Oral Answers to Questions

Kelvin Hopkins Excerpts

Thursday 12th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mike Penning]

It looks like I shall be very busy with meetings, but I am more than happy to meet my hon. Friend and his colleagues as we look for new road programmes for the future. He may not know that I was on the A64 to Scarborough on new year’s day and experienced some of the traffic problems on that day.

[Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)]

As the Minister’s constituency is near mine, he will know that we in the eastern region have terrible east-west road links. Is he carefully considering any serious schemes for improving those links?

[Mike Penning]

Yes, and we are looking very closely at one of the most significant road problems we have: the A14 link across the eastern corridor. We have limited available funds, but I am very pleased that the Chancellor announced an extra £1 billion in the autumn statement. I will be happy to work with the hon. Gentleman at any time to improve the transport links in our part of the world.

Rail Fares

Kelvin Hopkins Excerpts

Wednesday 11th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

No, I am going to make some more progress now.

I ask the hon. Member for Garston and Halewood, or perhaps the shadow Minister who winds up the debate, to come clean and talk about how their spending commitment would be funded. If the hon. Lady wants to go against what the shadow Chancellor is saying about there being no more spending, she must accept that her suggestion represents a spending commitment. It is time to talk about how she would fund it, otherwise she has to accept that it would lead to more debt at a time when we are right in the middle of a debt crisis. There is no point in the Leader of the Opposition promoting responsibility when his own party continues to show absolutely none.

The hon. Lady also has to admit that the flexibility that she wants to take away from train operating companies has meant some passengers benefiting from lower increases or decreases. For instance, passengers on the Birmingham to London route via High Wycombe have seen their annual season ticket price reduced by 7%, and the Gatwick to Bournemouth saver return has been reduced by 28%. She is proposing to raise the cost of those passengers’ travel. Presumably she is quite happy to confirm that—she can intervene if she wants.

The bottom line is that for all the bluster that we heard from the hon. Lady, she would abandon the long-term investment in capacity improvements that depends on continued funding from both the taxpayer and the fare payer. She talks about 11% fare increases, but the last Government also allowed such increases. It is worth reminding ourselves of their record on rail fares and value for money. The Labour-led Transport Committee in the last Parliament stated:

“Neither passengers nor tax payers are getting value for their money…The value for money of rail travel has deteriorated by most yardsticks over the past decade.”

I have listened carefully to the comments of the hon. Member for Garston and Halewood, and I hope that we both accept that the real driver of rising costs for fare payers and taxpayers is the inefficiency of the rail system that we inherited from the Opposition. She mentioned other European railways, and Sir Roy McNulty’s independent review of our railway network found that the system that we inherited from the previous Government is 40% less efficient than those of our best European comparators. Taxpayers and fare payers must shoulder that huge cost burden because of the previous Government’s failure to reform our railways.

Unless we are prepared to get to grips with the underlying causes of the inefficiencies, we will never make the progress that I am so passionate about achieving. That means getting different parts of the industry to work more effectively together, as we are doing through the rail delivery group, which has been set up, as Roy McNulty proposed. It means aligning incentives better and increasing transparency—I absolutely agree with that. However, it also means tackling some of the work-force issues, which, we must all accept, have driven up costs. When we reach those difficult discussions in the coming weeks, months and years to tackle rail industry costs that are too high, I hope that the Labour party will step up to the plate and join us in making the necessary decisions to bring rail costs down for the longer term and relieve the fare rise pressures that we have experienced year after year.

[Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State rightly draws attention to the difference in cost between continental railways and ours. The only major difference between them and us is that theirs are publicly owned and integrated and ours are privately owned and fragmented.

[Justine Greening]

That is an over-simplification. However, the hon. Gentleman is right to point out that Sir Roy McNulty identified in his report a need for the different parts of the rail industry to work together much better. Network Rail is already doing that with many of the train operating companies. That was to be a key way of driving costs down—not through worsening services but by running the system better in the first place.

High-speed Rail

Kelvin Hopkins Excerpts

Tuesday 10th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

We have already looked at the wider economic impact, but I will see whether it is possible to break it down by region. There is no doubt that the broad overall economic impact of HS2 will be substantial.

[Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)]

HS2 will not resolve the urgent need for additional rail freight capacity. To achieve significant modal shift for freight traffic we need a new route, built to UIC gauge C, enabling continental rail wagons and lorries on trains to be transported up and down Great Britain and to and from the continent. Will the Secretary of State look at the case for a dedicated rail freight route from the channel tunnel to Glasgow, for which a carefully designed scheme is already available?

[Justine Greening]

The hon. Gentleman is right to raise the critical issue of freight. I visited Felixstowe port earlier last year and talked to people there about the sorts of challenges they face and the investment that they feel is needed in the network, and I will continue to look at those opportunities. He emphasises the continued need for investment in the current conventional line while we get on with our proposals on high-speed rail.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kelvin Hopkins Excerpts

Thursday 10th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mike Penning]

I am aware of the problems that occur around the country, particularly as a former HGV driver myself, including the problems that foreign drivers have with their mirrors. That is something that we are considering with our European counterparts. However, we must realise that only 3.5% of the HGVs on British roads and 5.2% of those on our motorways are foreign. Although it is a big issue, the biggest issue is with HGV driving and the quality of driving as a whole, not just with overseas drivers.

[Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)]

There would be the possibility of taking up to 5 million lorry journeys off our roads every year, provided that there was the rail capacity to take those journeys. There is a scheme to promote a dedicated freight railway line from the channel tunnel to Glasgow, linking all the main conurbations throughout Britain. Under that scheme, full-scale lorries, double stack containers and so on would go on trains. I am happy to explain the scheme to the Minister if he would be interested.

[Mike Penning]

My door is always open to the hon. Gentleman, as he knows. The biggest issue with rail freight is capacity. The west coast main line in particular, which runs through his part of the world and my part of the world, is at capacity levels. That is why High Speed 2 is so important.

High Speed 2

Kelvin Hopkins Excerpts

Thursday 13th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)]

I am grateful to have an opportunity to speak in this debate and congratulate the hon. Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom) on introducing it. We have had debates on the subject before in Westminster Hall, and I shall have to make some of the points that I made in those debates again, because they are significant.

I am a passionate believer in railways and have been for decades. Even when railways were unfashionable, I believed that they were the transport mode of the future, and so they have proved to be. Indeed, there is absolutely no doubt that we will have more railways in future. I believe that we should invest heavily in railways and in additional routes, but I remain a sceptic about HS2. I applaud in particular the speeches by the hon. Member for Banbury (Tony Baldry)—who has just left the Chamber—and my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hall Green (Mr Godsiff), who made many important points that I will not necessarily repeat.

The scheme is expensive, but if it was worth while I would support that expense. It also has an opportunity cost: we should be doing things now, not in decades to come. As the hon. Member for South Northamptonshire said, even getting on a train to Milton Keynes is a problem now, let alone finding a seat, and the same is true elsewhere. We need heavy investment in all sorts of railway schemes, but not necessarily this one, which will come a long time in the future, not now. However, it will not be necessary even in the future. The point has been made about Britain being a densely populated country, and many towns that need to be served by high-speed trains would not be. My hon. Friend the Member for Coventry North West (Mr Robinson) is quite right that he would not benefit at all from HS2. Indeed, getting to and from the station is a much more significant problem for those living even on the outskirts of Birmingham than getting from Birmingham to London.

We need more capacity, but for that we need to upgrade existing routes. For example, there is no question but that the east coast main line needs to be upgraded; indeed, I had a long talk about that with the chief executive at our recent conference. However, all we need is an additional viaduct to quadruple the track at Welwyn, a passing loop at Peterborough and a crossover at Newark, and then we will have no problem at all with 140 mph trains running from London to Edinburgh. To build a high-speed line carrying no more than two or three trains a day that far would be nonsense. We have the capacity now, provided we upgrade the route a little.

[Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)]

I completely concur with the hon. Gentleman. The same train line goes through our constituencies. I also agree with my hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom) that we should be looking at many other areas in which to invest. We could move many more passengers around the country. The hon. Gentleman is making a perfect argument for looking at this matter again.

