Railway Timetables: Disruption

Lord Adonis Excerpts

Thursday 13th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

Not entirely, my Lords. Clearly, the rail operators working with the Department for Transport want to provide the services. At the moment, they cannot do so because of Covid pressures on staff, but we will work in the longer term with the rail industry to streamline the passenger offer, to remove duplication of services and to ensure efficiency.

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

My Lords, we are obviously in the middle of a public health crisis and the Government have difficult decisions to take, but will the Minister repudiate the prophets of doom who somehow think that we are all going to stop travelling in the usual way once Covid has ended? Will she acknowledge that in the periods when we have opened up between the waves of the pandemic, passengers have returned to the railways very quickly—passenger usage on the Tube in London was up to two-thirds before we had the latest lockdown—and that it would be a huge mistake if the Government were to start cutting services, which would discourage people from returning to the railways after 20 years of massive investment in them, which has been a great good news story for this country?

Integrated Rail Plan: Northern Powerhouse Area

Lord Adonis Excerpts

Thursday 16th December 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I am pleased that we can have a quick debate about the integrated rail plan this afternoon. My question relates to the capacity and regional capability contained in the plan, particularly for the east-west areas of the north and the Midlands.

I am grateful to the Minister for arranging a Zoom call this morning with Andrew Stephenson MP, the Minister for HS2. We had a useful discussion. I now realise that the IRP appears to be a cut-down version of HS2, with some welcome electrification on the Midland main line and the trans-Pennine route, but which appears not to deal with the capacity issues and the priorities for east-west connectivity, particularly for Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield and Hull.

Therefore, it did not really surprise me when I received a copy of the letter sent from the chair of Transport for the North to the Secretary of State, dated 26 November. It starts:

“I am writing on behalf of the Transport for the North Board to express our collective disappointment and dismay at the inadequacy of the Integrated Rail Plan; the plan as proposed is unacceptable to the North.”


That is a fairly strong statement from a regional authority. One of the issues it goes into is that the plan fails to deal with infrastructure constraints, particularly around Leeds and Manchester, saying that

“the plan is the wrong solution for the whole of the North and does not deliver the long-term transformation required to level up the North’s economy”.

I shall not go on, as it is a very long letter, but it also mentions that Bradford is left out, despite being the seventh largest local authority area in England by population.

I share Transport for the North’s vision to improve the network and make it as good as the network we have in the south-east around London. One can compare against the routes through the capital, Thameslink and Crossrail, once it opens, which serve dozens of routes on each side for seamless journeys. I would give the time of all those journeys, but I do not think we know them. That is what is particularly missing in terms of capacity across the Pennines and east-west services, including from Birmingham to Derby and Nottingham. In particular, there is a lack of not just through services but local services, connecting many of the smaller towns on the way. I do not know whether that matters to the Government, but it should.

I have one particular concern about Manchester, where the plan is to expand the existing planned HS2 station, so that all trains coming on the line reverse before going across the Pennines to Leeds. On page 65, the report justifies having terminus stations by saying that there are many in Europe, for example in Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Zürich, Milan and Rome. It fails to say that all those stations were built probably over 100 years ago, when tunnels were less easy to build. It is also wrong, because the German Government and the German railway company are actually building a through tunnel underneath Stuttgart station. What the Government are proposing is old-fashioned—so be it.

As I said, I welcome the electrification of the Midland main line and the trans-Pennine route. That is a good idea but I point out that a small piece of the HS2 line now planned between Derby and Birmingham is, I think, costed at £11 billion when it would have cost just £2.5 billion to electrify the existing line. The biggest missing issue is that there is nothing in the report about improving the many secondary lines and services in the regions. It is good that Leeds is promised a metro service but I wonder how many decades that will take to come. It is a very good idea, if and when it happens.

On the costs, £96 billion is quoted in the document; it appears that the Government are including HS2 and Network Rail costs in this. It is my calculation that HS2 phases 1 and 2a are going to cost £83 billion to complete. While that has come from whistleblowers and my own estimation, it leaves just £9 billion for the rest of the project, which I hope is wrong. I have to question how much money matters to the Treasury. Many noble Lords will have read an article in the Guardian—I think it was on Monday this week—which said that the Department for Transport was requiring all train operators to prepare plans to cut costs by at least 10%. That is quite critical at this time, when nobody really knows what the forecast of future passengers might be. Has it asked HS2 to do the same? That might be a good thing. With all this, there seems to be very little money left for upgrades, electrification and capacity enhancement because it is all going on HS2.

The other interesting thing is: who will be building and developing all these things? In a series of Written Answers that I received this week, it seems that: Network Rail will be told to upgrade existing lines with help from HS2 to get trains into Leeds; HS2 is going to be building phase 2A and bits in the West Midlands; and there may be a new line for Northern Powerhouse Rail—we are not quite sure where, but I think it stops somewhere at the summit of the Pennines. Where does Great British Railways come into this? Apparently, it has no responsibility for HS2, as I had it from another Written Question some time ago.

Who has the best track record? Network Rail has a very good one on electrification now. It has just completed the Werrington dive-under on the Doncaster line, which is a really good piece of work, if not so cost-effective—

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

If my noble friend will forgive me, does he think that its record on Great Western electrification is creditable to Network Rail? The costs are running at about four times the projection and it is taking three times as long as it was supposed to.

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen (Con)]

My Lords, this is only a one-hour debate and we are quite short on time.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

There are two aspects of the integrated rail plan that I strongly welcome: the decision to move ahead with a metro system for Leeds and the decision to electrify the midland main line and the trans- Pennine line. However, these both reflect chaotic and inconsistent transport planning over the last 25 years.

Noble Lords from Leeds—and I see that my noble friend Lady Blake, the former leader of Leeds City Council, is here—will know that a tram system for Leeds was first proposed more than 20 years ago. Unfortunately, the Government of which I was a member cancelled that plan. There was supposed to be a trolleybus scheme, but that bit the dust too. We have now come full circle. Indeed, I think that the Government of which the noble Lord, Lord Horam, was a member first proposed the serious upgrading of metro services in and around Leeds, and I admire his confidence that things will now happen with an alacrity with which they failed to happen in previous decades.

The same is true of both electrification schemes. Electrification of the midland main line and the trans-Pennine line was announced 10 years ago. Midland main line electrification was supposed to follow on directly from Great Western electrification which, despite the remarks of my noble friend Lord Berkeley, has been a textbook case of disaster in terms of cost overruns, descoping and failure to meet proper project management specifications. Both those electrification schemes were then cancelled because of cost overruns and austerity, and they are being revived. We are now being told that they are a great offering to the Midlands and the north and should make us confident that there will be transformational capacity in the Midlands and the north, when in fact they are schemes that should have been delivered many years ago, if we had any proper planning.

However, the two big decisions in terms of changes of policy in the integrated rail plan—the cancellation of the eastern leg of HS2 and the cancellation of the new east-west line that was intended to link the northern cities—are both utterly deplorable. They are deplorable in three ways. First, in transport policy terms they are deplorable. As the noble Lord, Lord Beith, just said, the eastern side of the country will now essentially be left out of the high-speed rail plan. This will produce a new east-west divide in this country on top of the north-south divide, and overcoming it was a large part of the intention of HS2 in the first place. When HS2 is now completed, it will take nearly twice as long to get to Leeds as to get to Manchester and there will be only a fraction of the rail capacity going to the eastern side of the country—Sheffield and Leeds—because there is no high-speed line. High-speed lines treble rail capacity and allow an enormous release of capacity for new local services of the kind that my noble friend Lord Berkeley was talking about.

The second reason why it is deplorable is that it is a complete uprooting of proper and systematic infrastructure planning. The plan for HS2 was announced more than 10 years ago. It followed exhaustive work by HS2 Ltd. Indeed, it went back to the plan that the noble Lord, Lord Birt, produced for the Blair Government in 2003, which recommended that the Government look systematically at the introduction of high-speed lines between our major conurbations. I was privileged to be the first chairman of the National Infrastructure Commission in 2015. The first report of the National Infrastructure Commission said that HS2 should be completed to Manchester and Leeds and that there should be a new east-west line.

The third aspect in which it is deplorable is that it uproots cross-party working. We will get no serious infrastructure built in this country unless there is cross-party agreement, because it takes many Parliaments to build big infrastructure. There was cross-party agreement to HS2 and a new east-west line. There is not cross-party agreement for this integrated rail plan. It is a dog’s breakfast. The Opposition have said they have no confidence in it and will seek to change it if they come to power. We are therefore going to take a massive step back in terms of the upgrading of the infrastructure of this country, and the principal loser will unfortunately be the whole eastern side of the country, which could be at a massive economic disadvantage as a result of the IRP, compared with the Midlands and the north-west.

