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Oral Answers to Questions
(10 years, 7 months ago)
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Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
1. What her projected time scale is for implementing all the border systems programme aims.
The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mrs Theresa May)
Keeping the UK’s border secure is our priority. By the end of this Parliament, we will develop replacement primary border security systems, deliver exit checks, improve resilience of all current business-critical systems, increase advance passenger information coverage, and complete implementation of second-generation e-gates.
Philip Davies
I am grateful for the Home Secretary’s answer. However, what progress has been made in the procurement process for the e-borders contract given that the UK industry was first approached in early 2013 and nations such as Canada, Saudi Arabia and Mexico have been able to complete similar procurements and implementations in as little as six months?
Mrs May
My hon. Friend makes an interesting point about the procurement process. We have done two things in the Home Office: first, we have looked to make absolutely sure that we have identified the right technology that is necessary; and secondly, we have changed the approach we take to procurement to move away from the mega-monolithic contracts that tended to be entered into by the previous Government so as to be able to parcel the contracts up into smaller packages that mean we are more flexible and that a greater range of companies is able to bid for those contracts.
Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)
The hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) is right: the process has been slow. The e-borders programme has been a disaster costing the taxpayer millions of pounds, with four years of unresolved negotiations with the original providers. In his evidence to the Home Affairs Committee, Sir Charles Montgomery said that 5 million people leave this country without providing advance passenger information. How many of the 14 core services that were due to be provided by e-borders will be provided by the end of this Parliament?
Mrs May
I outlined to my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) what we will have completed by the end of this Parliament. I am happy to repeat the list that I read earlier. We will have delivered exit checks, increased advance passenger information coverage, introduced second-generation e-gates, developed primary border security systems, and improved the resilience of all our current business-critical systems.
Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)
It is clearly very important to have exit checks back, because without them it is hard to have a sensible immigration policy. Sir Charles Montgomery from Border Force told the Select Committee that full e-borders capability would not be provided by the time of the general election. What is not going to be in place, and do we need it?
Mrs May
I have already established twice in my answers what is going to be completed during this Parliament by the time of the next general election. My hon. Friend is a member of the Home Affairs Committee and has obviously heard Sir Charles Montgomery, the director general of Border Force, give evidence on a number of occasions. One of the points Sir Charles has made in his evidence is that we have been increasing the amount of advance passenger information available to us so that we now have 80% coverage in all transport and more than 90% coverage in aviation.
Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)
The official Opposition and I support exit checks. I wonder whether the Home Secretary has read what the Deputy Prime Minister has said:
“I have for some time been concerned with the urgency with which the Home Office is seeking to implement the coalition agreement commitment that I personally insisted on, that exit checks should be restored…Do I think, given what I know now, that new exit checks will be in all exit places by 2015? I think that is unlikely”.
For once, I agree with Nick—does the Home Secretary?
Mrs May
I share the Deputy Prime Minister’s concern to ensure that we are able to provide for the commitment that we made in the coalition agreement that we would introduce exit checks. By April 2015 we will have enabled exit checks to take place for those who are leaving the UK by scheduled international travel by air, sea and rail services.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
Whatever entry or exit checks we deploy, my constituents are concerned that we should not grant asylum to people who come to our shores through other safe countries. What use is being made of the Dublin convention whereby we send back such people to the last safe country they left?
Mrs May
I hope I can reassure my hon. Friend that we do use the Dublin regulations; indeed, I defend those regulations regularly in the Justice and Home Affairs Council within the European environment. It is very important that people are returned to the first country by which they entered the European Union. Unfortunately, because of court judgments we are not currently able to return people to Greece, but we are working with the Greek authorities to improve their capability for dealing with asylum seekers so that we will be able to do so in due course.
Stuart Andrew (Pudsey) (Con)
3. What steps she is taking to stop human trafficking.
John Glen (Salisbury) (Con)
7. What steps she is taking to stop human trafficking.
The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mrs Theresa May)
I am determined to tackle human trafficking and modern slavery. Later this year we will introduce a Modern Slavery Bill, to ensure that our laws properly protect victims and bring perpetrators to justice, together with an action plan, to galvanise those involved in stamping out this horrific crime. In addition, we are reviewing the identification and provision of care for victims. Earlier this month at the Vatican, I launched the Santa Marta group, which will bring together senior law enforcement chiefs from around the world and play a critical role in taking practical steps to end modern slavery.
Stuart Andrew
Will my right hon. Friend assure me that she is also working with other countries to stop people being trafficked into the United Kingdom, to stop criminals targeting vulnerable people and, primarily, to protect our communities from those criminals?
Mrs May
My hon. Friend makes a very important point, because working internationally and co-operating across borders is a key part of our being able to deal with this issue and tackle modern slavery and the human trafficking that often lies behind it. The action plan, to which I have referred and which I intend to publish later this year, will set out very clearly how we will undertake a range of activities with source countries. It will include the work of British embassies to prioritise the issue of trafficking, encouraging greater use of joint investigation teams and providing support to victims who want to return home. Of course, there is always more to do and I am always keen to explore any further efforts we can make.
John Glen
I welcome what the Home Secretary has said, but does she agree with my constituent, Jane Launchbury, that this is also a key opportunity to introduce a system of legal guardianship to ensure that the most vulnerable children can be supported through the numerous interactions they will have with officialdom? Will the Home Secretary outline which steps the Bill will take to ensure that victims of child trafficking will be protected?
Mrs May
I agree with my hon. Friend that we need to make sure that we provide properly for all victims of modern slavery and human trafficking, and, obviously, we all have particular concerns about child victims. The Modern Slavery Bill will enable us to strengthen our response to human trafficking and modern slavery, for both adult and child victims. We are taking some important steps. I announced in January our intention to trial specialist independent advocates for victims of child trafficking. They would support and guide the child through the immigration, criminal justice and care systems, ensuring that the child’s voice is heard and that they receive the best form of support and protection they need. Of course, we have to consider that matter following the passing in the Lords of an amendment to the Immigration Bill that has put on hold our proposals for those pilots.
Mr Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Lab)
I thank the Home Secretary for the initiative she has taken on this front. The Joint Committee of both Houses has reported to her. Does she know yet when she may able to respond?
Mrs May
I am not able to give the right hon. Gentleman a date as to when I will be able to respond, but we are grateful to the Joint Committee for the detailed work it did and the commitment it showed in looking at this issue. That is why I want to look at it and to make absolutely sure that we respond to all the points the Committee raised.
Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)
I, too, had the privilege of serving on the Joint Committee, which concluded unanimously, across all the parties, that key to prevention of human trafficking is improved protection of its victims. In view of the 47% increase in the number of victims identified, can the Home Secretary assure us that she knows what happens to them when they leave shelters, often after 45 days, and whether there is continuing support and protection available to victims beyond that which is automatically provided?
Mrs May
The hon. Lady refers to the Committee’s report and she is right to say that we want to ensure the protection of victims. Part of that is ensuring that the perpetrators can be caught, because if the victims have support and protection, they are more likely and willing to come forward to give evidence. In dealing with modern slavery and human trafficking, we must never take our focus away from dealing with the perpetrators. The Modern Slavery Bill will give us an enhanced ability to deal with those who are perpetrating this abhorrent crime.
The hon. Lady raises an important point. Many people will leave the refuge or protection they have been in after 45 days, but in many cases they will be able to go into a further form of protection that will have been discussed, and the charitable and voluntary sectors are working very well on that.
Sir John Randall (Uxbridge and South Ruislip) (Con)
I commend the Home Secretary for her lead on this issue. I am sure that she realises that the Modern Slavery Bill could be a world leader. A lot of countries are looking at us with regard to the Bill. I just want to emphasise the point made by the hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) that although it is absolutely right to go after the perpetrators and give them the strongest possible sentences, it is incredibly important that we support the victims in order to get those convictions.
Mrs May
My hon. Friend makes an important point. I am grateful to him for the work that he has done on the particular issue of modern slavery and human trafficking. We will follow a twin-track approach: the legislation will obviously enable us to strengthen our law enforcement ability, particularly to deal with those perpetrating this crime, and it will also of course set up the anti-slavery commissioner. The action plan that I intend to publish will focus very clearly on the support that we can give victims. We want to ensure that victims are supported and we want people to give evidence against the perpetrators, because if we can reduce the number of perpetrators, we will reduce the number of victims.
Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
The Home Secretary refers to having limited voluntary pilots, which is all very well, but numerous charities, the cross-party Committee on the draft Modern Slavery Bill and the other place all support having independent guardians or advocates to protect trafficked children and support putting this on a full statutory basis. Will she say whether she will attempt to overturn the new clause—clause 65 of the Immigration Bill—and if so, why?
Mrs May
We, of course, want to ensure that we provide that support for child victims and, as I said in response to the question from my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (John Glen), that is why we have brought forward the trials of independent advocates. They align almost entirely with the role of child trafficking guardians, but with some exceptions: our advocates support all child victims of trafficking, whether trafficked into the UK or within the UK, and obviously focus on the needs of children, not on those of adults. We are trialling them because the support currently given is inconsistent—some local authority areas give better support than others—and we want to ensure that the system introduced is the one that will work and provide the best level of support.
Bridget Phillipson (Houghton and Sunderland South) (Lab)
4. What recent progress she has made on tackling violence against women.
Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)
14. What recent progress she has made on tackling violence against women.
The Minister for Crime Prevention (Norman Baker)
The coalition Government published our updated action plan on 8 March, setting out recent progress to tackle violence against women and girls. We have begun the national roll-out of the domestic violence disclosure scheme and domestic violence protection orders; commissioned Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary’s review into domestic abuse, and announced steps to ensure the recommendations are acted on; and criminalised forced marriage. We are continuing a robust programme to tackle female genital mutilation.
Bridget Phillipson
As the Minister is aware, the all-party group on domestic and sexual violence recently published a report on women’s access to justice, with a number of recommendations. I am grateful to the Minister for giving evidence to that inquiry. Will he set out what steps he will take to review our findings and to implement the recommendations?
Norman Baker
As the hon. Lady knows, I very much welcome that particular inquiry. She has considerable experience in this field, as I readily recognise. We are giving proper consideration to the recommendations, as she would expect, and we will make an announcement in due course. I very much welcome the work that has been done.
Debbie Abrahams
In Greater Manchester last year, over 10,000 more domestic violence incidents were reported to the police, which is a 21% increase on the year before; yet 29% fewer domestic violence cases were referred for prosecution. Will the Minister explain the reason for that, and what will he do about it?
Norman Baker
Let me first say that the Home Secretary and I share a concern about some figures that come out from individual police forces. That is why my right hon. Friend has written to chief constables and police force leads on domestic abuse, making clear our expectation as a Government that every police force will have an action plan in place by September to improve their response to domestic violence and abuse. It is important, however, to stress that three out of four cases of violence against women and girls do result in convictions.
Mr Simon Burns (Chelmsford) (Con)
Will the Minister update the House on what progress has been made towards involving general practitioners and other medical practitioners in exposing and bringing to justice those who engage in the horrific and despicable crime of FGM?
Norman Baker
I am happy to tell my right hon. Friend that there is good co-operation across Departments. The Department of Health is closely involved in the matter and the public health Minister in particular, the Under-Secretary of State for Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea (Jane Ellison), has been very supportive of the efforts of the Home Office. My right hon. Friend will know that under section 47 of the Children Act 1989, anyone who has information showing that a child is at risk is required to inform social care or the police. He will also know that the Department of Health has taken steps to ensure that FGM cases are monitored in the health service so that we have a full picture by later this year.
Angie Bray (Ealing Central and Acton) (Con)
22. Will my hon. Friend join me in congratulating the Metropolitan police and the Mayor of London on securing the first UK prosecution for female genital mutilation? Will he update us on what progress has been made towards making it mandatory to share key information with all the relevant agencies?
Norman Baker
Obviously, as my hon. Friend will appreciate, I cannot comment on cases that are before the courts. I strongly support the efforts of the Director of Public Prosecutions to ensure that prosecutions take place, and the police forces who are taking the matter forward in a productive way. I mentioned a moment ago the action that the Department of Health is taking and she will be aware that guidance has been issued to schools by the Secretary of State for Education, so there is a joined-up approach across Government. The question of mandatory reporting will be considered by the Department of Health and others as the initiative unrolls.
Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)
In the past month, two women in Hackney have been killed by violent partners, one with her 23-month-old child. Those women had talked to their friends about the risks that they faced. What action is the Minister taking to ensure that funding for organisations such as the Family Rights Group, which is based in Hackney, is not stopped by the Department for Education so that friends and family members, as well as potential victims, have somewhere to go?
Norman Baker
I am not familiar with the DFE funding, but I can tell the hon. Lady that the Home Office has allocated £40 million to deal with these important matters. I am deeply sorry to hear of the events in her constituency. We seek to learn lessons from each case. I remind her that we have introduced domestic violence disclosure orders and protection orders to help women in such situations.
Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)
Last year, 1.2 million women suffered from domestic abuse and 330,000 suffered from sexual assault. Does the Minister agree not only that those are terrible figures in themselves, but that the initiative to drive women’s rights across the world, which was announced recently by the Foreign Secretary, will stand a chance of gaining credence or traction only if we sort the problem out at home?
Norman Baker
I agree entirely with my hon. Friend that those are appalling crimes. There is a call to the police about domestic abuse every 30 seconds, which is a shaming statistic for our society. There is also a cost, which is obviously a secondary consideration, of £15.7 billion a year. We have to do everything we can, as the Home Office is doing, to get a grip on this matter. Colleagues in the Department for International Development and the Foreign Office are similarly concerned and are taking action within their portfolios.
Helen Jones (Warrington North) (Lab)
The shocking report on domestic violence by Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary revealed that high levels of vacancies in domestic violence units and unsustainable case loads were leading to quotas being imposed on victims that were deemed to be high risk. Given that evidence, does the Minister accept that the Government’s hollowing out of the police force has resulted in the loss of specialist officers, inhibited the ability to pursue cases and, most importantly, left victims at risk? When will he accept responsibility for the Government’s actions, instead of blaming others?
Norman Baker
I am sorry to hear that contribution from the hon. Lady, because this is an issue that all Members of the House, irrespective of gender or party, feel strongly about. To politicise it in that way is not helpful. She talked about the police force, but she ought to remember that crime is down by more than 10% under this Government and that there are therefore fewer crimes to investigate. To imply that the police are unable to deal with this matter is simply not right. We attach a high priority to the matter. That has been made clear by the Home Secretary, by myself and by the action that the Government is taking.
Mr David Heath (Somerton and Frome) (LD)
5. What steps she has taken to prevent human trafficking for purposes of labour exploitation.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Karen Bradley)
My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has set out in detail much of the work that the Government are doing to tackle human trafficking and slavery. To better tackle labour exploitation, we have moved the Gangmasters Licensing Authority to the Home Office to strengthen its links with law enforcement agencies.
Mr Heath
This is the first opportunity that I have had to welcome the hon. Lady to her new position. I know from personal experience how effective the Gangmasters Licensing Authority is. It is particularly effective because it focuses its attention on the areas with the highest risk of criminality and exploitation, rather than on lower-risk areas. Has she considered, and will she discuss with her colleagues in government, whether there is scope for using the model of the GLA in other high-risk labour areas, where similar work could be done?
Karen Bradley
My hon. Friend makes an interesting suggestion that I will be happy to look into.
Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab)
When the Minister looks at that suggestion—I had responsibility for the GLA for two years as a Minister; it is an excellent organisation—will she also consider the status of the GLA’s board members, now that it is in her remit? Will she, first, upgrade the status of the sole representative for human trafficking on the board from delegate status to full status; and secondly, not do what the Government are proposing, which is to reduce the numbers of union representatives representing the work force on the GLA?
Karen Bradley
That is also an interesting suggestion that I will look into, although I cannot promise where we will get to.
Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)
When I visited the migrant camps at Calais with the deputy mayor of Calais, every person there said that they had paid traffickers to get there, putting them in danger of labour exploitation in the UK. Will Home Office Ministers consider supporting a joint initiative by Dover and Calais for the French police to clear those camps and repatriate people or process their asylum claims, as the case may be?
Karen Bradley
I thank my hon. Friend for his question. I know how hard he works in his constituency on these matters. We work closely with our counterparts in the French police to deal with this issue, and my hon. Friend makes an important point. Many victims of modern slavery that I have met came into the country willingly but illegally, because they felt they were coming for a better life. They have been exploited; that is not right and we need to stamp that out.
Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)
6. What recent progress she has made on tackling crime and antisocial behaviour arising from alcohol abuse.
The Minister for Crime Prevention (Norman Baker)
The coalition Government has overhauled the Licensing Act 2003, giving local areas stronger powers to deal with problem premises. The Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014 will provide front-line professionals with powerful new tools to tackle alcohol related antisocial behaviour. We are also banning the worst instances of cheap and harmful alcohol sales, and we are working with 20 local alcohol action areas to reduce alcohol-related crime and disorder.
Nick Smith
Given strong evidence that a higher price for alcohol means less public disorder and better health, when will the Government do the right thing—as they have finally done with plain packaging—and introduce minimum unit pricing for alcohol?
Norman Baker
Minimum pricing is on the radar; it has not been ruled out and the matter is still under consideration. We are looking with interest at what is happening north of the border in Scotland, and helping the Scottish Government in its efforts.
Mr Speaker
I would have called the hon. Member for Norwich South (Simon Wright) if he had been standing, but he is not so I will not.
Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)
Will the Minister update the House on how early morning alcohol restriction orders and the levy for late night licence holders are working to contribute to the costs of policing antisocial behaviour?
Norman Baker
I am very pleased by the roll-out of the late night levy, including in Newcastle, Cheltenham and elsewhere. I believe that Islington is next, and Chelmsford is showing an interest as well. We are looking at the responses from local councils on early morning restriction orders to see what feedback we have received, and we will amend the measures as necessary.
Mr Speaker
Some Members require heavier hints than others. Mr Simon Wright.
Simon Wright (Norwich South) (LD)
16. Prince of Wales road in my constituency is the centre of Norwich’s night-time economy, and residents and councillors have launched a stakeholders forum to consider how to deal with the impact of excessive alcohol consumption in the area. The Minister has received a copy of the first report ordered by Councillor Ben Price. Will he join me in welcoming that community-led activity, and will he meet me and Councillor Price to consider how we can take forward the report’s recommendations?
Norman Baker
I congratulate my hon. Friend on his work with his local councillors on this important matter. I welcome the community strategy document he mentions and would be happy to meet him and Councillor Price.
Andrew Griffiths (Burton) (Con)
8. What assessment she has made of the level of illegal drug use in the UK.
Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)
11. What assessment she has made of the level of illegal drug use in the UK.
The Minister for Crime Prevention (Norman Baker)
Drug use in England and Wales has fallen to its lowest level since records began, in 1996. The number of heroin and crack cocaine users in England has fallen below 300,000 for the first time since 2004-05. Drug-related deaths in England and Wales have continued to fall over the last three years. Numbers successfully completing drug treatment free of dependency in England have risen since 2009-10.
Andrew Griffiths
I congratulate the Government on their success in reducing the use of certain drugs, but we are still not recording the use of many drugs, particularly legal highs. Given that we are seeing a fall in cannabis use but there is a great deal of evidence of an increase in legal high cannabinoid use, does the Minister not agree that if we want to protect our young people, we need to record all the drugs they are taking, including legal highs?
Norman Baker
I agree with the thrust of my hon. Friend’s question and I agree that many of the chemical highs or new psychoactive substances—the so-called legal highs, although I prefer not to use the word “legal” because that implies that they are both legal and safe and some are neither—can be more dangerous than other drugs that people recognise as dangerous. There has been a decline in drug use among young people, but he is right to draw attention to that aspect. I established an expert panel on it late last year and I look forward to receiving its recommendations shortly.
Mr Ellwood
Drugs are often produced and sold by international crime gangs. What is the Minister doing to work with the international community to protect this country from the illegal movement and sale of drugs by such gangs?
Norman Baker
I am happy to say that in the cross-governmental serious and organised crime strategy, we work in partnership with countries where drugs are produced and transported, as well as with the wider international community, to disrupt the organised criminal networks that distribute drugs. Our approach is to build political will and practical capacity to tackle high priority criminal groups. The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire Moorlands (Karen Bradley), takes this matter very seriously.
Gavin Shuker (Luton South) (Lab/Co-op)
9. What discussions she has had with her ministerial colleagues on implementing the recommendations of the joint royal colleges’ report “Tackling FGM in the UK” published in November 2013.
Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)
10. What discussions she has had with her ministerial colleagues on implementing the recommendations of the joint royal colleges’ report “Tackling FGM in the UK” published in November 2013.
The Minister for Crime Prevention (Norman Baker)
The coalition welcomed the joint royal colleges’ report published last November. The Government is committed to eradicating female genital mutilation and is taking action in each of the areas recommended in the report. As part of our strategy, eight Departments have signed a cross-government declaration reaffirming our commitment to protecting current and future generations of girls from this abuse, and each Department is doing what it can to eradicate the practice in the UK.
Gavin Shuker
Given that the Minister accepts that both strong political leadership and joint working are essential to tackle the problem, will he give me an assurance that he has met the Secretary of State for Education to discuss the matter?
Norman Baker
I have certainly been in correspondence with the Education Secretary, and I have met on more than one occasion the relevant Education Minister. The hon. Gentleman will know that the Education Secretary has now written to schools, which is a very helpful development.
Lyn Brown
I am a little concerned to hear that answer, given that the Minister talked about good co-operation across all Departments. Given that the survey quoted by the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children reports that one in six teachers is unaware that FGM is a crime and that 68% are unaware of any guidance from the Government on what to do if they suspect a pupil is at risk, can the Minister assure the House that he will meet the Secretary of State for Education, discuss this very important issue and report back to the House on what agreements they make on how to tackle this despicable crime?
Norman Baker
I agree with the hon. Lady that it is a despicable crime. That is why we take it so seriously not just in the Home Office but across Government. I refer her to the cross-government agreement I mentioned in my original answer, which has been signed by eight Departments, including by the Under-Secretary of State for Education, the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mr Timpson), on behalf of the Department for Education. We are in regular contact on these matters across Departments and will continue to be so.
Margot James (Stourbridge) (Con)
I welcome my hon. Friend’s commitment to interdepartmental working and a multi-agency approach, but does he not agree that until more perpetrators are brought before our courts and convicted, the elders and parents in the communities in which these atrocities take place will not take the law seriously?
Norman Baker
It is a matter of some regret, in my view, that there have been no successful prosecutions since the practice was outlawed in 1985. I am delighted that there are now two cases pending, although obviously I cannot comment on matters before the courts. What I can say is that in my view there is certainly a willingness on the part of police forces, the Director of Public Prosecutions and others to ensure that where the crime is perpetrated, those responsible are brought to justice. The DPP wrote to me and the Minister for Policing, Criminal Justice and Victims earlier this year with a suggestion for a particular change that might be enacted to try to make prosecutions more likely and more successful. We are looking at that suggestion now.
Jason McCartney (Colne Valley) (Con)
12. What progress she has made on reducing abuse of the student visa system.
The Minister for Security and Immigration (James Brokenshire)
The Government have overhauled the student visa route with a range of measures to combat abuse, while continuing to attract the brightest and best students to the UK’s world-class universities. Our reforms have resulted in 700 education providers being removed as sponsors to bring students into the UK. The total number of tier 4 student visas has fallen by a third since 2010, while visa applications from university students continue to increase.
Jason McCartney
I welcome the clampdown on abuses of the student visa system, but will the Minister assure the House that our world-class universities, including my local award-winning university, Huddersfield university, where overseas students come from more than 120 countries, will still be allowed to grow their courses with these students from around the globe? May I invite the Minister to come and visit Huddersfield university?
James Brokenshire
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for championing his local university, and I note from the latest statistics that the total number of non-EU students at the university of Huddersfield has risen by 16%. I am happy to meet him to discuss the position further, but there has been abuse of the student visa system and we are tackling this while placing no limit on the number of genuine international students, whom we welcome to our world-class universities.
Mr Nick Raynsford (Greenwich and Woolwich) (Lab)
Although it is quite right that action should be taken against bogus colleges, does the Minister accept that both the tone and the nature of some of the Government’s actions have created an impression, widely understood by very reputable higher education institutions, that it is now less easy for able students from many parts of the world, including the Indian sub-continent, to gain access to courses here for legitimate study?
James Brokenshire
I do not accept that. I note that the Higher Education Funding Council for England published a report on 10 April indicating that student entrants were up. We continue to work with colleagues across Government. It is notable that we have seen new entrants from key markets including China, Malaysia and Hong Kong. We very much welcome international students to study at our fantastic universities.
Nicholas Soames (Mid Sussex) (Con)
18. Does my hon. Friend accept that although of course we warmly welcome students from all over the world to our excellent universities, they must leave when they are meant to do so? May I suggest that he encourages the universities themselves to play a greater part in seeing to it that that happens?
James Brokenshire
I agree with my right hon. Friend. There has been abuse of the system, with people coming to this country not to study, but to work. We have worked closely with the universities sector, and there has been a successful pilot with one university to encourage universities to see that students do leave at the end of their studies. We will continue to roll that out, as well as working with immigration enforcement to see that those who are not entitled to be here do leave.
Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)
Has the Minister seen the comments from Anton Muscatelli, the principal of Glasgow university, who says that this Government are in effect saying to international students, “Don’t come here, we’re closed for business, closed for education”? I know that the Home Office—I hear the Home Secretary saying this—always thinks it knows better than the Scottish academic and university community, but will the Minister at least acknowledge that we have a bit of an issue with this?
James Brokenshire
There is no limit on the number of students who can legitimately come to this country to study. When the hon. Gentleman looks at the statistics and the information, he will see that the number of visa applications coming to universities has gone up by 7%. We continue to underline that this country welcomes students to our world-class universities in Scotland and in the rest of the United Kingdom.
Susan Elan Jones (Clwyd South) (Lab)
13. What assessment she has made of trends in the level of charges brought for violent crime.
Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)
15. What assessment she has made of trends in the level of charges brought for violent crime.
The Minister for Policing, Criminal Justice and Victims (Damian Green)
The number of charges brought for violent crime has fallen. This is broadly in line with falls in police-recorded violent crime under this Government, but in fact the percentage of violent offences that result in a charge has increased under this Government. In addition, the independent crime survey for England and Wales for 2012-13 shows the number of violent crimes at its lowest level since 1981.
Susan Elan Jones
Does the Minister share my concern about some of the offences for which community resolutions are now used? I think of crimes such as domestic violence and knife crime. Does he not think that community resolutions should be banned for such offences, although they might be the best remedy for others?
Damian Green
I share the hon. Lady’s concerns about any inappropriate sentencing, so I am sure she will welcome the steps the Government have taken, such as stopping the use of cautions for serious offences, including those involving the possession of a knife, offensive weapon or firearm in a public place. Community resolutions and cautions have a part to play, but we have taken steps to ensure they are not used for the most serious crimes.
Jenny Chapman (Darlington) (Lab)
The Minister seems to think that community resolutions can be appropriate for violent crime, but does he think that even in those circumstances they should perhaps form part of a criminal record at least?
Damian Green
The hon. Lady will know that we are looking at the whole issue of out-of-court disposals. We want to reach a position where the use, as she says, of community resolutions is restricted to crimes where this is appropriate, but not for those where such a resolution would damage the public’s confidence in the criminal justice system. I hope she acknowledges that the amount of violent crime in this country is at such a low level now.
Mr Steve Reed (Croydon North) (Lab)
Before a prosecution is made, the police first have to record a crime. In Lincolnshire, more than a quarter of all reported rapes are dismissed as “no crime”, compared with a national average of 9%, and there are similarly high rates in other police areas. A police whistleblower claims that officers in some forces pressurise vulnerable victims to drop their allegations to make the crime statistics look better. What action has the Minister taken to explain and reduce the extreme variation in the number of rapes categorised as “no crime” by different police forces?
Damian Green
I agree with the hon. Gentleman’s underlying concern, but I hope he will be reassured that the “no crime” rate for rape has fallen year on year, from 12.6% in 2010 to 9.6% in 2013. At the same time, the Crown Prosecution Service is now achieving its highest ever rape conviction rate, with 63% of prosecutions resulting in successful outcomes and the average custodial length going up 21 months over the past 10 years. Everyone shares the concerns, but the hon. Gentleman should be reassured that the position is actually improving.
Heidi Alexander (Lewisham East) (Lab)
17. What steps she has taken to improve recruitment processes used by the Metropolitan police.
The Minister for Policing, Criminal Justice and Victims (Damian Green)
It is for forces to determine their own recruitment arrangements: this is a matter for the commissioner and Mayor’s office for policing and crime in London. However, the Home Office is working with the College of Policing to improve both the standards of new recruits and the training available to them. We also support the Met’s ambitions to promote positive action to create a more diverse work force, including through direct entry.
Heidi Alexander
I am very interested by the Minister’s response, because in Lewisham just 7% of our police officers come from black and ethnic minority communities, yet nearly half our population identifies as such. Can he tell me when he proposes to introduce legislation to change the law to allow the Met proactively to recruit one black officer for every white officer taken on?
Damian Green
The hon. Lady is referring, I assume, to the Northern Ireland example, where I know that that kind of recruitment was done. I would point out that although she and I share the Metropolitan Police Commissioner’s desire to make the Metropolitan police force reflect better the community it serves across London, the situation is more complicated and variegated in London: London is a city of very many communities, not two. However, we are encouraging the Metropolitan police, working with it and the College of Policing, to use the parts of the Equality Act 2010 that allow a degree of flexibility to use mentoring and the language provisions that might be necessary for certain skills and to allow them to use the tipping point provisions if they have two candidates of equal merit to choose one from an under-represented community, so that they can achieve the commissioner’s ambition of making the force more representative.
John Pugh (Southport) (LD)
19. What assessment she has made of the relationship between recent trends in levels of crime and the cost to the public purse of the prison service.
The Minister for Policing, Criminal Justice and Victims (Damian Green)
Police recorded crime figures and the independent crime survey for England and Wales both show that crime has fallen by more than 10% under this Government. Over the same period, the number of people in prison has increased for a number of reasons, including the police detecting more crimes and longer sentences for more serious offences. Between 2010 and 2013, we made almost £400 million in savings across prisons through efficiencies, benchmarking and the capacity management programme.
Damian Green
As I have just said, we have been imprisoning more serious criminals and locking them up for longer and we have been making savings in the prison system through efficiency programmes, so we are meeting my hon. Friend’s challenge already. Many people would argue that at least one of the reasons for the reduction in crime is precisely that we are locking more criminals up and keeping them in prison for longer.
Paul Maynard (Blackpool North and Cleveleys) (Con)
20. What steps she is taking to secure the UK’s borders.
The Minister for Security and Immigration (James Brokenshire)
Our borders are significantly more secure than they were in 2010. This Government have created Border Force as a separate command, extended coverage of exit checks and put in place a rigorous operating mandate requiring 100% passenger checks at primary controls. We have also established the border policing command as part of the National Crime Agency to tackle organised crime at the border.
Paul Maynard
The Minister will be aware that the common border area facilitates passport-free travel with the Republic of Ireland, but what steps has he taken to improve the quality of passenger lists being handed over by Irish airports and Irish airlines to assist the police in monitoring the border?
James Brokenshire
I can tell my hon. Friend that there is excellent co-operation between the UK and the Republic of Ireland to prevent abuse of the common travel area by strengthening the external border. The joint UK-Ireland programme of work focuses on aligned visa policy and processes, investment in border procedures, increased data sharing and unified passenger data systems to achieve the end results my hon. Friend is calling for.
Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)
21. What assessment she has made of the effectiveness of existing legislation for tackling child sexual exploitation.
The Minister for Crime Prevention (Norman Baker)
The coalition Government remains committed to ensuring that all necessary legislation is in place to tackle child sexual abuse. I welcome the hon. Member’s recent inquiry into this issue. I am reassured by the inquiry’s conclusion that there was no evidence to show that justice could not be served owing to the lack of a specific child sexual exploitation offence. The inquiry report made a number of wider recommendations which are now being actively considered.
Sarah Champion
There are currently 16 pieces of legislation that use the term “child prostitute”. I have spoken to young people who have been victims of child sexual exploitation, and they say the expression makes them feel dirty and complicit. Will the Minister commit to introducing a process to remove this term from the law?
Norman Baker
I am very sympathetic to that suggestion. Children who are sexually exploited, whether for commercial or other reasons, should not be referred to as prostitutes. They are victims. We will consider references in all legislation and guidance as opportunities arise, as well as considering carefully the wording used in any new legislation or guidance.
Bridget Phillipson (Houghton and Sunderland South) (Lab)
T1. If she will make a statement on her departmental responsibilities.
The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mrs Theresa May)
The Home Office continues its work to reform the police and cut crime. Under this Government, crime has fallen by more than 10% according to both the independent crime survey for England and Wales and police recorded crime, and the latest figures published by the Office for National Statistics last week show that England and Wales are safer than they have been for decades, with crime at its lowest level since the crime survey began in 1981. The Government are taking decisive action to cut crime and protect the public. We are tackling underlying drivers of crime through our drugs and alcohol strategies and antisocial behaviour reforms, we have intensified our focus on issues such as modern slavery, violence against women and girls, gangs and sexual violence against children and vulnerable people, and we have improved our national crime-fighting capability with the launch of the National Crime Agency. The evidence is clear: our police reforms are working and crime is falling.
Bridget Phillipson
The highly critical report from Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary raised troubling concerns about the police response to domestic violence when it comes to victims. When victims find the courage to contact the police, they need both to be believed and treated with respect. What further steps will the Home Secretary be taking to make sure that all front-line officers receive greater training in this area to make this a reality?
Mrs May
I thank the hon. Lady for raising this issue. The HMIC report was truly shocking and will have been of concern to all in this House who worry about the way in which domestic violence and the victims of domestic violence are treated by the police. I have written to chief constables making it absolutely clear that I expect them to bring their action plans for dealing with this issue forward by the autumn—by September or October of this year. I will be chairing a group that will be ensuring that action is taken, and we are of course working with the College of Policing, which this Government set up, to look at the training that is available to police officers.
Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)
T3. In the light of the Care Quality Commission’s recent mental health review, will the Secretary of State outline what action she is taking to eliminate the use of police stations as section 136 places of safety? What representations is she making to ensure that properly resourced and fully staffed places are provided in mental health units?
Mrs May
My hon. Friend raises an important point. I am clear that people detained under section 136 of the Mental Health Act 1983 should be taken to police stations only in truly exceptional circumstances. I am pleased to say that the work we have been doing with the Department of Health and the triage pilots involving health workers going out with police officers in certain parts of the country are already bearing fruit, with fewer people being taken to police cells as a place of safety. The Health Secretary and I have already commissioned a review of the operation of sections 135 and 136 because we want to ensure that appropriate support and provision are available for people who are experiencing mental health problems, and to ensure that they are dealt with in an appropriate way.
Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)
New figures show that in the past 15 months there has been a 7% drop in the number of sex offences being taken to court, at a time when the number of such offences being reported to the police has gone up by 16%. Over the past 12 months, there has been a 9% drop in convictions for violent crime, even though the number of recorded violent crimes fell by only 1.5%. The Home Secretary has said that her police reforms and policies are working. Why, then, are more criminals getting away with it on her watch?
Mrs May
I challenge the right hon. Lady’s comments. The basic issue here is that the overall number of crimes has been falling, which is why some of the figures relating to the number of people being taken to court are falling. When concerns are raised in relation to how the police are dealing with domestic and sexual violence, of course we take action to look into the matter. As my right hon. Friend the Minister for Policing, Criminal Justice and Victims said earlier, we have seen good movement in the figures relating to the way in which rape is being dealt with, particularly in relation to the number of successful prosecutions.
Yvette Cooper
But the Home Secretary’s action is not working. Fewer rape cases are going to court, as are fewer domestic violence cases, fewer child abuse cases and fewer sexual offence cases, even though the numbers of sexual offences and domestic violence and child abuse cases being reported to the police are all going up. According to analysis by the House of Commons Library, the resulting drop in convictions is the equivalent of 13,000 more violent offenders, 3,500 more sex offenders, 13,000 more domestic abusers and 700 more child abusers getting away with their crimes. This is happening on the right hon. Lady’s watch. Those are the facts. The number of cases going to court is going down in areas where the recorded crimes are going up. What is she doing about it? She is the Home Secretary. Why will she not act to ensure that victims get the justice they deserve—
Mrs May
I am grateful to the right hon. Lady for pointing out that I am the Home Secretary. We have seen a higher number of cases of sexual violence being reported, and it is good that people are willing to come forward to report such cases. Some of these are historical cases, and there has been an upturn in the number of people coming forward, particularly as a result of the revelations relating to Jimmy Savile and other such cases. As I said earlier, the number of successful prosecutions by the CPS for rape and sexual violence has hit an all-time high, so I suggest that the right hon. Lady goes away and looks again at her figures.
Mr Marcus Jones (Nuneaton) (Con)
T4. With crime down by more than 10% since 2010, and by 11% in Warwickshire, will my right hon. Friend join me in commending the hard-working officers of the Warwickshire police force for their contribution to that? Does he agree that the Opposition were wrong to suggest that crime would rise as we started to deal with the legacy of deficit and debt that Labour left behind?
The Minister for Policing, Criminal Justice and Victims (Damian Green)
My hon. Friend makes a good point. I would add to his point about the Warwickshire force the fact that it and its neighbour, the West Mercia force, have been among the most successfully radical in collaborating across force boundaries. One reason that they are providing such good services to the people of Warwickshire is that they have managed to merge back-office functions and specialist functions, meaning that they can spend more time cutting and preventing crime, which is what my hon. Friend’s constituents want.
Dan Jarvis (Barnsley Central) (Lab)
T2. There were at least 68 deaths from legal highs in 2012, with more likely in 2013 and 2014. It is simply madness that children can walk into a shop and buy these harmful products. I know that the Minister has launched a review of legal highs—he referred to it earlier—but given that people are dying as a result of consuming these products, when can we expect meaningful action on this issue?
The Minister for Crime Prevention (Norman Baker)
There has already been a great deal of meaningful action, including a month of action from police forces, which resulted in the successful seizure of products, and a number of arrests and prosecutions. I have also issued guidance to local councils on how they can deal with these so-called “head shops”, which has led to successful interventions to seize more material, so we are in fact taking strong action. I hope that the review panel, which will report very shortly, will recommend even stronger ways to tackle these chemical highs. However, we must not get this out of perspective, because the number of deaths from what we might call “traditional drugs” is still very high, and we need to concentrate on that.T5. Early one Sunday in September 2011, Bedfordshire police deployed 200 officers to free 24 people who were being kept in slavery, some of whom had been there for more than 20 years. Such operations are very expensive. In order to encourage the police to undertake more of them, what are we doing to make sure that they are refunded from the often considerable assets of the slave traders?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Karen Bradley)
I thank my hon. Friend for his question. Anybody would agree that it is absolutely wrong that somebody who has been involved in a crime such as slavery should be allowed to keep their money. I am determined that this Government will give law enforcement agencies and others all the powers they need to get that money back. I also give this message to the slave masters: if you are involved in the disgusting and hideous trade in human beings, be under no illusion that this Government will find you, prosecute you and lock you up.
Mr Andrew Love (Edmonton) (Lab/Co-op)
Is the Minister aware of figures from the Mayor’s office for policing and crime—MOPAC—showing that the number of Metropolitan police officers working on the ground in the London boroughs has fallen by 16%, or 3,000 officers? What action will he take to put more bobbies on the beat?
Damian Green
The hon. Gentleman can be assured that although the Metropolitan police force has had to make savings, as have police across the country, the overall level of crime in the Metropolitan police area has fallen by 13% since June 2010, showing that the Mayor, the deputy mayor responsible for MOPAC and the commissioner are doing a very good job in keeping London’s streets safer than ever before.
Iain Stewart (Milton Keynes South) (Con)
T7. In tackling the scourge of legal highs, may I urge the Minister to look at the work that Thames Valley police and Milton Keynes council have been doing to rid our communities of these substances? I have seen many distressing cases in my surgery of bright young people having been dragged into a downward spiral because they have had easy access to these drugs.
Norman Baker
I welcome the steps being taken in Milton Keynes by Thames Valley police. I know that they raided the central Milton Keynes market and seized various chemical high products when young people were spotted using pills and powders that they thought had been bought from market stalls. That is a good example of what can be done with existing legislation. We have also banned hundreds of these substances as we have found them, but there is more to do, which is why I have set up this expert review panel.
Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)
It has been found that 86% of people on tied visas have had their employers keep their passport, and that 62% of them have received no salary at all. This Government changed the visas arrangement to ensure that domestic workers were tied to a single employer and could not change. Will this Government now reverse that?
Karen Bradley
We are aware of no evidence to suggest that someone’s having a tie to an employer with whom they have an existing relationship is a problem. This Government are determined to deal with the lack of enforcement on the part of Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs and others, in order to ensure that people on a domestic worker visa are treated appropriately within the law.
Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)
T8. The Government are rightly proud of having ended the shameful practice of child detention for immigration purposes. If those children are ultimately to be detained, is it not incumbent on the Home Office to ensure that their cases have been fully resolved before they turn 18, or, failing that, to be consistent in its approach until those cases have been completed?
The Minister for Security and Immigration (James Brokenshire)
My hon. Friend is right to highlight the important steps that the Government have taken in banning the detention of children. Indeed he will also recognise the work of the family returns panel, which analyses those cases to assess whether it is appropriate for a child to be returned and in what circumstances.
Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)
The criminalisation of the drug mephedrone, once a legal high, resulted in a 300% increase in its use in my area. Will the Government look at the practical new approach that is being tried in New Zealand, whereby the responsibility for the safety of legal highs is being placed on those who profit from the sale of them?
Norman Baker
The answer is that an international comparator study has been undertaken, and that includes talking to countries that have a whole range of different approaches, including New Zealand, Ireland and Portugal. We are assessing what works best with the object of minimising the harm from drug use.
Andrew Griffiths (Burton) (Con)
T9. An increasing number of people are buying illegal drugs on the internet. Indeed, the recent global drugs survey found that 22% of respondents had used websites such as Silk Road. Given that increasing problem, what extra resources are being made available to the National Crime Agency, and how will the Minister prioritise this matter among the NCA’s work?
Karen Bradley
I know that my hon. Friend, as a member of the Centre for Social Justice’s addiction panel, has significant experience in this area. He is absolutely right that the National Crime Agency is looking at organised gangs that use the internet to further their trade in illegal substances, and I will be working with it to ensure that suitable disruption happens.
Ukraine
(10 years, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr William Hague)
With permission, Mr Speaker, I will make a statement to update the House on the crisis in Ukraine, developments over the past three weeks and the action that we propose to take now. I apologise for my croaky voice.
From 6 April, illegal armed groups began to occupy Government buildings in Kharkiv, Donetsk and Lugansk. From 12 April, in an apparently co-ordinated fashion, police and security service buildings were seized in smaller towns across the east of Ukraine. Like the armed men without insignia who took control of Crimea in February, many are well equipped, operate like professional soldiers who have trained together, and wear matching uniforms. Russia’s claim that these groups are purely local militias has no credibility.
NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, General Philip Breedlove, has stated that
“what is happening in eastern Ukraine is a military operation that is well planned and organised and we assess that it is being carried out at the direction of Russia.”
We share that assessment.
On 14 April, I attended the EU Foreign Ministers’ meeting in Luxembourg where we decided upon additional sanctions. Those sanctions were then suspended in the light of talks in Geneva between Ukraine, Russia, the US and the EU on 17 April, which succeeded in agreeing steps to reduce tensions. The agreement committed all sides to refrain from violence or provocative actions in the south and east of Ukraine. It required all illegal armed groups to be disarmed and to vacate all illegally seized buildings and occupied public places in return for an amnesty for protesters, in a process assisted by the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe’s special monitoring mission. The Ukrainian Government promised to take forward an inclusive, transparent and accountable constitutional process. I spoke to the Ukrainian acting Foreign Minister Deschytsia immediately after the Geneva agreement, and strongly welcomed the agreement.
The Ukrainian Government have made determined efforts to implement the agreement in good faith. They have put a draft amnesty law to the Ukrainian Parliament, begun a constitutional reform process, including decentralisation and the expansion of local authority power, and continued to collect illegal weapons. They are removing roadblocks around the Maidan, and protesters are vacating government buildings in Kiev. In addition, they have announced steps to guarantee the protection of the Russian language and its special status, and they have condemned anti-Semitism or intolerance.
The Prime Minister announced on Good Friday that the United Kingdom is providing £1 million to support the deployment of up to 400 additional observers to strengthen the OSCE mission in Ukraine. I pay tribute to the Ukrainian Government for the steps they have taken and for behaving with immense restraint in extremely difficult circumstances.
In contrast, Russia has so far failed to implement any part of the Geneva agreement. I spoke to Foreign Minister Lavrov last Wednesday and although I welcomed his participation in the Geneva meeting, I said to him that I could not identify a single positive step that Russia had taken to implement the agreement. It has not condemned the act of separatists or called on armed militants to vacate buildings and put down their arms. It has done nothing to rein in pro-Russian separatist groups, which continue to attack Ukrainian arms depots and military personnel, take over Government buildings and detain journalists and OSCE military observers, which we utterly condemn. The detention and parading of those observers, who should be released immediately, is utterly reprehensible and does further damage to the standing of Russia and the reputation of such groups operating in eastern Ukraine. The deplorable shooting today of the mayor of Kharkiv is another sign of the violence being instigated against those who opted to support a united Ukraine.
Furthermore, last week Russia announced further military exercises on Ukraine’s borders, Russia’s UN ambassador claimed that it had the right to deploy so-called “peacekeepers” on Ukrainian territory and Foreign Minister Lavrov said that Russia reserves the right to attack Ukraine to defend ethnic Russians. There is of course no evidence of threats to, or attacks on, Russians in eastern Ukraine.
I proposed to Foreign Minister Lavrov that Russia could demonstrate its good faith by making an immediate public call for the full implementation of the Geneva agreement. I also proposed that Russia’s acting head of mission in Kiev could join in assisting the OSCE special monitoring mission on the ground, including by negotiating with the groups illegally occupying buildings. I warned the Foreign Minister that in the absence of such steps, the European Union and others would impose increasing sanctions.
As I have often said in this House, we do not view developments in Ukraine as presenting a zero-sum strategic choice. Ukraine can be a bridge between east and west and be able to maintain good relations with Russia. Our national interest lies in a democratic Ukraine that is able to make its own decisions and in a rules-based international system. Both considerations now require the adoption of further measures to increase the cost to Russia of its actions.
G7 Heads of Government issued a statement on Friday pledging to move swiftly to impose additional sanctions on Russia. We also all undertook to prepare to move to broader co-ordinated sanctions, including sectoral measures, if necessary. Russia’s accession to the International Energy Agency and the OECD has been suspended, the EU has suspended visa liberalisation talks and there will be no G8 meeting in Sochi this year but a G7 meeting without Russia in Brussels instead.
