the point, and normally that would not be acceptable, but my understanding is that the hon. Lady in question would have been a member of the Committee had she not lost her voice. With the leave of the Committee, perhaps a bit of flexibility would be acceptable in this case.
Clause 6
Acquisition of airspace
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Ms Ghani
Clause 6 allows the Secretary of State to use the power under section 4(1) to compulsorily acquire airspace only, rather than the land beneath it, for the purpose of aerial works. The clause provides that where the Secretary of State needs to acquire only airspace, a landowner cannot require the Secretary of State to compulsorily purchase the land beneath it.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 6 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to consider that schedule 11 be the Eleventh schedule to the Bill.
Ms Ghani
Clause 7 allows the Secretary of State to compulsorily purchase only the subsoil or under-surface of land within the Bill limits for work such as tunnelling. Where the Secretary of State only acquires the subsoil or under-surface, he cannot be compelled to purchase the surface land, except where sub-surface acquisition includes part of a building, such as a cellar, and would therefore have a material detrimental impact on the remainder of the property.
Subsection (4) introduces schedule 11, which in specified cases restricts the compulsory powers of acquisition to subsoil or under-surface of land and the imposition of restrictive covenants. The table in the schedule details land where only subsoil more than nine metres below the surface can be compulsorily acquired. This is mostly for deep tunnels.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 7 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Schedule 11 agreed to.
Clause 8
Highway subsoil
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to consider that schedule 12 be the Twelfth schedule to the Bill.
Ms Ghani
Clause 8 allows the nominated undertaker to use any subsoil beneath the highway within the Bill limits which is required for the purpose of construction and maintenance of works authorised by the Bill, without the need formally to acquire the subsoil or any interest in it. This does not apply to cellars, vaults, archways or other structures that form part of a building fronting on to a highway.
Subsections (3) and (4) introduce schedule 12, which lists the highway allowed within the Bill limits where the powers to take subsoil or compulsorily acquire interest in the land cannot be exercised except in the case of street works, as per subsection (6). Subsection (5) provides that, in the case of highways in the land specified in the table in paragraph 1 of schedule 11, only subsoil that is more than nine metres beneath the level of the surface may be taken.
Matt Rodda
Obviously, layers of subsoil are important. There is a link to the depletion of high-quality soils. We need to preserve good soil for farming. Some farmers in this important agricultural area might have spent time improving the quality of soil on their land. We would like this issue to be addressed so that any movement of soil is managed with great care and caution.
Ms Ghani
The hon. Gentleman raises an important point. I already attend meetings with the National Farmers Union and the Country Land and Business Association. We will of course continue to work with them, and he will know that we try to reduce any environmental impact when building this railway line.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 8 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Schedule 12 agreed to.
Clause 9
Termination of power to acquire land
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to consider that schedule 13 be the Thirteenth schedule to the Bill.
Ms Ghani
Clause 9 sets out an expiry period for compulsory purchase powers of five years from the date of Royal Assent. The clause allows the Secretary of State by order to extend this period by not more than five years. Any order extending the time limit for the exercise of these powers is subject to special parliamentary procedure.
Subsection (4) introduces schedule 13, which enables landowners, in the event of an extension to the time limit, to require the Secretary of State to acquire their property interests. If he decides not to, the compulsory purchase powers over the property interest will cease. Similar provisions were included in the Crossrail Act 2008 and the High Speed Rail (London - West Midlands) Act 2017.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 9 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Schedule 13 agreed to.
Clause 10
Extinction of rights over land
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to consider that schedule 14 be the Fourteenth schedule to the Bill.
Ms Ghani
Clause 10 introduces schedule 14, which contains provisions about extinguishing private rights and any general rights of access over land, where such land is required for phase 2a. Those who suffer loss due to extinguishment of a private right would be entitled to compensation under the normal compensation provisions. Provisions for extinguishing rights were included in the Crossrail Act 2008, the Channel Tunnel Rail Link Act 1996 and the High Speed Rail (London - West Midlands) Act 2017. Similar provisions apply to compulsory acquisition by local authorities.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 10 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Schedule 14 agreed to.
Clause 11
Extinction of rights of statutory undertakers
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Ms Ghani
The clause applies the provisions of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, which provide a process by which any apparatus of the statutory undertaker on such land may be removed and related rights over the land extinguished. Clause 11 is subject to the protected provisions for specified statutory undertakers in schedule 32, which makes provision for the diversion or protection of their apparatus.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 11 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 12
Exclusion of new rights of way
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Ms Ghani
The clause prevents rights of way from being acquired by prescription over land that forms an access to any railway infrastructure and which is held for phase 2a.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 12 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 13
Temporary possession and use of land
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
The Chair
With this, it will be convenient to consider the following:
That schedule 15 be the Fifteenth schedule to the Bill.
That schedule 16 be the Sixteenth schedule to the Bill.
Ms Ghani
Clause 13 introduces schedules 15 and 16, which give the Secretary of State powers to take temporary possession of land within the Bill limits for the purpose of phase 2a. The land listed in the table in schedule 16 can be taken only temporarily and not acquired, except for subsoil and rights or restrictive covenants over the land.
Schedule 15 sets out the procedure, including the notice required, the payment of compensation to effective landowners, the suspension of private rights and rights of access over the land during the period of temporary possession and arrangements for the restoration and return of the land.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 13 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Schedules 15 and 16 agreed to.
Clause 14
Use of roads
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Ms Ghani
Clause 14 allows the nominated undertaker to use any road specified in the table in schedule 8, which is land for which only rights may be compulsorily acquired or over which restrictive covenants may be imposed, so as to obtain a right of passage for the purpose of phase 2a. This power ends five years after phase 2a is brought into general use.
Matt Rodda
The clause will require ongoing construction work and will cause significant disruption to road networks in certain areas. It is important that disturbance is kept to a minimum. The use of roads is likely to result in unplanned road congestion, which can lead to delays for motorists, disrupt public transport and interfere with walking and cycling routes. It also has the potential to disrupt many people’s travel patterns, with the increase in roadside emissions as well. It is not possible to effectively predict the impact of the disruption to road networks, travel patterns and air quality in advance, which is why Labour thinks it is important that there should be ongoing public engagement to ensure that impacts are mitigated.
Ms Ghani
The hon. Gentleman raises another important point—the issue of ongoing engagement with Highways England, local authorities, those who drive, cycle and walk, and also Members of Parliament. That is the case at the moment. HS2 Ltd has provisions in place to ensure that it works with local communities and local council management on local travel plans. It will have to continue to do so through the construction phase.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 14 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 15
Enforcement of restrictions on land use
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Ms Ghani
The clause allows the Secretary of State when entering into agreements relating to phase 2a to impose prohibitions or restrictions on the owners of land to bind successors in title as if they were the original party. This is despite the fact that the Secretary of State may not at the time of the agreement own land to be benefited by the prohibition or restriction.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 15 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 16
Compensation for injurious affection
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Ms Ghani
The clause provides that the nominated undertaker will be responsible for paying compensation under section 10(1) of the Compulsory Purchase Act 1965, instead of the Secretary of State.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 16 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 17
Deemed planning permission
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss that schedule 17 be the Seventeenth schedule to the Bill.
Ms Ghani
The clause provides deemed planning permission under part III of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 for carrying out the works authorised by the Bill. Deemed planning permission is granted only for ancillary works in the Bill where the impact of such work is assessed in the environment statement, or where the development is exempt within the meaning of the environmental impact assessment regulations. Any work outside those parameters would require separate planning permission. Subsection (3) introduces schedule 17, which sets out the conditions of deemed planning permission. That includes the requirement for approval from the relevant local authorities on specific aspects of design and construction to ensure that local impacts are appropriately mitigated in the area—for example, the movement of lorries to and from construction sites.
Matt Rodda
This is an extremely important issue as it deals with important environmental matters. The schedule addresses salutary points and deals with the conditions of deemed planning permission, as the Minister mentioned. We are concerned about the environmental matters covered, including the impact of dust, soil and road traffic. We are also concerned about how material is taken away from the site, vehicle movements and the impact on historic sites, which we will deal with later. I will return to these matters later today.
Ms Ghani
The hon. Gentleman once again raises valid points about how we remove material and mitigate any impact on the neighbouring communities, which is what HS2 is doing with its local engagement, as well as by working with local authorities. Planning permission provided by clause 17 is necessary to the construction of the proposed scheme and it provides more clarity to those directly and specially affected by the Bill.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 17 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Schedule 17 agreed to.
Clause 18
Time limit on deemed planning permission
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Ms Ghani
The clause sets out, as a condition of deemed planning permission, a time limit of 10 years after Royal Assent within which the authorised works must have commenced. The clause also allows the Secretary of State to extend by regulations the period by which any work must be commenced. Such regulations are to be made by statutory instrument, subject to the negative resolution procedure.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 18 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Ms Ghani
The clause allows the Secretary of State by regulations to disapply the planning permission granted by the Bill for maintenance or alteration of phase 2a works carried out after a specific date. The clause is intended to relate to works post construction where it would be disproportionate for the HS2 infrastructure operator to have such broad planning permission.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 19 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 20
Development consent
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Ms Ghani
The clause makes it clear that development consent under the Planning Act 2008 is not required for the authorised works. That Act provides for the construction of nationally significant infrastructure projects such as HS2 to be authorised by a development consent order. As the Bill will provide the powers and consents required to build and maintain phase 2a, a development consent order is unnecessary.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 20 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 21
Listed buildings and ancient monuments
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
That schedule 18 be the Eighteenth schedule to the Bill.
That schedule 19 be the Nineteenth schedule to the Bill.
Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)
Obviously, listed buildings and ancient monuments are held in high regard nationally. Can the Minister assure us that, in addition to the views of Historic England, English Heritage and the like, the views of local historical groups and community groups will be taken into account before any decisions are made?
Ms Ghani
The hon. Gentleman raises an important point. Of course local communities want to protect their local heritage sites, and of course we will work with local authorities and Historic England. HS2 Ltd has an extensive community engagement team that works on the ground, and there are also opportunities to petition at the appropriate points in the Bill’s passage.
The listed buildings affected are listed in tables 1 and 2 in schedule 18, and the disapplications or modifications apply only to those buildings. Schedule 19 allows a person authorised by the Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission for England to enter land where there is a scheduled monument to observe or advise on the carrying out of works to ensure the protection of monuments. Similar provisions were included in the Crossrail Act 2008 and the phase 1 Act of 2017.
Mr Paul Sweeney (Glasgow North East) (Lab/Co-op)
It is always a cause of dismay when our built heritage is affected by new development. The provisions in the clause are very wide ranging. The Minister could consider better safeguards to further ensure that our country’s built heritage is protected during the construction of this vital national infrastructure project. In particular, perhaps a presumption against demolition could be considered where practical. Indeed, the dismantling and relocation of items of built heritage, where practical, might be presumed a better solution. If that were not possible for the entire building, certainly key features of interest could be dismantled, preserved, salvaged or relocated where appropriate.
On the inspection and observation of works, schedule 18 merely indicates that there will be an opportunity for English Heritage to inspect the works, but there is no obligation on it to do so. That could be tightened by the inclusion of an obligation to ensure that all heritage assets affected are inspected and recorded, including by laser scanning to provide a highly accurate 3D model of any assets that are destroyed as a result of the project. That would be a far better way to safeguard the built heritage of our country as a result of the project.
Matt Rodda
I concur with my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North East. I know he has a deep personal commitment to this issue, as he represents a constituency in which a wonderful historic building suffered serious damage.
We take this issue seriously, and I urge the Government to take great care and look at some specific pieces of heritage that might be affected by the developments, such as the historic mileposts, the 1867 rail building at the important historic rail town of Crewe, and the grade II listed farm houses in the line of the route. It would be ironic if wonderful railway architecture from previous generations was damaged or completely destroyed by the building of HS2. It would be so much better if whatever possible could be preserved for the benefit of future generations. We hope the Government will look further into that and consider possible mitigation.
Ms Ghani
Once again, important points have been raised that were also made about HS2 and, no doubt, made to the Select Committee. One hon. Member has a particular issue within their constituency, which no doubt we will hear about again today.
Similar provisions were included in the Crossrail Act 2008 and the HS2 phase 1 Act of 2017. All works must be done in accordance with the environmental minimum requirements, and the normal requirements and appropriate consents are always obtained when dealing with listed buildings.
The Secretary of State will have to work with local authorities and Historic England. The Select Committee considered the scheme’s effect on specific historical sites, and the scheme is designed to seek to avoid impacts on culture or heritage. We recognise the importance of such assets to communities locally and nationally. Even though we are trying to build an up-to-date, modern railway line, since I became HS2 Minister, I have been concerned to ensure that we honour historical sites close by and try to mitigate any impacts on them. I am sure that HS2 Ltd will continue to do that.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 21 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Schedules 18 and 19 agreed to.
Clause 22
Burial grounds
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to consider that schedule 20 be the Twentieth schedule to the Bill.
Ms Ghani
The clause provides for the disapplication of laws concerning burial grounds and human remains. It also introduces schedule 20, which outlines the process that the nominated undertaker must follow in relation to the removal and reburial or cremation of human remains, and the removal and replacement of monuments to the deceased.
The clause disapplies ecclesiastical law for the purpose of constructing phase 2a. It also disapplies the law relating to burial grounds if the remains and any monument to the deceased have been dealt with in accordance with schedule 20. Similar provisions were included in the 2008 and 2017 Acts.
Matt Rodda
This is obviously a very sensitive aspect of the Bill. We urge the Government to take great care in this matter and, in particular, to allow for more time and effort to be taken to contact the families of deceased people. In this modern age, with well-established genealogy and records of church burials and other burials, we hope more effort could be made to contact the families whose loved ones’ remains are being moved, because this is a sensitive issue for families.
Ms Ghani
The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. If he has had time to visit Euston, he will have seen the huge amount of work being undertaken to deal with remains, which are all being removed by hand. It is a long process, as it should be. We have not yet identified any known burial grounds that could be affected, but in the course of construction, we could discover previously unknown sites. If that occurs, the clause and its related schedule provide for the appropriate processes to manage the removal and reburial or cremation of human remains, and the removal and replacement of monuments to the deceased.
Where remains are less than 100 years old, schedule 20 requires a notice to be published in the local newspaper and displayed at the burial ground. Relatives have the right to remove and re-inter or cremate the remains at the expense of the nominated undertaker, who must pay reasonable costs. I hope that provides some assurance to the hon. Gentleman that we are taking the issue seriously.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 22 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Schedule 20 agreed to.
The Chair
I propose revising my grouping, and that we debate clauses 23 to 42, and the associated schedules 21 to 31, together.
The Chair
You may speak to any clause between clauses 23 and 42, and we will take the decisions at the end, rather than having a speech on each clause and making a decision on it, as we have been doing. This will allow you to make a speech on all of them together.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Clauses 24 to 27 stand part.
That schedule 21 be the Twenty-first schedule to the Bill.
Clause 28 stand part.
That schedule 22 be the Twenty-second schedule to the Bill.
That schedule 23 be the Twenty-third schedule to the Bill.
Clause 29 stand part.
That schedule 24 be the Twenty-fourth schedule to the Bill.
Clause 30 stand part.
That schedule 25 be the Twenty-fifth schedule to the Bill.
Clause 31 stand part.
That schedule 26 be the Twenty-sixth schedule to the Bill.
Clause 32 stand part.
That schedule 27 be the Twenty-seventh schedule to the Bill.
Clauses 33 to 37 stand part.
That schedule 28 be the Twenty-eighth schedule to the Bill.
Clause 38 stand part.
That schedule 29 be the Twenty-ninth schedule to the Bill.
Clauses 39 and 40 stand part.
That schedule 30 be the Thirtieth schedule to the Bill.
Clauses 41 and 42 stand part.
That schedule 31 be the Thirty-first schedule to the Bill.
Ms Ghani
Clause 23 provides that works authorised by the Bill may be carried out on consecrated land without being affected by restrictions and obligations imposed by ecclesiastical or other laws. Burial grounds are dealt with separately under clause 22 and schedule 20, which set out how human remains are to be dealt with. The environmental minimum requirements control how the works are to be carried out. Similar provisions were included in the Crossrail Act 2008 and the High Speed Rail (London - West Midlands) Act 2017.
Clause 24 disapplies existing enactments that regulate the use of commons, town or village greens, open spaces or allotments. Similar provisions were included in the 2017 Act.
Clause 25 provides protection for trees subject to tree preservation orders or in conservation areas in relation to works to trees that are required for the purposes of constructing and maintaining phase 2a. Similar provisions were included in the 2008 and 2017 Acts.
Clause 26 allows for the installation and diversion of overhead lines as part of the authorised works, and grants the necessary consent for such works. The clause removes the need for the Secretary of State’s consent under the Electricity Act 1989 where the installation of the line is a work authorised by the Bill and has deemed planning permission under the Bill. Similar provisions were included in the 2017 Act.
Clause 27 introduces schedule 21, which provides for the disapplication of certain legislation relating to water abstraction, impounding and other matters relating to water and drainage. Similar provisions were included in the 2008 and 2017 Acts.
Clause 28 introduces schedules 22 and 23, which make provision for the disapplication of certain legislation relating to buildings and party walls. Schedule 22 provides for the disapplication or modification of various provisions of the Building Act 1984 and building regulations, including provisions on drain repairs and disconnections, the raising of chimneys, the construction of cellars and roofs below subsoil water level, and the control by local authorities of demolition works.
Schedule 23 modifies the Party Wall etc. Act 1996. Among the modifications is an amended process for the resolution of disputes. Clause 29 introduces schedule 24, which disapplies various controls relating to works in or near streets and highways. Similar provisions were included in the 2017 Act. Clause 30 introduces schedule 25, which relates to the granting of permits for the use of heavy commercial vehicles on roads where there are heavy lorry restrictions. Similar provisions were included in the Crossrail Act 2008 and the phase 1 Act.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to consider that schedule 32 be the Thirty-second schedule to the Bill.
Ms Ghani
Clause 43 introduces schedule 32, which protects the interests of statutory undertakers and other bodies who may be affected by other provisions of the Bill. The provisions are similar to those in the Crossrail Act 2008, the Channel Tunnel Rail Link Act 1996 and the High Speed Rail (London - West Midlands) Act 2017. The protective provisions of the schedule cover highways and traffic; electricity, gas, water and sewerage undertakers; electronic communications code networks; land drainage, flood defence, water resources and fisheries; and the Canal & River Trust.
Matt Rodda
We believe that far more work needs to be carried out by the Government over a range of infrastructure projects to minimise the impact of development of sites, and not least to re-explore the issue of rail enhancement programmes and how rail should be used, wherever possible, to shift goods. That is explored in one of our new clauses.
We know that congestion causes pollution, and we know about its effect on communities and the environment. The Government are willing to carry out some monitoring work, but we would like them to do much more. Are they planning to monitor pollution in detail, and to publish new journey times? Projects such as HS2 have an impact not only on those working on the site, but on the wider population in the area. There should, as has been said, be further work. The Government need to respond to the dilemma, not address it superficially.
Paragraph 13 of schedule 32 deals with issues that I want to highlight concerning pedestrians, cyclists and other modes of transport, and how they cross the line. The schedule is not comprehensive enough, and we have drafted a new clause on the subject. We believe that pedestrians and cyclists should be at the top of the Government’s considerations in infrastructure projects, as the Government have targets for increasing walking and cycling. It would be somewhat ironic if an infrastructure project designed to improve transport withheld other aspects of it. The disruption to this group of highway users should be minimal. Bridges and tunnels can provide crucial access to those who need it, and can bring only greater connectivity to those who will be cut off by the HS2 line. The Government need to take a much closer look at this issue, and to address concerns that we will cover in a new clause.
Paragraph 14 of the schedule deals with the salient issue of highways repairs. We are becoming a pothole nation, as we have mentioned on other occasions in the House. Whether on major highways or smaller lanes, it is vital that proper repairs are made as damage occurs. Obviously, there will be damage in a major infrastructure project during which heavy goods vehicles will thunder down local roads. We want the Government to address that issue, which is of great importance to communities.
Ms Ghani
The hon. Gentleman raises important points, but most of them are detailed extensively in the environmental statement. My Department and HS2 Ltd have engaged, and will continue to engage, with all those who are worried about their local communities, the environment, congestion and traffic movement. They will all have the opportunity to petition this House and the other place. The clause is necessary to minimise disruption and allow the delivery of the proposed scheme, protects the bodies involved, and enables them to continue to carry out their duties.
Freight has been raised a number of times; I look forward to responding to the new clause on that issue. In anticipation, let me I point out that we are doing what we can to ensure that freight will support the movement of construction materials, whether aggregates or rail cement, during the construction of the railway.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 43 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Schedule 32 agreed to.
The Chair
We now come to clause 44. I propose revising the grouping, and that we debate clause 44 with clauses 45 to 47. Anybody on the Committee may speak to any of those clauses. Is that acceptable to the Minister?
Ms Ghani
Clause 44 provides that the undertakings given to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission and the Archbishops’ Council in relation to the powers of the High Speed Rail (London - West Midlands) Act 2017 should apply in the same way to the phase 2a Bill.
Clause 45 enables the Secretary of State to promote a compulsory purchase order if he considers that the construction or operation of phase 2a of HS2 could cause the displacement of an undertaking. The land to be acquired could be used to relocate the undertaking or to provide land in substitution of land displaced. The clause further enables the Secretary of State to promote a compulsory purchase order to acquire land to relocate all or part of an undertaking where, as a result of the exercise of powers under the Bill, the former site is no longer reasonably capable of being used for the undertaking.
Subsections (3) to (6) and (8) provide that the normal process relating to compulsory purchase orders applies. Subsection (7) makes it clear that the Secretary of State can acquire rights or impose restrictive covenants for the benefit of another person, such as the person whose undertaking is being relocated. Subsection (10) amends the equivalent provision of section 49 of the 2017 Act, to make it clear that the Secretary of State can acquire rights or impose restrictive covenants under that section for the benefit of another person, such as the person whose undertaking is being relocated.
Clause 46 allows the nominated undertaker to carry out reinstatement works within the Bill’s limits on a property, including a business or facility, that has been discontinued or substantially impaired in whole or in part, following the exercise of any power under the Bill. This clause aims to assist those affected by the construction of HS2, by providing an efficient mechanism for moving properties such as businesses, and reducing the requirement for extinguishment.
Clause 47 allows the Secretary of State to direct that the deemed planning permission under clause 17(1) does not apply in relation to particular reinstatement works. That relates to works outside of the scope of the Bill, to which it would be inappropriate to apply deemed planning permission.
Ms Ghani
Clause 48 enables the Secretary of State to ensure that, following the construction of the scheme, he may impose conditions on land released where such land contains environmental mitigation for HS2. This is to ensure the maintenance of mitigation measures; upgrades to the mitigation, if required; and prohibition on uses of the land where such uses would detrimentally affect the measures in place. The clause binds successors in title into any covenant agreed with previous landowners. The Secretary of State or an authorised person may enforce the agreement.
Matt Rodda
This is an important clause, particularly the mitigating provision in subsection (2), which proposes planting trees and shrubs to replace habitat where work has been carried out. I cannot stress enough how important it is to get this right. We need to ensure that biodiversity needs are addressed with the right solutions. The proposal to replace trees with native species is positive, but we need to ensure that those species fit with the local environment, that there is proper biodiversity and that habitats are protected in line with local ecology.
As well as planting trees and shrubs, we need to ensure that they are in the right places so that, for example, they mitigate flooding and enhance the natural environment. New plantations should be open to the public where possible and we should seek to create environments that encourage biodiversity, so features such as natural watercourses should be used to their advantage.
The end of the route passes through the salt marshes south of Crewe. That is an unusual habitat and a special site in the country, so that should be taken into account in the preservation of the natural environment.
Ms Ghani
The hon. Gentleman raises an important point to consider when undertaking such a large construction project. We are working with all stakeholders he would hope we would work with, including the Woodland Trust, to ensure that we not only replace trees but plant them in the most appropriate places, and to mitigate as much as possible the impact on the environment. The substantial environmental statement covered most of those issues.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 48 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 49
Power to apply Act to further high speed rail works
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Ms Ghani
Clause 49 allows the use of an order under the Transport and Works Act 1992—a TWA order—to gain the necessary provisions for extensions or additional works relating to phase 2a of HS2 beyond the works outlined in the Bill. This relates to relatively minor transport works, such as an additional track to connect rail sidings. This power would not be used to promote future phases of HS2, which would be subject to the hybrid Bill process.
A TWA order cannot apply the provisions of the Bill that enable the Secretary of State to extend the time limit for the exercise of compulsory purchase powers—as referenced in clause 9(2) and schedule 13—or the provisions relating to listed buildings or ancient monuments, as referenced in schedules 18 and 19.
Clause 50 permits the authorised works to be carried out by the nominated undertaker on Crown land, or Crown land to be entered, with the consent of the relevant Crown authority.
Clause 51 provides that the powers conferred on the nominated undertaker with respect to works may be exercised in relation to roads under the responsibility of the Secretary of State, subject to his agreement. Subsection (2) states that the Secretary of State can impose conditions in such an agreement.
Clause 52 disapplies provisions of the Crown Estate Act 1961 that contain limitations on the powers of disposal of Crown Estate Commissioners. Those limitations are removed for Crown Estate land within the Bill limits that appears to the Crown Estate Commissioners to be required for phase 2a purposes.