Extraordinary Funding and Financing Agreement for Transport for London

Lord Adonis Excerpts

Thursday 9th December 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

My Lords, I entirely agree with the noble Lord that, once we know what the new normal is, we need to think boldly and creatively about the long term. However, everyone accepts that we have no idea what the new normal will be at the moment, because we are still in the pandemic. We have just gone into another wave, which is having a further negative impact on traffic levels.

It is utterly ludicrous for the Government to be forcing TfL into short-term, acrimonious funding agreements, as they have been doing every three or six months, when everyone knows that the problem is the pandemic. It is rather like denying a heart replacement patient blood on the grounds that they do not have a long-term plan for improving their fitness. Until they have survived the operation—got through the pandemic, in this case—we cannot look at these longer-term issues.

My noble friend’s strictures at the beginning were well made. Unless the Government want to kill the national economy, which I do not think they do, they simply will agree to roll on the funding; there will be an agreement tomorrow and it will be similar to the one that went before. This is wasting a huge amount of time and energy among the senior management of TfL and in the Department for Transport, where I know officials are at their wits’ end, having to go through this charade of negotiations, knowing that the status quo will be the status quo ante until we get to the end of the pandemic.

When we get to the end and know what the new normal is, some very hard questions will of course need to be asked. But we need to know what the new normal is in terms of traffic levels, and these are very hard to predict; I have seen a whole range of potential traffic levels. The report done for the mayor, the TfL independent review of a year ago, suggested we might get to about 80% of traffic levels. I have looked at the sourcing for those estimates and, to be frank, this is fingers in the air stuff—the Minister will probably agree with that. We simply do not know what the new normal will be.

It was very striking that, when so much encouragement was given to people to come back to the office and resume normal activity after the second lockdown, traffic levels were restored remarkably quickly. The idea that there is somehow going to be a systemic loss of traffic may be far too gloomy a prediction.

When we do know what the new normal is, we obviously need to address this. I will highlight very briefly four issues that we should address. The first has to be bus priority. If buses in London went, on average, 1 mph faster than they do at the moment, it would save TfL nearly £200 million a year in the running costs of the bus network, with fewer buses, much more efficient operations and so on. It should not be beyond the wit of good transport managers in TfL to ensure improved bus priority to get buses moving faster. There has been a significant reduction in average bus speeds in London over the last 10 years, because of a failure to join up policy properly when we are all in favour of faster buses in principle—

[Lord Boateng (Lab)]

Cycle lanes are the problem.

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

My noble friend says that priority cycle lanes are a problem; we can debate that issue, but there needs to be much better joining up and we should encourage the mayor to look at that as a key priority.

The second issue has to be the future of congestion charging and road pricing in London. At the moment, we have a hybrid system of a low emission zone and a small congestion zone for which prices have gone up a lot. We need to join up and look at the longer-term role of congestion charging.

I will mention two other points and will be very brief, because my time is nearly up. We need to look at reform of council tax arrangements as part of future arrangements. There is a very strong argument for an additional council tax band, given what has happened to property values in the capital over the last 30 years, and that could help to fund Transport for London.

Finally, when Crossrail and the Elizabeth line open, I hope, next year—we are looking forward to it—a big issue will be the interaction between the transformational additional capacity of Crossrail, with its 10% of additional transport capacity in London, and new housing, which will also produce new council tax revenue. So, there are four big things that should be looked at, but not this short-term, ludicrous funding crisis that we have been going through during the pandemic.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Transport (Baroness Vere of Norbiton) (Con)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a Londoner. Sadly, I am not a Freedom pass holder. I do not even get one of those free chitties for the over-60s, but my husband does; he is in full-time employment and yet he has free travel—go figure.

I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Davies, for securing such a very timely debate on the important issue of extraordinary funding and financing for Transport for London. I think we would all agree that London has one of the best public transport systems in the world, and the Government recognise how crucial it has been throughout the pandemic and how important it is to our capital and country.

The onset of the pandemic had a devastating impact on TfL. Ridership was absolutely decimated. In spring 2020, passenger journeys reduced by 95%, almost overnight. When TfL’s income plummeted, and as the Government advised people to stay at home to curtail the spread of the virus, we necessarily stepped in to ensure the continued provision of essential transport services in London. By supporting TfL, the Government ensured that essential transport services were available to key workers, including nurses, teachers and retail staff, at all times. I am enormously grateful—I have said this many times before—to all the TfL staff for their incredible service during the pandemic, and of course I too mourn the loss of life among transport workers, both in London and beyond.

However, it is appropriate to note at this juncture that transport in London is devolved to the Mayor of London—this was noted by the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley. The mayor is responsible for service levels. He can decide which buses and tubes he runs, as well as asset maintenance and enhancements, fares and much more, as noted by my noble friend Lord Moylan. The mayor must take decisions relating to transport in good times; for example, when the mayor decided that a multi-year fares freeze was a great idea, despite it costing hundreds of millions of pounds. He must also take those decisions when times are a little more challenging, as they are now.

What should the Government do in all this? In normal times, the Government would agree a settlement with any devolved area, whether that be London, Manchester or Liverpool, and there is a package of powers and responsibilities, local fundraising routes and a contribution from central government. Many noble Lords have commented on the lack of a great handover of cash from central government, but that is not entirely the case. We are slightly missing the fact that some of London’s business rates, instead of being paid to the Government, go to the Mayor of London. That funding is essentially made by the Government, and it replaces the grant that went before.

Since the outset of the pandemic, the Government have consistently recognised the financial distress that has affected TfL as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, and we have continually demonstrated our commitment to supporting TfL. To date, the Government have provided more than £4.1 billion to TfL in emergency funding over the last 18 months—that is a considerable amount of money in what are, quite frankly, very difficult times. The current emergency funding settlement for TfL went from June to December and is worth just over £1 billion. If you add that to the two previous bailouts, in May 2020 and October 2020, that takes you up to the £4.1 billion figure.

This emergency funding is separate from other funding that TfL gets. It gets £1 billion a year towards capital investment. Noble Lords were decrying the lack of long-term certainty of funding, but that £1 billion a year was announced at the spending review and will continue up to 2024-25. That is, in fact, the same amount of funding that TfL got the previous year. I should say again that the pressures on the nation’s finances are very significant.

It is worth noting, although I cannot go into the detail that my noble friend Lord Moylan did, that even before the pandemic TfL was in a precarious financial position, with a funding shortfall of approximately £2 billion—perhaps indicating that those fares freezes were not wise. Events since March 2020 have exacerbated and highlighted TfL’s financial difficulties, so the extraordinary financial support that the Government have provided must be considered—and in the Government’s mind is always being considered—in the light of the longer challenge of how we ensure that London’s transport system is funded for the longer term. Here I slightly disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, who seemed to say that we just have to get through the pandemic and then we will sort it out. There is a good opportunity to provide a framework for sorting it out now, and that is exactly what these funding deals do.

TfL’s own independent review—again, noted by the noble Lord, Lord Adonis—published in December 2020, recognised that TfL has a continuing funding shortfall. It considered a range of options to close the funding gap, including increasing fares and removing concessions; all of these are matters for the Mayor of London. TfL’s own financial sustainability plan, published shortly afterwards, in early January this year, set out, to some extent, TfL’s ambition to become financially sustainable. But TfL’s plan lacked a clear and decisive road map, which would have required difficult decisions at TfL and in City Hall, to achieve that longer-term financial sustainability.

In supporting TfL, the Government have been very focused on how to provide a framework in which TfL can become financially sustainable. By that we mean that TfL should be able to cover, without government support, its operating expenditure, capital renewals and enhancements, servicing and the repayment of debt. We certainly would not expect it to cover major capital infrastructure, such as Crossrail or potentially Piccadilly line signalling and those sorts of things, but we would expect it to cover the day-to-day capital expenditure. We are very clear that endless short-term bailouts from government is not a sustainable situation. TfL needs to be financially sustainable, ideally by spring 2023. It is now up to the Mayor of London to set out in detail how TfL should get there.

I absolutely pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Adonis —I thought he had some cracking tips in his speech on how the mayor might get there. Perhaps he might get himself a new job in the mayor’s office.

Part of this framework, and the way that we have been dealing with and encouraging TfL to become financially sustainable, is all about the conditions and scrutiny that we are able to put on, because of course we have to protect public money. This is national taxpayers’ money from the national taxpayer.

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

My Lords, if the noble Baroness says that a long-term settlement should be put in place now, can she tell the House—because it is an absolutely crucial issue—her estimate of what traffic levels after the pandemic will be, relative to traffic levels before it?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I will not go into that sort of detail.

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

But that is such a critical issue—it is fundamental.

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I will come on to longer-term funding, if the noble Lord will give me time—although I might now run out of time. I will skip on a weeny bit.

