Railways: High Speed 2
(11 years, 6 months ago)
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Viscount Astor
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of alternative routes for HS2, and compensation terms for those affected by it.
Viscount Astor
My Lords, the Government have so far rejected the opportunity to pause and wait until the Davies report on airport capacity in the south of England is published in 2015 and are pressing ahead with HS2. Therefore, we may have a new railway line on the right side of the country but, equally, we could have a railway line on the wrong side of the country. Who knows? However, HS2 is going ahead. What we do know is that the department has rejected a route stopping at Heathrow and so far has rejected a spur that would connect to Heathrow Aiport, so we are faced with the possibility that Heathrow may end up with the worst rail connections of any major airport in Europe.
In its recent report, the House of Commons Transport Select Committee called for a third runway at Heathrow, rejected the idea of a new airport in the Thames estuary and called for HS2 to serve Heathrow directly. What is the Minister’s response to this report? I imagine that the Government will want to wait until the Davies report has been published.
Today, we have to deal with the route for HS2 proposed by the Government. If it cannot cross the Chilterns at their narrowest point, it must be tunnelled where possible or mitigating measures must be put in place to give maximum environmental protection. If the Government would accept just one principle, which they accepted for HS1—that for any areas of outstanding natural beauty the route should be tunnelled—opposition to HS2 in the Chilterns would largely disappear. Another help would be to add an intermediate station, perhaps at Bicester, so that at least those living in the area could benefit from HS2.
It is worth repeating what made HS1 acceptable—what became known as the Kent principles: any route should be tunnelled or engineered with cuttings and sound barriers to minimise sound intrusion; it must follow the shortest route for areas of outstanding natural beauty; there must be an advantage for locals in intermediate stations, such as Ashford, which was created for HS1; and, where possible, any route should follow noisy transport corridors such as existing motorways. HS2 achieves none of these for one very simple reason—speed. I will come back to that in a moment.
The urgent issue that really concerns me is compensation. The judicial review judgment found that the Government must review their proposals. If you live within 60 metres of the line, you are automatically entitled to compensation. However, perhaps your Lordships can imagine HS2 crossing the middle of the Prince’s Chamber. If your house is on the first Cross Bench, you get compensation, but if your house is on the third Cross Bench, you get nothing. I would submit that there is not a large difference between them.
We know of at least one house 450 metres away from the proposed line that has been valued as worthless by the local building society. Many with homes just outside the planned route have found that their value has plummeted and that they cannot sell at any price. The mortgage company is demanding repayment due to the loan falling below the value of the house, and of course the banks are not interested in helping.
I will give one example. A couple in their late 70s live a few metres beyond the 60-metre limit. Their house was worth well over £200,000; now, it is virtually worthless. They cannot afford to sell but they cannot afford to stay. They want to move into a care home but they cannot. Theoretically they would have to pay because their assets are worth more than £70,000, but they do not have the money and they do not have a way out. They do not meet the definition of hardship and will be able to make an application for compensation to the Lands Tribunal only after 15 years, based on physical nuisance under complex rules. If they have not been gathered by then, they certainly will not be able to afford the costs of the case. They are suffering in a terrible vicious circle, and this is an issue that the Government ought to consider.
So far, three-quarters of those who have applied to sell their homes to HS2 have been turned down under the Government’s exceptional hardship scheme. I believe that they should review the terms of the scheme. A property bond has been proposed that would allow home owners to apply to the Government for an undertaking to purchase the property at a future date if a buyer cannot be found at the unblighted price. The bond would be transferable with the property to give confidence and security to any future purchaser or mortgage lender. This is not a new scheme. This type of scheme has been operated by Central Railway Ltd as well as by the British Airports Authority, which has a similar scheme, and mortgage lenders have successfully worked with the scheme.
The Government should remember that we are considering not just the effect of the trains once the line is completed but the many years of construction: the noise, the dust in summer and the hundreds of heavy lorries using country lanes. Local businesses, too, will be affected, and under the scheme they will have to prove loss of business—but only after some years. It would be depressing to see the value of your business decline in front of you and be unable to do anything about it until it was too late. We know that HS2 will cost more than £32 billion for the track, and another £8 billion for the trains: more than £40 billion in all. Can we have a little fairness for those who suffer real hardship? Will the Government consider a property bond? I gave the Minister notice that I would ask this question.
As I said earlier, the issue comes back to speed. The faster you go, the straighter the track has to be: no corners, so no flexibility. The Government have designed the track so that trains can run at 400 kph, which would make them some of the fastest in Europe. The plan is that they will start at 360 kph and work up to achieve an average speed from London to Birmingham of 330 kph. HS1’s maximum operating speed is 225 kph, with an average speed from London to the Channel Tunnel of 211 kph. The average speed of the HS2 service shows that it will have to operate at much slower speeds through tunnels and urban areas. Of the 225 kilometres of HS2’s route from London to Birmingham, less than half—109 kilometres—will be capable of allowing the planned 400 kph speed, due to various constraints.