Clause 53 makes provision for the terms “deposited plans” and “deposited sections” for the purposes of the Bill. Clause 54 contains provisions for correcting the plans that have been deposited in Parliament with this Bill, should that be required, and there are similar provisions in the Crossrail Act 2008, the Channel Tunnel Rail Link Act 1996, and the High Speed Rail (London - West Midlands) Act 2017.
Clause 55 provides that where a building that does not form part of the phase 2a works authorised by the Bill is built to replace a building demolished, or substantially demolished, under the Bill, the planning application for that replacement building must be accompanied by an environmental assessment where the construction of the replacement building is likely to have significant effects on the environment. The clause also amends environmental impact assessment regulations, to ensure that they work properly in relation to development authorised by the Bill.
Clause 56 sets out how disputes, which are to be determined under the Bill by arbitration, are dealt with. Similar provisions were included in the Crossrail Act 2008 and the High Speed Rail (London - West Midlands) Act 2017. Clause 57 relates to serving notices or other documents on any person where that is required or authorised under the Bill. The clause allows a document to be served by email or other electronic means where the recipient has agreed to the electronic means of service. Clause 58 allows landowners to resume their former use of land which has been used temporarily for the purposes of HS2, without having to make a further application for planning permission. Clause 59 defines the phrase “Phase 2a purposes” as used in the Bill, and clause 60 defines various terms used throughout the Bill.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 49 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clauses 50 to 60 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 61
Financial Provision
Question put, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Matt Rodda
The Minister has addressed some of these issues, but it is vital to get this right. HS2 will allow for more reliable rail services. The current Secretary of State has plunged punctuality on the railways to a new depth—a 13-year low—and we must get on top of that issue. This is a tremendous opportunity to improve connectivity, and it is vital to get urban-to-urban connectivity within the country. We are committed to delivering a transformative package of investment across the rail network in the north of England, backed by a commitment of at least £10 billion to transform connections between major northern cities. The Government have touted similar plans, sometimes described as Northern Powerhouse Rail or HS3, but there is no commitment to the funding—it is interesting that the Minister used that point to address the financial side of the programme.
Any incoming Labour Government would rescope the project to seriously reduce costs and provide far better integration. Furthermore, there is concern over the accountability and the ability of our colleagues in this House to scrutinise HS2, ensure that costs are kept under control, and address the issue of public trust. We believe there is the potential to reduce the cost of HS2 by using a number of other technical measures—I will not address those in detail now—and the operation of HS2 is also contentious. Billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money is being invested in HS2, and it is right that revenues go back to the Exchequer and not into the hands of private train operating companies. HS2 should be run in the public sector as a public service. I will return to some of those points later in relation to the new clauses.
The Government have been somewhat inept in handling another specific aspect. HS2 has been rightly criticised for sometimes failing to provide value for public money. For example, the Public Accounts Committee described an unauthorised redundancy bill of £1.76 million as
“a shocking waste of taxpayers’ money”,
blaming it on
“weak internal processes at HS2”,
and there have been other concerns about the project.
Mr Dhesi
Does my hon. Friend agree that the issue of spiralling costs concerns many of us up and down the country? If we do not get this right, it will have a huge impact on how services are delivered in our local communities in terms of housing, education, hospitals and so forth. Does he agree that the Government need to get a grip on the costs of HS2?
Matt Rodda
I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention; it is nice to have a colleague from Berkshire Labour intervening on me. The Government need to be responsible with these very large sums of public money, and it is deeply disappointing that they have fallen well short at times.
The words of the Public Accounts Committee are worth considering:
“a shocking waste of taxpayers’ money”
is a severe condemnation of the Government. There have been many other allegations about HS2’s potentially not being well planned or managed. Ensuring that HS2 secures value for money is essential if we are to retain public support for the project. There should be no blank cheque.
Mr Sweeney
My hon. Friend makes an important point about the general principles of HS2 and the need to ensure that the project delivers maximum economic benefit to the nation, including industrial skills and job opportunities. When we look at how the Treasury assesses such projects, we see that very little consideration is given to how much value is created in the wider economy, particularly through industrial development. In my own constituency, the Caledonian railway works in Springburn faces closure. Would it not have been possible to utilise the supply chain opportunities of HS2 to ensure that highly skilled jobs in the railway industry are supported and maximised through the project’s supply chain?
Matt Rodda
I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention and particularly for pointing out the importance of the supply chain. I will add that the value of apprenticeships, degree qualifications and other opportunities for young people linked to the programme should be first and foremost in the Government’s mind when they come to look at the supply chain.
Returning briefly to clause 61, essentially it says that there is potential for uncapped Government expenditure, leaving open the possibility of no upper limit on the costs of HS2. Will the Minister update the Committee on the latest cost estimate, and does she believe that the project will be delivered at cost?
Ms Ghani
I remind the hon. Gentleman that we are here to scrutinise the Bill line by line, but I welcome the opportunity to remind everybody of the importance of HS2. Of course, it is a crucial project, linking eight of our 10 greatest cities. Supportive comments have been made recently by everybody involved, including the Mayors of Manchester and Liverpool and the leader of Leeds City Council, who have been watching very closely. They are northern, locally elected leaders who are waiting for HS2 to roll through their communities, because they fully understand not only that, at its peak, it will provide work for 30,000 people—most of those jobs being outside London—but its value for money and how it will smash the north-south divide, encourage our communities to come even closer together and force investment in rail infrastructure in the north of England for more than 100 years. This is a key infrastructure, social and economic project for our country.
Mr Sweeney
The Minister notes that there is an opportunity to close the north-south divide, but the project’s scope does not include extending the infrastructure to Scotland, to include Glasgow, Britain’s third-largest city. That is critical to the success of this project, and I hope that in the next phase of the HS2 programme the Minister will consider extending the railway all the way to Glasgow, because although Glasgow will benefit from reduced journey times to and from London, the journey times to and from Manchester will actually increase, which is detrimental to the Glaswegian economy.
Ms Ghani
I look forward to joining the hon. Gentleman in the Committee and the Chamber, and I welcome his support for the next phase, but let us deal with this Bill in these few short sittings.
We know that this project creates jobs and supports apprenticeships. There are already 2,000 businesses in the chain, and two colleges are supporting it. I do not want to move too far away from the clause, but a valid argument was made about the rest of the Government’s investment in the north. We know that Northern Powerhouse Rail is based on HS2 infrastructure, which is why this Bill, these clauses and this line are so important. We are investing more than £2.5 billion in a rolling programme to upgrade the railway between Manchester, Leeds and York, and the great north rail project is investing more than £1 billion by 2022. I have never seen HS2 as an either/or project; we need to do both. This is a great investment in the north of our country. There is no upper limit. There is just one budget, which is the budget that HS2 must hold itself to. It must also hold itself to the schedules.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 61 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 62
Commencement and short title
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Ms Ghani
The clause is the standard clause that appears in Bills. The provisions of the Bill will come into force upon Royal Assent.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 62 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Ordered, That further consideration be now adjourned. —(Michelle Donelan.)
High Speed Rail (West Midlands - Crewe) Bill (Second sitting)
Tuesday 25th June 2019
(5 years, 4 months ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 25 June 2019 - (25 Jun 2019)
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 7 / Noes: 8 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 7 / Noes: 8 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 7 / Noes: 8 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 6 / Noes: 8 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 7 / Noes: 8 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 7 / Noes: 8 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Chair
Welcome back to the Committee. I remind colleagues to turn electronic devices to silent.
New Clause 1
Report on trees and woodland habitats
‘(1) The Secretary of State must prepare a report on—
(a) the likely effects of the scheduled works on trees and woodland habitats;
(b) steps to be taken to minimise or mitigate those effects.
(2) The report must include specific consideration of—
(a) ancient trees, including those on construction sites which will not be designated for long term railway use;
(b) tree felling, with particular reference to birdlife nesting and breeding seasons;
(c) wildlife habitat corridors; and
(d) woodland, including ancient woodland.
(3) The report must be laid before Parliament within one year of this Act being passed.’—(Matt Rodda.)
Brought up, and read the First time.
Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. The new clauses proposes that the Secretary of State must prepare a report on the likely effects of the scheduled works on trees and woodland habitats and steps to be taken to minimise or mitigate those effects. The report must include specific consideration of ancient trees, including those on construction sites—
The Chair
Order. It might be helpful to the hon. Gentleman to know that although he is very welcome to read out the new clause, he does not need to do so as it is on the amendment paper. If he wishes to do so to make his point, he is more than welcome to.
Matt Rodda
Thank you for your advice, Mr Davies. If I may, I will finish reading the new clause, but I will not read out the subsequent new clauses to the Committee, for the sake of brevity.
The report must include specific consideration of tree felling, with particular reference to bird nesting and breeding seasons; of wildlife habitat corridors; and of woodland, including ancient woodland. The report must be laid before Parliament within one year of the Act being passed.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. I do not see a need for the new clause. The environmental statements already report the likely significant effects of phase 2a on trees and woodland habitats, including on ancient and veteran trees and ancient woodland. They also set out the proposed mitigation and compensation for the likely effects of the railway. HS2 Ltd has published an ancient woodland strategy for the scheme that sets out the expected losses of ancient woodland habitat and the range of compensation measures proposed in response to those losses. We have made assurances to organisations such as the Woodland Trust about the protection of woodland and ancient trees.
Furthermore, I attend quarterly ministerial roundtable meetings with the environmental agencies to ensure that HS2 Ltd has its feet held to the fire on this important issue. Very little will have changed between the environmental information that has already been provided and the environmental information that will be published one year after Royal Assent.
Following extensive engagement with the Woodland Trust, HS2 Ltd was able to offer a number of assurances on woodland and ancient trees. It committed to retaining Noddy’s oak near Stockwell Heath in Staffordshire, along with five other veteran trees. The environmental minimum requirements for phase 2a include a key requirement that the nominated undertaker must use reasonable endeavours to adopt mitigation measures that will further reduce any adverse environmental impacts caused by phase 2a.
We will of course continue to engage with relevant stakeholders and interested parties through the national environment forum and through the environmental health sub-group of the phase 2a planning forum. I reiterate that the new clause should be withdrawn.
The Chair
I appreciate that the hon. Member for Reading East is stepping in for his colleague, and valiantly so. The idea is to make your speech when moving the new clause, but all is not lost—if he wants to speak to the new clause now, he is very welcome to do so.
Matt Rodda
That is very generous and gracious of you, Mr Davies. I am sorry if I misunderstood the process while I am standing in for my colleague.
I appreciate that the Minister has taken some time to come back with the Government’s response, but it is worth highlighting some of those points in a little more detail because of the importance of wildlife. As we discussed this morning, it would be somewhat ironic if a positive and pro-environmental measure such as high-speed rail was inadvertently to damage habitats and the Government were unable to respond fully to those concerns.
From the previous stages of HS2, a number of issues have caused serious concern to residents, communities and the public more widely. Although the Bill itself clearly shows a response to some of those elements, it is not as comprehensive as it needs to be. That is why I am seeking a reassessment by the Government through the new clauses.
New clause 1 would require the Government to produce a report on how any actions by HS2 will impact on the natural environment—wildlife, birds and trees. The report could be laid before the Select Committee considering petitions on the potential threats to the natural environment. We have scrutinised the Bill to see whether there is a lack of clarity, and we have tabled the new clause to address that.
By bringing forth a report to be laid before Parliament, the Government would ensure greater focus and scrutiny of the HS2 project. The new clause calls for the report to be laid within a year of the passage of the Bill, which also means there is time for the Government to develop a greater scrutiny role over HS2 Ltd, which is obviously a separate company, and to ensure that it changes its practices and is prepared to give an answer to the House if hon. Members decide that it should do so.
Labour Members have serious concern about the impact of HS2 on the natural environment, as we have discussed a number of times, including this morning, whether on birds nesting, animals burrowing, or indeed the trees themselves. I know from previous debates and questions, which have been asked by Members from all parties, that this issue has been reported on a number of times. However, the approach, behaviour and actions of HS2 Ltd to date have demonstrated why it was crucial to table the new clause.
There have also been reports that HS2 Ltd is using the practice of netting bushes—it has been widely covered in the media in recent months—which clearly can cause real distress to animals, and especially birds, which breach the netting but can then become trapped. We call for the practice to cease. The company should instead seek to remove bushes and hedgerows at a time of year when birds are not nesting—this obviously relates to existing legislation and good practice. There is plenty of time in advance of these major works to reschedule them, to be far more sensitive to the rhythms of nature and, as a result, to do more on this front.
Likewise, it has been drawn to our attention that trees have been felled in the nesting season during the course of the programme. That is completely inappropriate, as it risks eggs, and indeed whole nests, falling to the ground. It is therefore vital that there are further restrictions on HS2, such that it schedules this work outside the nesting season. Although the Bill highlights that HS2 Ltd should follow the best examples of working with nature, including management of trees, in the first phase of the project the company has failed to live up to that. There are examples of felling taking place in the nesting season, and this practice should be halted immediately for phase 1 of the route. However, we also believe that the practice should change for phases 2a and 2b.
We believe that the Government have a responsibility to ensure that they take a more environmentally friendly approach to the project, especially in areas where the project is failing. The Government state that they will simply mitigate habitat loss with the plantation of additional new habitat in future, but that does not go far enough. On a number of occasions the Government have pledged to leave the environment better than they found it, as we all know. However, with destructive and unnecessary actions, such as netting and felling, especially at the wrong time of year, the Government’s pledge is obviously just empty rhetoric.
Labour Members know that conservation is very important to the public. It has an impact on farming and on ensuring that the richness of nature can be enjoyed by all, and we are strongly committed to improving the environment. In that regard, we believe that the Government have to be far more accountable for the actions of HS2 Ltd, especially as the company is at the early stages of a very large programme that will affect significant parts of the country.
By ensuring that the Government must produce a report, the new clause also seeks to provide the Government with a responsibility to set out how they will mitigate the actions that are being taken. I will provide a few examples. Although not common practice, can trees be excavated and moved, especially with a focus on the 27 veteran trees that line the phase 2a route? What wildlife corridors will be built during the construction of HS2 to allow small mammals, other animals and birds to move away from the construction zone? The Bill is silent on that, yet we know that wildlife, whether birds or animals, needs clear corridors that support the wider existence of species. To disrupt those corridors without taking steps to provide alternatives is negligent, yet the Bill is silent on that.
By calling for the Government to be accountable to Parliament on these issues, we will build confidence among MPs and residents that the Government are undertaking due diligence on these important factors, which, I am afraid to say, they have failed to demonstrate to date. It is worth adding that if our new clause is agreed, HS2 Ltd would be more accountable to the House, which I am sure we would all wish to see.
Section (2)(a) focuses on ancient woodlands, especially the points that will not form the actual HS2 route but will be used during construction, as we discussed this morning. The new clause calls for additional consideration to be made to ensure that trees are protected in these areas, since there is more latitude to avoid felling so many trees and removing so much of the natural environment. We believe that the Government, with HS2 Ltd, should ensure that any construction route and the site itself minimises the destruction of natural habitats and, where alternatives can be found, they must be found, including reducing the size of the construction sites to an absolute minimum.
I am sure that the Minister will understand Labour’s concerns, which have also been stressed during the petitions stage of the Bill. Although I know that different tunnelling arrangements were scrutinised at the petitions stage—Labour would seriously consider this, especially around Whitmore—we understand that the majority on the Select Committee determined that the costs would be prohibitive and therefore there is already a far greater cost to our natural environment to be paid. This was agreed at petitions stage.
Labour would approach this project differently. However, I am sure that the Minister will understand why I have brought forward the new clause and why we believe, sadly, that she is not doing enough to mitigate the harm that the Government’s approach to HS2 will cause to the natural environment.
Ms Ghani
I accept the hon. Gentleman’s comments about ensuring that we have complete confidence in the project along its entire route. I agree that wildlife is important, as are trees and ancient trees. However, all his points are covered by the environmental statement, which, at 11,000 pages, is incredibly extensive. That is why I do not believe that we need another layer of reporting on a statement that is already out there. The environmental statement has been scrutinised independently and by the Select Committee, which has made its own decisions.
We have committed in our response to the Select Committee’s third special report that, in order to protect birds, we will provide bird diverters on new power lines near Parkgate, working with the West Midlands Bird Club. We continue to work with the environmental roundtable on these important issues. The Bill has taken into account the effect on wildlife, especially rare and protected species. A balance has to be struck between taking individual landowner’s property and providing land for mitigation.
I remind the hon. Gentleman that all the issues he has raised are already in the 11,000-page document. For that reason, I believe that he should withdraw the new clause.
Matt Rodda
I am grateful to the Minister for giving such a detailed reply and for the work on the bird diverters, which is a step forward. I appreciate that some work has been done on this already. However, on the points that we have made and on the new clause, I would like to press this to a vote.
Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.
Matt Rodda
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
Opposition Members believe that there has been a serious modal shift in how we use freight in developments. We continually hear the Government talk about modal shift in transport, but there is no mention in the Bill of how to ensure that. For Committee members who are not familiar with this transport terminology, modal shift means a shift from one mode of transport to another, such as from road to rail. Labour does not stand in the way of development but seeks to mitigate its impact, which is why we tabled the new clause.
Rail can be the main driver of change. In the light of all construction sites’ heavy dependency on heavy goods vehicles, and from discussions that my colleagues and I have had with Network Rail and others, we know that rail freight can be better utilised, and it is important to demonstrate that on such an important infrastructure project as HS2. Rail lines will be laid, and it is important, wherever possible throughout the Bill, to utilise rail for the movement of aggregates and materials. We are talking about a major rail infrastructure project, so the logic that rail should supply aggregates and minerals should certainly be considered. There will clearly be no lines at the commencement of the project, but over time the opportunity will arise.
Likewise, it is more sustainable for HS2 to source and move aggregates and material as far as possible by rail, and to use HGVs only for the final part of a journey. Equally, sourcing materials and aggregates as close as possible to the development site would also reduce the expected carbon emissions. Such an approach would also reduce congestion and lessen the impact on air pollution in the local vicinity. That demonstrates good practice in what can be achieved on such a major infrastructure project and can form the basis for a change of approach by the Government when undertaking such major works across the country.
Likewise, materials should remain on the site, or as close as possible to the site, to minimise transport movements. Laying a report before Parliament within a year of the Bill’s passage would provide ample opportunity for HS2 Ltd to work with the Government to establish better construction practices.
Ms Ghani
We recognise the impact that numerous road traffic movements have on local communities. As such, the promoter has proposed numerous highway works and temporary construction haul routes to alleviate that number. The Secretary of State has also given commitments relating to the implementation of these alleviating works and to restricting the use of certain roads for HGV movements. Equally, the strategies for reusing materials to reduce the volume of aggregate necessary to be moved are under continual review. The promoter published its borrow pit review, which outlines the severe reduction in necessary vehicle movements that backfilling and reusing of spoil takes off the road network.
The new clause is not needed. The environmental statement assumes and allows for the delivery of materials, plant and other equipment to construction compounds on the traditional rail network. It contains the working assumption that:
“Wherever reasonably practicable, the rail network will be used in preference to public roads.”
All traffic modelling has included that assumption. In this way, the environmental statement reports to Parliament our preference for transporting the goods, as outlined in the new clause, by rail rather than road. We have already assessed that there is a benefit in transporting all this material by rail, rather than road, and will seek to do that as far as possible. As with the previous new clause, virtually nothing will have changed between the publication of the environmental information and one year post Royal Assent. That is precisely what we have done on the borrow pits of phase 2a, to reduce the distance that aggregates have to travel. We have also put forward a proposed line of route to further reduce lorry movements. The new clause is therefore not needed and should be withdrawn.
Matt Rodda
I am grateful to the Minister for highlighting that commitment on the sourcing of aggregates. That is a helpful step forward, given the significant volumes of aggregates that are needed. The Government have once again talked a good game, but we would prefer to have further scrutiny of this important issue. I therefore wish to press the new clause to a vote.
Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.
Matt Rodda
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
I thank my hon. Friends the Members for Ipswich (Sandy Martin) and for East Lothian (Martin Whitfield), who attended the petitions hearings of the Select Committee on the High Speed Rail (West Midlands - Crewe) Bill as members of that Committee, and who shared with our shadow Transport team their concerns about how this route will affect active travel. As shadow Minister with responsibility for active travel—walking and cycling—I share those concerns, which is why we tabled the new clause.
It is inevitable that major construction projects will cause an element of disruption to journeys, and inconvenience to cyclists and, to an even greater extent, walkers, but diversions can have a real impact. If a car has to divert for a few miles to cross the HS2 construction site or the final HS2 line, that will add to its journey and its carbon footprint. If a cyclist does the same, it could add considerable time to their journey. It is worse for pedestrians; it could result in hours of extra time.
We tabled the new clause because we need to encourage active travel much more in this country; as was said, the Government are not meeting their targets for it. They have far more to do in this area. The new clause asks the Government to consider the factors further, and to report to Parliament within a year of the Bill’s passing into law. Subsection (2) highlights the need to have regard to not only routes that traverse the rail line, but those that run adjacent to it, which could also be affected. The Government missed a significant opportunity in failing to create a cycle path along the HS2 route. In many continental countries, major roads and rail lines have cycle paths parallel to them; once there is access to the land, it is an obvious choice to make.
Cycle routes are increasingly popular; they are the most direct route, away from car and lorry use. A segregated north-south cycle route adjacent to the line, but obviously some distance away from the line’s boundary, would have been an important legacy of the HS2 project. There would have been very little extra cost, in the light of the scale of this enormous construction project. Again, we ask the Government to show more concern for walkers and cyclists by considering the issue and reporting back to Parliament within a year of the enactment of the Bill.
Ms Ghani
Contrary to what the new clause suggests, I do not agree that we have not looked into or provided for non-motorised use. Let me give the hon. Gentleman some examples. On the particular part of HS2 that we are here to scrutinise, we have offered assurances to Cycling UK that some footpaths will be made more suitable for people who cycle or ride horses, so that local users of those public rights of way can seek, through the appropriate local planning process, to have those upgraded routes redesigned.
Yesterday, in response to the Transport Committee’s third special report on the Bill, we committed to working with Colwich parish council as it seeks funding from the recently announced £21 million Sustrans fund, and from funds that I announced last year. Phase 2a’s own £5 million community engagement fund and business and local economy fund are also available to improve towpaths, which will improve local walking and cycling facilities. I also announced the £6.5 million road safety fund, which provides even more money to support local initiatives for cycling and walking and for other non-motorised users.
Once again, I refer back to the environmental statement, because it covers most of the points raised. The report focuses on the impact of construction operations on cycling and walking. We have looked into the potential disruption in great detail in every area where it will occur along the phase 2a route. We have reported the likely effects and the proposed steps to mitigate those effects in the environmental statement. I refer the hon. Gentleman in particular to the community area report in that statement, which goes into detail on each part of the route. In that assessment, we included the likely effects on other non-motorised users of public rights of ways, such as horse riders, as is appropriate for works in a rural area, and steps for their mitigation.
There is a report, mitigations are taking place and there is engagement with local communities. The new clause is not needed and should be withdrawn.
Matt Rodda
I appreciate the Minister coming back on this issue. However, yet again the scale of ambition is very limited, and there is arguably far too little mitigation. A cycle path along the length of the HS2 route would have been a huge enhancement for the country at a time when we are failing to meet our cycling and walking targets; not having that shows a lack of ambition. I will press the new clause to a vote.
Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.
Matt Rodda
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
Having listened to the concerns of the public, Labour proposes new clause 4. It was evident at the petitions stage of the Bill that along sections of the route HS2 would cause great disruption for residents, but there has been deep dissatisfaction with the way that HS2 Ltd has handled compensation. There have rightly been changes in practice to ensure that landowners and freeholders receive compensation for the loss of their homes, but the issue has not been completely resolved. The Government have provided compensation for individuals, but the new clause addresses where they have fallen short. Its purpose is to ensure that compensation is paid to tenants such as tenant farmers, who often live in close proximity to their place of work, and who will now have responsibility for finding new accommodation, and are more than likely to face longer journey times to work, and residents in urban settings who will lose their home as a result of HS2.
We cannot ignore the fact that across the UK, there are many private rental properties, which many people make their home for a significant time; like social housing tenants, they often plan for it to remain their home for their whole life. There are tenants in other forms of accommodation, too, such as houseboats, which cannot necessarily move, permanent caravans and mobile home parks. Some of those who rent comprise the poorest in our society. Uprooting them and causing them to move—possibly to a property demanding higher rent—could result in greater inconvenience and expenditure. It could mean moving costs and longer travel times. Clearly, HS2 must pay an appropriate amount of compensation for the disruption that it causes these residents.
Labour is concerned that this issue has been overlooked by the Government. We therefore believe that it is necessary for the Government to produce a report on the impact that the HS2 programme has on those who rent different forms of accommodation, and to come up with a compensation scheme that provides reasonable mitigation for the costs and disruption that the programme has caused.
Ms Ghani
The hon. Gentleman raises a very important point, and it is vital that HS2 engages fully with residents and deals with them swiftly, clearly and with humility. As this is such a sensitive issue, and no doubt many people will focus on it, I will take a moment or two to respond.