We have required the mayor to make much-needed efficiencies and savings in the TfL cost base. It is funny, when you turn the spotlight on, how much money you can find in there: £720 million in ongoing savings. That is quite a lot of money—I am not sure we would have found that had we not gone through the pandemic. Obviously, work continues. We are reviewing the TfL capital programme to draw out the efficiencies and we have asked the mayor to look at new income sources to raise between £0.5 billion and £1 billion and to report regularly on the financial position.

The noble Lord, Lord Adonis, will know, if he looks back through the deal letters, that it is the case that the Government have committed to a review of the future funding of TfL, and that work is ongoing. We will not suddenly have a long-term deal for the next five years from Saturday. I think all noble Lords recognise that, in the midst of a pandemic, that would not be wise. We have also required TfL to initiate other necessary reforms, such as to the TfL pension scheme, so that it can transform into a modern and efficient transport operator, fit for the future of London.

I turn specifically to the pensions issue. As the noble Lord, Lord Davies, said, there is always a pensions issue. TfL’s own independent panel recognised that TfL’s pension scheme was outdated and in need of reform. It is not the Government saying that but its own independent panel. So we agreed with the mayor in the funding settlement that a process would be put in place in order to modernise and reform the pensions, and we will have a report from Sir Brendan Barber by 31 March next year.

On capital, the Government are contributing capital as well as income. There has been the £1 billion of capital a year, which I have mentioned. On top of that we have had to provide further funding for Crossrail—and I am very excited that it is opening soon. There has been funding for Hammersmith Bridge. However, TfL has made an announcement via its financial committee—and this is where we start getting into the PR and spin of TfL, or the “mayor’s world”. This level of funding means that TfL now has to implement something called its “managed decline scenario” for capital investment. Let me be absolutely clear that that rather unambitious phrase comes from the Mayor of London playbook. It is not what we want or expect to see for London, and we will continue to work with TfL to fully understand the detail of the future capital programme.

On new income, noble Lords may be asking: what is holding up the current deal? The plan is. Before the pandemic, 70% of TfL’s revenue came from fares. TfL’s finances need to be more resilient, and again this was noted again by TfL’s own independent panel. Work therefore had to commence to find new income sources, some of which had been identified by the independent panel, so a fair amount of work had been done. The mayor was given a deadline of mid-November, so that we would have the plan in good time before the deal ends. He failed to deliver the requisite document. He was then given an extension until 8 December—yesterday. We finally received a submission from the mayor yesterday at 8 pm. We are urgently considering what he sent us late last night, but we are very clear that it is for the mayor to decide new income approaches.

We know that omicron may provide an additional level of uncertainty. We know that TfL had started to recover and that things were looking better for London, but we are not sure where things will go over the coming days and weeks. The Government remain on-risk for revenue under the current funding settlement and use the top-up mechanism to protect TfL from exposure to unexpected changes in passenger demand.

On the point about Nexus made by the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, all that I will say is that I met Nexus earlier this week—so everything he said, I already knew, and I have heard its pleas.

In conclusion, the Government will continue to support TfL in a way that is fair to the UK taxpayer and ensures continued services on London’s transport system. In return, the Mayor of London must step up and lead from the front by making potentially difficult decisions in difficult times. At the moment, we are seeing a PR blitz of overexaggerated claims of doom, which he blames on others. We as central government have not been able to swerve difficult decisions, and neither should he. We look forward to working with the mayor in the coming hours, days, weeks and months to ensure that the capital has the modern, efficient and sustainable transport system that it needs and deserves.

Domestic Air Travel

Lord Adonis Excerpts

Tuesday 20th April 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I do not have a great insight into the Green Party of Germany, but I thank my noble friend for his contribution.

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

My Lords, may I suggest to the Minister that she too establishes a new party, “Conservatives for the eastern leg of HS2”? She used to support this policy, but it has now been delayed and no date has been given. As a result of the delay, there will be no through trains on HS2 between London and Edinburgh—a route that is one of the main sources of domestic aviation. I strongly urge her to be the founding member of “Conservatives for the eastern leg of HS2”.

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I have neither the time nor the energy to set up a new political party, but I reassure the noble Lord that the integrated rail plan will be published soon and will set out plans for the north of England. We are taking great interest in journey times to, for example, Scotland, under the auspices of the union connectivity review being undertaken by Sir Peter Hendy.

High Speed Rail (West Midlands-Crewe) Bill

Lord Adonis Excerpts

Monday 14th December 2020 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Adonis]

At end insert “and this House takes note of the further steps required to complete HS2 in line with the commitments given by successive Governments since 2010, including the necessity for early legislation to complete the promised HS2 lines from Crewe to Manchester and from Birmingham to Sheffield and Leeds.”

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

My Lords, I will begin by adding to the list of congratulations which the Minister gave. I congratulate her on her extremely professional handling of the passage of the Bill through this House, my noble friend Lord Rosser, who will be participating remotely later and who has applied his constructive and forensic skills to the Bill, the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, who has done an excellent job on behalf of the Lib Dems, and other noble Lords. I associate myself entirely with the Minister’s remarks about the Department for Transport and HS2 Ltd. I see in his place the noble Lord, Lord McLoughlin, who will be speaking later. Both he and I had the benefit of phenomenally professional and excellent support from officials in the Department for Transport. Some bits of Government have not been working brilliantly over the last 10 years, but the upgrading of the infrastructure of this country, led by the Department for Transport, is one of the bright and optimistic things going on in the country at the moment.

I know a lot of negative things are said about HS2 Ltd but, if you take stock of the net balance of achievements over the last 10 years, it has played a phenomenal role in taking forward the biggest infrastructure project in Europe over that period. It has not got everything right, but who does in this game? Has it been a successful partner in the delivery of a phenomenally important infrastructure project, which, as the Minister said, is about people and communities being able to get the infrastructure that they need in the 21st century? It definitely has, and we all pay tribute to it.

The issue now, which is why I make no apology for detaining the House for a few minutes, is how we go forward now. When the Bill becomes law, Parliament will have made provision for 172 route miles of HS2—that is, 134 miles from London to the West Midlands and 38 miles from the West Midlands to Crewe. If we are going to deliver the vision that the noble Lord, Lord McLoughlin, and I and four successive Governments since 2010 have committed to, we will need all 330 route miles of HS2, which means extending the current HS2 provision—the 172 miles that Parliament will have provided for—from Crewe to Manchester and from Birmingham to Sheffield and Leeds, so that we have balanced infrastructure provision to promote the prosperity of the entire country.

The contention that I want to lodge with the House as the Bill is passed—the Minister will not be surprised by what I shall now say, but it needs to be constantly said because we have to win this argument or else huge damage will be done to balanced growth in the UK over the next two generations—is that it is essential that the next 160 route miles, which will take HS2 through to Manchester and Leeds, are handled as a single stage. That was the basis on which both the noble Lord, Lord McLoughlin, and I sought to take HS2 forward: there would be a first stage, which would be from London to the West Midlands, and then a second. An initial stage 2a was introduced essentially as an addendum to the first stage, but the conception was always that the extensions to Manchester and Leeds would be taken forward together.

The big danger facing HS2 at the moment is that the second phase will be split between the extension to Manchester and the extension to Leeds, which would downgrade—and possibly postpone indefinitely—the extension to Leeds. That is taking two forms at the moment. The first danger is that the Government will not even commit to all of stage 2b. That is a very real danger at the moment. Tomorrow the National Infrastructure Commission report comes out and it may not even make the commitment to take the line through to Leeds. I assure your Lordships that if I were still chairing the National Infrastructure Commission, of which I had the privilege of being the founding chair, there is no way that such a recommendation would come forward because the job of the NIC is to promote the infrastructure required for the future prosperity of the UK, not to make arguments as to why it should not be completed at the behest of the Treasury seeking short-term economies.

On that point, I simply say to the Government and the House that if this big mistake is made, and the commitment is not made now to extend the full HS2 line through to Sheffield and Leeds, it is not that it will not happen; I believe that it will, but there will be a classic English mess-up in the development of infrastructure. What will happen is that in eight or nine years’ time the line to Birmingham will be opened, my noble friend Lord Hunt, who is here today, will have the benefit of being able to go back to Birmingham in half an hour, and everyone will say, “Wow, isn’t this absolutely phenomenal? Let’s get a move on to Manchester faster because we want to get there in one hour.”

Then suddenly people in Sheffield and Leeds will wake up to the fact that it is taking two hours to get to Sheffield and three to get to Leeds and, because we are a democracy, they will demand that the project be taken forward. Instead of doing this whole thing in 15 years, completing the line through to Manchester and Leeds, as we should have done, it will take 40 years and the poor people of the east Midlands, Sheffield and Leeds will get HS2 a generation later than they would otherwise have done, with big damage to their economies and societies in the interim.