[Kelvin Hopkins]

I thank the hon. Lady for her support. We have neighbouring constituencies and share the rail route that runs through our towns.

In the end, the problem comes down to the west coast main line, which needs the signalling to be upgraded to the most modern standard, more train paths, and to get the freight off the line. Freight and passengers do not mix. Freight trains move more slowly, and they damage the track more than the lighter passenger trains, so we need to invest in a dedicated freight line running up the backbone of Britain, from the channel tunnel to Glasgow, linking all the major conurbations. I have supported that scheme for a long time, and it would take 5 million lorries a year off the roads, as well as removing all the freight traffic from the east and west coast main lines. The passenger routes need to be separated from the freight routes and upgraded to improve capacity. I believe that that is what we need, and that is why I am sceptical about the HS2 scheme.

That freight route could be built in four years for as little as £6 billion, and it would cause no environmental difficulty because it could use existing under-utilised routes and old track bed could be brought back into use. That, and a couple of tunnels, would make the whole thing work. I have made this case time and again in the Chamber over the past 14 years, and I have mentioned it to the Minister of State. I have presented a paper on it to the Transport Select Committee. I also know engineers who have worked on the scheme and worked the details out. It just needs to be done. Fifteen of us had a meeting with the Secretary of State for Transport in the previous Government to put our case for the scheme, but the Department was so hostile because a small section of our proposed route overlapped the route it wanted to use for HS2. Even if HS2 is built, the lines could be paralleled at that point. There would not be a problem.

We need a freight route that is capable of taking full-scale lorry trailers on trains. That could never be done on existing routes without incurring the prohibitive cost of raising all the tunnels and bridges throughout the network. We need a track that has the capacity to take double-stack containers. Most of our existing routes cannot even take standard 9 feet 6 inch containers. We also need a track that has the capacity to take continental trains, which currently cannot get through our platforms because they are too wide, the gauge is too big. We need to be able to accommodate trains travelling from, say, Rome to Birmingham carrying San Pellegrino water.

[Mark Lazarowicz]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful argument for a major extension of the rail network. Given that one of his reasons for opposing HS2 is its cost, will he give us an estimate of the cost of all the various improvements and new lines that he has just described?

[Kelvin Hopkins]

Some two or three years ago, we had lunch with some people from Bechtel, one of the train manufacturing companies. We were talking about a cost of £4 billion or £5 billion at that time. We talked about an outside figure of £6 billion, but the Bechtel representative looked at the scheme and said he could do it for £3 billion. That would be a fraction of the cost even of Crossrail, which I support. This is not about cost, however; it is about whether HS2 is necessary. I think that we could achieve the desired result by doing it differently. We could upgrade existing routes to serve all the intervening towns, and we could provide the necessary capacity by getting all the freight off those lines and on to a new freight route. I ask the Department for Transport to take our scheme seriously, because that is what we need for the future.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Mark Lazarowicz (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab/Co-op)]

I support the extension of high-speed rail north of London, not just because I believe that it is in the best interests of my constituency and of Scotland but because I believe that it will benefit the whole United Kingdom in economic, transport and environmental terms. It makes sense for many reasons, including the need to increase capacity, which other Members have mentioned. Incidentally, the idea that the only people who use long-distance trains are rich businessmen will come as something of a shock to those who regularly use east-coast and west-coast lines. The development will, in fact, benefit many people throughout the country.

The existing network needs to be modernised in various ways, but it is ridiculous to suggest that it is possible to solve the capacity problem throughout Britain simply by modernising and upgrading it. As I said in an intervention, trying to replicate high-speed lines on the routes of existing lines would lead to decades of disruption and economic disbenefits. It is cheaper to build new lines, and, as the hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) pointed out, if new lines are to be built anyway, they might as well be high-speed lines if possible.