So why design a track that will enable trains to run at this high speed of 400 kph when we know that it takes time to build up speed and as much time to brake to a slower speed, both of which will use energy and increase CO2 emissions? The problem with a projected speed of this nature is that there can be no corners: the track has to run virtually in a straight line. The minimum radius of curvature for the track increases, I am told—I am no mathematician or expert—from 4.05 kilometres to 7.2 kilometres. What is more, it will then limit the length of tunnels in which the train can travel at speed. Therefore, the line has to be straight. It cannot avoid urban areas or the unspoilt valleys of the Chilterns, or follow the line of the M40, where possible, to Birmingham.
We know from Europe that train speeds are being reduced, not increased, due to the disproportionate effect of very high speeds on train and track maintenance and on energy consumption and efficiency. If the plan was to operate HS2 at the same top speed as HS1, all the main issues could be dealt with, including a station at Bicester linking through to the Midlands, which would attract local support. Following the M40 as closely as possible to minimise environmental impacts would avoid most of the scarring and destruction and the damage to many homes. Many fewer houses would be affected than under the current plan, and that would enable the Government to save money, even though there would then have to be a longer track. It would avoid the loss of ancient monuments and woodlands and the severance of many public rights of way.
Therefore, my plea is for the Government to see what can be done. It is not too late. With HS1, we know that right up until the moment it was built there was a debate on where the track should go. It is not impossible to make changes. We know that we have an enabling Bill coming before us in this Session of Parliament, and we know that the Government hope to introduce a full Bill perhaps next year, so it is not too late to review the route and to take in all the matters that affect the route, whether it is speed, the environmental benefits or the environmental impact. I quite understand if the Government are determined to go ahead, and they should do so, but I urge them to look at the effect on those who live along the route and to see what they can do to mitigate the damage and improve the compensation that is available.
Lord Berkeley
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Viscount on securing this debate. It is timely and he has raised some interesting points. Certainly, he made a very good point about compensation. When I worked on the Channel Tunnel, which was an Anglo-French project, we were struck by the difference in the compensation regimes of the two countries. I think that in France people got the valuation of the property plus 10%, plus their moving costs. It was remarkable that very few people complained there, whereas they did in England and they continue to do so. Given the extra time and hassle, and the unfairness that the noble Viscount mentioned, I think that there is a strong argument for improving the package.
The noble Viscount mentioned the link to Heathrow. I believe in a new line to get extra capacity on the railway between London and the West Midlands, the north-west and the north-east. Whether that is via a high-speed passenger line, an ordinary passenger line or a freight line—I declare an interest as the chairman of the Rail Freight Group—more capacity is needed. The traffic is forecast to double in the next 20 years and the existing line certainly cannot cope with that. The Government have chosen the high-speed line.
Personally, I do not have too much of a problem with most of the route. It is interesting that it is still subject to change, as we have seen. I do not think that a spur to Heathrow is particularly sensible. I am sure that passengers going to Heathrow are terribly important, but the volume there compared with the number of passengers going to central London is very small. Probably only one train an hour is justified from, say, Manchester, whereas there will probably be three or four going to central London. They are not going to get to their terminal without changing trains because there are three groups of terminals at Heathrow. Therefore, if they are going to have to change anyway, they might as well change at Old Oak Common—that is my simplistic view on it.
However, what I worry about with the present situation is that we are getting more and more tunnels. We have a new one next to East Midlands Airport, which I think is very good for the logistics industry, we have another one near Ruislip, which I am sure my noble friend Lord Rosser will be pleased about, and we have lots of tunnels or extra lengths through the Chilterns, where there may be more to come or there may not. The extra cost of these tunnels is now probably well over £1 billion, although it may be more than that.
I have two issues to raise relating to the tunnels. The noble Viscount said that they slow down the trains. They do unless you build a tunnel big enough to reduce the air pressure, and that costs more, so there is a balance to be struck there. I do not have a clue what the right balance is but he made some good points.
However, I question whether one needs quite so many tunnels. If you go down and look at the line in Kent, you will see there are not that many tunnels. I spent quite a lot of time working on the side of line when it was being built. There was enormous opposition at the time. I thought that the environmental protection was pretty good—there are some fake tunnels and a real tunnel through the hills. You do not find many people there who now say what a disaster it is. They live with it; they are quite happy with it, and they basically ask what all the fuss was about. Having been brought up in a nice little village called Great Missenden, the one thing that I did not like was the road going through it from Aylesbury and Amersham, which, even 40, 50 or 60 years ago, was a pretty horrible road with lots of traffic. Frankly, building beside it a high-speed railway that was pretty straight, with the right sound barriers, I would have thought was probably just as good or bad as building a long tunnel—but that just happens to be my opinion.
