High Speed Rail (West Midlands–Crewe) Bill

Earl of Glasgow Excerpts

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

[The Earl of Glasgow (LD)]

My Lords, I will make a very short speech, because most of the points I wanted to make have already been made in a much better way than I would make them, particularly by the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, and my noble friends Lord Bradshaw and Lord Teverson. I wanted to take part in this debate because I was very nervous that the escalating cost of HS2 might provide an excuse for this Government to abandon the project altogether. There was much talk of this, or of at least postponing its construction. They are also giving hope to those who have been opposed to HS2 from the start, and we have one Peer who represents that view.

It seems that all recent engineering projects, Crossrail being the most obvious example, end up costing excessively more than was down in the original budget. I can never understand why the original planners do not include sufficient contingency for the unexpected, which by now should be classed as the “more than expected”. Going vastly over budget might well mean that heads should roll but it should not be a reason for abandoning HS2 altogether, particularly as about a quarter of that budget has already been spent. I believe that detractors of the HS2 project do not fully understand its importance or its value to the country’s infrastructure. Some even regard it as no more than a vanity project. They cannot justify its cost if it does no more than get people from Manchester to London in half the time.

I wish it had not been called “high-speed rail”, because its faster speed is not the main reason why we need it. The main reason is that it will be a brand-new railway line and, apart from HS1, the first major railway line since the 19th century. It will relieve much of the pressure on the spaghetti of existing railway lines, in the Midlands and the north in particular, and it enables them to provide more necessary capacity. So, when detractors say that money should be better spent improving those 100-year-old lines, the existence of HS2 will be a major factor in achieving just that.

There are so many other advantages too, many of which have already been pointed out. It brings London and the cities of the north closer together. It is a great boost to our engineering industries, as has already been pointed out by many. For instance, railwaymen and engineers who have been working on Crossrail can now look forward to continual employment. The arguments that say it will ruin our countryside are complete nonsense. For a short period of time earthworks and earth-moving machines may be unsightly, but how many beauty spots in Britain today are any less beautiful for having a railway line running through them? Some would say the railway line enhances the place.

The most important advantage in the medium and long term, which was well expressed by my noble friend Lord Bradshaw, is that all innovations and improvements of our railways—and HS2 is the major one—will make lorry and car traffic less essential and, I would like to think, internal flights within Britain unnecessary. Global warming is a serious threat and we are only just beginning to take the issue more seriously.

I know that many in the Minister’s party are very against HS2, and I would like to be assured that there is no way that the Government are going to turn back on this. It must go ahead, as I think most of the speakers have already said today.

High Speed Rail (London-West Midlands) Bill

Earl of Glasgow Excerpts

Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 24th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Glasgow (LD)]

My Lords, I support the amendment of my noble friend Lord Bradshaw and the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley. This seems an eminently sensible suggestion. At the moment, people are trying to make out that this is an attempt to delay HS2; that is the last thing that I would like to do. The amendment would in fact allow it to go ahead. They are talking about a temporary terminal there, for possibly five years or maybe even less.

There are three very good reasons why this is a sensible idea. The first is that we have not yet decided how the route of HS2 will go from Old Oak Common into Euston. There are two or three different routes and I do not think we should be delayed any further on that. That can carry on after the Bill has already gone through. The second thing is what the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, said. This is a way of cutting costs, if necessary. The five miles between Old Oak Common and Euston are almost certainly the most expensive five miles of the entire route. Therefore, if we can delay the building of that but still continue with the Bill and get the rest of HS2 on the move, so much the better.

The third reason that this is a good idea is that we will have to make a decision about something that is not part of the Bill at the moment. Some time in the future we will have to join HS2 to HS3. One way would be through Old Oak Common, where it can join the present HS1. It is going to be very difficult to make that join somewhere in Euston or St Pancras station. So the amendment is eminently sensible. It has nothing to do with delaying anything: it is very much the opposite. It makes it possible to start the building of HS2 almost immediately.

[Lord Snape]

Has the noble Earl read the amendments that he has just spoken to? Amendment 1 states:

“Construction work otherwise authorised by this Act may not begin until”.


That is, the works at Old Oak Common. Amendment 6, in the name of my noble friend Lord Berkeley, states:

“Cost estimate … The nominated undertaker must not commence any Phase One construction work until the Secretary of State has published”,


and so on. It goes on to talk about a review of the finances. That is not a couple of weeks’ delay; it is years. For the noble Earl to suggest anything different indicates to me that he has not actually read the amendments he supports.

[The Earl of Glasgow]

There is a huge amount of work to be done in building HS2 and we should be able to get on with that. If what the noble Lord is saying is correct, I may have misunderstood.