I do not support high-speed rail just for the sake of it—just because I want trains to travel as fast as they can. I accept that, in some localities, lower speeds may be acceptable for environmental reasons on the wider network. The fact remains, however, that reducing travel time between parts of the United Kingdom will create a number of benefits. Moreover, extending the line not just to Birmingham, Manchester and other parts of what, to me, constitutes southern England, but further north to Edinburgh and Glasgow, will produce the maximum economic and environmental benefits. The longer the journeys involved, the greater the possibility that passengers will travel by rail rather than air, and the more will be saved through high-speed rail. It will be possible to make significant cuts in air travel from Scotland to London if journey times can be reduced to less than three hours, and the same applies to road travel between Scotland and the north of England.

[Kelvin Hopkins]

In 1992, having freed up the line, British Rail ran a test train from King’s Cross to Edinburgh at 140 mph, and did it in the same time as HS2 is proposing for its trains.

[Mark Lazarowicz]

I think that that makes my point about capacity. Obviously, the line could not operate like that every day, because a fair number of trains would be running at the same time.

Many of the business cases for the extension of the line to the midlands and the north of England do not take account of the economic benefits in business and tourist travel that would result if it were extended to Glasgow and Edinburgh. The increase in passengers would generate economic benefits, and the best business and economic case will be produced if there is agreement that the line should extend to Scotland, ensuring that we are not excluded from the system.

My only worry about the current proposal is that we in Scotland, and indeed those in the north of England, would be at risk if the line extended no further than Birmingham, Leeds or Manchester. Trains cannot start at every part of the country at the same time, but we certainly do not want them to arrive at Birmingham at 2026, at Manchester or Leeds at 2033, and then—if we are lucky—at Edinburgh or Glasgow at 2050. That would be extremely damaging to our relative economic prosperity in the UK.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kelvin Hopkins Excerpts

Thursday 15th September 2011 Commons Chamber

[Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)]

T9. In awarding the Thameslink contract, did the Secretary of State take into account Siemens’ industrial relations record? Siemens’ global business strategy has been described as aggressively anti-union, and staff currently working for First Capital Connect on the existing Thameslink bid have not been reassured by the Government that their terms and conditions will be protected by the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 2006 should they transfer to Siemens. Will he reassure those workers and the House that TUPE will apply in such circumstances?

[Mr Hammond]

My understanding is that TUPE will apply in such circumstances. For the record, Siemens employs 16,000 people in this country, many—indeed, I think most—are represented by the Unite union, and my understanding from the inquiries that I have made is that relationships between the union that represents them and the company are extremely good.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kelvin Hopkins Excerpts

Thursday 23rd June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Villiers]

I am very much aware of the potential benefits of that project in helping to regenerate an area that is heavily dependent on public sector jobs. For precisely those reasons, it would be an impressive candidate for funding from the regional growth fund. I understand that the local authorities are working on that at the moment. I pay tribute to the work done by those in Burnley and on Lancashire county council on getting the project moving. My officials stand ready, and are indeed working with the local authorities, to see how we might be able to help to take things forward. This is primarily a local matter, but there is the real prospect of a successful RGF bid.

[Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)]

Eddington identified congestion as a major and growing cost to the economy. Across Europe, towns and cities have light rail systems, which alleviate congestion. When are the Government going to put real political will and resource behind developing light rail systems across Britain?

[Norman Baker]

I am happy to say that we have done a great deal for light rail in the time since the general election, including authorising extensions to the systems in Nottingham, Manchester and Birmingham. I have authorised a tram trial project in Sheffield and commissioned a report internally on value for money in light rail, and that report is now on my desk. We recognise the values of light rail and we are taking it forward in a real way.

McNulty Report and West Coast Rail

Kelvin Hopkins Excerpts

Thursday 19th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

As I said earlier, the intention is to be less prescriptive. Train operators already have the freedom to de-designate first-class carriages and reconfigure their trains if they want to, and all the new Pendolino cars that will be inserted in existing nine-car sets will be standard-class carriages. I do not want to talk about imposing a specific duty on operators, but they will have to deliver on targets to reduce overcrowding, and we have powers to force them to take action if they do not.

[Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)]

I had the pleasure of meeting Sir Roy McNulty on two occasions during his consultation. I put to him the points made by Tom Winsor, the former rail regulator, that British Rail worked miracles on a pittance and that when the railways were handed over to the privateers, they were handed over “in good order”—his words. Also, the Catalyst report recorded BR as having the highest productivity of all the railways in Europe. BR was desperately underfunded, with not enough investment, but it worked miracles on a pittance. I also put it to Sir Roy that the staggering rise in costs that has occurred since privatisation is a direct result of privatisation. I personally believe that it is pie in the sky to think that we will bring those costs down without public ownership again. When is the Secretary of State going to look at that again?

[Mr Hammond]

I am not. I think the hon. Gentleman suffers from the disease—which I have noticed is quite widespread—of taking a rose-tinted retrospective view of British Rail. People were quick enough to criticise and complain about British Rail’s performance when it was operating; now, at 15 years’ distance, that era suddenly appears to have been some halcyon period of British excellence. The hon. Gentleman is right that British Rail operated the railway on a shoestring at relatively low cost, but in doing so it built up a tremendous legacy of under-investment and disregard for safety risk, the terrible consequences of which we saw only too clearly in the late 1990s and the early years of this century.

High-Speed Rail

Kelvin Hopkins Excerpts

Thursday 31st March 2011 Westminster Hall

[Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to speak in this debate. I have a great interest in rail and, generally speaking, I am positive and passionate about the railways. Unfortunately, however, on this occasion I have to speak negatively about High Speed 2. I am deeply sceptical of it, for a variety of reasons. It is an unnecessary route and will be very expensive, and that money would be better spent elsewhere on modernisation, electrification, re-signalling and a variety of other expenditures. Eddington took the same view in his report. He was absolutely right to say that the focus should be on commuter and inter-urban routes, above all to relieve congestion, which causes extreme expense for the whole economy; that expense will rise to tens of billions of pounds in the next two or three decades, unless we do something to relieve congestion.

Congestion is caused by a number of things, the first being passengers using cars when we should be using rail. It is also caused by heavy freight, not directly so much as indirectly, because heavy freight on roads causes road damage. What is known as the fourth power law of road damage relates axle weights to road damage, and it is lorries that cause damage to roads. I am not against lorries per se, but a lot of the traffic that goes by road should actually go by rail. Road damage means that motorways have to be coned off time and again so that roads can be repaired, which means having two lanes for long stretches instead of three. The same applies to towns. It is necessary, for the future, to get heavy freight off road and on to rail.

I spoke on this theme in a recent debate in this Chamber, and explained how we ought to spend the money in alternative ways. For example, HS2 will run from north to south. There are already north-south routes, but they have not had sufficient investment, despite their modernisation, and they do not have enough capacity as they stand. They could, however, have enough capacity if we invested heavily in modern signalling, got many more train paths on the same tracks, and got freight off those lines. Before anyone jumps in and says, “Ah, but if we build HS2, we can put the passengers on that and leave the other lines free for freight,” that is nonsense, because it is impossible for the gauge sufficiently to provide, all the way up the backbone of Britain, for getting trailers on trains and even full-scale containers on flat-bed trucks. It is not possible to rebuild all those mainline railway lines on a gauge that is sufficient to take all the freight necessary. Moreover, scores of other major stations on those lines have to serve passengers, so passenger trains have to run on those routes, whatever is done about HS2.

HS2 serves only major cities. All those hon. Members who are enthusiastic about HS2 but who are not actually served by it might find that money that could have been invested in their own routes will be sucked away and spent on HS2. People who live in Milton Keynes, Coventry—my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry North West (Mr Robinson) is sitting to my right—Luton and many other areas are not served. Before anyone says that I am a nimby, I am not, because HS2 will not serve or go anywhere near Luton.

[Stephen Pound (Ealing North) (Lab)]

Those of us in Perivale certainly feel the pain, and there is no discernible indication of gain. On my hon. Friend’s analysis of the finances, can he enlighten us about the extent of private sector investment and involvement in this great, vast, glittering scheme?