Many noble Lords have talked about, and probably will talk about, the alleged destruction in the Chilterns and elsewhere. I do not know how many houses are going to be affected along the route outside London, but in the Camden area probably 400 houses are going to be affected by the proposed demolition west of Euston station and up at Camden Road. Residents there have just as much right to be considered and looked after as the people who live in leafier areas.
The noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, and I have come up with an alternative scheme for the London end of High Speed 2 that avoids those two areas of demolition. The idea is instead to construct an underground station linking Euston and St Pancras, next door to where Crossrail 2 might go. That would give a much better passenger throughput to the two stations as well as allowing a proper connection to HS1. It would provide not only for international trains, such as they may be, but for a new east-west Thameslink, which would probably become very popular—new forecasts are coming out quite soon that will support that.
Does the Minister have any views on this “Euston Cross” proposal? We have met representatives of HS2; we have met some Ministers. We have got further work to do, because HS2 Ltd says that it is too expensive—but it would, wouldn’t it?—but if it is going to add £1.5 billion to the budget for tunnels, it should at least look at this scheme. If it is the same price or even a little bit more and has a greater cost-benefit, it should be investigated.
I hope that this scheme goes ahead, with some changes, because if it does not then we will have to start the whole process over again. I hope that HS2 Ltd will engage with more groups and individuals along the route and listen to some of the comments being made, otherwise it will find a very large number of petitions waiting for it when it gets to the Commons and Lords Select Committees, which will cost it a lot of time and a lot of money.
Baroness Seccombe
My Lords, I, like others, congratulate my noble friend on bringing this matter before the House again. Many issues surround this expensive, grandiose and, in my eyes, not needed venture, but perhaps I may first declare my interest, as HS2 slices right through the magnificent farmland and rural communities of the constituency where I live. We are blighted not only by this but also by the threat and horror of wind turbines. The M40 runs through the constituency, so, altogether, we feel that we have been singled out for a battering. This seems to me to be the industrialisation of our beautiful countryside. People’s lives are being ruined as they assess their plight, and I feel particularly concerned for those who would apparently not be compensated because they live very close to HS2 but not close enough to benefit from compensation.
If this venture is to proceed, it seems very strange that the Government did not choose to build the line in the corridor of the M1 and the Birmingham to London railway line. The cost would, I believe, be less, as the blight has already been established, and the links around Birmingham and Birmingham International could be addressed much more simply than the present plans reveal.
The business case for this project seems to be very flimsy, and it is difficult to find reliable figures in support of it. I heard on Radio 4 last week that the benefit/cost ratio has been reduced from 2.4:1 to 1.6:1. It is inconceivable that the £33 billion cost will not increase—all public projects do. We are told that HS2 will deliver 100,000 new jobs some time in the future but, as Margaret Hodge said, the business case is,
“clearly not up to scratch”.
It is very difficult to accept the situation. There seems to be no evidence for the Department for Transport’s claim that HS2 would deliver regional economic growth. It just seems to be an ambitious fantasy pipe dream that would be constructed at an unaffordable cost to the taxpayer.
Since the privatisation of the railways, I have marvelled at the transformation of rail services. My nearest station is Banbury, so I can travel to London on the Chiltern line. We have new trains that are all fitted with wi-fi, enabling passengers to work on their computers in the comfort of carpeted carriages. Travel time is seen not as a waste of time but as quiet time away from phones before the start and hurly-burly of the day. The journey of 55 minutes, arriving at Marylebone on time, is impressive, and it seems to me that we travel at high enough speeds now.
I try not to travel at peak times, but if seats are in short supply, as many others have said, longer platforms to accommodate longer trains would be the answer. This would involve developing our infrastructure, thus bringing much-needed employment to all parts of the country now, not in the years to come. I do not know how many would profit from HS2, but it would be few compared with the many who would benefit from the upgrading of all stations on commuter routes.
There is much work to do on a business plan before the project could be approved and, most importantly, a great deal of research is needed to consider the environmental damage that would be caused. We should never forget that we are the custodians of our precious countryside and so, for the sake of all, we must not destroy our rural communities and the treasured way of life that is our heritage.
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara
My Lords, I declare an interest, as the current preferred route for phase 1 of HS2 goes very close to my home in Little Missenden—close enough to “blight” it, in the words used by the noble Baroness, Lady Seccombe, but certainly not close enough to qualify for any compensation.