Most types of tenants affected by the scheme are already provided for under current compensation law. Where they are not, the Government can use flexible, non-statutory arrangements to provide support. Where the law is silent, the Government have committed to taking forward appropriate measures in discussion with stakeholders and residents, should it be necessary to do so. Matters of tenant compensation are complex, because they depend on an individual’s tenancy arrangements. However, I will endeavour to summarise briefly the support that is available. I will outline the legal position, the comprehensive non-statutory schemes that the Government have developed to assist property owners who are affected by HS2, and the work that the Government are taking forward following parliamentary scrutiny of high-speed rail hybrid Bills.
The elements of compensation payable are set by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, and apply to all Government-led infrastructure projects, including HS2. The HS2 scheme applies these arrangements, which have been debated, agreed and set by Parliament, together with the vast body of case law on the subject. Compensation is based on the principle of financial equivalence: the person affected should be financially compensated with no less and no more than what they have lost. Compensation due to tenants is therefore commensurate with their interests and the land they occupy; for example, if a private tenant property is subject to compulsory purchase, the tenant should be eligible for various heads of claim that comprise the market value of the leasehold interest in the land. They might also be eligible for a home loss payment for the loss of their home, and for reasonable moving costs.
The key part of the non-statutory arrangements is a consideration of atypical properties and special circumstances. These are established, funded arrangements that apply to tenants as well as property owners. I am pleased to say that in response to concerns raised by the phase 2a Commons Committee, the Government have committed to improving guidance on those atypical arrangements and raising awareness and accessibility, so that we can continue to provide the right support at the right time to people who need to use them. The Government have also been charged with developing a non-statutory prolonged disruption scheme in response to the phase 1 Lords Committee’s concerns on this subject. The Government intend shortly to release details of the scheme, which will assist residents who have different types of tenure, and who are affected by significant construction noise across the HS2 route.
Finally, in response to concerns raised by the phase 2a Commons Committee, the Government have committed to taking forward three strands of work on compensation for owners of houseboats and other types of moveable home. The first is to explore whether there is a case for bringing houseboats into line with caravans on statutory home loss payment entitlement. The second is to establish whether there is a case for introducing regulations to compensate houseboat residents who are affected by significant noise disturbance from rail works. The third is to explore the potential use of non-statutory compensation measures in advance of legislation being introduced, should the case for change be established. The Government are committed to taking forward appropriate measures in discussion with stakeholders and affected residents.
In conclusion, I believe the Government’s established non-statutory arrangements, which are as broad and inclusive as possible, are an appropriate and flexible tool to support all types of residents affected by the HS2 scheme. That is why I believe the proposed new clause is unnecessary, and I would urge the hon. Gentleman to withdraw it.
Matt Rodda
I thank the Minister for her response, and for mentioning the legal principles of the compensation scheme. As she said, however, the Government’s response is still a work in progress. For that reason, and because of the serious public concern about rented properties, I will press the new clause to a vote.
Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.
Matt Rodda
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
The new clause follows an inquiry at the petitions stage of the Bill that there was no remit to consider at that stage. Hon. Members will have heard that the kind of tracking used can have a significant impact on cost, including long-term maintenance costs, and the noise of the railway. It also has an impact on the speed at which trains travel. As the route has been singled out as providing high-speed rail travel, it is right that the Government work with engineers on the issue.
Although using slabs on the rail line is believed to be more expensive initially, it could prove much more efficient in the long term than using sleepers because it is low-maintenance. Across Europe and beyond, modern railway infrastructure projects are changing, and it is common for slab track to be preferred to sleepers. This short new clause asks the Government to assess the cost, efficiency and impact of that approach.
Ms Ghani
I do not see the need for the new clause. Again, the environmental statement assesses a reasonable worst case for the impacts of construction and operation of the railway. That includes so-called slab track, and track laid on ballast, or sleeper track. To comply with the environmental minimum requirements, the type of track used must be within the reasonable worst-case impact assessed in the environmental statement.
HS2 is one of the most scrutinised pieces of legislation to pass through the House—it even has its own Select Committee—and there are several other opportunities throughout the year for an inquiry to take place. There is constant reporting to Parliament and justifications for why decisions are taken. Reporting to Parliament obviously matters, and it takes place, but constant discussions about cost add another layer of financial burden and bureaucracy when the reports are already in place. The new clause is not needed and should be withdrawn.
Matt Rodda
I appreciate the Minister’s response. We will not press the new clause to a vote, so I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
New Clause 6
Quarterly reports on environmental impact, costs and progress
‘(1) The Secretary of State must publish quarterly reports on the scheduled works throughout the period in which those works take place.
(2) Each such report must contain an assessment of—
(a) environmental impact;
(b) costs; and
(c) progress compared to the scheduled timetable.
(3) The first such report must be laid before Parliament within the period ending three months after the day the scheduled works commence.
(4) Each subsequent report must be laid before Parliament within three months of the publication of the last report under this section.’—(Matt Rodda.)
Brought up, and read the First time.
Matt Rodda
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
There is clear concern about the cost of the HS2 programme, as has been discussed in Committee and elsewhere. Clause 61 shows that there is little accountability for the spiralling costs of the project, and as a result, they are continually rising. It is important that the Government be accountable for that. Likewise, it is important that they be accountable for HS2’s impact on the environment. As discussed in the debate on new clause 1, we want to ensure that all infrastructure projects minimise carbon use and protect our natural habitats.
There must also be accountability for ensuring that the project is delivered on time. To achieve that, we believe that there must be regular reporting to Parliament by the Government, to enable Parliament to scrutinise the Executive on these important matters. We believe that quarterly reports provide the right frequency of reporting, and that they would enable all parts of Parliament to fulfil their role, including the Public Accounts Committee, the Transport Committee and the House. Reporting would also provide vital data for external bodies, such as the National Audit Office, and would allow all to follow the impact the project is having, and to ensure that the project is brought under control. I shall take each of those in turn.
Labour has already stated that it would take a different approach to the development of infrastructure across the rail network, and to projects such as HS2, which will be embedded in the wider enhancement programme to ensure proper planning in line with all enhancement projects, and to deliver a more connected and reliable railway. For example, we would have commenced HS2 in the north, and then ensured connectivity to the north and south, reaching further afield to deliver modal shift from cars, heavy goods vehicles and internal flights.
Labour would also have ensured that HS2 was fully embedded in the ambitions for HS3, or Crossrail for the north, or Northern Powerhouse Rail—whichever title is now being used. East-west connectivity in the north of England, connecting major cities such as Manchester, Sheffield and Leeds to other major towns and cities, is vital to building a strong northern economy. Labour has identified how integration of HS2 and HS3 could result in greater efficiencies, not only on cost but on journey times. That would impact largely in phase 2b, but in the light of the widespread concern about cost, and at a time when the austerity programme has had a significant impact on communities in the midlands and the north, it is vital that the Government be more accountable.
Clause 61 is loosely worded, and more or less invites a blank-cheque approach to the project. That is quite staggering. So much investment, especially in rail, is needed across the transport system, so taking that approach without providing for further scrutiny by Parliament is wrong for a project that has attracted so much public interest. After all, as the Conservative party likes to remind us, we are talking about taxpayers’ hard-earned money being spent on a major project. Labour has argued that ensuring that we all have good rail connectivity to the north, which will provide a vital opportunity to rebalance the economy and ensure that northern economies prosper, is the way forward. That is why we are supporting this initiative. We want it to enhance rail capacity, journey times and connectivity. However, as we have seen, this whole project must be brought under greater control and greater accountability. The Government should set out the expenditure clearly in quarterly reports and justify the costs.
We understand that when a project is in development for longer, inflationary factors can come into play, not least at this time of instability for our economy. However, it is right that the Government should have to justify the figures publicly. As it is possible that a future Prime Minister might question going ahead with HS2, it is important to demonstrate better governance of the finances of this project. We therefore call on the Government to present a transparent, quarterly report to Parliament that can be subject to scrutiny, so that the public can understand the financing of the project and the Government can be fully held to account.
I turn to the environmental impact, which is of great concern. As a result of Labour’s motion, Parliament has declared a climate emergency. These are not just words; this is a call to action to ensure immediately that no part of Government adds to the loss of biodiversity, adds to the amount of carbon in the atmosphere, or makes sustained changes to the environment. Labour is pleased with the mitigation proposals under HS2, but when our planet is under such intense threat, and when transport emissions account for 29% of all UK emissions, there is an obligation on the Government—not least the Department for Transport—to respond proactively by reducing the impact on the environment.
The Minister will know the growing concerns that HS2 is prompting about our climate and environment. Parliament should use quarterly reports to spur the Minister on to draw on global best practice, and to identify the true cost of the environmental impact. We recognise that in the long term, with modal shift and planting, HS2 can be mitigated. However, the crisis is now, so there needs to be greater scrutiny now.
Ms Ghani
That was such a wide-ranging speech that I fear it fell out of the scope of the line-by-line scrutiny of this Bill. However, I will do my best to address as many of the issues as possible. It was slightly difficult to follow the hon. Member for Reading East, because on the one hand he says that he supports the project, but on the other he wants to throw everything into the basket to undermine it. He asserted that the costs keep rising, but that simply is not the case. The total funding envelope for HS2 remains at £55.7 billion in 2015 prices. The Department is keeping a firm grip on costs, and HS2 Ltd is working with its supply chain to ensure that that continues. I advise the hon. Gentleman that if he wants to ensure that costs are kept low, undermining the project and the supply chain is not the way to go about it.
The hon. Gentleman spoke about ensuring value for money. We will make a full business case, including assessment at the point of notice to proceed. That will also ensure that we are fully integrated, taking into account the needs of Northern Powerhouse Rail. [Interruption.]
Ms Ghani
I return to highlighting how important this line is and the fact that it has to adhere to a single budget. Of course, without HS2 there would not be Northern Powerhouse Rail, because it requires the infrastructure for HS2.
Before I address some of the issues raised about climate change, I remind the hon. Member for Reading East that travelling by rail is the most efficient way to travel. It is a good form of transport because it means that passengers do not fill up lots of cars on the motorway or take flight. The hon. Gentleman threw down the gauntlet on a number of issues relating to carbon impacts; he gave me the right to reply in writing, but I may have the answers in front of me, so I will do my best to respond.
Compared with most other transport modes, high-speed rail offers some of the lowest carbon emissions per passenger kilometre, significantly less than cars and planes. As an annual average, the scheme’s carbon footprint over the course of the construction period will represent less than 1% of the UK’s annual construction carbon footprint. The scheme is expected to save 419,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions through modal shift in transport—that was a very good term that the hon. Gentleman used—with approximately 364,000 tonnes saved as a result of road, rail and domestic air passengers switching to high-speed rail, and 55,000 tonnes saved as a result of road freight moving on to existing rail lines due to released capacity from the scheme. Over the 120-year design life of the scheme, the net carbon emission reduction from modal shift is estimated at minus 307,000 tonnes.
Mr Paul Sweeney (Glasgow North East) (Lab/Co-op)
The Minister makes an important point about the benefits of modal shift. It is important that we have a national aspiration to integrate all the United Kingdom’s core cities with high-speed rail networks, and this is a significant step in that direction. However, on a good day, flying from Glasgow to London takes me three hours from door to door. It is clear that even with these improvements, the journey from Glasgow to London by rail will still take three hours and 40 minutes. It needs to be below three hours. What will the Minister do to advance that national objective?
Ms Ghani
There will be a reduced journey time on high-speed rail, which will open up capacity on existing railway lines. It will also shift people from roads or flights to rail, which is incredibly important. We will continue to invest north of London. This is just one way of ensuring that the journey becomes far more integrated, but I know that the hon. Gentleman would like it to become even faster. Considering that it has taken us so long to get high-speed rail up and running, who knows what will come in the next iteration? However, I do take his point.
Let me return to the important point about skills that the hon. Member for Reading East raised. At present, there are 9,000 people working on high-speed rail, with more than 2,000 businesses already involved in the chain. The hon. Gentleman raised an important point about how we will reach the 30,000 people who will be required to build the railway; that is why we have two colleges set up to improve the technical and academic skills of people working on the railway line, from design to construction.
Having made all those arguments, I really do not understand the need for new clause 6. The issue of quarterly reporting has been raised, but HS2 Ltd already provides annual reports to Parliament, as required by the DFT-HS2 Ltd framework document. I believe that that level of reporting is proportionate and sufficient. The project is bound not to exceed the likely significant environmental effects assessed for the scheme, as reported to Parliament. As part of HS2 Ltd’s sustainability policy, an environmental management system will be developed that will set out the procedure to plan and monitor compliance with environmental legislation; the record-keeping arrangements, including reports to my Department; and the procedures that will be put in place to monitor compliance with the Bill’s environmental provisions.
There is so much scrutiny and accountability that separate quarterly reporting would be excessive and burdensome to the Department. There are already reports out there; if the 11,000-page report were read fully, I believe it would answer a number of the questions that have been raised so far. I do not believe that there is any need for the new clause. It should be withdrawn.
Matt Rodda
It is interesting to listen to a Minister trying to justify providing a lack of information to Parliament. For a programme of this scale—it is utterly huge and encompasses not only the Department for Transport, but many other parts of the public sector and a large supply chain—internal reports will obviously be produced much more regularly than the annual report that the Minister described. Given the scale of the programme, the significant investment of public money and the need for the Executive to be held to account by Parliament so that the public can see that their money is being spent well, surely it is only common sense to make the reporting public on a quarterly basis.
Separate evidence will be available internally. I am sure that people at HS2 will produce thousands of Gantt charts and other forms of reporting for internal and departmental use; having worked as a civil servant on much smaller programmes, I am sure that that information is there. Surely it is incumbent on the Government to provide Parliament with a much more regular update so that it can properly scrutinise spending such large amounts of public money.
On the point about the environment, I am grateful for the Minister’s lovely commercial for rail travel, which I fully support. We absolutely value investment in high-speed rail, which the Labour party sees as a huge step forward for the country, but the Minister only partially addressed the specific point about the amount of carbon produced during the construction stages. Will she write to the shadow Rail Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell), to provide more detailed points about the specifics of the carbon produced during the construction period? The use of heavy goods vehicles—particularly if road freight is used, as we discussed earlier—and of aggregates and other materials can be carbon intensive. It would be wise to consider ways of reducing that carbon impact as the programme is rolled forward.
On the final point about skills, we fully support the investment in the two colleges. That is an important part of developing a skilled workforce in the areas the line crosses. However, we ask the Government to carry out more forward planning and to consider this as an even greater opportunity to develop a highly skilled workforce for the future, given the scale of the programme and the geographical spread of the line, particularly as it runs through many relatively disadvantaged communities, whether they be isolated rural communities with limited local employment or urban city centres. On that basis, we call for a Division on this new clause.
Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.
Matt Rodda
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
Already it is clear that residents and businesses along the route of HS2, and those affected by the wider construction of the line, need to be involved in this programme, not just with the passing of the Bill but beyond that, not least because the project is being funded by public money and is causing disruption to many communities.
We call on the Government to put in place regulations to ensure, through a statutory route, that HS2 and the Government continue to engage with the public and, through that engagement, respond to concerns raised. Nobody holds a monopoly on wisdom. Through strong community engagement, the project can develop in the interests of all concerned. The tweaks made by petitioners to the hybrid Bill Committee show the power of such consultation.
As the programme moves from the planning to the delivery phase, unseen consequences may, and probably will, occur. Good public engagement is vital to ensure that there is a response to those issues, whether they are environmental issues—for example, noise, dust and pollutants—or relate to congestion. Communities must have a right to engage in public meetings and to engage with proposed changes. Even with the best planned projects, we know that engagement is vital.
It is important to have a direct complaints process, to which HS2 must respond, for the duration of the building of phase 2a and all subsequent phases. Above all, the public need to have confidence in the development of HS2, but there is concern that that has been lacking to date. This must change, and the new clause would enable the Government to ensure that that happens through the establishment of secondary legislation.
Ms Ghani
The hon. Gentleman raised some important points. I agree with him that we need strong community engagement and good public engagement, and that the response has to be flexible and responsive.
Let me remind the hon. Gentleman what HS2 is actually doing. This was one of the trickiest parts of my brief when I took over as Minister for HS2, because I wanted to ensure that HS2’s community engagement was on point, especially as further and deeper construction work takes place. The commitment to public engagement is evidenced by the community engagement strategy and the biannual community engagement progress report. For example, in 2018 more than 36,000 people attended over 2,200 engagement activities, including meetings, drop-ins and events across the whole of the HS2 route. The 24/7 help desk dealt with 26,697 inquiries, and nine out of 10 complaints were dealt with within 20 working days or fewer. I constantly put pressure on HS2 Ltd to ensure that it is working as effectively and with as much humility as possible.
Further, as a Minister I have secured meetings in Parliament between Members and HS2, sometimes with constituents. The hon. Gentleman may not be aware of this, so I put on the record that there is an independent construction commissioner and residents’ commissioner. The residents’ commissioner also gave evidence to the Select Committee. A substantial amount of public engagement is already taking place. That must continue and be of good quality. There must be speedy responses to the public’s concerns, in a way that they can understand and digest, given the level of engagement already taking place and the fact that the Secretary of State has made a number of commitments to continue to engage with all stakeholders. All of that information can be found on the HS2 website. It is published online, as is the register of undertakings and assurances.
Of course, we should never take anything for granted and HS2 Ltd should continue to work as closely as possible with the communities that require further assurance or changes in lifestyle. It needs to work with them as efficiently as it can. Considering all the work that is already taking place and will take place, I believe that the new clause is unnecessary and should be withdrawn.
Matt Rodda
I am grateful to the Minister for running through the existing engagement strategy and, indeed, the volume of correspondence and engagement that has taken place. However, it is somewhat disappointing that the Government are still not pursuing this through regulations and are not putting it on a statutory footing. We will therefore press the new clause to a vote.
Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.
High Speed Rail (West Midlands-Crewe) Bill
Tuesday 16th July 2019
(5 years, 4 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Amendment Paper: Consideration of Bill Amendments as at 15 July 2019 - (15 Jul 2019)
High Speed Rail (West Midlands–Crewe) Bill
Monday 9th September 2019
(5 years, 2 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Notices of Amendments as at 10 June 2019 - (11 Jun 2019)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Transport (Baroness Vere of Norbiton) (Con)
My Lords, HS2 is a major infrastructure programme that has had substantial parliamentary support from both Houses over its development to date. The Bill before your Lordships’ House relates to phase 2a of HS2, which would extend the line from the West Midlands to Crewe. Before I move on to the substance of the Bill, I want to draw attention to the Oakervee review and the recent advice received from Allan Cook, the chairman of HS2 Ltd. Noble Lords will be aware that the Government have asked Douglas Oakervee, supported by a panel with a wide range of views, to review HS2. Noble Lords will also be aware of the Statement laid last week by the Transport Secretary regarding advice recently received from Allan Cook. The Oakervee review will assemble and test all the existing evidence, including the recent advice from Allan Cook to allow the Government to make properly informed decisions on the future of the project.
The Transport Secretary made it clear when launching the review that the review itself should not unnecessarily delay HS2. This means continuing with preparatory work, including the enabling work for phase 1, and progressing the legislation for phase 2a. It is important to mention the review and the chairman’s advice, but giving the Bill a Second Reading does not affect the conduct of the review or prejudge its outcome. Indeed, I wish to make it clear that the Bill seeks permissive powers, to be able to construct phase 2a. It does not require the railway to be built.
The focus of this Bill process is addressing the concerns of people whose homes and businesses are impacted by the route. The petitioners seek resolution of their issues and certainty about what will happen. By giving the Bill a Second Reading and allowing the Select Committee to do its work, we can enable petitioners to be heard and their concerns considered.
Lord Adonis (Lab)
My Lords, can the Minister tell the House when the report of the review will be published?
Baroness Vere of Norbiton
I thank the noble Lord for his intervention, but perhaps I may pick up all the issues surrounding the review later. If he includes that question in his speech, I will cover it in my speech at the end of the debate, when we discuss all those issues.
Lord Grocott (Lab)
My Lords, will the Minister also say whether part of the evidence that the review takes will include an assessment of how much has been spent already on this vital link for the West Midlands? Then we could get a clearer idea, in the light of the suggestion by some that the scheme should be scrapped—which, as well as being disastrous for the West Midlands, would be a colossal waste of money.
Baroness Vere of Norbiton
I shall indeed cover that in my closing remarks.
It is nearly 200 years since permission was given for the building of what is now the west coast main line. Those railway pioneers made history. The railways allowed goods to travel more quickly to where people wanted them, and allowed people to travel too, for work and leisure. All this truly unlocked the Industrial Revolution, and by connecting people and goods it made the United Kingdom into an economic powerhouse.
Much has changed in nearly 200 years, but I want to focus on the things that remain the same—the things that the railways can still do: the need for railway capacity to take people and freight where they should go; the need for connectivity between places, to make travel easier; and the potential for economic growth through transport investment.
Turning to capacity, the vast bulk of our rail network was built more than 100 years ago. Demand has increased substantially since the 1990s, and the west coast main line is effectively full. Inevitably, this has implications for the reliability and performance of our network, affecting both passengers and freight. I do not want to underestimate those implications. Disruption to freight delivery can be unseen, but the disruption to people’s lives caused by late or cancelled trains regularly makes the press. The resulting huge frustration can mean that people choose not to trust trains for freight or travel, and those choices can mean more lorries and cars on our roads, with higher carbon emissions.
Capacity on, and in turn the resilience of, our railways is essential. The Government continue to invest in our existing infrastructure, but to really increase capacity and network reliability requires completely new capacity. Eking ever more out of our already full network comes with extensive disruption, leading to daily frustration with the impact on lives and businesses. Those rail users may not come back to the railways. If it proceeds, HS2 could be the best solution to capacity problems, providing much-needed space on the congested west coast main line, leading to more passengers and more freight trains on the existing network.
That brings me to connectivity. HS2 could connect many of the UK’s largest cities, and passengers would not have to travel on it to feel the benefit. Estimates indicate that about 100 towns and cities across the country could benefit from HS2 through the improved connectivity that a new railway could provide. That is not just rail connectivity; it is connectivity of people to other people, to jobs, and to businesses and their customers and suppliers. This section of HS2 could join Birmingham and London to Crewe, bringing greater connectivity to the north-west and Scotland.
That leads me to my third point: investment in transport infrastructure is not just about the infrastructure itself. Investment in transport infrastructure drives economic growth. It supports productivity by enhancing the transport networks on which businesses and individuals rely, and provides thousands of jobs and training opportunities in the supply chain. Earlier this year the Government announced that HS2 was already supporting more than 9,000 jobs and that 2,000 businesses had delivered goods and services for HS2. It has been offering up exciting opportunities for young people, with over 320 apprenticeships created so far. It is enabling young people to gain the skills to build our future infrastructure. Those skills are transferable, from building railways to other construction and other economic sectors, meaning that HS2 could give the UK more skills to compete globally, generate long-term employment opportunities and become the driving force behind Northern Powerhouse Rail.
I turn to the Bill itself. Phase 2a of HS2 is approximately 36 miles of track. It will extend HS2 from the end of phase 1 at Fradley near Lichfield and onwards towards Crewe. At the northern end it will connect to the west coast main line, allowing HS2 services to join that main line and call at Crewe station. The Bill gives outline planning permission for the railway and allows for compulsory purchase powers. It affects homes, businesses and land along the way, so it is rightly subject to extensive scrutiny. A Select Committee especially convened to scrutinise the Bill in the other place received over 300 individual petitions. During that scrutiny, the Transport Secretary offered 1,000 assurances to people who are directly and especially affected.
If the Bill receives its Second Reading today, it will pass to another specially convened Select Committee of your Lordships’ House that will look again at the detail of the Bill and make sure that it meets the high standards that we expect. The committee will have the power to amend the Bill as well as to require other changes to this part of the scheme not yet covered in the Bill. Since First Reading in July, the Bill has received 35 petitions for the Select Committee to consider, and HS2 is engaging with those petitioners to try to address their needs.
Stepping back from the individual impacts, wider community and environmental impacts are also raised by the Bill. I reassure noble Lords that I understand these wider concerns but I also remind them that it is not possible to build a railway without having some impact on the wider community. We must strike the right balance between delivering and operating a railway and being sensitive to its surroundings. I believe that the Government have struck that balance.
HS2 has undertaken detailed environmental assessments to ensure adequate mitigation of the railway’s impacts. These 36 miles of track have been considered through 17,000 pages of environmental statement—that is over 470 pages of assessment for every mile of track. Many thousands of consultation responses to the assessment were independently assessed and summarised in a report to Parliament. For example, an ecologically survey at Colwich looked for great crested newts. The field survey confirmed the newts’ presence and, to compensate for any possible losses, approximately 7.4 hectares of grassland, including eight ponds, has been proposed to provide suitable replacement refuge and foraging habitat. These assessments are not the end of our consideration of the environmental effects and impacts on communities. The Government have continued to listen to communities, environmental groups, statutory bodies and other stakeholders to try to reduce the impacts where we can.
Other changes to the scheme include the lowering of the Kings Bromley and River Trent viaducts in Staffordshire to reduce landscape impacts and the relocation of the southern portal of the Whitmore Heath tunnel, removing the need to realign a road and reducing the loss of ancient woodland. There are additional earthworks to further screen the maintenance base near Stone and to provide additional noise mitigation, such as the noise bund at Woodhouse Farm. There are assurances to protect water voles in Cheshire and to provide bird protectors along the power supplies to protect important bird species. These are just a few examples.