The US has previously sanctioned 38 individuals and two entities. Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Japan have adopted similar measures and 33 individuals are subject to EU asset freezes and travel bans. At the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, a resolution was adopted suspending the voting rights of Russian members. I pay tribute to Members of this House for the role they played in that vote. Permanent representatives in Brussels have been meeting today to finalise adding substantially to the list of individuals sanctioned by the European Union. Subject to final procedures, that will be officially agreed within the next half hour and the names of those concerned will be published tomorrow. We are in further discussions in the EU about future steps, including preparations for a third tier of sanctions involving far-reaching economic and trade measures. Those preparations are now well advanced and the European Commission has sent proposals to each member state.
Increasing the scope of the sanctions placed on Russia is the right response to the failure to implement the Geneva agreement and the continued destabilisation of eastern Ukraine. In the past two hours, the United States has announced that it is imposing sanctions on seven further Russian Government officials, including two members of President Putin’s inner circle, and on 17 companies also linked to Putin’s inner circle, as well as additional restrictions on 13 of those companies. The United States has also announced that it has tightened policy to deny export licence applications for any high-technology items that could contribute to Russia’s military capabilities.
As these developments show, Russia is already paying a serious price for its actions, and the longer it breaches the independence and sovereignty of Ukraine, the heavier the price it will pay, undermining its own influence in its neighbourhood, steadily disconnecting Russia from the international community and damaging Russia's own prosperity and security over the long-term. We have already seen the flight of more than $63 billion in capital out of Russia and the fall of the Russian stock market, and Russia’s economy is now forecast to shrink this year. The European Commission is preparing a comprehensive plan to reduce European countries’ reliance on Russian energy, and the G7 Energy Ministers will meet next week to discuss ways to strengthen our collective energy security.
The Ukrainian people deserve their own opportunity to make free democratic choices, free from corruption and from external interference. We are sending experts to help to improve public financial management, working with the World Bank to strengthen governance in Ukraine, co-hosting a forum on asset recovery starting tomorrow here in London to locate the proceeds of corruption, and helping to support free, fair and inclusive presidential elections on 25 May. We have helped to secure an increase in European Union assistance to help to ensure economic stability in Ukraine, bringing the total support available from existing EU budgets to more than £1.4 billion and we are calling for expert EU assistance to strengthen law enforcement and the rule of law. We support IMF plans to put in place a two-year programme worth potentially more than $17 billion that will help Ukraine to make the reforms it urgently needs and to build a stronger and more prosperous economy for the future.
Russia’s actions have caused deep alarm not only in Ukraine, but among its neighbours with Russian-speaking minorities, in particular the Baltic states. On 16 April, NATO agreed a set of measures to provide reassurance and confidence to NATO allies. These include more air policing and naval missions, and deployment of additional military staff from allied nations to strengthen NATO’s preparedness, training and exercises. The UK has contributed four Typhoon aircraft to boost NATO’s regular Baltic air policing mission, which have left today, we are contributing to AWACS reconnaissance flights over Poland and Romania, and we stand ready to provide more support as NATO’s response develops. My right hon. Friend the Minister for Europe is discussing these measures with colleagues in Estonia today, and I intend to travel to the region next week, including to Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova.
It cannot be acceptable in the 21st century not only to invade and annex by force on the back of a sham referendum part of a neighbouring country, but to use military exercises and proxies to foment instability and disorder in that country, in an effort to disrupt its democratic elections. These are policies we have to be clear we oppose, and we must be ready to take measures that make very clear that approach. Russia’s actions betray its fear of democracy and the rule of law taking root in their neighbourhood. These actions are not consistent with being a strong and confident country, and are also in breach of international agreements and the UN charter to which Russia is a party.
It is in Russia's power to help to find ways for tensions to be reduced in Ukraine, and the doors of diplomacy remain fully open. We will continue to talk to Russia and to urge it to seek de-escalation. But repeated intensification of the crisis and violation of international law and refusal to implement agreements require a strong response from the international community, and the United Kingdom will be part of that, in keeping with our international responsibilities and in defence of our national interest.
Mr Douglas Alexander (Paisley and Renfrewshire South) (Lab)
I begin by thanking the Foreign Secretary for this statement and for advance sight of it.
Russia’s willingness to violate the territorial integrity of Ukraine is the gravest challenge to the European security order in decades. As this crisis continues, there are those who now argue that these actions are already undermining the belief of so many Europeans in recent years that further conflict on the European continent had become all but impossible.
The difficult but vital task of the international community, which is a matter of bipartisan agreement across the House, must be to ensure that, by demonstrating to the Russians the costs and consequences of their actions, we manage to secure a de-escalation of this continuing crisis. So I start by joining the Foreign Secretary in paying tribute to Members across the House who took steps to pass the recent motion that suspended the voting rights of Russian MPs on the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.
At the weekend, I had the opportunity to meet a number of US Senators who were clear in their view that further action by Europe was now necessary. So I welcome the announcement made on 26 April by the G7 to extend existing sanctions against Russia, as well as today’s meeting of the Permanent Representatives in Brussels to finalise the extended list of individuals sanctioned by the EU. Similar measures have been in place since the conclusion of the EU Foreign Affairs Council on 17 March and yet, as we have heard, Russia has regrettably still refused to change course. By what criteria are individuals being identified for action? Is it those with the most concrete interests within Europe, those with the biggest capacity to affect the course of events in the region or those most implicated in previous illegal actions?
The Foreign Secretary has indicated that the G7 is also exploring the possibility of wider sectoral sanctions against Russia, and I welcome those steps. Indeed, the Foreign Secretary stated in an interview on Sunday that such measures would be implemented
“if Russia continues to escalate this crisis.”
The Foreign Secretary confirmed today that the Government’s view is that the recent events in eastern Ukraine are
“being carried out at the direction of Russia.”
In the light of growing evidence that Russia is indeed escalating the crisis, will the Foreign Secretary confirm whether a continuation of the Russian Government’s current approach would itself in time constitute grounds for the G7 to decide that trade and sectoral sanctions were now necessary and appropriate?
The crisis is naturally causing real concerns among our NATO partners, in particular the Baltic states and Poland. I therefore welcome the steps announced by the Foreign Secretary today, but will he say a little more about his discussions with those NATO allies about the vital and necessary co-operation in the light of their pressing concerns given the security situation in the region?
An additional priority in the coming weeks must be securing conditions for free and fair presidential elections taking place in Ukraine on 25 May, which will involve operational and diplomatic support for the interim Government in Kiev. The Foreign Secretary is right to highlight today the £1 million pledged by the UK to support the deployment of up to 400 additional observers to strengthen the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe mission. In the light of the appalling treatment of seven OSCE monitors, which the Foreign Secretary rightfully condemned, will he confirm whether the OSCE intends to continue its mission in the east of Ukraine for the foreseeable future? What steps can and should be taken to try to protect those involved in the monitoring exercise?
I welcome the high-level international meeting due to take place in London tomorrow to support the Ukrainian Government’s efforts to recover stolen assets. The Foreign Secretary is right to support International Monetary Fund plans for a two-year programme to help Ukraine to reform and to become more prosperous in the long term. However, so far, no commitments have yet been made about the time frame for the delivery of that IMF support, so will the Foreign Secretary update the House about the progress made on that matter? Will he confirm whether those discussions are taking into account the significance of the period leading up to the elections on 25 May?
The current crisis has seen a series of tactical steps taken by the Kremlin, but it has also revealed longer-term strategic issues for Europe. Russia supplies around a third of the EU’s gas, but the Kremlin is also dependent on revenue from oil, gas and coal exports to the EU. I therefore welcome the Foreign Secretary’s comments on the European Commission’s plan to reduce European countries’ reliance on Russian energy and the announcement by G7 Energy Ministers that they will hold discussions next week. Will the Foreign Secretary confirm whether a date will be set at that meeting for the publication of a report? Further, will he offer the House the British Government’s estimate of what actually is a realistic timetable by which the necessary infrastructure could be put in place to ensure a more meaningfully diverse supply of energy to Europe in the years ahead?
In conclusion, the days ahead mark a crucial juncture not just for Ukraine, but both for the European Union and our NATO allies. This is a moment of real geopolitical significance. Russian action, together with the international community’s response, is being watched not simply in the region, but right around the world. As in past weeks, in the days and weeks ahead, the Government will have our support in their efforts to help to ensure a de-escalation of the crisis by evidencing the costs and consequences to the Russians and by allowing Ukraine the opportunity to choose its own future.
Mr Hague
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for setting out a bipartisan approach, which is very welcome at important moments in foreign policy; it helps this country to send, and other countries to hear, a clear and united message. He joined me in paying tribute to Members on all sides—and I mean all sides—of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe for their work over the past few weeks.
The right hon. Gentleman asked about the criteria for placing people on the EU sanctions list. We have focused so far, including in the list that is about to be published, either on people in Crimea who have been part of what has happened there or on Russians involved in supporting the actions that have been taken in Crimea or eastern Ukraine—in other words, people with a direct political or other responsibility for what has happened. Of course, that could be broadened in future—the basis of the US sanctions is broader—but that is what we have focused on in the European Union. A question for the coming days will be whether to change the criteria for future rounds of sanctions if they prove necessary.
The right hon. Gentleman asked at what point in Russia’s escalations we will apply the third tier of sanctions, which is one of the major issues facing those countries applying sanctions. I do not think that it would be helpful to set out in detail a trip wire or red line, not least because that would invite Russia to go up to that point, knowing that it would not be subject to such sanctions. In the minds of many European countries, such sanctions are to be applied in the event of a Russian invasion of parts of eastern Ukraine. However, I think that it is important to hold out the option of applying such sanctions in circumstances that amount not to a military invasion, but to a political and forcible takeover by other means of large parts of eastern Ukraine.
The right hon. Gentleman asked about NATO Foreign Ministers. We are in close consultation across NATO. NATO Foreign Ministers met at the beginning of the month to discuss the situation in detail, and many of the measures that NATO has announced are the result of our discussions. The OSCE mission, which he asked about, is certainly continuing. The observers who have been taken hostage and paraded are not actually part of the special monitoring mission that is supporting implementation of the Geneva agreement; they are part of the military monitoring that the OSCE does anyway in an attempt to reduce tensions across eastern Europe. So far, the situation has not affected the OSCE’s determination to continue its mission. As of Friday, 122 observers have been deployed. As I mentioned in my statement, one of the reasons we have provided additional funding is so that up to 400 additional observers can be deployed, and we are in favour of the OSCE deploying a great many additional people.
The IMF support is a two-year programme, and its delivery depends upon the financial needs and performance of the Ukrainian Government over the coming weeks. It takes into account the proximity of the presidential elections. On the long-term strategic issues, I am in favour of being as transparent as possible at an early date about what the plans might involve, but clearly they still require further discussion.
The right hon. Gentleman asked how long it would take to change the infrastructure of Europe. Of course it would take many years to change the infrastructure in all the ways that could be considered, for example by completing construction of the southern gas corridor from the Caspian sea, or by changing infrastructure in the United States so that liquefied natural gas could be exported from its east coast. However, I think that a determination to embark on those and other measures would have an economic effect long before they were fully implemented. Russia has to take that into account in its actions now.
Mr Speaker
Order. A very large number of right hon. and hon. Members are seeking to catch my eye on this statement, which I must nevertheless balance against the intense interest that colleagues have expressed in the Second Reading debate on the High Speed Rail (London - West Midlands) Bill, which is to follow. Accordingly, and exceptionally, as I am sure the House will concur, it might not be possible for me to accommodate everybody who is interested in this statement. If I am to have any chance of doing so, there will be a premium on brevity from Back and Front Benches alike.
Sir Peter Tapsell (Louth and Horncastle) (Con)
I put it to my right hon. Friend that the rescue of the failed state of Ukraine from civil war needs to be kept entirely separate from any attempt to overthrow the historic treaty of Küçük Kaynarca of 1774—[Interruption.] Well, we base our defence of Gibraltar and the Falklands on ancient treaties, so they should not be disregarded. The treaty of Küçük Kaynarca transferred the sovereignty of the Crimea from the Ottoman empire to the Russian empire. Hundreds of thousands of Russians sacrificed their lives in the 1940s in defence of that, and even Mr Gorbachev has publicly announced that he regards the Crimea as an integral part of Mother Russia—and the whole of the Russian people take the same view.
Mr Speaker
We do not have time for an exhaustive recital of the contents of the treaty, but we are grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for the essential flavour of it.
Mr Hague
Treaties of the 18th century are important, and we do indeed rest our case in some international disputes on those treaties, including the treaty of Utrecht. My right hon. Friend should nevertheless bear in mind the fact that Mr Khrushchev transferred the sovereignty of the Crimea to Ukraine—[Interruption.] I think I am receiving some support from the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw). Russia took that decision—also a validly taken international decision—so my right hon. Friend should reflect on the fact that we now try not to settle international disputes in the same manner as in the 18th century. The fact that Russia annexed the Crimea by force in the 1770s does not allow the Russians to do so in the 21st century.
Mr Jack Straw (Blackburn) (Lab)
Will the Foreign Secretary say a word about Germany’s view on economic sanctions? One of the kidnapped military monitors is Colonel Axel Schneider—a high-ranking German officer—so does the right hon. Gentleman agree that that might concentrate the mind of the German people on the need to be firm against Russia?
Mr Hague
Four German observers are involved, which is a matter of great concern to Germany and to us. Chancellor Merkel spoke very clearly about these matters on Friday, saying that we needed to adopt additional sanctions and that G7 and EU measures come with the full support of Germany. She has called for the extension of the EU list of names, for further additions to it and for intensified preparation for the wider economic measures that may prove necessary. The support of Germany is certainly there.
Sir Malcolm Rifkind (Kensington) (Con)
Does the Foreign Secretary recognise that his very strong condemnation of the continuing aggression of Russia towards Ukraine is an acknowledgement that the rather symbolic sanctions measures taken thus far—despite the annexation of Crimea—have had absolutely no impact on Mr Putin’s thinking or his continuing behaviour? Does my right hon. Friend accept, and will the western community now accept, that the time for wide-ranging trade, economic and financial sanctions has come? Will he confirm that Her Majesty’s Government will undoubtedly support at the very least economic, financial and trade sanctions if a single Russian soldier again crosses the border into its neighbouring state?
Mr Hague
My right hon. and learned Friend will have heard me talk about the intensified preparation of those sanctions. That is going on now; I gave a little detail about it in my statement. I mentioned earlier the debate about the criteria for imposing those sanctions, but a Russian military invasion of eastern Ukraine certainly triggers such sanctions—certainly in the view of the United Kingdom and, I think, of the great majority of European Union nations. We stand ready to take such measures and we will not shy away from them.
Mr Peter Hain (Neath) (Lab)
I agree with the Foreign Secretary’s statement and with the thoughtful response from my right hon. Friend the Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South (Mr Alexander). The puzzle surely is this. On one reading, Russia is acting with a kind of irrational belligerence and aggression, given that it is inviting the retaliation that the Foreign Secretary has explained, which will be intensified, so what is Russia really after? Will the right hon. Gentleman share his assessment? Could we pursue an alternative strategy, because it does not seem to me that we are getting anywhere with this approach? Russia is not getting anywhere—it is suffering economically—and we are not getting anywhere.
Mr Hague
I believe that Russia’s actions in Crimea, and now in eastern Ukraine, are a response to the unexpected and rapid fall of President Yanukovych and his Government, which was understood in the world—and indeed in Russia—to be a major reversal for Russian foreign policy. The long-term consequences of that response have not necessarily been thought through. Russia has acted to restore some of what it might think of as its prestige internationally or domestically, and therefore taken these actions. There is an alternative approach—the one agreed in Geneva only 11 days ago, with Russia’s Foreign Minister present—which is for all concerned to de-escalate tensions while the Ukrainian Government pursue constitutional reform, including decentralisation to the regions of Ukraine. That is the alternative model.
Sir Menzies Campbell (North East Fife) (LD)
Is not one of the most chilling features of this affair the continued assertion of the right of Russia to intervene in other countries on the pretext of protecting Russian citizens or Russian passport holders? Has my right hon. Friend taken the opportunity to advise the Government of Ukraine, and other Governments perhaps in a similar position, about the importance of avoiding a response to any provocation—whether accidental or deliberate—that might be seized upon as a justification, however spurious, for further such intervention?
Mr Hague
That is a very important point. It is a chilling aspect of Russia’s statements on this crisis, and I have indeed discussed it with the Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Ukraine. I commend them again for their restraint and their refusal to rise to provocation. They have been doing their best to create and maintain law and order in their country without giving a pretext for Russian intervention in eastern Ukraine, and so far they have done a very good job under intense domestic political pressure.
Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab)
Several ISAF countries are heavily reliant on Russian heavy lifting capacity and access to airspace as part of their withdrawal from Afghanistan. Is there any evidence that Russia is using that airspace and capacity as a bargaining counter in the negotiations?
Mr Hague
Not so far. I am not aware of any interruption of co-operation on Afghanistan. Our co-operation with Russia on that and other international issues, such as the E3 plus 3 negotiations with Iran, is being maintained by us and by Russia, uninterrupted by the Ukraine crisis.
Nicholas Soames (Mid Sussex) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend believe that NATO has adequately asserted its willingness to defend itself and its allies, and will he also remind the House that we have much business to do with the Russians, not least in Syria and Iran?
Mr Hague
My right hon. Friend makes the point that I made in my previous answer. We continue to work with Russia on the Iranian nuclear negotiations and many African issues. We also try to work with Russia on Syria, although we have not succeeded in agreeing a common approach on that particular subject. He may be assured that we will maintain those efforts in the coming weeks.
Mr Bob Ainsworth (Coventry North East) (Lab)
The Foreign Secretary will continue to receive widespread support in all parts of the House if he maintains the calibrated but determined approach that he has laid out in his statement. The trick is to make certain that the Russians realise the level of determination to resist their incursions into Ukraine, balanced by allowing them the time to think through the consequences of their actions—I am not at all sure that they have done so. Does he agree?
Mr Hague
Yes, I absolutely agree. Thinking through the long-term consequences has not necessarily happened, as I said to the right hon. Member for Neath (Mr Hain). Part of our approach is to take certain measures that have an impact while making it clear that there are further and more serious measures that we are prepared to take. We are giving the time for that to sink in and for negotiations to take place such as those in Geneva 11 days ago. I hope and believe that we have the calibration right, and I am grateful for the right hon. Gentleman’s support for it.
Alistair Burt (North East Bedfordshire) (Con)
May I commend my right hon. Friend’s robust but typically graduated approach, which together with Ukraine’s restraint gives every opportunity for Russia to come back into the situation and be part of the future? If there are to be costs and consequences for Russia’s illegal action, and if they are to mean anything, there will be costs and consequences for the United Kingdom. Is my right hon. Friend confident that, in particular, the City of London is well prepared for that and will give him every co-operation in making sure that the sanctions he imposes are effective and that London will not become a bolthole for the investment of those who are seeking to evade the sanctions placed on them?
Mr Hague
My right hon. Friend makes a very good point. If we do have to move to a third tier of more far-reaching sanctions, it is important that they cover various economic trade and financial areas, and the United Kingdom would have to play a very important part in that. It is important that sacrifices that are necessary are shared across the whole of the European Union, but we would certainly play our part, and of course we would seek to construct these measures in a way that had the maximum effect on the Russian economy and the minimum effect on European Union economies.
Gemma Doyle (West Dunbartonshire) (Lab/Co-op)
There has been some talk of the possibility of providing arms to Ukraine’s military. However, when I was there two weeks ago with a number of colleagues it became apparent that more basic support equipment such as tents and protective clothing would be welcome. Has there been any consideration of providing that?
Mr Hague
I very much welcome the visit to Ukraine by Members of Parliament from both sides of the House; that is, in itself, an important sign of our willingness to work with Ukraine and to understand the issues in that country. We have long supported projects of defence reform and improvements to the armed forces in Ukraine. We are not supplying Ukraine with lethal weapons, but we are open to supplying the sort of equipment that the hon. Lady asks about. We are looking sympathetically at its requests for these things at the moment.
Sir Gerald Howarth (Aldershot) (Con)
Is it not clear that Russia, having repudiated the 1992 Budapest agreement to which the United Kingdom is a signatory, and now the Geneva agreement as well, is intent on invading eastern Ukraine? While I welcome the measures that my right hon. Friend has announced, not least the deployment of four Typhoons, may I renew my plea that NATO be charged with the responsibility for sending a maritime taskforce at least to deter the Russians from attacking Odessa, because that if that were to happen the remainder of Ukraine would have no access to a sea port?
Mr Hague
I am not announcing any additional military deployment today beyond what I have said about the air policing mission, but I take note of my hon. Friend’s suggestion. I do not think that what has happened necessarily means that Russia has decided to invade eastern Ukraine. Clearly, it means that Russia has put itself in a position to do so, and the threat to do so has to be taken seriously. It also means that it has embarked on the destabilisation of Ukraine and a deliberate attempt to make it as difficult as possible for that country to function and for its presidential elections to be held—and that, of course, is bad enough.
Ian Austin (Dudley North) (Lab)
When we were in Ukraine a fortnight ago, the extent to which Yanukovych has run down the country’s armed forces, presumably in anticipation of events such as these, was absolutely clear to me. May I echo the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for West Dunbartonshire (Gemma Doyle) and urge the Foreign Secretary and his NATO colleagues to consider urgently what can be done to strengthen Ukraine’s defences and to provide basic equipment such as secure radio and bullet-proof vests, and military advice and technical equipment, so that the country is more able to defend itself?
Mr Hague
Broadly, yes—although I am not saying yes to all the items the hon. Gentleman mentions. I reiterate the answer I gave to the hon. Member for West Dunbartonshire. I do not think that former President Yanukovych anticipated his own demise and flight to Russia, but nevertheless it is true that the Ukrainian armed forces have been run down for a long time. We will be able to supply them with some basic items that help them to function and I will keep the House informed about that.
Sir Richard Ottaway (Croydon South) (Con)
Does the Foreign Secretary agree that, with all business with Russia grinding to a halt, Russian stock markets in free fall, the rouble weakening, serious outflows of capital, interest rates rising and a possible forced debt sell-off, the markets are in fact providing de facto sanctions already?
Mr Hague
Yes. Indeed, that should be of more concern to Russia than any sanctions we impose on individuals. The Russian economy is already slow-growing, certainly compared with our own. It has slowed further in recent months and it is possible, as I mentioned in my statement, that it will shrink this year. Every time Russia destabilises Ukraine, it is destabilising its own economy and reducing its own economic prospects, which will bring serious long-term consequences for Russia.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
Most of the sanctions thus far have been targeted at individuals and the Foreign Secretary earlier announced more targeted sanctions by the United States of America against individuals. Is there not a real danger that all that will do is unite and cement the Putin regime and bind its members more to one another and to the Russian people? It would be far more productive to have serious economic and financial sanctions that affect the whole of the Russian economy.
Mr Hague
The hon. Gentleman makes a good case for that. We have those more far-reaching sanctions in preparation. It is very important to keep like-minded countries together on this—that is a major consideration for us. That means the whole of the European Union and G7 acting together. It is certainly the majority consensus opinion that targeted sanctions—followed later, if necessary, by the more far-reaching measures—is the way to do this. Hon. Members on both sides of the House have advocated taking more far-reaching measures now, but I think on balance it is right to stick to the calibrated approach that I advocate and that the right hon. Member for Coventry North East (Mr Ainsworth) has commented on. It makes it clear to Russia that such measures will follow a further serious escalation of this crisis.
Mr William Cash (Stone) (Con)
Does the end game of the Foreign Secretary and the European Union include the requirement on Russia to disgorge Crimea, given the arrangements under the association agreement that were agreed in the conclusions of the EU summit a few weeks ago?
Mr Hague
The association agreement and any other actions or documents of the United Kingdom and the European Union are not going to recognise the annexation of Crimea. It cannot be accepted internationally. That is why we are also looking in Europe at the economic measures we are going to apply to Crimea in its current condition, annexed by Russia. The only agreement we have with Russia on these matters is the Geneva agreement, which relates to de-escalating tensions in Ukraine. That is what the international community has come together to require.
Mr David Winnick (Walsall North) (Lab)
Is there not a connection between the bully-boy tactics the Russians are now employing in Ukraine and the way in which democratic reforms and changes in Russia itself—the sorts of changes brought in by Mr Gorbachev in the late 1980s—have been reversed?
Mr Hague
There is a connection. I said in my statement that I think Russia is fearful about the establishment of more fully fledged democracy and rule of law in its neighbourhood. There are domestic implications for Russia. That is part of the explanation for its actions and I think that is the wrong course for Russia to be embarked on. In the long term, a more open economy, better relations with its neighbours and a better functioning democracy in its own country would be in its own best interests.
Mr John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)
Are contingency plans now in place to import energy from the United States and elsewhere if Russia decides to escalate the situation and interrupts the gas supply to European countries?
Mr Hague
As I mentioned earlier, some things would require long-term changes in infrastructure, but changes are taking place already. Today, Ukraine and Slovakia have signed an agreement for what is called a reverse flow of gas into Ukraine from European countries. Taken with other agreements, that means that Ukraine could now receive about 17 billion cubic metres of gas in total from the EU and other European countries. Changes are therefore already being made, but major changes in infrastructure will take years.
Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)
As has already been said, Putin’s popularity is increasing—really solidifying his approach—and sanctions may take some time to have an impact on ordinary Russians. Will the Foreign Secretary therefore tell us a little more about the discussions he is having with Russia’s neighbours and allies, and about the pressure that they might put on him? Why are we doing so little, or so it seems, in terms of the relationship with the UN?
Mr Hague
The relationship of the UN to this matter is of course very important. A debate took place several weeks ago in the UN General Assembly, when a resolution making clear the support for the territorial integrity of Ukraine was carried by 100 votes to 11. That illustrated the extent of Russia’s diplomatic isolation, but such a vote has not of course affected Russia’s behaviour.
We, of course, talk closely to neighbouring countries. I mentioned that the Minister for Europe is in Estonia today. The Baltic states are particularly concerned about what Russia has done, and we are increasing our military support for them. We will continue to work with neighbouring countries very closely, and I will visit Moldova, Georgia and Ukraine next week to reinforce that.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
Given the danger that these tactics, if successful, will embolden Russia to do something similar against a NATO member state, as the Foreign Secretary suggested, is any thought being given to increasing the prominence of defence expenditure among Britain’s national priorities?
Mr Hague
Defence remains a very important priority for the United Kingdom, as my hon. Friend knows very well. These events mean that at the NATO summit in September, which we will be very proud to host in Wales, there will be increased consciousness of the need for NATO in Europe and of the need for confidence in the collective defence of NATO nations. I have already made the case at the NATO Foreign Ministers meeting that that will mean, over the coming years, some NATO nations that spend much less than 2% of GDP on defence having to think again and to increase their defence expenditure.
John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) (Lab/Co-op)
When we were in Kiev over the Easter recess, an official made the point to me that Ukraine did not think, when it gave up its nuclear weapons, that it was doing so in return for a few targeted sanctions on individuals. If we are to make any meaningful progress on nuclear non-proliferation in future, do we not need to show the world that we will do whatever it takes to protect Ukraine’s territorial integrity, including discussing now the prospect of a long-term energy boycott on Russia?
Mr Hague
We do have to show that there are very serious consequences, which I have set out. Let us remember that a complete energy boycott of Russia would be very difficult to implement—at this moment, at any rate—for many EU nations, such as Bulgaria, that are heavily dependent on Russian supplies of gas. It would therefore be rash for the whole European Union to advocate an energy boycott of Russia, but it is right to talk about reducing—long-term—the reliance on Russian energy and to change the balance of leverage, as I have put it previously in this House, between Russia and the European Union. We are engaged in that, and Russia should really pay heed to it.
Mr John Whittingdale (Maldon) (Con)
I thank the Foreign Secretary for the assistance the British embassy gave the cross-party delegation that visited Ukraine 10 days ago. Is he aware that many Ukrainians believe that their country will soon be at war and that this country has a special obligation to help them, as a signatory to the Budapest memorandum? Will he consider their request that targeted sanctions be introduced now against Russian financial institutions that can be shown to be supporting the separatists, and that we provide assistance in the form of intelligence sharing and the supply of non-lethal military equipment?
Mr Hague
As my hon. Friend knows very well, I do not comment on intelligence matters on the Floor of the House, but I note the point he makes. I join him in paying tribute to our embassy, which is doing a very good job in extremely demanding circumstances. In our application of sanctions, we are taking into account those Russians who have been engaged in creating instability in eastern Ukraine. One of the next decisions that we will face, as I mentioned earlier, is whether to widen the criteria so that a greater range of Russians can be included in future.
Jonathan Reynolds (Stalybridge and Hyde) (Lab/Co-op)
At a time when the security of Europe is genuinely seen to be in question, will the Foreign Secretary agree that our membership of the European Union is integral to our ability to respond properly to crises such as that in Ukraine?
Penny Mordaunt (Portsmouth North) (Con)
I welcome the escalation of sanctions and note what my right hon. Friend said about Russia’s self-inflicted wounds to her economy and her standing in the world. What is his message today to any individual or company that is considering investing in or doing business with Russia?
Mr Hague
We have not declared a trade war or a boycott of Russia. There are British companies with huge investments in Russia that made those investments in good faith. If it comes to the adoption of more far-reaching economic, trade and financial measures, that will have an impact on some of those companies. However, any such message is for that point. We are not declaring an economic boycott of Russia today.
Mark Hendrick (Preston) (Lab/Co-op)
In just over three weeks, there will be presidential elections in Ukraine. The Foreign Secretary said in his statement: “NATO agreed a set of measures to provide reassurance and confidence to NATO allies.” Are any NATO measures under consideration to give material military help and support to Ukrainian forces if Ukraine’s eastern border is invaded by Russia in order to disrupt those elections?
Mr Hague
No, not as things stand. As the hon. Gentleman knows very well, Ukraine is not a member of NATO. Our response to the situation has not been military outside NATO’s borders. Our additional assurance is to NATO members and relates to our collective defence. That does not extend to a military guarantee to Ukraine.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
While we are all looking at Ukraine’s eastern border, what is the Foreign Secretary’s assessment of the threat to Ukraine’s south-western border, given that the Russians have troops in Transnistria?
Mr Hague
That is another reason why I will visit Moldova and why my right hon. Friend the Minister for Europe visited it recently. It is true that the security threats to Ukraine come from several directions: from the Black sea and Crimea, from Transnistria and from Russia forces on the eastern border. That underlines the importance of the strong messages about the costs of such intervention to Russia that I am sending today and that others, including the United States, are sending.
Mr Speaker
Order. I can accommodate the remaining colleagues only if there is extreme economy, in which exercise I am sure we will be led by Mr Stephen Pound.
Stephen Pound (Ealing North) (Lab)
Quite rightly we are discussing south-eastern Ukraine, but there is an issue on the Polish border to the west. What assurance can the Foreign Secretary give my Polish constituents that he is not neglecting that aspect of the problem in his discussions?
Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)
Does the Foreign Secretary agree that the credibility of international agreements such as the Geneva convention, the UN charter and the Budapest memorandum is now at stake if the post-second world war international system is not to fail in the way the post-first world war system did?
Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)
With a mind to the presidential elections on 25 May, has the Secretary of State assessed the number of British nationals who will play a role in monitoring those elections, and if so, what security arrangements will be put in place to protect them from any molestation?
Mr Hague
I do not know how many British nationals will be involved, although some certainly will participate in the monitoring and in the work of the OSCE mission that I mentioned earlier. In the vast majority of the country I do not think security arrangements will be an issue, but we will, of course, look carefully in eastern Ukraine at what we need to do about that.
Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)
May I echo the importance of the cross-party visit that took place during the Easter recess? It was clear for us to see the role that Russian ringleaders were playing in stirring up tensions there. Given that two thirds of Ukraine’s GDP is owned by just 11 oligarchs, does my right hon. Friend agree that that powerful group could, if it chose, play a more influential role in stabilising Ukraine?
Mr Hague
Yes, I do agree. My hon. Friend made some important reflections on the visit that he and other hon. Members made and which, as I said earlier, was very welcome. Those oligarchs can play an important role and I have spoken to some of them myself to urge them to play a strongly positive role in the future of their country.
Andy Sawford (Corby) (Lab/Co-op)
When we were in Ukraine it was clear that what the Ukrainians call “little green men” are agitating in the east. Will the Foreign Secretary work with our international allies to step up our intelligence so that we can affirm what is known to everyone but not yet clearly evidenced in the international community and the public eye—that those are indeed Russian agitators in the east?
Mr Hague
Again, I do not comment on our intelligence, but I can say that we are very confident that those personnel are Russian operatives—not exclusively so. When one considers how they are armed and equipped, how well trained and co-ordinated they are, and how well what they have done in eastern Ukraine mirrors some of what happened in Crimea, it would defy common sense to think them anything other than Russian personnel.
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)
Given that most of the Ukrainian media has been shut down and that east Ukrainians are receiving a diet of Russian propaganda each day, what more can Britain do to use its soft power, including the BBC World Service, to ensure that we get some balanced propaganda and that the presidential and other elections take place?
Mr Hague
The concept of balanced propaganda is a good one, and one we are all very fond of in this House, no doubt. My hon. Friend makes the good point that a multi-billion dollar true propaganda machine is operating on behalf of Russia, putting out stories to the people of east Ukraine in particular that often bear very little resemblance to reality. There is no shortage of outlets from the western media, and other outlets that are free to report things as they are, but it is one of the issues I will consider when I visit the region next week.
Mr William Bain (Glasgow North East) (Lab)
My constituents have been horrified at the incursion into Ukraine’s sovereignty in recent weeks, but they will be equally horrified at the recent comments by Scotland’s First Minister. Does the Secretary of State agree that Alex Salmond did not speak for Scotland on Kosovo, and he does not speak for the people of Scotland now when he claims that rising Russian nationalism is a force for good in the world?
Mr Hague
Yes, absolutely. I think people throughout Scotland—indeed, throughout the whole of the United Kingdom—will be horrified by those comments. To pay tribute, even as Russia was annexing Crimea by force, to the restoration of pride in Russia is a gross error of judgment in international relations. The attitude of the Scottish National party is very concerning.
Sir John Randall (Uxbridge and South Ruislip) (Con)
Will the Foreign Secretary give us an update on what is happening in Crimea?
Mr Hague
The Tatars, an important minority in Crimea, have grave concerns about what has happened and what it will mean for them. In the European Union, we are looking at the economic restrictions that will apply to goods that are made in Crimea but not exported through Ukraine. It will be a difficult future for Crimea following the forcible annexation of the region.
Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)
It seems clear that further and tougher sanctions might be necessary. Does the Foreign Secretary agree that it is absolutely imperative for members of the EU and other states to work together carefully to ensure that each supports the other in any sanctions relating to energy?
Mr Hague
Yes. The EU nations, and some countries beyond the EU, need to work very closely on this matter. As long as any one country of the EU is heavily dependent on Russian supplies of gas, the whole of the EU is affected by that vulnerability. Addressing the vulnerability of each individual nation, as well as the EU as a whole, is very important.
Mr Julian Brazier (Canterbury) (Con)
I welcome my right hon. Friend’s comments on the importance of reinforcing NATO and our own gesture of sending a flight of Typhoons to the Baltic states. Will he tell us which of our allies, apart from the United States, are involved in a similar move?
Mr Hague
Other allies are involved. The United States and United Kingdom have most quickly provided assets, but other nations will be involved in some of the other actions of assurance. Rather than giving my hon. Friend an off-the-cuff selection of countries, I will write to him with the up-to-date list.
Mr Jonathan Djanogly (Huntingdon) (Con)
Russia’s power derives from its ability to charge different countries different prices for its gas and thereby divide and rule, so why does the EU not create a single buying entity for Russian gas?
Mr Hague
There would be implications for national competence and sovereignty in deciding to take that measure, but we can have co-ordinated plans to make sure that Europe is able to diversify its energy supplies. One of the most valuable things that could be done in Europe is the creation of a true single market in energy, with the necessary infrastructure and pricing. That would do more to reduce both prices and, ultimately, dependence on Russia than having a single buying agency.
Points of Order
Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. We have lost an hour from the HS2 debate because of the very important statement on Ukraine. If the Government were minded to let you have a manuscript amendment to the Business of the House motion to extend the debate to midnight, would you be prepared to accept it?
Mr Speaker
What I say to the hon. Gentleman is that it would be possible for the Government to move a motion in lieu, rather than to amend the existing motion, but I think success of the kind that the hon. Gentleman envisages and hopes for would require the assent of the whole House. It might be thought on the part of the hon. Gentleman to be a triumph of optimism over reality to suppose that that would take place, but I hope he feels that his attempted point of order has been answered.
Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. This morning a Treasury Minister, in an interview on Radio 4 about phase 1 of HS2, spoke about the route “into Birmingham and now through to Crewe”, yet the Bill before us today dealing with phase 1 speaks of a route from Euston only as far as Handsacre in Staffordshire. Have you received any indication from the Government that an amendment will be tabled to the hybrid Bill to extend phase 1 to Crewe?
Mr Speaker
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his point of order and I understand the concern which prompts him to raise the point in the Chamber. However, the route is a matter for debate rather than of order for the Chair. In so far as the hon. Gentleman is, in his characteristically courteous way, seeking gently or otherwise to chide the Minister for what he regards as a marginally inaccurate interpretation of the contents of the Bill, I feel sure that the hon. Gentleman’s observations will have been noted, not least by the reproved Minister. We will leave it there, I think, for now.
Speaker’s Statement
Mr Speaker
Mr James Arbuthnot has written to me in accordance with Standing Order No. 122C, giving notice of his wish to resign from the chairmanship of the Select Committee on Defence. I therefore declare the chair vacant.
I would like, I feel sure on behalf of the House, to make two points in respect of the Chair of the Defence Committee. First, the combination of skill and conscientiousness which the right hon. Gentleman has brought to his task of chairing that Committee—[Hon. Members: “ Hear, hear”]—over a long period has been greatly to the advantage of the House. It is a matter of record that the right hon. Gentleman regards the chairmanship of the Committee as the single most stimulating and rewarding function that he has undertaken in the House in the course of his nigh 27 years in it. We are grateful to him. Secondly—and I say this with some personal feeling—I have always felt that the right hon. Gentleman has treated the House and me with the most exemplary courtesy, which is appreciated by me, and his general approach is hugely appreciated by the House. [Hon. Members: “ Hear, hear.”]
The following will be the arrangements for electing a new Chair of the Defence Committee. Nominations should be submitted in the Lower Table Office by 12 noon on Tuesday 13 May. Following the House’s decision of 26 May 2010, only members of the Conservative party may be candidates in this election. If there is more than one candidate, the ballot will take place on Wednesday 14 May from 11 am to 1 pm in a Committee Room to be announced. A briefing note with more details about the election will be made available to Members and published on the intranet.
High Speed Rail (London – West Midlands) Bill
(10 years, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
22:59 - The House divided: - Ayes: 50 / Noes: 451 - Question accordingly negatived.
23:16 - The House divided: - Ayes: 452 / Noes: 41 - Question accordingly agreed to.
Mr Speaker
Before I call the Secretary of State for Transport to move the Second Reading, I should inform the House that I have selected the reasoned amendment in the name of the right hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs Gillan).
I think it only right, notwithstanding the heavy pressure on time, that there should be modest latitude for representatives on either side of the House in the early stages of the debate. That latitude will apply to the mover of the amendment and to the Chair of the Transport Committee, upon whom no formal time limit will be imposed, but I know that both Members will be sensitive to the wishes of the House and the legitimate expectations of colleagues who wish to contribute. After those two individuals have addressed the House, there will be a five-minute limit on Back-Bench speeches.
The Secretary of State for Transport (Mr Patrick McLoughlin)
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
It is 120 years since we last built a main line railway north of London. It is even longer since, in 1833, this House voted to start what is known as the west coast main line. The line was not meant to be a national route; it became one almost by accident. It was a railway built with twists and turns to placate landowners, for slow steam trains pulling open-top carriages. It is worth recalling that in 1832 Parliament rejected the initial Bill because some people objected, arguing that canals were all we would ever need for long-distance travel. Today, we ask far too much of the line. If we were talking about roads, it would be as if traffic still had to go up Watling street, as if the M1 and M6 had never been built, and we tried to solve our transport needs by just patching up old roads—a roundabout here, a bridge there—as if incremental change could make all the difference. Well, we tried that: we spent £9 billion upgrading the west coast main line a decade ago, and most of that work did not even get south of Rugby. Cities and towns in the north deserve better. Scotland deserves better. Britain deserves better.
That is why I stand at the Dispatch Box today to support High Speed 2, a new north-south railway line. I do so with much humility and not a little trepidation, but also with confidence, because although I wholly understand the concerns of hon. Members whose constituents are affected by the route, I also know that this is a decision we cannot duck. We have waited long enough. The west coast main line can take no more; it is increasingly full. More than that, London and the south-east are also increasingly full, caught in a cycle of rising house prices, some of the most expensive commercial rents in the world and transport congestion, while cities in the north want to grow. It is time to help to break that cycle—time to connect great cities such as Birmingham, Manchester, Sheffield, Leeds and Liverpool.
Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)
The right hon. Gentleman has said in the past that Coventry would benefit, but can he tell me how? If we are not careful, there could be economic problems with investment in Coventry.
Mr McLoughlin
If I may, I will come in a little while to how I think places such as Coventry, Northampton, Rugby and elsewhere will benefit from the building of HS2. It is not just a matter of time; it is also a matter of the capacity available to the United Kingdom in its railway network. However, I will come to that.
Mr McLoughlin
I am happy to give way to colleagues, but I am aware of the number of people who want to speak in this debate, so I will be a bit cautious.
Paul Farrelly
I thank the Secretary of State for giving way. Clearly everywhere in Britain deserves better, but there are fears, as he will know, that great cities such as Stoke-on-Trent and Coventry will simply be bypassed. What meetings has he had, in particular with Stoke-on-Trent city council, in the past three months about either a stop on HS2 at Stoke, or a spur from HS2 along the route through Stoke station?
Mr McLoughlin
It is important to note that the Bill before us deals with the route from London to the west midlands, which does not go as far north as the hon. Gentleman describes. That route—basically, from the end of the line we are discussing today to Manchester and Leeds—is still out to consultation. Sir David Higgins did a report, “HS2 Plus”, which I very much welcomed. I accepted part of it—removing the HS1-HS2 link—but there are other parts, on which I am asking for urgent work to be done, that are not contained in the Bill before the House today.
Robert Flello (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. May I just inform the House that Stoke-on-Trent is in the west midlands?
Mr Speaker
That is not a matter for the Chair, but a matter of intense interest, not least to the hon. Gentleman.
Mr McLoughlin
As a former Staffordshire county councillor—indeed, I was a member of Staffordshire county council for seven years—I do not need any reminding of where Stoke-on-Trent is, although it is true that Stoke-on-Trent is now a unitary authority and not controlled by that fantastic, first-class Conservative county council of Staffordshire.
Joan Walley (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)
I am grateful for the opportunity to raise the matter of Stoke-on-Trent and other issues, but is not the real concern about the Bill that there has not been a proper, rigorous and strategic environmental assessment? In other words, whether or not the Y route beyond Lichfield goes via Stoke-on-Trent or elsewhere, there has not been an opportunity to properly assess HS2 phases 1 and 2 in the round.
Mr McLoughlin
One of the questions is “Where is the biggest capacity problem?” and, whether I like it or not, the biggest capacity problem is on the southern part of the route—the route coming into London—but I well understand the concerns of hon. Members representing Stoke-on-Trent and other areas regarding the importance of getting the route right as far as they are concerned. That is why we are in the process of consultation and I am happy to meet and hear representations from those areas, although I am mindful of the huge number of consultations.
Mr John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)
Does the Secretary of State agree that we are talking today about a very big item of public spending, not an investment, because the business case makes it very clear that none of the debt can be repaid out of fare revenue and much of the interest in the early years will also fall on the taxpayer?
Mr McLoughlin
I believe there is a good cost-benefit ratio. We estimate the cost-benefit ratio to be 2.4 and it is worth pointing out—I will come on to this in my speech—that the initial cost-benefit ratio for the Jubilee line was less than 1% and if that had not been built I do not think we would have seen the subsequent development in Canary Wharf. However, I do not want to be tempted too much away from the very detailed contextual part of my speech, which I have worked out.
Mr Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Lab)
Following on from that point, given that the Government have failed to meet their targets in reducing the structural deficit, more than 60% of the cuts wait for the next Parliament, and therefore there will be a real shortage of capital does the Secretary of State really think that even if this line is built to Birmingham, it will go beyond? Secondly, given the scarcity of capital, would not the north gain more from a major link between Liverpool and Hull, rather than worrying about coming into London?
Mr McLoughlin
There is a slight problem in giving way even to colleagues and Opposition Members whom I respect greatly, because they keep asking me about further parts of my speech. If I can make a little more progress, I will be coming on to that point, but I will just point out to the right hon. Gentleman that, as he well knows, at the moment there is a huge amount of investment going into places like the northern hub, which will have very significant benefits for Liverpool, Leeds, Manchester and Hull in getting better east-west connections across the country and not just between the north and south parts of the country.
Mr Bob Ainsworth (Coventry North East) (Lab)
I agree with the change of emphasis the Secretary of State has brought, from one of speed to one of addressing the capacity issue, which is clear and apparent to anybody who wants to see it, and I believe Coventry potentially will benefit from the proximity of the nearest non-London station, but can he ensure there is proper connectivity not just to Birmingham city centre, because the west midlands is far more than just Birmingham?
Mr McLoughlin
Indeed it is, and in fairness to the right hon. Gentleman, we might consider the words of the Secretary of State in launching this project when he was last a member of the Cabinet. It is fair to say that the noble Lord Adonis did say that
“over the next 20 to 30 years the UK will require a step-change in transport capacity”
and connectivity, both to promote and to respond to long-term economic growth. That was a statement made by the last Labour Secretary of State, so to say the scheme has always only ever been about speed is to misrepresent what the last Government intended and also what this Government intended.
Mr McLoughlin
I will give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Colne Valley (Jason McCartney), and then I really must make some progress.
Jason McCartney (Colne Valley) (Con)
I welcome the fact that the Secretary of State has mentioned the northern hub rail investment, because many people against this project ask “Why not spend the money elsewhere?” I hope he will be emphasising the fact that this investment is as well as, not either/or. We are getting electrification of the trans-Pennine route, and I have just this morning been through Wakefield Westgate, a new £9 million station. This is about spending money elsewhere as well as, not instead of, on this project.
Mr McLoughlin
My hon. Friend is right. Over the next five years Network Rail will spend £38.5 billion on the existing railway network. That is separate from the money being earmarked for HS2.
Mr McLoughlin
I will give way one final time in this part of my speech, to the hon. Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern).
Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)
I thank the Secretary of State for giving way. When does he expect to respond to the phase 2 consultation?
Mr McLoughlin
If the hon. Lady will be patient, I shall deal with that point a little later in my speech.
I was telling the House that it is time to connect great cities such as Birmingham, Manchester, Sheffield and Leeds. It is time for better links between north and south and between east and west, and time to connect to world markets to make the most of their skills and talents. It is time for HS2; time for a new north-south railway line.