As Lloyd George famously said, “When traversing a chasm, it is advisable to do so in one leap.” We know where this will end up. I can predict that, when somebody is reading Hansard in 2060, the line to Leeds and Manchester will have been completed. It will be a lot better for the country, and indispensable to the economic and social future of these communities, if we take these decisions now and do not, as I said at an earlier stage, have the equivalent of the Victorians building the railways up to Manchester but leaving Sheffield and Leeds with a canal.

The second proposition, which the Minister herself advanced earlier, is that splitting the provision for the next 160 miles into a Manchester leg and a Leeds leg will somehow facilitate the building of the railway—a classic case of trying to make a virtue of something when it has been decided not to proceed with it. I do not believe that that is the case. It is important for how it goes forward in future to understand this argument, so I will subdivide it. The argument is that splitting the provisions, with a Bill for phase 2b going up to Manchester and, in due course, a Bill for phase 2c going up to Leeds, makes enactment quicker and simpler. Also implicit in what the Minister said is that it makes construction more manageable and less expensive. Neither argument is valid.

The Minister herself made the argument against the first—that it facilitates the enactment. As she rightly said, this Bill has taken three years to enact, for just 38 miles. It would not have taken longer if the legislative provision had covered the whole way through to Manchester and Leeds. I say this with a serious note of warning to the Government. By my quick calculation, it has taken longer, not just in actual time but in parliamentary time—the sittings of the Select Committees and your Lordships’ post-committee processes—to enact the Bill for 38 miles than it took for the one covering 134 miles from London to Birmingham.

The reason for that is that so many of the objections to big infrastructure projects that this House has to listen to are generic. I say with real feeling to the noble Baroness and her successors: all the generic arguments that have been made will be made again and again, each time a subsequent Bill comes. It is much better to package them all into one Bill, rather than delay the process with two.

On the point about construction being more manageable, it is entirely up to the Government and whatever the delivery agency is to decide how they phase construction, but nothing can be constructed unless Parliament has granted the powers. The right thing to do is to get one piece of legislation on the statute book, dealing with all 160 miles, taking HS2 through to Manchester and Leeds. How the construction is phased can be decided afterwards.

There are big lessons. Over four Governments there has been consensus on taking forward HS2 up to Birmingham and now to Crewe, but I strongly urge the Government not to seek to divide the next phase, delay the introduction of legislation and, even worse, postpone indefinitely the leg to Sheffield and Leeds. Rather, they should seize the moment, seize the future, be true to the vision of HS2, which all Governments in the last 10 years have signed up to, and produce one Bill next year taking HS2 right through to Manchester and Leeds. It can be done. We are a great nation. The Prime Minister tells us all the time that we must be optimistic and forward-looking. I completely share that agenda. Let us get on with it. I beg to move.

High Speed Rail (West Midlands–Crewe) Bill

Lord Adonis Excerpts

Report stage (Hansard) & Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords & Report stage
Monday 30th November 2020 Lords Chamber

Although I do not want to divide the House on this amendment to the Motion, there are matters of principle here. I shall be interested to hear what the Minister and colleagues have to say. One solution which would be very much welcome locally, up the route, would be for the Minister to agree that those who asked for a TWAO should be given one. It does not cost very much and would not delay the Bill. I think it would also give an enormous fillip to the Government’s reputation, which is not very good at the moment. But if she declines to do that, then I shall probably feel it necessary to seek the opinion of the House. I beg to move.

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

My Lords, the first thing to be said on this amendment is for us all to record our thanks to the Select Committee for the sterling and exhaustive work that it did over many months in considering this Bill on behalf of the House. To the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, and his colleagues, many of whom are present in the House this afternoon, we extend our thanks. When we considered my noble friend Lord Berkeley’s proposal in Grand Committee, the noble and learned Lord gave what I thought was a magisterial and comprehensive response to it, which leaves me surprised, to say the least, that my noble friend has brought it back to the House today.

The arrangements that the noble and learned Lord set out for the consideration of hybrid Bills are well established, with additional provisions being set forward in the first House but not in the second House. That gives ample opportunity for petitioners to petition but does not unduly extend the process by which Parliament considers these matters. It is a long-established convention that the additional provisions are in the first House and not introduced in the second House. The noble and learned Lord gave a very compelling response as to why TWAOs, in the instances which my noble friend has set out, are not appropriate because they cut across the customary consideration of the Bill, which is radically different from TWAOs that are additional to Bills and promoted in respect of changes after Bills have been enacted. The proper way to consider changes to a hybrid Bill is to amend the hybrid Bill and, where necessary, in the first House, insert the additional provisions, not—because a petitioner was unable to persuade the committee in the first instance, or did not bring in a timely manner proposals to the committee in the first instance—to seek to reopen the issue in a completely new way by means of a TWAO.

It might have been better if my noble friend had been clear that he is seeking to delay consideration of the Bill and to delay the project. He openly opposes the project, as we all know—he has opposed it at every stage. That is perfectly legitimate and honourable. I happen to think that high-speed rail is the face of the future for linking our great cities; if my noble friend wants to be stuck in the Victorian age, that is fine, but he should be open about it. After the exhaustive provision which your Lordships and the other House have made on this Bill, in accord with our customary procedures and in a committee chaired by a former head of the Supreme Court, it is now a bit late to reopen these issues, with the transparent motive of delaying the Bill.

I hope that we can move on rapidly to the substantive issues before us. The most substantive, which I cannot wait to get stuck into, is sticking to the plan for HS2 to link our major cities, and not going along with proposals by the Government to scale it back and deliver half of HS2. That would be an absolute tragedy for the nation.

[Lord Randall of Uxbridge (Con) [V]]

My Lords, at the end of the Committee stage, the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, who it is always a pleasure to follow, implied, and has somewhat repeated today, that those who want to improve the Bill in any way are trying to stop it entirely. Although I am not a fan of the current HS2 project, I am in favour of high-speed rail. The problem was around the routing. However, I accept that the first phase, which affected me most, is going ahead.

The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, put his finger on two things, the first of which was the Hybrid Bill procedure. That is not for the Chamber today, but is something for us all to think about. The noble Lord, Lord Adonis, said that it is not customary procedure. That points out that there is a procedure which is not customary, and perhaps that should be looked at again.

Secondly, the most important thing that the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, said, was that there will always be a few people who will be upset by the result, as with a Planning Committee. If your planning application goes ahead, those who opposed it think there is some skulduggery afoot, and vice versa. The noble Lord mentioned the Wendover situation, which is in phase 1 and is effectively done and dusted. I do not want the same problems again following phases of HS2. It is paramount that the Government take as many of the public along with them as possible, not only those whose lives are affected, sometimes dramatically, but the rest of the country, who might see this as quite an expensive project. To persuade the people who have put the Government in place that this is a good project, some of these TWAOs should be heard.

I understand that this is not the customary procedure, and that it is late now. I do not particularly want this Bill delayed any further—we might as well get on with it. However, the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, has raised a very interesting and useful point of debate. If there are going to be such projects, we should think about how to maximise support for them with the public.

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Moved by

[Lord Adonis]

1: Clause 1, page 1, line 18, at end insert—
“( ) Within six months of this Act being passed, the Secretary of State must lay before Parliament the Government’s plans for a Bill providing for the construction of a high-speed railway from the West Midlands directly to Sheffield and Leeds.”

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

My Lords, I had hoped that it would not be necessary for me to detain the House this afternoon because the noble Baroness, whom we hold in very high regard, would accept this amendment. However, I do not think that she is going to accept it so, alas, I will have to detain the House for a few minutes in putting forward the case for it. It is fundamental to the whole of the high-speed rail project that it should serve not just the West Midlands and the north-west but the East Midlands and Yorkshire. If it is a project just for one half of the country, it will by definition leave the other half behind.

If we just build a high-speed line up to Manchester and do not build a new railway up to Sheffield and Leeds and connecting on to the east coast main line, then—coming back to the Victorians—this would be the equivalent of the Victorians building a railway up to Manchester but leaving the canals to serve Sheffield and Leeds. It is fundamental to the project that it serves both halves of the country, and the great danger at the moment is that the Government are on track to cancelling or severely delaying the eastern part of the project. The Minister is not able to accept this amendment, which simply requires the Government to come forward with legislation for the eastern leg at the same time as that for the western leg. It was always integral to HS2 that phase 2b—the extension of the line north from Birmingham to Manchester—should take place at the same time as the extension of the line north-east from Birmingham to Sheffield and Leeds.

All that this proposal seeks—there is strong cross-party support for it—is to hold the Government to the original conception of HS2, which they have said they accept and have not actually said they reject. However, they will not take the steps required to deliver it. Those of us who know how government works know that when the Government do not rule out an option but refuse to take the practical steps required to deliver it, we should smell a rat and act accordingly. That is the purpose of this amendment.