I thank the noble Viscount, Lord Astor, for securing this debate and indeed for his valiant work altogether in keeping this issue in the public eye. I agree with everything that he said about the compensation scheme, which I think needs to be completely reworked, perhaps along the lines of the French model mentioned by my noble friend Lord Berkeley. I also thought that the noble Viscount’s points about the way in which the route for HS1 was changed quite late in the day were ones that we might want to keep in our minds as we move towards the paving Bill and then the hybrid Bill.
Like the noble Viscount, I have no objection to HS2 in principle and I support my party’s position on the introduction of this technology. However, taking a fresh look at HS2 may well help the Government, and indeed future Governments, to build in greater connectivity, more sustainability and, importantly, flexibility. It would also help in meeting local concerns without damaging the overall national objectives of the project.
In their announcement of the preferred route for phase 2 of HS2, the Government said that the scheme had been designed to minimise potential impact on settlements and properties as well as on important environment and heritage sites. They said:
“The scheme would avoid any national parks or areas of outstanding natural beauty”,
and registered parks and gardens. Will the Minister, the noble Earl, Lord Atlee, who is also the noble Viscount, Lord Prestwood, say why this approach was not taken for phase 1, which currently destroys the AONB in the Chilterns—including, it should be noted, the village of Prestwood? Indeed, the Chilterns AONB is now the only AONB along the entire HS2 phase 1 and phase 2 routes that is adversely impacted by the proposed project. Although the route is tunnelled from the M25 for approximately 13 kilometres through to Hyde Heath, partially bypassing Little Missenden, the remainder of the route through the AONB to beyond Wendover is on the surface or in cuttings of various depths. This has had a major and unacceptable impact on areas of ancient woodland, a scheduled ancient monument and several rights of way and ancient highways, and damaging impacts on the landscape and tranquillity of a nationally protected area.
Local residents, the county council and local district councils, along with conservation bodies, believe that if the current route has to be retained, the only acceptable solution is a tunnel throughout the AONB, continuing from Little Missenden, under Mantles Wood to Wendover. This would ensure that the villages of Prestwood, Great Missenden, Hyde Heath and Wendover would be given full-tunnel protection, along with the beautiful and unspoilt countryside in which they are located.
I agree with the noble Viscount, Lord Astor, that the Government need to think harder about environmental impacts, and to learn the lessons from what made HS1 acceptable. What he described as the Kent principles should be applied to the Chilterns AONB. In addition to better protecting the environment and unique natural assets, redrawing the preferred phase 1 route would further enable the Government to meet local concerns without damaging the overall objectives of the entire HS2 project.
The HS2 draft environmental statement consultation that was published on 16 May accepts that a tunnel right through the Chilterns AONB would perform better on environmental grounds than the current proposals. It also accepts that the all-through tunnel option is feasible in engineering terms, would reduce operational noise impacts, save landscaping costs and mitigate major surface construction at 10 locations within the AONB, including ancient woodlands and the Grim’s Ditch scheduled ancient monument. The Woodland Trust recognises the potential benefits of using tunnelling through this section of the Chilterns AONB, in particular because it can negate the loss of ancient woodlands.
Perhaps the Minister will explain how he can justify his department’s approach when Defra’s recent forestry policy statement declares:
“England’s 340,000 hectares of ancient woodlands are exceptionally rich in wildlife, including many rare species and habitats. They are an integral part of England’s cultural heritage and act as reservoirs from which wildlife can spread into new woodlands”.
It states categorically:
“Protection of our trees, woods and forests, especially our ancient woodland, is our top priority”.
I repeat: “our top priority”. We understand that the Department for Transport is drawing up a landscape plan for HS2 which proposes the planting of 4 million native trees. Although welcome, these new trees can never compensate for the loss of ancient woodland which, by its nature, is irreplaceable.
The Government need to explain why the HS1 Kent principles are not being applied to HS2 phase 1, and in particular why the preferred route does not follow existing transport corridors, away from the Chilterns AONB. They need to get a better balance between the irretrievable loss of a unique natural landscape and shaving a few minutes off a journey. I would be grateful if the Minister would confirm that a plan to tunnel all through the Chilterns AONB will be included in the final environmental statement report as one of the “main alternatives” that HS2 Ltd has studied, so that the public and in due course Parliament can take this information into account at the hybrid Bill stage.
Redrawing the phase 1 route so that it crosses the Chilterns AONB at a narrower point would help meet local concerns without damaging the overall national objectives of the HS2 project. It would also improve rail access to Heathrow. Given the extent to which this might enable local people to come more readily to accept the HS2 project, it would seem an eminently sensible proposal. It must make sense for the Government to bring as many people along with their plans as they can. If this could be agreed, it would also, as my noble friend said, reduce considerably the time required for scrutiny of the hybrid Bill. I urge the Government to look again at the preferred route for phase 1 of HS2.
