Railways: High Speed 2

Lord Adonis Excerpts

Wednesday 11th July 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Adonis]

My Lords, the international rule of high-speed rail is that everyone wants the stations but no one wants the line. England is no exception, and the noble Viscount, Lord Astor, has been honest enough to admit that he certainly does not want the line anywhere near him. He wrote in the Spectator recently:

“I admit I am biased ... I have walked and ridden over the Chilterns all my life”.

I was not biased as the Secretary of State for Transport. The previous Government proposed HS2, and the present Government are carrying it through because it is the best decision for the infrastructure of the country. This is for two reasons. First, it is false to suggest that there is a choice between building HS2 or saving billions of pounds by not doing so. I fear that that is wishful thinking. The real choice is whether to build HS2, to treble inter-city capacity between London, Birmingham, Manchester, Sheffield and Leeds, or instead to carry out successive patch-and-mend upgrades of the four existing main lines from London to the north, ultimately spending more money for less capacity. The cost-benefit analyses show a strong business case for HS2. But it is equally important to consider the alternative. What would need to happen if there were no HS2? On this, Network Rail's assessment is clear:

“Even modest demand growth causes problems and significant rail enhancement is needed … train lengthening beyond 12-cars would have major implications for terminal stations and signalling systems. Further incremental enhancements at key locations may provide some capacity but not enough to be sustainable for the long-term and not where it is most needed”.

There is no need to gaze into the crystal ball. It is only four years since the last upgrade of the west coast main line referred to by the noble Viscount was completed. It cost £10 billion, and that £10 billion did not price the cost of a decade of chronic disruption to passengers as open heart surgery was performed on a Victorian railway operating at capacity.

There is a second compelling argument for HS2. By using 21st century technology, rather than trying to squeeze yet more out of what by the 2030s will be a 200 year-old railway, you get a transformation of capacity, speed, reliability and passenger service all in one. That is why most advanced European and Asian countries, with an economic and physical geography similar to ours, have already built high-speed lines to link their major cities. The claim that London to Birmingham, Manchester and Glasgow are distances too short for high-speed rail is quite unfounded. The world's most successful high-speed lines are between Paris and Lyons, Frankfurt and Hamburg, Tokyo and Osaka, Rome and Milan, distances comparable to those between Britain's major conurbations. Britain is right to be following suit.