The noble Baroness may drag the rug from under my feet and tell me that the Government are definitely committed to introducing legislation for the eastern leg of HS2 to Sheffield and Leeds at the same time as the Manchester legislation. If she says that, I will gladly withdraw my amendment. If she says that she is prepared to consider doing that between now and Third Reading I will go the last mile to reach consensus with her and withdraw this amendment. However, if she cannot give that commitment, then the House would be reasonable in concluding that the reason she will not is because the Government are contemplating cancelling the eastern leg of HS2 outright. This will undermine the integrity of the project. It will not be levelling up. By definition, it will level down for the East Midlands, Yorkshire and the north-east and we should carry this amendment today.

I am very glad to have the support of some of the speakers who will follow me. I would like to call the noble Lord, Lord Curry, my noble friend because he and I spent many months together on the economic inquiry into the future of the north-east, some five years ago. He is a very powerful champion of the north-east and completely understands the vital importance of the eastern leg of HS2, not just to the cities that it directly serves—Derby, Nottingham, Sheffield and Leeds—but to the east coast main line going further north-east.

My noble friend Lord Blunkett and the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, are very powerful champions for the city of Sheffield. I am told that I have managed a near-miraculous feat in uniting them this afternoon, which I am delighted to see. I welcome the noble Lord, Lord McLoughlin, to the House, particularly as he has now joined the club of former Transport Secretaries, which is the most distinguished club in the House. He was an immensely distinguished Transport Secretary and carried the HS2 project forward for more than three years. It is in no small part due to him personally that we are debating the Bill this afternoon.

This is not a party matter at all; the rhetoric of the Government is about levelling up and bringing the benefits of high-speed rail. We will hear all these phrases from the Minister in a moment. She is already nodding—she has them in the brief in front of her. The benefits of high-speed rail should be extended to the east Midlands, Yorkshire and the north-east. You cannot have the benefits of high-speed rail extended to the east Midlands, Yorkshire and the north-east unless they actually have high-speed rail. She will also have in her brief that rail should be integrated; they have this thing called the integrated rail plan, which we will hear lots about. Well, you cannot integrate nothing with something. King Lear had the answer to that one three centuries ago, or whatever it was:

“Nothing will come of nothing.”


If there is no high-speed line going to Sheffield and Leeds and connecting to the east coast main line, there is nothing to integrate. If the Minister wants an integrated rail plan and she wants the benefits of high-speed rail extended to the east Midlands, Yorkshire and the north-east, I am afraid there is only one way to do it: build the high-speed rail line through to Toton—the junction station between Derby and Nottingham—and to Sheffield, Leeds and the north-east.

I do not want to detain the House unduly. I set out all these arguments in Grand Committee. I even changed my amendment, in intense consultation with the clerks, to meet the objection of the Minister that we might delay the project; there is nothing I would less want to do. The form of this amendment involves no delay to the construction of the railway line from Birmingham to Crewe because it simply requires that “within six months” of the passage of the Act, the Government should come forward with plans for legislation for the eastern leg.

I end with two key points, so that your Lordships understand the vital importance of the proposition we are talking about today. If high-speed rail proceeds only to Manchester, and does not proceed to Sheffield and Leeds, when HS2 is completed the journey time from London to Manchester will be one hour, from London to Sheffield, and to Leeds, it will be two hours, and from London to Newcastle it will be three hours. Do I need to explain to your Lordships what the impact will be on business location decisions and the whole economic future of the country if that situation applies to these cities for most of the 21st century? If we are about building one nation, giving equal opportunity and incentives for all parts of the country to grow, and giving these phenomenally important cities of the east Midlands, Yorkshire and the north-east an opportunity to compete on a level playing field with the western cities of the country, then we must pass this amendment today. If we get into a situation where HS2 is only half-built, it will be the equivalent of the great Victorian pioneers building railways in the western part of the country only and leaving the whole of the eastern part with canals. I beg to move.

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord McNicol of West Kilbride) (Lab)]

My Lords, I remind all noble Lords in the Chamber to maintain social distancing for everyone’s safety. I call the next speaker, the noble Lord, Lord Curry of Kirkharle.

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[The Deputy Speaker (Lord McNicol of West Kilbride) (Lab)]

My Lords, I have received no other requests to speak, so I call the noble Lord, Lord Adonis.

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

My Lords, there was a rare degree of unanimity in the House, and I am very grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken with a very great degree of passion. I think there is a great sense among noble Lords that the future of the country is at stake in the way that we proceed with HS2, just as the country that we live in today was to a very substantial extent shaped by those great Victorian railways and the way that they connected—or, in some cases, failed to connect—the great cities of our nation. The decisions that we take in Parliament over the next year or two on HS2 will shape the whole future of this country over the next century. Therefore, even though this has been a lengthy debate, I think it has been an important one, and hugely important for the direction of the country.

I said there has been near unanimity. I am afraid that the noble Baroness’s words do not go far enough; let me just do an exegesis on her words so that noble Lords are very clear about what she said. She said: “The Government have been very clear that the Prime Minister’s plans for the eastern leg will be set out in the integrated rail plan.” However, the key question is: what are the Prime Minister’s plans? Giving a commitment to set out the Prime Minister’s plans is absolutely pointless, unless those plans commit to building the eastern leg of HS2, which the noble Lord, Lord McLoughlin, his successors as Transport Secretary and I, on behalf of the then Government in 2010, committed to bringing forward as an integrated plan. Absolutely central to the whole philosophy of HS2 for the future of the country from the outset was that it should serve both the western and eastern parts of the country, and not, as one noble Lord said, replace a north-south divide with an east-west divide.

If the noble Baroness, who, as I say, we hold in very great respect, could commit to bringing forward legislation on the eastern leg at the same time as the western leg—that there will be definite legislation at the same time—I will withdraw my amendment. Is that a commitment the noble Baroness can make? Alas, my noble friend Lord Rooker invited her to rise to the occasion, seize the moment and make a declaration from the Dispatch Box—

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

The noble Lord knows quite well that you could not do that in terms of the time taken to prepare the legislation. You could not do it.

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

My Lords, you absolutely could commit. The noble Baroness could commit now to introducing legislation for the eastern leg. If she is telling me that the problem is the precise time it takes, but that there will be a definite commitment to legislation to build HS2 to Sheffield and Leeds at the same time as to Manchester, she could rise a second time, since she has already risen once, and I will withdraw my amendment. Alas, silence reigns, I am afraid, on the Government Front Bench.

I shall come to the quick, since it is important we understand the gravity of the issues at stake. The situation, which is well known in the Department for Transport and among those with whom I speak, is as follows. Dominic Cummings tried to cancel HS2. To be blunt, he does not much like Governments of any form doing big projects, but he certainly does not like big state projects of this kind. He wrestled very hard with the Prime Minister after the last election to get him to cancel HS2 outright. The Prime Minister believes in big infrastructure projects. When I was Transport Secretary, I had big discussions with him. There are many things he has no fixed belief on, but he has been prepared to commit to big transport infrastructure projects that will connect the country. He was persuaded of the case for HS2, and when the decision had to be made in February about going ahead with the first phase of HS2, from London to Birmingham, he gave that commitment. What then happened was that Dominic Cummings moved on to the eastern leg, because the weakest of the BCRs—benefit to cost ratios—is for the eastern leg. The reason the weakest BCR is for the eastern leg is very straightforward: the cities served in the east of the country are smaller than those in the west. But we are supposed to be about levelling up. That is the whole philosophy of the Government. So the fact that the BCRs are lower for the east is not a reason for not proceeding with HS2 East; it is an essential reason for proceeding.

Dominic Cummings is no more. That is a great step forward, which is why the tone of the remarks from the noble Baroness is much more positive than it would have been if he was still running No. 10. We now have a problem with the Treasury. The Chancellor is wrestling with a difficult situation in the public finances—we all understand why—and he wants the option to cancel the eastern leg. This is what this big argument is about. It is the reason the Government will not proceed and give a firm commitment at the moment. This is what is at stake at the moment. That option is being exercised through the integrated rail plan. It would be short-sighted and a catastrophe for this country if the Government were to exercise that option, because it would mean we had 21st-century infrastructure serving the western parts of this country and 19th-century infrastructure serving the eastern parts. As much as I like the history of this country—I am delighted the Pacer trains are going to appear in the National Railway Museum—history belongs in history, and we should be seeking to address the present and future in this House.

The noble Baroness’s department is entirely at one with me. Indeed, in the secrecy of this House, I can say that the Government themselves, in respect of this Minister, are at one with me. This afternoon, this House has an opportunity to tell the half of the Government that agrees with me to use their heft to persuade the other half to come into alignment. The join between these two is the Prime Minister. That is the reason for backing this amendment today. It is not a small matter; it is fundamental to the future of this country that we build HS2 both east and west. If we are going to be one nation in the future, we need a one-nation transport and infrastructure system, and that is why I beg to move.

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“Otherwise dispose of it” is a bit worrying. I would like some reassurance on that and on what a “monument to the deceased” actually encompasses. I ask my noble friend to address those comments in winding up.