More than half the route is in a tunnel or cutting. The route avoids direct impacts to any grade 1 or 2* listed buildings, to scheduled monuments, to registered battlefields and to registered parks and gardens. The route does not affect any Natura 2000 sites or sites of special scientific interest, or cross any areas of outstanding natural beauty, and HS2 has been designed to withstand a “one in 1,000 years” flooding event. I know there are people who want to see more: longer tunnels, deeper cuttings, taller noise barriers and so on. I understand that. However, our duty to protect the environment must be balanced with our duty to the taxpayer. The work to date has done that and balances these responsibilities appropriately.
Lord Snape (Lab)
Does the Minister agree that those who demand longer tunnels and deeper cuttings are usually the ones who then complain about the extra costs there involved?
Baroness Vere of Norbiton
The noble Lord raises an interesting point. HS2 is intended to be greater than the sum of its parts. It is designed to provide much-needed capacity on our rail network, allowing freight and passengers more reliable services. It could reconnect our country, pumping much-needed investment into the Midlands and the north. HS2 is about potential: to create opportunities for growth, support a brighter future for the UK, improve and rebalance our economy and improve connectivity across the UK. It remains important to get these decisions right, so we look forward to hearing Douglas Oakervee’s recommendations. In the meantime, I hope the Bill is allowed to proceed today. I beg to move.
Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)
My Lords, the HS2 project is an initiative of the last Labour Government and one which we still support today. In the years that have passed since it was first announced, the project has steered off course from the direction we intended. The line was due to be built as a network rather than a standalone piece of infrastructure, as part of a campaign to engineer growth for the Midlands and the north of England. Throughout the route’s construction, we had intended that it would be built with consideration for the economic, environmental and time sensitivities. With public confidence in the Government’s ability to do this now waning, I am pleased that we can debate this Bill to enable the construction of the line between Birmingham and Crewe and that this Parliament can consider whether the project should continue.
In recent weeks, the Government announced that a review will take place to examine whether the HS2 scheme should be approved, amended or scrapped, a move which follows Labour’s amendment to the Bill in the Commons calling for exactly this. However, a review in itself is not enough, and I would appreciate confirmation from the Minister that it will give particular consideration to the predicted timescale and costs, as well as the impact on the environment. Regarding the environmental implications, the impact on woodlands should be specifically analysed. HS2 remains the biggest single development threat to ancient woodland, with at least 108 ancient woods threatened along the route. Can the Minister confirm that the impact on ancient woodlands will be included in the review, and whether any further felling will take place while the report is being produced?
In addition to clarifying what will be included in the report, I would appreciate confirmation that sufficient parliamentary time will be given for both Houses to consider the published review and whether the Government’s resulting judgment is right. The Government’s decision to announce a review highlights further the need for repeated review through the duration of the project. The publication of quarterly reports would make HS2 Ltd more transparent and accountable to Parliament, allowing MPs and Peers to be better equipped to identify any problems and hold both the company and the Government to account. On this side of the House, we may explore legislating for such transparency, as our Commons colleagues attempted to do during the Bill’s passage through the Commons. Could the Minister clarify whether there any non-statutory plans for periodic reports?
Returning to the specifics of the project, I mentioned earlier that the original intention was for HS2 to form a wider network rather than a standalone piece of infrastructure. Above all else, we must remember that HS2 should be to the benefit of everyone across the UK, not only the narrow number who live close to each station. In order to guarantee that the rail line benefits those near to and far from it, we must ensure sufficient accessibility and connectivity.
The section of the route which the Bill deals with begins at Birmingham and passes along the Staffordshire-Shropshire border up to Cheshire. Along this route are counties where some communities lack any kind of meaningful public transport connection to HS2. Although Oswestry, for example—North Shropshire’s largest town—is only about 30 miles as the crow flies from Crewe, if you planned to leave there at 5pm on a weekday using public transport, you would not reach Crewe station until past 9pm. Oswestry is one of the many West Midlands towns without a railway station, and whilst the nearby Gobowen station is only a bus journey away, the buses can be hours apart and the train journey from there to Crewe requires lengthy changes. Do the Government have any plans to improve links to the line from towns such as Oswestry, and others such as Cheadle in Staffordshire?
Finally, I will touch briefly on compensation. There have rightly been changes in practice to ensure that landowners and freeholders receive compensation for the loss of their homes, but the application criteria for the various compensation schemes do not ensure that compensation is paid to tenants, including tenant farmers. Concerns have been raised that the Government have overlooked this issue and it may be necessary to explore a statutory option in the Bill’s later stages. Since such concerns were debated during the Bill’s passage through the Commons, can the Minister update the House as to whether a new scheme will be introduced?
HS2 is a wholly necessary project to create additional capacity and improved rail connectivity which, if carried out effectively, will increase productivity and encourage growth. In addition, it can help the UK to engineer a much-needed shift of people and goods to rail that is imperative in the light of climate change, and for air quality. However, with reports emerging of predicted delays and overspends, we need, above all, transparency and repeated reviews to consider whether the project will achieve what it intends to achieve. We must also ensure that the project is delivered to the benefit of the wider UK population, as was first intended.
Lord Teverson (LD)
My Lords, first, I congratulate the Minister on her enthusiasm about this project. It is good to get that positivity at the beginning of this debate and it is good to see this project gradually creeping, inch by inch, northwards out of the south-east and London. But, my goodness, the Government and other stakeholders make this argument difficult for us at a time when the forecast is for an increase in cost of between £26 billion and £33 billion and for the timetable to extend by five to seven years. In fact, I think it is now 10 years since the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, announced this project, if I have got this right.
Lord Teverson
Nine years. If we are talking about it being completed by potentially getting up to Leeds and Manchester only, not even to Scotland, then that is going to take some three decades—the sort of time between the end of the Second World War and 1975—which puts it in a timeframe of my lifetime. That seems to me to be absolutely ridiculous.
Another difficulty is our track record. For HS1, it took 16 years from the announcement to get the line built, 14 of which were after the Eurotunnel had been completed, whereas France, strangely enough, had managed to organise it so that the railway line was open at the same time as the tunnel—something which we completely failed at in this country.
But, like the Minister, I remain optimistic. Looking internationally, in Europe—to mention a few countries—Germany, France, Spain and Italy have these networks in place. In fact, France started in 1981 with its TGV infrastructure and now has some 2,500 kilometres of track. China, of course, manages to do these things even quicker, for reasons we understand: there is not quite the level of consultation that we have in this country. It now has some 30,000 kilometres of track. I understand that the line from Beijing to Shanghai—over 1,300 kilometres—was completed in 39 months from announcement to operation. I was tempted to recommend in my speech that we open the work up again and that the Department for Transport gets some Chinese contractors to bid for it, but perhaps that might not be the way to do this. The fact is that we are a long way behind in this country. We are talking about something, although now, nine years later, it is about whether we stop or start again. We need to move this project forward.
Why do we need to do that? For me, an up-to-date, fast train infrastructure is just a part of the tools of a modern economy. I do not see how we can get away from that. Yes, we should have started some three decades ago, but we now need to proceed. It is important from an environmental point of view. There are important issues around environmental corridors and ancient woodlands that I in no way minimise, but I believe this is one of the ways that we need to tackle a clean transport strategy for the future, not just for a decarbonised rail system but for cars and automotive emissions in particular. I hope that at some point, when this railway goes north of the border, we will be able to substitute rail travel for air travel. Those are just some reasons why we need to do it.
I know that some people have said that this is an old technology. I have heard that from people in the environmental area whom I truly respect, but these lines are still being built abroad at some pace. It is still part of a new technology. Rail, which started almost 200 years ago, is still an important infrastructure. This is not an old technology. Videoconferencing will not substitute the way forward. I also believe that what the Minister said about capacity is particularly important not just for passengers but for freeing up lines for freight services.
I will take just one other area. I think the Minister said—and other contributors from the Labour Benches in particular have said this—that this railway must be open to all. My experience, not just from HS1, is that not just business customers use these lines. Yes, there are some commuters as well, but it is very much ordinary citizens who use them. HS1, particularly for south-eastern services, has been a vital way for local or semi-regional services to rejuvenate part of the south-east in particular coastal towns and communities. This is important for all these reasons.
The question I really want to put to the Minister is about value for money. During research for this project, I tried to look at the comparative cost per kilometre for other high-speed trains and tracks in other nations, particularly in Europe—clearly, it is far lower in China because of the geography and the lack of consultation there. Even in France, it is estimated that the cost of one of their recent lines was one-sixth per kilometre of what it is in the UK. I can understand why it could be even 50% more, but to be multiples more I do not understand. The fundamental question I ask the Minister, in order to keep the confidence of me, our Benches and the taxpayer is: how can the Government ensure that this project, vital though it is, is delivered at the right cost and at the right time, so that we can keep a modern infrastructure in this country?
Lord Birt (CB)
My Lords, I shall be echoing the enthusiasm for this project of the Minister and the noble Lord, Lord Teverson.
When I worked at Number 10, I led a year-long project for the then Prime Minister on our national transport infrastructure, working with a team of officials from the Department for Transport and the Cabinet Office. We identified clearly that the UK, a pioneer of transport infrastructure in the 19th and early 20th century, had fallen way behind. In the previous 50 years, we had invested a far lower share of GDP on our infrastructure than other leading countries. Our work demonstrated that, again and again, Governments of both major parties had cut back on planned capital spend whenever a national financial difficulty arose. As a result, the UK had by far the poorest road and rail infrastructure of any developed country. Few of our decision-makers have ever worked in the real economy, I am sorry to say, and they have scant understanding of modern business and of why fit-for-purpose, globally competitive infrastructure is so essential.
Today, business relies on people with advanced professional, specialist and technical skills: financial, strategic, digital, logistical, data science skills and many, many more. They often work for just a few months, on a project basis. Such skills are barely ever available locally in sufficient number. So many people at every level in modern business travel long distances to work, some daily and some weekly, up and out early on Monday, back late Thursday, home-working Friday. At the same time, goods, products and parts of every possible description are distributed urgently at every hour of the day, to every corner of the land. Strategic roads, lamentable though they are in the UK, are by far the most important part of our transport infrastructure. However, rail matters too, and our rail network has long been a disgrace.
We simply must create a long-term, 20 to 30-year plan, not only for effectively linking the huge metropolitan areas of the north to one another but also for linking them and the great Scottish cities to London. Beyond that, we must address lateral travel right across the UK. Manchester and Leeds are 40 miles apart, but it takes over an hour by rail to travel between them. Norwich is 206 miles from Liverpool; the train journey takes five and a half hours, travelling at a snail-rail pace of just 37 miles per hour. Someone leaving London on a Boeing 787 Dreamliner to New York at the same time that Norwich fans left for their opening match of the season against Liverpool just a few weeks ago would have arrived 17 minutes before them.
As the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, said, France opened its first HSR link from Paris to Lyon almost 40 years ago. Japan, Spain and France all have advanced HSR networks now around 1,800 miles in length. China has built an incredible 11,000 miles of high-speed rail in the last six years alone. This, my Lords, is our global competition. Currently, the UK’s only high-speed rail link, from Folkestone to St Pancras, is a measly 67 miles long. How embarrassing for our nation is that?
If HS2 survives its current scrutiny, we will still lag far behind other countries, albeit with a less shaming 400-mile HSR network all of our own. Whatever the project, it must of course be run efficiently, at least possible cost and with real environmental sensitivity. We would all agree on that, but only those who have never themselves managed a large, complex project can barefacedly protest when unexpected difficulties arise or when honest attempts to identify the full cost of a project prove flawed. Beyond that, those selfsame critics often show no appreciation at all of the difference between revenue and capital spend—the latter an investment to have an impact over many decades, perhaps centuries. The Minister reminded us that the west coast line was started 200 years ago. What a return on investment that has proved; it has paid for itself over and over again.
HS2 is a vital foundation of our future rail infrastructure and should be supported wholeheartedly. We should run the project as efficiently and as cost-effectively as we can. But we should also hold our nerve and, Brexit or not, in respect of our national infrastructure we simply must regain Britain’s one-time boldness and ambition from centuries past.
Lord Framlingham (Con)
My Lords, I am sorry to spoil the consensus but I really feel as though this is Groundhog Day. I cannot believe that we are proceeding with something so obviously discredited and which is probably about to be scrapped, with all the costs and damage involved. All my remarks apply to any HS2 scheme in its entirety.
The original concept of HS2 was built on speed. When this proved impractical, the selling point became capacity. This has now become discredited not because there is no need for extra capacity but because this railway line is clearly not where it is most needed. Costs are now completely out of control, completion dates are a joke and any idea of accountability or normal public and parliamentary scrutiny has long since been abandoned. Whistleblowers are now revealing just how bad the situation is and, despite desperate attempts to muzzle them, the truth is coming out. I understand that the whole question of fraud is now being investigated.
With little effort being made to remedy the situation, a committee of your Lordships’ House suggested to HS2 that it consider reduced speed, since this makes all kinds of sensible savings. It also asked HS2 to stop the line at Old Oak Common rather going into Euston, which has proved an intractable problem. Neither of these suggestions was taken up. HS2 carries on in its own chaotic, spendthrift way. This is not surprising since, when the previous Secretary of State for Transport was asked how much he was prepared to spend, he said, “What it takes”. What saddens me and makes me resist this Second Reading is HS2’s pig-headed unwillingness to listen to or take advice from anyone, no matter how qualified they are.
Nothing has changed since I put down my amendment in your Lordships’ House at Third Reading of the HS2 Bill in January 2017, which would have stopped the farce once and for all. I said on that occasion:
“This House has a simple choice before it this afternoon. If it believes that the HS2 project provides good value for money and will benefit the British public, it will vote against the amendment. But if it agrees that this was an ill-conceived project from the start, which has been entirely discredited, even during the three years it has been passing through Parliament, and that if allowed to proceed, it will result in massive expenditure and huge disruption in both London and the countryside for no discernible benefit at all, the House will support the amendment and stop this scheme before any … harm is done”.—[Official Report, 31/1/17; col. 1099.]
Sadly, my amendment was rejected and we have since had two and a half years of wasted money and damage to homes, lives and the environment. I did have some support from people who really understood the situation: the noble Lords, Lord Macpherson and Lord Burns, both Financial Secretaries to the Treasury when HS2 was being put through. Asked to explain his vote, the noble Lord, Lord Macpherson, said that it was,
“simply on value for money grounds. In a world where capital spending is rationed, there are many road … schemes which would give the taxpayer a better return”.
Other signatories, including the noble Lord, Lord Burns, also backed the move.
Not only must the House not proceed with the Bill, but the existing work on HS2 must be stopped before any more damage is done, particularly to our environment and to people’s lives, homes and businesses. It is criminal to be felling trees in preparation for something that probably is never going to be built. In a recent statement on HS2 in the other place, Jeremy Wright MP asked,
“may I press the Secretary of State on the point he made about enabling works? As he knows, there is more than one kind of enabling work currently under way. Some of the enabling work is the destruction of ancient woodland sites. There are seven of them in my constituency, along with a very old and much valued pear tree in the village of Cubbington. Given that he has announced an all-options review, including the possibility that this project will be cancelled or significantly revised, surely it is possible and sensible to categorise those types of enabling work that will do irreversible damage and postpone them until the review has concluded”.—[Official Report, Commons, 5/9/19; col. 356.]
In a similar vein, I have seen a plea from Councillor Kathy O’Donoghue concerning the section through Cheshire. She is extremely worried about what is happening in Cheshire, where there are now all sorts of problems. On 8 October, a planning application is going to be heard by Cheshire West and Chester Council to build a compound, which will have a huge effect on the area, where there are old salt mines. She is concerned that the planning application and the compulsory purchase order might go through before it has been decided that the project will proceed.
I was recently part of a judging panel in a competition to find alternative ways of spending £58 billion on our railway system. It was truly amazing to discover what a difference could be made nationwide, particularly in the north, with links east and west. In summary, we must call a halt to the existing work, particularly preparatory work, and immediately review the current position, as we are doing. We must spend every penny available for our railways on sensible, well thought out schemes. For heaven’s sake, we must find a way of costing these major infrastructure projects properly and supervising their construction in a sensible and professional way.
Lord Adonis
My Lords, I congratulate the Minister on her opening speech. As I will point out in a moment, there is a big problem with the conflict between that speech, which was full of enthusiasm, and the setting up of a fundamental review, which could lead to the cancellation of HS2. There is a clear left hand/right hand problem in the handling of this project at the moment, which will only serve to add to costs and delays. None the less, the noble Baroness’s speech was excellent and set out the whole case against having a fundamental review of HS2. My noble friend Lord Berkeley who, to my amazement, has agreed to serve on this extraordinary review, is not in his place this afternoon. However, I will recommend that he reads that speech and ceases his work forthwith. I also note the presence in the Chamber of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Walker of Gestingthorpe, who chaired the hybrid Bill committee on the London to Birmingham Bill. With the scale of the work required and the dedication of its members, that was one of the most heroic endeavours which any noble Lord has undertaken in recent times. It showed this House at its very best. I am looking around the Chamber to see who will be volunteering for the next hybrid Bill committee. My noble friend Lord Snape is nodding; maybe he will chair that committee. We would certainly welcome that.
The noble Lord’s work played a very significant part in taking this big infrastructure project forward, as did the work of the noble Lord, Lord Birt, when I became Secretary of State for Transport and devoted myself in a serious way to looking at the case for high-speed rail. He and the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, referred to France, but of course it is 55 years, more than half a century, since the Japanese opened their first and transformational high-speed line between Tokyo and Osaka. They started construction 60 years ago, so we have been taking some to catch up, but it was the noble Lord’s strategic review which put it in my mind that I should be looking very seriously at the case for a high-speed rail network in this country. This is a very good example—and we do not have many, I fear, in this terrible Brexit crisis—of constructive public policy which is factually based, learns from evidence and learns from international experience. As the noble Lord, Lord Teverson said, almost all the rest of the industrialised world, apart from the United States, has high-speed rail, and even the US is halfway through constructing a line from San Francisco to LA.
The noble Lord mentioned China. China has more high-speed rail than the rest of the world put together and has been building a network at great speed. When I was Transport Secretary the Chinese Transport Minister offered to build our high-speed line. He said to me over a very long dinner in the Transport Ministry in Beijing that he would build it for half the cost of the Germans—I assume that he assumed we were about to give a contract to the Germans. I said, “We have this thing called Parliament, Minister, and it has to agree to all this before we can start the construction, but by all means let us have a conversation in a few years’ time”. I regret to tell your Lordships that that Minister is now in jail under a suspended sentence of death for corruption, so although the Chinese are able to construct these projects quickly, there are downsides in the way they conduct their affairs in Beijing. I am glad that I am with your Lordships and not currently at Her Majesty’s pleasure.
The background to this is a great sense of urgency, as the noble Lord, Lord Birt, said, to see that our infrastructure matches that of other industrialised nations, all of which, apart from the United States, have been investing in high-speed rail to link their major conurbations. When the noble Lord, Lord Framlingham, said that this has been conducted without parliamentary consent and scrutiny, that is, of course, palpably untrue. There have been exhaustive debates. The work of the committee of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Walker, and that of the Select Committee in the other place was absolutely exhaustive.
Lord Framlingham
I am not sure that I said it had been conducted without parliamentary consent, did I?
Lord Framlingham
It is important to be accurate, with great respect to the noble Lord. He said that I said it had been done without parliamentary consent.
Lord Adonis
I did not. I said, “without proper parliamentary scrutiny”. There has been massive parliamentary scrutiny of this project. The Motion the noble Lord referred to, which he moved at Third Reading in January 2017, attracted 25 votes while there were 385 votes on the other side, so I do not think anyone can say that it is not the express will of Parliament that is leading HS2 to proceed.
The problem we have at the moment is, as I say, a left hand/right hand problem. On one hand, Parliament has given emphatic consent to this project to continue, and indeed to be authorised in the first place: not just the first phase, which passed this House by 385 votes to 25, and passed the House of Commons by 399 votes to 42—absolutely colossal majorities—but this Bill, extending HS2 from Birmingham to Crewe, was passed in the House of Commons in the middle of July by 263 votes to 17. There has been cross-party consensus and overwhelming support.
The Minister referred, and I assume that her officials were giving her very carefully crafted drafting in this respect, to the work taking place on HS2 as “preparatory work”. There is nothing preparatory about the work being done on HS2 at the moment. The line is being built; more than £5 billion has been spent and more than 1,000 people work at HS2 Ltd in Birmingham. If your Lordships go to Euston, you will see that it is not preparatory work that is leading to the virtual closure of the station, with huge tarpaulins up and big excavation works, but the construction of the railway line. It is right that this should happen, because, unless we start constructing it, it will never be there.
Parliament authorised this project to proceed two years ago. Billions of pounds have been spent, thousands of people are working on it—we expect this work to proceed. It is this that makes the review that has been set up so bizarre. At the same time as Parliament has given express and overwhelming authority for this work to proceed, thousands of people being employed and billions of pounds having been spent, what do the Government do, courtesy of the Prime Minister? They parachute in a fundamental review which is essentially conducting open-heart surgery on a moving patient, if I may mix my metaphors.
This whole project is being constructed, massive public expense is being entered into, and what do the Government do? They announce a strategic fundamental review, looking not just at the management of the project, which is absolutely appropriate to look at because it has not been good enough and is part of the reason we have the cost overruns, but the whole case for HS2, which has been approved by Parliament by majorities of more than 10 to one.
I see the clock is flashing, but I will carry on for a few more minutes because this is Second Reading.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
The noble Lord, Lord Framlingham, stuck to seven minutes.
Lord Adonis
There is not a fixed time limit. I will make two more points if I may.
When the noble Lord, Lord Framlingham, said that the case for HS2 when it started was on speed and not capacity, that was completely untrue. I published the White Paper on HS2 in March 2010, the opening words of which were,
“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 … alongside such … capacity, there are real benefits for the economy and for passengers from”—
Lord Framlingham
Will the noble Lord give way, since he is determined to take up the time of the House that nobody else, I am sure, will take up? Does he understand that the title of this project is “High Speed Rail”?
Lord Adonis
It is a high-speed line, but from the beginning the prime case for HS2 has been additional capacity. I was reading the opening words of the White Paper, which continue,
“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”.
My final point is about the network effects which my noble friend on the Front Bench referred to. HS2 will be a crucial part of a new and upgraded national transport network. It will link into Crossrail in London through its junction at Old Oak Common; it will link in with three airports—Heathrow, which is close to Old Oak Common, Birmingham Airport, through Birmingham International, and Manchester Airport; it will link in with HS3 going east-west; it will free up huge capacity for freight and metropolitan commuter services into all of those three major conurbations.
The right thing for this House to do is give emphatic support to this Bill today. We cannot keep pulling up by the roots big infrastructure projects when they are being half-built. If we do it with this one, no one will ever believe that we will do something as big as this as a country again.
Lord Bradshaw (LD)
My Lords, the most important factor we should consider today is the impact that HS2 could have on climate change and the need to reduce emissions. Compare these figures from the Government: the emissions from a domestic flight are 254 grams, from a diesel car 171 grams—with four passengers they are 43 grams—from domestic rail 41 grams, and from a fully electrified railway 6.9 grams, a very small proportion of what comes from other places.
With these startling figures in mind, a fully electric railway such as HS2 has the potential to make a very significant contribution to making the country carbon-neutral. High-speed railways can have a dramatic effect on modal shift. Take these examples from Italy and Spain. From Rome to Milan, rail use has increased from 6% in 2008 to 74% by 2016, and in the case of Madrid to Seville, there has been an increase from 33% to 84% with the implementation of high-speed rail. Imagine the effect that such a modal shift would have on both aircraft and vehicle emissions on routes from Leeds, Newcastle and Scotland.
The primary argument that has been stated for building HS2 is to increase railway capacity in much of the country. As the main lines on the north-south axis are at full capacity and cannot cope reliably with existing traffic levels, the need for increased capacity is almost unanswerable.
Government constrains the railway in two ways. Insufficient modern infrastructure is provided; the railway industry and Network Rail are in part responsible for this, through lack of efficiency in the fragmented organisation that was created at privatisation, when so many competent engineers left the industry. Let us not forget that the east coast electrification was delivered on time, to a very tight budget, by British Rail. The engineering side of the railway is now being rebuilt under strong professional leadership, and the railway supply industry has got the message that only the most efficient outcomes will be acceptable. But the Government, for their part, need to recognise that improving infrastructure depends on their providing a continuous strategy of development stretching years ahead. They have failed to do this over many years. HS2 and its future must be seen in this context. The objectives of the National Infrastructure Commission should be changed to putting carbon reduction at the top of its list of priorities and revising the appraisal of investment to schemes with long-lasting benefits, such as further extensions to railway electrification.
The other way in which the Government constrain the use of the railway is railway fares. Government and Opposition blame railway fare rises on the franchisees, but they are entirely the Government’s decision. Commuters or business users using the railway face an annual fare increase. Car commuters are protected from that by the fuel tax freeze. What rational Government, allegedly concerned about pollution and the associated growing congestion on the roads, can defend this, particularly as it is associated with early deaths and damage to health? Other countries seek to encourage rail use to deal with these evils but in Britain, both the Conservatives and, I am sad to say, Labour, have closed their ears and listened only to the motoring lobby. There is an available solution: reduce fares and provide sufficient infrastructure.