[Kelvin Hopkins]

That is for the Minister to pronounce on and explain. I am a traditional socialist of the left and believe in public investment, which I think is much cheaper—the markets can be borrowed from much more cheaply, but I will not go into that now, because we will end up getting into private finance initiatives, public-private partnership and all those other financial disasters. I do not want to tread on dangerous ground, but the tube was not exactly a success, in terms of PPP. I believe in public investment, but wherever the investment comes from, it will be a very large sum that could be spent elsewhere. The opportunity costs will be great.

It would be easy to modernise the east coast main line. We could double the viaduct north of Welwyn to make four tracks instead of two; it is a pinch-point at the moment. A flyover is already being built for the Cambridge line at Hitchin. We would then need a passing loop at Peterborough, which would not be difficult, and a flyover at Newark. The whole line would then be open for 140 mph working, non-stop from King’s Cross to Edinburgh. In 1992, a test train did that route, non-stop apart from a two-minute stop at Newcastle, in three and a half hours. Interestingly, the proponents of HS2 suggest a time of three and a half hours—the exact same time that could be achieved on the existing route with a bit of modernisation.

The west coast main line is much more heavily used and serves more areas. Modernisation could get it to work at 135 mph, and similar route modifications could make it much better. We need to get the freight off that line. I repeat that freight and heavy axle weights cause more damage to tracks, which then need more repairs and more maintenance work. If we got freight off that line, and had modern signalling and many more train paths, we would have what we need up the west coast. As for passenger numbers, certainly the east coast has plenty of scope already; on the west coast, there is enough to cope for the long-term future.

I am arguing for a new, dedicated rail freight line; some hon. Members may know that I have been proposing that for a long time. I have been involved with a group of people who have a scheme that has been thought through in detail and involves a precise route. It would use old track bed and existing routes, and would involve only 14 miles of new line, nine of which is in tunnels. There would be a dedicated rail freight route up the backbone of Britain, serving all the major conurbations and linked to the channel tunnel; freight could go from Glasgow to Rome direct. The trains would be able to take full-scale lorry trailers, and double-stacked containers if necessary, all the way from the continent of Europe right through to Scotland. That is what Britain needs. That proposal would take 5 million lorry-loads off the roads, and much of the north-south freight off the east coast and west coast main lines. The supermarkets and a number of commercial organisations support the scheme.

[Julian Smith (Skipton and Ripon) (Con)]

Does the hon. Gentleman not think it is absolutely crackers that I can get to Paris quicker than to Leeds, which I go to when I travel to my constituency, Skipton and Ripon? Is it not absolutely crackers that Britain is one of the only developed nations not to have a high-speed network?

[Kelvin Hopkins]

High-speed networks work brilliantly in areas where there are long gaps between major conurbations—in Spain, France and so on. Britain is much more densely populated. There are many stops and more towns en route. As I have suggested, we need more investment in the conventional railways that we already have, so that we can get to those destinations more quickly. I am sure that we can easily raise the speeds to Leeds, and certainly to other areas, with a lot of investment.

[David Mowat (Warrington South) (Con)]

The point is often made that high-speed rail works better over longer routes. Would he concede that the Paris-Lille, Osaka-Tokyo and Cologne-Frankfurt routes are all about 120 km long, which is quite similar to the first part of high-speed rail that is planned?

[Kelvin Hopkins]

We would have to be prepared to spend that kind of money. I have been on the Cologne-Frankfurt route and it is fantastic. A third of it is in tunnels, which are vastly expensive. The Germans have decided to build that route and it is a wonderful line. We do not have the resources to build lines like that everywhere. Some high-speed routes do not go through much on the way; we almost invariably have significant towns en route that have to be served on the same line.

[David Mowat]

I was responding to the hon. Gentleman’s point that high-speed rail works only over vast distances. The examples I quoted are not vast distances; they are very similar to what is envisaged in the first part of high-speed rail.

[Kelvin Hopkins]

In the best of all possible worlds, it would be nice to have fast routes everywhere. However, we must consider the resources involved. The significant routes are where people would choose to travel by air, rather than by land; people would go by aeroplane from Madrid to Barcelona, for example. Routes become economical where large numbers of people want to travel between conurbations that are fairly widely spaced, there is not a great deal in between, and it is easier to get the high-speed track without too much cost.