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

I do not wish to speak on this group.

[Lord Haselhurst (Con) [V]]

I no longer wish to speak on this amendment.

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[Lord Haselhurst (Con) [V]]

My Lords, the only comment I wish to make on this amendment is to express surprise that some of the issues were not brought to the attention of the Select Committee by one means or another. We carried out a visit and saw some of the nature of the problems that could arise so far as road traffic was concerned, but it seemed to us, as the report indicates, that these were things that were being actively examined by HS2. We also felt that the lead on getting what was felt to be necessary for the benefit of local people should be taken by the local authorities. We were disposed to believe that they had some slack to take up in relation to addressing the real needs.

On extra stations, I think that, while it is inevitable that some people will say, “Well, if we have got this splendid new railway, can we not connect to it?”, every connection will add to journey time, of course, unless the extra stations should really be serving the lines that are being freed of the traffic by the construction of HS2. The idea that we should report to Parliament with the kind of frequency suggested means that people will be spending an awful lot of time doing that rather than, perhaps, getting on with negotiations to try to achieve the maximum amount of local understanding and support.

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

I support my noble friend’s amendment but have nothing to add.

[Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I declare an interest as chairman of the Woodland Trust. I support Amendment 4, in the name of my noble friend Lord Rosser, particularly where it seeks to ensure that the Government listen and learn from

“the views of residents and stakeholders … in regard to … the impact of the works on the natural environment, including but not limited to the impact on ancient woodland”.

In future amendments, we will discuss, with increasing depth, the issues of ancient woodlands and the unacceptably high impact of HS2, so I will not ask the House to listen to me going on and on about it several times—the Minister is already pretty fed up with hearing about it. I simply say that I support this amendment, which would not only help reduce environmental damage but, absolutely vitally, would examine the priorities of local people, which is inadequately done in these major infrastructure projects.

High Speed Rail (West Midlands-Crewe) Bill

Lord Adonis Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords & Committee: 2nd sitting : House of Lords & Committee: 2nd sitting
Thursday 12th November 2020 Grand Committee

[Lord Liddle (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I oppose the amendment. I do not see any point in it whatever. It seems to me that in this country we can never make up our minds about whether we are going to do anything that is big and expensive. We have constant reviews, and we are constantly cancelling projects that have already made some advance. We have just had the independent Oakervee review of HS2, and we have just had a government decision to go ahead with the line to Manchester—although I share the worries of my noble friend Lord Adonis about what the Government are thinking about the eastern leg. However, I see no purpose in launching another review now.

My noble friend Lord Berkeley says that it is very difficult to get independent advice regarding all these concerns about costs, et cetera. Of course it is difficult to get independent advice, as the people who really know the facts are the ones who are doing the job. Unless the taxpayer is to fund an independent organisation to be critical of a scheme that Parliament has voted for and that the Government have reaffirmed and have cross-party support for, then this is a ludicrous proposal. I suppose that the answer to my noble friend’s legitimate concerns is to have an effective HS2 board. If there is an answer to this problem, it lies in having an effective board to supervise the management of the project. That is the point that the Government ought to be satisfying themselves on. I honestly do not think that this is a matter for legislation at all.

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

My Lords, I agree with every word that my noble friend Lord Liddle has said, and I hope that the Minister will not give an inch to this amendment and will comprehensively refute it when she speaks. HS2 has been reviewed to death.

I find it utterly astonishing that my noble friend Lord Berkeley should be moving this amendment because he has brought his great, independent wisdom and distinction to the biggest review yet of HS2, which concluded only this February after the best part of six months’ work. When he says that there are no independent people to conduct that review, it is a lot of complete nonsense. The members of the Oakervee review were very eminent and very independent: Doug Oakervee himself, a man of immense distinction in the delivery of infrastructure projects here and internationally, including some of the most successful developed in modern economies, in Hong Kong; my noble friend, who was the deputy chairman; Sir John Cridland, who is the former director-general of the CBI; Michèle Dix, who is responsible for directing Crossrail 2; Stephen Glaister, one of the most eminent transport economists in the world; Sir Peter Hendy, the chairman of Network Rail and former commissioner of Transport for London; Andrew Sentance, of the Bank of England; Professor Tony Travers, who is one of the most independent-minded and distinguished professors of government in the world and holds a chair at the London School of Economics; Andy Street, who is the elected Mayor of the West Midlands; and Patrick Harley, who is the leader of Dudley council. So I ask my noble friend Lord Berkeley to tell us in his reply: what sort of independence does he have in mind? Who are these great independent judges of infrastructure projects who can bring their wisdom to bear and have not already been consulted? At the end of the Oakervee report, which is 130 pages long, there is a list of the people who submitted evidence and were consulted. That list extends to more than 400 people and organisations.

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[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Russell of Liverpool) (CB)]

My Lords, I have received no requests to speak after the Minister, so I call—

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

Sorry: I was not quite sure who I was supposed to email under this complicated regime. I emailed someone, but clearly the wrong person.

Perhaps I could ask the Minister a question. She gave she gave a compelling response as to why we should not have a review. She was less convincing in response to my noble friend Lord Rosser about cost/benefits, because costs and benefits change over time, which was part of the point my noble friend was making. The noble Lord, Lord Framlingham, was so concerned that we should pay attention to cost/benefits; can the Minister confirm that when it comes to the next review of cost/benefits, it is very important that the costs of upgrading the three principal lines running north from London—the west coast main line, the Midlands main line and the east coast main line—will be set against the costs if HS2 does not proceed? All the estimates made of those costs are that they are huge and should not be discounted in any future cost/benefit analysis.

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord for that intervention, but what he notes are the counterfactual opportunity costs of not having to do those upgrades. I am not sure how they would factor into a standard cost/benefit analysis, but it is certainly the case, as he pointed out, that they would be fairly costly and that HS2 brings not only speed but capacity.

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[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP) [V]]

My Lords, I apologise for my ineptitude with the mute button. I am afraid that I have been infantilised by the previous system, but I promise to do better.

I strongly support this amendment because this is another thing that ought to be standard in public life. Government works are for the public good and private contractors are there to perform that role for the Government on behalf of the public good. It is about trying to achieve that outcome and transparency should be a central pillar of all public works. Lack of transparency breeds distrust, fuels conspiracy theories and undermines whatever public good the Government are trying to and might achieve in doing the work. In particular, non-disclosure agreements should never be used for political purposes; for example, to avoid embarrassment or controversy. Perhaps the Minister could give us an explanation of the full range of NDAs being used in relation to HS2 and precisely why they are being used. That would help us move forward on this issue.

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

My Lords, while I recognise that there is a fixed order of speakers, I really want to speak after the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, because I know that in the past she took up the case of a particular whistleblower. I think that it relates to the time when she was the Minister responsible for HS2. In thinking how I can use creatively the processes of the Grand Committee, now that I know which clerk to email in order to speak after the Minister, if I have anything to say after the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, has spoken, I shall do so by those means.

What the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, has just said about non-disclosure agreements not being used for political purposes is of course completely correct and all noble Lords would agree with that. I am very keen to hear from the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, because I think that she is going set out her concerns about a particular case or cases, and obviously I am also keen to hear the Minister’s response to those.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Russell of Liverpool) (CB)]

The noble Lord, Lord Haselhurst, has withdrawn from speaking to this amendment and so I now call the noble Lord, Lord Liddle.

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[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Watkins of Tavistock) (CB)]

I have received requests to speak after the Minister from the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, and the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer.

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

The Minister’s response has been compelling. She is right to point up the importance of HS2 Ltd being able to discuss with local authorities confidentially different route options, treatment of works, and so on. That is completely correct. Of course, if that was not possible, HS2 probably would not be able to have some of those conversations, because the issues raised would be too sensitive. Therefore, I do not think that the case for this amendment has been made even in principle.

I note that the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, is going to come in after me. If she is going to try to persuade the Committee that there should be some more different and onerous process for HS2 Ltd in respect of non-disclosure agreements, she will have to be franker with the Committee about that. I do not think that we should have general statements made that would lead to substantive changes in a non-disclosure agreement that could impede the work of HS2 Ltd, unless we are given instances that we find compelling to justify that.

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I do not think I have anything further to say to the noble Lord, Lord Adonis. I too would very much appreciate hearing from the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer.

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[Baroness Randerson (LD) [V]]

My Lords, in speaking to Amendment 11, I shall refer to the amendment in the name of the Labour Party.

The finances of HS2 do not stack up, unless it is used as a spine from which to hang a network of substantial improvements to existing rail services and a programme of new lines and stations. Amendment 11 in my name is designed to cover this by way of an annual review by the Secretary of State. The frequency is intended to keep the process of future planning under constant review because, for the sake of efficiency and cost effectiveness, it is essential that there is a steady flow of work for the rail manufacturing and construction industry. The Department for Transport needs to move away from the cumbersome feast-and-famine approach to railway building which has so hampered the industry in recent years.

