High Speed 2

Debate between Baroness Vere of Norbiton and Lord Framlingham

Tuesday 19th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

Of course, a vast amount of analysis on HS2, and indeed on all infrastructure projects, goes on all the time. There are many elements in attracting investment to northern cities, or indeed to cities anywhere. Schemes such as the city region sustainable transport settlements put billions of pounds into Manchester, which the mayor can spend on local transport schemes. There is the opportunity for local partnerships to improve local train services as well. That is a key part of GBR. I can reassure the noble Baroness that the GBR transition team still exists and is doing the work; GBR is making very good progress indeed. Obviously, I cannot second guess what will be in the King’s Speech, but there is a lot of work going on in GBR and many reforms are being put in place. I hope that the noble Baroness is content with that.

[Lord Framlingham (Con)]

My Lords, the Minister knows very well my views on this worthless, scandalous, vanity project—which I think most of the country now share. In January 2017, I put to this House the opportunity to stop it, but we decided to go ahead. Reliable sources now say that it will cost £150 billion. Is it not the case that, even if we have spent £5 billion, £10 billion or £20 billion so far, sensible accountants always say you do not pour good money after bad? Surely now is the time to put right what we have got wrong, save the money and spend it on areas of the country which badly need their railway networks improved.

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I am aware of my noble friend’s position on HS2. It demonstrates that there is a wide range of views. As I said earlier, the Government will update the House as part of their regular six-monthly reports on HS2.

HS2: Speed Restrictions

Debate between Baroness Vere of Norbiton and Lord Framlingham

Wednesday 13th July 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

Of course, HS2 is well aware of what has happened underneath the Cheshire Basin, and I noted in my previous Answer that groundworks have been undertaken. I am pleased to reassure the noble Lord that that is not the end of it. Plenty more work still needs to be done. A full programme of ground investigations across the entire route will happen between 2023 and late 2025. HS2 is confident that the line can be built on this route at an appropriate cost.

[Lord Framlingham (Con)]

My Lords, what has this ridiculous project cost to date? Is its construction continuing on time and on budget? Have they yet found a way of getting in and out of Euston station?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

A further update on the HS2 project will be laid before your Lordships’ House in October.

Rail Infrastructure: North of England

Debate between Baroness Vere of Norbiton and Lord Framlingham

Thursday 18th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

As the noble Lord will see when he gets to read the documents that are being published today, a huge number of projects are being brought together, and so many of those are around Leeds. It is the case that the core part of Northern Powerhouse Rail will be constructed, and that will provide those fast links through to Manchester. It is the case that there will be significant upgrades to the east coast main line and, of course, there will be electrification of the Midlands main line. Combining that with the construction of a mass transit system, I think, somehow, that Leeds is going to be all right.

[Lord Framlingham (Con)]

My Lords, I look forward to reading today’s document, and I hope it is good news for the north and the Midlands. I appreciate that I am a lone voice on this matter but, given that HS2 has been the disaster that everybody thought it would be, is doing huge damage to the environment, is going to bring little benefit to anybody and is costing now, or is supposed to cost, £150 billion and counting, could the Government not consider—if they cannot scrap it, which I think they should, even though it has cost money already—pruning it back seriously as quickly as possible and using the money saved and the expertise gained to look after railways in the West Midlands and the north of England?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I suppose we are doing a small amount of what would make my noble friend happy. We have looked at the different options. I would be the first person to stand there and warmly welcome a brand-new, big, expensive, shiny rail system— I love them. However, sometimes they take many decades to build, and they can be very expensive, and sometimes they just fly by various communities. What we have done is look at the amount of money that we have, the options that we have and the opportunities that we have to join up many more of the communities that were being missed out by previous plans. I am sure when we come back to discuss the integrated rail plan, we can go into that in more detail.

HS2: Phase 2B

Debate between Baroness Vere of Norbiton and Lord Framlingham

Monday 8th February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I am not sure precisely what commitment the noble Lord would like me to give, but the Prime Minister recently spoke about

“the power of great infrastructure projects to deliver jobs, which is why we are getting on with both the eastern leg of HS2 and Northern Powerhouse Rail.”—[Official Report, Commons, 9/12/21; col. 839.]