[Baroness Buscombe (Con)]

I intervene to remind noble Lords that this is Report. The rules of debate state:

“On report no member may speak more than once to an amendment, except the mover of the amendment in reply or a member who has obtained leave of the House”.

High Speed 2

Earl of Glasgow Excerpts

Thursday 24th October 2013 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Glasgow (LD)]

My Lords, I have long been an enthusiast for high-speed rail and therefore I will be reinforcing some of the arguments that other enthusiasts of this House have already made. I am concerned that the growing opposition to it, some of which we have seen here, from a number of powerful pressure groups and some prominent politicians on both sides of the House may cause the Government to lose their nerve and fall back on a compromise.

The truth is that HS2 has been sold to the public very poorly. To begin with, much too much emphasis has been put on the high-speed element of the project. The faster speeds are one, but one of the less important, of the advantages of HS2. Why, ask our opponents, are we spending so much money merely to take 20 minutes off a journey time from Birmingham to London? Besides, they say, we need that extra time to work on the train. We then get into this argument about what people actually do on trains: work, read, look out of the window or go to sleep. Personally, whatever my original intention, I usually end up going to sleep.

However, the high-speed element only really becomes significant when the line gets as far north as Carlisle and Scotland. Regrettably, that will still be some considerable time in the future. What is significant is that we are planning to build a brand new railway line, the first major new line since Victorian times. The main reason it is needed is to relieve pressure on the existing network and to increase capacity. Our opponents ask how we can justify spending so much money on a brand new railway line. As many noble Lords have asked today, would it not be better spent on upgrading the existing network? However, this is not an either/or situation. The Government promise to spend money on upgrading the existing network at the same time. It is all part of the same process, the same overall plan.

The Government need to get across to the doubters and waverers that rail is the only practical, and potentially civilised, mode of transport in Britain for distances of more than 100 miles. More and more people are travelling by train now, and with the anticipated rise in population, there could be 20% more passengers by 2025. The fact is that there has been precious little capital investment in the railways for more than 100 years. With the regrettable exception of Beeching’s ruthless scrapping of so many of our branch lines in the 1950s, as the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, mentioned, Britain’s railway network is much the same as it was in 1910. At certain times of day, in many parts of Britain, it is already inadequate to accommodate the existing number of passengers. One can only imagine what it will be like in 15 years’ time if nothing is done.

Now, at last, something is happening; something is being done. The Government, with Labour Party support, have recognised the future importance of rail and that in order to free up capacity on our existing railway lines we need to build a brand new one, linking London with major cities in the Midlands and the north. As we need a new line, it surely makes sense to build the most advanced and up-to-date model available, which has been tried and tested on the continent. That model is high-speed rail.

Therefore HS2 is not a one-off, speculative gamble out on its own, as some of our opponents seem to suggest. It is an integral part of a long-term plan to modernise our whole railway network. That is the message that the Government have to get across to the public and to some of their Tory sceptics. Of course, there will be people, like some of the citizens of Camden Town, whose lives and outlooks will be considerably disturbed and disrupted by the construction of high-speed rail. It is right and essential that they should be generously compensated. However, I believe that fears of long-term damage to our countryside and wildlife are greatly exaggerated. Within 10 years, the scars will have healed, and the disturbed woods and farmland will have been reshaped and relandscaped.

The advantages of high-speed rail greatly outnumber the disadvantages of temporary disruption. Although HS2 is not exactly squeaky clean environmentally, it is considerably less polluting than the hundreds of aircraft from Heathrow, Gatwick or Stansted which fly overhead and whose internal flights, I hope, will eventually be made redundant by high-speed rail. Britain’s major cities will feel much closer together and Britain in general will feel less dependent on London. Of course, the construction of the line will provide much-needed employment in times of austerity.

I need assurance from the Government and the Minister that they will not get cold feet over high-speed rail and will not be tempted to compromise through fear of rising costs. The cost seems almost irrelevant when compared with the value and importance of the whole enterprise. We need a modern and efficient railway network. It is no longer an option; it is an essential. This is the most important and far-sighted transport project for more than a century. By the time it is completed most of us here will be dead but it will provide a greatly enhanced quality of life for our grandchildren. That is what we should be considering. Surely, the Government can better get that message across.

Roads: Charging

Earl of Glasgow Excerpts

Tuesday 1st February 2011 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Glasgow]

My Lords, in the absence of proper road pricing, can the Minister tell me what steps the Government are going to take to try to alleviate congestion, particularly on motorways and trunk roads?

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, the objective of the lorry road user charging system is purely to create a level playing field for UK hauliers who are experiencing unfair competition from foreign hauliers using cheap fuel purchased on the continent. This equates to an advantage of about 12p per mile on a maximum-weight artic.