Inequalities of Region and Place

Lord Adonis Excerpts

Thursday 14th October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

My Lords, we have just listened to an outstandingly fluent, elegant and persuasive maiden speech, and it is a great privilege, on behalf of the House, to welcome my noble friend to the House. He comes from one of the greatest political families of modern Britain, and I am sure he will make a great contribution to Parliament, like his father, his grandfather —who he mentioned—and his brother, who we are delighted to see in the House too.

However, I first met my noble friend in a completely different context, when I was Minister for Schools and he was a director of the Royal Society of Chemistry. The occasion was shortly after the publication of Bill Bryson’s A Short History of Nearly Everything, which the society, with great foresight, paid to send to every state school in the country. Education is the greatest leveller up. My noble friend—inspired, I imagine, in no small part by his mother, who had a great passion for education—has taken this cause to heart. He will have a great opportunity to advance it here in the House and in Parliament.

We are of course all mindful of the peerage controversy so much associated with my noble friend’s father. On reading about it, I learned that the reason it came about was that his uncle, who had been expected to inherit the viscountcy, was tragically killed serving his country in the RAF during the war. One account that I read says:

“Michael was intending to enter the priesthood and had no objections to inheriting a peerage.”

I can assure my noble friend that it is no longer a requirement of the job—but there are ample opportunities for instruction from the right reverend Prelate and his colleagues, if he wishes to advance in that cause as well. My noble friend is extremely welcome to the House, and we look forward to hearing from him again soon.

I wish to address just one issue in respect of levelling up: HS2. Nothing is more important to levelling up this country than transforming its infrastructure, and the single biggest infrastructure project in the country at the moment, directly geared to levelling up, is HS2, which will transform the communications in this country between Greater London and the south-east, the Midlands and the north. The Minister knows a great deal about HS2. When he was leader of his local authority and I was Secretary of State for Transport, we talked about it a great deal. Indeed, we planned together the development of the Old Oak Common interchange station, which will bring HS2 in direct connection with Crossrail, which goes from east to west. The connectivity between those two will further transform the connections between the Midlands and northern cities and London.

I wish to ask the noble Lord about one specific issue: the decision that is widely known, though I do not think that it has yet been formally announced, to cancel the eastern leg of HS2. At the 11th hour, as it were, I implore the Minister to revisit that decision and speak to his friend the Prime Minister, with whom I know he has an extremely close relationship, to make the argument that, if the eastern leg of HS2 is cancelled, the whole future of levelling up half of the country—the eastern side—will be vitiated.

To understand the significance of the potential cancellation of the eastern leg of HS2, you just need to consider what will be the journey times between the major cities of the Midlands and the north and London after HS2, if it is not built. Birmingham to London would be half an hour, Manchester to London would be an hour, Leeds and Sheffield to London would be two hours, and Newcastle to London would be three hours. Where is all the investment and the new social activity in the country going to happen if, for the next few centuries—because we build railway lines to last centuries—that is the pattern of communications between the Midlands and the north of this country and the economic powerhouse of London, which will always continue to be so because it is our dominant city? It is absolutely essential that the eastern leg of HS2 proceeds.

Because we are a democratic community, with very powerful political spokespeople from the eastern side of the country, it is stark staring obvious that, if, by an act of great negligence, Her Majesty’s Government do not proceed with the eastern leg of HS2 now, when the leg to Manchester opens and there is a massive political controversy about the delayed journey times, much poorer communications, much lower capacity and lack of connectivity with Crossrail—because the Old Oak Common interchange will of course be available only to people coming from Birmingham and Manchester—the political campaign to build the eastern leg will be unrelenting. In a classic failure of planning, we will build the eastern leg of HS2 and it will go through to Sheffield, Leeds and Newcastle, but it will be done 30 or 40 years later than it should have been. In that interval, an enormous amount of damage will be done to the society and the economy in the east Midlands, Yorkshire and the north-east of the country and to the connectivity between Edinburgh—because the HS2 trains would go there—and London.

I implore the noble Lord, with the great influence that I know he holds with the Prime Minister, to urge him to revisit this decision, which could be the single most important decision that the Government make in terms of the long-term capacity to level up the north with the south of this country.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Liddle (Lab)]

My Lords, I first congratulate my noble friend Lord Stansgate on his maiden speech, which has been described as “outstanding” and “assured”. I also thought that what he had to say about the importance of science was very real. Some critical decisions for the Government are coming up in the spending round in October, and I very much hope that the enthusiasm that Dominic Cummings, to be fair to him, had for the science budget will continue to be reflected in the Government’s policy.

Secondly, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Greenhalgh, for his reply. We in the Lords often say, “Oh, it’s been an excellent debate”, but, actually, this has been an excellent debate. I thought that he tried to respond to it, in his own rumbustious style, and I am very grateful to him for that—

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

That is a compliment.

[Lord Liddle (Lab)]

It is; “rumbustious” is a real compliment. I thought that he tried to answer the points and displayed a certain sympathy with many of them.

For me, the key things that came out of this debate were, first, what my noble friend Lord Adonis said about HS2, which is one of the key decisions that will affect this country for decades to come. Who wants to add to the north/south divide in this country an east/west divide? That is a fundamental point.

Secondly, the noble Lord, Lord Young, and others talked about the need to reset central-local relations and think about local sources of revenue. We need to see that kind of thinking opened up again. For the department and Michael Gove, who leads it, these issues will come to the fore in the next few weeks. I hope that he reads what we have had to say in this debate in Hansard. I beg to move.