Today, we can get a high-speed train from London to Lille but not to Leeds, and from London to Brussels but not to Birmingham. That has to change, but of course our investment plans must also run much further. More than £38 billion is being invested in the existing rail network between 2014 and 2019, including about £16 billion of Government support as part of our plans to invest £73 billion in all forms of transport between 2015 and 2021. We are trebling the budget for our major road schemes to £15 billion between 2015 and 2021; we are investing £14 billion in local transport schemes between 2015 and 2020; and next year, the Davies commission will propose options on future airport capacity. We need to do all this because if we are to support our economy, we need our infrastructure to work. Two years after the Jubilee line reached Canary Wharf in 1999, 27,000 people were employed in that area. By 2012, the figure was over 100,000.
We begin, it is true, with the advantage of our Victorian inheritance, but others are catching up. At the start of 2007, China did not have a single high-speed railway line; today, it has more than 6,000 miles in service, and by 2015, that will be 11,000 miles. France and Germany have been reaping the benefits of a high-speed rail network for decades, while we have just 67 miles from London to Kent and the channel tunnel.
Of course we have a good existing network, but we need to improve it, and upgrading Britain’s rail infrastructure is a key part of this Government’s long-term economic plan. In the south and south-west of Britain, the great western line is receiving more investment over the next five years than any other route. This will bring huge benefits to people working in that region.
Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)
The Secretary of State has said that HS2 is not about speed but about capacity. Given that only 8% of the population regularly use trains, what percentage of the population does he think will actually use HS2 and who does he think will benefit from it?
Mr McLoughlin
I was happy to give way to my hon. Friend, but I am mindful of what he said about me yesterday on Radio 4, bits of which I agree with and bits of which I am slightly worried about. He said:
“Patrick McLoughlin is an excellent Cabinet Minister”—
I agree with him on that—
“and a former Chief Whip of the Conservative party. Indeed, if you had a difficult policy you wanted to push through Parliament, Patrick is your man. I would maintain that if the PM wanted the Herod Bill, Patrick would be the man to see that through Parliament.”
I am not quite sure whether to take that last bit as a compliment. When I talk about the need for capacity, I am talking about the need to free up capacity on other lines as well.
One of the great successes in the rail industry in this country is the massive growth in the railways, and I shall say more about that later. If we look at the tables, we see that 20 years ago, rail passenger numbers in this country were constant. Over the past 20 years, however, the numbers have risen from 750 million to 1.5 billion passenger journeys a year. The numbers continue to grow, and we need to address that fact. That is why we are right to do what we are doing with HS2.
Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)
All the northern councils and chambers of commerce back HS2 unequivocally as a source of growth and extra capacity. Is it not the case that all major infrastructure projects are objected to at the time of their creation, and that 50 years on, the objectors fully support what took place?
Mr McLoughlin
I understand and respect those people who object. If some new piece of infrastructure is going to have an impact on their lives, there will be a fear of what might come. As we saw with HS1, there was a fear of what might come, but once it had been built, people said that it represented a vast overall improvement to this country’s rail network.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
Does the Secretary of State agree that those of us who object to HS2 are not flat earthers? We know that our rail infrastructure must be renewed and that there are real problems with capacity and much else, but this proposal is deeply flawed, and has never been scrutinised properly or planned properly. That is what we worry about, because so many of the independent inquiries find on the negative, not on the positive, about this HS2.
Mr McLoughlin
In the last Parliament, the hon. Gentleman was an absolute supporter of the Government of the day. Today, we hear him attack the scheme so violently, but he did not do that when he was sitting on the Government Benches behind that Government when they proposed it in the first instance. I am happy to accept the support he gave it in the first instance.
Mr Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)
The right hon. Gentleman has said that we have only 67 miles of high-speed rail in England, linking to two independent countries, France and Belgium. Does that not add to the argument that if Scotland were independent, there would be a greater push for rail north, as two sovereign Governments would be working on this rather than one?
Mr McLoughlin
I was expecting an intervention from the Scottish National party, but I am not quite sure which sea the hon. Gentleman is thinking of going under, how long the tunnel would be and which continent he is thinking of connecting up to separately with an independent part of Scotland. What I say to him is that I believe high-speed rail is very important for the whole country—it will be important for Scotland, too—and Scotland, part of the United Kingdom, will be much better off.
Mr Jack Straw (Blackburn) (Lab)
May I offer the right hon. Gentleman, without any caveats, my full support and say to him that most colleagues representing constituencies in the north actively back this scheme, for the very reasons he has spelt out? Does he also accept that those who represent some home counties through which this route is going of course have legitimate constituency concerns but that, for example, the Chiltern railway line has benefited twice over from investment—from the last phase of investment by British Rail and from Evergreen—and that the M40 was far more disruptive to people living in the Chilterns but nobody would now suggest it should be abandoned or greened over?
Mr McLoughlin
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman and I completely agree with him. One of this morning’s papers, I believe it was The Daily Telegraph, said that this Bill will certainly have been scrutinised more than any major infrastructure project we have dealt with, across the whole piece.
Mr McLoughlin
I will give way to my hon. Friend but then I will want to make some progress.
Michael Fabricant
I hope my right hon. Friend can assure me that he has not got anything in his folder about what I might have said yesterday. He spoke earlier about the importance of global trade and of HS2. Does he not accept that it is extraordinary that with this design, HS2, which I do not disagree with in principle, does not have a link with the channel ports, with HS1 or even with whichever airport will be chosen by his own Department to have the third runway?
Mr McLoughlin
As for notes on what my hon. Friend might have said yesterday, I do not think I have enough pages in the Department for what he might have tweeted out yesterday. I will address why I think this is the right scheme a little later, because I want also to talk about the links between—
Mr McLoughlin
I will give way for the last time and then I will want to make some progress.
Mr Cash
Phase 2, which affects my constituents directly, will have compensation arrangements which will clearly be based on the proposals being put forward with regard to phase 1—London to Birmingham. Given that, and given the scale of this operation, does my right hon. Friend accept that the only proper and reasonable basis for properly compensating the people concerned is if they get full value in relation to the losses they incur and not just the kind of provision currently on offer?
Mr McLoughlin
I want to talk about the compensation package a little later and indeed about the fact that I announced a new compensation package before the House rose for Easter, but that matter is out for consultation.
Before I took those interventions, I was talking about the improvements in the great western main line. We will also see improvement in east-west links, with faster electric trains between Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds and Newcastle and a reopened railway between Oxford and Bedford. In London, we will see the Crossrail and Thameslink upgrades, which between them will cost £21 billion—about the same amount that is being spent on the first phase of High Speed 2. It is the scale of spending on London that has brought about amazing transformations at places such as St Pancras and King’s Cross stations. In the 20 years that I have been using those stations, they have become places that people wish to visit, destinations in their own right and places of which we can be proud. However, that necessary investment in London should not come at the expense of the rest of the country. Demand for travel is growing everywhere.
Twice as many people travel by train every day as they did 20 years ago. More people drive and fly, too, and that is because our horizons broaden in a better-connected world. Digital links do not replace travel; they fuel it. Smartphones and broadband are not an alternative to things such as HS2; they are part of the same growing links between people and businesses, and that pressure is felt acutely on our north-south rail corridors.
Frank Dobson (Holborn and St Pancras) (Lab)
I very much welcome the Secretary of State’s praise for the two brilliant stations in my constituency, one of which was started and finished under the Labour Government and the other of which was started under the Labour Government. Will he confirm that according to the documents of HS2 and his Department, Euston will be able to provide extra capacity only if there is investment in Crossrail 2, at a cost of an extra £15 billion to £20 billion?
Mr McLoughlin
The documents about Crossrail 2 have been put out by the Mayor of London. We shall see the completion of Crossrail 1 in 2018, which will make a massive difference to London overall. I know that the right hon. Gentleman feels very strongly about this matter and is proud of the stations in his constituency, but the truth is that when I first came to this House, we regarded Euston as the best station of the three. It is now way behind the other two stations. HS2 gives us a once in a lifetime opportunity to make a transformational change to Euston station, which will bring it into line with the other two stations.
Mr McLoughlin
I will give way to my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs Gillan), but then I must make some progress.
Mrs Cheryl Gillan (Chesham and Amersham) (Con)
I am grateful to the Secretary of State for giving way while he is laying out his case. However, the case he is making for HS2 fails to recognise that there will still have to be an awful lot of work on our classic railway. It would be wrong if he did not tell people that the west coast main line is crumbling and will still need major investment and repairs, and that our classic railway will suffer. I hope that the money will be there for those railways, too.
Mr McLoughlin
I do not think that I have been misleading. I have been very open about the west coast main line. I do not think it is crumbling—as I have said, there has been £10 billion upgrade on the line north of Rugby. Between 2014 and 2019, we shall be spending £38 billion on the existing railway network, on things such as the electrification of the midland main line and a number of other schemes that I have already mentioned.
Even on moderate forecasts, services will be increasingly full by the mid-2020s. If we do not create extra capacity, people at stations such as Milton Keynes and Northampton will have to queue to get on a train to get to work. That is despite the £9 billion that we have spent on the west coast main line in recent years. More upgrades like that will not provide the extra capacity that we need. A new north-south railway line is the right answer. From day one, it will improve journey times and train services to Manchester and to the north-west and Scotland, because HS2 trains will continue on the existing network. It will free up more space for commuters and freight on existing routes, and places up and down the country will benefit from more services and seats. Although it is too early to talk about precise timetables, Milton Keynes, an area of particularly close interest for my Parliamentary Private Secretary, could get 11 trains an hour to London compared with six now, and places such as Rugby would get more non-stop journeys to London.
Today's debate is about phase 1, but when it is complete HS2 will be a wider network. We have consulted on phase 2, and I know that many Members have a strong interest in ensuring that we get the plans right. That should include serving cities on the eastern leg through the east midlands, Sheffield and Leeds as well as the north-west, and we will set out more details later this year.
Of course we must design HS2 well and build it carefully, which means making sure that our young people have the skills to get the engineering jobs it will create. We have therefore announced plans for the first new further education college in 20 years, backed by HS2. Soon we shall announce the winning location for the central facility and a network of outposts. I know that many places are keen to take part, such as Aylesbury college, Manchester and Birmingham.
One of the things that matters most about HS2 is the huge opportunity it offers to the next generation. There will be 2,000 apprenticeships—not just one-off jobs building the line, but careers. The numbers involved mean that we will take the skills base in this country to a new level, so the country will not only be better connected but better trained with the skills we need to compete not only in transport but across a range of industries. This is not just investment in steel and rolling stock; it is a huge investment in our people across the nation.
Glenda Jackson (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)
The Secretary of State mentions apprenticeships and training. With HS1, the building of Stratford and, up to a point, the Olympics, there was a clear commitment that local people should be used on those building projects and that training schemes would be put in place to ensure that they had those opportunities. Will that same commitment apply to HS2?
Mr McLoughlin
Definitely. A little later, I shall go on to my obligations under the paving Bill, which will, I hope, go some way towards reassuring the hon. Lady.
Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)
In response to an earlier intervention, the Secretary of State answered a question about Crossrail, which, of course, qualified for full Barnett consequentials. Today we are debating high-speed rail between London and the west midlands, which seems to me to be an England-only railway. Why are the UK Government not awarding Barnett consequentials in this case?
Mr McLoughlin
Because, as I said in earlier, the simple fact is that the trains will run on to Scotland. I think that Scotland will get the benefits from the first day that the new railway line is open. I have got used to people from Scotland and Wales talking to me about Barnett consequentials, and we will obviously follow any rules that require such consequentials, but my belief is that the benefits will go to both Wales and Scotland from the point at which HS2 first opens.
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)
Will my right hon. Friend give way?
Mr McLoughlin
Well, I will give way to my hon. Friend, but this will be the last intervention for some time.
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown
I am delighted that my right hon. Friend wants to give way to me. Given that some of us approve of the principle of the Bill but believe that the route could be improved, will he say a little more about whether the Select Committee will have some latitude, given the instruction that it should consider only the broad alignment of the current deposited plans? Will it be able to consider matters such as the route to Heathrow?
Mr McLoughlin
Scrutiny is one thing that the Bill has not been short of since it was published. The Select Committee will be given certain instructions, which will be debated tomorrow, and I am sure that my hon. Friend will have the opportunity to raise his point in that debate.
It is essential that we get this investment right. That is why I welcome Sir David Higgins’s recent report “HS2 Plus”, which took a hard look at the plans. He proposes better developments at Euston, getting services to the north sooner, integrating HS2 more effectively with the existing rail network, and working with local authorities and businesses across the midlands and the north to ensure that they get the right railway for their needs. The Government support him in all that.
It is also right that the project should be built to budget and that is an essential part of the task we have set. In his report, Sir David says that the current £21.4 billion budget for phase 1 is right, but he goes on to warn that time is money. He cannot reduce the contingency budget of around £6 billion at this stage while the legislation has not yet been passed. In short, he throws a responsibility to all of us in the House; yes, a responsibility to consider the Bill properly, but not to delay it needlessly.
Sometimes people ask why we are rushing HS2. Some people ask why on earth it is taking so long. The answer is that we are doing it properly and to the timetable set out by the last Government in 2010, so that the first services run in 2026. But the final choice lies with Parliament. Last year, we passed the paving Act, which prepared for a new high-speed route to the midlands and the north. With support from the Government and Opposition, the House voted for the Act by 350 to 34. The Bill before us today will provide the detailed authorisation. As Parliament considers the Bill for phase 1, we will prepare our proposals for phase 2, responding to the Higgins challenge to accelerate and improve it so that the most can be made of this investment—a commitment to get high-speed services to more towns and cities in the midlands and the north, and, crucially, to make sure that we get the most out of the economic opportunities it will bring.
Mr Jim Cunningham
I thank the Secretary of State for giving way to me a second time. He said earlier that he would say what benefits cities such as Coventry would get from this project. Will he tell me now?
Mr McLoughlin
I think I did so a short time ago, but the simple fact is that Coventry will have the potential to get much better train services than if we failed to build HS2. There will be a far greater chance for commuters from Coventry to Birmingham or Leeds to have seats as longer distance passengers transfer to HS2. Without HS2 it is likely that trains to Birmingham and London from Coventry will become increasingly congested, with there being little chance to book a seat. Coventry residents will also have the opportunity to use the nearby Birmingham Interchange station. I was on a train from Birmingham to London last Tuesday in the middle of the day, and by the time it reached Coventry it was very nearly full. There is a capacity problem.
Miss Anne McIntosh (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)
I am following my right hon. Friend’s arguments closely. Can he put a date on bringing forward the route to the north, and can he put a figure on how much the north can be expected to benefit if we are not to have any connectivity? I believe that the economic development between Manchester, Leeds and York is being held back by the lack of investment in that route.
Mr McLoughlin
We are investing in the new intercity express programme, or IEP, trains, which is a massive upgrade of the railway network serving my hon. Friend’s constituency and region, and in this spending round we will be electrifying more than 800 miles of line throughout the country, which will benefit the northern hub, which I have just talked about.
I thank the Commercial Secretary for his work in leading the growth taskforce, developing proposals for maximising the benefits of HS2, alongside senior industrialists, senior trade union leaders and city leaders. That task matters because designing and planning work on the project is already under way and construction is set to begin in 2017, just three years away. Firms throughout the country are bidding for contracts, and places from Penzance to Edinburgh can benefit. Engineering students, currently sitting in classrooms in our towns and cities, will be the ones shaping and delivering the scheme, and pupils who are today in secondary school will be using it.
I come now to the content of the Bill. Put simply, Parliament is being asked to grant planning permission and the other powers needed for the first phase. A number of motions have been laid to facilitate the Bill’s passage, most of which will be debated tomorrow. Tonight the House is being asked to vote on the principle of the Bill: that there should be a high-speed railway between Euston and a junction with the west coast main line at Handsacre. The railway should include a spur to Birmingham Curzon Street and intermediate stations at Birmingham Interchange and Old Oak Common. If agreed tonight, this means it cannot be re-aligned or extended as part of the Bill. The proposed link to High Speed 1 will be removed from the Bill. It is not part of the principle of the Bill; instead, we are working on proposals to improve connections between the rail network and HS1.
Of course, projects of this size do not come without negative impacts. Rather than shy away from the challenges, however, we have been transparent. Parliament, as the decision maker, has a duty to ensure that the Government have met their legal obligations. We have carried out the largest environmental impact assessment of a major project ever undertaken in the UK. We have considered the alternatives, invited the views of the public and presented an environmental statement to Parliament alongside deposit of the Bill. We have observed all the European requirements, taking measures to protect species, to avoid harming special areas of conservation and to comply with the water framework directive. It is, however, not only about meeting our obligations, but about ensuring that we carefully balance the scheme’s progress with its impact. It is right that those directly affected by the scheme will have the opportunity to be heard by the Select Committee.
Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)
Nearly all those who support the scheme are pleased that the route in the Bill, which the Secretary of State has just outlined, has substantive support across the House. There is, however, one exception. Given that the London chamber of commerce and industry has said that it is unlikely that Heathrow will close in the foreseeable future, why can the Secretary of State not be clear about what link there will be to the airport?
Mr McLoughlin
I do not want to pre-empt the review of the Davies commission, which is doing excellent work, but there is no doubt that Old Oak Common will serve Heathrow as far as Crossrail is concerned.
Our proposals strike the right balance. More than half the route is in tunnels or cuttings and more than two thirds of the line’s surface sections will be insulated by cuttings and landscaping. No grade I listed building is affected and only some 100 homes will be demolished in the nearly 100 miles of the rural part of phase 1. The line is designed to be secure against flooding. Indeed, it is notable that while weather affected many rail lines this winter, the HS1 line in Kent ran as normal.
We have also consulted and changed. There will be a longer tunnel at Northolt, a new tunnel at Bromford and a bypass at Stoke Mandeville. We have worked hard on state-of-the-art noise mitigation, but if more can be done by spending the budget better, I will ensure that that happens.
Andrew Bridgen
I thank the Secretary of State for giving way. Is it not true that some 240,000 dwellings lie within a kilometre of the route, many of which are totally ineligible for any form of compensation under the current scheme, and that many people will go to their graves having been trapped in houses that they could not sell because of HS2?
Mr McLoughlin
I do not accept what my hon. Friend says, which was not reflected in the experience of building HS1.
Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)
My right hon. Friend’s written statement mentions the express purchase, which is
“being launched today and is for those people living closest to the line, in…the ‘surface safeguarded’ area.”—[Official Report, 9 April 2014; Vol. 579, c. 20WS.]
Will he clarify how far from the line that would be, as it is not clear from his written statement?
Mr McLoughlin
I will come on to compensation in a little while, but I am slightly constrained in what I can say because the issue is being consulted on.
Mr Liam Byrne (Birmingham, Hodge Hill) (Lab)
I am glad that the Secretary of State wants to keep an open mind about getting the final designs right. High Speed 2 will be of huge benefit to the city of Birmingham, but we must not leave east Birmingham behind. The current proposal to destroy a space the size of 105 football pitches, where we have plans to create 7,000 jobs in the worst unemployment hot spot in the whole United Kingdom, is not a good idea. Birmingham city council will oppose the proposal during the petitioning stage. Will the Secretary of State keep his mind open to the idea that there could be a better site for the rolling yard that would not destroy east Birmingham’s economic future?
Mr McLoughlin
I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman, and indeed Birmingham city council, is very supportive of the overall scheme. Of course we will want to make those presentations to the Select Committee during the passage of the Bill. That site was looked at very carefully when we considered those that were available, because a new railway line requires areas where trains can be serviced. A number of people can argue about whether we have the right sites or the wrong ones, and of course that will be taken into consideration.
Of course I understand the depth of concern that the line has caused in some places, which is why I have made it clear to my officials that there is no place in the Department or in HS2 for talk of luddites or nimbys. We must respect people and try to meet their concerns.
Sir John Randall (Uxbridge and South Ruislip) (Con)
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his comment about luddites and nimbys, terms that were used unhelpfully at the beginning of the process. As he will know, there is still a great deal of concern. Will he say a little more about what can still be done during the process?
Mr McLoughlin
I understand the particular concerns that have been put to me by many Members, including my right hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Mr Lidington) and my hon. Friend the Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Jeremy Wright)—they never cease to remind me of them. I certainly agree that we need to do what we can to help. Aylesbury is, after all, the largest settlement near the route between London and Birmingham, and there may be more that we can do. We will continue to talk to people in the Hawkslade part of Aylesbury, for example, and the National Trust about its idea for a land bridge near Hartwell house. I am sympathetic to the specific concerns in Wendover about any noise impact on St Mary’s church, which has become a really successful concert venue, thanks to local efforts. There are creative things that can be done along the route, such as planting tree screens to cut noise, which also makes ecological sense by creating green corridors. For places such as Fairford Leys, the line offers a chance to create new woodlands.
As I have said, I well understand that the people directly affected by the route are concerned about it. As Members have said in interventions, that is the case for all major infrastructure schemes. There is no doubt that major infrastructure schemes will inconvenience a number of people. That was certainly true when we rebuilt St Pancras and King’s Cross stations, and indeed with Crossrail, as we can see at Victoria station at the moment. Ultimately, however, we usually see a huge improvement for the general infrastructure of the nation as a result.
Mr McLoughlin
I am slightly concerned about the amount of time I am taking, but I will give way to the right hon. Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Frank Dobson).
Frank Dobson
King’s Cross and St Pancras are both in my constituency. They had the support of the local council, the support of the local MP and the overwhelming support of local people, even those directly affected. That is not the case with the proposals for Euston.
Mr McLoughlin
I am not sure what point the right hon. Gentleman is trying to make. If we only built infrastructure projects when we had the support of everyone concerned, we would be building very little infrastructure in this country.
Mrs Gillan
I am grateful to the Secretary of State for acknowledging that some parts of the country will take all the pain of this project but get none of the gain, unlike with the M40, which benefited Buckinghamshire and contributed to its economy by enabling people to get on and off it. I hope he is not ruling out looking at further mitigation, particularly for the area of outstanding natural beauty, which concerns not only my constituency but that of my right hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Mr Lidington). If one is to have environmental credentials, it is important to protect our environment to the highest degree when implementing projects of this nature.
Mr McLoughlin
Of the 20.8 km of the route that passes through the Chilterns, only 3.3 km will be on the surface—at the moment the rest will be below ground level. I understand my right hon. Friend’s point, and that is something we need to bear in mind. She is right that her constituents benefited directly from the M40, and that was paid for by taxpayers across the whole country, rather than just by those in that area. I will give way to my hon. Friend the Member for St Albans (Mrs Main), as she has not yet intervened.
Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)
My constituency is not directly affected but my constituents have concerns about this, which have not been helped by the fact that the Major Projects Authority’s report on the risk has been suppressed or vetoed. If we are going to have projects like this, greater transparency is needed in respect of them.
Mr McLoughlin
I cannot think of an infrastructure project that has had more reports on it than this one. I set out my reasons for withholding the MPA report: it is important for civil servants to be able to speak freely and in confidence to Ministers. I made a full statement on that particular matter at the time I took the decision.
Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)
I declare my interest as a commissioner of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. The commission had serious concerns about the elements of deregulation in the Bill that remove protections for monuments and burial sites where Commonwealth war graves are sited in this country. Will the right hon. Gentleman give an assurance that organisations like the Commonwealth War Graves Commission will be consulted as the Bill goes forward?
Mr McLoughlin
Yes. I give the hon. Gentleman that assurance on a matter that was raised with me privately by another member who served on the commission. We certainly will consult.
Of course, we must also get the property compensation right. I have announced an enhanced property compensation package and I wish to consult quickly on the further proposals. I want to do more, so we will introduce a need-to-sell scheme, which I want to be easy to understand and to work fairly. It is more than just a re-labelling of the previous exceptional hardship scheme. It will be more generous, too, but it does not stop there.
Let me outline the powers that the Government are seeking through this Bill. It provides the authority to undertake works required for the construction and maintenance of phase 1 of HS2: deemed planning permission for the railway; the power to purchase compulsorily the land required for the phase 1 route, as well as for business relocation and regeneration; modification of existing legislative controls that are not designed for a hybrid Bill—a process based on that used for HS1 and Crossrail; and the ability to nominate a person or organisation to deliver phase 1 on behalf of the Secretary of State.
I believe that the Bill before us today has the power to change our nation profoundly and for the better. Yes, HS2 is ambitious; yes, it will take a great deal of investment; yes, it will take time to complete—but so did the canals, the railways and motorways that previous generations left as their legacy. Our age can achieve something just as great. I am from the midlands—I was born in Staffordshire and I represent Derbyshire—and I know the potential of Britain. I know that, built right, on time and to budget, High Speed 2 can help our great cities thrive.
The choice comes down to this: do we invest in modern transport links to make sure that every part of Britain can compete for the best jobs, or are we really happy for London and the south-east to power ahead while the rest get second best? Put like that, the answer is clear to me. Yes, this project deserves careful scrutiny—the processes are in place to ensure that—but it also deserves to go ahead. Britain needs it to go ahead. Tonight, I hope that we will make good progress towards that end. I commend the Bill to the House.
Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab)
I begin by congratulating the Secretary of State on bringing the Bill before us, and I would like to thank him for the patience and generosity with which he has treated us today and for the cross-party approach he has taken on this vital national issue.
Michael Fabricant
Does she share just a teensy-weensy bit of my unease that where there is a love-in and a cross-party approach, it invariably means that the parties are getting something wrong?
Mary Creagh
Well, I do not share anything teensy-weensy or of any other size relating to the hon. Gentleman—[Laughter.] I think we will leave it at that. To give the hon. Gentleman a straight answer, I think that it is important to work co-operatively across the House on issues of national significance The debate that we have had has shown that the vision is important, but also that the concerns and the case for mitigation must be listened to. If we are elected next year, I hope that that will continue during the construction of the line.
High Speed 2 will cut congestion on the railways, better connect our cities and help to deliver a one nation economic recovery, which is why Labour will support the Bill tonight. Its 335 miles will be the longest and most ambitious piece of rail infrastructure to be built in this or the last century. Managed properly, HS2 has the power to transform the economic geography of our country. It will build up our great cities and bring them closer together; it will connect people to each other, to work and to leisure; and it will help to rebalance the economy, creating new skilled jobs and apprenticeships in every nation and region of our economy.
Mr Kevan Jones
My hon. Friend says that the project will link the cities and regions of our country. Does she include the north-east in that?
Mary Creagh
I certainly do. The full Y line will terminate 14 miles south of York so that the classic compatible network trains will be able to run from the north-east—directly from Newcastle—and join the high-speed line outside York, significantly cutting the journey time to Old Oak Common in London and to those intermediate cities of Leeds, Sheffield, Nottingham and Birmingham. There will be significant benefits to the north-east.
Paul Farrelly
Given the urge for more speed in the Higgins report, what comfort can my hon. Friend give to the people of north Staffordshire who, as HS2 stands, face the prospect of having only three direct services a day to London from Stoke-on-Trent station, instead of more than 30?
Mary Creagh
It is too early to write the railway timetable for 2026, but when phase 1 of the line is open people from my hon. Friend’s constituency will be able to get on a classic train at Stoke-on-Trent, go down the west coast main line and join the high-speed line at the Handsacre junction—
Mary Creagh
We will not be paying any tolls to go through Lichfield. Journey times to London will be significantly cut. One of the benefits that has perhaps been undersold is the connectivity that HS2 will bring even to those cities not directly connected. Given the anxieties in Stoke-on-Trent and the key decision to be made on Crewe, when will the Secretary of State bring forward his response to phase 2? It would be helpful to know his thinking.
Mr Redwood
What has changed between last autumn and today to move the Labour party from thinking that HS2 offers very poor value for money to thinking that it is a great financial project?
Mary Creagh
David Higgins and Simon Kirby, the former Network Rail chief engineer, have been appointed to the project, and the Higgins review has shown where costs can be brought down. The key risk to the project costs is political delay. We have also looked at the strategic alternatives, as we did in government, and we believe that HS2 is the best way to move to the low-carbon transport infrastructure that our country needs if we are to meet our climate change emissions targets.
Mr Simon Burns (Chelmsford) (Con)
Does the hon. Lady accept that in addition to improving journey times for people living in Warwickshire, Buckinghamshire and Staffordshire, an even greater benefit will be the release of capacity on the west coast main line? That will mean that people travelling to London will be able to get seats and will have a better journey.
Mary Creagh
Absolutely. It will also be a key issue for my right hon. and hon. Friends from Coventry, because one of the pinch points on the west coast main line is the crush when commuting from Coventry into Birmingham in the rush hour.
Andrew Bridgen
Can the shadow Secretary of State confirm that the Opposition’s support for HS2 is still contingent on its being delivered for under £50 billion?
Mary Creagh
We will have to see what the Committee delivers as the Bill goes through the Committee process. There are clearly issues to do with the High Speed 1 and High Speed 2 link, which has now been taken out of the Bill. Some of the issues that the Committee will consider will be debated more fully tomorrow.
A Bill of this size and importance will be controversial, and we must debate it properly. A project of this size will affect very many individuals and communities, and the environment. We must minimise the negative impacts wherever possible and deal with the utmost sensitivity with the people whose homes are affected.
On the capacity crunch, HS2 will deal with some of these constraints on our railways. Already, thousands of commuters are standing on packed rush hour trains into Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds and Euston. Last week’s figures from the Office of Rail Regulation showed that the number of rail journeys has more than doubled since 1996. This number will continue to rise, and by 2026 peak demand will be two and a half times the capacity at Euston, twice the capacity at Birmingham New Street, and nearly twice the capacity at Manchester Piccadilly. There is already more demand for train services than there are train paths available on the west coast main line, and by 2024 it will be running at full capacity.
This congestion will have a significant impact on the freight industry and its customers. The west coast main line is the key artery in the Rugby, Daventry and Northampton golden triangle for freight. Over the next decade, passenger constraints will become more serious on the east coast main line and the midland main line. Network Rail’s £38 billion investment programme for the next five years will deliver signalling improvements, platform extensions and some additional services, but those incremental changes will not deal with the looming capacity problem.
Labour Members know from our time in government that major infrastructure takes years to plan and to construct. Many right hon. and hon. Members will remember the Crossrail Bill, which Labour introduced in 2005 and which received Royal Assent in 2008. That railway will open in 2018. Labour in government identified the need for more capacity on London’s railways by the end of this decade, and we acted to deliver it. We must do the same now to build the infrastructure we need to mitigate the looming capacity crunch on our railways.
Mr Brian Binley (Northampton South) (Con)
Is the shadow Minister aware that we need 20 paths to take care of increased freight over the next 10 to 15 years, and that our current network cannot supply even one of those paths? Is not that a major reason for arguing for this Bill?
Mary Creagh
Yes, absolutely. Freight has been a Cinderella subject; the focus tends to be on passengers, and that is absolutely right. If we are to achieve the modal shift by getting HGVs off our roads and freight on to trains—that is key in the hon. Gentleman’s area—we have to make sure that freight is able to go on the west coast main line.
Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)
The hon. Lady said that we need to mitigate the worst effects of the railway. Does she accept that as regards ancient woodlands there is no way of mitigating those effects because we cannot replace ancient woodland? According to the Woodland Trust, the preferred route for phase 1 will see the loss of, or damage to, 83 irreplaceable woodlands.
Mary Creagh
I will come to the environmental part of my speech in a moment. I would say to the hon. Lady, as the sole representative of the Green party in Parliament, that her party is in an extraordinary position in voting against what will be the key plank in moving towards a low-carbon transport infrastructure.
Let me turn to reductions in travel times. High Speed 2 will not just increase capacity; it will use the latest high-speed technology to reduce travel times between Scotland, the north, the midlands and London. It will connect with existing railway lines so that from the end of phase 1 direct high-speed services can be operated from Glasgow, Wigan, Preston and Liverpool. [Interruption.] They will go through Lichfield, without a toll. The full scheme will cut journey times from London to Birmingham Curzon Street to 49 minutes, to Sheffield Meadowhall to 69 minutes, and to Leeds to 82 minutes. When both phases are complete, HS2 will link our northern cities, providing new express commuter services between them, as we have seen with High Speed 1 in Kent. That will drive jobs, regeneration and growth across the midlands, the north, Scotland and Wales.
Mrs Caroline Spelman (Meriden) (Con)
The hon. Lady mentioned the journey time to Curzon Street, but I am sure she is aware that the journey time from London Euston to Birmingham international will go down to 31 minutes. That will result in an under-utilised runway becoming competitive with some of the London airport runways, which could help relieve congestion in the south-east.
Mary Creagh
That is a very important point. The impact on western Coventry and Birmingham international airport cannot be overstated. When I was 18, the journey time from Coventry to London was two hours, and the £9 billion upgrade has got that down considerably to an hour. To reduce it still further would be a phenomenal achievement in one’s own lifetime.
Mr Sheerman
My hon. Friend and I have been parliamentary neighbours and friends for a long time, so I say in a very positive spirit that I started off, as the Secretary of State has said, supporting HS2 because I thought it would bring power, wealth, activity and jobs to the northern regions, but I have changed my mind because the research increasingly shows that it will suck more power into and give more strength to London and the south-east. Does my hon. Friend share my concerns? The Institute of Economic Affairs raised such questions this morning.
Mary Creagh
I missed that last bit about this morning, but the report we have had and the Treasury analysis show that the benefits will accrue to Yorkshire and west Yorkshire, including my city and my hon. Friend’s town of Huddersfield. One of the key points of the Higgins report is that full investment in east-west rail links across the Pennines is one of the great prizes that HS2 can bring to our area.
Susan Elan Jones (Clwyd South) (Lab)
In view of the fact that the French, the Germans, the Japanese, the Italians and many other nations have a high-speed link, does my hon. Friend not think it is high time that this country had one? It is about not just those areas that will actually get the link, but interconnecting areas, so people in north Wales and mid-Wales will also benefit from the Crewe link. We have to look at the budget, but surely it is high time to get on with it. That is why people in Wales who do not back everything the Labour party says, such as Professor Stuart Cole, are backing it.
Mary Creagh
The benefits of increased connectivity for north Wales cannot be overstated, given the potential for new railway links to towns and cities that currently have no direct rail link to London, and I will now address that in greater detail.
HS2 frees up capacity on the existing network. The full route will provide up to 18 long-distance train services into London every hour, which is the equivalent of a new green motorway. It will separate long-distance trains from local commuter services and freight and free up capacity on the network. That free capacity will bring new commuter services into London from areas of significant housing growth, including Milton Keynes, Luton, Northampton, Peterborough and Corby. The free capacity could also provide more direct, long-distance services to London from places such as Blackpool, Shrewsbury and Bradford.
Jonathan Edwards
The Labour Government in Wales changed their position on calling for equivalent Barnett consequentials following a call from Jim Pickard in the Financial Times asking why they were not making the same case as Plaid Cymru. The financing decisions on HS2 will be made during the next comprehensive spending review, when I suppose the hon. Lady would hope to be making such decisions as Secretary of State for Transport. Will she therefore give a guarantee that, should the Labour party form the next UK Government, Wales will get a fair share?
Mary Creagh
I understand that the pressing issue in south Wales in particular at the moment is the electrification of the Cardiff valley lines. I would hope that that is at the top of everybody’s in-tray to try to sort that out, because there seems to have been some sort of miscommunication, to put it charitably.
Mary Creagh
No. I am not a Government Minister, so I have not seen it. The hon. Lady will have to ask her colleague the Secretary of State to share its contents with her.
Mary Creagh
That is a decision for the Government and they have taken it. Perhaps the hon. Lady should have put that question to the Secretary of State.
I want Sir David Higgins and his team to look carefully at how High Speed 2 integrates with our national strategic road network to minimise travel disruption during construction and operations. Network Rail’s future investment plans must be aligned to maximise benefits to the north. We need an integrated transport system for the UK.
As the Bill proceeds through Parliament, Labour will continue to hold the Government to account to keep costs down. Across the country, our constituents face a cost of living crisis. In this time of austerity, it was right for my right hon. Friend the shadow Chancellor to call the Government to account for their mismanagement of this project. We know that construction costs in the UK are higher than for comparable projects elsewhere in Europe. They must be rigorously controlled.
Let us look at how the project has been managed. The Government inherited a detailed plan for HS2 from the previous Labour Government, but Labour’s brainchild has been sadly neglected. Four years of delays and mismanagement have caused costs to rise. First, the Government split the project into two phases for financial reasons, which has delayed the benefits of the line to the midlands and the north. Secondly, their review of strategic alternatives took 18 months, and costs have continued to rise as time scales have slipped. Thirdly, their initial consultation on property compensation was a lesson in incompetence: the process had to be rerun after a High Court judge ruled that it was
“so unfair as to be unlawful”.
Fourthly, the Government did not launch the consultation on phase 2 of the route until July 2013; yet it was being worked on when we were in power three years previously, so what was the hold-up?
Kate Hoey (Vauxhall) (Lab)
My hon. Friend rightly says that the Opposition will be looking at the costs. If they keep rising, at what stage would she, on behalf of the Labour party, say, “No, this has gone too high, and is sucking out too much money from the rest of the railway network”?
Mary Creagh
We have been very clear that there is not a blank cheque for this project. The Select Committee will obviously look at the parts of the Bill, as it goes through it and hears the petitioning process, but a very clear budget is set out for the project from now until 2020. There will be annual reports on the budget under our amendments to the paving Bill. We look forward to receiving the first report from the Government.
The Transport Secretary has admitted that the legislation will not be passed before the 2015 election, as was apparent to all Members, so his Government have missed their target on that. It is right that there is proper scrutiny and ample opportunity for the Select Committee to examine every complaint and comment thoroughly, but there must be no more Government delays.
I want the Secretary of State or the Minister who replies to the debate to tell us when we can expect the Secretary of State’s response on the phase 2 route to ensure that the north, the north-east, the north-west and Scotland reap the full benefits from HS2 quickly. What impact does the Secretary of State anticipate the construction of the line will have on the Great Western franchising process, which is due in 2016?
On workers memorial day, we remember all workers who have been killed at work, particularly in constructing our transport infrastructure across the decades. In particular, we remember the worker who was recently killed on the Crossrail project, and send our condolences to his family and friends. Our ambition, which I am sure is shared in all parts of the House, is that this railway is free from fatalities and serious injuries.
Mr Redwood
Is the hon. Lady at all worried that the business case says that load factors on the west coast main line will be only 31% in 2037, and that there will have to be cuts of £8.3 billion to non-HS2 services to try to keep costs under control?
Mary Creagh
The right hon. Gentleman refers to a part of the report that does not immediately spring to mind—I have not perhaps digested it and kept it in mind as thoroughly as he has done—but there is broad consensus across the parties that the project is the right thing to do for the nation, and I hope that we can proceed on that basis.
Julian Smith (Skipton and Ripon) (Con)
As a Yorkshire MP who is now behind the project at full throttle, will the hon. Lady commit herself to selling it in Yorkshire—to her council and beyond—to ensure that we make the most of this project for our region and every city in it?
Mary Creagh
Absolutely. It is right for Wakefield council to represent the views of local residents. The costs of HS2 are significant, but I believe, as does the hon. Gentleman, that the benefits are great.
As I said earlier, we want a one nation economic recovery to rebalance the growth across sectors, nations and regions. A long-term high-speed rail investment programme presents huge opportunities for the UK’s design, engineering, construction and manufacturing sectors. It offers a secure future for the railway supply chain and will showcase the UK’s expertise in the global high-speed market. The Olympics, Thameslink and Crossrail have transformed travel in London. It is time for the wider UK economy and society to benefit from the transformational opportunities that a major infrastructure project brings. The first phase will bring more than 40,000 jobs: 9,000 jobs in construction, 1,500 permanent jobs in operation and maintenance, and 30,000 jobs at Old Oak Common, Euston and Birmingham.
Mr Straw
I entirely support the case that my hon. Friend is making. Would she like to remind sceptics like the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr Redwood) that as much money is being spent on a single railway station that serves his constituents, namely Reading, as is being spent on the electrification of services across the north-west?
Mary Creagh
That was an excellent point, well made. My right hon. Friend has triggered my memory. There has been £6 billion for Reading, £6 billion for Thameslink and £18 billion for Crossrail—pretty soon there will be enough for a high-speed rail network. I have read about the debates over the disruption that Crossrail has caused. Tottenham Court Road station was closed for two years, yet the centre of our global capital was prepared to put up with that because it realised the benefits that it would bring through reduced journey times. The right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr Redwood) has the freight flyover at Reading station, as well as a couple of new platforms and re-signalling work. He will no doubt enjoy the faster journey times to London. I would like the same for my constituents and the constituents of the hon. Member for Skipton and Ripon (Julian Smith).
I wonder when the Government will be able to report on the vocational training elements of phase 1, which were provided for by Labour’s amendment to the paving Bill. We want to see the annual report and to see what is happening. We welcome the new further education college that will train the next generation of young women and men to become rail engineers. Members on both sides of the House have been bidding to host the college. I look forward to hearing where and when it will open.
Sir David Higgins’s report called on the Government to be more ambitious in the development of Euston station. The iconic new developments at King’s Cross and St Pancras show how stations can transform and regenerate their local areas. I hope that that will also happen at Reading. Euston is potentially central London’s biggest regeneration site. Its redevelopment must provide new social housing to tackle the acute housing crisis in Camden, as well as retail and office space. It would be a disaster if it followed the housing developments in the city centre that are sold off-plan to foreign investors, creating ghost towns, rather than going to local people.
I know that my right hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Frank Dobson) and Councillor Sarah Hayward, the leader of Camden council, will continue to battle to get the best deal for their community. It has been inspirational to talk to my right hon. Friend about the life sciences hub that he wants to see around the Francis Crick Institute, which is due to open near Euston in 2015. To have the tech hub at Old Street and a life sciences hub at Euston would be an enormous boost for young people and jobs in his constituency.
Frank Dobson
I welcome what my hon. Friend has said. Will she bear it in mind that the investment in the Francis Crick Institute, which is a biomedical research centre, is just over £300 million? I believe that it represents a bigger contribution to the future of this country than spending £50 billion on a railway.
Mary Creagh
Perhaps I will break the consensus now. My right hon. Friend’s constituents will benefit from the investment in Crossrail and Thameslink, which will improve London’s transportation system. I gently say to him that his might be a slightly London-centric view. I hope that HS2 will be of benefit to every nation, region and sector of our country’s economy.
We welcome the removal of the HS1-HS2 link from the Bill, which would have caused huge disruption to Camden. Removing it will save £700 million from the budget. We also welcome David Higgins’s proposals for a coherent transport plan for the north, which has been historically underfunded, and for proper east-west rail links between Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds and Hull. Our cities must plan and are planning how to maximise the regeneration and growth opportunities around the stations.
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown
The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Robert Flello) and I have formed the new all-party parliamentary group on integrated transport strategy. We are about to do a piece of work that will show that we can start building phase 2 in the north as well as phase 1. Does the hon. Lady have a view on the sequencing of the building?
Mary Creagh
Tempting though it is to offer up my words of complete ignorance on the best way to build a railway, I will leave the matter to Sir David Higgins, who has a bit more experience in the area than me. I would certainly welcome anything that brought the benefits to the midlands and the north quicker, but he is the expert on delivering such large-scale projects.
The transport authorities must prepare to ensure that regional towns and cities reap the benefits of HS2. Railway engineering and advanced construction skills should be a national priority. We want more UK businesses, large and small, to win the large contracts. I hope that in his conclusion the Minister will tell us how he will support cities and businesses to make the most of the scheme.
Mary Creagh
There will be more frequent train services, not just to London but to the major cities of the north, and there will potentially be better east-west rail links in the north for people who want to visit friends and family on the other side of the Pennines.
More capacity on the existing network means more space for rail freight. That will take lorries off the motorways, reduce carbon emissions and improve air quality. The full network should reduce the number of flights from Manchester and Scotland to London. HS2 will help us to move towards a sustainable, low-carbon transport system.
Mike Kane (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)
My hon. Friend spoke about flights from Manchester airport to London. At the moment, taking a train from my constituency, which contains Manchester airport, to London takes two hours and 24 minutes. When HS2 is completed, the time will be brought down to 59 minutes. Is that good for the regional economy and for Manchester?
Mary Creagh
I knew exactly how long that journey took, because I looked at train times during my hon. Friend’s by-election campaign and thought that it was a very slow journey. HS2 will be transformational, because it will bring Manchester and London very close together. It will also create a modal shift away from aeroplanes. For any journey that takes about three and a half hours, passengers will be taken out of aeroplanes and on to high-speed rail. That is obviously of benefit and will help us to meet our climate change emissions targets.
High-speed rail offers some of the lowest carbon emissions per passenger kilometre. The emissions are significantly lower than those from cars and planes. This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to create a green spine that links our great cities and to open up wildlife corridors. I was inspired by the Wildlife Trusts’ vision for Low Speed 2, which is a green network of cycleways and footpaths along the line that would connect communities with nature and each other. We must learn from and build on the excellent biodiversity work that has been done by Crossrail. It has worked with the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and others to create new habitats for bird life at Wallasea island, using spoil from Crossrail’s tunnelling that was carried down the Thames on barges.
Caroline Lucas
The carbon benefits that the hon. Lady is talking about will happen only if HS2 is responsible for a modal shift away from high-carbon sources such as cars and aeroplanes. Only 11% of passengers are likely to make that modal shift. HS2 is therefore about new journeys, so it will not cause the carbon reductions that she claims.
Mary Creagh
As our country grows and as people travel more, there will be new journeys. One hundred and fifty years ago, people thought that going at 3 mph on a canal through the Standedge tunnel between Huddersfield and Manchester was a marvellously fast way of getting goods from the port of Hull to the port of Liverpool and vice versa, but today we expect a little more. We built the M62, the nation’s highest motorway, which provides a stunning drive from Leeds to Manchester and Liverpool. That is fantastic, but if we end up with transport links that cut down journey times and that get people out of their cars and on to trains, it will be of huge benefit.
Damian Collins (Folkestone and Hythe) (Con)
Given that 80% of the London to Paris travel market is by train not plane, does the hon. Lady agree that the channel tunnel demonstrates that if transport links are good enough, people will shift the way they travel?
Mary Creagh
Absolutely; people have a tendency to work it out all by themselves. Particularly in this era of the internet and smartphone apps, I am sure that people will be pretty cute about figuring out the best railway and greenest journey that they can make. I do not share the scepticism of the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) about whether people will shift. However, she also mentioned ancient woodland, and HS2 should set the gold standard in environmental mitigation and in promoting plant and animal life along the route. We will hold the Government and HS2 to account to reduce its environmental impact.
The Secretary of State mentioned climate resilience, and we saw in the devastation of the Great Western main line at Dawlish and the flooding near Maidenhead in February the direct impact of climate change on our transport networks, and on communities and businesses in the south-west and Wales.
Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)
I will support the Government tonight in the Lobby. The hon. Lady talks about the north and London and so on, but does she recognise that this whole debate has very little impact on the west country? [Interruption.] We have just had the most devastating effects through losing our railway line, and it is important that while we proceed we ensure that the west country is not forgotten in the whole story, so that we can deliver growth too.