HS2 can bring immense benefits to the north and the east Midlands—take, for example, the proposed Toton hub, which is not being decided today, which would bring together Nottingham, Derby and Leicester; Birmingham would be reached from Toton in 17 minutes, which at present takes 74 minutes by rail and 60 minutes by car—provided that the fares policy is reasonable. Similar activity is planned around Birmingham for the new railway. But can the Minister give any reassurances today about fares policy generally, and how it might affect HS2?
An important issue to address in considering the investment case for HS2 is project appraisal. Railway projects, particularly on the civil engineering side, have a very long timescale over which they may be enjoyed—the noble Lord, Lord Birt, referred to that. Tunnels and embankments last for well over a century, but current appraisal methodology has a high discount rate and does not take into account the period over which the assets will be in use. There is also the question of the enhancement of property values and the regeneration effects, which need to be factored into the equation. Surely it cannot be right that these benefits are not credited to the investment in HS2. There is an urgent need for the Government to overhaul the WebTAG arrangements they use to calculate the value of major infrastructure projects so as to reflect the longer-term benefits to communities.
I was once asked by a former Secretary of State for Transport—I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Adonis—why road schemes always come out better in investment appraisals than rail schemes. The answer lies in the methodology that is used: road investment schemes are appraised using the “value of time”. That is the time the investment is expected to save road users multiplied by the number of users and what they say they would pay for it through stated preference techniques. No money changes hands, although it does for rail journeys. Significant factors such as the short life of many road investment schemes, as they are overtaken by inevitable traffic growth, also need to be appraised. Railways are penalised for their long-term, lasting benefits in investment by the use of the discount rate, whereas road schemes are appraised using slovenly methods which the Government have failed to face up to for a long time.
The issue of routes across the Pennines and faster journey times between Glasgow and Edinburgh, for which there are now five direct railways, needs to be considered. The HS2 route, which we are considering in the Bill before us, has been adjusted to give Liverpool a direct rapid connection to London as well as to Manchester and Manchester Airport. Progress on modernising routes across the Pennines is incomplete. What is the department’s understanding—
Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)
I hope that the noble Lord has come to the end of his comments.
Lord Bradshaw
No. I have not been allowed enough time to debate this Bill because the Government of their own volition are proroguing Parliament. I am sorry, but I am not going to give way.
Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist
Perhaps I may remind the noble Lord that the advisory speaking time is seven minutes. We can be quite flexible, but not too flexible.
Lord Bradshaw
I am aware of the advisory speaking time. It was imposed on us by the Government’s edict.
Lord Adonis
My Lords, regardless of what the noble Lord has said, I think that it is quite unacceptable that speeches on a matter of such importance should be restricted in this way when in fact the House is under no time constraint whatever, except one artificially imposed by the Government.
Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist
The advisory speaking time is in deference to colleagues because we have a number of other issues to discuss later on this evening.
Lord Bradshaw
I am sorry, but the Prorogation of Parliament has had nothing to do with me. It is entirely at the Government’s behest.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
Shouting at us for longer than the advisory speaking time really does not convince anyone. It does not look good and I think that we ought to have a little more courtesy.
Lord Bradshaw
I was going to go on to ask when progress is expected on the route across the Pennines. Do the Government constrain the activities of Transport for the North compared with the improvements made between Edinburgh and Glasgow and the plans of Midlands Connect by, for example, withholding funding from Transport for the North? The north of England should be very concerned about the slow rate of progress.
Much is made of disruption because of the noise and disturbance caused by building HS2, but measures will be introduced to minimise that. I am reminded of a conversation I had a couple of years ago with a Labour MP from Kent. I asked him whether his constituents had complained about the noise and impact of HS1. He replied, “No, but I had sackfuls of correspondence from them about the continuing noise and disturbance coming from the adjacent M20 motorway”. There is a light at the end of the tunnel for those living close to HS2. The benefits of and the green agenda for more motorway building are now seen as a totally incorrect response to the problems we face. The debate is about capacity for passengers and freight—there is no spare capacity on the railway. We want cleaner air, fewer people flying and less congestion, and to that end our railways need to be expanded.
However, this Government lack foresight. What Administration would build the east-west link from Oxford to Cambridge without electrifying it? It costs far less than coming back after the line is open. They should seek to modernise links between Southampton and the north and between Felixstowe and Nuneaton. Both schemes would remove many heavy lorries from our roads, much to the benefit of our climate change agenda.
Freight customers are lining up to use the railway. Creating an electrified rail network would reduce serious accidents. HS2 could and should reduce its costs by looking at what some regard as excessive technical standards and probably reduce the speed of operation. The extension from Old Oak Common to Euston should also be called into question. For the future, we need better and more capacity, and to that end HS2 should proceed.
Lord Snape
My Lords, as a former railwayman I have never made any secret of my support for this scheme, which in my view ought to go ahead as quickly as possible. The fact that both your Lordships’ House and the other place have voted heavily in favour of HS2 ought to mean that we do not hold things up by having this review. I am not as despondent about the review as some of my noble friends and other supporters. I suspect what is happening with the review is a minor rerun of Harold Wilson’s royal commission. Those of you with long memories will remember that he used to say 50 years ago that a royal commission takes minutes to set up and years to report, and that in the meantime the subject is buried in the long grass.
I suspect that this is a shorter version. The current Prime Minister is quite in favour of infrastructure projects. After all, he has cable cars going across the Thames as a legacy of his time as mayor. He tried to build a garden bridge at some cost—it was not a great success—and his buses, which are a tad uncomfortable in hot weather, are running around London as we speak. He has a record of being in favour of infrastructure projects.
The noble Lord, Lord Framlingham, alas, is not in his place. I am not quite sure why he needs to refer to those copious notes; he has been making that speech for so long he ought to be word perfect by now. It is a pity he fled the Chamber almost as soon as he had committed himself. I wish that he and others who criticise the scheme would come to Birmingham and see the benefit this great HS2 project has already brought to the city. Do they not care about the apprentice college that has already been set up and the number of young people employed in the railway industry as a direct result of this scheme?
I have brought with me today the current issue of Rail magazine. Its editorial is mild praise for the Prime Minister. It refers to “Cunning politics around HS2” and says that the “Oakervee Review is all about what’s best for Boris Johnson”. That endorses the point that I have just made that this review avoids any direct commitment, any go-ahead, before the general election—whenever that is to be held. Yet I do not believe that it is necessarily a precursor to cancellation.
My noble friend Lord Adonis was not too polite about my noble friend Lord Berkeley. I understand why he is not in his place today, given the fact that he serves on this committee. Again, I say to my noble friend Lord Adonis that perhaps he worries unduly. I have known my noble friend Lord Berkeley for 35 or 40 years. During my time in the other place, I served on committees examining two hybrid Bills to do with the Channel Tunnel. He was one of our advisers; he certainly advised us as individual members of those two committees. He is eminently well qualified as a civil engineer. Noble Lords will not be surprised to hear that the projected cost of the Channel Tunnel was originally £4.5 billion but that, neither despite of nor because of his advice, the actual bill was £12.5 billion. Therefore, he is used to cost overruns and I hope that he is not too concerned about the increase in costs.
Noble Lords said earlier that it is a pity that the costings cannot be more accurate when the projections are made for these major infrastructure projects. However, we all know that, if every single cost were taken into consideration, there might be problems with the land over which the tracks pass, or areas of the country where people are rich enough to afford the best lawyers to insist that the compensation is far higher than was first envisaged. If a project were put forward on that basis, it would never get past the Treasury’s preposterous regulations.
The noble Lord, Lord Birt, and to a certain extent the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, talked about road and rail infrastructure costs. It was pointed out how differently we treat these projects. Up and down the country at present, we are building what are known as smart motorways. They are not particularly smart if you break down on one of them but that is the name that they have been given. I have been in your Lordships’ House for 15 years and I spent a considerable number in the other place as well, but I do not recollect us ever having any debate in either House about smart motorways. These are major infrastructure projects which, as I far as I am aware, have never been subjected to the sort of critical analysis that rail projects face at present.
We all know the outcome of smart motorways: there will be even more traffic on our motorways. It is a proven fact that the money spent on modernising our road network results in more traffic, although not just this Government but successive Governments have always talked about congestion and pollution and what we can do to combat them. What the Conservative Party has done to combat them, as well as building smart motorways, is to freeze fuel duty for the last decade or so at an estimated cost of £50 billion. Now, it is said that it will reduce fuel duty in the run-up to the election—a complete coincidence, of course —and that will generate even more traffic. For that £50 billion or £60 billion, which will be the eventual cost, we could have built the infrastructure for HS2 twice over.
I seek to make one further point before I sit down. I understand that the Liberal party—although neither of its spokespeople have mentioned this—is looking at demanding that HS2 starts in the north of England rather than where it is due to start. I do not know whether that will be official policy. I read it in a newspaper, so it cannot be right, but that is what I have heard. I just caution against that and urge the Liberal Democrats to look at it again. In the same magazine there is a long article by a gentleman by the name of Mr William Barter, a former senior railwayman. He talks about the difficulties of that approach and what it would do to the existing train service.
I end as I started. I have always believed in this great project. I wish that we could have fewer reviews, but regardless of Brexit and whether or not there is a general election, the sooner it is under way and completed, the better.
Baroness Kramer (LD)
My Lords, I am a strong supporter of HS2. I was before I had the privilege of becoming a Minister in the last 18 months of the coalition Government, when I became the Minister responsible for phase 2. Hours and days were spent on the ground seeing not only extraordinary challenges but huge opportunities to regenerate economies that had fallen behind and essentially to change the future direction for many people, particularly in the north. However, I do not want to use this speech to talk in a general way about HS2; I want to focus on a number of issues that genuinely concern me.
Others have said this, but I shall pick it up in a slightly different way. This is clearly an opportunity for the Department for Transport, as well as other parts of government, to look again at how large, complex projects are costed. Recognising that the estimates cost of phase 1 had risen from £27 billion to somewhere between £36 billion and £38 billion did not happen overnight. Those who would have seen and recognised that they needed to make those changes never did so in the public arena—there was no transparency.
Frankly, I find this completely ridiculous. We should never look at a cost estimate in the early stages of a large and complex project and treat it as anything more than tentative. There should be an ongoing process of constantly updating. Having to say that the number is higher should not be treated as betrayal or failure; it is merely recognising and understanding the detail. I say to many here that this really needs a change in attitude at the Treasury and, frankly, much braver politicians in order to recognise that this will frequently be the pattern in projects of this kind.
I want to put on the record my gratitude to the whistleblowers who alerted many on the outside to the cost issues with HS2. I ask the Minister: will HS2 and the Government step in to amend some of the retaliation and harm that those whistleblowers have suffered? It was terrible and inappropriate, and it really needs to be remedied. We need that kind of honesty and integrity in this project.
I also want to look at cost-benefit analysis. My noble friend Lord Bradshaw referred to it in the more technical terms of the WebTAG. Allan Cook highlighted in his stocktaking report the inadequacies of the Government’s cost-benefit tools in providing any kind of sensible answer for projects on the scale of HS2, particularly with its broad impact on regeneration.
I feel this harshly. I had such fights inside the department during my period as a Minister. I have a banking background: I understand net present values and how you look at calculating returns. It was absolutely clear that the methodology was very inappropriate. The Government’s method completely fails to recognise more than very limited aspects of regeneration and economic benefit. This leads to poor decision-making on projects because, in particular, it does not recognise the uplift in land values. That would give us a much better mechanism for making decisions about these projects, as well as providing us with mechanisms to find ways to fund parts of these projects. Where there is land value uplift, we ought to be taking some of that in to pay for the project in the first place.
The current methodology is particularly hopeless for a phased project. Under its methodology, it captures all the costs of all the various phases and only includes a small part of the revenues and benefits that come from the later phases, because of the time guillotine inherent in the process. That has to be completely changed. I really think that it will take some outside pressure to get that kind of sense. It is perfectly within the department’s scope to look at all of that again.
I have a question for the Minister. I am really concerned about what on earth we will do with passengers now that the opening date of phase 1 is estimated not to be 2026 but somewhere between 2028 and 2031. I went into a lot of those passenger forecast numbers closely when I was in the Government. Even then, I was terrified that we could not cope with the forecast growth in passengers on routes between London and the Midlands with a 2026 opening. I do not know how we will cope without HS2 open until 2028 or even 2031.
I know that the industry is trying to use things such as changes in the way it manages fares to redistribute passengers through the day. Frankly, it will only make changes at the edges. In a couple of speeches, I joked about strapping passengers to the roofs of trains. It is no longer looking like a joke. We really are looking at tremendous overcrowding and over-demand. I have no idea what is being put in place now that we know that the opening of HS2 phase 1 will be delayed. This really ought to be a very urgent project.
As I said, I wanted to bring up one or two issues. Perhaps the Minister could help me with one last issue. HS2 is a project that demands sophisticated rail. I know that the whole industry has been reliant on British steel as the source of that rail. We know that the future of British Steel is in question. I hope she can explain to the House how we should respond or how she would see this set of issues. If somebody came to me and asked what major risks could further delay the project and put up costs in a way that we had not anticipated, that one would be somewhere near the top of my list.
Lord Greaves (LD)
My Lords, I start by saying that I agree with pretty well everything that everybody—except for one noble Lord—has said so far; I will try not to repeat those things. I say gently before beginning that I have looked in the Companion and I cannot find anything at all about the ability of the Government to impose arbitrary time limits on speeches beyond the normal time limits for Second Reading debates. If we are to do this in future, it is something that should be discussed.
It is nearly 10 years since all this started, and where are we? I am tempted to say that we have got as far as digging up cemeteries. I accept what the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, said that there is rather more work than that going on, but it is taking an inordinate amount of time. The proposed route for phase 2a, which we are discussing today, was first published four years ago. I compare this not with China—as a place where things can be done without asking people what they think—but with France. I go to the Pyrenees most summers and I watched the construction of the line from Tours to Bordeaux, extending the existing TGV line, which seemed to be done in a small number of years. I have travelled on it twice in the last two years; I have to say that not only does the line seem okay but so does the new TGV, which I travelled on, there and back, two or three weeks ago.
Last Friday, going home I travelled on one of the new Azuma trains from Kings Cross to Leeds. In comparison—from the point of view of the ride, the acoustics and, of course, the infamous seats—I felt that I had gone back 40 years. Then I reminded myself that the Azumas were ordered and specified by the Government themselves, which I think says something.
All we get are reviews and promises of delays. I am reminded that the Victorians effectively built the mainline network in England in less than a quarter of a century. We seem to take a very long time indeed to do these things. A lot of the opposition to HS2 is about the competence, efficiency and effectiveness of the people doing it: the Government, HS2 Ltd and everybody else. We must distinguish between the need for the line—the project itself—and the need to improve the way these things are done. People attacking the way that it is being done—alleged efficiency, overspends or whatever—is not an argument against building the line; it is an argument to say that we need to do things better in this country.
The proposal that we are talking about today—extending to Crewe—is a relatively small part of what I hope will, in the future, become a substantial network connecting the main regional centres of the country. We need to start thinking about it in those terms. It is not a question of a line from Birmingham, Manchester or Leeds to London, with all this London-centric thinking. We should be thinking about a network that connects all the major cities in the area.
As far as extending it to Crewe is concerned, it would be a very good thing for people in Lancashire and the north-west, as well as, I would hope, people in Scotland. It would allow trains from the new HS2 line to run further north, just like the train I caught to Lourdes the other day—I have to say I was going there for the mountains and not for other purposes. That train slowed down after Bordeaux and became a normal fast express. Then, when it got past Dax, it slowed down a lot. The advantage is that people can do a lot of the journey at high speed and then continue to other places. When the new line to Crewe opens, as I hope it will, it should be the basis of Scottish services as well, not just services to the north-west.
Lord Adonis
It is integral to the plan that there will be through services to Glasgow and Edinburgh.
Lord Greaves
Absolutely—but these things need to keep being said, because people who are not served by the particular line concerned say all the time, “It’s no use to us”. People in the north-east are saying that—quite wrongly, because the proposal, especially when we get to phase 2b and so on, is to run services through to the north-east.
I live in Colne in Lancashire, at the end of the worst branch line in the north of England, and I am acutely aware that when the Prime Minister comes to the north and promises a fantastic new HS3—or HS15—or a northern power something or other, over the short distance between Manchester and Leeds, it is no use to us. There may well be merit in building a new high-speed line across the Pennines between Leeds and Manchester, but it is not the top priority for people in the north of England.
What people in the north of England want is an efficient network on the existing lines between their cities and towns. The geography of the north of England consists of a series of scattered towns and cities that need a network connecting them all, not just one line between one big city and another, which might perhaps stop at Bradford but nowhere else in between.
What we in the north of England urgently need as a priority is upgrading existing trans-Pennine routes, reopening Colne to Skipton to allow a new freight line as well as local services, reopening Woodhead to provide Sheffield and Manchester with a good service that way, and electrification of the substantial network. That is what we should be spending money on, not a short vanity project—it would not exist in the short term anyway; it would take 20 years—between Manchester and Leeds. The Bill, however, has my total support.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb
My Lords, I am sorry to be slow in rising to my feet to speak, but I was so fascinated by the other speeches. I agree that the Minister gave a passionate opening speech, but I was not particularly convinced by it because I have huge concerns about HS2. Saying that there were 17,000 pages of environmental assessments did not really sway me, because the crucial thing is what is in those assessments. If they are 17,000 pages of nonsense, there is not much value in them.
Greens love railways: I love railways. I do not fly, I go on holiday by rail, and my partner works on the railways. I have nothing against railways. But I do have huge problems with HS2. As a Green I have lots of different concerns, but obviously, environmental concerns head the list. The Government have decided to shut Parliament down today, which does not allow us much time to speak. But that does not mean that sticking to an advisory time is not a courtesy to the rest of us, and to other people who have business coming through later.
The Government have commissioned a review, which is an excellent thing to do. I support that wholeheartedly. But I am curious about why they think it is worth putting the Bill through. Are we simply expected to speculate on the costs and the benefits? As the cost has been rising, the benefits have supposedly been rising at the same rate, but I am very dubious about that. Perhaps that is something that particularly needs looking at in the review.
It seems plain daft to pass a Bill before the review comes out and we have a view from those conducting it. However, I am glad that the Government are doing it, and I hope that they will take a serious look not only at the spiralling costs in order to develop a more sensible budget but at the cost of HS2 to our natural world, which I do not think has been fully explained. Local people are extremely concerned about local conditions; they are the people who actually understand their areas and they can see what is happening. In view of the climate emergency that Parliament declared back on 1 May this year, will the Minister confirm that the review will also be thinking about the enormous cost that HS2 is placing on the natural world?
We are looking at this second stage after the first stage has been started, and that first stage was actually extremely damaging in environmental terms. There are horror stories of environmental destruction and failed attempts at so-called biodiversity offsetting. Ancient woodlands were mentioned earlier; once an ancient woodland is destroyed, there is no way to replace it. In the meeting that I attended which the Minister was kind enough to offer us, I asked about that and was assured that there would be no net loss of biodiversity. I am afraid that that is absolute hokum because you cannot replace ancient woodland or the biodiversity that lives there.
At least 30% of the trees planted by HS2 have been allowed to die by neglect, and local campaigners say that the number is actually higher. The land manager of an ancient meadow has described his precious habitat as having been destroyed to create several access bridges for the purpose, ironically, of creating a biodiversity zone. Wildlife trusts have spoken out against HS2 and its plans to destroy precious habitats long before any habitat replacement is completed, leaving wildlife with nowhere to go. Will Ministers be visiting at least a few of the hundreds of wildlife habitats that will be permanently scarred or entirely destroyed by this project and listen to local people, who can explain it with as much passion as the Minister has to complete the project?
If this is how HS2 has been proceeding under legislation for the first section, where it is clear that the Bill has totally failed to protect the environment, that makes it very likely that the next section will also be hugely damaging. It is for those reasons that I will be opposing the Bill and proposing amendments that seek to protect the natural world that HS2 is destroying.
I could stand here for a further three or even six minutes and tell noble Lords about my holidays by rail, which obviously I love, but I am going to sit down.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)
My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness. I do not entirely agree with her but I thought that she put her points in a very pithy way. Clearly the trade-offs between the benefit of HS2 in environmental terms and some of the environmental defects are those that always have to be weighed. The problem that I have is that sometimes we weigh these balances for so long that in the end we make too little progress.
My frustration, which I share with other noble Lords, is that this country is so bad at major infrastructure projects, yet in HS1 we have an example of a brilliant project that I think was undertaken on time and on budget without one major health and safety victim. It is unbelievable that we are spending so many years building what is still a relatively short piece of track. There have been many reviews of major infrastructure projects in this country—my noble friend has looked into this matter on a number of occasions—but, given our economy and the challenges that we face, we cannot afford to mess around any longer with these critical infrastructure projects.
There are obviously questions to be answered about HS2. We have heard about the cost and delay overruns. The noble Lord, Lord Teverson, raised the issue of whether there was overspecification in the original project, which the review will no doubt look into. Like my noble friend Lord Adonis, I think the Minister put the case for HS2 extremely persuasively and, essentially, I want to endorse what she said. I also wanted to touch briefly on the impact on the economy of Birmingham and the West Midlands, about which I am most informed.
Just looking at the capacity crisis on our railways, it is a no-brainer that we have to increase capacity one way or another. Whatever the cost overruns on HS2, the capacity issue simply will not be washed away. If, for instance, the review suggested that HS2 should be cancelled, or in the end the Government decided to do this, they will still be left with this incredible capacity issue. What are the alternatives? One is to four-track the west coast main line between Rugby and Wolverhampton, but the cost and disruption would be enormous. The same would be said if the Chiltern line from London to Birmingham was changed to a four-track line. That is clearly another option, as is turning trains into double-deckers. This is feasible, but bridges would have to be raised and services would be disrupted for a very long time and at huge cost. So what are the alternatives? In the end, the review is bound to conclude that there is no alternative to carrying on with HS2.
My noble friends Lord Adonis and Lord Snape made the point that construction has started. A huge number of jobs have already been created in Birmingham and the West Midlands and the National College for High Speed Rail has been established. A huge amount of investment is taking place in the city of Birmingham on the strength of HS2. The West Midlands economy is fragile. The potential of Brexit and the damage it could do to our motor industry is immeasurable. Cancelling HS2 at the same time as we face these huge uncertainties would have a devastating impact on our economy. The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, rightly referred to those who are talking to the Government. Our own Select Committee looked at this and focused on the railway challenges facing the north of England. I sympathise with noble Lords who are concerned about the railway infrastructure in the north of England, but I do not think that stopping the London to Birmingham part of HS2 and starting again in the north is a rational or sensible approach to delivering this railway.
I want to thank the Minister, who has my full support for this Bill. We will attend it with great interest at some point in the future—maybe the distant future. I want to say to the Government that this was a convenient way to get HS2 off the election agenda, but in the end, they will have to make a hard decision. From all the Minister has said, I think she knows already that the only decision that can be made is to continue with HS2. I very much hope that she will do that.
The Earl of Glasgow (LD)
My Lords, I will make a very short speech, because most of the points I wanted to make have already been made in a much better way than I would make them, particularly by the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, and my noble friends Lord Bradshaw and Lord Teverson. I wanted to take part in this debate because I was very nervous that the escalating cost of HS2 might provide an excuse for this Government to abandon the project altogether. There was much talk of this, or of at least postponing its construction. They are also giving hope to those who have been opposed to HS2 from the start, and we have one Peer who represents that view.
It seems that all recent engineering projects, Crossrail being the most obvious example, end up costing excessively more than was down in the original budget. I can never understand why the original planners do not include sufficient contingency for the unexpected, which by now should be classed as the “more than expected”. Going vastly over budget might well mean that heads should roll but it should not be a reason for abandoning HS2 altogether, particularly as about a quarter of that budget has already been spent. I believe that detractors of the HS2 project do not fully understand its importance or its value to the country’s infrastructure. Some even regard it as no more than a vanity project. They cannot justify its cost if it does no more than get people from Manchester to London in half the time.
I wish it had not been called “high-speed rail”, because its faster speed is not the main reason why we need it. The main reason is that it will be a brand-new railway line and, apart from HS1, the first major railway line since the 19th century. It will relieve much of the pressure on the spaghetti of existing railway lines, in the Midlands and the north in particular, and it enables them to provide more necessary capacity. So, when detractors say that money should be better spent improving those 100-year-old lines, the existence of HS2 will be a major factor in achieving just that.
There are so many other advantages too, many of which have already been pointed out. It brings London and the cities of the north closer together. It is a great boost to our engineering industries, as has already been pointed out by many. For instance, railwaymen and engineers who have been working on Crossrail can now look forward to continual employment. The arguments that say it will ruin our countryside are complete nonsense. For a short period of time earthworks and earth-moving machines may be unsightly, but how many beauty spots in Britain today are any less beautiful for having a railway line running through them? Some would say the railway line enhances the place.
The most important advantage in the medium and long term, which was well expressed by my noble friend Lord Bradshaw, is that all innovations and improvements of our railways—and HS2 is the major one—will make lorry and car traffic less essential and, I would like to think, internal flights within Britain unnecessary. Global warming is a serious threat and we are only just beginning to take the issue more seriously.
I know that many in the Minister’s party are very against HS2, and I would like to be assured that there is no way that the Government are going to turn back on this. It must go ahead, as I think most of the speakers have already said today.
Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab)
My Lords, I declare my interest as chair of The Woodland Trust. There may well be benefits to HS2, such as capacity and carbon reduction, but they are worth nothing if that involves destruction and damage of irreplaceable ancient woodland habitat. It is gimmicky to say that ancient woodlands are the cathedrals of the natural world, but that is what they are. If we were going to line up 108 cathedrals along the route of HS2, I suspect your Lordships’ House would be more exercised. However, that is the reality of what we are doing.
HS2 poses the biggest development impact threat on ancient woodland. Phase 1 was bad enough and very little has been learned from that unhappy process, despite protestations from the HS2 company that it would learn from the first phase. Phase 2a has an impact per mile 23% greater than phase 1, the total of which, as I said, is now up to 108 across the length as currently planned. I do not see any signs of learning from the company.
Today, the Minister has boasted about the route avoiding protected areas such as areas of outstanding natural beauty, Natura 2000 sites, which are protected by European law, and SSSIs. Some of these habitats are replaceable—we could build them again—but ancient woodland is irreplaceable, cannot be built again and has not been so spared. Yet the Government have only recently given ancient woodland a level of protection similar to the more protected sites in the National Planning Policy Framework, although infrastructure projects are of course exempt from it. I will talk about that in a moment.
The Minister also talked about newt schemes. I do not know whether your Lordships are intimately aware of the UK’s newt position, but we are newt central in the world. We have more newts than any other nation. This is probably a good reason why we should look after them, but on the other hand it probably means that they are not quite as precious as the few fragments of ancient woodland—that irreplaceable natural resource which cannot be recreated and is being destroyed with equanimity.
I would like some ancient woodland schemes, but that does not mean translocation. There is no evidence that moving an ancient woodland across the countryside and dumping it somewhere else works. In recent months the Government have touted their commitment to net zero carbon policies and net biodiversity gain. Ancient woodlands are hugely important to both policies. Because of the carbon stored in ancient woodlands, in its soils and its old trees, if such a scheme was enacted its level of protection would mean a considerable amount of carbon would be stored. The Government’s policies are great, but their implementation seems hugely lacking. I wrote that and thought, “I wonder why I’m surprised”.
HS2 should be demonstrating higher standards, particularly if it is seeking to become an exemplar of the best Britain can do. The destruction planned is not such an example, because the Government’s pledge to leave the environment in a better state will fail. HS2 prided itself on a pledge to deliver no net loss to biodiversity. However, it will not achieve this because of the loss of irreplaceable ancient woodland.
HS2 should tunnel wherever possible to avoid such impacts and not hide behind the arguments raised by noble Lords today about cost. In reality, the costs of any tunnelling to avoid ancient woodland sites are utterly dwarfed by expenditure on the project overall. Yet, the habitat concerned that would be safe is irreplaceable. Let us have a tunnel to avoid the biggest damaging impact of phase 2a, at Whitmore Wood in Staffordshire. Let us consider whether a slower speed railway, as recommended by the Economic Affairs Committee, would enable cost reduction by avoiding environmentally sensitive areas and the need for compensation and the tunnelling I have talked about. After all, this line is supposed to be about capacity rather than speed. Let us have it slower and wriggle round some of these 108 cathedrals that we have up the route.
I will finish by speaking briefly—I will stay within my seven minutes—about the Oakervee review, which is amazingly short. I have just met with its chairman, who tells me he will complete it within four or five weeks. One asks oneself, bearing in mind the degree of information on HS2, how it will be able to review everything in four weeks. Its terms of reference do not include environmental impacts and costs, only the environmental benefits. That needs to be changed. There needs to be at least one environmental expert on the panel. It does not have one; it is full of engineers and economists.
Most importantly for the review, because of the preparatory works that will come to pass in the next few weeks—in fact, they are not preparatory works but the route actually being built—many of the ancient woodlands I have been talking about will be destroyed or damaged in September and October. If this review is going to reach a view within four or five weeks and the Government, with their usual commendable alacrity, are going to come to a conclusion on it, it does not seem too much to ask the Minister that we pause those preparatory works, which would have an irreversible impact on ancient woodlands, until the results of the review and the Government’s subsequent actions are known.
I share noble Lords’ views about the very poor process we have for driving forward major infrastructure in this country. If I had my way, we would sweep away the hybrid Bill process; it is a nonsense. We give people hope that they may be able to influence the scheme long after the line of route has been decided, when in reality they cannot. We have not found the best of British ingenuity to avoid some of the conflicts that people are campaigning on, and I believe that we can. It is not about development versus the environment—British ingenuity should be capable of delivering both—but let us smarten up our process as well. It was invented 150 years ago and, frankly, my God, it looks like it.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)
My Lords, I put my name down for this debate, but withdrew it when I feared that I would have to leave before it ended. I am happy to take less time than intended, and so hope that I may be allowed to speak in the gap, in order to give a West Yorkshire—and, in particular, a Bradford—perspective on the way in which phases 2a and 2b fit in with the northern network, which we need for modernisation.
The transformation of the northern economy is what we are talking about once we start moving HS2 north of Birmingham. The eastern leg is as important as the western leg, linking Birmingham with Manchester and Liverpool, and then the second leg, linking those cities with Sheffield and linking Sheffield to Leeds. That then forms a triangle in which the new lines that Transport for the North are talking about, between Liverpool and Manchester and between Manchester and Leeds, also provide the fast links between the northern cities as far as Newcastle and Hull, which we also desperately need.
This is a matter of capacity. I was talking to someone from Transport for the North last week, who told me that we can get freight by rail between the Humber and the Mersey, provided that we do not mind the freight trains going via Daventry, because we lack the capacity and the tunnel space across the Pennines. That is part of the case for a new line, and for modernising the existing lines across the Pennines. I speak particularly from a Bradford perspective in saying that the transformative effects of a Manchester to Leeds line which went through Bradford city centre would be transformative for the whole area. The current value-for-money analysis does not begin to take that into effect. We need all of these lines, and this means a higher level of public investment in infrastructure for the north of England, after decades in which rail investment has been in the south of England.
I speak as someone who has travelled between Leeds and Manchester, and between the north and the south, for more than 50 years. I have seen how little impact any new investment has made there. We need phase 2a, phase 2b and HS3, and we need the Government to move on them all as fast as possible. This is how we begin to transform the economy of the north of England, by linking Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield, Newcastle and Hull so that it is easy to move between them, and so that the potential dynamic of these cities can be developed together. Successive Governments—including Labour Governments—have failed to deal with this over the last 30 or 40 years. Now is the time to have faith. Therefore, I strongly support this Bill.
Baroness Randerson (LD)
My Lords, I start with a reference to procedure. The Government’s attempt to impose an arbitrary time limit on speeches on this Bill is a great discourtesy to the House, and in particular, to the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, and my noble friend Lord Bradshaw. The noble Lord, Lord Adonis, was the Minister who initiated this scheme, and my noble friend Lord Bradshaw has a lifetime of experience as a leader within the railway industry. We are talking about a multibillion-pound project. The Government should cease to be carried away by their attempts to stifle scrutiny of their record on Brexit by proroguing this House; they should be paying attention—proper attention—to what is said here.
The Liberal Democrats have always been, and remain, firm supporters of HS2. In our view, a high-speed spinal railway linking London to Scotland is the correct strategy, for two fundamental reasons. First, the Midlands and the north of England badly need economic regeneration and to share in the prosperity of the south-east. Improved long-distance communication is fundamental to this. Secondly, we have a moral duty to use every available initiative to reduce carbon emissions, which threaten our planet. HS2 does this by encouraging people to take the train for long journeys rather than their car, or even to fly. It is not as straightforward as counting the number of people who will sit on HS2 trains. HS2 will take direct intercity services on to dedicated high-speed lines and hence free up capacity on existing lines for more trains on local and regional routes. That will make daily commuting to work by train a feasible option outside London; it will therefore get people out of their cars and reduce congestion on our roads. So long as the whole project goes ahead, it will remove the attractiveness of internal flights. It will free up new freight paths, taking freight off the roads. It is important to remember that freight reduces carbon emissions by 76% compared with road haulage.
The west coast main line is the busiest mixed-use railway line in Europe. We have simply run out of options to squeeze any more capacity from it. The noble Lord, Lord Adonis, and my noble friend Lord Bradshaw both made that point. We have no more rail paths available and have already used the option of longer trains. To those who say, “Just improve what we already have”, I respond that that would lead to a decade or more of intense disruption to existing routes. I say this as a regular commuter on the Great Western Railway line, where for years we have been disrupted by the electrification process—a process that we welcome strongly but it is very disruptive.
The cost of HS2 is eye-watering but so are the benefits: just look at the economic growth already impacting on Birmingham. When the whole HS2 project is completed, it will link 25 towns and cities and 30 million people. The Liberal Democrats are supportive but, as the House will have heard today from my noble friends, we are very much critical friends, so unlike the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, I welcome this review. I am reassured that the panel appointed to undertake the review is sufficiently experienced and balanced in its viewpoints to ensure that it is not being used just as an excuse to cancel the project. I have to confess that that was at the top of my mind when I heard that there was to be a review. It has been a very real fear. The Prime Minister himself has sown seeds of doubt and many Tory MPs have taken political pot-shots at the project. I note that most of them represent seats in the south-east, where transport spend is three times per head of population that in the north of England. I feared that the Government could be searching for a reason to cancel it because the huge costs of a no-deal Brexit will simply swallow up funding for major projects such as this across the country.
Of course, HS2 has left itself open to criticism, with sloppy management and spiralling costs. It has 1,300 staff and, astonishingly, more than one-quarter of them earn more than £100,000 a year. Even more surprisingly, despite those pay packets, they do not seem to have the skills required at this time. Consultants were employed on 31 separate occasions in 2013, at a cost of £60 million. There are things in the management of HS2 that have to be addressed. The project was agreed in 2013 so rising costs are not a surprise, but it is clear that they are not currently under control. I refer noble Lords to the National Audit Office report, which referred to the use of,
“fragile numbers, out-of-data data and assumptions which do not reflect real life”.
This review gives us an opportunity to nail down these costs and to address some of the proposals to reduce costs; for instance, reducing the length of rail line that will go through tunnels. Another suggestion is the use of Old Oak Common as a terminus, at least in the early years, to avoid a decade of costly disruption at Euston. The question that has to be asked—and will, I hope, be answered—is: is this being overengineered? Would it be significantly cheaper to cut, say, 20 mph off the maximum speed? It is clear that the time advantage over road travel will be very substantial, even at a lower speed.
Concerns remain, of course. There are concerns over delays which add to our unwelcome reputation as a nation which is pretty hopeless at building major projects. My noble friend Lady Kramer referred to the impact of overcrowding on existing railways that will be caused by the delays to this project. I caution that ending up with just phase 1 of HS2 would make Birmingham an outer London suburb—a new commuter zone. That would be the worst of all worlds. I live in Wales, so I am concerned that the vision of the Crewe hub is implemented. That in itself could transform the economy of north Wales. The review must bring this project under control and satisfy the critics. It must reassure those who, like me, support the principle of HS2 but worry about efficiency, cost control, transparency, whether those who live nearby are being given a fair deal, and the environmental impact of the building process. The review must clear the air and enable a fresh start on a firmer basis. My noble friend Lord Teverson raised the issue of comparative costs with other countries and used an example from France. Will the review look as far as comparative costs with other countries? It should do so. Some £8 billion has already been spent on this, 9,000 jobs have been created and 2,000 businesses are involved.
At this time of national emergency, when we face the potential for a massive economic downturn, it should be unthinkable that we cancel HS2. Instead, the Government should redouble their efforts and their ambitions and recommit to building the whole route to Scotland. They should also announce the powers and funding for Transport for the North, so that it can plan and build the east-west rail routes—the sorts of routes that have been referred to by my noble friends Lord Wallace and Lord Greaves. These need to be created to hang on the HS2 spine, in order to maximise its success.
We understand fully that there must be no blank cheque for HS2. It must be brought under control without undermining the central scope or purpose of the project. In the long term, as a country, we simply must look again at how we approach such projects. We need to be able to look long term in order to make difficult, ambitious, big spending decisions, to support and control our long-term infrastructure vision. We have failed for decades to do this. I realise it is a bit of a forlorn hope at the moment, when the Government are consumed with short-term tactics, but as a nation, we really have to get to the basis of this.
Lord Rosser (Lab)
My Lords, not only does High Speed 2 get delayed but even this debate on the Government’s latest High Speed 2 Bill has had to be rescheduled to today from last week. This Second Reading debate is taking place in something of a vacuum. The Government are inviting us to support the Bill, which gives statutory powers to enable the construction and maintenance of phase 2a of High Speed 2 from the West Midlands to Crewe, yet they apparently do not know whether they will be pulling the plug on the whole project in a few weeks’ time. We await the outcome of the review, which is considering whether or not HS2 should still proceed, and if so on what basis, or whether it should be cancelled.
There must be a real prospect of the Government cancelling HS2, first, because the Prime Minister, as with the third runway at Heathrow, has a direct constituency interest and is neither project’s number one fan, and secondly, because the Government have a noteworthy track record of cancelling projects extending railway electrification which they have previously promoted or supported. As recently as 15 July the Government were fully committed to HS2. In the Commons during the final stages of this Bill, the Minister said of HS2:
“It will be transformative not only because it will increase capacity and reduce the time it takes to reach eight of our top 10 cities, but because, along the way, it will smash the north-south divide, creating jobs and opportunities for people in the midlands and the north”.—[Official Report, Commons, 15/7/19; col. 646.]
Earlier, in a Written Statement on 6 February this year, the Government described HS2 as,
“a transformational infrastructure project that will improve people’s journeys, create jobs, generate economic growth and help to rebalance our country’s economy. HS2 is more than a railway and the project’s vision is to be a catalyst for economic growth. It has cross party support and support from councils, LEPs, Metro Mayors and businesses who can see the transformational potential”.—[Official Report, Commons, 6/2/19; col. 15WS.]
Cross-party support includes us, but does that reference to HS2 having cross-party support include the Government? If it does, why was the inquiry set up with a remit that included looking at whether HS2 should proceed at all? This was a point raised by my noble friend Lord Adonis and we expect an answer from the Government when they respond to this debate.
What have the Government just found out that led them to set up the review last month, but of which they were presumably unaware when they were extolling the virtues of HS2 so enthusiastically in the Commons the month before? Will they say by when they expect to receive the findings of the review and when they expect to announce their decision on the future or otherwise of HS2? I ask that in the context of contradictory statements from the Government. On 25 July, in response to a Commons Question on constructing from the north, the Prime Minister said:
“I have asked Doug Oakervee, the former chairman of Crossrail, to conduct a brief six-week study of profiling of the spend on HS2, to discover whether such a proposal might have merit”.—[Official Report, Commons, 25/7/19; col. 1476.]
Which is right about the purpose of this review: the Prime Minister’s statement that it is,
“a brief six-week study of profiling of the spend on HS2”,
or the terms of reference referring to,
“whether and how we proceed with HS2”?
What is the truth, as opposed to confusing statements, about the timescale of the review? On 25 July, the Prime Minister spoke of a “brief six-week study”. That six weeks is already up. Or is it meant to be six weeks from when the Secretary of State for Transport announced the review, on 21 August, in which case the review report will be ready at the beginning of next month? Yet the Government now say it will be completed in the autumn. Is it a six-week review, as the Prime Minister so clearly said? On the assumption that it is, when did the six-week period start?
It is to be expected in a Second Reading debate on a Bill enabling a further stage of HS2 that the Government would say something about not only the costs and benefits of the further stage, but the extent to which the quoted costs and benefits expected for the first stage were or were not still on track. On 15 July the Government told the Commons,
“there is only one budget for HS2, and it is £55.7 billion. The bit we are talking about today, phase 2a, is £3.5 billion. The benefit-cost ratio is £2.30 for every £1 spent”.—[Official Report, Commons, 15/7/19; col. 647.]
Recently, though, the Secretary of State for Transport said in a Written Statement that the chairman of HS2 did not believe that the current scheme design could now be delivered within the budget of £55.7 billion, set in 2015 prices. Instead, the Government said, the chairman of HS2 now estimated that the current scheme required a total budget, including contingency, of £72 billion to £78 billion, again in 2015 prices; and in 2019 prices, £81 billion to £88 billion, against a budget equivalent of £62.4 billion. On the basis of those revised figures for the cost of completing all stages of HS2, will the Government indicate what percentage of those figures is to cover contingencies?
The Government went on to say that HS2 no longer believes that the current schedule of 2026 for initial services on phase 1 was realistic, and that instead there should be a range of dates for the start of the service. The recommendation of the chairman of HS2 was now 2028 to 2031 for phase 1, with a staged opening, starting with initial services between Old Oak Common and Birmingham, followed by services to and from Euston later. HS2 Ltd now, it seems, expects that phase 2b to Manchester and Leeds will open between 2035 and 2040. Significantly for this Bill, the chairman of HS2, according to the Secretary of State, now considers that phase 2a, from the West Midlands to Crewe, should be delivered to the same timetable as phase 1. Furthermore, the chairman was now of the view that the benefits of the current scheme were substantially undervalued. All these views from the chairman of HS2 Ltd would, said the Secretary of State, be assessed by the review panel, which would provide,
“independent recommendations on whether and how we proceed with the project”.—[Official Report, Commons, 3/9/19; col. 7WS.]
I hope the Government can tell the House today that they had no inkling that the costs were rather higher than previously stated and that HS2 would not be delivered within previously announced timescales when, in asking for support for the Bill, they told the Commons on 15 July,
“there is only one budget for HS2, and it is £55.7 billion”.—[Official Report, Commons, 15/7/19; col. 647.]
Even the £3.5 billion the Government quoted for phase 2a, to which the Bill relates, is now apparently £3.6 billion to £4 billion. Will the Government indicate how much has been spent so far on HS2, including the value of contracts that have been signed but for which the work has not been completed?
In the light of the view of the chairman of HS2 that the benefits of HS2 are substantially undervalued, can the Government say what the current figures are for the benefits arising from HS2 and whether they include the potential wider economic impact of changes in land use and values as a result of HS2 and the transformative effect that it can have, both on the locations directly benefiting from the improved transport links and locations on other rail routes where capacity would be released for new or additional services?
Could the Government also say for how many years into the future are the economic benefits, including wider economic benefits, accruing from HS2 currently calculated and taken into account in assessing the overall benefit and value to the nation of the project? Are those overall benefits taken into account only for a specific fixed period—and if so, what is that period—or are they calculated and assessed as delivering effectively permanent wider economic benefits resulting in a higher overall value figure, since presumably, for example, the favourable impact HS2 already appears to be having on regeneration in Birmingham is very much of long-term value and permanent benefit to the city?
We now have the HS2 chairman’s recent report, or stocktake, on the current status of the project. It has been quite extensively redacted. In the Commons on 5 September, the Secretary of State said:
“I am unhappy about having any of that report redacted. I have read the rest of it. It is not hugely exciting. I pushed back on that with the Department, and apparently it is just that the lawyers are saying that it is commercially confidential stuff that I cannot force to be released”.—[Official Report, Commons, 5/9/19; col. 354.]
Could the Government say who determines whether something in a report is commercially confidential and who determines that commercial confidentiality outweighs the public interest in knowing about the information that is being withheld? Could they also say what would be the consequences, and for whom, of the Secretary of State releasing information that the lawyers had deemed commercially confidential? What contracts, if any and with whom, would be broken or breached by releasing such information as is in the HS2 chairman’s report? Who are the signatories to those contracts?
Phase 2a is the first step to delivering the whole of phase 2, which extends HS2 north from Birmingham. It is intended that the opening of phase 2a will result in further west coast main line services transferring on to the HS2 route, freeing up capacity on the existing west coast main line between Lichfield and Crewe. With the completion of phase 2a, the journey time from Crewe to London would be cut from 90 minutes today to under an hour by 2027, while HS2 journeys north of Birmingham would be up to 13 minutes faster than they will be following the construction of phase 1 of HS2.
HS2 has the support of the chief executive of the South Cheshire Chamber of Commerce and Industry, who has already made clear its beneficial impacts for Crewe. It has the support of the Mayors of Greater Manchester and the Liverpool City Region, local authority leaders in Leeds and Newcastle among others, and Transport for the North. It is also important for the delivery of northern powerhouse rail, which requires HS2 infrastructure to provide 50% of the new lines it needs for key parts of its services in and around Leeds and Manchester.
HS2 says that it is one of the most scrutinised organisations in the country, with oversight from the Department for Transport, the Treasury, the Cabinet Office and the Infrastructure and Projects Authority. It is clear from the sudden announcement a few days ago of delay and significant increases in costs that that extensive oversight has proved less than adequate, as something major has emerged for the first time about the HS2 project which could and should have come to light much earlier.
My noble friend Lord Tunnicliffe has indicated the issues that we will be pursuing: accountability and transparency, connectivity and the quality of links between HS2 and other relevant parts of the existing network, and compensation for tenants. I do not intend to repeat them in any detail.
It was a Labour Government who were the driving force behind HS2 and it was my noble friend Lord Adonis who, as Secretary of State for Transport, got it off the ground. This Government appear to have failed to exercise proper control over the progress of the project in all its aspects and thus failed to deliver proper accountability to Parliament. Now they look as though they could be getting cold feet and are looking to the recently appointed review panel to bail them out. What we do not know is whether, for the Government and the Prime Minister, bailing out means providing a justification to proceed, a justification to emasculate, a justification to abandon or simply a case for kicking the whole matter of the future of HS2 into the long grass during the run-up to a general election.
We continue to support the HS2 project because of the extensive and wide-ranging economic and other benefits it will deliver for the nation as a whole, in addition to addressing major capacity problems on the west coast main line, which would only get worse if HS2 is abandoned. We thus support this Bill giving the statutory go-ahead to enable phase 2a to proceed. The question is whether the Government still fully support their own Bill and the project, after more than nine years of actively supporting and progressing with the construction of HS2. Or, incredibly, will today be the last we will see of this Bill or any further Bills providing for the completion of the construction and development of HS2? I hope the Government can clearly and emphatically indicate now that they intend to proceed with this project.
Baroness Vere of Norbiton
I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this wide-ranging debate. I am heartened by the amount of support that this project still has across the Chamber. I recognise that I will never be able to make my noble friend Lord Framlingham happy on this one. I will work on the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, and might get there in the end—we are going to keep trying, because it is a very important project.
The noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, made some particularly important points about these large critical infrastructure projects and the difficulties this country faces in the way that we are set up and do our budgeting, scheduling and timetabling. Certainly, over the longer term some changes will probably happen in those areas. It is the same in rail as in roads, as mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Birt, who spoke about roads being vital. As Roads Minister I completely agree with him. The Government are committing vast sums of money to improvements in both roads and rail, which are absolutely essential. The next RIS2 will have £25.3 billion to spend. On rail, we are spending £48 billion in the next control period, which is significantly more than we have spent on our railways for a very long time.
I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, that this has pretty much always been about capacity—it just happens to be called High Speed 2. If I could have one wish in my life, it would be to change the name of this project. Calling it High Speed 2 has caused so many problems. It is a high-speed railway, I completely get that, but it is about capacity. Although it might be possible to slow down the railway, as the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, suggested, that would cut capacity. However, that is one of things that the Oakervee review will look at.
The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, stated that this project was transformative and mentioned many other times when Members both in the other place and in this House, from the Government and beyond, talked about its transformative nature. It is very difficult to disagree, but “transformative” can mean many different things. We must be absolutely clear—this is what Oakervee will do—that the benefits and costs are appropriate for this project. That is the reason for the review.
Lord Rosser
Can I take it then, in the light of that comment, that the Government are not prepared to rule out this project being cancelled?
Baroness Vere of Norbiton
The Prime Minister has been very clear that nothing has been taken off the table. Imagine if the numbers came out as £100 billion to build it with benefits of only £50 billion. The noble Lord might have a slight problem with saying yes to a project with numbers like that. We know that things are under review, but we have also seen the report from Allan Cook—
Lord Rosser
I would agree, if we were faced with figures such as those which appeared to completely change the situation, but I imagine that if we reached that stage there would be an immediate inquiry into how the original figures were ever produced.
Baroness Vere of Norbiton
That may well be the case, but we are now talking about hypotheticals, so I suggest that we wait until the review has finished and look at its conclusions in the context of the report from Allan Cook. The Government will make a decision at that time.
I turn to the comment of the noble Lord, Lord Birt, about why we do not have a long-term railway strategy. That is exactly what we are doing at the moment with the Williams rail review, which is looking at the status of the rail network and the service operators to see whether and how we can improve the system for the future.
I turn to some of the more specific points raised by noble Lords. There was a bit of discussion around investment in the north and how important it is; that was brought up by the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, and the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson. It is of course absolutely critical, as the Government recognise. Northern Powerhouse Rail could be transformative for the north, but probably not in isolation. It needs to be part of a larger project, which is why the Government are supporting Transport for the North to develop the options for Northern Powerhouse Rail. We committed £60 million at the spending review in 2015 and £37 million in 2018, which is on top of the £300 million we have committed to make sure that HS2 infrastructure accommodates a future Northern Powerhouse Rail and Midlands services. Therefore it is part of a bigger project, and other developments are certainly being included.