[Mr Bob Ainsworth (Coventry North East) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend’s proposition for a dedicated freight line has been around in one form or another for a very long time and has always attracted the same level of opposition as HS2. Is it not almost inevitable when such a major infrastructure project is planned that there will be huge opposition to it?

[Kelvin Hopkins]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. There is always opposition to such plans. I stressed at the beginning that I do not object to the line because it goes near me or anybody else; I am objecting to it on the basis that it is unnecessary and expensive, and the money should be spent elsewhere. I am taking up too much time, Mr Walker. I can see that many hon. Members want to speak.

[Mr Charles Walker (in the Chair)]

There are plenty of hon. Members who want to speak.

[Kelvin Hopkins]

I have made my main points. I have made them before in this Chamber, and I shall continue to make them, because they are rational. A lot of people in the industry also support my view, which is not based on nimbyism but on what Britain really needs. Britain does not need HS2; it needs more investment in conventional rail and, indeed, in rail freight.

[Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)]

On a point of order, Mr Walker. For several months, the hon. Member for Coventry North West (Mr Robinson), my hon. Friend the Member for North Warwickshire (Dan Byles) and I have attempted to secure this debate via the Backbench Business Committee. We have been preparing for this incredibly important debate for a long time, and I was assured only yesterday by the Table Office that my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) would make a few brief comments, and then I would be the first speaker.

--- Later in debate ---

[Frank Dobson]

As I understand it, because Euston does not have a connection to Heathrow Express and Crossrail, it has been necessary to propose a parkway station at Old Oak Common that will have connections to those lines. That additional expense could otherwise have been avoided. As a result of the inadequacies of Euston, the parkway proposition for Old Oak Common—alias Wormwood Scrubs—had to be added to the proposal. Instead, the line could be brought into Paddington station, which already has links to Heathrow Express and will be on Crossrail. When I pushed that point, people from High Speed 2 said that Paddington could not cope with the number of passengers. Paddington has as many tube connections as Euston and, as I have pointed out, it will link to Heathrow Express and Crossrail. That excuse for not using Paddington appears to be of little relevance.

[Kelvin Hopkins]

Another point is that unlike Paddington, the Euston option would require expensive tunnelling to get through London. Once Crossrail is built, Paddington will have extra capacity for a platform for HS2, were we to go ahead with it.

[Frank Dobson]

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. Another point is the connection with HS1. We are told that great strategists with vinegar-soaked towels around their heads came up with HS2 as the first stage of a great, high-speed rail network. They seemed not to notice that they had not proposed a connection with the only existing part of the high-speed rail network, High Speed 1, which comes into St Pancras station.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrew Gwynne]

Absolutely. As I have said, capacity on the west coast main line is of fundamental importance, and the issue must be resolved. We have to look at future capacity on rail lines and how we will deal with such issues. Clearly, everything will be on the table as part of our policy review, and we encourage as many members of the public as possible to get involved in our ongoing discussions, including those on both High Speed 2 and Rail Package 2; we need to study alternatives for viability as well. It would be unwise for any future support for high-speed rail not to be at the heart of that policy review when it involves a £30-billion commitment for future Parliaments. Perhaps the hon. Member for Weaver Vale (Graham Evans) will be interested in that. In the meantime, the Government will have our support as they move forward with the next stage of planning the route.

Clearly, there is concern about the hybrid Bill that the Government propose. The Opposition have real doubts about their commitment to taking the planned high-speed rail line beyond Birmingham, as Labour had planned. They have decided not to use the forthcoming legislation to do that. As I have said in previous debates, we will support the Government if they want to put powers in the Bill to extend the line to Leeds and Manchester.

I wish to turn briefly to interoperability. If we are to proceed with high-speed rail, we need to look now at ways to integrate it with the traditional rail network. We also need to look at how we can maximise the benefits for rail all over the country, including London-based projects such as Crossrail and Thameslink. How will we plan for the wider impacts of high-speed rail, to ensure that the benefits are shared in other parts of the network? For instance, can the Minister tell us how many more fast trains to London there will be from places such as Coventry, Liverpool and Sheffield as a result of released capacity from the HS2 line? In short, what will be the benefit to areas not directly connected by high-speed rail?