Mary Creagh
Absolutely. [Interruption.] I pay tribute to the Network Rail staff whom I visited out by Reading and who worked around the clock in difficult circumstances to open the route—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)
Order. I hesitate to interrupt the hon. Lady, but there is a low level of conversation going on around the Chamber. This is an important debate. If Members wish to have conversations, by all means they can leave the Chamber to do so. If they are in the Chamber, they should allow the hon. Lady a fair crack of the whip.
Mary Creagh
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Alison Seabeck) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw) who have continued, along with the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Oliver Colvile), to raise the need for resilient transport links in the south-west. I gently say to the hon. Gentleman that his Government previously promised his community £31 million of funding for rail resilience works, including at Cowley bridge outside Exeter—money that failed to appear in last year’s autumn statement and which was brought forward only after the devastation at Dawlish in February this year. However, he makes the important point that today’s vote is not about choosing between HS2 and other rail projects, and his great western main line will be electrified over the next five years. The Government have repeatedly raised expectations in the south-west and said that money will be found to make the transport infrastructure more resilient. Perhaps in his closing remarks the Minister will tell the House when we can expect some of those scenario planning options, which I know Network Rail is acting on—I think there are three scenarios at the moment.
Mary Creagh
I will conclude my remarks, because I know that other Members want to speak.
High-speed rail in Britain is nothing new. The great western line, built by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, was the first high-speed line, taking travellers from London to Oxford in just over an hour in the 1850s—twice as fast as the competition. HS2 follows in Brunel’s great tradition of railway innovation, and we should learn from that ambition for our railways. HS2 is our opportunity to connect our cities, rebalance the economy, and deliver a railway fit for the 21st century. Let us continue to work across the House to realise that ambitious vision for our country.
Mrs Cheryl Gillan (Chesham and Amersham) (Con)
I beg to move an amendment, to leave out from “That” to the end of the Question and add:
“this House, while accepting the need to increase overall railway capacity, declines to give a second reading to the Bill because there has been inadequate opportunity for Members and those affected by the Bill to consider and respond to the report of the Assessor appointed under Standing Order 224A, which was not published until shortly before the Easter recess; because assessments of the relative costs and benefits of works envisaged by the Bill have been repeatedly unconvincing and still fail to demonstrate a sound economic case for the proposed works, particularly in relation to other options; because the Secretary of State has declined to publish the Major Projects Authority report on High Speed 2, with the result that Members have been denied access to highly significant evidence on the viability of the project; because the case for starting further high-speed rail construction in this country with a line from London to the West Midlands rather than in the north of England has not been convincingly made out; because the Bill will cause widespread environmental disruption to many areas of the country including areas of outstanding natural beauty; and because the Bill should be preceded by proper consideration of and a strategy for integrating high-speed rail with other transport modes including the UK’s international airport hubs.”
This cross-party amendment commences by stating that we accept the need to increase overall railway capacity, and I make my remarks against that background. It is good to follow the hon. Member for Wakefield (Mary Creagh), but I am afraid my speech will break the cosy consensus over this project between those on the two Front Benches, which will be no surprise to anybody in this Chamber.
It has been four years since Labour first announced HS2, and I want to thank the vast armies of people from all the conservation groups, including the Chiltern Countryside group and the Chilterns Conservation board, lobby groups such as HS2 Action Alliance, district and parish councils, individuals, and volunteer engineers and county councillors, who have contributed to trying to put this project under scrutiny. In Buckinghamshire I am most grateful for the support of my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Mr Lidington), and to Mr Speaker himself. All our constituencies are affected by this project.
I believe that more than 50 Members have applied to speak about this project, and in the short time available I hope to register the risks associated with it and the pain and anguish that it continues to bring to so many people, and to ask the House whether this is really the top priority and the best way to spend £50 billion of taxpayers’ money. I started as a nimby, but over time I have come to look at this project and I do not believe it is the answer to the UK’s transport issues.
Let us consider some of those issues. Originally, the costs totalled about £20 billion, yet they have now doubled to £42.6 billion and we should not forget that that does not include the trains, which are budgeted at £7.5 billion. An apparent leak from the Treasury to the Financial Times estimated that the costs as they stand could run to £73 billion or more. In fact, such high risks are attached to the project, that the contingency is £14 billion. We are now on the fifth business case for phase 1 and the benefit-cost ratio is now 1.4, so for every £1 of taxpayers’ money spent, only £1.40 comes back. If we strip away the flawed assumptions and replace them with a more realistic value of time, the true benefit-cost ratio falls way below £1, and there would actually be a loss to the taxpayer.
Mrs Gillan
I am sorry; I do not have enough time to give way.
Economists claim that the benefits of HS2 are also exaggerated. Some 79% of those benefits arose from the value allocated to time savings by businesses assuming no valuable work was done on trains and a huge increase in business travellers. If that is now not correct or has been overestimated, the benefits fall again considerably. Looking back, HS1 predicted 28 million passengers per annum—the reality is 9 million. Should we really trust the projections by the Department for Transport? The National Audit Office and the Public Accounts Committee have already raised significant concerns about the project and the passenger projections for HS2, but despite that the figures have not been revised.
Mrs Gillan
I am awfully sorry, but if I give way to the right hon. Gentleman I will have to give way to others, and so many people want to speak that I will eat into the time allowed to them. The right hon. Gentleman can make his own speech.
The Secretary of State for Transport claims that HS2 is essential to deal with an impending capacity crisis on the west coast main line. However, the available figures show that intercity trains on the west coast main line coming into Euston are on average just 52% full in peak hours. There is severe commuter overcrowding on many commuter lines into all our major cities, and HS2 will do very little, or in many cases nothing at all, to relieve that. Is the commute into Euston really the priority over other areas?
The big picture is the claim that HS2 will heal the north-south divide. Even today the Institute of Economic Affairs has again questioned the promises of an economic transformation of the north. There is no academic peer-reviewed evidence to show that the presence of a high-speed rail line will lead to increased economic output at the levels suggested in what is now a questionable report from KPMG, commissioned by HS2. The report claims that HS2 would bring benefits of £15 billion per year. However, it assumes that rail connectivity is the only variable driving local economic growth. We know that that is simply not the case; if it were, Ebbsfleet in Kent would be a boom town.
However, London could be the winner. The majority of academic evidence available in other countries shows that where a high-speed rail line connects a dominant city to a less dominant town or city, it is the dominant city that gains. HS2 will suck skills and businesses to London rather than to our regions. If HS2 had a viable business case, it should have been built starting in the north, connecting the northern cities to each other and then eventually to London.
We are getting a project that has markedly changed since it was first proposed. HS2 was going to allow someone to jump on a train in Manchester and travel straight to Brussels, but that has now been ditched. The direct link to Heathrow has of course now been dropped, but in any event why are we not going for maximum connectivity to our airports in the south by finalising our high-speed rail policy after the result of the Howard Davies commission?
My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield would also like assurances from the Government on the so-called Heathrow spur, on which he still has many questions. Even the much vaunted connections between the towns and cities are far from perfect. In fact, HS2 connects only four city centres. The proposals for Euston are not settled and Old Oak Common will require an enormous amount of work to connect it to the rest of London’s transport infrastructure. The HS2 station in Birmingham is a 15 minute walk through an underpass to Birmingham New Street, where the rest of the city’s trains come in. If we look to the plans for Sheffield Meadowhall, Toton and Derby, the HS2 stations will be miles outside city centres. The latest business case included £8.3 billion of cuts to existing rail services, affecting many towns and cities, and the KPMG report showed that many local economies away from the line of the route would suffer. The main objective to shorten journey times drastically has now been questioned by calls from the Environmental Audit Committee to decrease average speeds. That means that HS2 may not even achieve its original aims on either speed or connectivity.
Finally, HS2 is not really green. A meagre 1% of HS2 passengers are predicted to transfer from air, and just 4% from cars. The remaining 95% of passengers are predicted to be new journeys or transfers from less polluting modes of transport, and that is before we examine closely the vast amount of power needed to power the railway. If the project goes ahead, it is important that we protect the environment and the people who will be affected. People expect the project to be implemented to the highest standards, ensuring the best environmental protections and giving support to the communities and individuals who are severely affected.
The Chilterns area of outstanding natural beauty is in my constituency, as everybody now knows. It is known as the lungs of London and is the last large expanse of protected unspoilt countryside in the south-east of England. There are more than 50 million visits annually, and many of the villages, hamlets, ancient woodlands and hedgerows remain largely unchanged since Norman times. The Chilterns is designated under the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000, and the Government have a legal duty to adhere to those protections: anything less would make a mockery of all the Government’s pledges to protect our natural environment.
The Environmental Audit Committee’s report of 7 April was highly critical of the project and said that the Government have “significant work to do” to prove that they are prioritising environmental protection. Some 40% of the route is yet to be examined. If the project does proceed, I now believe that the only way to mitigate properly the damage to the AONB is to fully tunnel the whole area. The demand for longer tunnelling through the AONB was the most frequently raised concern in the responses to the environmental statement, with more than 8,000 people raising it as an issue. The line will already have a devastating impact on the AONB, including destroying 10.2 hectares of irreplaceable ancient woodland, as well as communities such as South Heath and Wendover.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury and I have worked together on considering HS2 and the long tunnelling option. He has said to me that if he is not satisfied with the arrangements for mitigation of the AONB and compensation, particularly where Dunsmore, Wendover Dean and Wendover are concerned, he will join me in the Lobby and vote against the project on Report and Third Reading. As it stands, Buckinghamshire will take all the pain and have no gain. My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield has constituents in Denham who remain entirely unpersuaded by the arguments put forward both in respect of the generality of the proposal for HS2 and of the detail. The impact of the Colne valley viaduct travelling through a site of special scientific interest, with no details on how the noise will impact on the local community, is a source of real anxiety. His constituents have argued for further tunnelling under the Colne. It is important to remember that the voices of our Buckinghamshire colleagues in Government are as equally important as the voices of Back Benchers, if not more so. I want allies inside the Government, as well as on the Back Benches, as we scrutinise this project.
On compensation, we have had no fewer than five consultations and still those people whose homes and livelihoods have been devastated by HS2 have had to wait for over four years for the final compensation scheme to be announced. The eventual compensation announcement on 9 April was not popular. I know that the concerns are shared by Mr Speaker. He believes that the fact there is no provision for homeowners whose properties are further than 300 metres from the line but who have seen their property fall in value as a result, is unacceptable and so do I.
Mrs Gillan
I am sorry.
People blighted by HS2 will not only be negatively affected by the line itself, but by the construction, noise, traffic, impact on our blue light services, decrease in tourism, and the disruption to our waterways; I need not go on. The effect of these has not been explored fully to any adequate degree.
Lastly, what worries me most, and what is in my reasoned amendment, is this: if the project goes ahead, this House should be aware of the risks. Many people are concerned at what I consider to be the wholly deplorable position of the Government in not publishing the Major Projects Authority’s reports into the project. The Information Commissioner is now challenging the veto placed on it by the Government in the courts and maintains that the release of the documents is in the public interest, as do I. The reports rate the project as amber/red, meaning that successful delivery is “in doubt” because of major risks or issues in key areas. The Government expect the support of Members to carry the Bill, so they should be expected to produce this information and make it accessible to Members of this House. All projects carry risk. It is unacceptable that we should not be aware of the risks when we are spending such vast sums of taxpayers’ money.
I will be voting for my reasoned amendment to halt the project and I hope that colleagues will join me in the Lobby. I know that many colleagues will abstain, but I hope that the vote tonight—even though this is David and Goliath and for once Goliath is going to win—will ensure that, as the Bill passes through Committee, our colleagues who are scrutinising it will be able to support the maximum environmental protection and compensation for those communities and people who will be paying the highest price for this project with their homes, businesses and local countryside. They will be gaining none of the benefit. Whoever joins me tonight in the Lobby, I am grateful for their support. I do not expect that we will win the vote, but my goodness we are giving notice to the Government, and any future Government in charge of this project, that it will be scrutinised inch by inch.
Mrs Louise Ellman (Liverpool, Riverside) (Lab/Co-op)
I welcome the Bill to start the building of the high-speed line from London to the west midlands. High Speed 2 was first put forward in 2009 by Lord Adonis when he was Secretary of State for Transport. Since then there has been considerable and very necessary discussion and debate. The project has all-party backing; it is now time to fire the starting gun.
This must be just the first stage in building a high-speed network for the UK, with phase 2 expanding the network to the north. It must be built as a major addition to the national network, linked with investment in the existing classic line so that essential increased capacity and connectivity, together with the potential for regeneration, are realised. Increasing capacity for both passengers and freight is required on both the east coast main line and the west coast main line. The figures released last week by the Office of Rail Regulation showed a phenomenal doubling of rail passenger journeys in recent years, together with a vast increase in freight on rail. In the past decade, rail passenger journeys have increased on average by 5% per annum and freight has expanded. On some routes, the increase in passenger journeys has been more than 70% over that decade. That increase is expected to continue, and the demand for freight is increasing.
The growing demand for rail from both passengers and freight is already causing problems on the west coast main line, where there are insufficient rail paths available to meet the needs of the new services that are required, and delays are already occurring. The Transport Committee has addressed this issue on a number of occasions. In our first inquiry in 2011, we looked at alternatives to building a new high speed network. We looked specifically at upgrading the west coast main line as an alternative. The Committee was very clear that that will not provide the step change that is required. The £9 billion west coast main line investment of 2008 has brought essential improvements, but it has not created enough capacity for the future.
I was pleased to see that the recent reports from both Sir David Higgins and Lord Deighton took forward the very specific recommendations made by the Transport Committee to ensure that the best possible value is obtained from this necessary investment across the nation. Those recommendations include building a line, together with continuing investment in the classic line at the same time as the new capacity is built.
Mr Redwood
I am grateful to the hon. Lady. As over this weekend the marketing materials for the current railway said that one could travel to Birmingham for £7.50 and to Liverpool or Manchester for £12.50, is she worried that when this huge amount of capacity comes on stream, if it does, there will be even more intense price competition and huge disappointment in the fare revenue needed for the scheme?
Mrs Ellman
One of my concerns is that if the new line is not built, the problems of capacity will lead to whatever Government are in power being tempted to increase rail fares to manage demand.
Further recommendations from the Select Committee taken up by Sir David Higgins and Lord Deighton include ensuring wider access to the new network—
Mrs Ellman
I am sorry; I am limited in time to allow other hon. Members to participate.
Further recommendations include ensuring wider access to the new network and providing new services on the freed line—perhaps we should designate those as high speed Britain projects—together with promoting regional economic strategies with local enterprise partnerships and others, making sure that the potential for economic regeneration along the lines and beyond is recognised.
High Speed 2 will improve connectivity, but that improvement is not solely in relation to connecting the midlands and the north to London. It is also about improving the links between the major cities of the north and the midlands, between cities such as Manchester, Birmingham, Sheffield, Leeds and Liverpool. The potential benefits of High Speed 2 are immense. The current benefit-cost ratio estimate for the full network is 2.3. That means £2.30 in benefit generated for every £1 invested, but those figures do not take into account the very real potential for major economic regeneration. It is the major cities which recognise what that potential might be, and they are among the strongest advocates of the new line. Indeed, the research commissioned by the core cities themselves identifies around 400,000 new jobs that would come from the development of High Speed 2.
Little attention has been given to the major potential for employment across the country from building and operating HS2. According to the Government, this could provide over 3,000 jobs in running the railway, and more than 24,500 jobs in construction, together with 400,000 additional jobs through regeneration. It is essential that the Department for Transport produces a strategy for procurement to deliver maximum opportunities for British firms. The Department must be more active in doing that. The proposals for a new skills college will be extremely important in widening those opportunities.
Those who oppose High Speed 2 discuss the size of the investment required. Indeed, HS2 involves a major investment of around £50 billion over about 20 years. Costs must be controlled to secure value for money, but the benefits must be maximised. I understand that some hon. Members will have justifiable local concerns which should be addressed, but these do not outweigh the strategic case for HS2. Without HS2, the west coast main line will become increasingly overloaded. Commuters will suffer from overcrowding and there will be fewer passenger services on the line than the public require and the market could sustain. Future Governments will be tempted to use price to control demand. Growth in rail freight will be stifled, leading to more lorries on the roads. Perhaps more significantly, the chance to reshape the national economy and boost growth in the north and the midlands will have been lost. This is an opportunity to show vision and commitment through a bold investment decision. It must be grasped.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)
Order. The House will be aware that a very large number of colleagues wish to speak—over 50 Members have indicated that they wish to speak in the debate. I am therefore obliged to impose a time limit of five minutes for Back-Bench speeches. Members will be aware that the five minutes is increased if they take interventions. Of course Members need to take interventions, or we will not have a debate, but I ask them, if at all possible, to keep within the five-minute limit out of consideration for other Members of the House. I am certain that we will have an exemplary performance to begin with from Mr Simon Burns.
Mr Simon Burns (Chelmsford) (Con)
I support the Bill and high-speed rail. Having spent a considerable amount of time taking the earlier stages through this House, I fully appreciate that a number of my right hon. and hon. Friends and Opposition Members have terrible troubles with regard to their constituencies because of the line of route and the impact the railway might have. I respect them for the way in which they are carrying out their duties as assiduous constituency MPs to fight for the best deal for their constituents, but I believe passionately that it is crucial that there are major infrastructure projects in this country to make sure that we keep ahead of our competitors, and that we deal with issues of connectivity and rail and road transport in this country.
Too often, there is a tendency for people immediately to oppose a major infrastructure project. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said, there was opposition to the M1 in the late 1950s. If we had listened to that opposition, we would never have had our motorway network and this country would have suffered considerably. The same is true of High Speed 1, which I remember when I first became a Member of this House. There were even great objections to the building of the original railways in this country in the 19th century, when those who were opposed to them said that they would terrify country folk, turn cows’ milk sour and stop hens laying, and that travelling at speeds of more than 25 miles per hour would cause engines to combust and passengers, amazingly, to disintegrate. That is an attitude that one has had to put up with.
To me, the overwhelming reason why High Speed 2 is needed, building on the success of High Speed 1, is capacity. Of course, greater journey speeds are a good thing, but the need is for capacity, capacity, capacity, as a former Prime Minister said in another field of policy, the reason being that the west coast main line will run out of capacity in the mid-2020s. We in this House would be negligent if we were not taking measures to deal with that prospective problem. We must also deal with current problems. In 2011, for people travelling by train to London, there was overcrowding of 4,000 passengers, and going into Birmingham, overcrowding of 5,000 passengers. That is before the west coast main line capacity is used up. The beauty of this scheme is that it will unleash capacity on the west coast main line by taking from it passengers who want to travel to London. Some people have said, as they have during this debate, “Well what is it going to do for Buckinghamshire, Warwickshire or Staffordshire, where there may not be a station?” What it will do is release and create capacity on the west coast main line, so that those who want to travel between towns and cities on that route or into London can get a seat and have a better journey experience. That is the crucial thing.
We also have to bear it in mind that our competitors are racing ahead with high-speed railways and that we cannot afford to stand still. I will make another plea. When the Secretary of State’s review is completed, I hope the commitment is given that High Speed 2 will form High Speed 3, into Glasgow and across to Edinburgh. I also see it as a spine, so that if there is a need for a high-speed railway in south Wales, north Wales or the south-west of England into the east of the country, we can have it. This is a building block.
Yes, we have to take environmental protections with the building of the railway, but I urge my hon. Friends not to lose sight of the big picture of what this country needs and demands to improve our infrastructure and ensure that we are streets ahead of our competitors, give a better journey time and capability for passengers, and get more and more freight off our congested roads and on to our railways. For those reasons, I will be wholeheartedly supporting the Government and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport.
Frank Dobson (Holborn and St Pancras) (Lab)
In the ridiculously short time available, I will have to confine my remarks to the impact on my constituency.
I should point out the ridiculous situation whereby the hybrid Bill before the House proposes major works in my constituency, none of which the Government now intend to carry out. The Bill also provides for a link from HS2 to HS1. That ridiculous proposal has been abandoned altogether. The Bill provides for the option 8 design of the station at Euston. That ridiculous proposal, we are told, is shortly to be abandoned, but the design, cost and construction timetable for the alternative to it have not yet been worked out, so there’s nowt to vote on.
The neighbourhoods to the east and west of Euston station and its railway approaches are densely populated with a variety of uses. Most of the streets are overwhelmingly residential. They are home to large numbers of residents living in high densities in settled and varied communities, with a wide range of incomes, housing tenures, jobs, ethnic origins and religions. Most of those residents want to continue to live there. They rightly resent patronising references to their neighbourhood by the much lauded chair of HS2 Ltd and have asked me to remind him and everyone else that where they live is not like the Olympic site. It is not a brownfield site, ripe for redevelopment.
The HS2 project as now proposed would wreak havoc on those neighbourhoods. It would expand Euston station by 75 metres to the west, demolish the homes of 500 people and subject 5,000 more to living for a decade next to the construction site or beside roads that will be made intolerable by the heavy goods vehicles servicing the main site and the 14 satellite construction compounds. No consideration has been given to the cumulative harm that all this would do to the quality of life of my constituents. The proposed working hours regime enables work to proceed at any hour of the day or night. Every little park and play space near the site is to be taken over. Small, locally owned and locally staffed businesses, especially cafes, shops and restaurants in Drummond street, face financial disaster. Between 40% and 70% of their business is passing trade from pedestrians going to and from Euston station, which, for the duration of the works—10 years—will be cut off by a solid, 3.6 metre-high security fence.
The people I represent believe that HS2 should not go ahead. Failing that, they believe that HS2 should terminate at Old Oak Common, at least temporarily, to test its capacity and permit the assessment of any capacity needed at Euston to be based on experience rather than the guesswork used so far.
Frank Dobson
No, I do not think I should.
If the Government insist on Euston, local people want the new station to be designed to fit within the curtilage of the existing station. HS2 has failed to properly appraise such alternatives, including the double-deck down design put forward by local professionals, who also want the bulk of the space created above the station to be devoted to housing that local people can afford or low-cost units available to spin-off companies developing and exploiting products of the biomedical research organisations in the area.
In December 2010, the right hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr Hammond), then Transport Secretary, told the House:
“it is right and proper that individuals who suffer serious financial loss in the national interest should be compensated.”—[Official Report, 20 December 2010; Vol. 520, c. 1207.]
That promise has not been kept. The arrangements for compensation in my constituency are infinitely worse than those in the rural areas. Right-to-buy leaseholders—Mrs Thatcher’s children—will get compensation, but not enough to buy an equivalent property in the area. People living next to the site—within 5 metres, not 500 metres—whose houses are not demolished will not be entitled to a penny of compensation. That is ridiculous. Neither financial nor practical mitigation measures are being offered to enable the diverse communities in Euston to survive 10 years of turmoil. They do not object to the railway; they object to 10 years of destruction.
Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)
Five years ago, I would have thought it incredible that I would probably be in the same Lobby as the right hon. Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Frank Dobson), not united in some unholy alliance, but instead united in opposing my Government’s Bill. This, for me, is a first. Five years ago, the leader of the Conservative party, now the Prime Minister, supported HS2 in principle, and so did I. Five years ago, my right hon. Friend said that the Adonis route was profoundly wrong—that its implementation would be damaging to the environment, damaging to local areas that could otherwise enjoy peace and quiet, and damaging to the nation as a whole. Yet here we are, five years on, with the Government supporting the original Adonis plan. I find that quite extraordinary.
I totally agree with the arguments for HS2. There is a major capacity problem. Every day some 5,000 to 10,000 people arrive at Euston standing, because there are just not enough seats on the trains to let them sit. However, I agree with the right hon. Member for Holborn and St Pancras and, indeed, the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, when he argues that there is not enough capacity at present for those disembarking at Euston to travel across London. How on earth can that be sustained when, in addition, something like 30 trains an hour will be arriving from the midlands and the north when High Speed 2 is completed?
I believe that the implementation of HS2 is deeply flawed. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs Gillan) has already pointed out, the promises of breakfast in Brum and lunch in Paris with a through route have all gone. There will be no connection between the midlands and the north and HS1 and the channel tunnel. Meanwhile, the Department for Transport, which is supposed to be an integrated, joined-up Department, has, quite rightly, commissioned the review by Sir Howard Davies of which airport is to be the main airport for London. We will not know its conclusions until after the next general election, yet HS2’s route is already fixed and we do not know which airport it will link to. Indeed, it probably will not link with any airport, like HS1. This is a deeply flawed system.
What about compensation, a topic that has been raised by colleagues? What about constituents in Lichfield who are facing spoil heaps for five or six years, as all the soil from the tunnels in the constituency of my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham is transported up to Lichfield to support giant viaducts that we are going to have built? Where will that be stored? In Lichfield. There will be no compensation because the spoil dumps are being regarded as temporary only. Believe me, for someone who is 70 or 80 years old and living next to a temporary mountain, with dumper trucks running by every day, five or seven years can be a lifetime. There should be compensation, and I hope that the hybrid Bill Committee will consider that. I have already talked about the problems of disembarking at Euston and homes being blighted, but what about the arbitrary distances? Beyond a certain distance, there will be no compensation. Absolutely no account has been taken of the local topography; whether someone will be affected by HS2 will depend on whether there are hills or the land is flat.
So it is that, with the greatest regret and for the first time in my membership of this House, I am going to support the amendment tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham and vote against my own party on such an important piece of legislation. I hope—I say this for the benefit of the Whip—that it will be the last time I do so.
Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)
I have three points to make on this important Bill: one about the economic analysis, one about the capacity, and one about the speed of delivery of the project.
We have heard a lot about the benefits, or lack of benefits, from the project. All sorts of different studies have been done, but the one thing we can almost guarantee is that when the project is brought to completion it will be found that none of those studies is accurate. They are studies that the Treasury demands before it agrees to expenditure. So what we need to do is look at the real world scenario and see what people who are running cities and people who have experience of projects like this one are saying.
Those people who do not think HS2 is worth doing and that it will not benefit cities in the north should produce evidence that there is a single leader or mayor of a major city in this country who wants slower connections to anywhere else in the country. The case being made by my hon. Friends the Members for Stoke-on-Trent South (Robert Flello) and for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham) is not that the project is bad and will not bring economic benefits; it is that they would like their areas to have the economic benefits from the project—and there will be economic benefits in many areas.
Robert Flello
My hon. Friend is probably aware that there is a KPMG report that says Stoke-on-Trent will lose to the value of £78 million a year. That is a finger in the wind, but it is a very damning figure.
Graham Stringer
It is a relative figure from a general uplift.
We should look at the experience of countries that have high-speed lines, such as France, Spain and Germany. The most direct comparator is the line between Lyon and Paris. When the Transport Committee went there in 2011, it found, and was told by the director-general of SNCF, that both cities had benefited from it. All the economic benefit had not been sucked out of Lyon and into Paris; both ends had benefited. The same is true of the lines between Frankfurt and Cologne and between Lille and other parts of France. That does not just happen because the line is built, however; it happens if there is a strategy of the Government and the city governments to make sure there is benefit from that high-speed route. It relies on active involvement from local and city government to make sure all the benefit of that investment is captured.
Graham Stringer
No, as I have given way once and many Members want to speak in this debate.
There are people with genuine and serious constituency interests in this debate, but some of the interests lined up against the project are vested interests. Referring back to what the right hon. Member for Chelmsford (Mr Burns) said, I wrote an article recently about HS2 in which I guessed that when the railways started, in the early and mid-19th century, they would have been opposed by the stagecoach owners and bargees at that time. The editor of the journal I wrote the article for found a cartoon of the 1830s depicting horses that were unemployed queuing up. So there are vested interests against this project, as well as constituency interests.
My second point is about capacity. The point has been well made that this project is driven by capacity issues and it will have economic benefits. The question that people who want to stop this project have to answer is this: are they really saying to our country that, by the middle of this century, we are going to be relying on railways that were built in the middle of the 19th century and motorways that were built in the middle of the 20th century for our transport infrastructure? There has been very little investment in any of our transport infrastructure—motorways, roads and airport runways—over the last 30 or 40 years. That would be a disgrace to the United Kingdom and it would mean that we fell further behind our competitors.
The final point I want to make has two aspects. I sympathise with the arguments made by those Members who have constituency interests and are opposing this Bill, and I hope the Secretary of State will listen carefully, because my experience of being involved in more than one major infrastructure project is that if we pay more and earlier in compensation, we save in the long term and the projects happen more quickly. A lot of the resistance comes from people who think they are being treated unfairly. So I hope the Secretary of State will listen.
The other side of the coin has already been referred to. The Higgins report calls for the project to be speeded up and I agree with that, but I think we can do still better. Building north to south as well as south to north and speeding up the project would bring more immediate benefits. Whatever we say about the cost-benefit analysis, all the analysis shows it is not the actual quantum of money—£25 billion, £30 billion or £40 billion—that counts; it is that we will get more economic benefit back than the money we put in. So the quicker we do it, the better.
Lorely Burt (Solihull) (LD)
It is a refreshing change to speak in a debate on a Bill that has overall cross-party support. My party was, I think, the first to commit to high-speed rail, before the heady days of Government ever came along. [Hon. Members: “Where are your party colleagues?”] I am their representative.
Several colleagues have already mentioned the economic benefits to the United Kingdom of high-speed rail. Nationally, it will create £50 billion-worth of economic benefits to the UK and 400,000 jobs, of which 70% will be created outside London, but I will focus my remarks on the benefits that I envisage for my own region, the west midlands.
My region will be the first to benefit from high-speed rail, and local councils tell me that it is a once in a century opportunity. By 2026, HS2 will reduce the journey time between London and Birmingham to 31 minutes. It will put 45 million people within two hours of Birmingham airport. With the new runway extension, this will create a synergy that will enhance and ensure investment, tourism and jobs.
The west coast main line is the biggest mixed-use railway in Europe. It has 12 operators and carries a quarter of the UK’s freight. Passenger journeys have increased by 50% in the last decade and now stand at 1.46 billion per year. From Birmingham to London at peak times, there are 162 passengers for every 100 seats. Declaration of interests notwithstanding, that is no fun. HS2 will help to ease that pressure, and by doing so it will help the environment.
Research by Greengauge 21 suggests that freeing up capacity on the west coast main line will improve the service that it can offer. This will encourage more people to shift from road to rail travel, which emits half as much carbon per passenger kilometre. HS2 is often described as carbon neutral, but this research suggests that that understates its benefits to the environment. The environmental statement consultation is now closed, and there will no doubt be more to say about that when the Government publish their response, but I would ask the Secretary of State to pay particular heed to the concerns of the National Trust in relation to Hartwell house, Coombe Hill, Claydon house and the Waddesdon estate.
The west midlands were hit particularly hard by the recession in 2009. Despite significant drops in unemployment, which are thanks to the tough economic decisions taken by the coalition Government, joblessness there is still above the national average. Birmingham council estimates that HS2 could bring 50,000 extra jobs to the region, raising economic output by £4 billion every year, but we are investing in the existing rail network, too. This Government are putting more money into our infrastructure than any Government since Victorian times, and electrifying 80 times more track than the last Labour Government did. I believe that infrastructure is absolutely key to the future economic prosperity of our country. In particular, it will help the building industry, ensuring more consistent growth instead of the boom and bust that we have seen in the race for short-term results by previous Governments.
Our rail network was mostly built in the mid-19th century, and we are already outgrowing our infrastructure while the rest of the world is overtaking us. Railway journey times in the UK are actually slower today than they were 15 years ago. Meanwhile, Japan has had the bullet train for 40 years. Turkey will soon have over 1,500 miles of high-speed rail track, compared with just 67 in the United Kingdom. HS2 is a long-term investment for our country’s future. If we do not invest in it now, the next generation will be forced to rely on a railway network that is 200 years old. We do not want to be another short-termist Government; we want to leave a legacy that will continue for generations and secure the prosperity of our country well into this century and beyond. For all these reasons, we believe that this project should and must go ahead.
Mr Jack Straw (Blackburn) (Lab)
I want to compare the relative wealth of the home counties, including Buckinghamshire—with Chesham and Amersham and many other constituencies—with that of the north-west, using figures provided to me by the House of Commons Library. Sixty years ago, the GDP per person in the home counties was just below that of Britain as a whole, and it was identical to that of the north-west. In the four and a half decades to 2001, a large gap opened up. By 2001, the home counties were on average nearly 20% better off than the average for mainland Great Britain, while the north-west had fallen back relatively to more than 10 percentage points below the average, 30 percentage points below the home counties. Similar data apply to the north of England as well.
Part of this widening gap is a consequence of factors that were, to a great extent, beyond the control of any Government—not least the fact that mass manufacturing migrated to the east of the globe. It was also due to factors within our control, however. I am not suggesting that, in the intervening period, the great cities of the north—Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield and Newcastle—have sat and wallowed in self-pity. When my hon. Friend the Member for Blackley and Broughton (Graham Stringer) was leader of Manchester city council, for example, that city pulled itself up by its bootstraps. A big gap remains, however.
Among many others, there is one significant reason for that gap. Ironically, a clue is to be found in today’s report by the Institute of Economic Affairs that is otherwise noteworthy only for its internal incoherence. In the report, the institute comments on the regeneration of London’s docklands, which it says
“has been subsidised by taxpayers through large sums spent on government transport schemes and other projects”.
It lists some of those projects. They include
“the Jubilee Line Extension, Docklands Light Railway…the south-east leg of Crossrail”,
as well as many road schemes. This is the same engine of growth that has benefited Buckinghamshire and the home counties, and that has led to the widening gap.
I do not blame any Member for speaking up for their constituency. I have no direct constituency interest in this matter. In any configuration, the line will not go through Blackburn, but I believe that it will greatly benefit us. I part company with those who have spoken in defence of their constituencies, however, when they try to elevate their understandable constituency concerns into some overall economic case against the project; that is frankly disingenuous.
The amendment speaks of its acceptance of the need to increase overall railway capacity. Had I been able to make an intervention on the right hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs Gillan) in her untimed speech, I would have asked her, given that she accepts that need for increased capacity, how she intended to achieve it in the absence of HS2. I have been in the Chamber since the moment the debate started, and everyone has accepted that the west coast main line is full to capacity—[Interruption.] I hear someone say no. They have obviously not been on that line.
Mr McLoughlin
Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that one of the biggest problems of capacity relates to the feed into London? That is our biggest capacity problem. A lot of people have said that we should start in the north, but although that is tempting, the biggest capacity problem is in the south.
Mr Straw
I accept that. I came into the House a long time ago, when the line to Manchester and Liverpool was so slow that there was still a need for sleeper trains. They were very reliable, because they went slowly. I accept that for those travelling from the north-west and from the midlands, the main capacity constraints are those south of Rugby. The amendment proclaims a need for greater capacity, but it fails to provide further and better particulars on how to achieve it.
One reason that the west coast main line upgrade took so long and cost so much was that it had to be added on to the existing infrastructure. That was far more disruptive and costly than the provision of additional lines. I look forward to hearing alternative suggestions, but the only way I have heard of providing additional capacity for passengers and, critically, for freight is through the provision of additional two-track capacity. That would be far less disruptive than the construction of the M40 or any other motorway, and it would produce benefits to constituents in the home counties, as well as to those in the north and north-west, by relieving the present capacity constraints.
I am passionately in favour of the HS2 proposals—all the way: phase 1 and phase 2—but they can go ahead only on an all-party basis. I welcome the decisions of the Cabinet and the shadow Cabinet to back the Bill now and for whoever wins the election to back it, the other side of the election.
Mr Stephen O’Brien (Eddisbury) (Con)
When the House last considered this matter, I abstained because there were too many unanswered questions about the proposals. There still are. The proposed route of HS2 in phase 2 beyond Crewe will come into the Eddisbury constituency, passing through the residential settlements of Stanthorne, Bostock and Whatcroft, and through many successful farms before turning sharply eastwards towards Manchester airport and Manchester itself, where the so-called high-speed trains will have to slow down, possibly to less than 100 mph. I have received extensive representations from many of the 140 constituents directly and adversely affected by these proposals, including those whose homes will be demolished and those who live close to the proposed route. The consultation on this section closed at the end of January and we have yet to hear the outcome of that process, which might involve a change of route. I hope it will, on engineering, build cost, train speed, performance and cost-efficiency grounds.
The evidence to support the claims for HS2 is in very thin supply, so we are forced to assess and represent constituents’ interests, set against something of a national punt. In Eddisbury, a significant number of people want HS2 stopped; some are broadly in favour, although not on the higher-speed grounds, as the saving in journey time from Crewe to London will be deeply underwhelming, and most people are able to work on the train; and others want assurances and indemnities from the Government, which the Government have not yet chosen to give, on engineering integrity, cost, environmental protections of habitat, ancient forestry, wildlife, watercourses, noise, safety and, not least, full as well as fair compensation. We already know that part of the compensation problem is that the definition of “severe hardship” is too narrow to reflect the reality of the plight of some of my constituents, who are already suffering. That applies not least in the case of an elderly couple who wish to move out to join their children but have found that they are unable to sell at anything near a fair price. Their dreams have been thrown into jeopardy and they are now stuck.
A key argument that remains unexamined about the proposals for Eddisbury is fundamentally one of engineering. The geography and geology of the land north of Crewe comprise the extraordinarily fertile and verdant Cheshire plain, much of which is salt marsh and its geological legacy. Our salt marshes are notoriously unstable and difficult to build over or through. On behalf of the constituents who have taken the lead in coming to see me about their HS2 concerns, I have been trying in recent weeks to secure a meeting with the chief engineers from the Department and HS2 Ltd, in order to make a presentation with my constituents, who have examined, in expert engineering terms, the evidence to back up their concerns. Until now, requests for such a meeting have been rebuffed, but over the weekend I received a guarantee from the Secretary of State that my constituents and I will now get a full and proper opportunity to meet the most senior engineers and thus to present our evidence. Do not get me wrong, it is not that salt marshes cannot be built over; they just cannot be built over at anything like the cost and risk currently envisaged. They are inherently unstable, so the price will be enormous and will threaten the maximum £45 billion figure. That is why it will be appropriate for me to abstain tonight in order to allow that process of engagement to be genuine, rather than to pre-judge the outcome. I very much hope the Government will listen with an open mind, rather than simply seek to persuade us of their preconceived notions.
Let me make it absolutely clear that I support the aspiration that Crewe—it is just outside my constituency but affects my constituents—should be an inter-modal transport hub, as part of our local aspirational strategic growth plan. Even the proponents of that do not make it conditional or dependent on HS2 coming through Crewe. We should support it in any event, although if HS2 were to come to Crewe it would help it.
My final point is simply that no serious assessment has been made by the Government, despite the many representations I have sought to make, in respect of increasing capacity on the west coast main line and making the comparison with other countries’ solutions to these problems. Of course, the double-decking of carriages is one such solution, but it is completely pooh-poohed by the Government because they do not want to hear that a technological solution is available. This is not about raising the bridges, as we had to do for the catenaries for electrification in the 1970s. The concrete technology—I know a little about it—is so sophisticated that lowering the line to create the space to have double-decker carriages which would be able to go along the current west coast main line, suitably maintained, will increase the capacity and deliver the results at a fraction of the cost of HS2. I very much hope that by engaging in a technical and engineering sense, the Government will have an open mind on the alternatives, so that we can assess whether HS2 truly provides value for money for the taxpayer. I say that because spending £50 billion on a new railway line is a very big risk to take when there may be genuine alternatives and when we are trying to increase our national competitiveness by providing a secure system of transport for the whole country.
Glenda Jackson (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)
I am a strong supporter of HS2. It is a great relief to me that this country has seemingly, at long last, moved on from the apparent belief that the only material we could use in this country was aspic. We have to begin to restructure our national economy, to narrow the economic divide between north and south, and to break the golden magnet that is London and the south-east. If I look at my constituency now, before one shovel has gone into the earth, I see that those people upon whom my constituents depend—for example, to police our streets, to teach our children and to nurse us in our hospitals—can no longer afford to live there or near to their place of employment because of ever-widening earning inequalities. That is why it is vital that this project has cross-party support.
Along with every MP in this Chamber who has spoken today, I will detail the concerns of my constituents. They, in common with the constituents of everyone else who has spoken, have concerns about compensation and congestion. My constituents are particularly concerned about the idea of vast lorries going around highly populated streets, both residential and those with businesses, carrying spoil up ever-narrower roads—Adelaide road and England’s lane are the two favourites, but they are the roads along which these lorries should never travel. My constituents there and elsewhere in the constituency put forward the reasonable question: why can the spoil not be removed by rail?
We have seen an encouraging regrouping in respect of community concerns, as a group known by the acronym “SHOUT” has been formed. It comprises the tenants and residents of the Alexandra and Ainsworth estate—Rowley way—the Langtry estate and the Belsize residents association. They share common concerns, not only about compensation and congestion, which I have touched on, but about noise, destruction and the effects on several schools and the sheltered housing in the area, quite apart from the hundreds and hundreds of flats in those areas and the road closures that will take place during the construction of this essential beam in restructuring our national economies. We will also lose a nature reserve—two thirds of a hectare of woodland in which bats breed, and there are wintering birds and invertebrates. We know—it has already been proven—that the more densely populated the city, the more vital its green spaces are.
Both those who have formed SHOUT and the Queen’s Park residents association are most exercised about air vents—about shafts. Constituents of mine who are highly trained and skilled engineers have been saying to me that these vents could be moved elsewhere. The vent proposed for Queen’s Park would absolutely stop a multi-million regeneration project for that part of my constituency that could transform lives, and not just of the people who live in my constituency. I have never regarded any constituency as being an island entire unto itself. People live in my constituency and people from other constituencies work there—I have already touched on the point that we are all dependent on the services of others who may not live next door to us.
So I sincerely hope that the Government will take very seriously all the issues that have been raised here tonight. I also hope that they will give even more detailed information to my constituents, who are only too eager to put forward petitions, on how they can raise their concerns when, as we hope it will, the hybrid Bill Committee is sitting. That would allow for a genuine, open and transparent exchange about what my constituents can do to ensure that their concerns are listened to; that the improvements to our environments can be taken seriously; that the great regeneration projects are not kicked to one side; and, more importantly, that this railway goes ahead. It can transform not only London, but the entire United Kingdom.
Karen Lumley (Redditch) (Con)
I rise to speak in support of this Bill. It is no secret that I support the Government on the issue of high-speed rail, because I believe it will be good for Redditch, good for the west midlands and good for Britain as a whole. HS2 will transform journey times and connectivity between Birmingham, Leeds, Manchester and London. However, the fact that HS2 is also about capacity as well as speed is sometimes lost in the argument. In the past 20 years, the number of journeys made on Britain’s rail network has doubled and that has put pressure on all our existing major networks, and on the west coast main line in particular.
Capacity on the west coast main line will be nearly full by the early 2020s and, as a regular traveller on that line, I know how essential the service is for many commuters. High-speed rail will increase capacity across existing lines so that local commuter trains can run more frequently and with enough seats for passengers, allowing the wider west midlands area to fulfil its economic potential. Put simply, more track means more trains and therefore more space for commuters, long-distance travellers and freight.
The ever-increasing gap between infrastructure spending in the south and the rest of the country is widening the economic divide. In 2011-12, 45% of total public expenditure on transport in England was in London, with only 13% going to the midlands. Public sector spending on transport per head in the west midlands is among the lowest in England. Sixty-six of the top 100 FTSE companies are located in London and the south-east, with just four in the west midlands, one of which is GKN in my own constituency.
HS2 is also about rebalancing our economy. We talk about that a lot in this House, but we must prove that we are serious about it and enable other regions to grow alongside London and the south. When HS1 was under construction, it was predicted that it would create £500 million of investment, but an independent report later put the value of HS1 at almost 40 times that estimate. What happened was the regeneration effect, as HS1 directly helped to deliver more than 10,000 homes and almost 100,000 new jobs. There is no reason why HS2 cannot deliver the same results for the north and the midlands.
Investment in HS2 will deliver widespread connectivity improvements, grow markets and increase opportunities to trade. The west midlands has identified regional and local connectivity as an important feature of its growth strategies, with a need to better link up labour to jobs and skills; and businesses to other businesses and markets. Attracting greater investment in transport will be a critical factor for the continued success of our region. The introduction of HS2 can be the catalyst for connectivity and growth.
It is estimated that HS2 will generate between £214 million and £375 million every year in my own Worcestershire economy. The London to Birmingham route alone is expected to boost Birmingham’s economy by £1.2 billion, and towns and cities in surrounding counties by £2.5 billion. At this point, I would like to put in a plug for the apprentice academy to come to Birmingham when the decision is finally made.
In addition, the initial phase of HS2 could support the creation of 8,000 jobs surrounding the proposed HS2 stations in the west midlands area, as well as leading to wider growth in the region, including in towns in Worcestershire such as those in my constituency.
HS2 could also affect our wider transport capabilities, particularly our airports. I am a big champion of Birmingham international airport which is near my constituency. To be able to access it from Euston in just over 30 minutes will make a huge difference to the people of north London as well as to the midlands economy. It will mean a choice between Birmingham, Gatwick and Heathrow. Those Members who have travelled from Birmingham international airport know how excellent it is, and those who have not should try it, and they will not regret it. I still support the idea that HS2 could be a solution to runway capacity problems in the south, although admittedly the initial recommendations of Sir Howard Davies have made that look somewhat unlikely, but that is a point for another day.
The Bill will bring great benefit to my constituents and our region as well as to our wider economy, and that is why I will be supporting it tonight.
Robert Flello (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Lab)
I draw the House’s attention to my interests in freight transport issues.
A number of questions remain unanswered by these proposals, and it is pitiful that we have only five minutes to elaborate on them. Constituents and others have asked me whether there is a better way to spend £50 billion to £100 billion to ease capacity, which is a problem that is recognised across the House—by those in favour of HS2 as well as by those against it. Better connectivity between existing airports has been suggested as a better way to address the matter. Constituents have talked about improving signalling so that we can increase capacity on the west coast main line. Interestingly, someone mentioned the idea of reducing the number of first class coaches on some of the west coast main line trains. Indeed, we have also heard about the double-decking of trains, which is used extensively on the continent and would certainly boost capacity.
Dr Beeching’s name has not been heard in this Chamber today. Constituents have talked about rolling back some of the Beeching cuts and opening up some of the lines to increase connectivity. There has also been talk of having dedicated freight lines, and improving HS1, and removing this nonsense of having to travel all the way around London to get through the tunnel and into mainland Europe rather than the better idea of having a freight terminal north of London.
There is also this matter of a slight identity crisis. This proposal was always about developing a high-speed line—or, more accurately, a very high-speed line—but now it has morphed itself into a capacity issue, or possibly both. What has been missed time and again is that if we are to have a new high-speed line and are to free up capacity, we will have to cut services on the existing west coast main line. That brings me to the issue that has been raised by my hon. Friends. At the moment, a passenger can get on the train at Stoke-on-Trent and in one hour and 23 minutes, they can be in Euston. If we move to HS2, a passenger will have to travel for an hour to Birmingham and then get on a 40 or 50 minute train to Euston. How can one hour 50 minutes be better than one hour and 23 minutes? That will be the case. It is not an issue of timetabling. As the Government have said time and again, this is all about freeing up capacity on the west coast main line, and that means cutting existing services on that line.