On the Oakervee review and accountability, I have already mentioned that costs, timescales and benefits will all be tied up in the review. The noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, spoke about accountability and HS2. I refer him to a comment made by my colleague the Transport Secretary, who was very clear that he wanted us to be as transparent as possible. That includes on costs and schedule, which is why we published the Cook report. The noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, raised that as well. Therefore, there will be more transparency and accountability. We are not minded to introduce quarterly reporting on HS2 at the moment, as it already provides reports to Parliament, as required by the framework document, and we believe that that level is proportionate and sufficient. Of course, noble Lords may request debates on HS2 at any time.
The noble Lord, Lord Adonis, claimed that it was a bit left hand/right hand, given my opening remarks and the fact that we are having a review. However, I do not see it like that. The process for HS2 is positive, and the review we are having is a sensible reconsideration of the facts. A sensible reconsideration should never be confused for a lack of support.
A number of noble Lords mentioned whether work should continue during the Oakervee review. Certainly, the Prime Minister was very clear that the fact that we are having a review should not unnecessarily delay the progress of HS2. That would be wrong, and it would mean that costs would rise. That is why limited enabling works are being undertaken by HS2, and why your Lordships are being asked to consider phase—
Lord Framlingham
Will the Minister at least acknowledge that the felling of trees and the damaging of ancient woodland when the matter is still under discussion would be a serious thing to do?
Baroness Vere of Norbiton
I will come on to the issue of ancient woodland in due course and will look into the amount of work going on. I will certainly write to my noble friend if I can get some more information in that regard.
Baroness Young of Old Scone
Perhaps I can help the Minister with that. I would be delighted to send her the list of woodland that is about to be demolished over the next six weeks.
Baroness Vere of Norbiton
I suspect that I may already have that list, but I would be delighted to receive it again.
My noble friend Lord Framlingham made what I think noble Lords will agree was an expected contribution, mentioning costs and value for money; indeed, that is what the Oakervee review will consider. He spoke about whistleblowers, as of course did the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer. We are clear that any whistleblowers are covered in the UK by the whistleblowing legislation, and absolutely nothing should stop them coming forward. The Oakervee review will of course look at all available evidence when assessing the scheme.
Baroness Kramer
Would the Minister be willing to meet on one occasion to take up that issue of whistleblowers?
Baroness Vere of Norbiton
I would be delighted to meet the noble Baroness when diaries allow.
My noble friend Lord Framlingham mentioned fraud. I would like to be clear that neither the Serious Fraud Office nor the police has contacted HS2 regarding any investigation, nor made any request for information in that regard.
The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, asked whether HS2 was competent. The Oakervee review will of course look at how we have arrived at the place we have, and at whether HS2 as it stands is able to deliver the project. We would not want to prejudge that outcome, but we have been working closely with the new chairman to ensure that HS2 has the right skills at this important stage to take the project forward.
The noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, mentioned salaries, expressing surprise at the number of people who are paid quite high salaries within HS2. I do not know that I agree with her on this one. These are very technical positions, which need quite a lot of skill and experience, and I have not yet been able to see any benchmarks which would mean that they are not reasonable salaries to pay to these highly skilled technicians and engineers.
The noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, raised the important issue of connectivity. I said in my opening remarks that HS2 will be able to connect the major cities of the UK, but also described how the hub-and-spoke system then goes out to more than 100 cities and towns, which will be able to benefit. It is probably slightly early days now to think about those towns, because we need to get closer to the date of completion and services. However, I agree with him that whoever is in government at that time—I very much hope that it will be the Conservatives—will work with local authorities to make sure that we have an integrated transport system so that the buses connect with the trains, and all those things happen that we all would like to see.
The issue of Old Oak Common was raised a couple of times. We published a response to the Economic Affairs Committee report in July 2019, which mentioned stopping at Old Oak Common. There are few benefits, because stopping there means that you cannot transfer on to other transport systems, but the Oakervee review will of course look at that issue.
Lord Greaves
On the basic point about connectivity, will the Minister confirm that, when 2b is built, the trains will indeed run through to Preston, Carlisle and Glasgow?
Baroness Vere of Norbiton
I am unable to confirm that just at this moment, purely because I do not know, not because that decision has gone one way or the other. My apologies.
Oakervee is looking at the costs and benefits and, as the noble Lord mentioned, the costs have increased—the envelope was originally £55.7 billion, and Allan Cook now estimates that that is between £72 billion and £78 billion.
The noble Lord, Lord Teverson, asked about similar projects in other nations. It is difficult to compare us to someone else. We have very different countryside, and various stakeholders have very different needs. That point was raised by the noble Lord, Lord Snape. If we were to keep absolutely everybody happy on the environmental side of things, we would never build anything ever again. Clearly, that is not a feasible option, and therefore we must have a balance. While Oakervee will look at this, given our landscape and our need to mitigate against justified environmental concerns that have been raised, the cost of these things becomes quite high. I mentioned at the outset that there is a significant amount of tunnelling and cutting; some of that is down to the landscape that the line is going through, but also environmental concerns there. In later debates I will give examples of where we have literally moved the route to go around a tree. Those are the sorts of things that, with respect, may not necessarily happen in other countries. On the flip side, knowing France fairly well as I do, much of the country does not look like Staffordshire, so there are differences.
Lord Teverson
I thank the noble Baroness for going through those details, but they sound like a list of excuses, if you like. I understand all of that, but the rest of Europe is not blasé about these issues. As we know, the French public can be equally awkward. While I hear the noble Baroness, I find it difficult to understand the differences in culture.
Baroness Vere of Norbiton
I would be happy to return to this issue outside the Chamber where perhaps we could have a better and more detailed conversation. I was also going to say that we should meet when the review has been published so that we can talk about the more detailed costs and benefits assessment. That conversation is probably too lengthy to have in the Chamber today.
I turn now to a few of the environmental matters which have been raised, because of course they are very important. I think that it was the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, who referred to the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, saying that he admired her “hippy way” of bringing things up. I thought, “No, that is not the case at all, because these issues are important”. We had a good conversation when we met, and I hope that both noble Baronesses, Lady Jones and Lady Young, along with other noble Lords will accept an invitation to a briefing by the HS2 environment team. Perhaps we can then get to the root of the issues of concern because this is a huge area. I believe that HS2 has a great deal of information on it and I hope that the team will be able to put at least some of the fears of noble Lords at rest, although I am probably resigned to the fact that the noble Baroness will not change her view.
I want to refer to the point raised by the noble Earl, Lord Glasgow. He asked whether having a railway line causes an area to become not beautiful any more. Having visited the area that phase 2a of HS2 will go through, I agree with him that it is lovely and a great part of the country which already has the west coast main line and a motorway running through it. However, it is still beautiful. I think that there are many positives. On the habitat side, again we can raise those issues with the environment director and talk about them further.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
I just want to clarify that I did not say that the noble Baroness was a hippy; rather, I said that she was pithy. In other words, she put her points of view across very succinctly.
Baroness Vere of Norbiton
Goodness, okay. I offer my sincere apologies to the noble Baroness and perhaps Hansard will go back and scrap all of that.
I shall carry on about the environmental statements, which are of course very important. I can assure the noble Baroness that they are of a high quality. However, I shall turn now to ancient woodlands because I sense that this is an issue that we may return to a number of times. I agree that ancient woodlands are very important, but there is some context here. We have some 52,000 ancient woodland sites in the UK, and of those 52,000, some 62 will be affected by HS2. It is the case that we can do things to mitigate the impact on ancient woodland. I was quite surprised to learn that not only do we have a planting regime in place, which we will learn from and improve on—and we can quiz the HS2 environment director on it—but we also propose to move the actual soil to a new place.
Baroness Young of Old Scone
The evidence for the preservation of ancient woodlands simply does not exist; it is a myth, and I do not think that we should be misleading the House in this way. While I am on my feet, I should say that I have met endlessly with the HS2 environment team. Although there may be a large number of fragments of ancient woodland so that this looks like a comparatively small number, the reality is that most of those fragments have been very bisected and diminished by development, and we are continuing on that merry way to the point where shortly we will have little ancient woodland worthy of the name.
Baroness Vere of Norbiton
I thank the noble Baroness for her intervention. I suspect that we are not going to wholly agree on this matter, but if I can do anything at all to bring us closer together, I shall be pleased to do so. I believe that earlier the noble Baroness mentioned Whitmore Wood, which I have also had the pleasure of seeing. The Select Committee in the other place did consider whether the project should tunnel under the woodland, but it decided that that did not represent value for money. An assurance was given to reduce the impact on the ancient woodland by 0.5 of a hectare. However, the Select Committee of your Lordships’ House may look at this issue again.
Lord Adonis
My Lords, can the noble Baroness answer the question put to her on precisely when the review will be published?
Baroness Vere of Norbiton
I cannot do that with great precision. I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, mentioned that the original length of the review was six weeks. We should take that period in the context of a couple of months or a month. It is not six weeks on the dot, from day one to the end, although it may well be. The point is that the panel has had to be set up and appointed and the terms of reference were published on 21 August. Given that, I will stick to the autumn of 2019. As noble Lords will be aware, it is a bit chilly outside now, so autumn is coming. However, I probably cannot go much further than that. As I say, the review will be published shortly or in due course. No doubt noble Lords will soon ask me about this again in Oral Questions. However, it is under way and it is a short review.
I want to cover briefly the issue of tenant compensation, which I realise is important to the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe. There will certainly be an opportunity to discuss it further before we reach the next stage of the process. Due to the route of the proposed scheme, phase 2a affects mostly rural residents, many of whom are tenants of their properties or land. Most types of tenants who will be impacted by the scheme are already provided for under existing compensation law, but where they are not, the Government are able to use their flexible non-statutory arrangements to provide support. That is probably not sufficient detail for the noble Lord, and I agree that we will take the issue further forward.
I want to comment briefly on a comment made by the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, about British Steel. I understand the concerns of the noble Baroness, but none the less the Crown Commercial Service steel procurement policy requires bidders to outline their steel supply plans and will award all steel contracts through open competition.
Lord Tunnicliffe
Perhaps we may have a straightforward answer to the request that there should be a moratorium on felling in ancient woodland sites until the report is available.
Baroness Vere of Norbiton
I am not able to provide that certainty at this moment, but I will undertake to establish exactly what enabling works or felling will take place, whether that is of ancient woodland or otherwise, within the period that we anticipate the review will take to be carried out. I will write to the noble Lord and place a copy of the letter in the Library of the House.
This is the start of the proceedings on this Bill. I look forward to many further discussions both within the Chamber and without the Chamber. For now, I beg to move.
High Speed Rail (West Midlands– Crewe) Bill
Monday 9th September 2019
(5 years, 2 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Consideration of Bill Amendments as at 15 July 2019 - (15 Jul 2019)
Baroness Vere of Norbiton
That if a bill in the same terms as those in which the High Speed Rail (West Midlands–Crewe) Bill stood when it was brought to this House in this session is brought to this House from the House of Commons in the next session—
(a) the proceedings on the bill in the next session shall be pro forma in regard to every stage through which the bill has passed in this session;
(b) any petition deposited against the bill in this session shall be taken to be deposited against the bill in the next session; and
(c) the Standing Orders of the House applicable to the bill, so far as complied with or dispensed with in this session, shall be deemed to have been complied with or (as the case may be) dispensed with in the next session.
High Speed Rail (West Midlands - Crewe) Bill: Revival
Monday 2nd March 2020
(4 years, 8 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Consideration of Bill Amendments as at 15 July 2019 - (15 Jul 2019)
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
Before I call the Minister to move the motion, I should inform the House that Mr Speaker has not selected any amendments.
The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Andrew Stephenson)
I beg to move,
That if a Bill is presented to this House in this session in the same terms as those in which the High Speed Rail (West Midlands - Crewe) Bill stood at the last stage of its proceedings in this House in the 2019 session—
(a) the Bill so presented shall be deemed to have passed through all its stages in this House, and
(b) the Standing Orders and practice of the House applicable to the Bill, so far as complied with or dispensed with in the 2019 session, shall be deemed to have been complied with or (as the case may be) dispensed with in this session.
That the above Orders be Standing Orders of the House.
I am delighted to be here this evening to undertake my first piece of parliamentary business as the new Minister for high-speed rail. I have been given specific oversight of this hugely significant project.
The High Speed Rail (West Midlands - Crewe) Bill, also known as the phase 2a Bill, concerns a section of HS2 that will extend the railway from the end of phase 1, just north of Birmingham, to Crewe. Hybrid Bills are unusual and relatively rare. A hybrid Bill is both a public Bill and a private Bill in one—hence, hybrid. The Bill could be characterised as an alternative planning consent process.
The Bill was introduced into this House in July 2017. It passed its Second Reading in January 2018 and moved into its Select Committee stage. Over 300 petitions were received. In response, two additional provisions were promoted that made changes to the Bill to resolve those petitions. That process took over a year. Hearings finished in the spring of 2019, and the amendments were agreed. The Bill then completed its stages in this place and moved to the House of Lords, where it had its Second Reading last September.
It is normal for a Bill like this to carry over from one parliamentary Session to another. The previous Parliament did not make time available to secure carry-over motions, so I am bringing the Bill back today with this revival motion. Private Bills that are not carried over are often revived. Revival has been used before for a hybrid Bill. For those who may be geeky and interested, the process is set out in “Erskine May”, in paragraph 37 of chapter 45 on page 1,162.
Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)
This is indeed very geeky and technical, and all very interesting, but can I urge the Minister, particularly when he responds to the debate, to talk about the benefits of HS2 and how we can bring those benefits online now? May I particularly commend to him the new Siemens rail factory that is coming to Goole, with £250 million of investment, and our excellent steelworks at Scunthorpe, which already supplies Network Rail with all of its railways, thereby demonstrating the benefit to the whole of the country of this Bill?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
Order. The hon. Gentleman asks the Minister whether he can make certain commendations. He can try, but I am afraid he cannot, really, because this is a very, very narrow motion on procedure; it is not a debate on the merits or otherwise of the Government’s railway policy.
Andrew Stephenson
Thank you for that guidance, Madam Deputy Speaker. I can, however, assure my hon. Friend, who is a doughty champion of the Brigg and Goole constituency, that 98% of businesses involved in HS2 are British, and approximately 70% of the contracts already awarded are going to small and medium-sized enterprises. I am sure he will continue to champion the businesses in his constituency to ensure that they get the maximum benefit from this scheme.
Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
On a procedural point, my hon. Friend will be aware that there are some experienced politicians who could use various tactics to delay this measure. I would not like to join those people. Can I just mention, though, that if we are spending £100 billion on this, my constituents are very keen on the Government giving £1 million only to London North Eastern Railway for our through train to Grimsby and Cleethorpes via Market Rasen? I would very much hope that the Minister, in terms of procedure and ensuring a smooth passage and support for this measure, could perhaps give a gentle green light to my through train for just £1 million.
Madam Deputy Speaker
Order. No, the right hon. Gentleman cannot talk about Grimsby. I call the Minister.
Andrew Stephenson
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. Once again, I am tempted to talk about a very laudable proposal from my right hon. Friend. I know that the Minister of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris), who is sitting next to me, sees significant merit in that proposal and will hopefully be looking at it in due course.
Sir William Cash (Stone) (Con)
As my hon. Friend may know, the amendment that I proposed, which has not been selected—I do not complain about that, or rather I complain about the principle but not about the action—says that these Standing Orders would contradict fundamental constitutional principles. Bills come to an end in the Session in which they were introduced unless a carry-over motion is passed before Prorogation or Dissolution. It is extremely rare, and almost unique, for the process that we are now witnessing to take place. I just put that on the record; I have further points that I am sure the Minister is expecting me to make later.
Andrew Stephenson
I note my hon. Friend’s concern. My direct reference to “Erskine May” would, I hope, have put his mind to rest as to why we are using this procedure in this rather unique circumstance.
Since the Government have decided that HS2 should go ahead and that phase 2a should be built, we now need to take the next step, which is to revive the Bill. This motion has the same effect as a carry-over motion, and if Members agree it today, the Bill will resume in the same place that it stopped. That means it will pass to the House of Lords, where it would resume its Select Committee stage. Passing this motion therefore allows the progress already made to be kept. It allows those directly affected to continue with the legal processes they still have to complete, safe in the knowledge that the changes they requested to the Bill and previously received will be kept.
Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)
I welcome the Minister to his place. The Labour party is supportive of the motion—as can be seen from the massed ranks of the Opposition behind me right now!—because we see HS2 as key to boosting regional economies and reducing climate emissions. It is essential for increasing rail capacity and freeing up other lines for freight use. I rather think that some of the troubles we have had with High Speed 2 might have been avoided had we come up with another name for it, but that is by the by.
Successive Conservative Transport Ministers have shown themselves lacking in competence and unable to oversee the finances and governance of HS2, among other infrastructure projects. In recent years, the Government have presented inaccurate information to both Parliament and the public about the cost of HS2. The public need to have confidence in the project, but sadly the Government have undermined that with their failure to exercise any control over not only costs but redundancy payments. There is real concern that the true costs of the project were known to be much higher than the figures that the Government continually promoted. As the project progresses, it is essential that there is much greater transparency.
In addition, when the contracts for phase 1 were being granted, despite hedge fund managers making a packet out of the inevitable demise of Carillion, this Tory Government crashed on regardless, awarding the doomed organisation a valuable HS2 contract.
Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)
I am curious. The hon. Gentleman says that he does not believe the figures for the cost of HS2 reflect reality. He may well be right. What does he think HS2 will cost?
Andy McDonald
We are told that the cost has risen from £57 billion to £80 billion, and rumour has it that it is now more than £100 billion. I am not in a position to make an informed judgment because I am not in possession of the information that Ministers have, but people are understandably concerned about costs increasing at such a rate.
Sir Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)
In fact, the Carillion collapse meant that all the Carillion liabilities for the contract were transferred to the two other contractors. Where was the harm in that? Was that not a rather skilfully let triple contract?
Andy McDonald
On the contrary, it was one of the most cataclysmic episodes of the HS2 story. When everybody and his dog knew that Carillion was in difficulties, and hedge fund managers were making millions on the demise of Carillion, this Government ploughed on with it, regardless of the information that was in the public domain. It was clear evidence of utter incompetence.
The Oakervee review was correct to say that HS2 must be a fully integrated part of the modern railway system and must extend to the great cities of the north, linking up with Crossrail for the north and on to Scotland, to curtail the demand for domestic flying in this country at the earliest opportunity.
Bob Seely (Isle of Wight) (Con)
One issue that many people like me on the south coast have, which I hope Ministers will look at, is that the average speed from London to Portsmouth and Southampton has not changed since the 1920s. At the moment, we are seeing vast amounts of money going into a project of mixed popularity, to put it mildly, while people in Southampton, Portsmouth and my constituency of the Isle of Wight will be struggling with speeds—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
Order. We are not talking about the Isle of Wight. We are talking about a procedural motion.
Andy McDonald
I take that admonishment, Madam Deputy Speaker, and simply satisfy the hon. Gentleman by saying that the Labour party entered the last general election with a fully costed regional plan that would have served his area adequately.
The dividends in reduced emissions are immense, and I encourage the Government to articulate that argument better at every opportunity. We are concerned that the links to Manchester and Leeds are now under review and could even be downgraded. The Government have repeatedly broken their promises of investment in the north, with the region set to receive just a fraction of the investment to be made in London, and a northern powerhouse simply has to be much more than a slogan.
HS2 must be developed with more sensitivity to local communities and much more sensitivity to the environmental impact, particularly on modern and ancient woodlands across the country.
David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)
Will the hon. Gentleman give way on that point?
Andy McDonald
I will give way, save that I may incur your wrath, Madam Deputy Speaker.
David Simmonds
I have a very specific point on this issue. One of the lessons from my constituency about the first phase of HS2 is that commitments given to this House on earlier phases have simply not been honoured by HS2 Ltd. I would encourage us, and ask the Minister, to consider how we can hold it robustly to account on this second phase to ensure that, when commitments and promises are made to this House about how local communities and individual families will be treated and supported sensitively and they are not honoured, there must be consequences.
Andy McDonald
I think the hon. Gentleman makes a very valid point. The issues of governance and communication have to be improved, and I think everybody in the House would agree with that.
On modern and ancient woodlands, I just make the point that the commitment to the speed of this project may have to be reviewed. I think the commitment to going in straight lines at 250 mph has to be taken into consideration. If we look at the TGV in France, the average speed of that high-speed link is 187 mph, and that does not impact on its efficiency.
If the project is to have full public support, the fares on HS2 must be affordable and comparable with the rest of the fare system on the rail network. It has previously been intimated that for HS2 to gain the confidence of the public, it cannot be a premium service. If HS2 is successfully to replace so many long-distance journeys, it has to be an integral part of an affordable and accessible railway.
The Transport Secretary should ensure that the procurement of HS2’s rolling stock is conducted in a way that makes sure the trains will be manufactured in the UK and will benefit the UK supply chain. Could the Minister inform the House of what steps the Secretary of State is going to take to ensure that the delivery of HS2 is closely co-ordinated with Network Rail’s ongoing work programme and the development of Northern Powerhouse Rail?
Given the amount of public money that is to be spent on delivering HS2, it is essential that the Government ensure that HS2 services are run under public ownership, so that British taxpayers can see a return on their investment in supporting the UK economy, rather than in enriching private companies or foreign state-owned companies. Her Majesty’s Opposition are indeed supportive, and we look forward to the progress of the project.
Sir William Cash (Stone) (Con)
In a nutshell, I am seeking an assurance from the Minister, which I hope I will be able to get before the end of these proceedings, that phase 2a should be reviewed by Sir John Armitt at the same time as phase 2b, for which he has already been given terms of reference. Basically, it boils down to this: it is being suggested that the construction of phase 2a should follow quickly after phase 1—this view has been reinforced by the Oakervee review, which concluded that the Government should consider merging the construction of phase 2a with phase 1—but this is not only an unnecessary but an undesirable idea, and furthermore it is unrealistic.
I refer now to the actual motion before the House, which says that the Bill
“if…presented to this House in this session in the same terms as those in which the High Speed Rail (West Midlands - Crewe) Bill stood at the last stage of its proceedings…the Bill…shall be deemed to have passed through all its stages in this House, and…the Standing Orders”
adjusted accordingly. Given this motion and the arguments I am presenting, that means that we are bound to have regard to what the Bill says, and the extent to which it will be dealt with under the procedures that follow these novel and unique changes to the Standing Orders.
As we heard from the Minister, phase 1 of HS2 received Royal Assent in February 2017. It has not progressed because the main works civil contractors have been unable to come up with a design that can be delivered for the budget available. Phase 2a has not yet received Royal Assent, so we are at least a couple of years away from all this happening. Given the proposed changes to the Standing Orders, and the manner in which it is deemed that the Bill is being carried forward, is important to note that phase 2a is required only if phase 2b west is constructed according to current proposals. Crucially, those proposals could be changed by the Armitt review, and all that phase 2a would effectively achieve would be to connect HS2 to the west coast main line approximately 58 km further north—at Blakenhall, south of Crewe—rather than at the Handsacre link. With the estimated cost of phase 2a now rising to £6.6 billion, it is not wise—this is the crucial point—to commit to phase 2a without knowing what Sir John Armitt might conclude regarding phase 2b.
This project will cause immense damage to my constituents, although I will not expand on that at this juncture as that point is related to ground conditions and matters that I could go into in more detail only if I had more time. In a nutshell it comes to this: HS2 Ltd produced a report in 2019, and it is clear that it faces a shortfall of fill along the entire length of phase 2a. Such fundamental questions can be taken into account under the proposed changes to the Standing Orders now being discussed only if realism prevails.
Will the Minister use this opportunity to give an assurance on the Floor of the House that phase 2a will be treated, in some shape or form, in the context of what Sir John Armitt will consider with regard to phase 2b? The two things are interlinked, and as this is a railway that goes from north to south, it is essential that it all fits together. If phase 2b is to be reviewed by Sir John Armitt, for the reasons I have already given it is essential that phase 2a is also considered in the review by Sir John Armitt. Otherwise—I say this with a great generosity of heart—the Minister may find that if he does not do what I am suggesting, they will get to phase 2b and find that phase 2a does not work. If that does not work, we will end up with a railway that is not be capable of being constructed.
In light of the changes to the Standing Orders, I am offering a realistic appraisal that will make possible a proper review not only of phase 2b, but of phase 2a, which is what the Bill is about. I do not need to expand on that any more. I am concerned about compensation for my constituents, and about a range of other matters that lie outside the motion before us. In a nutshell, it is essential that phase 2a and phase 2b are somehow brought within the framework of the terms of reference issued by the Government for Sir John Armitt to consider. If we get that, we will at least be able to have a proper consultation, and on that I rest my case.
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)
The most interesting speeches in this place are always given when one does not expect to make them. I am sure that what I am about to say will not find favour with a lot of my colleagues, but sometimes one has to stand up in this place for what is right. I spent over a year on the phase 1 hybrid Bill Committee. We delved into that railway in enormous detail. I am sure that my colleagues who served on the phase 2a Committee, which also took nearly a year, delved into that in huge detail as well. I commend the motion to the House. This resurrection motion is the correct thing to do.
I started my service on that Committee opposed to the railway on the grounds that it was high-speed rail. However, it is nothing to do with high-speed rail; it is all about capacity. Unless we take passengers and freight off the east coast and west coast main lines, our roads will clog up, journey times will become completely untenable and we will fail to meet our carbon targets in 2050. The revival motion is therefore right and we need to build this railway. We need to build not only phase 1, but phase 2 and phase 2b.