[Kelvin Hopkins]

The fundamental problem we have on many of our rail routes is old-fashioned signalling; it is 50 years out of date, or even longer. If we can get modern signalling with some of the money that could be saved, we could get many more train paths and much faster frequencies. That is the way to increase capacity on existing routes.

[Andrew Gwynne]

I share my hon. Friend’s assessment of that issue. I know he made that case at a recent reception with ASLEF in the House of Commons.

I recognise that a lot of right hon. and hon. Members in all parties have concerns about high-speed rail. Those living near the proposed route have understandable concerns. I understand those hon. Members whose constituencies will be directly affected by the construction. Like my right hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Frank Dobson), I do not know how sensible it is for the Secretary of State for Transport to refer to anyone who is against the scheme as a nimby, as he recently did in a newspaper article.

I also note that in The Daily Telegraph yesterday there was a letter signed by no fewer than eight northern Conservative MPs, saying:

“We urge the Government not to be blown off course by the protests of a minority in the home counties.”

It seems unfair to intrude on the private grief of the Conservatives, not least because there are differences in our party, too. However, the previous Labour Government were always mindful that, in proposals for a route, there has to be an attempt to minimise local impacts while achieving the wider objectives. We need to ensure that people are fully consulted about changes that will affect their area. I welcome the fact that the consultation is now under way, and will conclude in July this year. It gives those who will be directly affected by the construction route a chance to put forward their concerns and have them looked at, and I hope that their views will be taken seriously by the Government.

However, there are a number of questions that I would like to ask. What impact will the changes to the route, the additional compensation and hardship payments, and other commitments have for the £750 million allocated in this spending period? Can the Minister offer an assurance that there will not be a knock-on effect on other rail schemes already facing cuts and delays? In opposition, the Minister said:

“failing to take HSR through Heathrow would be a big mistake”.

It is reassuring that she has, I think, now confirmed a direct link in the second phase. Perhaps she can give a bit more information about that.

My hon. Friend the Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Thomas Docherty) touched on an important point. Will the Minister confirm whether the cost of the trains to run on the high-speed line has been included in the figures used for the costs of the scheme? Or, as with other schemes such as Crossrail, are they separate expenditure, yet to be identified?

One topic almost missing from the debate, although it was rightly touched on by my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter), has been the likely cost of using the service. Surely if all taxpayers are to contribute so significantly to the cost of constructing the route, it cannot be a service with ticket prices outside the grasp of most people. What work has the Department done to look at anticipated ticket-pricing plans for high-speed rail? How much of the revenue raised by high-speed rail will be used on the high-speed rail line, and how much will be will be spent on conventional rail improvements?

To conclude, as I have said before, our policy review will be completely open-minded about all the transport priorities the country faces, and high-speed rail will clearly form an important part of our future discussion. In the meantime, we urge the Government to reconsider expanding the scope of the hybrid Bill to include powers to continue to Leeds and Manchester, so that preparations are in place to bring the potential benefits of high-speed rail to the whole country.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kelvin Hopkins Excerpts

Thursday 10th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Norman Baker]

I am very keen to make light rail more economically sensible, and that is covered by the review, which will, I hope, lead to changes that enable light rail to be extended to other areas of the country. We have done so already with the Midland Metro system and in Nottingham, and I am very happy to talk to the Mayor about what might be helpful for London.

[Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)]

Is there not a stark contrast between the continent of Europe, where light rail and ultra-light rail schemes are going full speed ahead, and Britain, where we cannot seem to get them to work at all? Is not the full cost of digging up and replacing all the utilities under the road loaded on to the transport schemes? Those costs should be taken out of such schemes and paid for directly by the state.

[Norman Baker]

I understand that the construction costs per mile are much higher here than in other countries, and that is one reason why I initiated the review. Many representations have also been made to me about the precise matter that the hon. Gentleman raises—the cost associated with utilities—and that is a central part of the review I am undertaking.