Queen's Speech

Earl of Glasgow Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd June 2010 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Glasgow]

My Lords, it is encouraging to learn from the gracious Speech that the Government are still committed to a high-speed rail network, although we all appreciate that the service is unlikely to be in operation before 2025. What is not clear, however, is the planned reach of this north-to-south high-speed line. It is sometimes reported that the Government plan to go no further than Manchester or Leeds, and sometimes in the first stage no further than Birmingham, but surely the real value of a high-speed rail service is to reduce the travelling time on long-distance journeys—by that, I mean distances of more than 200 miles.

From the outset, the line must be planned to go all the way to Scotland. The 20 minutes or so that will be saved on the 120-mile journey from London to Birmingham hardly justifies the huge capital expenditure. On the other hand, the two hours or more that will be cut from the journey time from London to Glasgow will make a huge difference. Perhaps more importantly for the future, it will greatly reduce the need for the large number of polluting internal flights that now go between England and Scotland, and may eventually make them redundant altogether.

We are told that the tipping point—a new buzzword for me—is approximately three hours. That means that on a journey that takes no more than three hours, the traveller is most likely to take the train. If a journey takes more than three hours by train, the traveller will choose to fly. That certainly matches my experience. If I could get to London from my home in Scotland in three hours, I would certainly take the train. Five hours is just too long, so I come here via Heathrow or London City Airport, thus contributing to our carbon emissions.

Surely the main purpose of high-speed rail in Britain is to cover the longer distances at a considerably increased speed. Improvements to the existing network should be able to satisfy the needs of the shorter-distance traveller. I therefore seek the Minister’s assurance that the Government are now planning a high-speed rail route all the way to Scotland and that this decision will not be left until after the Midlands or north of England route has been established. I would be grateful to know the Government’s policy on this.

Another reason for wanting assurance on this concerns the whole of the Scottish economy. A high-speed rail service to London and the continent that starts no further north than Manchester or Leeds will put Scotland at a considerable economic disadvantage in relation to the rest of the United Kingdom. The population of England will continue to grow, while the population of Scotland, so much further away from most of Britain’s financial and industrial centres, will continue to decline. It is quite reasonable to expect the Scottish Government to shoulder the financial burden of a line from Glasgow and Edinburgh to the border, but I would expect the Government to finance the line as far as Carlisle.

Clearly, no engineering work on any new high-speed rail network will start for a good few years. I hope that we do not have to wait until Crossrail has been fully completed before it can get started. But when the building starts, in a time when we all hope that the country will be in a much healthier financial position, the objective must be to build the complete line from the Scottish border to the Channel Tunnel, not just a part of it as a first stage.

Finally, I hope that the Government recognise something that many of us on all sides of the House have stressed for some time; namely, that Britain’s future transport policy must be based on the train—not just the high-speed rail link to Scotland but a greatly improved and expanded existing service. We cannot go on building more motorways, bypasses and dual carriageways. We cannot go on building more airports and runways, and those ghastly terminal buildings. We are meant to be a country which is concerned about the environment and committed to reducing carbon emissions. Apart from the train being the most environmentally friendly mode of transport for passengers and freight, it is potentially—I emphasise “potentially”, because it is not necessarily the case at the moment—the most civilised and stress-free form of travel.

The more roads we build, the more cars and trucks will materialise to fill them. If this Government could have the courage to resist the cries of anguish from the very vocal car lobby, they should seriously consider a four-year or five-year moratorium on road building. Clearly, essential road improvements and projects already started must be completed and road maintenance must continue. But the money saved on major roadworks could go to improving the efficiency, comfort, convenience and capacity of our railways.

The main objective should be to persuade some of those people who cannot move without their car to occasionally consider the train as an alternative and, within, say, 10 years or so to reduce road traffic by 10 per cent. If that were to be the case, it might not even be desirable to build any more roads. Of course, to achieve that aim, rail fares would have to be cheaper, which is an issue for a much longer debate. In the mean time, I should like to think that the Government are thinking something along those lines and I look forward to hearing more details about the coalition’s plans for transport.