National Infrastructure

Earl Attlee Excerpts

Thursday 22nd January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, my first point concerns the cost arguments against HS2—and, for that matter, any other large infrastructure project. My recollection is that we are spending around £3 billion a year on Crossrail. About the time we stop spending large amounts on that, we will move on to the construction phases of HS2. Clearly we can afford these projects, as we are doing so now. Affordability is a red herring used by the opponents of HS2. To put this expenditure into perspective, we spend in the order of £100 billion each year on welfare. I say “spend”, because that is not investment: next year we will have to spend another £100 billion on welfare, if we want to remain a humane and compassionate society—which I suggest we do. The beauty of a railway infrastructure project is that we can enjoy a return for 100 years or more.

My second point concerns the scheduling and sequencing of these large infrastructure projects. The advantage of having an Infrastructure Minister within the Treasury is that there is a much better chance of ensuring that projects are properly sequenced, to avoid feast and famine, and perhaps of providing some predictability for the construction industry. For example, drilling down into the HS2 phase 1 project, I would imagine that in the construction phase all the bridges will be commenced at more or less the same time. Each construction site will require at least one large crane. If we were to build HS2 phases 1 and 2 concurrently rather than sequentially, we would massively increase the demand, and therefore the cost, of the construction equipment—but everyone would know that famine would follow. The same argument would apply to every other capability, including professionals, that we need for HS2 and other projects. It would be much better for my noble friend the Treasury Minister to do his best to ensure a steady flow of work and avoid the stop-go that the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, mentioned in his excellent introduction. We should therefore do phase 1 of HS2 followed by phase 2, and then I hope by HS3 in due course.

My last point is that we cannot undertake large infrastructure projects without very adversely affecting some of the population. Sadly, an infrastructure commission would not change that. Unhelpfully, those who are adversely affected often do not benefit directly once the project is in operation. There are many inside and outside your Lordships’ House who query the economics of HS2. I sympathise with those adversely affected, and respect the opposing views, but I firmly believe that such projects should be authorised at national level, in Parliament, at the earliest possible point. The paving Bill for HS2 has been approved by Parliament, and it would be very difficult to stop it now, because that would involve writing off hundreds of millions of pounds of public money in sunk costs.

My concern is about the use of judicial review to delay, derail or stop a project. Some of the recent cases involved the HS2 consultation procedure, and claims that the consultation was not done in precisely the right way. It was a case not of no consultation, but of exactly how consultation was done. I am pleased to say that most of those claims have been thrown out by the courts, although some minor technical points were upheld.