The noble Lord, Lord Adonis, queried whether the eastern leg of HS2, phase 2b, would be built following the Minister’s confirmation in our previous debate on Monday that Bills for the eastern and the western legs will be separated. I invite the Minister to tell us whether there is any truth in the rumour that the National Infrastructure Commission, which is developing the strategic rail plan, might recommend that HS2 as a new line should be built only from Birmingham to East Midlands Parkway, and that thereafter trains would join the existing main line to Nottingham, Derby and Leeds. Even if that line is improved and electrified, this would mean that there will be no gains in capacity and speed, and it will mean the loss of the economic development potential of HS2 which we have seen so well illustrated already in Birmingham. If there is truth in this rumour, it illustrates the UK’s fatal flaw: our failure to raise our eyes to the horizon, to build for the future, to plan for the future.

The work of Midlands Connect, for example, and its Midlands Engine Rail plans illustrates perfectly the way in which HS2 can and should be used to stimulate major improvements in rail services across the area and, beyond that, further to the north. It has planned three packages of improvements. Package West uses phases 1 and 2a as well as capacity in existing lines which is released by HS2. It would enable 20 more trains per hour into and out of Birmingham Moor Street station, improving links with the south-west, Wales and the east Midlands. There are plans to improve connectivity at Birmingham Airport and for faster trains on existing lines between Birmingham and Manchester. Then there is its Package East: a multimodal strategy to connect towns across the region into the HS2 hub station at Toton. But possibly most significant is its Package Connect. It has plans to enhance the east-west connection between, for example, Crewe and Derby, Nottingham and Lincoln, and so on, significantly improving journey times in an area where the percentage of commuters who travel by rail is woefully low. Why is that? It is largely because the speeds of the trains—the services at the moment—are low, and the services are infrequent. I must also not forget the importance of freight. Putting more goods on to the railways is important, and essential to a green future and to avoiding climate change.

The single unifying factor in all these plans is that they all depend in some way on the impetus that HS2 will provide. A high-speed long-distance railway leads to improved services for commuters, shoppers and leisure travellers as well as additional capacity for freight. Despite the falling numbers of rail passengers, and despite the fact that the pandemic has made us think again, there is every reason to believe that people will return to travel in the future. Indeed, they already have. Already, we are at roughly 100% of pre-pandemic road traffic levels, at a time when only 59% of us are back in work in our offices. If we were all to go back to work as we have done before, that would be an additional 2.7 million cars and other vehicles on the road per day. It is simply not possible and sustainable in terms of congestion, let alone the impact on air quality and emissions. For a green future we have to plan for a modern, fast and efficient railway.

I remind the Minister that in the general election last year the Government received a huge boost from electors in the Midlands and the north, who put their faith in the Government’s levelling-up rhetoric. Now the Government have to deliver on that, and HS2 is a key part of that deal. But as I hope I have illustrated, HS2 must be used as a catalyst for much more—for much greater change—and the north of England and the Midlands will have a pretty dim view of government promises if that does not go ahead as planned. I beg to move.

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, has made some powerful points. She has also teed me up splendidly because her amendment raises the issue of connectivity. I can see that the Minister is much looking forward to the fact that I am going to speak again about the connectivity of the east Midlands, Yorkshire and the north-east, which is imminently threatened by this review and potential cancellation of HS2 east.

Lest noble Lords think that I am unnecessarily alarmist on this, I am doing my public duty to see that this catastrophic and historic error is not made. Every time I raise this issue and engage with stakeholders, my concerns become greater. Since I made my remarks on Monday I have had a number of private representations, which it would not be proper for me to reveal because I gave non-disclosure agreements in response to those, but I have also had a very significant public representation —which I have forwarded to the Minister to give her an opportunity to respond in her reply—from Professor David Rae, who is a professor of enterprise at De Montfort University in Leicester, an area which would gain enormously from the benefits of HS2 east. Perhaps I may read the key part of his letter to the Grand Committee, because it specifically responds to the points I raised in our previous sitting on Monday. He writes:

“Consistent with your Twitter messages”—


I tweet summaries of my speeches because they are far too long to inflict on the public at their full extent—

“regarding the threatened axing of the HS2 Eastern link, a well-informed source tells me that the National Infrastructure Commission, which is preparing the Rail Plan”—

the one that the noble Baroness keeps referring to, and which she rightly says I do not like because it is the disguise for delaying or cancelling it—

“which will recommend the future investment, is more likely to propose that HS2 East is only built from Birmingham to East Midlands Parkway (EMP) and there to join the existing Midland Mainline and follow existing … lines to Nottingham, Derby and North to Leeds. Even if this is approved, there are multiple negative effects. In terms of rail, there will be few gains in either rail capacity or speed, and none north of EMP. In effect the Leeds and Northern HS2 link would be via HS2 to Manchester and thence via Transpennine Rail”.

I should say in parenthesis that that means that the east Midlands would gain very little out of HS2 and the journey times to Leeds and the north-east would be significantly delayed because all of their HS2 journeys would need to go via Manchester. That presupposes that a tunnel is built under the Pennines at high speed to take the line from Manchester to Leeds, which itself, as I know from having looked at the costings, is a hugely expensive and very problematic project.

Professor David Rae continues:

“There is also a large economic development loss to the region. As you will know, the development of the Toton ‘Garden of Innovation’ new community and innovation district around the HS2 station—


the junction station between Derby and Nottingham that is proposed as part of HS2 east—

“is of strategic importance to the region and is one to which the Councils in Derby, Nottingham and respective Counties as well as the Local Enterprise Partnership … are committed. This is crucial to grow the high-value and high-skill capacity of the region, predicated on HS2, and if lost will set back the region’s economic development by 5 years. We simply cannot afford this loss, set against the effects of COVID-19 job losses and anticipated Brexit impacts.”

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[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Henig) (Lab)]

I call the noble Lord, Lord Adonis.

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

I have nothing to say on this amendment.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Henig) (Lab)]

I then call the next speaker, the noble Lord, Lord Snape.

High Speed Rail (West Midlands-Crewe) Bill

Lord Adonis Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 9th November 2020 Grand Committee

Moved by

[Lord Adonis]

1: Clause 1, page 1, line 18, at end insert—
“( ) The commencement of the scheduled works may not take place until the Secretary of State has presented a bill to Parliament providing for the construction of a high-speed railway from the West Midlands to Leeds.”

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to start the Committee stage of the Bill. On behalf of all noble Lords, I thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, and his colleagues, some of whom are here today, for the extraordinary work they did on the Bill in the Select Committee that considered the private interests at stake, which are considerable, given that we are building an entirely new railway. I had the privilege of sitting in on part of the Select Committee’s consideration and was extremely impressed by the way it handled this business. The House is enormously indebted to the noble and learned Lord and his colleagues.

We now come to the public interests at stake. The most important is clearly how the line from Birmingham to Crewe interacts with the wider plan for HS2, and that is what my amendment refers to. The key issue now is the scope of HS2 as a full project. This is clearly the extension of the first phase of HS2, London to Birmingham, which is currently being built. I am glad to say that it is now beyond the point of no return, with 250 construction sites between London and Birmingham, more than £10 billion having been spent and thousands of workers on-site. This is a critical national project for building better after Covid and enhancing the nation’s infrastructure.

However, the question is what the scope of HS2 will be north of Birmingham. Here, I wish to probe the Minister. The plan for HS2—which has been accepted by the Government and is the one laid down by the Labour Government, in which I was privileged to be Transport Secretary—is a 330-mile HS2 scheme extending to Manchester in the north-west and to Sheffield and Leeds in the north-east, in both cases connecting to the main lines going further north: the west coast main line, going on to Liverpool and Glasgow in the west, and the east coast main line, going on to Newcastle and Edinburgh in the east. However, the big issue now arising is what will happen to the eastern leg. By pursuing this measure, the Government are making clear their determination to go on to Manchester, since obviously, a high-speed line is not going to stop at Crewe. Indeed, the Government reaffirmed the detail of the route going into Manchester, including the quite tricky issues regarding the layout of the station and track at Manchester Piccadilly station a few weeks ago.

At the same time, the Government also raised a very big question mark about the line going to Sheffield and Leeds. They did not reaffirm the route. They could have done so because the route was agreed in detail when I was Secretary of State and has been reaffirmed several times since, with amendments to take account of further consultation, in which the biggest issue was the treatment of Sheffield, particularly the genuinely difficult question of whether the eastern leg should go through Sheffield or through Meadowhall, to the east of Sheffield. That has now been resolved, with the plan being to go through Sheffield itself. No one has so far produced a better plan than that, but the Government said a few weeks ago that they intended to consult further on that issue. A whole load of acronyms come into play at this point, with reviews of different lines in the north and how Northern Powerhouse Rail might interact with them. Given that, with any of those different schemes, the ultimate question is whether or not HS2 is built, in a sense they are irrelevant. Obviously, HS2 has to be integrated properly with other lines when it is built, but that does not affect the fundamental question of whether it is built or not.