Lord Truscott
My Lords, first, I apologise for arriving late. I was given slightly different timings, but clearly the error was mine and I will read Hansard carefully and take note of what has been said. I, too, thank the noble Viscount, Lord Astor, for initiating this short debate. This is the third such debate since last summer, and no doubt there will be many more over the coming years. The compensation scheme still appears shambolic, with many thousands of people losing out by being trapped in homes they may be unable to sell. I hope that the Minister will reassure noble Lords that the Government are finally getting a grip on the situation. Perhaps he could also inform your Lordships if the property bond finds favour with the Government.
Since our last debate in February, there have been further developments. The National Audit Office’s report on HS2 is damning. The case for HS2 is not convincing and the timetable is “challenging”. The NAO said that it was unclear how the project would deliver and rebalance economic growth, particularly in the regions. The Department for Transport had not assessed the value of time-savings correctly and had knowingly used outdated data. There was a £3.3 billion funding gap and the DfT had simply got its cost-benefit ratio figures wrong. The head of the NAO summed it up thus:
“It’s too early in the High Speed 2 programme to conclude on the likelihood of its achieving value for money. Our concern at this point is the lack of clarity around the Department’s objectives”.
The response of the Secretary of State for Transport in the other place to the NAO report sounds to me as if he is losing the plot. He attacked the NAO as a “bunch of bean counters”. Quite apart from the extraordinary spectacle of a Cabinet Minister attacking a body set up by Parliament to hold government to account, I question why the Secretary of State for Transport has more faith in his own officials, whose planning and implementation to date has not been above reproach—in fact, on occasion it has been quite awful.
There is also the question of the draft environmental statement, which is disappointing. The Government’s own forestry policy statement, referred to by my noble friend Lord Stevenson of Balmacara, states that protection of our trees, woods and forests, and especially our ancient woodland, is “our top priority”. Yet the draft summary of the environmental statement states that,
“at present there are no route-wide significant effects on habitats”.
That is patently not the case. Nor will growing an extra 4 million trees, as has already been mentioned, replace the irreplaceable. That is an environmental sop.
The proposed design speed of HS2, at 400 kph, resulting in a virtually straight line between London and Birmingham, will inflict maximum damage on the environment, including the Chilterns area of outstanding natural beauty. The Chilterns AONB is now the only one along the entire route so affected. A lower design speed following existing transport corridors, as with HS1, would have a far reduced impact, along the lines of the Kent principles referred to by the noble Viscount, Lord Astor, and by my noble friend Lord Stevenson of Balmacara.
In conclusion, I hope that the Government will listen carefully to reasoned opposition on HS2 and not descend to the mindless tactic of attacking the messenger rather than addressing the serious issues raised.
Lord Vinson
I apologise for arriving late, but the overrun rather threw the timetable out.
I am not scheduled to speak, but, as a businessman and having carefully followed the debates on the whole of HS2, it does seem to me to be a folly of the first order. Our country is desperate for new infrastructure development, not only in railways but particularly in roads and elsewhere. This project will not begin to return any money for 15 years, because it cannot until it is running. It has undoubtedly been underestimated already as they have left out the cost of the trains, which are an integral part of the project. It will mean spending £30 billion to £40 billion on something that will yield a negative return, because there is no high-speed train or railway in the world that runs at a profit. It will either have very high fares to try to justify it, or be heavily subsidised.
This country needs that £40 billion spent now over the next 10 years on improving our road bottlenecks, where 95% of our freight will always travel because freight cannot go by high-speed trains; it is a fantasy to think that it can. We have bottlenecks and pinch points on existing railways that could be opened up for a fraction of the money at issue here. I am repeating many of the hugely sensible arguments that have been put up against this vanity project. I hope that it can be delayed in every possible way. I hope that the Treasury will come to the conclusion that it is far too expensive. I hope that sanity will reign so that this money can be deflected to national projects that will give an economic return. Roads, for example, give a huge economic return. It is no good saying, “All people have got to travel by train”. They will travel by car to reach the high-speed trains and there will be massive congestion around the new rail terminals that are going to be put in place.
It is a fantasy project. Nowhere in the world do high-speed trains pay. We have very short distances in this country. For the longer distances—for example, from London to Edinburgh—airlines will always be able to offer fares at one-quarter of the price of train fares for the simple reason that air travel has no highway costs. It has terminal costs, but no highway costs. That is what is makes air travel inherently cheaper over longer distances.
On all these factors, I hope that the Government will reconsider. I hope that they will find a good excuse for dodging their present plans and an admirable reason for postponing, delaying and then cancelling this fantasy project that will bring no economic benefit at all to the British Isles.
Lord Rosser
My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Viscount, Lord Astor, for enabling us to have this debate today. It is probably not an unfair statement to make that most of the speeches have hardly been enthusiastic about HS2, and I shall return to that point shortly.