In the moments I have left, I want to go back to this issue of the very high-speed line. The line we are talking about has gentler curves and lower gradients because it is being built to a much higher specification than the trains that will run on it, so that is an area in which savings can be found.
To jump ahead now, there are also issues relating to east-west connectivity and the KPMG report, which I raised in an intervention. The report said that the only city actively to lose out on these proposals would be Stoke-on-Trent. That brings me to the Stoke-on-Trent proposals, which are a very good response by the city council to the HS2 phase 2 consultation. I hope that Ministers have read them, because they were making lots of uncosted announcements about Crewe while the consultation was still going on. I am delighted to see that the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mr Timpson) is sitting so close to his Front-Bench colleagues from the Transport Department.
Understandably, colleagues in Manchester want faster journey times, but the Stoke-on-Trent proposal would allow a faster service seven years earlier than the consultation proposals by using a combination of high-speed lines, as far as Stoke-on-Trent, and then classic compatibility on the existing lines into Manchester. Manchester would benefit seven years earlier than it would with the consultation proposals. Again, the proposals from Stoke-on-Trent would not require the expensive remodelling of the west coast main line junction point, which would be the case with the Crewe proposals. Indeed the Stoke-on-Trent proposals are costed, whereas the Crewe ones, which would require a new station two miles or so further south than Crewe, are not costed at all.
With just seconds left, let me say that there is great detail here about why the Stoke-on-Trent proposals would make so much more sense. We are talking about connecting in millions more people than the Crewe proposals. I am not convinced that they are the best way to spend the money—
Dan Byles (North Warwickshire) (Con)
Although I do not agree with those who believe that HS2 will provide the benefits claimed, I accept that they are sincere in their belief that it will. I ask them to accept that those of us who do not support HS2 are not mindless nimbys. We sincerely believe that this project is wrong, because it will not provide the benefits that are claimed. The financial cost and the impact on ordinary people’s lives up and down the country outweigh the limited and unbalanced benefits that HS2 might bring.
My constituency of North Warwickshire is particularly badly affected. We have the delta junction into Birmingham and the Y junction and we are affected by both phase 1 and phase 2. The property market is completely frozen along the route, trapping many people in houses that they wish to sell for all sorts of legitimate reasons that do not qualify as “exceptional hardship”. The village of Gilson will be obliterated and communities in Coleshill, Water Orton, Curdworth and Middleton will be badly affected. We will have a colossal 31 track railhead close to Lea Marston and Kingsbury but, because it is deemed a temporary structure, nearby residents will not qualify for compensation. That temporary structure will be there for more than 15 years and, because of a sleight of hand that moved it at the last minute from phase 2 to phase 1, it has never properly been consulted on. The line will demolish houses, destroy sports clubs and cut through two country parks and a local primary school.
For four years now, I have been working closely with the five action groups I helped to establish across my constituency and I have chaired all the phase 1 community forum meetings in North Warwickshire. I have also worked closely with some of my fellow Warwickshire MPs, and I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Jeremy Wright) has been making strong representations about HS2 within the Government.
In my constituency, we have sought to play a constructive role in the debate from the start. We have not simply stood in the corner shouting no. Yes, we have campaigned against HS2 in principle, but alongside that our action groups have engaged constructively with HS2 Ltd at every stage from the very beginning, attending community forums and bilateral meetings with HS2 staff and engineers and working hard to produce local mitigation proposals to minimise the impact on our communities.
More than three years ago, I brought representatives from two of our action groups to London to meet the HS2 chief engineer, Professor McNaughton, and to lay out some early ideas for mitigation and route changes in North Warwickshire. Despite that, we strongly feel that HS2 Ltd has let us down. We believed back then that we were embarking on the start of a dialogue with HS2 Ltd that would involve a two-way discussion over a number of years. For more than three years, we have been trying to get HS2 Ltd to engage in a constructive dialogue, but we have consistently been pushed back because, by its own admission, of inadequate resources in our area. Eventually, after all the time had gone, the excuse became that we were now too close to the hybrid Bill procedure for detailed discussion to take place and we were told simply to petition with our suggestions.
Many in our area see the three years of dither and delay as a conspiracy deliberately to waste time. I am inclined to believe that HS2 Ltd simply did not have the resources to consider our area properly. It is the most complex area outside London, and mine is the worst affected constituency outside London, so resources should have been put in place from the start. Regardless of why it happened, however, the results are the same. We lost three years that could have been used for meaningful dialogue but were not.
My constituents now feel that they have had no true voice in this process and we must now pin our hopes on the good sense of the hybrid Bill Committee instead of the hoped-for meaningful discussions with HS2 Ltd. That is why I shall support the reasoned amendment tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs Gillan), to which I have put my name, and why I shall vote against Second Reading this evening.
I fully expect the Bill to receive its Second Reading, however, so I urge the Secretary of State to do all he can throughout the planning of the project to put the ordinary people and communities whose lives have already been turned upside down first and foremost, because if we cannot afford to put in place proper mitigation and proper compensation for the people affected, we cannot afford the project.
Kate Hoey (Vauxhall) (Lab)
First, I, too, welcome the way in which the Secretary of State has handled the issue by not accusing anybody who is not in favour of the Bill or who has signed the reasoned amendment of being a nimby. When an issue is contentious, it is crucial that there is respect on all sides. I wish we had a second day for this debate, because five-minute limits mean no real debate and this issue should be debated.
My constituency is not directly affected in the way that that of my right hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Frank Dobson) is affected, but when the Eurostar terminal was built at Waterloo we put up with years of terrible disruption, only to find that once it was built and was being used there was a switch and it went off to St Pancras. We had all the terrible problems, but ended up with no direct link to Paris.
When I talk to my constituents about HS2, they overwhelmingly ask whether it is the right way to spend £50 billion. Many of my constituents, who will never have a decent home to live in, who will never get out of overcrowding and who live in very difficult circumstances, are asking whether the money would not be better spent on providing decent homes for everyone in this country. These people live just a mile away from the House of Commons, yet they cannot have money spent on improving the railways within Lambeth. There is no longer a direct train at peak time from Clapham High Street to Victoria, because the platforms at Wandsworth Road need to be extended. Just small amounts of money would make such a difference to commuters around London.
Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
The hon. Lady should come to my constituency. If she missed a train at Gainsborough Central, her next train would be one week away. That is the level of investment in rural lines in Lincolnshire.
Kate Hoey
That is exactly what people are asking all over the country: why is £50 billion going on this particular method of improving capacity and speed? I am very lucky, as I can walk to my constituency in five minutes and drive in four, so I do not travel on trains much, but when I do so, I do not find them crowded. Many carriages are empty and I discover that they are first class—there is nobody in them. All sorts of things could be done to increase capacity.
We should also be clear that once we start this project there is no guarantee that the costs will not spiral. I am worried that once we start the project and the costs start to go up, more and more money will be taken away, and not just from other parts of the transport network. The hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Oliver Colvile) is unlikely to have extra money spent on railways in his area if we go ahead with this project, as everything will be geared towards the super-project. Everyone will say that that is what we must spend the money on. We are being very short-sighted. This sounds like a sexy project, it sounds like we are being modern and trying to compete with the rest of Europe, but there is not a lot wrong with our railways that could not be dealt with if we had spent money over many years, if we had invested properly and if we now invested across the country rather than in one particular vanity project.
The compensation must be much stronger and greater. It is all very well saying that people can be compensated, but if someone has built up and worked hard on a business or home in the country only to see it blighted or destroyed, compensation might help but it does not take away the pain. It will not do so for the many people who will suffer if the project goes ahead.
As my right hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West (Mr Darling) said some time ago, the scheme risks draining much-needed investment away from other railway infrastructure projects for the next 30 years. I want to know why, if the former Chancellor of the Exchequer said that, my party has suddenly changed its mind on the project.
The case for HS2 is flimsy. No amount of spin or the Front Benches being nice to each other will change the basic truth that this is potentially a huge white elephant that will not heal the north-south divide. If we wanted to heal that divide, we would be starting in the north, not the south. Money will be sucked away from all the other desperately needed upgrading schemes all over the country once the project starts. The money that goes in will have no long-term benefit for vast numbers of people in the United Kingdom. I hope that if there is a Labour Government after the next election, our Chancellor of the Exchequer will reconsider the issue and not be tied into saying that whatever happens we will go ahead with the project. The project could be doomed and we want to ensure that this Parliament has a say in whether the money is spent or not.
Mrs Caroline Spelman (Meriden) (Con)
My constituency gets both the pain and the gain, because in having the first station outside London, we will undoubtedly benefit from some of the 30,000 permanent jobs that it has been estimated will come. But I cannot stress enough the greater importance of the need for extra freight capacity. I invite hon. Members when travelling on our motorways to look at the number of car transporters that are being forced to take these valuable export goods to our ports by road because of the lack of freight capacity.
Given that my constituency is under such pressure for development, as most of it is in the green belt, I have a No. 1 ask of the Secretary of State: for a tunnel under Balsall Common, so that the parish of Berkswell should not be severed in two by a 40-foot flyover where High Speed 2 has to cross over the west coast main line. The impact on that community will be severe. Primary school pupils will not be able to get directly to the secondary school and a village with only one shop will effectively be cut off from other local services.
High Speed 2 runs through the Blythe river valley, through Arden pasture land in my constituency, and is therefore prone to flooding, so viaducts are needed. In common with other hon. Members who have low-lying land where viaducts are needed, I urge the Secretary of State to heed the requests of the communities in the design of those viaducts, so that the view in those river valleys is not completely obliterated by bunds or unnecessarily dense structures.
Many of the roads in Arden pasture land are twisty and small, and quite unsuitable for construction traffic. I urge the Secretary of State in particular to prevent Water Orton road from being used to haul spoil to protect the village of Castle Bromwich, and to close small lanes such as Diddington lane, which would otherwise become potential rat runs. In response to a point made by the hon. Member for Hampstead and Kilburn (Glenda Jackson), perhaps the Department would consider the use of the canal network, which after all goes very close to Euston and goes right through my constituency, as an environmentally friendly means of removing spoil from those areas.
I welcome the revised compensation package, particularly the announcement of a taper on the distance at which properties are eligible for compensation, in response to amendments that I tabled to the paving Bill. However, there is one glaring omission that will affect all on the line of route: there is no compensation for properties affected by construction works. Given that my constituency will have the first station, we are likely to see five and half years of construction work, and the homes affected by that will be every bit as blighted as properties right next to the tracks. I urge a rethink in that area.
Originally, a High Speed 2-High Speed 1 link was proposed. I understand why that proposal has been scrapped, but the regions were led to believe that there would be through trains. I ask the Department to look again at how that might be achieved with a twin-bore tunnel to Stratford, so that an international passenger can land at Birmingham airport, clear immigration and get a through train to the continent.
I support the view of my local authority, Solihull council, that a community fund, like that for Birmingham airport, would allow local administration of mitigation measures, which would give a sense of local empowerment. I have put my name to an instruction of the Environmental Audit Committee, of which I am a member, to look again at the environmental impacts. I particularly want to point out that, when I was Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, our aspiration, as set out in the “Natural Environment” White Paper, was a net positive outcome from biodiversity offsetting. I am disappointed to see a less ambitious objective for High Speed 2 of no net loss, and I ask the Government to look again at that.
I have had to balance conflicting views in my constituency, but I heeded the warning by Lord Adonis when he visited the west midlands and said that if it was not clear that Birmingham and Solihull and the west midlands wanted a stop along the line, the west midlands could be bypassed and the line could go straight to Manchester. That is why I have sought to get the best mitigation and compensation possible for my constituents.
Mr Liam Byrne (Birmingham, Hodge Hill) (Lab)
I want to add my voice to those here tonight who support High Speed 2. I was a strong supporter of the proposal when it came to the last Labour Cabinet, and I am a strong supporter of the position taken by Labour Front Benchers. My right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) got it right when he said that it is welcome that those on both Front Benches have united in their agreement to support the proposal, whatever the outcome of the next election, when no doubt Labour will be returned to government.
I am a supporter because I see the chance for High Speed 2 to add real booster rockets to a city that is now back on the move. Since the new Labour council took office in May 2012, we have had a city that is growing once more. The year of infrastructure, which imaginatively brings together major projects in the middle of our city, is creating real momentum behind the delivery of Grand Central, the metrolink that is now going through the middle of our city, and the new New Street station, which I was so proud to help secure when I was the regional Minister. We are now the start-up capital of the country outside London. More new businesses opened their doors in Birmingham than anywhere else outside London last year, and we are now at the heart of the region that boasts the biggest export surplus anywhere in the country to the fast-growing market of China.
If we are to restore ourselves to our rightful place as the workshop of the world, we need new infrastructure, and that is why High Speed 2 is so welcome. It is welcome because it cuts our journey time to London, but it also cuts our journey time to Canary Wharf to 65 minutes. That is very important to a financial and legal services community as big as Birmingham’s. It is important because it puts our airport within reach of the airports of the south, and it is important because it could create 50,000 to 60,000 jobs in our city and the region beyond.
Those are the prizes on offer, and they need to stay within reach, not just to some but to everybody in our great city. That is why it is so important that in the debates that follow in the House and elsewhere we remove the crazy, idiotic, nonsensical idea of destroying one third of the available industrial land in Birmingham to lock up as a scrap yard for High Speed 2 between now and 2026, and then to minimise as a marshalling yard for the period of the railway’s operation over the subsequent years.
The Secretary of State said that getting the path of the track right is difficult and important. Of course it is. I am glad that he started his story in 1832 when the railways were first proposed, because when it was first proposed that the railways would come to Birmingham, they had to take an interesting bend to avoid Aston hall, which was then in the hands of the descendants of the inventor of the steam engine, James Watt. I propose a slight modification of this track, not to save a view but to save the prospects of east Birmingham. The proposal for a marshalling yard in the middle of the inner city takes out a space that is the size of 106 football pitches. It is a site, currently in the hands of three owners, that has come together like a great jigsaw puzzle for the first time in a century. It is a site on which we could put 7,000 jobs, not at some remote point in the future, but now, during the next four or five years.
We have already turned away proposals for a million square feet of industrial use which could have brought hundreds of jobs to the inner city. There is nowhere more in need of these jobs than inner-city Birmingham. This site is at the junction of three of the most unemployed constituencies in the country; 17,773 people are unemployed in the constituencies of Hodge Hill, Ladywood and Erdington. That is nearly one half of all the people who are out of work in the city of Birmingham. Yet we are turning away businesses that want to create jobs on this site in the middle of this community today because of the High Speed 2 proposal. The Secretary of State says quite rightly that the marshalling yard has to go somewhere, and it should: it should go much closer to the airport or up in Crewe—or even, if my hon. Friends who represent Stoke get their way, closer to Stoke. Let us not put it in a place where we need the jobs.
Birmingham city council is perfectly prepared to petition against this proposal during the months to come. It would be better all round if it did not need to do that, but so far the guarantees that are needed from High Speed 2 for early release of land, minimisation of the land-take and maximising the number of jobs have not been seen. I want those proposals on the table, otherwise we are in for an almighty fight over the months to come.
Sir John Randall (Uxbridge and South Ruislip) (Con)
I am not against high-speed rail. In fact, I have been a strong advocate, in particular with regard to taking domestic air travel away from Heathrow airport, so I was in favour of it. There is no doubt that our railways have been going through a renaissance, but they suffer from a chronic capacity problem. If we had been told at the outset that we needed to add lines, rather like how we must sometimes widen motorways to accommodate more traffic, the argument would have been easier to understand. Instead, rather mistakenly from a marketing point of view, we were told that it was all about speed. Although speed is important, it is not the be all and end all.
I was disappointed when the Government decided to adopt the route proposed by the previous Labour Government, because it could have been designed specifically to cause maximum opposition and the greatest environmental damage. My constituents in Uxbridge and South Ruislip and I are grateful, however, that the route will now be tunnelled throughout my constituency. Of course, that is not the end of the matter because, as the hon. Member for Hampstead and Kilburn (Glenda Jackson) said, we will suffer, like she will in her area, huge disruption during the construction period due to air vents and many other such things that will be a great concern.
I want to mention one of the little anomalies that I am sure there will be masses of in my constituency and throughout the route. My constituents Mr and Mrs Jones of Almond Close, Ruislip, live in a semi-detached house. The one semi-detached is safeguarded, but theirs is not. One side of the house will be safeguarded from the vibrations of construction and tunnelling and will be sorted out, but their side will not. That is something that the Committee will have to consider.
Elsewhere in the London borough of Hillingdon, we have even bigger problems. My hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (Mr Hurd) has been working with me to try to get the tunnel extended by a few hundred yards, which is perfectly feasible. The only problem is that the Government do not want to do that because of the Heathrow spur. I think we can pretty well agree that the Heathrow spur is dead and should be scrapped now. We could then get the tunnel extended, and those few precious yards would sort out a few more constituents.
The other major problem for us in Hillingdon is the fate of the Hillingdon outdoor activities centre, which I have mentioned before in the House. It is a much-valued and much-used facility that is enjoyed by many people, but it would be lost under current plans as HS2 will go straight through it. Something must be done very soon, because the lease will soon be up. I am grateful that the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Mr Goodwill), has accepted the invitation of my hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner to visit the site. I am sure that we will be able to persuade him that it must be saved and we have some ideas about what can be done.
If I had more time, I would like to talk about the environmental damage that will be done all along the line. It may seem small, but I want briefly to mention something that I was reminded of at the weekend. A small relict population of corn buntings will be destroyed, which I mention because the population has decreased by 90% from 1970 levels and by 34% since 1995 and will now almost certainly be wiped out. We must look after that population. We know that ancient woodlands will be badly affected and we cannot just create ancient woodlands, so we must be careful.
When I first entered the House, I was told that we should put our country first, our constituency second and our party third, and I agree with that. I am not putting my constituency first; I am putting my country first. The plan is currently unsuitable for our country, because it will ruin too much of it. I think we are getting along the right lines with it, but we must do something. I have voted against my party only once before and that was over Iraq. It is as important to me that we get this right. I will vote against tonight with a heavy, but resolute, heart.
Mr Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)
High-speed rail is of course supported by the Scottish Government and the SNP supports it in this House. Our criticism, as with many things here, is about the Government’s management. Having already linked up with a partner European state, the highly productive French—and, by extension, the Belgians—in a good example of cross-border progress, the UK Government seem incapable of progressing similarly in what is currently their own territory. Perhaps it is the absence of the efficient French or merely dealing with an independent country that is the difference here but, whatever it is, there is a lack of ambition on a key infrastructure issue on the largest of these isles.
Having already lost its shipping advantage to Rotterdam, the UK is currently losing its aviation advantage. The third error seems to be to putting rail progress into the sidings. The pace of the project, placing the first point of construction in the south and poor planning by not linking to airports or providing bypasses around London are holding us back and taking away from what should be a good project. It seems that the only major spend that can go unchecked in the UK is the £120 billion towards weapons of mass destruction on the Clyde, which are controlled by the Americans anyway and not particularly needed.
Where are we? High-speed rail may not reach Birmingham until 2032, by which time most here may be long retired. Meanwhile, understanding its value, China will have built many thousands of kilometres by then. We heard from the Secretary of State earlier that it has built 11,500 km from a standing start of 0 km in 2007. Back in the UK, the north-to-south advantages would be more pronounced by building in the north first and having the slowest rail replaced the fastest. The idea that everything has to radiate from London is folly and will delay our European partners who want to come to Scotland for business, affecting aggregate European GDP and therefore, by extension, all of us. Building in the north could also be cheaper per mile as it is less densely populated and has fewer buildings, making negotiations to acquire land more straightforward, quicker and better value for the public purse.
In Scotland, we are not following that template and are linking on a pattern of need. We are not radiating from Edinburgh. We have schemes to improve journey times on the northern corridor between Inverness and Aberdeen, as well as post-independence hopes to create greater economic links between the great city of Carlisle and Dumfries and Galloway, as well as building high-speed rail between Glasgow and Edinburgh within the decade. When in Carlisle recently, the First Minister of Scotland pointed out that the benefits of high-speed rail to Manchester or Leeds will also bring some £3 billion of benefit to Scotland, again showing the aggregate gain to the wider European economy from infrastructure improvements not necessarily in the territory. However, such benefits would increase eight times—some £24 billion —with a full high-speed rail link between Scotland’s big cities. The majority of that benefit would of course be in the central belt, but it would help the country as a whole. In addition, there would be a major shift from air to rail, saving fuel, making journeys cheaper and helping the environment. As we heard earlier from the hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins), we know now that most journeys between Paris and London are made by rail rather than air.
Following independence, when we will have two sovereign governments working on the project, as we have seen from the links to the continent, we may find ourselves reminded of the fact that the first rail link between Scotland and England did not start with a link to London, but rather between Carstairs and Carlisle. Independence should give hope not just to Scotland, but to the north of England, as the First Minister laid out in his St George’s day speech in Carlisle.
The arguments for high-speed rail are well researched and I hope they have been well rehearsed in this debate, but it is instructive to look at what the university of Southern Denmark found by analysing the link from Frankfurt to Cologne. It was found that it was difficult to untangle the benefits of high-speed rail as it tends to be built between two successful places. However, political horse-trading meant that the line stopped in two places, Montabaur and Limburg, where university researchers found an extra 2.7% GDP in those places for four years that then continued at a higher plateau.
We hope that high-speed rail will materialise and in the north as well. I mentioned the spending on weapons of mass destruction, but this would be spending on ploughshares that would plant the seeds of future economic growth. The railways that the Victorians planted many years ago are still bearing fruit not only in the UK, but also in Ireland. We should ensure that we help the economy of the future and if the project goes ahead, until we see something tangible in Scotland, there should be Barnett consequentials, as there should be for Wales.
Jake Berry (Rossendale and Darwen) (Con)
I have absolute respect for colleagues across the House who have come here today to stand up and defend the interests of their constituents. I know that many of those who will vote against the Government tonight will do so with a heavy heart, but they believe, correctly, that they have been sent here to represent the interests of their constituents in relation to the Bill.
I intend to support the Bill on Second Reading tonight. I do not really have a constituency interest in it, because neither phase 1 nor phase 2 will affect it directly. My real interest is as someone who was born and brought up in the north-west of England and who has spent his entire business life working there, because I know that it will have a huge impact on our local economy. In my constituency, which is a local manufacturing hub, the relief on our roads, by taking 1.6 million lorry journeys off them, will enable us to get our world-class products to market.
I know that the House is divided on the issue and that the Bill has its opponents, but I hope that it will tackle the north-south divide, which so many Governments have sought but failed to narrow. Building a high-speed rail link between the north and the south offers a once-in-a-generation opportunity for the north to mirror the growth that London is seeing. London is undeniably the economic powerhouse of our recovering economy, and I think that the Bill will give the north the opportunity to take part in that growth.
If we look back at the debates in the House about the introduction of the motorway network in the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s, we see that many of the arguments about local disruption that Members have made this evening on behalf of their constituents were also made then. We would probably look back with incredulity today at the thought that we could have had no major north-south motorways, such as the M1, M6 and M40. I hope that in 20 or 30 years’ time we will look back at this debate and know of the huge benefit it has brought to our economy, to the north and, in my case, to the north-west and say what a success it has been.
If we get that new north-south connectivity, as an east Lancashire Member, I would like to see a more integrated rail system overall. I am sorry that the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) is no longer in his place, because over the past four years he and I have worked together to get improvements on the Manchester to Clitheroe line. For my constituents in Darwen who want to hook into the HS2 link to London, getting those vital improvements, which will start on 23 May next year, will make a massive difference to our local economy.
I have also long campaigned for the reintroduction of the Rossendale to Manchester commuter link. That is supported by all our major businesses and the influential Rossendale Rail Action Group. When the HS2 line arrives in Manchester, it is vital for everyone in east Lancashire, including all our local businesses, that the onward routes, such as the Manchester to Clitheroe line and the Rossendale to Manchester line, are available.
I have one slight concern about the Bill that I hope the Minister can offer some reassurance on when he responds. It took 186 years to agree to start building the channel tunnel. I hope that once phase 1 is completed we will move quickly to phase 2. I think that many of my constituents, along with many people in the north of England, would be satisfied if we started building in the north and in the south at the same time, meeting in the middle around Birmingham, rather than just building from London to Birmingham, even though that is the most congested part of the route.
The Bill represents a real opportunity for all of us who live and work in and feel passionately about the north of England. I will be supporting the Government this evening.
Joan Walley (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)
I share the concern that some Members have expressed about the lack of time. For those who would like more time for detailed discussion of the environmental aspects, hopefully there will be an opportunity tomorrow when we consider the instructions and the report produced by the Environmental Audit Committee. However, if tonight we are to commit to spending £50 billion, Parliament should ensure that it will be spent in the right way, both for the next phase of transport policy and for the future generations who will live with, pay for and count the opportunity costs of what we vote for today and tomorrow.
I do not doubt the Secretary of State’s commitment to transport policy, or the determination of the shadow Transport and Treasury teams to go for all-out investment and growth, but my head tells me spending £50 billion without a strategic environmental assessment will not necessarily ensure integrated transport policies for all parts of the UK, its cities and localities. Indeed, it might actually undermine many of the gains from increased rail travel that we have built up.
Putting on my constituency hat for a moment to speak for Stoke-on-Trent North, I know that there are many grandees in some of the big Labour authorities that want the Bill in its current form, but the route bypasses Stoke altogether, despite it being the seventh largest urban conurbation in the UK. We already have perfectly excellent train services—two an hour—that go straight to London Euston in one hour and 24 minutes. What will happen to those services when phase 2 of HS2 is running? The likelihood is that business passengers from Manchester will not be spending their money on the west coast Pendolino services; they will opt for an HS2 that is not easily accessible to us, leaving us without the business case for our existing services, which will have a huge knock-on effect.
Like Newcastle borough council, I feel that if HS2 is to go ahead there is a great deal of merit in Stoke-on-Trent city council’s case for a hub station for the city, subject to all kinds of detailed assurances, for example on the capacity of HS2 through the Harecastle tunnel and its compatibility with the classic system of local services, especially the slower services between London and the midlands. I look forward to detailed discussions with the Secretary of State later this week.
As for the Bill’s other shortcomings, I think that it is important to note that, despite the Government’s business case and the aim of making HS2 support their objective of reducing carbon emissions by shifting passengers from air and road travel to rail, that was not integral to the Bill’s planning stages. The greatest concern to me, as covered in the course of the unsuccessful legal challenge to HS2, and as touched on in the Environmental Audit Committee’s debate, is the way the Government went about the environmental appraisal for sustainability for phase 1. As we know, in February 2011, the Government consulted on the whole strategy for HS2, phases 1 and 2. The Supreme Court said that, had the strategic environmental appraisal directive applied, then what was done would not have met the requirements. Why is that important? It is important because anyone commenting in 2011 had complete information only on phase 1, not phase 2. Then move the clock forward to Sir David Higgins’s report, “HS2 Plus”. Because he recommended earlier completion of phase 2 to Crewe, without any due process for strategic appraisal, there are all kinds of questions unanswered about what that means for the timing and the route from north of Lichfield to Manchester.
Effectively, the Supreme Court has ruled that the strategic environmental assessment directive does not apply because Parliament is now, through the hybrid Bill process, the decision-making body. The Government might claim that their version of strategic environmental assessment addresses those issues at the strategic level, but in reality Parliament, the decision-making authority, has had no role. Parliament is in a very confused situation, which is made worse by having to vote tonight on Second Reading without knowledge of what instructions will be voted on tomorrow to guide its Select Committee in its work.
I expect that the Bill will be given a Second Reading tonight, but that does not justify the iniquity of taking forward infrastructure investment of this magnitude without a strategic environmental assessment. I very much hope that the amendment in my name to be debated tomorrow will be taken on board, but that deals only with detailed—
David Mowat (Warrington South) (Con)
I have been an MP for four years, and this is the fourth debate on HS2 in which I have participated. I have spoken in support of the project in all of them and I will do so again tonight, although it would be fair to say that if we were debating the current phase 2 route, which is out to consultation—I have high hopes of changes, particularly to the part north of Manchester, for which there is no business case—I would have difficulty supporting it, but I do support the Bill before us today.
Before I set out the reasons for my support, however, I will state four reasons why we should not go ahead with the project. We should not go ahead with it simply because it has been 120 years since we built a railway line north of Manchester. That, in itself, is a silly reason. We should not proceed with it simply because our infrastructure investment over the past two or three decades has been massively skewed towards London. I listened carefully to the hon. Member for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey), who talked about the diversion of resources away from other projects that HS2 could cause—an anxiety that did not appear to apply for Crossrail 1 or Crossrail 2, which together would cost about the same as HS2. In any event, we should not go ahead with the wrong project just because we previously spent too much in London. Nor should we do it because other countries done it more than we have: Turkey might have 1,500 miles, but perhaps the Turks and everyone else is wrong and perhaps our way is the right way.
We should proceed if and only if three things apply. The first is that the business case must be robust and solid.
David Mowat
I have a sense of déjà vu. My hon. Friend the Member for North West Leicestershire (Andrew Bridgen) and I have had this dialogue before. The cost-benefit ratio is 2.4, higher than it was for the Jubilee line when that project started and higher than it currently is for Crossrail. We should go ahead only if the cash flow can be afforded without diverting resources away from other activities. Roughly speaking, the cash flow for HS2 is £2 billion a year, and it kicks in as Crossrail comes to an end and HS2 picks it up. That is reasonable. There is no evidence that HS2 is starving other projects and activities of investment. I believe that HS2 involves something in the order of 20% of total rail investment over the next two decades.
The third condition is that there must be transformational benefits from the project. We do not have time to go into them in detail, but there is a great deal of evidence, from the councils and the chambers of commerce of the north, that the regions will be transformed. Whether we are talking about the Greengauge 21 report or the Peat Marwick report, 40,000 jobs at a minimum will be generated in the north-west, and my constituents will get many of them.
All in all, whether HS2 goes ahead boils down to whether we believe that there is a capacity crunch. If we do not think that there will be one because we will all miraculously be using video conferencing over the next 10, 20, 30 or 40 years, it would probably be wrong to go ahead with the project. The fact is, however, that over the last 15 years, the requirement for long-distance train journeys in the UK has increased by roughly 5% a year. The HS2 business case assumes that that will decrease to 1.6% a year—a conservative estimate in many ways. I believe that the capacity crunch is the main reason for proceeding. My right hon. Friend the Member for Eddisbury (Mr O'Brien), who is not in his place, made a perfectly reasonable point about double-decker trains. My understanding is that the changes to the west coast main line to make that happen would be so restrictive as well as expensive that the line would not work in the meantime. We know how difficult it was during the last upgrade from Rugby to the north.
I want the Minister to give some thought to the reservation about phase 2 that I expressed earlier, which would have made it difficult—in fact, impossible—for me to support the Bill. I refer to the absurdity of building 40 miles of track north of Manchester apparently for no other reason than to get to a depot in Wigan. The cost is £1 billion without contingency, and I could find not one benefit in the business case that would contribute to that cost. I hope that people from HS2 are listening to me. There is a phrase, “value engineering”, which means that one engineers and designs where the value will come from. It has manifestly not occurred in respect of the Wigan link. I hope, believe and trust that that will be looked at.
Jonathan Reynolds (Stalybridge and Hyde) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Warrington South (David Mowat), and my speech will echo much of his. Like him, I support High Speed 2 and not just because I am a Greater Manchester MP, although we will benefit from it substantially. I support it not just because our railways need the capacity, although they do. I support it not just out of a parochial desire to see more transport investment in the north, although I do not think being a parochial northerner is necessarily a bad thing. Much more than all of that, I support it because it is genuinely wonderful that, for once, we are choosing to solve a transport problem that we know is going to happen but has not happened yet. By that, I mean the looming capacity crunch on our railways. It is the polar opposite of how we usually approach transport issues. Secondly, I very much welcome the cross-party agreement on delivering a fundamental piece of infrastructure when, frankly, there are a great many reasons why a Conservative Government might not want to do that.
We simply have to acknowledge that the changes in how and where people live and work has driven a huge demand for regular and reliable train travel. Thirty years ago, there would have been enough jobs for almost everyone who lives in my constituency to work in my constituency, but as our economy has moved more towards services and the creative industries, those jobs are clustered more in the cities, so many more people need to commute—and these are jobs that are much more geographically mobile. Before the last election, I worked as a solicitor in Manchester city centre. I would travel into Manchester every day from what is now my constituency, but it was relatively common at some point in the day to receive a message saying that I needed to go to Birmingham, London, Leeds or elsewhere to attend a meeting or a completion or something else.
Those economic changes are what lies behind the doubling of passenger numbers on the railways in the last decade. Looking at the numbers is genuinely startling: over the past 16 years, passenger journeys on inter-city trains have doubled to 128 million a year, and the number of all rail journeys has doubled, from 750 million a year to 1.5 billion. Of course, the UK’s population is predicted to grow by a further 11 million by 2035. I do not believe that it is the less-than-impressive performance of rail privatisation that has driven that growth. For once it seems we might be trying to provide the capacity we require in our transport network before the problem hits us. If only the Parliaments of the 1970s and ’80s had done the same with our airport capacity.
Some people are concerned that HS2 will actually suck prosperity out of the regions towards London, but that is illogical. If that were true, the best way to achieve regional prosperity would be to tear up our existing railways and motorways and promote some sort of regional autarky. That would be just as foolish and ill-conceived at regional level as it would be at national level.
I recognise that it is in the nature of a high-speed train line that some parts of the country take the burden of hosting it, while others, such as in my area, receive the benefits. I absolutely agree that there should be adequate compensation, particularly in London around Euston station, and there should be proper mitigation of the route where possible. I understand colleagues who need to represent the needs of their areas where local opinion is opposed to HS2. I do not think it credible, however, to argue for increased mitigation such as expensive tunnelling and then complain that the cost of the project has gone up; clearly, there is a balance between the two. I would say that the development of the British economy in a way that spreads prosperity, growth and opportunity more evenly around the United Kingdom, rather than focusing on the south-east is genuinely in everybody’s interests.
The price tag appears large, but Government investment in capital projects is about £50 billion each year, and the costs of HS2 will be spread over 20 years. Crucially, this is wealth-creating infrastructure. We should recognise, too, that there is a cost to not proceeding with it. There will be a cost to not creating the capacity we require on our railways. Imagine, Madam Deputy Speaker, if we had not regenerated London’s docklands. Think of all the private investment that followed it, which would not have occurred without it. There are many other examples—the original M1 motorway has already been mentioned in the debate.
Some hon. Members have claimed that investment will be diverted from other schemes towards HS2. Let me say that the only time we know that that has ever happened was when we tried to patch and mend the west coast main line. It cost billions and drained investment from every other project certainly in the north-west, but across the whole country, too. The destruction was, frankly, untenable.
For once, we have a far-sighted proposal with cross-party agreement and the political will to deliver it. We would all like to see our favoured amendments implemented. I would like construction to begin in the north. This Bill certainly deserves its Second Reading today, which I warmly—
Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)
First, I wish to apologise for not being present for the early part of the debate: I was on a Select Committee visit.
I regret that I am unable to support the Government tonight. Like many hon. Members, I have constituency interests and many people opposed to the project have made representations to me.
My principal objection is that HS2 is not the right project for the UK as a whole. I accept the need to develop our infrastructure. My constituency is the fastest growing in the west midlands and we recognise that it is necessary to build homes and factories. I support good development, and we can ensure that we get good development by mitigating the effects of development when it takes place. As an example, the west coast main line runs through several villages in my constituency and new homes are being built in the village of Long Lawford either side of the railway line, showing that the building of a new railway line need not cause a massive environmental impact. Some of the mitigation measures the Government have proposed have simply added to the cost of the project—and that cost is another of my principal concerns. The country cannot afford this project.
The case has not been made. The case for speed has been dropped and we are told this is an issue of capacity. If speed is no longer important, why can we not use the existing corridors—for example, the M40? The original argument was that that corridor deviated too much to allow a high-speed line. The issue of capacity assumes that the west coast main line will be full. Its capacity grew enormously following the upgrade, but we have seen a relatively modest increase in traffic on the line since. I travel on it regularly on a train that leaves Rugby in the middle of the day, and the carriage is little more than a quarter full. Like many railways, it is busy early in the morning and at the end of the day. The west coast main line has become a commuter line, and if we simply decrease the transport time between London and Birmingham, all we will do is move commuters further north—they will travel a greater distance.
Much could be done with the existing line, such as reconfiguring the Pendolino trains so that an empty 44-seat first-class carriage can be substituted by a 76-seat standard-class carriage. The number of carriages on each train has been increased from nine to 11, and I see no reason why, with modest additional expenditure, we could not increase it to 12 or more carriages.
Above all, I do not believe that HS2 would have any benefits for my constituency of Rugby. I have already asked the Secretary of State what will happen to the legacy line—the west coast main line—once the high-speed line has been constructed. The Government will have massive incentives to ensure that the high-speed line is used to its maximum. Members of Parliament will ask why we spent £50 billion on the project if it is not fully utilised. Other hon. Members have voiced the concern that the west coast main line will be downgraded. My constituency currently benefits from good access to London, with a 50-minute journey time from Rugby to Euston, which is massively important in attracting new businesses to our area. My concern is that, post high-speed rail, the operator of the legacy line will need to have trains stopping at every station on the route to maximise its revenue, because it will no longer benefit from the city-to-city business. My example for that is the town of Épernay in west France, which used to have a regular service to Paris, but no longer does because the TGV travels to the north to accommodate the city of Reims.
I recognise that the Bill is likely to receive a Second Reading, but I ask the Government to ensure that the project is completed in its entirety. The worst outcome would be if we built between London and Birmingham and failed to build the second part.
Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)
As we discuss the Bill, my primary concern is the negative economic impact that HS2 will have on the Welsh economy, as outlined in the independent KPMG report. As things stand, the UK Government will use the general taxation pool, which includes taxes from Wales, to fund an England-only railway without a fair share for my country. HS2 therefore raises a basic issue of fairness in how large infrastructure projects are funded and how public money is distributed in the UK.
Plaid Cymru has fought a three-year campaign for a fair share of HS2 spend for Wales through equivalent Barnett consequentials. One of my first contributions in the House was on the need for Wales to receive its fair share of the many billions of pounds projected to be spent on this project. This issue will be a key dividing line during the Westminster election next year, because it proves that only Plaid Cymru can be trusted to protect the Welsh national interest on one of the biggest spending decisions of this Parliament.
Many parliamentary questions, and freedom of information requests to the Welsh Government, have revealed a complete lack of correspondence or representations from the Welsh Government to the UK Government on the issue of consequentials. Welsh Government spokespersons are for ever quoted in the Western Mail and on the BBC as saying that HS2 is a matter for the UK Government and is a UK-wide project. I remember discussing this issue with Jim Pickard of the Financial Times, and I got the impression that he was similarly confused by the Welsh Government’s approach. It is funny what can happen to a Welsh Government position following a call from a journalist on the Financial Times of London. Within days, the Labour Government had done a U-turn, although it seems that they had already received confirmation that they would receive a consequential of £35 million for 2015-16 for spending on HS2. That is despite the Welsh Government not making any representations. According to recent parliamentary questions, they still have not made any representations.
After the Welsh Government announced the consequential money, there was huge confusion between the two Governments. I am happy to say that, on this occasion, the Finance Minister Jane Hutt was not wrong. The Treasury admitted that it had made a mistake. However, it also said that no further consequentials would be paid in further spending rounds and that it was minded to claw back the money paid in error.
Anyone who takes even a cursory glance at a map can see that the HS2 network will be an England-only project. It will connect Leeds, Manchester, Birmingham and, of course, the dark star, London. Over last summer, it became apparent that the cost of HS2 was beginning to spiral. Treasury estimates doubled to nearly £50 billion, which should by rights mean a consequential of £2.5 billion for Wales. Many independent analysts put the project’s costs as high as £80 billion, which would nearly double the consequential for Wales to £4 billion. That is important for two reasons. HS2 will dominate all transport infrastructure spend for a generation. It will be the only game in town. Anyone not on the route will lose out. A fair share for Wales would enable us to revolutionise the transport infrastructure in our country.
The UK Government have a terrible record of investment in Welsh transport. It is nowhere near the 5% that our population share demands. Recent evidence to the Welsh Affairs Committee suggested that the long-term historical trend for transport investment in Wales was between only 2% and 2.5%. Network Rail infrastructure investment in Wales stands at only 0.7%. The KPMG report suggests that Wales will be hit hard: Bridgend will lose out on £11 million, Cardiff on £71 million, Carmarthenshire on £12 million, Port Talbot on £1 million, Newport on £37 million, Swansea on £16 million, Monmouthshire on £8 million, Pembrokeshire on £9 million and Powys on £6 million. Outside the major cities and towns, south Wales central will lose out on £29 million and south-east Wales on £19 million. The annual economic loss to the south Wales economy will be more than £220 million.
Michael Fabricant
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that Wales needs a powerful voice to make a real impact on the Department for Transport? Does he also agree that Carwyn Jones, so powerful in Wales, has no voice here in Westminster?
Jonathan Edwards
That is an extremely valid intervention. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for making that point.
Evidence to the Welsh Affairs Committee indicates that as a result of HS2 there will be 24,000 fewer jobs in Wales by 2040, yet the Labour Government have apparently done a U-turn. What has been most interesting about the debate from my perspective and the Welsh perspective was the shadow Secretary of State’s response to my question when she said that even in the event of a Labour Government following the next election, she could not commit to Barnett consequentials on HS2. I am sure that message will be heard loud and clear in Wales.
The moral and political argument for a fair share for Wales is clear. That is why we will be voting against the Bill and in favour of the reasoned amendment unless there are guarantees that my country will get fairness in future comprehensive spending reviews.
Craig Whittaker (Calder Valley) (Con)
The managing directors of Boxford, Crosslee, BCA Leisure, Heights, Decorative Panels and Calrec represent a small example of the many excellent world-class businesses in Calder Valley. They have all built up their businesses through true Yorkshire grit and fly the flag not just for Calder Valley and Yorkshire but for Great Britain on the international stage. They do not expect anything from Government apart from a plain old level playing field. As a result, they feel it is lunacy that business leaders in London have far better access to their routes to market than we do in the north. Not only that, but access across the Pennines is woeful at best. There are 5.8 million people, or over 12% of the nation’s population, and hundreds of thousands of businesses to access their markets.
Apart from the M62 motorway, when it is open, and the canal boats on the ship canals, the only mode of transport to get from Hull to Liverpool to access those markets is by train. This journey takes, on average, three hours—that is, three hours to travel 111 miles. One can therefore imagine the delight when it was mooted that as part of phase 2 of HS2 there was a desire for a more ambitious integration between Leeds and Manchester. That not only makes sense but is vital for one of the UK’s most productive areas; in fact, many would say that it is the most productive area. It is welcome that the Government have announced further, more ambitious electrification projects. We look forward to seeing as part of that programme the Caldervale line, which not only passes through Calder Valley but serves 3 million people.
In a world where connectivity and accessibility underpin business and the modern way of life, the current situation cannot continue for the people living in northern England. HS2 will complement plans for the northern hub. The current lack of fast and efficient railways between the north and south is being overcome by large corporations that increasingly resort to travelling by air. The lack of effective connectivity is hitting small and medium-sized businesses severely and affecting their potential to grow. Investment in transport is vital in our plans to build the foundations for a bigger and more successful economy within Yorkshire and the UK. We can achieve solidarity for businesses across the country only if they are all connected. In Calder Valley we know this only too well.
The benefits of high-speed rail stretch beyond merely linking the country via rail. The project offers employment and rejuvenation to large parts of the UK. When assessing the huge investment that a project of this magnitude needs, it is wrong to view it as one lump sum. The cost will be spread out over the duration of the construction, and so will the benefits. As we have heard many times today, the recent consultation paper estimates that 40,000 jobs will be created in the first phase, not to mention the ratio on cost returns, and as the project progresses the employment benefits will continue for many years to come.
I understand and fully appreciate the concerns of those who view this project as too expensive given the fragile state of the eurozone and the world’s financial issues, but when we consider that the biggest issue by far is capacity on our railways, we all agree that we need something.
Jason McCartney
I thank my hon. Friend and near neighbour for giving way. I have many times got on board a Grand Central train at Brighouse to come down to London. He knows as well as I do how packed that service is. Does he agree that the extra line will allow for more competition on two new lines and also allow for cut-price deals that make rail travel to London and back affordable for all our constituents?
Craig Whittaker
My hon. Friend is correct in one respect but incorrect in another: we are not near neighbours but neighbours. He is absolutely right about capacity, because that is exactly what we are talking about.
As extra capacity even when building a normal railway line runs at only 10% less than HS2, why should we not put our businesses on a par with the best in the world? The Government should not shy away from this large-scale investment; in fact, it is vital. High-speed rail is a sustainable investment that will pay for itself in the long term. Continuing the theme of sustainability, we are all committed to reducing carbon emissions across every aspect of our lives, and transport is the most vital aspect of this plan. As we have heard, evidence from abroad suggests that the speed and efficiency of high-speed rail have consistently attracted passengers off other forms of transport such as air and road.
I have a deep belief that this project is vital in creating a 21st-century transport system that reflects our progressive way of life. High Speed 1 is a massive achievement and a huge success, so I have no hesitation in believing that an internal high-speed rail network would be equally valuable. For my constituents in Calder Valley, a fast and effective link to the capital and the rest of the UK is vital now, let alone in future. We need to embrace the idea of high-speed rail being such a big project and focus on how it will revolutionise transport within the UK.
Natascha Engel (North East Derbyshire) (Lab)
I rise to speak in support of the reasoned amendment and to oppose the Second Reading of this Bill, as I have opposed the Bill in the past. I support the amendment not because I am against rail improvement or railways but because I am for improving the rail network, for better connections between cities, especially in the north, and for greater capacity where it is needed. However, this is not the right project. The report by the Institute of Economic Affairs that came out today undermines the economic argument that HS2 will regenerate the north and close the north-south divide. It will not.
I am delighted that the Secretary of State is in his place because I have been dying to ask him about the suppressing of the publication of the Major Projects Authority report. I understand that people’s names have to be kept confidential, but we are all able to redact names where needed. I am very surprised that on a project of this scale the Secretary of State is not using anything possible to ensure that his financial and economic case is put forward. I think part of the reason the report is not being published is that there is no very strong financial and economic case. I would be delighted to hear his reason for not redacting from the report the information that he does not want the public to see.
I want to focus on the pitifully poor consultation with the people who are affected by this project. The Secretary of State mentioned the opportunity to petition Parliament through the hybrid Bill Committee. I want briefly to tell the House what somebody who wants to petition the Committee has to do. The process is so complicated and narrowly drawn that most of my constituents who are affected will certainly not be able to petition Parliament and have their voices heard. First, a person has to be directly affected by HS2. Secondly, they have to pay a fee of £20, which for people who live in Staveley, Killamarsh or Renishaw is not a small price. Finally, they have to submit the petition between 29 April, which is tomorrow, and 23 May, and they have to do so in person.