As deputy Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, I want absolute value for money. I have already seen, in the phase 1 Committee, some of the horrors that took place. The evidence before us was, in many cases, disingenuous. The costs of the things we were doing were not fully costed. Nor was it fully understood how they could be delivered. I would be very concerned if the motion led to the same things on phase 2a.
Let me, with a little bit of latitude, give the Chamber some examples of what we found. The chief finance officer for HS2 Ltd asked permission in writing to pay enhanced redundancy payments. He was told not to, but he went ahead and did it anyway. That cost the taxpayer nearly £2 million. On Wednesday, the Public Accounts Committee will examine the costs. We will consider why £2 billion of savings—most of this is expected to come from phase 1 and phase 2a, which is what we are negotiating tonight—are probably undeliverable. Whatever the costs at the moment, they will be higher than whatever anybody says.
We need to build this railway. We need to increase capacity on our railways. We need to get cars and freight off our roads, otherwise they will clog up. That is why I support the motion.
Dr Kieran Mullan (Crewe and Nantwich) (Con)
I am grateful for the opportunity to speak, because this matter is hugely important to my constituency. I welcome the revival of the Bill, and hopefully its imminent passage, as evidence of the Government backing Crewe and backing the north. If you will allow me, Madam Deputy Speaker, I want to explain why I support the revival of the Bill.
I was glad to have had the opportunity to host the Minister at Crewe station just last week, where he got to hear first-hand about what is already happening locally: businesses opening up in Crewe and the plans Cheshire East Council has to create a new economic hub around the station. The revival of the Bill will accelerate the positive changes we see locally.
Sir William Cash
Does my hon. Friend accept that originally the railhead was going to be in Crewe? It was only frustrated by decisions on housing grounds taken by the district council. In fact, it was dumped on Stone in my constituency without any notice.
Dr Mullan
I cannot pretend, as a new Member, to have my hon. Friend’s knowledge of the intricate detail and the history of the development of the railway line. However, whether we support or oppose it, we all have a duty, when decisions on individual stations are looked at in detail, always to be open-minded to change if things are undergoing scrutiny. Ultimately, as I will come on to say, if we are building a major new railway it is inevitable that some people will face a negative environmental impact and some will have some part of the railway deposited on their patch, which they are not happy with. If we allowed that to, in effect, put a moratorium on the development of major infrastructure, that would not be the right decision for this country, even if individual Members were unhappy with it.
On what does work for my constituents, they are not very interested in getting to London 30 minutes quicker; they really are not very interested in that. What they are interested in, and what we must remind them of in terms of what we get from HS2, is that it opens up capacity as we shift inter-city traffic on to HS2 so there are more routes and journeys available to them. Faster routes tend to push the local services off the track. They welcome HS2 because it means we can transport more freight by rail. Local businesses in my area cannot get freight on to rail. When they can do that, they will be more competitive and we will move congestion off the roads. If you drive around the A roads in Crewe at night, you will see lorry after lorry after lorry parked up. That is how things are moved around and we need to switch back to the railway.
Michael Fabricant
Does my hon. Friend not realise that there is a danger that for constituencies such as mine that are not directly served by HS2—of which there are many along the west coast main line—moving freight on to the west coast main line could result in a diminution of passenger services to cities such as Lichfield?
Dr Mullan
I go back to my original point: at the moment, those more local services are hampered by the use of the west coast main line for freight and inter-city services. We will see an opening up of local routes if we move ahead with HS2, not a diminution of them.
On passengers and peak-time travel, at the moment price control is used to control peak-time travel. People cannot come down to London at 8 o’clock because the tickets are extortionate, primarily because that is the only way that we can manage the over-capacity at peak times. If we move the inter-city journeys at peak times on to HS2, there will be more, cheaper, accessible peak-time travel on the west coast main line and it will still get people to London in an hour and a half.
Another thing that my constituents will welcome is the link to the northern regions through Northern Powerhouse Rail.
Christian Wakeford (Bury South) (Con)
Many people have framed this argument as being between having only HS2 or Northern Powerhouse Rail. Does my hon. Friend agree that we can have both, and both can work together?
Dr Mullan
Absolutely. It is not either/or; it is about working together. High Speed North is a rebranding and a new way of organising this—we should firmly hammer that point home—and it is about making this project one that is led in the northern regions by the northern regions, for the northern regions. I welcome that change in the governance.
Robert Largan (High Peak) (Con)
Further to what my hon. Friend the Member for Bury South (Christian Wakeford) pointed out, people in London were not forced to choose between Crossrail and Crossrail 2. It is completely wrong to try to force people in the north to choose between HS2, Northern Powerhouse Rail and other key infrastructure projects.
Dr Mullan
Absolutely. Inevitably, projects overrun. That is unfortunate and not something that we welcome, but they do, and the fact that this has overrun should not mean that we therefore cancel it, because other people have not had to make the same choice in the south.
HS2 is a fantastic opportunity for Crewe. We have an amazing heritage and enormous local expertise in the rail industry. Crewe is and has always been a fantastic railway town. Passing the Bill and the delivery of the railway will create thousands of skilled jobs in Crewe for people helping to build the railway line.
I understand the concerns about the natural environment and I commend colleagues from constituencies where the impact will be greatest for speaking up on behalf of their residents. That is absolutely the right thing for them to do, but as I mentioned, any new major railway line connecting our cities and towns will have some degree of environmental impact. That is inevitable. We must be realistic about whether some of the strongest critics—they are not all in this House; some are outside this place—will ever really be satisfied. If we listen too closely to the voices of opposition in terms of trees and the environment, we will put a moratorium on creating major new rail and road infrastructure in this country, and that cannot be the right decision.
It is simply not feasible to suggest that we can deliver significant new capacity on our railway networks through a piecemeal approach. Network Rail estimates that it would take almost 30 years of weekend closures for even less of a result in terms of increased capacity. When this was last done on the west coast main line, the budget exploded. It might be harder to track and there might be fewer newspaper-worthy headline figures, but hundreds of smaller projects are at just as big a risk of overrunning and overspending. We need to get better at controlling costs when building infrastructure, full stop. The answer is not to halt the big-ticket items where the failings are most easily seen, because they are there on small projects, too. It is just not so easy for a journalist to add up the figures over 100 different projects and put that in a newspaper. We should not listen to that kind of criticism; it is not valid.
I recognise the significant costs involved, but this is being spent across two decades. It will work out as approximately £4.4 billion a year. The context of the timescales is too often lost when we use the headline figure. Network Rail spends around £6 billion a year on maintaining and making much smaller upgrades to our rail network, and we are planning to spend £40 billion over the next five years on other projects outside HS2. The idea that we could build a brand-new major railway line for much less than the £6 billion a year already being spent is fantasy. Let’s be ambitious for our nation. Let’s look forward, not down at our feet, get on with delivering this project and send the message to the world that the UK is open for business.
Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)
I note with interest that the motion talks about revival. To me, it is the revival of a corpse; it’s like a Hammer movie. We talk about connectivity. My hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Dr Mullan) talked about the need for additional capacity, and I agree, but let us at least do it properly. The aim was to get people off aircraft—people who want to fly to Paris from Manchester, for example—but that isn’t going to happen, is it? Instead of going to St Pancras, connecting with HS1 and going straight through to Paris, people will have to change in London. It will not replace air travel. Yes, it will provide extra connectivity, as far as Crewe and London are concerned, but it will not meet the guidelines of what was originally intended for HS2.
Why is it going in straight lines? It is going in straight lines because it was intended to go at 220 mph, but the Oakervee review says it will not go at that speed; to save money, it will go at about 150 or 160 mph instead, in which case it could have gone alongside the M40 or the M1, as Arup originally proposed, which would have saved at least £20 billion of taxpayers’ money and been less environmentally damaging.
When it comes to a vote, if it does come to a vote this evening, I will vote against revival, but not because I am against extra capacity. Of course I want extra capacity and of course I recognise that the west coast main line is working at near-100% capacity, but I totally disagree with my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich, who completely misunderstands the situation. It is fine for Crewe, but not for all those towns, such as Stone and others, along the west coast main line; extra freight on that line will mean less passenger traffic. Anyone with an ounce of mathematical or engineering skill can see that.
I am very angry about this. When I see a project that could have been done so well destroyed by people such as Lord Adonis and then rather stupidly adopted by a Conservative Government, when we could have had an HS2 based on the Arup plan, which would have been cheaper, connected better and been environmentally less damaging, I ask: has the House lost its mind? When I see the Labour party supporting the Government, I know the House has lost its mind, because whenever there is agreement between both sides of the House we know something is wrong.
Some might call this a revival, but for me it is a dead, rotten corpse that we are trying to bring to life. Despite the Government’s support—and despite the fact that the former Mayor of London said that Euston was not capable of moving traffic away from it now, let alone with HS2, because there is not enough capacity on tube trains or for buses for all the people coming down now—I am afraid I have to oppose it, not just for the sake of the people of Lichfield, but in the hope that maybe some day someone in this House will say, “Enough is enough. If we are going to do something, let’s at least do it properly”.
Theo Clarke (Stafford) (Con)
I am pleased that the Government have finally made a decision on HS2, and I welcome the fact that the uncertainty over the project is now at an end. Many of my constituents who are directly affected disagree with the project but have told me over the last few weeks that the overwhelming feeling now is that if we are going to do it, we should get on with it but do it properly. However, throughout my constituency, compensation claims remain unresolved, house purchases have entered another year of limbo, and farms and local businesses have been left wondering whether they can prevent themselves from becoming insolvent before HS2 will agree to a settlement.
Let me give some specific examples. Mr and Mrs Tabernor have told me that their farmhouse may be demolished, and they have been told by HS2 Ltd that they cannot retire and move to their farm cottage, allowing their son to live in the farmhouse, because that would invalidate their blight notice. They have already been waiting for years for a resolution, and that, in my view, is simply unacceptable. After five years or more of negotiation, Ingestre Park Golf Club is also still waiting for HS2 to come to the table and finally thrash out a reasonable agreement, and that too is not acceptable.
Residents of Hopton, Marston and Yarlet, whose house sales remain in limbo, have told me that they cannot make an offer for a new home because some Stafford estate agents now refuse to deal with anyone selling to HS2. It concerns me that they view HS2 as either too unresponsive or too difficult to deal with: that hardly gives confidence to me or my constituents.
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown
May I tactfully suggest to my hon. Friend—my friend, indeed, whom I congratulate on winning her seat—that this may be the moment of maximum leverage for her to secure a settlement on behalf of her constituents, and that she should send all the details to the Minister and ask him to look at them carefully?
Theo Clarke
I agree with my hon. Friend, and I shall be doing that.
On a general note, when it comes to negotiating, let me make something clear. When people from HS2 visit the homes of my constituents, say that they are there to listen to their concerns, sit there having a cup of and a biscuit, and then tell them that they are being over-optimistic to expect to be paid the price at which their house or business has been valued and give them the silent treatment when they do not agree, that is not a negotiation; it is a bullying tactic. I was pleased when the Prime Minister, responding to my recent question to him in the Chamber, acknowledged that compensation needed to be paid, and I agree with him that we need an overhaul of HS2 Ltd, which, in my opinion, has managed the project poorly.
I was devastated to learn from so many of my constituents that they had agreed to sell their homes—in some cases, their long-standing family homes, where they had raised their children—for less than the market value, and that their mental health could not cope with the pressure that they felt they were being put under by HS2. If I sound angry, it is because I am. Let me provide some context for that
My very first piece of constituency casework on HS2 involved a member of my team who was counselling, and helping to secure mental health support for, one of my constituents who had told me that he could no longer cope with the pressure he was under. He said that everything was going to the wall because HS2 had refused to finalise negotiations. After lengthy and protracted work in an attempt to reach an agreement to move his family business, he was told by HS2 that it would prefer to “extinguish” the business. If a private company were operating in that way, it would be featured on the BBC’s “Watchdog” programme. HS2 must be held to account for its actions.
Let me be very clear. If my constituents are forced to take the strain of this project, they should also reap the rewards. I am pleased that the Government have finally committed themselves to the Handsacre link, which is vital now that the project is going ahead in Staffordshire.
Michael Fabricant
I fully understand my hon. Friend’s stance on the Handsacre link, but, given that it is in my constituency, does she understand the distress that it is causing people in Armitage with Handsacre?
Theo Clarke
I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend.
When people in my constituency say that they are opposed to HS2, it is not because they are nimbys—as some have accused them of being—and I have not met a single resident who has not told me that that they want more investment in the north, and specifically in the west midlands. However, those residents are opposed to being treated as an inconvenience because their homes happen to be in the way of a railway that the Government want to build. They shudder when they hear that savings need to be found, because if past experience is anything to go by, it will not be HS2 salaries that go down; it will be the purchase prices and compensation paid to my constituents. However, I hope I am proved wrong.
Let me be clear: HS2 is going to happen, and if there is a vote tonight, I will reluctantly support the Government, but if HS2 is going to hang over the heads of my constituents, we must get on with it as soon as we can. Our first priority must be to finalise all the negotiations that are taking place and let my constituents get on with their lives. The advert once said “Let the train take the strain”, and I hope it does, because at present the strain that it is putting on my constituents is unacceptable. I support the Government in building national infrastructure, but the lack of adequate compensation for my constituents and the delays by HS2 are simply unacceptable. I am grateful to the Prime Minister for his assurances on compensation, but I would like to ask my hon. Friend the Minister for clarity on when it will be delivered. I also want to ask the Minister and his departmental officials to sit down with me to go through every single outstanding case in Stafford to ensure that my constituents are no longer left in HS2 limbo. They deserve that from the Government.
Mr Owen Paterson (North Shropshire) (Con)
I will be brief, because I am sure that others want to speak. I remember hearing the news about this when I was in the Cabinet. In 2010, we were told that the project was going to cost a little over £30 billion, that it would give a direct link from the north straight to HS1, opening up all the opportunities of the continent, that it was going to go directly to Heathrow, with all the advantages that that would bring, and that it would cut out short flights from Manchester and Liverpool down to Heathrow. That is not going to happen. Instead, we are going to go to somewhere called Old Oak Common. This might be a very charming place. It might have many attractions, but my constituents do not want to go to Old Oak Common. They want a direct link to HS1 and the continent, or they want to go to Heathrow.
And what has happened to the money? The money is absolutely out of control. It was £30 billion. Then we were told it was £80 billion. The latest estimate is £100 billion. The very worst figure I saw in a Sunday paper was £230 billion. Put brutally, this is Victorian technology: rolling around the country in steel boxes on steel wheels on steel track is Victorian technology. It was revolutionary at the time, but now we have broadband. The chief executive of Openreach has said that for £30 billion, the original cost of HS2, we could provide superfast fibre to every single one of the 30 million properties in the country. That would deliver far greater social, educational and economic benefits than spending this titanic sum.
It is with some regret that I have seen this project slip and slip. I have seen it with my own eyes, locally, in the village of Woore. It is effectively a salient of Shropshire sticking out into Cheshire and Staffordshire—a village of 1,200 people, a large primary school and an already busy main road, quite a lot of which has no pavements. This means that small people go to school without a pavement to walk on. HS2 announced suddenly—notices were put up in Woore, and we were told this at a meeting—that there would be 600 vehicles a day passing through the village during the construction phase. At 24 vehicles a day, a project has to get permission under section 17 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, but we are talking about 600. We have had numerous meetings with HS2. I give all credit to HS2: it has always come along, but it has not budged an inch. All that we have done is double the time of the construction phase, so that instead of 600 vehicles a day, there will be 300 a day—
Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)
Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr Paterson
I will not, because we are getting very short of time.
So on that local issue, I have got absolutely not an inch out of HS2. It has been completely inflexible. It is insisting on taking traffic round three sides of a rectangle, with a journey of about 14 miles, although it could have used a direct route of 6 miles. I am completely disillusioned with this project at national level, and I cannot see how we can justify this titanic sum of money. As my hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield (Michael Fabricant) said, the original plan was for the track to go up the M40. We were going to have very fast trains that would deliver a substitute for flight times, which is not going to happen.
Sir William Cash
Is my right hon. Friend aware of the fact that Lord Berkeley has sent a letter to the Chancellor of Exchequer giving full details of the £231 billion to which he has referred?
Mr Paterson
I am aware of that, and what is so worrying about the review is that it was totally split. Someone who is hopefully very respected by the Labour party, Lord Berkeley, is obviously strongly opposed to this.
Looking at the clock, I will finish quickly. At local level, I am totally opposed to this, and I have not had a single bit of flexibility out of HS2. This is a real threat to my constituents in Woore and, on their behalf alone, I will vote against it. At national level, I cannot possibly vote for this titanic expenditure on what is now a very flawed project, so I will vote against it tonight.
Chris Loder (West Dorset) (Con)
As someone who worked in the railway industry for 20 years, I come to this debate from the opposite direction to my hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds (Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown). I was a firm supporter of HS2 and believed it was the right thing to do, but I am afraid I have become much more sceptical of the project.
That said, the Government’s decision has been made, and so has the strategy for HS2. West Dorset has one of the worst rail frequencies in the country—the line between Yeovil, Dorchester and Weymouth has one of the worst frequencies—and, for those of us in the wider south-west, it is important that the Government Front Bench understands we have great concerns that HS2, and particularly phase 2a, should not deflect the Government’s attention and their requirement to deliver the infrastructure projects we require in the south-west.
Simon Jupp (East Devon) (Con)
Warm words for the south-west are welcome, but cold, hard cash is what is needed. The south-west voted for this Government en masse, and it is time we also saw the chequebook.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
Order. There is very little time left, and I made it clear at the beginning that this is not about other constituencies. The hon. Gentleman can refer to his constituency, but this is about a very specific matter.
Chris Loder
I equally want to make sure that we are as supportive of the Government as possible. Those of us who are moving in this debate need to be absolutely assured so, in his summing up, I would like to hear the Minister give us the confirmation and assurance that HS2, particularly phase 2a, will not affect the Government’s previous commitments to deliver schemes such as the A303 and Great Western diversion resilience for the people who supported them.
Adam Afriyie (Windsor) (Con)
My brief contribution will not be about the merits or disbenefits of HS2 but about the novel motion before us. I have not seen anything like it in my 15 years in this House, and I therefore seek two points of clarification from the Minister in his summing up.
First, will passing this motion today, irrespective of the effect on the Standing Orders of the House, pass the budget for HS2, or will there be a further opportunity to vote for or against and to contribute to a debate on the budget and the cost of HS2?
Secondly, have contracts been signed at the figures we have seen thus far? If they have not been signed, does this measure enable the signing of contracts? Will this House have an opportunity to examine those contracts and the amount of money assigned to them before this goes any further?
This is a novel motion, and it is important that the House understands the implications of proceeding via this route rather than the more traditional route for bringing legislation back to the House.
The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Andrew Stephenson)
I should like to reply to as many of the issues raised today as I can while discussing the motion. First, I am grateful to all right hon. and hon. Members who have taken part in the debate this evening. In his speech, the Prime Minister made it clear that things at HS2 need to change, and decisive action is being taken to restore discipline to the programme. I have been appointed to oversee High Speed 2, Northern Powerhouse Rail and the trans-Pennine route upgrade, ensuring that there is one Minister dedicated to focusing on this project, allowing many of the other issues that have been raised in the debate, such as the issues in the south-west, to be focused on by my ministerial colleagues in the Department.
Anthony Mangnall (Totnes) (Con)
In his remarks, the Prime Minister also alluded to the fact that the Beeching line fund would be £1.5 billion. Can the Minister confirm that, and, if so, will he be able to suggest that more money can be levelled up across the entire United Kingdom, not just in relation to the HS2 line?
Andrew Stephenson
I thank my hon. Friend for that point. He will be aware that we have officially launched our £500 million Beeching reversal fund and details about additional funding will of course be made available in due course, but the Prime Minister has been crystal clear about our intention to invest heavily in bringing back rail routes and stations and to level up all parts of our country.
John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)
Does not the short debate this evening show that the project is very different from the one that the previous Parliament approved, and that the Opposition have invented a magical railway that is very different from the one that the Bill actually captures? That shows that we need to debate this again properly, rather than rushing the thing through and regarding it as settled. It is clearly not settled and is a highly contentious project.
Andrew Stephenson
I appreciate that my right hon. Friend has been a long-term opponent of the scheme, but I would say that the motion before the House tonight is very limited. There will be many future occasions to debate the issue, I am sure.
There are about six minutes left, so, Mr Speaker, if you will allow me, I must make some progress in responding to some of the comments made by right hon. and hon. Members. The Prime Minister has made a firm commitment that we will get hold of this project and have a firm grip on it. It goes alongside a programme of wider transport investment. The Prime Minister outlined a vision for a revolution in local transport to ensure that our towns and cities in every region have the modern joined-up network needed to fire up economic growth.
Let me turn to the points raised in the debate. My hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) has been a vocal opponent of HS2 for many years, speaking frequently and eloquently on behalf of his constituents, and I understand the concerns he has expressed tonight. He asks whether I would consider not providing phase 2a until the phase 2b review has been completed, so that phase 2a can be looked at again in the light of the integrated rail plan. What I would say to him is that in giving his go-ahead to HS2 in this House on 11 February, the Prime Minister committed the Government to getting on with building phase 2a immediately and this has been reflected in the terms of reference set out for the integrated rail plan. However, I appreciate my hon. Friend’s concerns, and although I cannot change the terms of that review I am keen to work with him to ensure that the views of his constituents are heard throughout this process. I am therefore happy to commit to working with him and facilitating meetings with HS2 Ltd to address the deep concerns that I know he still holds as the Bill completes its passage.
Andrew Stephenson
I am sorry, but we are perilously close to running out of time. My hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds (Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) spoke eloquently in support of the motion. He is right on capacity and he is right in what he said on carbon. I want to reassure him that the Government are taking decisive action to restore discipline to the programme and I welcome the oversight that will be brought by the Public Accounts Committee to that project.
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown
I thank my hon. Friend. The Public Accounts Committee has had two inquiries and we are about to have another. There is universal agreement on this side of the House tonight that we need to get control of the governance of the thing and we need to get control of the cost. Will my hon. Friend give an absolute assurance to the House tonight that he will redouble his efforts to get control of the costs?
Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)
Will my hon. Friend give way on that point?
Andrew Stephenson
No.
My hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Dr Mullan) talked eloquently about the benefits to his constituency, and it was great to visit his patch last week. My hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield (Michael Fabricant) has been consistent in his opposition to High Speed 2, but I am afraid that I agree with his good friend Andy Street; this scheme has huge benefits for every part of the west midlands and we need to move forward. My hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Theo Clarke), despite being elected only in December, has already raised with me the concerns of her constituents by phone, text, WhatsApp and letter, in face-to-face meetings and again in the Chamber today. I have been left in no doubt about the strength of feeling in her constituency and about the fact that she will work tirelessly to represent all those directly affected by this section of the line. I share her concern about the way some people and communities have been treated by HS2 Ltd, and it must improve, as the Prime Minister said on 11 February. She asked about a timeline for compensation. As she will know, HS2 Ltd is required to pay landowners 90% of HS2 Ltd’s valuation within three months of receiving a claim or the date of possession, whichever is the later. The time taken to agree a settlement will often depend on the time parties take to negotiate and agree a property’s valuation and other statutory compensation. However, this is an area where I want to see real improvement, and I will be happy to meet her to discuss specific constituency cases and what more can be done to end the uncertainty that has hung over people for far too long. I thank her for the tone of her remarks tonight.
My right hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire (Mr Paterson) raised his concerns about cost. We have made it clear that we are committed to drawing a line under the past problems of cost control, and the Government recognise that things must change going forward. The latest cost estimate, as outlined in the Oakervee review, indicates that the full network cost will be between £72 billion and £98 billion, in 2019 prices. My hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Chris Loder) raised issues relating to the south-west. I can reassure him that we will not take our focus off other issues, particularly those he raises. That is why the Minister of State, Department for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris) is here with me tonight, and it is why the Government are spending £48 billion between 2019 and 2024 on the conventional rail network. My hon. Friend the Member for Windsor (Adam Afriyie) asked a few questions, on which I may come back to him, but this measure does not pass the budget—there will be many more debates.
Finally, I wish to remind the House of the reasons for bringing forward this motion to revive the Bill. By reviving the Bill, we allow those who are directly and specifically affected by the building of this section of HS2 to get the earliest possible resolution to their petitions. We prevent the need to restart this Bill, saving time and money for those who have already petitioned and protecting the investment already made by the taxpayer. This Government want to get on and provide certainty to those affected by phase 2a, the west midlands to Crewe section of the line. By reviving this Bill tonight, we provide that certainty to people as quickly as possible. I commend the motion to the House.
Question put and agreed to.
Ordered,
That if a Bill is presented to this House in this session in the same terms as those in which the High Speed Rail (West Midlands - Crewe) Bill stood at the last stage of its proceedings in this House in the 2019 session—
(a) the Bill so presented shall be deemed to have passed through all its stages in this
House, and
(b) the Standing Orders and practice of the House applicable to the Bill, so far as complied with or dispensed with in the 2019 session, shall be deemed to have been complied with or (as the case may be) dispensed with in this session.
That the above Orders be Standing Orders of the House.