On the question of alternative routes, I hope that the Minister will be able to say something about the extent to which the current route now proposed is fixed, particularly the extent to which any further changes would involve reopening or extending the consultation process and the impact that this might have on the timetable for the development and construction of the line. Perhaps the Minister could also say whether further decisions to put more of the line in a tunnel or cutting than is presently envisaged would mean further delay as a result.
I ask these questions in the context of a press advertisement this morning from the Department for Transport about public consultation events on the draft environmental statement for phase 1 of HS2. Is the basis of this consultation that the route, including the extent to which it is in tunnel or above ground, has been fixed, or could this consultation lead to changes in the route or the extent to which it is in a tunnel or a cutting?
On compensation terms, I await with interest the Minister’s response to the questions raised and points made in the debate today. Will the amount of money available for compensation be fixed, or are the Government saying that it can be increased if they decide that a case for doing so has been made? What action have they taken in the light of the recent judicial decision on compensation?
Reference has already been made to the recent National Audit Office report on High Speed 2. It is clear that the Government’s inability properly to progress major transport projects continues. Having already announced that they would be incapable of making a decision during the entire five years of this Parliament on airport capacity in the south-east, the Government then showed themselves less than capable of running the rail franchise bidding programme. The west coast main line franchising fiasco has resulted in nearly the whole of the rest of the programme being delayed or deferred and millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money being wasted.
The next display of a deficiency in competence over handling a project is now occurring over the high-speed rail link from London to the West Midlands, Manchester and Leeds. A less than complimentary National Audit Office report has highlighted financial and timetabling problems as well as the Government’s failure to articulate properly the powerful case for HS2.
As a result, the current hostility, which we have seen in part today, of a number of MPs and Peers, primarily Conservative, to the project is continuing. The National Audit Office has damningly said that the Government’s strategic reasons for developing High Speed 2 were not well presented in the business case. Its report also states that the timetable for introducing the hybrid Bill for HS2 phase 1 to Parliament this year has been overambitious and remains challenging. Witheringly for Transport Ministers, the NAO then drew attention to its earlier report on cancelling the intercity west coast franchise procurement, which had highlighted the mistakes that can be made in trying to meet an unrealistic timetable.
Further issues of concern to the NAO are the absence of a government mechanism to agree long-term, in-principle funding for the life of the HS2 programme, and serious doubts over the transport department’s capacity to undertake the HS2 programme to a challenging timetable, bearing in mind its other commitments and the impact of considerable organisational change, driven by the Government, within the department.
The NAO report does not address the environmental case for HS2 for reasons that are, frankly, not clear, but it then calls for an examination of premium fares for HS2 when there is no precedent for it, as the HS1 premium fares apply only to commuter services and no commuter services are planned for HS2.
Our support for HS2, which we first proposed and embarked upon when in government, remains undiminished. It is needed to address serious and mounting capacity problems on our existing rail network and, in particular, the west coast main line. The NAO report spells out far more effectively than this Government have ever done the increasing capacity problems for commuters at Euston in the peak and it goes on to say that a new line—that is, HS2,
“would release capacity for extra commuter services as most intercity services would transfer”.
As we have said before, in the light of the Government’s decision on the route, their dithering and delay on the question of airport capacity in the south-east and the need to progress HS2, we are no longer pressing for our preferred alternative route via Heathrow. We still have serious concerns about the adequacy of the link proposed in London between HS2 and the High Speed 1 route to the Channel Tunnel and Europe, the impact of the Government’s plans on Camden and recent proposals for a scaled-back Euston station. We will, however, be providing cross-party support to secure parliamentary approval for the HS2 project to become a reality while ensuring that it is fully integrated into the existing network, is affordable to use and is not undertaken at the expense of investment in the existing network.
However, HS2 will not progress if the Government again fail to get their act together on this further major transport project. The larger government party has lost control and influence over its Back-Benchers on Europe and gay marriage in both the Commons and the Lords. If a hat trick of Back-Bench rebellions is to be avoided, the Government have to make the case for HS2 with rather more vigour and determination than they have done up to now and also act on the critical NAO report on their failures to date.
Earl Attlee
My Lords, I assure the Committee that I will be supporting and pursuing the HS2 project with great vigour.
I start by thanking my noble friend Lord Astor for securing this debate and I thank other noble Lords for their contributions. A project as significant as HS2 deserves plenty of time for debate, and I am happy to address your Lordships’ questions this evening and, I hope, on future occasions.
There have been some developments. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Transport introduced the High Speed Rail (Preparation) Bill, to which my noble friend referred, in the House of Commons on 13 May. It is colloquially known as the paving Bill. We also published the Draft Environmental Statement for phase 1 on 16 May, along with a consultation on the proposed route refinements.