Mr McLoughlin
The hon. Lady is saying that people in her constituency would have to do this by tomorrow. The Bill does not refer to her constituents.
Natascha Engel
I am saying that the people who are affected will be given an incredibly narrow window between tomorrow’s date, 29 April, and 23 May, but for my constituents this may not happen until the process is further down the line. Those constituents who are affected will have a very narrow window in which to respond and they will have to pay, individually, a cost that may be too high for them. They will also have to submit the petition in person after filling in forms from a petition kit. The process is so complicated that, rather than encouraging people to get involved in the consultation process, it will stop them doing so.
I am really concerned that the whole project has been run along those lines. It has excluded the voices of those people most severely affected by it. It excludes those whose homes and communities will be destroyed, and it does not give a real opportunity for their concerns to be heard. It does not bring them any benefit and it takes away what they already have, and for that privilege we are asking them to pay £50 billion through their taxes. At the same time, local regeneration projects that have been blighted for years will continue to be blighted while all the economic regeneration gets sucked back into the cities again.
The true reason those people are not being consulted and nobody is trying to make the case to them is that the financial and economic case is so weak. The large majority with which this Bill will be passed tonight will tell the large number of people who have concerns that we think we know what is better for them. They disagree and we are denying them a right to say so.
In conclusion, the case for HS2 is no more sophisticated than saying, “We need to do something to improve our transport infrastructure, and this is something.” That is not a strong enough argument to destroy the lives, homes and local economies in the areas, towns and villages—like mine in North East Derbyshire—that are most deeply affected, and that is why I will oppose the Bill’s Second Reading.
Mr William Cash (Stone) (Con)
I am against the proposal locally, nationally, economically and politically. I support the reasoned amendment tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs Gillan) and have particular reason to pay tribute to those of my constituents in Swynnerton, Whitmore, Stone and Madeley who have spent an enormous amount of time working together as communities to oppose the proposals, which will affect them in the course of phase 2. It is true to say that we are dealing with phase 1 at this juncture, but the principles also apply to phase 2, because the matter will not be treated completely differently by two separate Bills. Both phases will be treated the same way.
The real question—this a matter not only of principle but of practicality—is that of blight, which is a problem that will affect people into the indefinite future. I have had many meetings with constituents—there have been enormous turnouts of local people—and I cannot recall a single person saying that they are in favour of the proposals. They stretch from one end of the constituency to the other and I am not aware of anybody who has been able to make any serious arguments in favour of them. They see no benefit. I also pay tribute to the HS2 Action Alliance, Joe Rukin and his team and the Country Landowners Association for the considerable assistance they have given over a long period of time.
If the Bill proceeds, the issue of compensation, which is directly connected to that of blight, will be vital. Clause 18 modifies section 10 of the Compulsory Purchase Act 1965, but the problem is that the applicable law—this is relevant to schedule 6 as well—relates to case law on restricted categories with regard to the diminution in the value of land, which is not the real question in all cases. It goes wider than that. Given the significance of the proposal, it is absolutely essential that full compensation should be paid for the full extent of the losses incurred. It is not a question of going through all the arrangements the Government have come up with in relation to phase 1. They have a whole range of different proposals, including an express purchase scheme, a voluntary purchase offer, a “need to sell” scheme, rent back, alternative cash offers and homeowner payment schemes. The Government are struggling to come up with something, but they are not dealing with the real problem.
I am looking at the Secretary of State and I am glad to say that he is looking at me, because that means he is listening. I hope he will continue to listen, because I want the Select Committee to go back to my proposals for a property bond scheme, which I suggested during the course of the previous Bill. I know the Secretary of State thinks that would not work, but I do not agree with him. I urge the Select Committee to give serious consideration to a property bond scheme and not to be taken in by spurious arguments and the Government’s many complicated schemes.
In the final few seconds I have, I will simply say that this is a blight proposal. I do not think that the economic case has been made or that the compensation arrangements are adequate. I urge the Select Committee to give maximum consideration—assuming that it gets to this point—to all the arguments made by lawyers and the petitioners themselves, so that we can achieve something that actually helps people deal with the blight from which they are suffering and which they will continue to suffer unless there is a serious and radical change. I also urge the Secretary of State, yet again, to reconsider the idea of a property bond scheme.
Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)
I support the Bill and believe that High Speed 2 will be vital in improving connections between the north and south, easing overcrowding and acting as a vehicle for economic growth and development across the country.
Like other hon. Members, I want to discuss a constituency matter. I have spoken previously in this place about the economic and transport opportunities provided by Stratford in east London, including the area’s potential for jobs, growth and regeneration. I want to reflect on the relationship between the existing High Speed 1 route from London St Pancras to the channel tunnel and the proposed High Speed 2 project.
Our principal concern must be to deliver HS2 on time and within the financial envelope of £50 billion. I support that and understand that it is the reasoning behind dropping the proposed link between HS1 and HS2. However, I refer the Secretary of State to the comments of KPMG’s head of infrastructure, who said that
“it’s a great tragedy to scrap the link and complete nonsense to not have the two lines connected”.
There can be little doubt that the centre of gravity of London’s economy is moving east. Over the next 25 years, London’s growth will be concentrated in that area, while the regions to the east and the south-east are among the fastest-growing areas in the country. Stratford is already the sixth busiest rail hub in the UK—it is busier than Euston and Paddington stations—with unprecedented connectivity to the wider transport network through 10 lines, including Crossrail, direct services to more than 150 stations and access to almost all stations in London with one interchange. Stratford needs to be integral to the nation’s high-speed network.
Within a 5 km radius of Stratford, an investment of about £19 billion is planned, the population is forecast to grow to more than 2 million and there will be about 90,000 further new homes. Linking to that growth and development can only serve to enhance the business case for HS2.
Newham is one of the most deprived areas of the country, so how could I not support the Government’s commitment to closing the social and economic gap between east London and the rest of the capital within 20 years? It is unclear, however, how HS2 will deliver an economic benefit to east London without a physical track link to HS1 through Stratford.
I pay tribute to colleagues across the political spectrum from Kent and Essex county councils who, with my London borough of Newham colleagues, have commissioned research that demonstrates substantial demand for domestic high-speed services from the region to the midlands and the north, avoiding central London. The economic benefit of such connections significantly supports the business case for HS2, and it is a shame that that has not been taken account of thus far.
It is appropriate to mention, as I have before in this place, that the investment has already been made—about £1 billion, so no small amount—in Stratford International station. It is Stratford International in name, but it is yet to be Stratford International in nature, as no international services stop there. The station infrastructure includes space for customs and immigration clearance, so the future cost of installing such facilities will be less significant than building them from scratch; they are already there.
I am pleased to say that Deutsche Bahn has signified its intention to run a service from St Pancras to Amsterdam and Frankfurt in the future. I hope that that will be the prompt that is needed for international services to stop at Stratford. I believe that that will be the case, given the high level of business and commercial interest in such a service.
I believe that we need active consideration of how we can, in the not-too-distant future, secure an improved, fully integrated, robust link between HS1 and HS2. The link should be available for international and domestic services, routed through Stratford at the heart of the growing east London economy, and benefiting economies in the midlands, in the north and indeed across the country.
Mr Brian Binley (Northampton South) (Con)
I congratulate the hon. Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown) on her very forceful speech. I am sure that her constituents will be delighted.
It might help if we first look at the problems that HS2 resolves in order to place the project in its full perspective. We already have an overcrowded network that is literally full to capacity on our most significant transport corridor. We have record traffic levels, with passenger growth at 5% per annum. Rail freight will double over the next 20 years. Yet an aged existing permanent way is decaying to the point of redundancy.
The Higgins review concluded that a make and mend upgrade of the west coast main line on its own simply will not meet future demand, no matter what we do with it. The capacity does not exist. Make and mend on its own would be futile, and would mean 20 years of major disruption, at a cost of more than £20 billion—virtually the same cost as phase 1 of HS2—and a further 14 years of weak and disruptive bus substitutions and longer journeys on a far greater scale than during the route modernisation completed a few years ago. I can tell the House that my constituents know what that means: they would be immensely frustrated for a length of time that they will simply not put up with.
Increasing capacity remains the sole answer. It will deliver 13,000 additional peak-hour seats to west coast destinations, compared with just 3,000 by conventional alternatives. None of the proposed alternatives would provide a single increase in freight paths, despite a projected doubling of demand, but HS2 will deliver another 20 paths by freeing up capacity. None of the range of economic returns cited takes into account the released capacity for towns such as Northampton, which feed into the west coast main line, and I can tell the House that those returns will be considerable.
Indeed, many of those who complain about disruption in their green and pleasant constituencies rarely think about major housing growth areas such as Northampton, which is expected to increase its population by 50% over the next 25 years to provide for the housing needs of the south-east and, in so doing, help to alleviate demand that might be placed on other constituencies. With respect, it is no wonder that some of my constituents think that that view is perhaps a little uncaring, to say the least. Furthermore, critics of HS2 must be clear about whether they prefer to forgo growth—that growth would be hampered by the maintenance of the status quo—and they must define their alternatives while remembering that none of those so far proposed would meet the increased projected demands to which I have referred.
Let me return to the important conclusions of the Higgins report. We need to integrate HS2 into the conventional network more effectively, as the hon. Member for West Ham and other hon. Members have said. We also need to accelerate the project’s timetable, especially in the north. Every business man will tell us that the sooner we get on with something, the more cost-effective it is, and Front Benchers ought to accept that message.
Finally, the Bill’s provisions are about the construction of a railway line in the 21st century, but our deliberations should more significantly reflect the ambitions for our country. The issue is wider than just a set of railway lines; it is about what we feel about competing in the world to come and what we are willing to leave both our children and our grandchildren. Had the Victorian railway entrepreneurs not taken the decisions they did when they did, we would be in a sorry state now. We need to emulate them, and I therefore commend the Bill, which I will support wholeheartedly this evening.
Mike Kane (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)
It is a delight to follow the impassioned pleas of the hon. Member for Northampton South (Mr Binley).
Edward Watkin is buried in St Wilfrid’s churchyard, a few hundred yards from where I live in my constituency. He was a rail engineer, an entrepreneur, an industrialist and a Liberal MP. He designed the Great Central Railway, from Manchester to London, which opened in 1899. It could be described as the high-speed rail line of its day—it was modern, used the European gauge and brought down the journey time from the great city of Manchester to the great city of London immensely.
As part of his rail empire, Watkin began to dig the first attempt at a channel tunnel, which has been mentioned by Government Members. He wanted to connect his railway line from Manchester to London and all the way to France. The project was started, but, unfortunately, it was then opposed in this House, because it did not trust the French. Some 120 years later—
Mike Kane
Thank you, Mary. It is ironic that part of HS2 will go along the pathway that Edward Watkin built 120 years ago. It is a further irony that it will pass within metres of his graveyard in my constituency of Wythenshawe and Sale East. That will be a fitting tribute.
As a new Member, I will talk for a second about what I believe the purpose of good public policy to be. It must always be to promote the common good. It must be to create the conditions that allow people, groups and communities to thrive, fulfil their potential and live life more fully. I believe 100% that High Speed 2 will do that.
I served as a young councillor in Manchester under the leadership of my hon. Friend the Member for Blackley and Broughton (Graham Stringer). I remember the projects that he started and delivered, and that I supported. He bid for the Olympic games, which was unheard of. He won the Commonwealth games. We built the second runway. We introduced light rail. We brought about regeneration after the IRA bomb just after the change of leadership. I am immensely proud of that. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) said, we pulled that city up by its bootstraps in that decade. I was proud to serve on that council under the leadership of my hon. Friend the Member for Blackley and Broughton and, subsequently, that of Sir Richard Leese.
With the HS2 line, Manchester and the northern economy can fulfil their potential. We can unleash good public policy for the common good, which will help individuals, groups and societies in northern England to prosper. The line will vastly reduce the time that it takes to travel between Manchester and London from two hours and eight minutes to one hour and eight minutes. As I said in my intervention, the time from Manchester airport to London will go from two hours and 24 minutes to 59 minutes. Manchester airport is the most important air gateway in this country outside the capital. We must imagine the benefits of the economic regeneration that that will bring. In fact, we do not have to imagine the benefits because we know what they will be. An HS2 station at Manchester airport will bring about £500 million of investment per annum and more than 9,000 extra jobs.
We have talked about how to rebalance this nation economically. There was a fascinating programme called “Mind the Gap” by Evan Davis, which was all about clustering. When Daniel Adamson built the Manchester ship canal in 1822, he wanted there to be a northern region that stretched from Liverpool to Hull. If I serve in this Parliament for a long period, that is what I want to see achieved. HS2 is the first stage in creating that northern hub—that second city.
Eric Ollerenshaw (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Mike Kane). Perhaps, for once, we will vote in the same Lobby. I want to express my gratitude and that of other Government Members from the north to the Labour leaders of the great cities of the north for the impact that they have had on the shadow Front-Bench team over the past few months.
Last year, my neighbours and hon. Friends the Members for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard) and for Wyre and Preston North (Mr Wallace) sat down with Virgin Trains to consider the possibility of providing a direct train from London to Blackpool, with a stop at Poulton station, to assist the regeneration of Blackpool and Fylde. That would have an impact on my constituents in Fleetwood and on the constituents of my hon. Friend the Member for Wyre and Preston North. Virgin said that it could put on two direct trains a day to Blackpool, which would have changed the whole situation. However, when we got to Network Rail, we were told that no room existed on the west coast main line for those direct trains. The capacity issue is having an impact now—not in a few years time. It has prevented those trains from running.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Mr Robert Goodwill)
Does my hon. Friend agree that the point that he is making applies equally to Shrewsbury, which has had similar problems in getting a path down the network?
Eric Ollerenshaw
I agree absolutely with the Minister.
To be fair, the amendment recognises the need for extra capacity from the north to the south. I am grateful to the supporters of the amendment for that. I accept their criticism of the fact that the project does not start in Manchester or Leeds. That makes it a funny hybrid amendment, but perhaps a hybrid amendment to a hybrid Bill is fitting. The amendment then seems to say that everything can be done with the existing line. As I have pointed out, that line is already at capacity. As hon. Members from across the House have mentioned, the last time we attempted to upgrade the west coast main line, there were more than 10 years of overruns and we had different figures for the costs, which were about £10 billion. As people who use that line know, it is still not finished. If anybody was travelling on Saturday night, as I was, they would know that there are still more problems around Watford. In the summer there had to be improvements north of Warrington, which again caused delays on the line. It is simply impossible.
Other hon. Members have mentioned a suggestion that I made a couple of years ago about having double-decker trains, but apparently that is not practical given the bridge situation and so on. Those things have been considered, and we are left with a need for a new line. If we are going to build a new line, presumably it must be the latest development; I am sure that we—except for the enthusiasts, perhaps—would not want to build a line with steam trains on it at the moment.
I will oppose the amendment and support the Bill, even though I represent Lancaster and Fleetwood, which is not directly affected by this issue. Interestingly, if we consider High Speed 1 and the new Javelin trains that go from King’s Cross to Folkestone and use the high-speed line and transfer at Ashford to the normal “classical” line as I think it is referred to, I can see that there could be massive improvements in terms of the impact on stations north of Manchester, and indeed north of Crewe if we get there in the short term. We will enjoy those benefits because we will have trains travelling on both lines and improved connectivity.
For me the biggest reason for HS2, which has been mentioned by other Members, is the coalition Government’s promise when we got elected to do something about the widening north-south divide. That divide got wider and wider in the 13 years before we were elected and we said that we were going to do something about it. We have started to do something, and I accept that railways are not everything. We have started to do something about roads, and for the first time we have an M6 link road around Lancaster to Heysham. A scheme promised in the 1930s is now being built by this Government. The extension of broadband will be massively important in the north-west, but we must also deal with railway capacity, and it seems to me that there is no available alternative but this project.
My hon. Friend the Member for Warrington South (David Mowat) said that we should not go ahead with this scheme and compared it with London, but I find amazing the argument used by some that in London we can spend £6 billion on Thameslink—still not finished, by the way—and £15 billion on Crossrail 1. We are now proposing to spend £16 billion on Crossrail 2, and apparently those projects will have massive impacts on the London economy. Great, they will, but then I am told by some hon. Members that a high-speed line to the north will have minimal impact in terms of regeneration. What is good for one city is good for other cities and beyond, and we must rebalance the situation in terms of spend and connectivity.
As many Members have said, we need this debate literally to get moving at high speed, and as my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Mr Burns) said—I totally agree—we should not delay the Bill, which is what this hybrid amendment seems to be about. We should support the Bill and then go on to debate High Speed 3 to Glasgow and Edinburgh, and possibly High Speed 4 to Cardiff, and get on with truly uniting this Kingdom.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
As the Secretary of State reminded the House when I intervened on him earlier, I started off passionately in favour of HS2. In this House it can come back to haunt us if we change our minds, but my 10 years as Chair of a Select Committee made me learn that policies based on evidence are a lot better than those dreamed up in a hurry.
I converted initially to HS2 because I was seeking to answer the question of what we do about the north-south divide. As we can all see, since the great industrial revolution that took place in Huddersfield, Leeds, Manchester and so many other great industrial Victorian towns, the whole economy has changed. Only 9.5% or 10% of people now work in manufacturing, while 30% work in public services and 60% work in the private sector. The world has changed dramatically, but that is not reflected in the health and wealth of our cities and the way they operate. I believe that this House—either side; any party—has not come to terms with the real challenge of how to reintroduce the prosperity, jobs and good life to those regional towns that we represent in this place.
It is not a wicked conspiracy that London and the south have grown in power, influence, wealth and jobs, but it is heartbreaking for people in the north of England, and other regions such as the west of England, who see nearly all their bright sons and daughters having to leave the cities in which they were educated and brought up. Very often, they have to leave home and go a long way away to London, or other places, to seek employment. That is a fact of life. We must tackle the north-south divide, but HS2 should never have been just about that. All the research that I have looked at over the months we have been discussing HS2 suggests that it will not deliver what we want. It is even worse than that: any rational consideration of the proposals shows that it will not deliver a rail network fit for the 21st century. That is the crime we are committing tonight if we vote for Second Reading of the Bill. It is the wrong kind of rail modernisation. Those of us, like my hon. Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel) and the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Sir John Randall), are not nimbys or luddites. We want a rail network that will be modern, efficient, effective and affordable deep into the 21st century. We are frightened that, because of incompetence in the Department for Transport under both this Government and the previous Government, we have been getting it very wrong.
The book “Fire and Steam” by Christian Wolmar gets to the heart of so many of the problems we have with rail. The fact of the matter is that this is a small island. We are not China or Turkey, and we do not have the vast expanse of France. We do not actually need a very superfast rail system. We need a fast rail system, but we do not necessarily need very high speed trains that have to go absolutely in straight lines.
This is a flawed Bill and I will not be supporting it. I will support the reasoned amendment in the Lobby tonight. I have just come back from working for four days in my constituency with candidates for the council and European elections. One depressing point I picked up from people was, “You know, all the established parties are all the same—you don’t look different.” I come back to Westminster and it does look a bit like that, does it not? A large majority of MPs agree on HS2. I regret the fact that there will not be a very clear Government-Opposition vote tonight, because I believe we should be holding the Government to account more vigorously at this moment in time.
Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)
It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman), especially when I agree with so many of his remarks. I draw the attention of the House to my previous declaration: not only does phase 2 of HS2 bisect my beautiful constituency; it runs within 100 yards of my home.
Since the House debated and voted on the paving Bill for HS2 in June last year, many questions surrounding the project have been asked, but precious few have been answered. The Government are continuing to block the Major Projects Authority report on HS2, an issue raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs Gillan) and the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel). I raised this issue most recently with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State in this place on 17 December 2013 only to be told that there was no need to publish the MPA report because there is no shortage of reports on HS2. That is true, but most of them are sponsored by the Government or HS2, and most of them have had their evidence totally discredited. The continued suppression of the MPA report on HS2 must be a great source of concern to hon. Members who should surely have all available evidence to hand, especially on a project of this cost and magnitude that will have such a huge impact on the lives of so many of our citizens.
Cost continues to be a running issue for HS2. We know from last year that the initial cost of £33 billion increased to more than £42 billion, with a further £7.5 billion cost for rolling stock. That is all in 2011 money, with no account taken for interest payable on borrowed money. Indeed, it could be considered that, with inflation, the cost is now well in excess of the £50 billion limit set by the shadow Chancellor to trigger opposition from Labour. As evidence from international rail projects suggests an average overspend of 45% and a lead time of 13 years adding to the cost of rolling stock, nothing has persuaded me that we could not well be looking at a sum of more than £70 billion or possibly £100 billion to see HS2 through.
Another question that we are struggling to get the answer to concerns evidence of overcrowding on the west coast main line and the capacity issue in general. On 6 January this year I received a response to my written question to the Department for Transport asking how many passengers in the previous year had used the line during peak periods between Euston and Birmingham and Euston and Manchester. I was directed to statistics that show rail passenger numbers on trains throughout the day in several major cities, as well as levels of peak crowding, but these are not available by route. It surprises me that the Government could not have made available the actual numbers on the west coast main line to demonstrate the case that this line is full. Again, the evasiveness and the lack of ready statistics to back up the case for HS2 fuels suspicions about the reasoning behind the whole project.
Then there is the issue of blight, which has been raised by many Members. The project is causing immense blight. It has been estimated that 240,000 homes are within 1 km of the proposed line and are likely to suffer losses that are mostly ineligible for compensation under the Government’s current policy.
Gareth Johnson (Dartford) (Con)
I am one of the few Members who has both a high-speed line and a high-speed station in my constituency. Although expensive for passengers to use, it has undoubtedly attracted inward investment without the kind of environmental impact that we once anticipated. Will my hon. Friend therefore concede that there can be positives from high-speed rail, and that that should not be overlooked?
Andrew Bridgen
I will concede that if we chuck £50 billion of taxpayers’ money at anything, some of it will stick to the wall and we will get some result from that, but we could argue about whether that is the best way of spending £50 billion.
I echo the thoughts of the HS2 Action Alliance on the Government’s most recent statement on property compensation. People may well go to their graves having been locked into homes made totally unsaleable by the HS2 route. Then there are the environmental questions. The initial 60-day consultation period for a 50,000-page environmental statement, the equivalent of 40 versions of “War and Peace”, raises questions, as does the Environmental Audit Committee report, which recently uncovered the fact that 40% of the route has yet even to be examined.
The evasiveness of the Government on this matter has not escaped the general public, and no amount of expensive Government-sponsored reports into supposed benefits will convince them. A ComRes poll last month found that 52% of Britons oppose the current plans to build HS2, whereas only about 30% support the project. This confirmed the trend from previous polls: there is a solid majority of the public opposed to HS2.
We have a Bill before us today which raises far more questions than it answers, and a case built around PR and spin rather than evidence and a foundation of fact—suppressed reports, hurried consultations and unanswered questions. This is not the way to spend more than £50 billion of taxpayers’ money. I therefore urge all right hon. and hon. Members to vote against the Bill and to support the amendment.
Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)
I welcome the Bill, as I welcomed Lord Adonis’s announcement some years ago that first proposed this project. It is a shame that the Government have taken four years to bring it forward, but in the spirit of consensus among the majority of Members from all the major parties, I say that it is good that we have agreement on the route. I am particularly pleased that we are settled on the major interchange being at Old Oak in my constituency, which means that not only HS2 but Crossrail and interchanges with the underground, the overground and the great western line will come to one of the poorest areas of London—an area much in need of regeneration.
There is one aspect which I raised with the Secretary of State earlier and which is not decided—the link to Heathrow. This is not a detail. It is a symptom of the political fix that is the Davies commission and affects not only the future of Heathrow, but the Piccadilly line upgrade, as well as one of the most congested parts of the M25 and M4, and HS2.
It threatens the integrity of the project that we cannot say that there is no threat to Heathrow as an airport. Yes, there is major disagreement—my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) and I are at the forefront of disagreeing with the expansion of Heathrow—but there will be a major airport at Heathrow. The only person who disagrees with that is the Mayor of London, who would like to see some bloated, gated community on the site. That is fantasy. If we believe in this project and we want major infrastructure to go ahead, we should be prepared to say what the link to Heathrow will be.
I am afraid that is symptomatic of the fact that the project has not been well handled. The design of areas such as Euston and Old Oak has been appalling so far. The proposals for compensation—the weaker compensation for urban areas and businesses in urban areas—is to be deprecated. The cost of the project is a major concern, although the arrival of Sir David Higgins has improved that, and the consultation has been abysmal throughout. It is not a good way to proceed.
In the limited time available, let me concentrate on Old Oak. According to the planning document, Old Oak is 155 hectares—almost 400 acres of prime land in inner London—and it is mainly Network Rail and other publicly owned land. The area could be a major part of the regeneration of London, yet businesses large and small—such as Car Giant, a fantastic business on a 40-acre site that has grown up over 30 years, and hundreds of small businesses—are being intimidated and threatened to make them move off the site by a combination of aggressive developers and the Greater London authority and the Mayor of London.
Wormwood Scrubs, a major piece of metropolitan open land that has hitherto been protected by Act of Parliament, is threatened. That piece of land is important to the natural environment. It is not a manicured park, but that is what the developers would like. They would like it to be an adjunct, with skyscrapers, not affordable housing, overlooking the scrubs, turning it into something it was never intended to be. Organisations such as the friends of Wormwood Scrubs and many of the residents’ groups in my constituency are fighting an action against that. They will petition against it and they will have my support in that. The type of development that the Mayor of London intends, and for which I am afraid the Secretary of State has abdicated responsibility, is a mayoral development corporation along the lines of the Olympic park, which is totally unnecessary. The area should be controlled by local people.
Six months ago, I was told that there would 90,000 jobs and 19,000 new homes on the site; now I am told that there will be 24,000 new homes and 50,000 jobs. I do not have any confidence in what I am being told, but I am confident that this is another land grab. It will be another way of avoiding providing affordable housing and homes and jobs for local people in London, so that speculators and developers can make profits from that land. I urge the Secretary of State to listen to organisations such as the West London Line Group, which have huge experience in railways, particularly in west London, and have designed a much better scheme for the operation of Old Oak—not to use compulsory powers, not to take local areas out of the hands of local people, but to allow this excellent project for the UK to go ahead with the maximum possible support from everybody across the country by bringing people with it, not imposing decisions on them from outside.
Mr Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight) (Con)
I am grateful for the opportunity to highlight some of my concerns over HS2. There are a number of issues that I believe make the proposal untenable. I will try to cover them as briefly as I can.
First, we are told that HS2 will produce a good return on investment. If that is really the case, why are private companies not tumbling over themselves to fund the project, instead of using taxpayers’ money, which, as we know, is in short supply? In 1844, over 3,500 miles of rail track were sanctioned. For various reasons, the cost was in the region of £40,000 per mile. Those lines were built entirely by private sector enterprise. Why is that approach not appropriate this time?
My second concern is that we are proposing to build a brand new railway at such great expense. Why are we not looking to increase capacity on existing rail lines and routes? The Government say it is no longer about high speed, so I am not entirely clear what it is all about.
Mr John Baron (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)
On expense, does my hon. Friend agree that at a time when we are struggling with the deficit and yet still adding to our national debt, the last thing we need is a £50 billion white elephant?
Mr Turner
My hon. Friend makes that point very clearly, and I agree with him.
The Great Central Railway was opened in 1899. As we have heard from the hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Mike Kane), its purpose was to link the big northern cities with London with the fewest possible stops—in other words, fast links between London and the north. It was the last complete mainline railway built in Britain until HS1. If that sounds familiar, the route is still there through Rugby, Leicester, Nottingham and, as he mentioned, Manchester.
My third concern is that this does not benefit the whole country despite the tax bill funding it being spread across the whole UK. There is no benefit for the west country, for south and mid-Wales, or even for the south of England. There is no benefit for East Anglia or for the east of the country up to Doncaster.
Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)
Speaking as an MP from the west country, I would say that it will benefit us because it will give us faster journey times via Birmingham to London and points north. It will also benefit the whole environment and it will benefit the infrastructure and capacity of the entire rail network. That will benefit all of us.
Mr Turner
The Liberals always believe in spending money rather than putting it in the right pockets, which are those of the people it was taken from.
Of course, I am very concerned because there is no benefit visible for my constituents on the Isle of Wight, who are being asked to pay for a service that the vast majority of them will never, ever use. Although 100% will pay, only 2% of the population use the railways. Of course I realise that the Government must act in the national interest, but I simply cannot see that this is the case on this occasion. When this was a Labour idea, I thought it was wrong, and I still think it is wrong now that it is being pushed forward by the coalition.
One of the arguments given for this project is the economic benefits a high-speed connection to London will bring. Doncaster already has a fast rail link to London, combined with an international airport and good road links, yet in the 2010 index of multiple deprivation it came out 42nd worst of 318 boroughs in England.
We seem to be under the misapprehension that in order for them to make a decent living, we must drag people from the north down to London, which has an overheated property market and the highest cost of living in the UK. Surely it would be more effective, as well as more sustainable, to link northern cities with each other to deliver economic growth.
In these times when we expect local councils to tighten their belts and we ask residents in all our constituencies to be realistic about what can be funded, I believe this plan is both misguided and unaffordable. I am very sorry that I will be unable to support the Government tonight.
John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)
Everything about my background, and recent history in Parliament in particular, suggests I should support HS2. I am the co-ordinator of the RMT parliamentary group and have supported every campaign for investment in rail over the last 17 years in Parliament. I have also used the argument about high-speed rail and taking capacity from aviation on to rail to obviate the need for a third runway at Heathrow. However, I cannot vote for the Bill tonight—I will be voting for the reasoned amendment—because I must be one of the few MPs who does not know what is going to happen in his constituency.
Initially, when high-speed rail was put forward, I was told that there would be consultation on the main route and then, last autumn, that there would be consultation on the link between the main route through my constituency to Heathrow. I was looking forward to that, because we were told that we would look at about nine options and have a detailed consultation, and that I would be able to organise community meetings and we would come to a view on whether or not we supported the link to Heathrow from the main route—or at least on what option we would support. My hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter) alluded to the fact that a grubby compromise was subsequently made, including across the Front Benches, whereby an Airports Commission would be appointed, in order to get every political party off the hook before the general election about deciding honestly what they supported on aviation expansion. Howard Davies’s commission has already confirmed that it could report by next January but has been told to go away on holiday between January and the general election and not report until after it.
Therefore, my constituents, like others, will not know what the political parties’ views will be about their options in respect of expansion at Heathrow, Gatwick or elsewhere. That has meant that the whole process of consultation about high-speed rail’s link to Heathrow has also been delayed. So I am the only MP in this place who cannot go to their constituents before the general election to explain to them what the implications of HS2 are. What does that mean? It means blight. It causes upset and distress for those people whose homes, businesses and community resources will be at risk, and it causes long-term blight in the area. My area is already blighted by the threat of a third or a fourth runway, but we are now blighted by the threat of a high-speed rail link that could go under us, over us or through us. We do not know which way it will go. That is just unacceptable politics.
Mrs Gillan
Does it also not send out a poor signal internationally that it is taking us so long to decide where our airport capacity lies? Surely we should be ensuring that we have the best connectivity internationally because, after all, we are in a shrinking global marketplace in which we should be competing.
John McDonnell
I agree. I just wish we had some certainty and that certain politicians kept to their word. Who said:
“no ifs, no buts…no third runway”?
That came from the Prime Minister. He never said, “No third runway during just one Parliament.” What he said was interpreted by most of us as a permanent commitment. I agree with the right hon. Lady that we need certainty on this matter, and the one group of people who have no certainty are my constituents. I would like the Secretary of State or the Minister to explain to me what the process will be for consultation and decision making on the link with Heathrow. Will there be additional legislation? Clause 50 enables further expansion of the route to go on under a transport works order and not full legislation, so I fear that there will not be full consultation and that we will not be presented with a Bill that we can debate in this House and vote on with regard to the link to Heathrow. In that way, yet again, my constituents will be left with uncertainty. This is no way to run a railway, no way to plan a railway and certainly no way to spend £50 billion—on a project that could be going nowhere.
Mr Slaughter
My hon. Friend mentions clause 50, but clause 47 allows the Secretary of State, willy-nilly, to take land where he sees an opportunity for regeneration or development of that land. As far as I can see, that gives him carte blanche to do whatever he feels right, whether or not that is in the interests of the railway.
John McDonnell
My constituents do not know the route, do not know what land is threatened and do not know what compensation they will be offered. That is not acceptable, so I would welcome at least some certainty about the process in which the Government will engage when they eventually decide on moving this issue forward with regard to HS2.
I missed the speech that the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Sir John Randall) made, but I am sure he raised some of the environmental concerns relating to the north of our borough. May I just raise one such concern, which was raised with me by Bert May, an elderly gentleman who has worked extremely hard with Hillingdon Outdoor Activities Centre, developing it through the Queensmead school sailing club into a sailing centre that has given thousands of young people in our area the opportunity to learn how to sail and enjoy the environment? HOAC is threatened and on behalf of Bert May, my 80-year-old constituent who has put his life into that project, I ask for some certainty about what will happen to our local area, because this affects community facilities such as that and will have a devastating effect on the livelihood, if not the well-being, of many of my constituents. That is unacceptable. Any MP facing this in their constituency would do what I am about to do, which is to vote against the Bill and to vote for the reasoned amendment. We need a reasonable approach to decision making in this House that restores some confidence that we have the capacity to take decisions on major infrastructure programmes that bring people with us rather than alienating them at each stage.
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)
I am delighted, Madam Deputy Speaker, to catch your eye in this debate. Many Members wish to speak and so our time is constrained. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State on spending so much time in the Chamber, but having done so, I hope that he will listen to some of the concerns that have been raised, because we will have spent almost £1 billion on HS2 Ltd planning this railway by the end of this Parliament, and, as far as I can see, there have been no changes whatever from when it started to now. It seems to me that this is a visionary concept, but it could be made so much better if some of the concerns that have been raised tonight were taken on board.
My hon. Friend the Member for Calder Valley (Craig Whittaker) was right to say that we live in an increasingly interconnected world. I have just come back from China where a large number of high-speed lines have been built. It was right to do so because its environmental pollution is horrendous. This is where I start to get involved in this whole concept, because 80% of my Cotswolds constituents who travel 75 miles to Heathrow go by car. If HS2, with proper connectivity to Heathrow, were better designed, 80% of them would go by rail.
Our forefathers, almost 200 years ago, bequeathed us a visionary rail system that enabled the industrial revolution to take place, and we have the opportunity to do the same thing today. We need to get the route and the details right, which is why I formed an integrated transport group, with my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton South (James Wharton). We have done a lot of work on this subject. We have produced a comprehensive report. If any Member has insomnia one night, they might like to read it, or at least the two-page executive summary. We make a number of points in the report that are worth repeating in the short time that I have available today.
My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kensington (Sir Malcolm Rifkind), called in all the evidence at the last moment. HS1 was going to come in via south of London, but the route was changed and it then came in via Stratford. Had he not done that, the Olympics would never have taken place. It is a huge shame that the instructions to the Committee have taken out the HS1-HS2 link. It is still something we should consider, because passengers coming from Europe and flying into this country will want to get on an interconnected railway from this country to Europe. If there are problems with Camden, let us tunnel underneath London; let us be visionary about it, but let us ensure that we do have the HS1-HS2 link.
The hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) made a very good point. I thought that I was going to disagree with everything he said in his speech, but he made one very good point towards the end, and I ask the Secretary of State to listen to this very carefully. If this railway had been a fast railway going at 300 kph rather than 360 kph, we could have varied the route very slightly, but with huge benefit, especially to the Chilterns. HS1 was built along the existing transport corridors—along the motorways and often along the existing rail links. If we had built a fast rail rather than a high-speed rail, we could have swept it out along the M40 and tunnelled under the shortest bit of the Chilterns. We would not have done any environmental degradation to the Chilterns at all.
Mrs Gillan
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way and for coming well behind me to defend the Chilterns. Is it not true that, in the run-up to the last election, that is the route that we believed would be adopted by any Government of whatever complexion? Imagining that they would go through the widest route of an area of outstanding natural beauty and damage it so greatly was almost beyond credibility. We were going to go through the narrowest route, and should that not have been where it went anyway?
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown
My right hon. Friend is entirely right, and she has been basing her case on that. The advantage of doing that is that roads, rail, freight and air would have all coalesced into one Heathrow hub. The one thing that has not been said in this debate is that we need to be visionary about this, because 15 years ago, the latest technology, the internet, was just coming into its infancy. Who knows what technology will be available in the next 15 years?
Let us future-proof this railway as much as we possibly can. There will be all sorts of new technology to track people and suitcases and to make travel on an international scale hugely better than it is today. If we do not do that, we will already be losing business by the day because of the experience of passengers who have to go through Heathrow. If we do not get this right, we will lose even more business to the likes of Schiphol, Charles de Gaulle and Munich. The complete passenger experience, door-to-door, is what will matter. People will simply not come into Old Oak Common and take the underground for one station to get to HS1; they will fly from wherever they were coming from in the first place straight to continental Europe and further afield.
We need to consider HS1-HS2, the route and a Heathrow hub. We must think about how we will link to the world’s busiest airport. I have little doubt that when push comes to shove, Davies will come up with Heathrow as our major hub airport, yet we are not going to link the most expensive civil engineering project ever carried out in this country with our major airport. That is crazy.
I want to make two final points. First, I do not believe the case for business being sucked from the north to the south is true, which is why earlier I advocated starting equally from the north and the south if we can afford the cash. Finally, I must tell my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State that I am one of the very few chartered surveyors in this House. I know how the law on compensation for property works and the French and Germans are far more generous than we are. If he is generous with the compensation, he will have far fewer opponents to the railway line, which will be built far quicker without so many legal battles.
Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)
Infrastructure projects in the UK appear to follow a pattern, as I have experienced with our trams project in Edinburgh. The trams project, when we consider the size of the spend as a proportion of Edinburgh’s economy, is probably quite similar to HS2 in the UK.
We often start with questions, and this is what happened with the trams in Edinburgh. Why do not we have the things, such as trams, that they have in Europe? Why are we so far behind? Why do we build new housing developments on the edge of the city that do not have good transport links? Why are we suggesting regenerating our riverfront and docks area without putting in good transport? Why have we built a huge office park on the edge of the city when there are not good transport links? Surely they should have gone in first.
Once the project is proposed, it all gets a lot more complicated. At that point, it begins to suffer from almost going into stasis as people say, “No, not that bit,” or, “Yes we want it, but we do not want it to follow that route.” It was interesting that a lot of people in Edinburgh seemed to rediscover how wonderful our bus services were, whereas previously they had not been so complimentary. So that people could say that they did not need trams, the argument became that we had a splendid bus service so the project would be a total waste of money and we could do everything with what we had already.
Sometimes such projects do not go ahead and, sadly, our tram project has been truncated. Trams are running in the city, but they are not yet carrying passengers because they are being tested. Within the next month, they will be fully operational but on a much shorter route than was originally planned. At that point, we end up asking why Edinburgh and the UK are so bad at running such capital projects. It is not always the case that every detail is right, but if we do not go ahead with such investment we will rue it when people turn around and ask why things were not done and why the UK is so pathetic at getting people on board with such projects.
Of course, HS2 is not coming to Scotland at this stage. I would be happy to see something being built from the north, and, of course, if we wanted to start in Edinburgh I would be happy to see that. HS2 will have an advantage for Scotland and Edinburgh. Even with the first phase, journey speeds will be cut by half an hour, and they will be cut by more subsequently. That is important because a city such as Edinburgh wants business and investment. We want people to come to a place where there is development space and a well-educated work force that is ready to be employed. We want to encourage those people to think that they can make those fast links with the rest of the UK and, of course, with London. I would much prefer that linkage to be by train, not by plane, and to stop the unnecessary environmental damage that is caused to a small country such as the UK by people taking internal flights.
There is a strong economic advantage to my city and to Scotland in going ahead with this project. It is not necessarily perfect, but if we are not careful we will end up in the position that we have been in far too often before, when, in the face of all the argumentation, people get cold feet, they retreat, and another 20 years go by before another set of politicians starts to ask why the country does not have a high-speed rail network.
Stuart Andrew (Pudsey) (Con)
Like my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington South (David Mowat), I have taken part in a number of lively debates on this issue, and there is a danger of repeating what many people have already said. We have heard that demand for long-distance rail has doubled. The lines on the west coast in particular are busy, but the east coast will soon catch up. I know from personal experience that the situation is bad enough at peak times now and is set to get much worse. Yes, we can tinker with the system again, or make the minor adjustments that we have seen, but that is expensive and will not solve the long-term problems. We need to be bold and ambitious.
Today, I want to focus on the needs of my city of Leeds and the wider northern economy. I realise that this debate is about phase 1, but without that we will not get up to my city. HS2 really must connect to Leeds. The Government’s commitment is critical to the exciting plans that the city and the wider city region have to boost our local economy. Not only will this provide much needed greater capacity in our rail network, but it will help us to reshape the economic geography, be a catalyst for regeneration across the city, and provide a real boost for jobs and skills.
I note that the Secretary of State did not mention in his speech that Leeds is bidding for the HS2 academy, so may I remind him that there is another bid from a great city in the north?
Mr McLoughlin
I am well aware that many cities are bidding, and I just mentioned a few. I am very sorry to have missed out my hon. Friend’s.
Stuart Andrew
Apology accepted.
I might be biased, but Leeds is an outstanding city. It is a major UK business centre and one of the best places in Europe to locate a business. It has one of the most diverse economies of the many UK centres that we have, which has helped it to survive and recover from many of the recessions that we have experienced—better, in fact, than many of the business centres in other European countries.
Between 2001 and 2008, Leeds enjoyed the fastest jobs growth of all the core cities. It is no coincidence that at the same time it has seen rail passenger numbers grow by 90%—again, the highest growth—and Leeds station is now the busiest station in the north, clearly demonstrating that good links bring along a good economy. Leeds is determined to build on its success and wants to be a brand new kind of city; a city at the heart of a city region that is the second largest economy in the UK with 106,000 businesses, the largest manufacturing base in the UK and eight universities. Bringing HS2 to Leeds and locating the new station on its south bank will help it to realise that goal, creating the opportunities that we need for growth and development on an unprecedented scale.
The regeneration of Leeds’ south bank covers 136 hectares—60 acres of land that is prime for development—and has the potential to deliver more than 10,000 jobs for the city. It will create a 3.5 hectare city centre park and the jobs that young people growing up in the city need. It will add to what is an already exciting part of south Leeds, which includes the HQs of Asda, Eddisons and aql and cultural attractions such as the Royal Armouries, and will provide homes for local people. It will also help to generate a growing economy across the city region and across the north as it will link into the additional investment that we are already seeing in rail infrastructure across the north of England. It will help to improve connectivity, creating a powerful non-London economic zone and help us truly to rebalance our economy. HS2 will bring Leeds within far faster reach of Sheffield City Region, the Derby, Derbyshire, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire local enterprise partnership, Birmingham and, of course, London. All that, along with east coast connectivity, provides us with a real chance to reshape the economy of the north.
Today, the Leeds economy is worth some £18 billion and has grown almost 40% over the past decade. There are 25,000 businesses in the city alone, which has the highest ratio of private to public sector jobs of all major cities bar London. It has also been resilient in these difficult times. Employment is up 11,000 since 2011. In 2013, we saw the opening of the £350 million Trinity retail centre. A new arena opened this year, which will also see the start of the new Victoria Gate development that will bring John Lewis to the city. The prospect of HS2 has seen Leeds and Manchester working together to set an ambitious growth strategy.
All that is incredibly important, but I am worried that it could all be at risk if we do not get our north-south connection working effectively. We need to ensure that we face the creeping problem of capacity. We need to connect our major cities so that they can do business with each other. We need a modern line that deals effectively with the problem, and not the usual make-do approach. We need a transport system that can cope and complement, and for me, HS2 is it. Let us be ambitious, let us spread the wealth, let us create the opportunity, and let us get HS2 going.
Angie Bray (Ealing Central and Acton) (Con)
Since I last spoke on HS2, the project continues to be a source of considerable controversy, as we have heard this afternoon. Feelings are running high in parts of my constituency, for although we have been able to welcome the plans for additional tunnelling, which will make a big difference to parts of Ealing, there remain communities in east Acton that will be seriously affected by the construction works around Old Oak Common.
I should say straight away that I remain supportive of the principle of HS2. The country needs regular long-term planned infrastructure projects and this one is overdue. Parts of the current network are already over capacity and comparatively slow. It is also worth considering how factors such as modern transport networks affect our attractiveness to overseas business. Britain must continue—to borrow the phrase—to be open for business, and our trains have been under-invested in over the years.
I remain a committed opponent to a third runway at Heathrow and still believe that a modern rail network with increased capacity will reduce the reliance on air travel, especially on short domestic flights—although I should add that the unwelcome renewed speculation about expanding Heathrow does not help to reinforce that particular line of reasoning.
Broadly, I believe that HS2 is a timely investment in long-term planning for our transport network. I am, however, deeply disappointed about crucial aspects of the project as the details of the compensation arrangements become clearer and I must raise some serious concerns. The first is the lack of provision for the years of huge inconvenience to be suffered by residents near construction sites. In Acton, that would mean those living near Old Oak lane close by Old Oak Common. They face at least a decade of massive disruption and must be appropriately compensated. There are real concerns that some living in the area—already semi-cut off by railway lines—will be almost completely trapped by the huge construction works and will be unable easily to get out and about to shops, GPs, schools and the like due to heavy demands on the capacity of local roads. Alternatives, such as extra bus routes around the works, will have to be laid on and effective traffic management will be essential, but I suspect that even the best-laid alternative plans will not make up for the enormous upheaval to those living in the area.
I find it quite extraordinary that HS2 and its planners can take such a cavalier attitude towards those communities. My worries were hardly allayed by the company’s recent briefing on its compensation package proposals, which were actually made worse. There is no recognition of the problem. When asked at the meeting about those who are likely to suffer the worst impact in places such as east Acton and who need to move, HS2 claimed that the new transport links will make the properties in the area more desirable and valuable in future, so there will be no problem if the owners want to sell them on. If those properties make such desirable investments, I see no reason why they cannot be included in a voluntary purchase scheme. Also, I should point out that the area has a lot of elderly residents. For them it has been home for many years and they might not wish to move. The prospect of a vague increase in property value in around 15 years’ time as compensation for a decade of hardship is clearly not acceptable. For those who want to stick it out in intensely difficult circumstances, there should be recognition and recompense for the blight to their lives over a decade or more.
The second area where I feel the compensation proposals fall short is the difference between the urban and rural policies. I am sure that colleagues who represent urban constituencies will agree that we seem to be getting a comparatively bad deal. We need only look at the compensation briefing document to see how little there is on proposals for urban areas compared with the pages on the rural compensation proposals. That suggests an underlying assumption that, having chosen to live in a city, one becomes immune to noise and pollution and therefore less entitled to consideration for compensation. I accept that there are some different considerations, but this goes too far. One does not have to live in an area of outstanding natural beauty to be inconvenienced by a train depot appearing on one’s doorstep.
