High Speed 2: Yorkshire

Debate between Ed Miliband and Andrew Bridgen

Monday 6th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Edward Miliband]

My right hon. Friend makes an important point, and I hope that the Minister will be open-minded. Although the Secretary of State has said that he is minded to go ahead with the M18 route, he has kept the Meadowhall option open.

I come now to the issue of cost. HS2 has been careful to say that the claimed £1 billion of savings is not the motivation for the route change, but I totally understand why the Minister and the Secretary of State would care about the cost. Unfortunately, it turns out that the claimed savings are simply illusory. This £1 billion of so-called savings excludes a whole number of costs. It excludes the electrification of the northern loop to Leeds, which will cost £300 million and which is essential for any link to Leeds, because it is not built into the plan. It excludes the cost of a parkway station, which HS2 is suggesting could cost somewhere between £200 million and £300 million; that is not in the plan. It excludes any re-engineering of Sheffield Midland; that is not in the plan. It excludes potential electrification of the Sheffield line; that is not in the plan. It excludes the optimism bias that the National Audit Office called the Government out on. My right hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint), in her role on the Public Accounts Committee, has been assiduous in looking at these issues. When we look at the so-called £1 billion of savings, we found that it disappeared. I ask the Minister to come back to me on that if he disagrees.

That is half the problem, but there is another half to the problem. The Government and HS2 have been talking about the capital costs of the project, but when we look at the fine print, we might wonder why they have not been talking about the operating costs. There is a very good reason why they have not done so. The operating costs of the M18 route—this comes from the Government’s own figures—are a staggering £1.7 billion higher than those of the Meadowhall route. Not only do the savings disappear, but the route turns out to be more expensive by £1 billion or more over the lifetime of the project. I hope that one thing that we can establish today is that the Minister and HS2 really should stop saying that the route saves money, because it does not. It does not save money when we look at the capital costs, and it certainly does not save money when we throw in the operating costs as well.

When I go through the arguments about the benefits to South Yorkshire and look at whether we believe this economic intervention will help South Yorkshire and do so properly—there are issues of connectivity, demand, local constraints and costs—I am afraid that I do not believe the M18 route adds up. Some people have said that the problems can be solved by having a parkway station on the M18 route—for example, in a village or town in the Dearne valley—but I do not believe that. An afterthought parkway station will provide a maximum of one or two trains an hour, not five. It would be likely to have all the same connection problems as the city centre option, and it raises the most profound infrastructure challenges.

[Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)]

HS2 adversely affects my constituency, and I have always voted against it. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree with me that HS2 is now so desperately over budget and so desperate to make savings that we have ended up with a railway that does not connect with HS1 or Heathrow, and goes from nearly London to nearly Birmingham? I am not surprised that it is not delivering what he expected for Doncaster.

[Edward Miliband]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. I understand that Governments will always want to look for savings, but I do not believe there will be any savings.

The final argument I want to address is consensus. The Minister and I have discussed the issue, and I know he is concerned about it. One explanation HS2 has offered is that there was no consensus for the Meadowhall route. That was true because Meadowhall was advocated by Doncaster, Barnsley and Rotherham, while Sheffield advocated the Victoria option. However, I really hope the Minister hears today that if there was no consensus for Meadowhall, there is far less support for the M18 route. I believe that this is now an idea without allies. It is not supported in Doncaster, Barnsley or Rotherham, and many people in Sheffield have growing doubts. Indeed, I think Sheffield has been sold a pup by HS2.

Last of all, I say to the Minister that the Secretary of State has said he is minded to adopt the M18 proposal, but has not closed the door on Meadowhall. Whatever the reasons for this bad recommendation, I want the Minister to listen to what he is hearing—the facts and the evidence—and not sell South Yorkshire down the river. I want HS2 to work for South Yorkshire, but the M18 route does not work. The answer, in my view, should be to return to the original Meadowhall route, by all means with better connections to the centre of Sheffield. If reason and rationality matter, the M18 route cannot go ahead; if making our country more equal matters, the M18 route should not go ahead; and if the views of the people of South Yorkshire matter, it cannot go ahead. I hope and trust that the Minister and his Secretary of State will listen and act when the time comes.