Noble Lords will also be aware of the NAO’s review of HS2. The report is a snapshot from the past and the project has moved on. Economic modelling is just part of the story. If we relied only on modelling, we would not have built the M1, parts of the M25 or the Jubilee line extension to Canary Wharf. We are not building HS2 simply because “the computer says yes”; it is the right thing to do to make Britain a stronger and more prosperous place.
The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, made much of the NAO report. Perhaps I may remind him that the Government are running with a project that his party started, and we are very happy to do so. This is a transformational project that will serve eight out of 10 of the UK’s largest cities, bringing our major cities closer together and two-thirds of people in the north to within two hours of London.
The Government support a direct high-speed connection to Heathrow but it is sensible that further work on a link to Heathrow should await the consideration of the Airports Commission’s recommendations, due in 2015. If it fitted with the commission’s recommendations, we could consult separately later and include the spur in the legislation for phase 2. It could be constructed as part of phase 2 without any impact on the operational railway.
We welcome the outcome of the judicial review, with nine of the 10 challenges being rejected. The one challenge on which the judge found against the Government concerned the 2011 consultation on property compensation rights. The judgment makes clear that it was the process, not the compensation scheme itself, that was flawed. We are giving detailed consideration to the judge’s comments and are planning to reconsult later this year on property compensation schemes.
My noble friend has claimed that properties more than 60 metres from the line would not be eligible for compensation. This is not correct. The exceptional hardship scheme for phase 1 has no defined geographical limit for qualification. However, the EHS is only the start; we will consult later this year on long-term proposals for property schemes that will apply to those outside the 120-metre swathe that my noble friend has described. I have more to say on property compensation.
It is regrettable that the recent judicial review has delayed the introduction of further compensation. However, the Government have been clear that we want to get compensation to those who need it as quickly as possible. While it is inappropriate to speculate on the final package of schemes, I can confirm that the scheme, or rather the consultation, will include a property bond.
The Government are determined to make this an environmentally responsible scheme. We have listened to concerns and worked closely with Natural England and the Environment Agency. However, you cannot build a railway without causing some disruption. The noble Lord, Lord Stevenson of Balmacara, raised the issue of the Chilterns. Following the 2011 consultation, of the 13 miles of route through the Chilterns AONB, less than two miles will be at or above the surface. This is more than a 50% increase in tunnel or green tunnel compared with the original route. It is clearly harder to avoid an AONB near the Home Counties than further north, where there are more possibilities of changing the route.
Mitigation can have its own impacts. A full-bored tunnel through the Chilterns was considered, but would require 10 ventilation shafts as well as an emergency access station. This would be a box constructed within the AONB, around half a mile long, with good road access for emergency services. Only one feasible location for this access station was identified, close to Little Missenden on the A413, requiring the box to be between 40 metres and 50 metres deep, making this a costly and significant engineering challenge, with its own environmental impacts.
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara
I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. I think I detected a somewhat aggressive stance in what he was saying. I am sorry that he says that. Does he not accept that there is in fact an alternative scheme, which I mentioned in my speech, that proposes a relief tunnel, exactly as specified and required under European legislation, at Wendover Dean? That has the support of local residents, which is one of the major reasons why it has been put forward. To say that there is no alternative except in Mantle’s Wood, the very ancient woodland that we are most concerned about, which happens to be near Little Missenden and indeed Great Missenden, is wrong, and we are against that. There is an alternative. It is not the best alternative, but it is disingenuous of the Minister to say that there are no possible alternatives.
Earl Attlee
My Lords, I am extremely sorry to the Committee if I appeared to be aggressive. I have no intention of doing that at all. However, the noble Lord is raising detailed questions about the route, and my duty is to defend the whole scheme. It will be the duty of Parliament to finally approve the route. At the moment, we are consulting about the route, and we need to do that properly. I will of course read Hansard carefully to look at the precise points that the noble Lord has made.
I turn to the issue of train speed, which my noble friend Lord Astor raised. The route has been engineered to allow for train speeds of up to 400 kilometres per hour in future, should there be a commercial justification for doing so. Operation at up to 400 kilometres per hour would require the consideration of whether improved train design enabled services to operate at that higher speed without additional significant adverse environmental effects. Going fast does not disproportionately increase the cost of the infrastructure, but it means that the alignment has to be more or less straight.
I will try to answer as many questions as I can in the time remaining. My noble friend Lord Astor proposed a station at Bicester, but then he went on to point out the difficulties of accelerating and decelerating from stations. My noble friend made further comments on train speeds. While it is true that some European operators are looking at operating at slightly lower speeds, largely due to maintenance issues, we are not aware of any that are planning to go as low as 225 kilometres per hour. The infrastructure is still built for higher speeds so that, when technology allows, they will be able to return to those higher operating speeds.