The omission from the scheme of some of my constituents who will so clearly be affected has caused me to question my support for the project. I am sure that I am not alone in feeling that we must get these details right before continuing. I will stay on side with the Government tonight, but I will need to see a change of heart on the compensation issues I have laid out if I am to stay on side during the Bill’s later stages.
Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)
This debate is hugely important to the country, but the proposals put forward by the Government are of huge concern to many of my constituents who face the prospect of both phase 1 and phase 2 of HS2.
I was pleased to hear the Secretary of State say that he does not believe that those who have shown their concern are nimbys, because others have taken a rather different view, as he will know. If he looks at the report of proceedings in Westminster Hall on 31 March 2011, he will read some very disobliging comments about people concerned about HS2.
My constituents are not nimbys. They tell me that if the business case stacked up, if the mitigation was right and if the compensation on offer was fair, reasonable and quick, they would accept the proposals. They would not like them, but they would accept them in the national interest. The problem is that the business case does not stack up, the mitigations are not right and the compensation is not fair, reasonable or quick.
We have already heard concerns about the business case. I will not recapitulate them here, but suffice it to say that I am concerned that the connection between our vital airports does not seem to be there; the proposals for the funding do not appear to stack up; and the route around Birmingham goes west, not east, and therefore through virgin countryside rather along than existing transport corridors. In my judgment, the business case does not stack up.
Even if it did stack up, the mitigations in my part of the world are nowhere near adequate. I was pleased to hear from my right hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Sir John Randall) that in his constituency HS2 will be tunnelled. Mitigation in Tamworth extends to a few trees, except around the village of Hints, where the ancient woodland will be demolished to make way for the line. We will gain a few saplings, but we will lose a lot of ancient oaks, because HS2 will not build a cut-and-cover tunnel.
In Knox’s Grave lane and Flats lane, an innovative proposal from the residents has also been rejected so far. The local housing stock is so overcrowded in the community that there is nowhere for them to move to, so the compensation simply will not help them. They want to rebuild their homes nearby, but thus far, HS2 has said no. All it has offered to those people is the prospect of living in caravans. That is a bitter twist of the knife for them to bear. Indeed, every mitigation proposal in my constituency—in Drayton Bassett, Swinfen, Hints and Flats lane—has been rejected by HS2.
The Secretary of State made great play of the compensation proposals that he has tabled. A couple of weeks ago, I listened to those proposals being adumbrated by the Under-Secretary of State, and they are an improvement, but the fact remains that not a single constituent of mine will benefit from those proposals. The village of Hints lies 400 metres away from the proposed route. In the past four years, not a single home has been sold in Hints, except four that have been sold to the state through the exceptional hardship scheme. The people in that village are blighted now: they cannot move, they are trapped and they have lost their liberty. The only way that we can get the property market moving in those places, so that people can realise their aspiration to move if they want to, is by introducing a property bond. I hope that the Secretary of State or the Select Committee, or a combination of the two, will accept the need for such a bond.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Mr Burns), in a passionate and personal speech, said that when we are building infrastructure, the needs and demands of the country must be addressed. We would all accept that, but the needs and demands of the people who are affected by the proposals that we are foisting on them also need to be properly and effectively met. It is my judgment that, although the Secretary of State has been solicitous and patient with me—I am grateful for his help and concern, and I trust they will continue—the proposals do not stack up. For that reason I shall, with regret, oppose the Government tonight.
Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)
It is a great privilege to follow that extremely powerful speech from my hon. Friend the Member for Tamworth (Christopher Pincher), with whom I agree entirely. I speak in favour of the reasoned amendment and against the Bill because of my strong reservations about the route alignment, the business case and the compensation arrangements. I do so with great regret, because it did not need to be like this. If the argument had always been about capacity, and a little more common sense had been in evidence over speed—we do not need trains travelling at the speeds proposed—we could have had a very different proposal that might have been much more acceptable to my constituents, even if the route had gone through my constituency, and to the country at large.
I fully accept the need to increase capacity, and sensible alternatives, including new lines, have been put forward and dismissed with too little consideration—contrary to what the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw), who is no longer in his place, said earlier. I also accept the fragility of the existing network and that we need new, 21st-century lines, but as my hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield (Michael Fabricant) and others have argued, we should make much better use of the existing transport corridors, such as the M40 corridor through the Chilterns. I urge the Government to look at that argument again when they consider phase 2—as should the Committee on phase 1.
I want to speak up for those who have opposed the work of HS2. Those people have spent their own time and money because they believe it is not in the interests of the country or of their communities. It is not that they do not want development. In my constituency, we already host the M6, which is being widened to allow the managed motorways scheme, and both branches of the west coast main line. Recently, we have had the four-tracking in the Trent valley and we will shortly see, in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr Cash), the Norton Bridge flyover, which will bring four new train paths an hour on the west coast main line. Those projects have been accepted because they are in the national interest.
What my constituents do not accept is a line constructed with little regard for the communities that it splits and the landscape that it degrades. In my constituency, we have five communities that will be split, or very nearly so—Ingestre, Hopton, Yarlet, Marston and Great Haywood. Those affected are not, as some people say to me in e-mails, wealthy Range Rover drivers; many are people who invested their very limited lifetime savings into property that they see falling sharply in value or becoming unsaleable, as my hon. Friend the Member for Tamworth (Christopher Pincher) said. Very few of those currently blighted are receiving proper compensation. I am glad that the Secretary of State referred to better compensation being on offer. I would welcome that, but urge him to listen to what my hon. Friend the Member for Stone said earlier.
I will not go into the details of the business case, as others have done so, but I will mention two things. The cost, as far as I can see, excludes the cost of money—interest of several billion pounds over the course of the project. I would ask HS2 to tell me that I am wrong; so far it has not done so. I am also concerned about the lack of a sound business case for the west coast main line post-HS2. My hon. Friend the Member for Rugby (Mark Pawsey) spoke powerfully about that. The case for HS2 depends on a fully functioning west coast main line continuing, yet to date I have seen no proper business case for it. Let us not forget that the west coast main line will lose much of its profitable business traffic. As we have heard, it will continue to require substantial maintenance and probably increasing public subsidy. Where is that to come from?
My constituents in Stafford willingly bear a substantial weight of national transport infrastructure—the M6 and two parts of the west coast main line—and they benefit from it, but they need to be convinced that an additional line will be built sensitively and sustainably. Regretfully, I believe that that is not the case with the proposal on the table.
Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
We have heard some very good speeches, some of which have been made with a great deal of passion and knowledge. It is not surprising that most of the speeches against this proposal were by Members representing constituencies affected by the line. We have also heard very good speeches praising it by Members representing Manchester and other great cities of the north.
I want to speak for other parts of the country that are not directly affected. I see that the Secretary of State is in his place. I am sure that Parliament will approve this line and it will go ahead, so I urge him not to forget other parts of the country. Some of us are concerned—we have not received enough reassurance on this point—that it will suck investment from the rural lines and commuter lines that the vast majority of our people are using. I am not just speaking for rural people in Lincolnshire, people standing on freezing platforms in Kent, or people trying to get suburban lines into Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool or wherever. We are worried about this vast project that is costing £50 billion, and that is just the start—we all know from Public Accounts Committee reports that we will be spending a lot more than that. I ask people to spare a thought for underinvestment in our rural lines.
When I intervened on the hon. Member for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey), who was giving a passionate speech about services in London, I was met with incredulity when I said that if she tried to take a train from Gainsborough Central to Brigg and missed it, she would have to wait a whole week for the next one. How many times have I sat, or rather stood, on the platform at Market Rasen waiting for the single cattle truck plodding its way from Grimsby and Cleethorpes at 40 mph? Perhaps that is the maximum speed. If one is lucky enough to get on the train—it is very overcrowded and infrequent—one can get down to Newark. It takes me three and a half hours to drive to the middle of my constituency—that is fair enough—but if I go by train it also takes three and a half hours. On behalf of people who do not want to travel at vast speed to Birmingham and Manchester, we are making the valid point that there is also a case to be made for people who live elsewhere in our country. We have heard so much in the past about the need for speed, but interestingly we hear less and less about that.
I am worried that too much political authority appears to be invested in this project, which started with an idea by the previous Labour Government. I am a bit suspicious about the line running through so many Conservative constituencies, but I will leave that to one side—I am sure it was not meant maliciously. The project has been taken up by this Government, and so much political authority is now tied up in it. We started with the speed case, but it seems to many of us that that has been shot to pieces. We are now told that it is all about capacity, but so many other proposals—
Mrs Gillan
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I understand that some colleagues who live some way out of London have been encouraged to make their way home because of the tube strike this evening. Is the Chair able to offer any advice to colleagues so that they might be able to stay for the votes and proceedings, particularly when this House is sitting to such a late hour?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)
The right hon. Lady makes her point very well, but she and the House will know that that is not a matter on which I can make any ruling whatsoever from the Chair.
Sir Edward Leigh
My speech is just like one of the train journeys from Market Rasen to London—it is a bit of a stopping service.
I was making the point about capacity. Frankly, this proposal would have got through without any controversy if railway economists had started by making a careful case for capacity and if we had considered things such as better signalling, reducing the number of first-class carriages and the M40 corridor. There are many other proposals for lines—the hon. Member for Luton North (Kelvin Hopkins) has proposed improving the service from Birmingham Snow Hill to London—but there is an element of suspicion among the general public, is there not, that this is now a political project that we have to proceed with at all costs. I am not sure that that is the best way to invest in the public infrastructure of the future. Surely the best way to make decisions is to base them on careful, transparent and open studies, and that is what I urge the Government to do.
Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)
Mine is another voice from Lincolnshire, but I will give a slightly different emphasis to proceedings. Given that I am a member of the Transport Committee and chairman of the all-party group on rail and that I was a member of the High Speed Rail (Preparation) Bill Committee, I think I have heard more than my fair share of arguments to be able to assess the merits of the proposals. I will not repeat all the arguments in favour—the Secretary of State did that admirably earlier—but I will touch on one or two that seem most relevant.
It is simply not possible to mix high-speed services with slower stopping services and freight. Too often, the demands of the freight industry are ignored in this debate. My own constituency is home to the port of Immingham, where 25% of freight moved by rail starts or ends its journey. All the projections I have seen show a steady increase in freight traffic, which is vital to the continuing economic development of the nation and to my corner of northern Lincolnshire in particular. HS2 will benefit not just London and the cities on the route; without transport connections of the highest quality, the UK as a competitive nation will fall behind our competitors and it is the UK as a whole that would suffer.
Economic success is dependent on good-quality transport connections and regional connectivity. The hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Mike Kane) spoke earlier of Edward Watkin, one of the founders of the Great Central railway. Watkin was also instrumental, as a director of the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire railway, in the development of Grimsby docks, the port of Immingham and the resort of Cleethorpes. Indeed, he is commemorated, as are all the directors of the MSLR and the Great Central, by street names in the Grimsby and Cleethorpes area.
GDP statistics show that English regional cities are currently underperforming compared with those in many western European countries. That is why the good transport links provided by the high-speed network— namely HS2—and the released capacity that such a network offers are essential to encourage prosperity and investment. It is not just the towns along the route that will benefit; there is no way that the potential increased demand to provide better services to areas such as my part of northern Lincolnshire—
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. Just one second. There are a lot of private conversations, and I am struggling to hear. Like me, I am sure that other hon. Members in the House want to hear Martin Vickers.
Martin Vickers
The Prime Minister has made it clear that he wants the Humber estuary to become the renewables capital of the UK. That is the Government’s aim, but regular services not just to London but to other major cities are essential to achieving that.
During the past decade, passenger journeys have grown by 50% to almost l.5 billion a year, and that figure will be 2 billion journeys by 2020. As stated in the strategic case, once HS2 has been built, it is forecast to generate £59.8 billion in user benefits, as well as £13.3 billion in wider economic benefits. The HS2 project will create an instant market for construction and civil engineering jobs, and there will be a big opportunity in the manufacturing sector to design and build the rolling stock. Tata Steel’s Scunthorpe works is heavily dependent on the production of rail track. If the Scunthorpe plant is successful in obtaining orders for the project, the jobs of the 250 of my constituents who work there will be made that little bit more secure.
Job creation is vital, but we also need to train our young people if we are to meet the demands of the new industry. I suggest that the proposed HS2 college and training centre should be in northern Lincolnshire.
Mr Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that if by any chance it was not possible for such a college to be in northern Lincolnshire, East Yorkshire would be the only other place for it? That would indicate how, as he has explained, East Yorkshire and northern Lincolnshire will benefit from HS2.
Martin Vickers
Well, of course, anything that happens in Yorkshire is second best to what happens in Lincolnshire. I am very happy for a college to be fairly close to northern Lincolnshire, but one there would be ideal. Northern Lincolnshire is a major centre for rail freight; it is the location of the major supplier to the development of the rail network, namely Tata Steel; and the long history of engineering skills in Gainsborough, Lincoln and along the south bank of the Humber makes it an ideal setting.
If HS2 is not built, not only would that demonstrate a loss of confidence in the UK and its ability to invest in infrastructure, but opportunities will be lost. It would diminish the prospect for better rail services, creating more congested roads. An opportunity to spread the tourism appeal of Britain as a whole, rather than just that of central London, will be lost.
Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)
Is not another point for our constituents, who do not enjoy very direct rail services to London, that freeing up capacity on the east coast main line will mean that our region—our bit of East Yorkshire and north Lincolnshire, both of which I am proud to represent—will finally be a little bit better connected to the capital?
Martin Vickers
I entirely agree. Along with the hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin), we have battled for better services to London for many years. We are perhaps on the point of achieving that through a separate operator. I agree with my hon. Friend that that point is absolutely vital for our corner of northern Lincolnshire.
This is a project that Britain can afford and that Britain simply cannot afford to abandon. I urge the House to support the Bill.
Julian Smith (Skipton and Ripon) (Con)
As a Yorkshire MP, I am worried about HS2, but not for the same reasons that Mr Speaker or some of my colleagues are worried. In fact, I am not worried about the actual policy. I am proud to support it: it shows vision and a clear sense of the infrastructure our country needs to compete in the 21st century.
I am not concerned that the policy will suck funding away from other transport projects—the £56 billion of investment in non-HS2 projects between now and 2021, or the £600 million going into the northern hub. I am not worried about HS2 Ltd itself; we have a crackerjack team in Sir David Higgins and the whole management. I am not at all convinced by the arguments against the rationale and the cost-benefit of HS2. The arguments for HS2 on capacity and speed are pretty compelling, as we have heard in this debate, and the value for money projection seems quite conservative. I am not concerned about Britain’s ability to deliver on this project. We have done Eurotunnel, the Olympics and HS1, and we will nail this project without a problem. The number of complaints about the project has been relatively small. There were only 22,000 responses to the consultation before Second Reading. We should take confidence from that support and from the international comparisons, such as the examples of Lille and Lyon in France, the linking of every city of more than 500,000 people in China and, lately, the performance of Eurotunnel, which this year smashed its freight and passenger targets.
My worry is that Yorkshire is not as excited about the project as it should be. This is a phenomenal opportunity for Britain and particularly for Yorkshire and the north. There has been a lacklustre response so far. Labour dominates many of the cities in Yorkshire, but in Parliament it shilly-shallies in its support. Wakefield council has rejected HS2. In a recent poll, a majority of Yorks SMEs seemed a bit lukewarm. There is not the interest, sizzle and enthusiasm that one sees when one goes to Manchester, as I did for the last Conservative conference. I encourage you to come to the next one, Mr Deputy Speaker. There has been little discussion of how Yorkshire can strategically maximise the opportunity of HS2.
The opportunity for the north and for Yorkshire comes not just from the faster speeds to London and Birmingham or from the greater capacity, but from the massive economic investment to integrate Yorkshire and the north more closely. We need to be enthusiastic because transport is vital to our region’s productivity. If one compares the productivity of Liverpool, Manchester and Leeds to geographical areas of a similar size, such as Chicago and the Ruhr valley, there are billions of pounds of difference in the output. Not only is there lower productivity, but the number of FTSE 100 companies north of Birmingham is only six. Skills are slow to get across the region from west to east and supply chains are not short enough. The keys to fixing those problems are complex, but better transport is vital.
We need to bring our northern cities closer together. Jim O’Neill and his City Growth Commission are absolutely right with the idea of “ManPool”, but perhaps we need to go further and bring all our northern cities closer together. Over the next 10 years, nearly half of global growth will come from just 400 cities. Yorkshire and the north must be in the race. We have a once in a century opportunity to get there. We have to look at how HS2 can be the backbone for that development. We need a second London. It will look different, but we need it if we are to compete in the world.
What do we need to do? Sir David Higgins and his team have clearly articulated their desire to maximise the benefits for the north. We need to work out what we want from the project. Doncaster did not lose out on the benefits of East Coast because of the line, but because of a lack of political will. Every LEP should be pushed hard for an HS2 growth plan and to show how it is working with partners across the region. We need small business groups to engage and promote the opportunity. We need to look at transport as a whole and be clear about what we want. We must do that as quickly as possible. We must look at how we will build on the northern hub, how we will integrate with East Coast and how we will improve trans-Pennine services. We need to look at how Yorkshire has reacted so far and shout much louder about the benefits, tearing up old rivalries—
Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)
This has been a great debate, but it is a debate about economics, rather than transport, and that is what I will focus on in my brief contribution. This is a debate about whether we want this country to compete with our European competitors and to have a powerful punch in the world that we will confront tomorrow. It is not a debate just about whether this or that place will be affected, but about how all of us will be affected and how the economy will be affected.
We must focus on the economic arguments, of which there are three. The first concerns regional disparities because we cannot afford to go on allowing places such as Yorkshire, which we have just heard about, or other parts of our country, to do less well simply because they are not adequately connected. Growth pole theory tells us that if we can get to and invest in somewhere, that place starts to grow. HS2 will do just that; it will provide that opportunity.
The United Kingdom should be as ambitious as Germany was when it reunified. If someone goes to Lower Saxony today, they will see what has happened because it put money into infrastructure and connections, which are now yielding results. For example, a Porsche factory in Leipzig is able to produce cars with literally to the moment delivery of parts, because of those connections. We should be keen on that for ourselves, and that economic argument underpins my thinking.
The second theme we must develop concerns what we are talking about for the railways. My one regret is that we call it high speed rather than high capacity, because capacity is what the argument is about. We are growing as an economy and we need to transport ourselves and everything else more readily, quickly and efficiently. We must have the necessary links and connections, and HS2 will provide them.
It is all about ensuring that the real economy can work. Of course all our cities are great, but they could be greater still if they had appropriate links with our economic infrastructure. We all know if we look at a map that it is easy to get to London from anywhere, but not easy to get from anywhere to somewhere else. Every time we look at a map we confront that problem, and HS2 will help us by connecting the cities that we need to rely on as future growth poles and places that can expand and develop.
The other big issue for me is our place in the world and the global economy. If we demonstrate that we can pull this sort of project off, we will demonstrate that we can pull a load of other things off as well. It is about confidence, the vision we have for ourselves, and our capacity to engineer, deliver and develop the economic future that we want. It is important that we seize the opportunity of HS2 and ensure that it works, and we can do that by ensuring that it connects with the right places. I take the arguments about connecting with airports and so on, and it is right that we consider whether we are going to Heathrow, Gatwick, or the third option that the Mayor of London would—quite rightly—wish us to consider. We need to set our terms of discussion not about the problems we confront but about the solutions and capacities that we can generate through this ambitious project. We should go for it in terms of the economic and cultural arguments, and because it is the right thing to do for our cities beyond London.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. Before I call the next speaker may I suggest that we drop the time limit to four minutes so as to get the Front-Bench speakers in? Then everybody will get in and nobody will be left hanging.
Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)
May I make it clear that I am willing to support the Government on this HS2 proposal although I have some reservations? I do so, however, in the firm belief and hope that the Government will invest in south-west trains and in the road infrastructure. Plymouth is the 15th largest city in the UK, and for decades it and the south-west have been badly deprived of transport infrastructure. The M5 still stops at Exeter and on occasions it takes at least four hours to get down to my constituency. No improvements have been made over the years to the railway infrastructure; indeed, I would suggest that it is similar to how it was left by Brunel. I remind the House that in 1938 an Act of Parliament was passed to put a new train line underneath Haldon Hill. Unfortunately, Mr Hitler decided he was going to invade the country and that made it very difficult.
I have campaigned on this issue for 15 years both as a candidate and as an MP, but I also want to ensure that we have more three-hour train journeys to and from Plymouth to London, and to ensure that some trains get to Plymouth before 9 am. I thank my right hon. Friends the Secretary of State for Transport and the Prime Minister for getting our railway up and running before Easter. That, I have to say, has been a major fillip. There is, however, real concern about whether Plymouth, and the Devon and Cornwall peninsular, will receive investment. If my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State wishes to help to dispel that concern by announcing how much money he will be putting into rail infrastructure, that would be very helpful.
I thank the Government for making improvements to Reading station and I welcome the review of the five available options. All the proposals will be useful in boosting south-west regional growth. Just in case the Government are not aware of how we feel, I will be launching a petition in the next day or so. In short, I will be supporting the Government on HS2, but in return I want a resilient railway line that is not going to be swept away by H20.
Dr Phillip Lee (Bracknell) (Con)
In my short contribution, I will try not to repeat what has been said about the shortcomings of the HS2 project.
Despite the many valid economic and environmental concerns already expressed eloquently by many colleagues, HS2 would, perhaps, still be quite a nice thing to have. Like most people, I prefer travelling on fast trains rather than slow ones, but spending £50 billion plus on something nice to have is just not good enough. Public spending of this magnitude should be about implementing strategic priorities and I do not believe that fast rail tops the priority list of infrastructure projects that are required for the benefit of our country’s future. I would place all of the following ahead of fast rail: new energy generation, such as nuclear reactors; superfast broadband for all, which the South Koreans currently enjoy; a new national hub airport; a fast train connecting Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds and Hull; and a fleet of new regional acute hospitals with supported community hospitals. I believe that the majority of the British public would agree with me.
Any one of the concerns expressed by colleagues, especially by my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs Gillan), would be reason enough not to spend our resources on HS2—and yes it is about resources. It is not just the money, but about the combined efforts of a large number of people and natural resources that we ought to treasure. None of these reasons, however, gets close to why I cannot support this rail project. I cannot support it because it takes our country in the wrong direction. Quite simply, HS2 is a project of the past, not the future. It is the wrong plan at the wrong time. It will probably contribute to the country’s problems rather than solve any of them: more debt, a blighted local environment along the path of the track, and no likely return in an increasingly global economy dependent on data transfer, not the transport of people. To be blunt, we will not be getting the returns that taxpayers deserve on their investment.
Our national priorities should be about a vision that rockets us into a more competitive world, not about chugging along as we are, albeit 10 minutes faster between London and Birmingham. Is it truly ambitious of us to want to be the France of the 1970s or the Japan of the 1960s? Our country’s infrastructure spending should be about delivering the new paradigm shifts that have always given our country the edge and delivered inspiring world-leading technology and innovation. A train like the one the Japanese have promised between Tokyo and Nagoya that will travel at 600 km per hour would be proper high-speed rail. We should, perhaps, be building on what could be globally transformative: laser technology, new aircraft engines that could get us to Australia in four hours, new craft to explore the richly resourced ocean bed that we know so little about and to push back frontiers in space, an environment in which real future economic opportunities exist already for British industry.
I believe that the future will be about the fast transmission of data, not people. With recent information technology developments such as 3D printing, securing an economic future for Britain will be more about the capacity for data transmission, not the capacity to transport people. We will all be manufacturers in the future. Manufacturing will not be taking place far away. Government strategy should be about reducing people’s need to make rail journeys. Improving broadband is one way of achieving that. The widespread installation of fibre-optic cabling, the increased use of satellite broadband technology to serve more rural areas and more extensive 4G would allow people to spend longer at home.
Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that the strength of the arguments he is making comes from the fact that his constituency will neither benefit nor suffer any disbenefits from HS2? He is making a straightforward economic argument against HS2, for very good reasons.
Dr Lee
I do not have a direct relationship with HS2, but I am of the opinion that I have been elected to a national Parliament and when something affects my country, I should pass comment on it. We are aware of the realities of the future—the need to reduce our dependency on energy and the need to look after our elderly relatives. I suspect we will not be living so far apart from the members of our extended families in future.
In closing, let me say that I have spent the entire afternoon baffled by the contributions of many of my colleagues, on both sides of the House. I do not see a future of people travelling more domestically; I see a future of travelling less. In the 2030s and 2040s, when the project comes to fruition, I suspect we will be travelling less domestically. We need to travel more internationally, which is why I would put a hub airport ahead of fast rail. I am no nimby, as my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire (Mr Gray) has pointed out. I have been loyal to the Conservative party’s 2010 manifesto since being elected and I have no intention of voting against anything in that manifesto this evening, so I will be abstaining as a point of principle. HS2 will not get this country to the destination I want for it. Our resources should be better spent elsewhere. I cannot support this project.
Sarah Newton (Truro and Falmouth) (Con)
I think I can speak on behalf of all colleagues who have contributed this evening when I say that this has been an exceptionally good-natured debate. People have expressed a lot of different, heartfelt opinions and we have had a well-tempered and thoughtful debate. I am sure that people listening this evening will see Parliament at its best, with people really addressing the issues.
You are probably wondering, Mr Deputy Speaker—along with other colleagues—why somebody who represents a constituency pretty much as far as you can get from HS2 is speaking in this debate in support of the Bill. The great western railway was the first of all the high-speed railways, as well as one of the masterpieces Brunel left to us, and it serves us very well down to the south-west. I believe HS2 will have benefits as far away as Cornwall.
I was delighted that the Secretary of State came down to my constituency last summer, travelling on the great western railway line and the local branch lines. He listened to an ambitious presentation made by a partnership of people in Cornwall—the local enterprise partnership, Cornwall council and the rail industry—setting out an ambitious plan for investment in our rail services in Devon and Cornwall. I am pleased by the support that the Secretary of State and his team at the Department have given us over the last few months in developing those proposals. In that, we see a massive investment in our Victorian signalling infrastructure, which would enable a 30-minute service along the line, and a huge investment in our sleeper service, which is important to us in Cornwall.
Finally, with some of the changes needed at Old Oak Common, this Bill presents an opportunity for us in Cornwall, because First Great Western has its sleeper maintenance depot there and needs to move it to make way for other developments. We are keen for it to be relocated to the end of the line, down in Penzance, bringing with it some 60 high-quality engineering jobs. It is only fitting to bring those jobs to Cornwall, as it was Trevithick who invented the first steam engine in Cornwall. As Cornwall has a unique position in England and benefits enormously from EU funds, the idea would be a good deal for the British Government, because what is being proposed is using those funds to help First Great Western to relocate its depot, so I hope this evening that the Secretary of State can provide me with—
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. Just to help the hon. Lady, we are discussing High Speed 2. I know there must be a link to Cornwall, but I am beginning to lose it a little. If she could bring High Speed 2 in now and again, it might help the Chair a little.
Sarah Newton
Yes, this is really about Old Oak Common and moving the depot down to Cornwall, and I would like to finish by asking the Secretary of State to give me his assurance that he will seriously consider the final proposals that have been given to him this evening, put together by the LEP and Cornwall council, that will truly enable us in Cornwall to benefit not only from the massive railway investment that is being made by this Government but also from HS2, and to make sure every part of the nation benefits from this massively important infrastructure project.
Mark Reckless (Rochester and Strood) (Con)
I hope that in this debate about high-speed rail the Front-Bench team will not mind my talking about high speed. Of course capacity is extraordinarily important, and we are not just talking about capacity to relieve the west coast main line. The relief that the Y network will give to the east coast main line and the midlands main line is at least as important. I speak as someone whose constituency is dissected by HS1, and we have found that the benefits appear to be much greater than the costs. I speak from that strong perspective. Part of that benefit is down to capacity, but it is also about speed.
It has been of huge advantage to our area that we can get from Ebbsfleet to St Pancras in 17 minutes. Yes, unlike people in Buckinghamshire, we have that intermediate station, but we also benefit from the classic lines which can now take people from Strood to Stratford in 25 minutes and through to St Pancras in 32 minutes. That is bringing in huge amounts of additional people. It is making it much more attractive to come to Medway—to bring in investment, as commercial and professional leaders want to base themselves in Medway. I believe that Birmingham and Manchester will have a similar experience.
If we shorten the journey time from Manchester to London from two hours and eight minutes to one hour and eight minutes, that will be a huge economic boost to Manchester. I find it extraordinary when I hear people say, “Oh, well actually it is going to damage Manchester. It’s going to suck the growth out of Manchester and it will all go to London.” If they believe that, why do they not have the courage of their convictions and argue to slow the line so that it takes four hours rather than two hours?
Damian Collins
Does my hon. Friend agree that east Kent has seen real economic benefits—that wages have been rising faster and unemployment has been falling faster than the national average—because of high-speed rail?
Mark Reckless
Yes I certainly do agree, and I think that is because of those improved journey times, including to Folkestone. The idea that there would be more jobs in Folkestone if the journey time were two hours rather than one hour, or that if we somehow had a man with a red flag in front of the train that would bring the greatest possible economic growth to the north or to Folkestone, is frankly absurd.
Mr McLoughlin
My hon. Friend is making a very good point. He is also making the same point that Sir Albert Bore and Sir Richard Leese would be making to us if they were able to address the House. They are the leaders of their councils and they would say that these lines will bring tremendous benefits to their cities. They are in the best place to know.
Mark Reckless
I agree with the Secretary of State. I would add, however, that further benefits to these northern cities and Birmingham could be accrued if we did more than just fulfil the intention of the direct links through to the continent of Europe. Although I understand why the previously proposed way of doing that has not gained support, I hope that we will still look at the possibility of reinstituting a direct connection between HS1 and HS2, and that when we look at the costs and benefits of that we look not only at the benefits to the north of being able to get through to Europe, but at the benefits for people from Manchester or Birmingham of being able to go directly through to east London, Kent or East Anglia from a connection at Stratford. The work Greengauge 21 did on that shows that the benefits will be huge. Yes, there would be benefits for my constituents and people in east London from being able to go from Stratford or Ebbsfleet through to Old Oak Common and on to the north, but a connection would also significantly add to the benefits for people coming from Birmingham and the north. I hope we will look at that.
I believe that there is scope within this Bill to make such improvements. From listening to some of the opponents, it is as if they assume that the costs are going to spiral out of control and that the benefits are all grossly exaggerated, but when I look through the work and the detail of the estimates and calculations, they strike me as extraordinarily conservative.
We have learned the lessons from the great infrastructure projects of the past. If we consider Crossrail or the Olympics, we see it is possible to deliver projects to time and to budget, and possibly faster or cheaper. Part of the reason for that is the very big estimate for contingency. Some people criticised, and we have heard Opposition Front Benchers saying that perhaps they would not support a project if costs were spiralling, but actually a substantial contingency had been factored in: £14.5 billion of the £42.6 billion is contingency. It is not contingency in order to get to our best estimate of what the cost is going to be; the contingency has been padded to the degree that we are 95% certain that the cost will come in below the number given. It is expected that more than £4 billion of that contingency will not be used, so perhaps some of that could be put towards providing a decent quality link between HS1 and HS2, to everybody’s benefit.
Mark Reckless
Yes, I am reassured. I consider there to be a degree of pessimism bias in this case; £700 million has been taken out for the link and it has just been absorbed into even more contingency. I think that the contingency is much too high and that the project will come in significantly below the estimates, and that is just on the cost side. We must also look at the benefits side. We have heard a lot of talk about working on trains and how things are calculated, but there is something much more important when we are projecting the growth in traffic and looking at the benefits.
Over the past 10 years, long-distance rail travel has grown by 5.2% each year on average, yet we are assuming that in the future it is going to grow by only 2.2% per year. I do not understand why there is suddenly to be this collapse in the growth rate for rail traffic, and it is on that basis that projections are made. Furthermore, we are assuming that once we get to 2036, only three years after the project has been completed, there will be no further growth in traffic at all. If we had some more realistic calculations on both costs and benefits, we would see that this becomes an even more attractive project. I believe that it will be more attractive still if we have a proper link between HS2 and HS1, bringing benefits to all.
Priti Patel (Witham) (Con)
I am happy to have the opportunity to contribute in this debate, because I welcome the Government’s approach to investment in our rail infrastructure and infrastructure across the UK. I am conscious of many of the constituency sensitivities raised by all my colleagues, and I commend them in this debate today, but I encourage the Government to carry on in their investment in rail infrastructure. The Secretary of State will know not only of my passion for rail, but of that of the eastern region; he will know of the great eastern main line taskforce that has been set up and all the work we are doing to promote more investment in our rail network. That is why I speak highly of high-speed rail and the work this Government are doing, particularly through this Bill. There is no doubt that this Bill and the investment programme it proposes will not only transform our economy, creating jobs and growth, but, importantly, boost our competitiveness in the world. We need that. The network in the eastern region will be transformed—there is no doubt that there will be natural benefits.
The project will particularly demonstrate that we have had not enough investment in our rail infrastructure, particularly under previous Governments. It is a fact that Britain has languished and is languishing in the World Economic Forum’s index of global competitiveness for its overall infrastructure quality. This Government have been absolutely focused on turning that situation around, and we should all support the Bill on that basis. This is about our place in the world, as well as enhancing our domestic infrastructure.
The final point I wish to make is that we have heard a lot about the value of HS2 to the supply chain and what it will mean for jobs, growth and our economy. There could be at least a £10 billion boost of supply chain contracts, and we should all welcome that. This is a national project and its scale is unprecedented. I would like to make a big plug, because this is an opportunity to create more jobs in the UK. This Government have a tremendous record in supporting British jobs, with 1.7 million new jobs since we have been in government and employment at record numbers. HS2 presents a great opportunity for manufacturing, for greater skills and for engineering, logistics and design jobs in the UK.
It will not surprise you, Mr Deputy Speaker, when I give a plug for Essex at this point. The Essex chamber of commerce wants to be at the forefront of leading that supply chain, and I urge the Secretary of State to engage with Back-Bench MPs and other MPs from around the region. We have the skills and expertise in abundance in my county and across the UK—there is no doubt about that—and we want to help to build HS2. On that basis, I will absolutely be supporting the Government. I applaud more investment in our rail infrastructure—and with that, I will sit down.
Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)
When the previous Government launched this project four years ago, the noble Lord Adonis said that Britain required transport networks that are high-capacity, efficient and sustainable. That statement remains true today. In the light of continued growth in passenger demand, a lack of resilience against severe weather, and a need for regionally balanced economic growth, the case for those networks is arguably more urgent than ever before.
Many Members have made the case for investment today, and not just for high-speed rail, which is precisely why Network Rail has been allocated more than £37 billion to spend on our existing railways over the next five years, including in the south-west.
The doubling of passenger numbers over the past 20 years has placed enormous demands on our existing infrastructure. The railways are carrying the same number of passengers as they did in the 1920s on a network half the size, and some sections are now reaching the limits of their capacity. As the hon. Members for Redditch (Karen Lumley), for Rugby (Mark Pawsey) and for Northampton South (Mr Binley) have said, nowhere is that more acutely felt than on the west coast main line between Birmingham and London. A vital passenger and freight route, it is the busiest and arguably the most complex rail line in Europe. It is notorious for its heavy gradients and large numbers of challenging bends and curves, many of which are now boxed in by housing developments. They have become a permanent legacy of the line’s original piecemeal construction and they continue to inhibit attempts to bring the west coast main line up to 21st-century standards.
Over the past 50 years, enormous investment has gone into electrification, the ingenuity of tilting trains and, most recently, a 10-year route modernisation programme, which cost the taxpayer at least £9 billion. Just a few years after its completion, we have exhausted nearly all the extra capacity that that £9 billion bought us. Network Rail has warned that by 2024 the line will effectively be full. The lack of capacity is not an abstract problem or a far-off dilemma for future generations to resolve; its effects are already being felt, because as demand for inter-city services increases, providing extra trains inevitably has an impact on commuter services. As hon. Members in the region know, the constraints are so severe that passengers in the west midlands are already at what Peter Parker, the late chairman of British Rail, once called the “crumbling edge of quality”.
If we look back at the timetable changes that took place in December 2008, we see that more services were put into London, but they were at the expense of local services. Journey times were slowed down and services withdrawn. To see this trend’s logical extreme, we need only travel 30 miles north of Birmingham, to the rural stations in Staffordshire that were closed during the west coast modernisation project, and now cannot be reopened, because the paths have been reassigned. The message is clear: we need more capacity. As my hon. Friend the Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Jonathan Reynolds) said, HS2 is the plan to provide it.
Across the network, freight, commuter, and fast inter-city services all compete for a diminishing number of paths. Those limitations cause innumerable conflicts and compromises in timetables. I cannot agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Robert Flello) and the right hon. Member for Eddisbury (Mr O'Brien) who said that we should just enhance the existing line. A full upgrade would be enormously costly, and it would cause an unacceptable amount of disruption, leading to misery for passengers and enormous compensation payments to train operators. At the end of it, such a project would deliver less than half the capacity of a new line. That is why, when the previous Labour Government launched HS2, the need for more capacity was at the heart of their case. For a long time after the election, that message was lost. As the former Minister with responsibility for rail, the right hon. Member for Chelmsford (Mr Burns), later admitted, the Government should have concentrated more on the critical issue of capacity.
It was not just the Government’s arguments that showed alarming signs of drift. It took three years to produce this Bill, meaning that there is now no prospect of its receiving Royal Assent before the election. The initial consultation on compensation was found to be
“so unfair as to be unlawful,”
causing prolonged uncertainty for homeowners, tenants and businesses along the route. Not enough emphasis was placed on the regenerative potential of HS2, or the benefits it could bring to the existing rail network. More work needs to be done in this area, as my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman), the Chair of the Transport Committee, set out. Some environmental information is incomplete and the words mitigation and compensation are used interchangeably by the Government when they mean very different things. There has been real confusion about plans for Euston station. Three times now, HS2 Ltd has made radically different proposals and local residents and businesses deserve better.
Perhaps most serious of all, costs seem to be spiralling out of control and that is why Labour forced the Government to introduce much tougher reporting of the spending through an amendment to the preparation Act, tabled by me and my hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Mary Creagh). We also amended the Bill to require better integration with existing transport networks and specific reporting of the jobs and skills generated in connection with the project. I am proud that even in opposition Labour has improved this project and ensured better value for taxpayers’ money.
With the appointment of Sir David Higgins, the Government are finally taking the delivery of the project seriously and Labour will continue to be a critical friend to HS2. We will subject the Bill to close line-by-line scrutiny and will keep up the pressure on the Government to bring down the cost of the project. As my hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield argued in her opening speech, the Higgins report concluded that substantial savings can be achieved if there is better leadership of the project and also sensibly recommended removing the proposed link with the north London line, which was always an inadequate compromise and satisfied no one.
We welcome the recommendation that there should be a new focus on the benefits that phase 2 of the project can bring through new connections between the great cities of the midlands and the north. As my hon. Friend the Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Mike Kane) noted, we have been operating without one central connection since much of the Great Central Railway disappeared. In my own city, part of it is under a tram line and part of it is under a shopping centre.
I know from experience just how poor the links are between Birmingham, the east midlands, the north-west and Leeds. As Members including my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw), the hon. Members for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Eric Ollerenshaw) and for Calder Valley (Craig Whittaker), my hon. Friend the Member for Blackley and Broughton (Graham Stringer) and the hon. Members for Rossendale and Darwen (Jake Berry), for Pudsey (Stuart Andrew), for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers) and for Skipton and Ripon (Julian Smith) all recognised, improving those connections will help to deliver sustainable, balanced growth and send the message that we are prepared to invest in 21st-century infrastructure for the midlands and the north, not just for London and the south-east.
It is worth emphasising that the Government have yet to respond to the consultation on the proposed route for phase 2. I know that some hon. Members have concerns about the impact of those proposals on their constituencies, including my hon. Friends the Members for Stoke-on-Trent South and for Stoke-on-Trent North (Joan Walley) and the hon. Members for Warrington South (David Mowat) and for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy), but voting for the Bill today in no way sets in stone the route for phase 2. It is vital that submissions to that route consultation are considered on their merits and we look forward to the Government’s response.
Andrew Bridgen
I thank the hon. Lady for giving way. She quotes the noble Lord Adonis, but she does not quote the noble Lord Mandelson, who said that HS2 was merely a ploy for the last election drawn up on the back of an envelope, or the noble Lord Prescott, who calls HS2 the “great northern con”.
Lilian Greenwood
We will see who changes their mind, but I think that the case for our needing this railway has been clearly made.
When petitioners appear before the Committee to make their case for changes in mitigation, they need to know that they will receive a fair and impartial hearing. Unlike the Mayor of London, we do not dismiss genuine concerns about the environmental impact. The Bill has some way to go and I hope that the new Committee will hear evidence in the areas most affected by the construction, including Euston and the constituencies of my hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead and Kilburn (Glenda Jackson), the hon. Members for Lichfield (Michael Fabricant) and for North Warwickshire (Dan Byles), the right hon. Member for Meriden (Mrs Spelman), my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), the right hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs Gillan), my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter) and the hon. Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Angie Bray).
Last month, I visited Birmingham to see the plans that the city council and Centro, the transport authority, put in place for HS2. My right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Mr Byrne) described some of them. Anyone would be struck by the ambition of those plans, the number of jobs that will be created and the regeneration that will be achieved. Similar benefits should and can be achieved for both Euston and Old Oak Common.
The west midlands and the nation as a whole need this project to meet rail capacity challenges, but it can also deliver huge economic benefits and address the transport inequalities that continue to hold our regions back. HS2 represents a great opportunity for the whole country and I hope that hon. Members will support the principle of the Bill by giving it a Second Reading.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Mr Robert Goodwill)
The debate has highlighted not only the need for HS2 but the importance of getting it right. This is a scheme that will play a vital role in creating the necessary conditions for economic growth, but that does not mean we should press ahead unchecked. We must be clear about the impacts and act responsibly in addressing them by providing appropriate mitigation for any adverse environmental consequences, and fair compensation for those affected by the new railway.
Let me summarise how we respond to those crucial issues. First, we have been clear about the cost. It is a considerable investment but it is spread over 10 years, delivering benefits over decades, perhaps for centuries, as the Victorian network continues to deliver. This is also a project that will stand the test of time, and it is not at the expense of other investment, as we have heard. It is alongside high levels of investment in roads, in the existing rail network and in local transport schemes. This is one part of a rounded transport strategy.
It is incumbent on us to ensure that the scheme sticks to its schedule and budget, so that taxpayers get value for money, and they will. To assist us, we have recently appointed leading experts, Sir David Higgins and Simon Kirby, to lead the delivery and construction of the scheme. Following his recent review, Sir David confirmed that the scheme is on track for construction to begin in 2017.
Secondly, unfortunately it is not possible to construct a project such has this without having some impacts on the environment. However, since the very beginning, identifying those impacts and developing proposals for appropriate mitigation have been key priorities. We have carried out environmental assessments and proposed mitigation measures. We are committed to no net loss of biodiversity, as I explained to the Environmental Audit Committee recently, and we are replacing habitats for wildlife. We are generally tunnelling under rather than travelling through the Chilterns area of outstanding natural beauty, and we are integrating the railway into the landscape, hiding much of it from view. We are incorporating natural and man-made barriers to reduce noise and vibration, and we have set binding commitments to control the impacts of construction. On all of that we have consulted extensively. We have taken on board suggestions for improving the scheme, and before the Easter recess, the House received an independent report summarising consultation responses to inform its decision tonight.
Thirdly, I come to the measures to support those properties that may be affected, as raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr Cash) and others. People living near the proposed route are understandably worried. They deserve generous assistance and they will receive it. We have already helped more than 100 households under the exceptional hardship scheme, and we have now launched an express purchase scheme for land safeguarded for phase 1, helping owner-occupiers to sell quickly and with less fuss, regardless of whether their property is needed for HS2. [Interruption.] They get the full, unblighted open-market value of their property, plus 10%, plus reasonable moving costs, including stamp duty. [Interruption.]
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. Conversations are going on on both sides of the House. I want to hear the Minister, as I am sure do all Members’ constituents. Minister Goodwill.
Mr Goodwill
Later this year, we will launch an enhanced need-to-sell scheme to help owner-occupiers who need to sell their property but cannot because of HS2. I stress that there is no distance test to pass in this case. We will also launch a voluntary purchase scheme giving owner-occupiers in rural areas up to 120 metres from the line the choice to sell their property and receive its full unblighted market value. We will also consult on offering them a new choice of a cash alternative, and we will consult on new home owner payments for owner-occupiers in rural areas between 120 and 300 metres from the line to help share more of the expected economic benefits of HS2 with rural home owners, not just helping those who want to move, but also those who need to stay in their homes. We appreciate that for some no amount of money or help will be enough, and we do not pretend that these proposals will satisfy everyone, but we believe that they are fair and represent the best possible balance between properly helping people and providing value for money for the taxpayers.
I come now to some of the comments made in the debate. I thank Her Majesty’s loyal Opposition for their support. It was their idea after all. As a fellow Yorkshire MP, the shadow Secretary of State recognises the benefits to the north, and we also agree that the project should be delivered in a cost-effective way. Indeed, another Yorkshire MP, the shadow Chancellor, agrees with us that it is absolutely right—possibly for the first time. The shadow Secretary of State is correct in holding us to our word on the environmental mitigation included in the scheme. She asked me about the response to the HS2 phase 2 consultation. We will respond in the autumn and make further decisions following that.
The shadow Secretary of State also mentioned resilience in the south-west and we will certainly not ignore other parts of the country. I was recently in Dawlish and saw the work carried out there. I also drove on the A30 and A303 in the west country between Stonehenge and the Blackdowns, which is an important route, as mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Oliver Colvile).
Who could not have been impressed by the enthusiasm of my hon. Friend the Member for Skipton and Ripon (Julian Smith) for HS2 and for the advantages for God’s own county? He said that Yorkshire could aspire to have a second London, but I think we could do better than that.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs Gillan) is a stalwart campaigner on the behalf of her constituents and raises concerns about the cost of the project. She cannot have it both ways. One reason why costs have increased is the unprecedented environmental mitigation, including the more than nine of the 11 miles of the line in her constituency that is in either a tunnel or a cutting. She is perfectly entitled to her own opinion of the project, but she is not entitled to her own facts.
I thank the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman), the Chair of the Transport Committee, for her support. I see the Select Committee as a critical friend and look forward to its future reports.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Mr Burns) drew attention to the struggle to build projects such as HS1, which spanned generations, and the need to reduce overcrowding by not only increasing capacity on the new north-south railway, but also freeing up capacity on existing lines for passengers and freight.
The right hon. Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Frank Dobson) welcomed the scrapping of the HS1-HS2 link, but not much else.
I can assure my hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield (Michael Fabricant) that the excavated material from the tunnel in the Chilterns will not be disposed of in his patch.