[Lord Framlingham (Con) [V]]

My Lords, on 31 January 2017, I tabled an amendment to the HS2 Bill which would have stopped this ridiculous vanity project in its tracks. I lost, but 26 Members of your Lordships’ House who really understood HS2 supported me. A petition demanding a Commons debate on its continuation has so far received approximately 150,000 signatures and will have to be granted. Rather than tinkering with the existing scheme, I urge the Minister to scrap it, and to urgently and carefully look at all the available proposals to spend money on worthwhile railway schemes across every region in the country. This would be of great benefit to passengers and commuters nationwide, do less harm to the environment and people’s lives, utilise all the expertise acquired by HS2, and, in the light of the effect of the Covid pandemic, which has changed working practices forever, allow us to extricate ourselves from a doomed project which cannot possibly succeed.

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

My Lords, the Government will not be scrapping HS2.

High Speed Rail (West Midlands-Crewe) Bill

Debate between Baroness Vere of Norbiton and Lord Framlingham

Committee stage & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 9th November 2020 Grand Committee

[Lord Framlingham (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I hope that your Lordships can now hear me. I speak in support of Amendments 4 and 9, proposed by the noble Lords, Lord Berkeley and Lord Tunnicliffe. I particularly thank the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, for his tenacity and detailed, professional questioning of what I call a farcical project—HS2.

I am afraid I must remind the Committee that had my amendment to the HS2 Bill, which I proposed on 31 January 2017, been passed, HS2 would now be history. Unbelievable amounts of money would have been saved and much anguish and environmental damage would have been prevented. I had just 26 supporters on that day in your Lordships’ House, but two of them were uniquely placed to understand the project. The noble Lords, Lord Burns and Lord Macpherson, had been Permanent Secretaries to the Treasury; one under Gordon Brown and the other in the time of David Cameron and George Osborne. They were both so convinced that HS2 was a mistake that they voted to stop it, even at that stage.

It has often been said that HS2 is a vanity project, and that is true. It was conceived in what can be described only as a fit of misplaced enthusiasm, costed on the back of an envelope and somehow pushed through government, where, just like the emperor’s new clothes, no one seemed able or prepared to ask the most fundamental questions about its feasibility. From the beginning, Ministers have stubbornly refused to listen to any suggestions of shortcomings, whether about speed, capacity, environment, construction or cost. Money is no object. HS2’s chief executive Mark Thurston has said:

“I’m not worried about overspending”.


When asked on the radio what the Government were prepared to spend on it, the then Transport Minister, Chris Grayling, replied “Whatever it takes.” If it takes £100 billion, we could rebuild every hospital in the country for that kind of money. This ministerial refusal to listen is what is frustrating so many railway professionals and interested organisations. It is, quite frankly, ridiculous that Government Ministers are not treating with more respect the views of those eminently qualified to contribute to the issue.

When HS2 was first conceived, a large body of professional railway engineers wrote to the Minister offering to come and see him to share their concerns. He refused even to see them. The advice of people such as Michael Byng, a recognised expert in the field, is ignored and the Woodland Trust, the custodian of our ancient woodlands, finds it impossible to obtain the information it needs. I recently received a communication from an organisation that had given evidence to our House of Lords Select Committee. It said:

“Unfortunately, we do not consider that we have received a fair hearing and feel that the hybrid Bill process is not an appropriate method for making independent and valued engineering, environmental and economic judgments about something so important as the HS2 project. It is also deeply frustrating that HS2 Ltd’s case and the evidence of its witnesses, however technically weak, is automatically accepted as unchallengeable, as if it was the gospel.”


Even as we speak, I understand that HS2 is carrying out work at Euston station which may never be needed. It is a shambles. I am delighted to support the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, which would bring a degree of accountability and sanity to this chaotic project, but I will not hold my breath.

I am also very happy to support Amendment 9 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe. I am very grateful to the Woodland Trust for its very helpful briefing. It is quite intolerable that an organisation such as the Woodland Trust, custodian of our ancient woodlands, should find it so difficult to obtain information about what is happening to them. Our ancient woodlands are truly irreplaceable. Their soil structure, undisturbed for centuries, cannot possibly be recreated. The idea that they can be moved to other sites is laughable. No amount of tree planting can possibly compensate for the loss of our ancient trees. I have tabled Questions to try to discover the extent of the damage to date. I have been presented with the blandest Answers.

The amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, would ensure that HS2 has to account for the damage it does, with facts and figures, which at the moment are so hard to come by. When, in this environmentally sensitive world, it is doing so much harm to the countryside, the very least it should be expected to do is regularly report on its actions and their consequences.

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I thank my noble friend for his comments. I believe I covered all the issues he raised in my earlier remarks. I have nothing further.

High Speed Rail (West Midlands–Crewe) Bill

Debate between Baroness Vere of Norbiton and Lord Framlingham

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 9th September 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

That may well be the case, but we are now talking about hypotheticals, so I suggest that we wait until the review has finished and look at its conclusions in the context of the report from Allan Cook. The Government will make a decision at that time.

I turn to the comment of the noble Lord, Lord Birt, about why we do not have a long-term railway strategy. That is exactly what we are doing at the moment with the Williams rail review, which is looking at the status of the rail network and the service operators to see whether and how we can improve the system for the future.

I turn to some of the more specific points raised by noble Lords. There was a bit of discussion around investment in the north and how important it is; that was brought up by the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, and the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson. It is of course absolutely critical, as the Government recognise. Northern Powerhouse Rail could be transformative for the north, but probably not in isolation. It needs to be part of a larger project, which is why the Government are supporting Transport for the North to develop the options for Northern Powerhouse Rail. We committed £60 million at the spending review in 2015 and £37 million in 2018, which is on top of the £300 million we have committed to make sure that HS2 infrastructure accommodates a future Northern Powerhouse Rail and Midlands services. Therefore it is part of a bigger project, and other developments are certainly being included.

On the Oakervee review and accountability, I have already mentioned that costs, timescales and benefits will all be tied up in the review. The noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, spoke about accountability and HS2. I refer him to a comment made by my colleague the Transport Secretary, who was very clear that he wanted us to be as transparent as possible. That includes on costs and schedule, which is why we published the Cook report. The noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, raised that as well. Therefore, there will be more transparency and accountability. We are not minded to introduce quarterly reporting on HS2 at the moment, as it already provides reports to Parliament, as required by the framework document, and we believe that that level is proportionate and sufficient. Of course, noble Lords may request debates on HS2 at any time.

The noble Lord, Lord Adonis, claimed that it was a bit left hand/right hand, given my opening remarks and the fact that we are having a review. However, I do not see it like that. The process for HS2 is positive, and the review we are having is a sensible reconsideration of the facts. A sensible reconsideration should never be confused for a lack of support.

A number of noble Lords mentioned whether work should continue during the Oakervee review. Certainly, the Prime Minister was very clear that the fact that we are having a review should not unnecessarily delay the progress of HS2. That would be wrong, and it would mean that costs would rise. That is why limited enabling works are being undertaken by HS2, and why your Lordships are being asked to consider phase—

[Lord Framlingham]

Will the Minister at least acknowledge that the felling of trees and the damaging of ancient woodland when the matter is still under discussion would be a serious thing to do?

HS2: Cost

Debate between Baroness Vere of Norbiton and Lord Framlingham

Wednesday 24th July 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

My Lords, the new chairman of HS2 has been in place for just over six months. He is undertaking a review of the costs and providing ongoing advice to government. This advice is not news; it is ongoing. We are working with him as he looks at all his supply chains to encourage him to ensure that the costs are appropriate. Various cost control actions are being undertaken at the moment regarding value engineering and challenging standards, and it is only right that they be given the opportunity to succeed. They also involve optimising commercial models with partnerships and challenging the requirements of the system.

[Lord Framlingham (Con)]

Given the general awareness now of the scandalous nature of this £100 billion vanity project, may I urge the Minister to, in turn, urge the new Prime Minister and the Secretary of State—whoever that may be—to scrap this scheme and spend the money saved on sensible railway projects, particularly in the north of England?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

My Lords, HS2 has benefits of £92 billion overall; it would be a mistake to scrap it. Also, if that money were suddenly to become available, it would not necessarily be immediately transferrable to the north. My noble friend may be referring to northern powerhouse rail, which is a very important railway project, but it is not an either/or situation. We can have HS2 and we can have northern powerhouse rail; indeed, for both of them to work, they both need to be built.