My noble friend also talked about the spur to Heathrow. It is important to understand that the spur has not been cancelled but has been paused, and it is too early to predict the outcome of the Airports Commission’s work or any of the decisions taken following that. There are no plans to slow down the progress of phase 1. We need to press on quickly with phase 1 so that we can deliver the economic and wider benefits that higher rail speeds can bring. Does pausing the spur mean no third runway at Heathrow? The Government’s position on a third runway at Heathrow remains unchanged, as set out in the coalition agreement. However, the Airports Commission has been tasked with identifying and recommending to the Government options for maintaining the UK’s status as an international hub for aviation.
My noble friend Lord Astor and others have suggested that, where possible, the route should follow noisy transport corridors such as existing motorways. During the course of the scheme development work in 2009, six main corridors, including the M40 and the M1, were considered. The routes were rejected, primarily because of their adverse implications for journey times and economic benefits, which were compounded by their higher costs. Any environmental advantages that these options offered over the proposed scheme were marginal at best, and therefore not decisive in discounting these routes.
I turn to the issue of compensation. We are clear that we need to have a very good compensation scheme. Most infrastructure projects compensate property owners only at a much later stage of development, when statutory measures apply. For the HS2 project, however, an exceptional hardship scheme has already been introduced while the route is being considered. Subject to consultation later this year, the Government have already stated that we hope to introduce subsequent schemes that go even further than the law requires in order to ensure fair compensation for those directly affected by HS2.
Perhaps it would be helpful if I gave a case study for what we are doing with the EHS, remembering that it is inappropriate for me to comment on specific individual cases. Take a lady living 350 metres from the proposed HS2 route who suffered from an illness that meant she was unable to safely climb the stairs in her home. The lady therefore needed to sell her home to purchase a bungalow but, because of the proximity of HS2, she was unable to achieve a sale at the required price. The lady and her husband applied to the EHS, providing documentary evidence that they met the criteria for the scheme, including that the lady was suffering exceptional hardship. A majority independent panel considered the evidence and recommended that the lady’s home should be purchased from her. This recommendation was reviewed and agreed by a senior civil servant at the DfT. Some 12 weeks later, we exchanged contracts on the lady’s home for the full, unblighted value. So far we have brought 81 properties on to the scheme, spending just under £50 million, and have offered to buy a further 32.
Viscount Astor
I am grateful to my noble friend for giving way. He kindly said that the Government have the intention of introducing a property bond. I realise that there will not be time for him to go into the details today but I would be grateful, when he has had a chance to consider what it might be, if he would perhaps write to those who have spoken in this debate with any details that he has.
Earl Attlee
My Lords, I very nearly slipped up in what I said. I nearly said that we would be introducing a property bond, but I corrected myself and said that we would be consulting on a property bond, which is rather different.
My noble friend gave us an amusing analogy about the Palace of Westminster, where the Cross Benches are and so on. This claim reflects neither the current strategy provisions nor the discretionary proposals put forth by the Government. Property owners may be entitled to Part 1 compensation under the Land Compensation Act 1973. This is paid if the property loses value due to the impact of physical factors arising from the use of new infrastructure, such as noise, dust and vibration. It is available for owner-occupiers of residential properties, small businesses and agriculture units. Owners can put in claims once the railway line has been open for a year. This allows the actual impact of the infrastructure to be understood.
I have completely run out of time. I will have to write on all the other issues, apart from the suggestion from the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, of a below-ground station at Euston. I read the noble Lord’s proposal very carefully but I am afraid that it has been rejected. In order to avoid Underground lines and the proposed Crossrail 2 and Thameslink station at Kings Cross, the station would need to be very deep—50 metres or more. The significant additional cost and complexity of constructing such a station, and the significant safety issues that it would present in respect of evacuation, mean that this option is not viable. I have discussed this with the engineer, and will happily discuss it further with the noble Lord if that would help. I would also be very happy to have separate meetings with Members of the Committee on each individual issue, as I have only 12 minutes to respond today and it is very difficult for me to do justice to noble Lords’ points.
I reassure the Committee that the Government will continue to listen to concerns about the impact of HS2. The consultation on the draft environmental statement and route refinement will be an opportunity for people to respond with their views on what is needed. HS2 is about helping Britain to thrive and prosper.
Lord Rosser
Before the Minister sits down, in the light of what he said at the end about the consultation on the environmental statement, I am still not clear, and would therefore like him to confirm whether the outcome of that consultation could lead to the route that has been determined so far being changed, and whether it could lead to the extent to which a line is in a tunnel, in a cutting or on the surface also being changed—or is that all fixed now?
Earl Attlee
My Lords, at the end of the day, nothing is fixed until Parliament has determined what the route will be. The role of the Government is to propose to Parliament what the route should be, using the appropriate procedures, and then Parliament will agree what the route will be.