The hon. Member for Blackley and Broughton (Graham Stringer) outlined the advantages for Manchester and the north-west, as did the hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Jonathan Reynolds), and drew attention to historical objectors to rail projects. I was reminded that the east coast main line would have gone through Stamford were it not for Lord Burghley’s interests in the coaching industry. Instead, the line went through a little-known place called Peterborough and look at the benefits it brought there. The hon. Member for Blackley and Broughton said that the quicker we do this, the better, and I say “Hear, hear.”
The hon. Member for Solihull (Lorely Burt) outlined the advantages to Birmingham and its airport, and I heard her concern about the properties of the National Trust, with which we are working to protect the setting of Hartwell house.
The right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) described how HS2 will bridge the north-south divide, as did my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Eric Ollerenshaw).
I understand the concerns of my right hon. Friend the Member for Eddisbury (Mr O’Brien) about construction in his constituency. He suggested that double-decking could be a solution, but that would not only be just a stop-gap but result in years of weekend engineering closures and replacement buses on the west coast main line.
For their supportive comments, I thank the hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Mike Kane) and my hon. Friends the Members for Northampton South (Mr Binley), for Calder Valley (Craig Whittaker), for Redditch (Karen Lumley), for Rossendale and Darwen (Jake Berry), for Warrington South (David Mowat), for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers) and for Pudsey (Stuart Andrew), who stressed the importance of the project to Leeds.
The right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Mr Byrne) supports the scheme, but I understand his concerns about the Washwood Heath maintenance depot.
I agree with the hon. Member for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey) that it is wrong to brand people with genuine concerns about the line’s impact as nimbys.
Tonight the House faces a great decision, one of national importance that will profoundly affect the way our economy develops for generations. The House must be satisfied with the need for HS2, and it must be satisfied that the appropriate measures are in place to deliver the scheme in a sustainable way, both economically and environmentally. HS2 will help drive this country forward. It will create new capacity and enable better use of existing transport corridors. It will join up our great cities and strengthen our economy. As a result, it will help open up opportunities currently held back by lack of investment. Along the way, it will be subject to careful, detailed scrutiny. Tonight’s vote is an important step in taking HS2 forward and I urge right hon. and hon. Members to support the Bill for phase 1.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
Business without Debate
Delegated Legislation
Mr Speaker
With the leave of the House, I propose to take motions 5 to 9 together.
Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 118(6)),
Taxes
That the draft International Tax Enforcement (Uruguay) Order 2014, which was laid before this House on 3 March, be approved.
That the draft International Tax Enforcement (Gibraltar) Order 2014, which was laid before this House on 3 March, be approved.
Capital Gains Tax
That the draft International Tax Enforcement (Turks and Caicos Islands) Order 2014, which was laid before this House on 3 March, be approved.
That the draft International Tax Enforcement (Anguilla) Order 2014, which was laid before this House on 3 March, be approved.
That the draft International Tax Enforcement (British Virgin Islands) Order 2014, which was laid before this House on 3 March, be approved. —(Anne Milton.)
Question agreed to.
WELSH GRAND COMMITTEE
Ordered,
That:
(1) the matter of the Budget as it relates to Wales be referred to the Welsh Grand Committee for its consideration;
(2) the Committee shall meet at Westminster on Wednesday 7 May at 9.30am and 2.00pm to consider the matter referred to it under paragraph (1) above; and
(3) the Chair shall interrupt proceedings at the afternoon sitting not later than two hours after their commencement at that sitting. —(Anne Milton.)
Mr Speaker
I know that Members who are leaving the Chamber will do so quickly and quietly, in deference to the hon. Member who has the Adjournment debate, because they would wish to be treated in that way in similar circumstances.
Manston Airport
(10 years, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Sir Roger Gale (North Thanet) (Con)
I am most grateful, Mr Speaker. Before I go any further, I congratulate the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Mr Goodwill), and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport, on taking through this evening a measure that my hon. Friend described in his peroration as being of national importance, as indeed it is. I think that the matter I am about to raise with the House, although it has perhaps not attracted the same attention as the previous business, is also of national importance.
I am grateful for the opportunity to raise an issue that is of importance not only to my constituents in North Thanet, but to those of my hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet (Laura Sandys), who has been so loyal and staunch a parliamentary neighbour and who has joined me here in the Chamber tonight.
There has been an airfield at Manston in east Kent for getting on for 100 years. Manston served with distinction, and took a great deal of punishment, as a front-line airfield throughout world war two; as an RAF base post-war, it hosted American fast-jet squadrons; and to this day part of the original Ministry of Defence base remains the home of one of the country’s foremost RAF firefighting training schools. Post-war holidaymakers, with their cars, flew on Silver City from Manston to Jersey, and the dual military-commercial role became established. Manston was leased by the MOD to Seabourne Aviation in the 1980s, when the modern and friendly air terminal was built, and the freehold was sold during the 1990s. Throughout this time, and until the RAF transferred its flight to Wattisham, Manston was the home of Sea King search and rescue helicopters covering the strait of Dover. PlaneStation, EUjet and more recently Infratil, a New Zealand based company, in turn flew from or operated from Manston.
The airport was acquired at the end November 2013 by the present owner, Mrs Anne Gloag, one of the shareholders of the Stagecoach company. With strong links to transport and with the promise of a commitment to two years’ of development, that transfer of ownership was welcomed. Sadly, after less than four months, on Budget day in March, consultation on closure, following losses that were regarded by the new owner as unsustainable, was announced at the very moment that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor was informing the House of the help for regional airports that my hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet and I had been pressing for.
That was, as one may imagine, rather unwelcome news; however, it quickly became apparent that there is now serious and funded interest in taking over Manston, to maintain the site, which would be extremely difficult and costly to transform for other purposes, as an airport to develop and broaden the aviation, airport-related and ancillary businesses. As we speak, that interest is the subject of talks. Neither my hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet nor I can properly become involved in negotiations that clearly are a matter for legal and commercial agreement, and I would not expect my hon. Friend the Minister to become involved either at that level, but I was heartened, in a meeting with Mrs Gloag here at the House before Easter, to be assured that she was willing to discuss propositions. I naturally hope that those discussions will prove fruitful in the interests of all concerned. I would like to be able to return positively to that in a future debate.
As I have said, I believe there is not only a local, but a national interest that has to be taken into account. Locally, as my hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet will know, there are immediately about 150 jobs at issue. Each and every one represents a family breadwinner. That is of overriding importance to my hon. Friend and me. There is also the job-creating potential of an airport that is crucial to the economy of east Kent. That potential has already helped to contribute, by its very existence, to the success of Discovery Park, which my hon. Friend has been so instrumental in promoting, following the withdrawal of a significant part of the Pfizer company from her constituency. As an important aside and visitor attraction, the Manston RAF and the Spitfire and Hurricane museums, together with the memorial to the unknown overseas airman, unveiled by Her Majesty the Queen Mother shortly before she died, represent a significant contribution to our local heritage and one that cannot be discarded.
In the national interest, Manston occupies a literally unique location. It offers proximity to the channel ports and mainland Europe, a largely over-water take-off and landing facility and, partly as a consequence, a safe diversion location. Indeed, I am advised that since the start of the consultation period, two aircraft have taken advantage of Manston as a safe haven, and I know that the airport is able to receive inbound traffic at times when London’s other airfields, within the central London traffic control zone, have been compelled to close or restrict services. With its expanded responsibility for maritime search and rescue and firefighting services, Bristow Helicopters still wishes to return to Manston to provide cover once again for the strait of Dover, one of the busiest sea lanes in the world. With its very long and abnormally wide runway, Manston has been able to accommodate Concorde in the past and more recently—in fact, very recently—the British Airways Dreamliner during her trials.
We also believe that Manston can and must be allowed to make a significant contribution to the immediate demands for additional runway capacity in the south-east. I would like my hon. Friend the Minister to consider the following. When, as Transport Secretary, the right hon. Member for Edinburgh South West (Mr Darling) published his airports Green Paper in 1990s, he omitted Manston from his plan. When I questioned him at that time on the Floor of the House, he said that Manston was too far from London. In the interim report on capacity in the south-east published shortly before Christmas, Sir Howard Davies also omitted Manston for the same reason. He has made the same error in measuring distance in miles from London, rather than in time.
It is a fact that east Kent is indeed 76 miles from the House of Commons, but we are now served with a good road network and, with the proposed extension of High Speed 1 from Ashford to Thanet—a project that will commence in autumn this year with the upgrading of track and signals—we are looking at a realistic under-one-hour journey. In real terms, and allowing for check-in congestion and related time-wasting activities at airports, that means that, from central London to a backside on a plane taking off, Manston will actually be closer than Heathrow.
I am not suggesting that Manston can or should be an alternative to a Boris island, an additional runway at Heathrow or any other suggestion that Sir Howard puts forward that may meet our needs in 15 or 20 years’ time. I am, however, suggesting that, alongside Luton and Stansted, Manston can help to relieve a pressure that has already seen London fall into second place behind Dubai as a major hub airport, which is costing UK Ltd business lost to Frankfurt, Schiphol and Paris Charles de Gaulle, and which we do not have the luxury of time to address. I understand that Sir Howard is reconsidering the opportunities afforded by regional airports. Manston is available immediately and it must be included in that equation.
Nor am I proposing that interlining passengers currently using London Heathrow or Gatwick should be routed through Manston, although we might well be able to take some holiday traffic to free up space at London’s two major airports. I note, however, that London Heathrow capacity that might otherwise permit passenger business is currently being used for long-haul freight from the far east.
I know that 82% of goods transported by air come into Heathrow as belly cargo in passenger aircraft, but that still leaves 18% of dedicated freight movements occupying slots that could be used for much needed additional long-haul passenger traffic if the cargo was moved to, for example, Manston airport, where we have a skilled and dedicated cargo handling team and facilities that can have goods off an aircraft and on to road or rail in short order. There are those who say that Manston’s freight handling is second to none. I therefore have a specific request. Will my hon. Friend the Minister instigate an immediate review of cargo traffic with a view to promoting, in the national interest, the release of prime slots with passenger potential from London’s airports? It has to be in the national interest to do that.
This morning the inaugural meeting of a Manston taskforce was held here in Portcullis House. In addition to the chairman of the company that owns Manston, that meeting was attended by representatives from the Departments for Transport, Work and Pensions, Communities and Local Government, and Business, Innovation and Skills, as well as the Home Office, the Skills Funding Agency, UK Trade & Investment, the local enterprise partnership, Locate in Kent, Kent county council, Thanet district council and, of course, my hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet and myself. The meeting followed discussions with relevant Ministers, all of whom have been supportive.
There is good will and political cross-party unanimity at local, county, trade union and parliamentary level. There is also huge and growing local support. Last Saturday my hon. Friend and I received a petition from the Save Manston group and Why Not Manston? containing 15,000 signatures that had been gathered in just three weeks.
Laura Sandys (South Thanet) (Con)
I thank my hon. Friend for giving way and for his leadership across Thanet and all the different Government agencies pulling together the huge opportunities Manston offers. We need to highlight that this is not just about the straightforward passenger and freight opportunities; there is a wide range of business opportunities around aviation that my hon. Friend has identified as an opportunity for Manston itself. I hope the Minister will be able to respond on the opportunity that Manston specifically can offer due to its location and its potential capacity.
Sir Roger Gale
I return the compliment. My hon. Friend has been instrumental in the revitalisation of the Pfizer site as Discovery Park, and she has a proven track record in demonstrating how it is possible to attract ancillary business. We both are absolutely convinced that Manston has a viable future and that it will attract new cargo traffic and, as she says, other businesses—aviation engineering and other aviation-related businesses. We really do have to capitalise on that if we are going to make Manston work. In the local and national interest, we want to get Manston working and succeeding in the role for which it was designed and is best suited—as an airport.
In conclusion, I thank my hon. Friend the Minister for his encouragement to date. I hope and still believe that, with a further shove and with the participation of a willing seller and a willing buyer, we can get to where we want to be. My hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet and I remain absolutely committed to this project and wish to state once again that we will use our best political endeavours in support of anyone who is ready and able to realise the new potential of one of the great assets of British aviation.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Mr Robert Goodwill)
I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for North Thanet (Sir Roger Gale) for securing this debate about the future of Manston airport. In recent years, the increasing demand for commercial air travel has heightened the need to improve the capacity and efficiency of UK airports. This is absolutely essential to meet the Government’s commitment to maintain the UK’s aviation hub status.
In the 2013 aviation policy framework, we recognised the crucial role that regional airports play in providing airport capacity and the vital contribution they can make to the growth of their local economies. Indeed, I prefer to refer to them as local international airports, rather than just regional airports. We are therefore determined that the UK continues to benefit from the services that regional airports offer, and we welcome the ambition of those that are investing in their infrastructure, increasing accessibility and facilitating more services to more destinations.
I am aware of Manston airport’s proud history, which can be traced back to the first world war. It also played a crucial role in world war two, first in supporting troops during the Dunkirk evacuation and then by playing a front-line role during the battle of Britain and providing vital air support during the D-day landings. During the war, the length and width of the runway were improved, meaning that it can now handle the largest jets, such as the new Airbus A380. Manston was even identified as a contingency runway for landings of NASA’s space shuttle programme. It was after the war and during the 1960s that the airport began to be used by commercial airlines and enjoyed relatively steady commercial air operations for several years. That allowed many people in the area to experience their first foreign holiday. However, services and passenger numbers declined steadily from the 1970s onwards, as charter operators moved to larger airports with better surface transport connections. In recent years, Manston has struggled to attract and retain consistent air passenger services, and there have been periods when the airport has had no regular services.
I am aware that Manston airport’s owners have begun a consultation with staff regarding the airport’s future, and I recognise concerns about the impact its possible closure could have on the local and regional economy. I hope that a resolution can be achieved which sustains the commercial viability of Manston airport to keep it as a going concern. I welcome the news that my hon. Friend held the first meeting of the Manston working group earlier today. The meeting brought together representatives from Thanet district council, Kent county council and the local enterprise partnership, and was supported by Departments to explore options for the airport’s future. I commend his tireless work in this regard, but whatever the result of efforts to secure such a resolution, the Government are unable to intervene directly, as we believe that UK airports and airlines operate best in a competitive and commercial environment. It is therefore for individual airports to take decisions on matters of future economic viability.
KLM’s decision to discontinue the route between Manston and Amsterdam will undeniably impact the profitability of the airport. The route was the airport’s main source of passengers and offered a connection with KLM’s international services through the airline’s Schiphol hub. The remaining passenger services offered by the airport are mainly summer charter services, and will likely offer limited air traffic. I am aware that Manston also serves as a destination for air cargo operations, as well as a number of aviation maintenance, repair and overhaul, and airframe breaking and spares recovery businesses, which operate on the airport site. As with airports, airlines must take commercial decisions regarding the routes they operate according to what is in their best interests. It is not possible for the Government to compel airlines to operate certain routes.
There have been additional concerns about the closure of the airport and the possible loss of the Lower Airspace Radar Service—LARS—unit, an information service used by some airspace users. Although closure would result in a gap in the LARS system, it would be no larger than elsewhere in the UK. More importantly, the loss of the system would not be seen as a safety-critical issue. We have been assured by the Civil Aviation Authority that the London Flight Information Service provides an appropriate alternative, and the CAA has stated that it would not support the retention of an airport or air traffic unit for LARS provision, particularly as it is unclear how costs would be covered.
As I said earlier, the UK’s aviation sector is overwhelmingly in the private sector and operates in a competitive international market. The Government support competition as an effective way to meet the interests of air passengers and other users. I restate our determination that the UK continue to benefit from the contribution that regional airports can offer. The Chancellor recently announced that applications will now be allowed for start-up aid for new air routes from UK regional airports. To be eligible, airports must handle fewer than 5 million passengers per annum and meet new European Union state aid guidelines. The Department for Transport is working with the Treasury to determine how the funding process will operate in practice, and over this summer will develop guidance for those organisations seeking to make applications for supporting air routes. Should Manston airport be eligible, we would encourage it to apply for this funding.
As hon. Members will be aware, the independent Airports Commission, chaired by Sir Howard Davies, was established to identify and recommend options to maintain this country’s status as an international hub for aviation. In preparing its interim report, the commission undertook a detailed assessment of the UK’s future aviation demand and connectivity requirements. The commission's interim report, published in December 2013, details its shortlist of long-term options for further study to increase airport capacity along with recommendations for the short term to make the best use of our existing infrastructure.
The commission has explained in the materials supporting its interim report why the expanded use of Manston airport was not selected as an option for further consideration. It concluded that Manston’s distance from London and other significant population centres meant that it was unlikely to be able to play a substantial role in meeting future passenger demand in London and the south-east in the long term, although I did hear what my hon. Friend had to say in relation to transport times as opposed to distance.
The commission also recognised that, in the short and medium term, Government do not have effective levers to redistribute traffic to less congested airports such as Manston, even if it were desirable to do so. The Government are carefully considering the recommendations in the interim report and intend to publish a response to the short-term recommendations shortly. All the shortlisted long-term options will now be the subject of more detailed analysis and consultation by the commission. To protect the integrity of the process, the Government will not comment on any of the shortlisted options.
My hon. Friend also raised the issue of landing and take-off slots in relation to freight. The allocation of slots is governed by EU airport slot regulations, which prescribe the allocation, transfer and exchange of slots at London Heathrow and other “co-ordinated” airports in the UK—that is, those airports where capacity is shown to be insufficient to meet all actual or planned airline operations.
Any decisions about how airlines use the slots allocated to them at busy airports like Heathrow are a commercial matter for those airlines to determine, and that includes freight slots. The European Commission looked at recasting the slot regulation in 2011 as part of the “better airports” package, but progress stalled in late 2012 owing to issues with other aspects of the package. However, the European Commission hopes to reinstate the slots element of the “better airports” package within the European presidency’s transport agenda, and my officials will continue to engage with the process to ensure that the UK aviation sector's interests are fully represented.
Once again, I thank my hon. Friend for securing this debate. The Government are committed to improving the capacity and efficiency of UK airports to maintain the UK's aviation hub status. Though fully aware of the importance that regional airports play in this, the Government are unable to intervene directly in the case of Manston. It is ultimately the responsibility of the airport owner to determine whether or not it is commercially viable.
Question put and agreed to.
Ministerial Corrections
(10 years, 7 months ago)
Ministerial CorrectionsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Defence
(10 years, 7 months ago)
Ministerial CorrectionsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Hoban
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many smartphone apps his Department has launched.
[Official Report, 22 October 2013, Vol. 569, c. 102W.]
Letter of correction from Philip Dunne:
An error has been identified in the written answer given to the hon. Member for Fareham (Mr Hoban) on 22 October 2013.
The full answer given was as follows:
Mr Dunne
Since 2007, available records show that the armed forces have launched 39 smartphone applications.
Military Credit Union
The following is an extract from the response given by the Minister for Defence Equipment, Support and Technology, the hon. Member for Ludlow (Mr Dunne) to the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) during the Westminster Hall debate on Military Credit Union on 8 April 2014.
Jim Shannon
I also asked the Minister about giving advice to soldiers and serving personnel on how best to manage their money. I said that, often, those who did not have the level of income they currently have found managing their money overawing. Has offering that advice been considered?
Mr Dunne
Indeed. The hon. Gentleman raised the role of the Money Advice Service, which we established two years ago, and I am grateful that he gave it a positive endorsement. The advice is proving effective and, as the hon. Member for West Dunbartonshire said, the number of people taking advantage of the service in its first two years demonstrates that there was a need for it. We think that it is being delivered in the right way. I also thank the hon. Member for Strangford for the advert he gave to Armed Forces day this summer and the celebrations that will take place in his constituency. I wish them well.
[Official Report, 8 April 2014, Vol. 579, c. 44WH.]
Letter of correction from Philip Dunne:
An error has been identified in the response given on 8 April 2014.
The correct response should have been:
Mr Dunne
Indeed. The hon. Gentleman raised the role of the MoneyForce, which we established last year, and I am grateful that he gave it a positive endorsement. The advice is proving effective and, as the hon. Member for West Dunbartonshire said, the number of people taking advantage of the service in its first year demonstrates that there was a need for it. We think that it is being delivered in the right way.
Justice
(10 years, 7 months ago)
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Nick de Bois
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice (1) what representations he has received on legislation on killing by one punch; and if he will make a statement;
Jeremy Wright
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice, my right hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling), has not received any recent representations on legislation relating to killing by one punch. Such offending behaviour is covered by the existing offence of manslaughter and we have no plans to change the law in this area.
Manslaughter carries a maximum penalty of life imprisonment, which gives the courts full flexibility to deal with all the circumstances of the cases which come before them. This is particularly important as manslaughter covers a broad range of behaviour. The Court of Appeal issued a guideline judgment in 2009 on sentencing for unlawful act manslaughter in which it stated that attention should be paid to the problem of gratuitous, unprovoked violence in our city centres and streets.
The correct response should have been:
Jeremy Wright
The Ministry of Justice has received four letters in the last two years on legislation regarding killing by one punch. Such offending behaviour is covered by the existing offence of manslaughter and we have no plans to change the law in this area.
Manslaughter carries a maximum penalty of life imprisonment, which gives the courts full flexibility to deal with all the circumstances of the cases which come before them. This is particularly important as manslaughter covers a broad range of behaviour. The Court of Appeal issued a guideline judgment in 2009 on sentencing for unlawful act manslaughter in which it stated that attention should be paid to the problem of gratuitous, unprovoked violence in our city centres and streets.
Northern Ireland
(10 years, 7 months ago)
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Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
Given that getting a job is the most important element in alleviating cost of living problems, will my right hon. Friend elucidate the measures that the Northern Ireland Office has taken to promote private sector investment so that new firms come into Northern Ireland?
Mr Robathan
My hon. Friend will know that last June an economic pact was signed by the Northern Ireland Executive and others that looked forward to a rebalanced economy with more private sector jobs. In the last year some 10,000 jobs have been created in the private sector. As I have said, we are expecting another 13,000 this year, and 23,000 new jobs over the next year.
[Official Report, 2 April 2014, Vol. 578, c. 868.]
Letter of correction from Andrew Robathan:
An error has been identified in an oral answer given on 2 April 2014. The correct answer should have been:
Mr Robathan
My hon. Friend will know that last June an economic pact was signed by the Northern Ireland Executive and others that looked forward to a rebalanced economy with more private sector jobs. In the last year some 10,000 jobs have been created in the private sector. As I have said, we are expecting another 13,000 this year, and 23,000 new jobs over the next two years.
Petitions
Privatisation of Student Loans
Rail Services in Bolton
The Appeals Process against the Sanctioning and Removal of State Benefits
Written Statements
(10 years, 7 months ago)
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Loan to Ireland
(10 years, 7 months ago)
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The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Nicky Morgan)
HM Treasury has today provided a further report to Parliament in relation to the bilateral loan to Ireland as required under the Loans to Ireland Act 2010. The report relates to the period from 1 October 2013 to 31 March 2014.
A written ministerial statement on the previous statutory report regarding the loan to Ireland was issued to Parliament on 8 October 2013, Official Report, column 1WS.
National Measurement Office
(10 years, 7 months ago)
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The Minister for Universities and Science (Mr David Willetts)
I have tasked the National Measurement Office (NMO) to provide policy support to Ministers on measurement issues and a measurement infrastructure which enables innovation and growth, promotes trade and facilitates fair competition and the protection of consumers, health and the environment.
I have agreed with the NMO that their objectives for 2014-16 will be to:
Increase economic growth, innovation and social impact through a world-class scientific and industrial measurement infrastructure;
Promote competition and fair trading both in the UK and internationally through a modern weights and measures and hallmarking regime;
Provide good value-for-money metrology services;
Protect the interests of the public, business and the environment by enforcing relevant legislation.
The agency will also be expected to provide professional, value for money, corporate services.
The performance targets I have set the agency are as follows:
Implement arrangements for National Physical Laboratory (NPL) post-March 2014 and agree the partners who will work with Government on NPL and the model under which the partnership will realise the stated policy objective of strengthening both fundamental research and engagement with business;
Improve performance of the National Measurement System (NMS) programmes over the corporate plan period 2011-12 to 2014-15 as measured by the value scorecard developed to reflect high-quality science, leadership and international influence, contribution to growth in the UK economy, capability to meet current and future measurement needs and active knowledge transfer;
Reduce NPL energy consumption in 2014 calendar year by 5% from 2013 calendar year to increase the efficiency of science spend;
Support stakeholders by ensuring at least 95% of metering enquiries are answered within three business days of receipt of all necessary documentation;
Achieve a satisfaction rating among certification service customers of at least 95% for customers scoring satisfied or above, with at least 60% scoring “very satisfied”.
Achieve an increase in income of at least 5% for certification services from the 2013-14 financial year;
Generate at least a positive 3:1 net contribution to consumers and the environment as well as the low-carbon economy through the activities of the enforcement authority;
Reduce non ring-fenced admin costs by at least 14% in cash terms over the corporate plan period 2011-12 to 2014-15;
Reduce the per capita overhead rate from 2013-14.
Easter Recess (Department's Work)
(10 years, 7 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Mr Eric Pickles)
I would like to update hon. Members on the main items of business undertaken by my Department since the House rose for recess.
Supporting communities recover from the floods
One of our continued priorities is to ensure that those affected by flooding are given the help and support they need to help rebuild their lives.
On 11 April, my Department announced that the Government will further extend the council tax discount to all flood-hit households for as long as they are unable to return to their homes. This extends a commitment we made in February 2014 to fund a three-month council tax discount. This is expected to amount to £6 million of support, £2 million more than was originally set aside.
To date 48 local authorities have reported that they have offered the discounts to affected residents with a further 63 actively planning to do so. This is part of wider efforts that are ensuring Government Departments, local authorities and agencies are working together to do everything they can to help communities recover from the extreme weather during winter 2013 to 2014.
Protecting tenants and leaseholders
All tenants and leaseholders have a right to fair and transparent treatment from their letting agent and we are determined to secure a better deal for tenants in the private rented sector without introducing excessive red tape that would push up rents and reduce choice.
On 15 April, my Department announced three approved “redress schemes” that all letting and property management agents will be required to join later this year. They will ensure tenants and leaseholders have a straightforward option to hold their agents to account. The Property Ombudsman, Ombudsman Services Property and the Property Redress Scheme will offer independent investigation of complaints about hidden fees or poor service. Where a complaint is upheld, tenants and leaseholders could receive compensation.
On 26 April, my Department outlined how the new powers to protect the rights of park home owners and stamp out unscrupulous site owners have been brought into force.
Helping the most vulnerable people into work
The Government are determined to test different ways of delivering support to the most disadvantaged people who want to work, but lack the basic maths, English and other skills that are vital when applying for jobs.
On 16 April, my Department, together with the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, announced support for STRIVE (Skills, Training, Innovation and Employment), a scheme that will give the most vulnerable homeless people the right skills and training to get into work. STRIVE, run by homelessness charities Crisis and St Mungo’s Broadway, will work alongside Jobcentre Plus to identify those who would benefit most from the scheme.
Reforming public sector pensions
On 24 April, the Fire Brigades Union called further industrial action over May bank holiday weekend. The Government have tried and tested contingency arrangement in place.
The Government have met with the FBU on many occasions, most recently during April, and have remained in ongoing communication to find a solution. The Fire Minister wrote to the FBU before action was called saying proposals are still under consideration and stressed the importance of maintaining an open dialogue on this and other matters. In choosing to take its members out on unnecessary strike action, the FBU Executive Council has signalled clearly that it has no desire to progress the proposals we were considering and has effectively drawn that discussion to a close. This can only further damage firefighters’ standing with the public.
The deal on the table gives firefighters one of the most generous pension schemes in the public sector, and the proposals protect the earned rights of a higher proportion of members than any other public sector scheme. Nearly half will see no change and even firefighters who are not protected will see no change until 2015. Under the new scheme, a firefighter who earns £29,000 will still be able to retire after a full career aged 60, get a £19,000 a year pension, rising to £26,000 with the state pension. An equivalent private pension pot would be worth over half a million pounds and require firefighters to contribute twice as much.
The focus will now be on implementing the proposed final agreement in time to take effect from 1 April 2015.
Defending the independent free press
The coalition agreement stated the coalition Government’s clear intention to protect the independent free press by tackling unfair competition from local authority newspapers. Localism needs robust and independent scrutiny by the press and public, and municipal state-produced newspapers suppress that. “Town Hall Pravdas” not only waste taxpayers’ money unnecessarily, they undermine free speech. The Local Audit and Accountability Act 2014 contains measures to ensure compliance with the provision of the existing local government publicity code.
On 17 April, formal letters were issued to five London boroughs, triggering the first legal steps we can now take to require compliance with the publicity code for local authorities. The action is being taken against the municipal newspapers of Greenwich Time, Hackney Today, the Newham mag, Waltham Forest News and (“Tower Hamlets”) East End Life.
These councils were the ones most clearly in breach of the code, given their weekly or fortnightly publication of hard-copy, delivered, free municipal newspapers. We are prepared to take further action against any council that clearly breaches the code—whatever the political colour.
Empowering people to improve local neighbourhoods
Community budgets are a way for local public service providers to work together to meet local needs. Community budgets allow providers of public services to share budgets, improving outcomes for local people and reducing duplication and waste.
On 14 April, my Department announced a further 123 communities will take control of neighbourhood schemes to boost employment, combat crime and improve the health of residents through the “Our Place” programme. The announcement signals a major expansion in the programme which is a neighbourhood level way of working that brings together councillors, public servants, voluntary and community organisations and local residents —to tackle local issues and improve the way an area works.
Supporting vibrant high streets
This Government are taking action to support healthy and vibrant local high streets. We are undertaking a series of measures designed to get empty and redundant buildings back into productive use and make it easier for valued town centre businesses like shops, banks and cafes to open new premises, while ensuring that councils have powers to tackle the harm to local amenity caused by a concentration of particular uses.
In the March 2014 Budget, the Government announced their intention to create a new wide “retail” use class, excluding betting shops and payday lenders. In the light of the localised concern that have been expressed about the clustering of betting shops on some high streets, we propose that any changes to the new use class for betting shops and payday lenders will require planning permission. A consultation paper on the broader planning use class reforms will be published in due course.
On 24 April, a new advisory board met together for the first time to look at how digital technology can help create the sustainable and thriving high streets of the future. John Walden, chief executive of Home Retail Group, will be the chairman of this new Digital High Streets Advisory Board. The group will work with the Government and others with an interest in revitalising UK high streets and report to the future high streets forum.
Backing locally led housing development
There is genuine enthusiasm and ambition for housing growth in communities across the country, but we need to ensure new locally-led developments are well-designed, and bring together high-quality homes, jobs, and green spaces in communities where people want to live raise their children. Over the Easter recess, we published three documents:
Large sites infrastructure prospectus—This £1 billion fund provides a programme of support over a six-year period designed to address these barriers and help accelerate and unlock housing developments of at least 1,500 housing units that have slowed down or stalled completely.
Local Growth Fund (Housing Infrastructure) prospectus—This sets out the detail on how to access the £50 million part of the Local Growth Fund in 2015-16. It is designed to help speed up and restart housing developments between 250 and 1,499 units that have slowed down or stalled.
Locally led garden cities prospectus—This invites local authorities to put forward their ideas for how they wish to develop garden cities, how they wish to make use of the existing central Government funding and support, and what other freedoms, flexibilities and support they need to make ambitious new garden cities a reality. As an indication we would expect developments to be at or above the 15,000 homes level.
My Department has also advertised for the position of chairman of the new Ebbsfleet Urban Development Corporation which will take forward the new garden settlement in that locality.
Delivering infrastructure in Enterprise Zones
In a further boost to infrastructure, on 22 April, I announced £120 million infrastructure investment plan to bring businesses and jobs to the Sheffield area. The Sheffield Enterprise Zone will turn £25 million of Government funding into £94 million more of private sector investment so they can lay down the infrastructure needed for its premier sites at Markham Vale and Rotherham to attract new businesses to the area.
Regenerating urban estates
The Government are keen to support the regeneration of England’s most run-down estates, and in turn, delivering thousands of new homes. Some £150 million was set aside in this year’s Budget can be used to kick-start and accelerate the regeneration of such deprived housing estates.
Despite record numbers of people living in London by 2021, the inner boroughs will still contain 1.7 million fewer people than they did in 1939. A new research study by estate agents Savills indicates that rediscovering just half of this former housing capacity would supply the whole of London’s projected housing needs for the next 17 years.
In due course, the study will consider how to rebuild estates to deliver more homes and commercial space on the same amount of land. The homes would be a combination of five to six storey homes and blocks of flats. This approach can also increase the value of the land, attracting more private investment which, over 10 years, could lead to several hundred thousand new homes in London. Later this year, the comprehensive study will consider the best way to get started, while fully involving local communities in the design and planning process, and identify the barriers that may need to be overcome.
Remembering our brave heroes
An entire generation of men fought for Britain’s freedom in the first world war. For hundreds of those men their bravery was of such an exceptional nature they were bestowed with the highest military award, the Victoria Cross. As these men were honoured then for their extreme bravery on the battlefields, they should be honoured still.
On 24 April, I announced over £100,000 to the Victoria Cross Trust for a project to ensure that the gravestones and final resting places of our brave solders are venerated memorials where communities can pay their respects and learn about their local heroes.
The project aims to restore all the graves in need of repair. Headstones will be cleaned or replaced so that the final resting place of those who received the highest military award for valour are a truly fitting tribute to their sacrifice. The campaign is being supported by The Sun newspaper and in addition to the £100,000 being provided by the Department, we will also match any money raised by readers’ donations up to a maximum of £200,000.
Last year my Department announced a national campaign of commemorative paving stones to be laid in the place of birth of first world war Victoria Cross recipients across the country so that communities will have a permanent memorial of their local heroes.
Learning the lessons from genocide
We have a tradition in the UK of remembrance. While we are quite rightly marking the centenary this year of the start of the first world war, we should also commemorate and remember acts of genocide in more recent times.
The Srebrenica genocide on 1995 was the worst attack on citizens suffered anywhere in Europe since 1945. On 11 April, the Government announced it will fund 750 young Britons to travel to Bosnia and Herzegovina to learn lessons from the 1990s Bosnian war and, on their return to the United Kingdom, pledge an action towards rejecting hatred and intolerance at home. On 12 April, I also addressed Kwibuka20, an event in Birmingham remembering the Rwanda genocide of 1994.
Genocide requires constant vigilance; it requires prompt action at the first sign of hatred. Sparks of intolerance can only exist at the will of our own complacency.
Celebrating England's local tradition and identities
On 24 April, my Department announced that the proud history, unique culture, and distinctive language of Cornwall will be fully recognised under European rules for the protection of national minorities. The decision to acknowledge the unique identity of the Cornish now affords them the same status under the European Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities as the UK’s other Celtic people, the Scots, the Welsh and the Irish. For the first time the Government have recognised the distinctive culture and history of the Cornish, building on the existing recognition given to the Cornish language.
England’s traditional counties date back over a thousand years of English history, but many of the counties have been sidelined by Whitehall and municipal bureaucrats in recent decades, including the municipal restructuring by Edward Heath’s Government in 1972. By contrast, this Government are championing local communities continuing to cherish and celebrate such traditional ties and community spirit.
To mark St George’s day, on 23 April, my Department announced a new initiative to support the “tapestry” of traditional English counties, including getting rid of a Whitehall ban on the names of traditional counties being displayed on street and road signs. We have also published a new online interactive map of England’s county boundaries.
Planning guidance has been changed to allow for councils to put up boundary signs marking traditional English counties—for example, the likes of Cumberland, Huntingdonshire, Westmorland and Middlesex. In addition, the Government are shortly to propose changes to highways regulations to allow traditional county names to appear on boundary road signs. The current rules prevent unitary councils like Blackpool from having a road sign saying “Lancashire”, or Poole saying “Dorset”—since they confusingly are not considered to be part of an “administrative county”.
No council is being forced to make any change or put up unnecessary street clutter, but the intention is to free councils from Whitehall red tape, support local tourism and to cherish local ties and traditions. Local communities will be able to lobby their councils for the restoration of traditional boundary signs, including campaigns by public subscription.
This is part of a series of steps to champion England’s national identities; the Government have previously changed Whitehall rules to allow local and county flags to be flown without planning permission, and supported the Flag Institute in encouraging a new wave of county and community flags to be designed and flown by local communities.
I am placing in the Library copies of the press notices and documents associated with these announcements.
D-Day 70th Anniversary Commemorations (UK/France)
(10 years, 7 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Anna Soubry)
My noble Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Defence, Lord Astor of Hever, has made the following written ministerial statement:
On 6 June this year the United Kingdom, along with its friends and allies, will commemorate the 70th anniversary of the D-Day landings—the largest amphibious landing the world has ever seen. The landings, which were crucial to the allied victory in Europe in 1945, will be commemorated on both sides of the English channel.
This year is especially important, as it is the final one which the Normandy Veterans Association will officially mark. Later this year, they plan officially to disband, and lay up their national standards at a service at St Margaret’s church, Westminster.
The Ministry of Defence is working closely with a range of stakeholders including the Normandy Veteran’s Association, the Royal British Legion, the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, Portsmouth city council and the French authorities in order to ensure that all commemorative events are a success.
Commemorations in the UK
In Britain, it is fitting that Portsmouth, which was one of the key strategic locations along the south coast and from which tens of thousands of allied servicemen left for Normandy, will be the main focus of commemorative activities. Portsmouth city council is organising an impressive line-up of events and activities, with the focus being on the 5 June. I would urge any veterans who are unable for any reason to travel to Normandy to consider joining the commemorations in Portsmouth.
Commemorations in France
In France, there will be three main events on 6 June. These are:
An international ceremony, organised by the French Government, on Sword beach. Heads of State will attend this event. A number of veterans will be invited to attend this event.
A United Kingdom/France service of remembrance at Bayeux cathedral, followed by a special event at Bayeux Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemetery.
A service organised by the local community and the Normandy Veterans Association at Arromanches.
UK military personnel from all three services will provide logistic and ceremonial support at these events. This work is being co-ordinated and led by the Army’s force troops command. Other events taking place in the Normandy region include ceremonies on 5 June to mark the liberation of Ranville by the British 13 Parachute Battalion—the first village to be liberated on D-Day. Members of 16 Air Assault Brigade will mount a mass parachute drop.
Travel to Normandy for the commemorations
As announced last year, veterans wishing to return to Normandy in June have been able to apply for financial support from the Big Lottery Fund, which has extended its Heroes Return 2 scheme until December 2015. The scheme helps second world war veterans and their spouses, widows and widowers, and accompanying helpers, to undertake commemorative visits.
Access to the commemorations in France
Given the scope of the commemorations, the security required by the presence of many VIPs, and the close nature of much of the countryside, the French authorities have decided to impose an anti-congestion zone in the Normandy area around the D-Day 70 commemorations from 0600 to 1900 on Friday 6 June. Access to this zone will be controlled by means of passes, issued by the French authorities. The Ministry of Defence is working in co-operation with the Royal British Legion, Normandy Veterans Association, regimental associations and others to register details of all veterans and those accompanying them in order that we can ensure that passes are available which will enable our veterans, and those accompanying them, to get to where they need to. This does not include members of the general public wishing to gain access to the area, who will have to apply direct to the French authorities.
Last-minute accreditation and travel
I would ask parliamentarians to do all they can to assist veterans who may come to them between now and June to seek assistance regarding accreditation or travel, firstly by looking at the website below: https://www.gov.uk/government/topical-events/d-day-70 and then by contacting the Ministry of Defence at: PersTrg-DSSec-CECTMailbox@mod.uk or by telephone on: 0207 218 1431/ 0207 218 7917.
While the Royal British Legion, Normandy Veterans Association and the Ministry of Defence will do all they can to ensure that all veterans are able to attend these important commemorations, please also note that receiving funding from the Big Lottery Fund to travel to Normandy does not automatically guarantee accreditation —this must be applied for separately. I would urge applications to be made as soon as possible to avoid any disappointment.
Single Family Court
(10 years, 7 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Simon Hughes)
A new single family court for England and Wales came into being on 22 April 2014, when section 17(3) of the Crime and Courts Act 2013 came into force. The new court deals with all family proceedings, except for a limited number of matters which are reserved to the High Court, and it is able to sit anywhere in England and Wales. It replaces the three-tier court system which had previously existed. The new structure is expected to be more efficient and flexible, simpler for court users to understand and to promote increased judicial continuity in managing cases.
Section 9 (contact post-adoption) and many of the family justice provisions in part 2 of the Children and Families Act 2014 were also brought into force on 22 April. This includes a new requirement for a person who wishes to start certain types of family proceedings to first attend a family mediation information and assessment meeting; a new child arrangements order, replacing residence and contact orders; restrictions on the use of expert evidence in children proceedings; the introduction of a 26-week time limit for completing care and supervision cases; changes to focus the court’s scrutiny of local authority care plans on the long-term plan for the child; and measures to streamline court processes for divorce and dissolution of a civil partnership.
Section 11 of the Act (parental involvement) will come into force in autumn 2014. Section 18 will come into force two months after Royal Assent (which was on 13 March).
Civil Courts (Reforms)
(10 years, 7 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Shailesh Vara)
On 22 April, following parliamentary approval, the Government brought into force a number of important reforms to improve the administration of civil justice and to provide a more efficient use of judicial resources.
The reforms implement a series of proposals supported by respondents to the Ministry of Justice’s “Solving Disputes in the County Courts” consultation paper published in 2011. Those proposals themselves originated in recommendations made by the retired Lord Justice of Appeal, Sir Henry Brooke, in his 2008 report “Should the Civil Courts be Unified?”.
The changes will contribute to the Government’s commitments on efficiency and public service reforms. They:
a. Establish a single county court for England and Wales;
b. Abolish the need for the Lord Chancellor’s agreement to High Court judges sitting in the county courts;
c. Increase the financial limit of the equity jurisdiction of the county court from £30,000 to £350,000;
d. Increase the financial limit below which cases may not be commenced in the High Court from £25,000 to £100,000 (with the exception of personal injury claims);
e. Extend the current powers of the county court to make freezing orders and
f. Remove certain types of specialist proceedings from the jurisdiction of the county courts.
Taken together, this package of reforms will ensure that cases are issued and tried at the most appropriate level of court; simplify the task and cost of allocating cases before a judge and transferring cases between courts; streamline procedures for judicial deployment to the county court; and ease work pressures on the High Court to enable it to focus on complex cases that truly require its expertise.
Abellio Greater Anglia Franchise
(10 years, 7 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Transport (Mr Patrick McLoughlin)
During recess my officials concluded negotiations with Abellio Greater Anglia on a new directly awarded franchise, which will see the company continue to provide passenger rail services for 27 months. This will secure continuity of service until the new competed franchise, expected to start in October 2016, is let.
The agreement secures tangible benefits for passengers, including a refresh of the Mark III rolling stock fleet that will see the installation of power sockets, new carpets, new seat covers and better lighting. The new agreement also requires Abellio Greater Anglia to install controlled emission toilets on to their train fleet, which will significantly reduce the amount of waste dropped onto the tracks on the network.
New service improvements secured as part of the franchise agreement will double the current levels of off-peak services between Cambridge and Stansted airport (between 09.00 and 16.00) on Mondays to Fridays and provide a significant number of additional Sunday services on some of the branch lines operated by Abellio Greater Anglia.
This direct award lays the groundwork for the competed franchise to continue the improvements made to rail services in the region. It will also allow the findings and recommendations of the Norwich in 90 taskforce to be considered when the next franchise specification is developed.
This new contract continues my Department’s successful franchising programme in line with the schedule I set out in March 2013 and recently. The Government will continue to work in partnership with the private sector to deliver benefits for the industry, passengers and taxpayers.
Intercity Express Programme
(10 years, 7 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Transport (Mr Patrick McLoughlin)
On 24 July 2012, at the same time that the Great Western intercity express programme (IEP) fleet was financed, commercial close was reached for the east coast fleet of IEP trains. On 18 July 2013, I informed the House of my decision to exercise a pre-priced option within those contracts to extend the IEP train order for the east coast main line by 270 further class 800/801 vehicles, in addition to the existing order for 227 vehicles. The process to reach financial close for the whole fleet and to reach commercial close for the extended fleet has now finished, and I wish to inform the House of the results.
I am pleased to announce that the east coast IEP contract has been financed by Agility Trains East. Agility Trains will design, build, maintain and service the rolling stock and maintenance facilities for 497 new vehicles over the 27.5-year contract term. The value of the contract is £2.7 billion. I would like to thank Agility and its constituent entities, Hitachi and John Lang, for their support.
The IEP will see state-of-the-art new trains brought into operation on the east coast main line in 2018 following their introduction on the Great Western main line in 2017. These faster, higher-capacity and more environmentally sustainable trains will improve passenger experience and comfort, and will provide 28% more seats into Kings Cross at peak times, while delivering more reliable and efficient services. The trains will be operated by the winner of the intercity east coast competition that is currently live.
Agility Trains has financed the fleet, but the Government are investing £330 million on the east coast main line, to ensure that the trains will be able to reach all of the destinations served by the current fleet.
Overall the Government are investing £38 billion to transform the rail network over the next five years—a record amount of funding that will generate growth, create jobs and boost business. The intercity express programme is a vital part of that transformation with the trains being assembled in Newton Aycliffe, creating 730 jobs and securing more in the supply chain.
The Government are committed to using investment in transport as an engine for growth. This deal will benefit passengers and communities both along the east coast main line and in other parts of the country.
Scotland Analysis (Work and Pensions)
(10 years, 7 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mr Iain Duncan Smith)
I laid before the House on 23 April 2014 the latest paper in the Government’s Scotland analysis programme, “Scotland analysis: Work and Pensions”. This series of publications is designed to inform the debate on Scotland’s future within the United Kingdom ahead of this year’s referendum.
The paper sets out why a UK-wide social security system and labour market works well for Scotland. It considers how the UK’s broad tax base ensures Scotland benefits from secure and stable funding and how by pooling resources, variations in demand for social security support in one part of the UK can be absorbed without varying the levels of funding received by individuals. It sets out how by remaining in the UK both the higher levels of social security expenditure in Scotland and future costs pressures from an ageing population are more affordable.
In the future the number of pensioners is predicted to increase, and cost pressures will increase accordingly. The paper highlights that an independent Scottish state would face a more acute challenge than the UK as a whole, both from demographic change, and its ability to absorb the impacts from a narrower tax base. The paper finds that an independent Scottish state could face additional social security costs rising to around £1.55 billion per year over the next 20 years (in today’s terms) as a result of demographic changes and policy commitments by the current Scottish Government. This would result in a total increased cost of around £450 per working-age person per year in Scotland over the next 20 years, than if spending per working-age person was at average UK levels.
The paper also sets out how an independent Scottish state would also face costs and complexity from unpicking the UK’s integrated social security infrastructure. It explains there would be costs in developing and setting up new systems while running costs could increase as economies of scale are lost. The UK Government would do nothing to put at risk the continuity of payments to their own citizens and would not be prepared to incur significant costs to change IT systems to cater for a different approach in Scotland. The paper also finds that if Scotland does not use sterling as its currency, it would not be possible to share a benefit system even for a transitional period.
The paper concludes that Scotland’s citizens and employers benefit from being part of the UK and the UK benefits from having Scotland as part of it.