The general view among stakeholders is that the Government are separating what was going to be a single phase 2b, which would have been Crewe to Manchester and Birmingham to Sheffield and Leeds, into either a phase 2b and phase 2c—that is, building Crewe to Manchester first and then Birmingham to Sheffield and Leeds—or, which I think is much more likely if the two are separated, cancelling the eastern leg. That might not be for ever; I suspect that once the line is built through to Manchester, the wave of concern on the eastern side of the Pennines will be so great that ultimately, we will end up building a line to Leeds. But it will not be part of the original HS2 scheme, and it could be opened 20, 30 or even 40 years after the Manchester line is opened.

So, I am keen to press the Minister on what the Government’s position is. I am expecting her to give me a lot of waffle: words that do not mean anything in terms of a firm commitment. She will tell us that there is a further review—she is nodding—and that it will report by the end of the year. I know all the stuff that is likely to be coming from the civil servants but, because I am still fairly well connected with her department and what is going on, I can say that at the moment a battle royale is taking place within Whitehall as to whether the eastern leg will proceed.

There is a confluence of forces that, unfortunately in this case, are extremely malign. Dominic Cummings, the Prime Minister’s chief adviser, has never liked HS2 and tried to get the whole thing cancelled. He was unable to persuade the Prime Minister of that in respect of the first phase, which is why the Government announced in February that London to Birmingham would definitely go ahead. It would have been truly perverse to have cancelled it at that stage because it was already being constructed, so it is proceeding. Because the part of the Bill dealing with Birmingham to Crewe was already in play and the implied commitment to Manchester was therefore simply too great—there are also some very powerful Conservative forces in Greater Manchester that want the line to proceed—he did not feel strong enough to oppose that.

What he is doing now is seeking to axe the eastern leg by means of endless review, and in this, of course, he has an ally in the Treasury, which has always been sceptical of HS2 because it does not like making big, long-term infrastructure commitments of any kind. With Covid-19 and all the pressures arising thereafter, having a long-standing and further review will, of course, suit its purposes in any event. That is the situation that we face now.

I am not expecting—I am a realist in these matters—that the power of my rhetoric this afternoon will change the Minister’s mind and enable her unilaterally to make declarations that she would not otherwise make. I am well aware of what is going to come in a few minutes’ time. I am making these remarks—and will repeat them on Report—and hoping to build a coalition of supporters, particularly those who are affected by what might happen on the eastern leg, in order to build up public pressure on the Government. As with the first phase of HS2, it is only public pressure, particularly in relation to the impact on the levelling-up agenda—which the Government themselves say they believe in, and which will, of course, be wrecked if HS2 goes only one side of the Pennines—that will force the Government ultimately to commit to building both the eastern and the western legs.

In that cause, let me make clear, as the original architect of the scheme, why the eastern leg is so important. The three big arguments for HS2—capacity, connectivity and speed—are interconnected and apply equally to the eastern leg of HS2 through to Leeds as they do to the western leg through to Manchester. The capacity constraints of the Victorian railway—or, I should say, in large part the pre-Victorian railway, because the London-to- Birmingham railway opened before the coronation of Queen Victoria and is nearly 200 years old now—were just as great over time, although not immediately as great, on the Midland main line, which goes to Sheffield from St Pancras, and the east coast main line, which goes to York and Newcastle from King’s Cross. This was an absolutely critical factor in persuading Sir David Rowlands, the first chairman of HS2, and me, as Secretary of State, to proceed with the integrated plan for both the eastern and western legs. If we do not proceed with HS2 going through to both Manchester and Leeds, ultimately we will have to upgrade the Midland main line and the east coast main line, which would be ferociously expensive.

The noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, is speaking after me; he is a very eminent railway engineer and manager. My noble friend Lord Berkeley is in the Grand Committee as well. They might not be aware of it, but they were hugely influential in my making the decision to go east as well as west, because when I was Secretary of State, they came to present to me a plan for the upgrade of the east coast main line. The east coast main line, as noble Lords who know about the layout of the railways may know, has massive capacity constraints. In particular, the Welwyn Viaduct, which is very close to the beginning of the line at King’s Cross, is a huge and really problematic bottleneck on the line. It is one of the biggest viaducts in the country and can take only two tracks of what is otherwise a four-track railway, going all the way through to the Midlands. It would be ferociously expensive to widen, quite apart from the big planning battles that would ensue and the fact that there are big commuter flows across that line; Welwyn North station is actually on the edge of the viaduct.

When the noble Lords presented their plan to me in 2009, it entailed a £12 billion incremental upgrade of the east coast main line. I hope that I am not telling any stories out of school when I say that the moment that the two noble Lords left my office, the chief engineer of HS2, who was present with me at the meeting, said, “You can double all of those figures immediately” and that was then, in 2009. The chief engineer said that the cost of replacing Welwyn Viaduct alone—which is what would have to be done—would be several billion pounds. The cash cost is only the beginning of the problems that would be faced in upgrading the east coast main line, because, of course, the cost of disruption of one of the busiest main lines in the country would also have to be faced.

The cost of disruption was a big factor in the decision to go ahead with HS2, rather than carrying through yet another upgrade of the west coast main line. As noble Lords will be aware, in 2009 we had only just completed the previous upgrade of the west coast main line, which cost—in 2000 prices—£9 billion. It would be significantly more than that now to conduct a further upgrade. Of that £9 billion, £1 billion was needed to pay train operating companies not to run trains, because there were very complicated and expensive compensation payments. That did not begin to compensate private individuals and companies for the inconvenience and disruption costs of not having a railway for this period, which had been going on for the best part of 10 years. All those arguments will apply to the Midland main line and the east coast main line if there have to be upgrades because it is not possible to extend HS2 through to Leeds.

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[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord McNicol of West Kilbride) (Lab)]

I have received no requests to speak after the Minister.

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

I am grateful to all colleagues who have spoken, and to the Minister for replying to the debate. To be absolutely clear, I have no intention whatever of seeking to delay phase 2a. This amendment is a device to get a debate on what is to happen to the scheme as a whole. I am completely with all of my colleagues who have said that the importance of this is that we cannot see phase 2a in isolation. We obviously would not build a 36-mile high-speed railway in isolation; the interaction between phases 2a and 2b is the essence of the project, and I therefore make no apology for tabling this amendment.

A lot of good points were raised in the discussion. I fully respect the fact that the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, did not support the project to start with but she made the critical point that to build a railway stopping in Birmingham, and therefore to deny the north the benefits of the scheme and extend them only to the Midlands, would be perverse and counterproductive.

The point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, about the importance of continuity and mobile factories was very well made. One reason why our infrastructure costs are so high in this country is because of the stop-go attitude we have adopted historically to the building of major infrastructure. She mentioned the electrification of the Great Western Railway, which I also authorised when I was Secretary of State. The estimate that I was given then, in 2009, for the entire cost of the electrification of the Great Western from London right through to Bristol, Cardiff and Swansea was £1 billion. The noble Baroness can probably tell me what the latest estimate is, but when I last checked I think it was heading towards £4 billion, and it has been substantially descoped. For example, it is not going to Bristol Temple Meads but will now stop at Cardiff, which I would be very concerned about if I was in south Wales, and it has been massively delayed. That goes to the heart of the point the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, made about continuity in projects. If we separate Birmingham to Leeds from Birmingham to Crewe and Manchester, and turn it into a separate project with discontinuity between the two, that alone would probably ultimately double or triple the cost of the project, as well as delaying it and therefore delaying its economic benefits.

My noble friend Lord Liddle said that there is a debate in the further north-west, going up towards Scotland in Carlisle and Cumbria, about the benefits. He is absolutely right that there will be direct benefits because it will take an hour off the journey time to Carlisle from London. However, he said that the saving in journey time would be to London and the south-east in that respect. It is absolutely crucial to understand that there is also a massive journey time saving to the Midlands, because the first stop on the line out of London is in the West Midlands and that is a huge benefit to the north-west, as it would be to the east Midlands and to Leeds if the eastern leg is built.

I am not going to respond to all the other points raised, except to congratulate my noble friend Lord Berkeley on his massive ingenuity in bringing in the services to Paris and Brussels. The Minister did not rise to that challenge but I assume that she will address it in due course.

Coming to the Minister’s response, I am now much more concerned. She speaks with such elegance that she is of course beguiling, but what she actually said in the content of her speech left me much more concerned after than before. She said something which I was not aware of before, but which I will take up and probe significantly on Report. She said that there will be Bills—plural—for phase 2b. I have never seen that stated by the Government in the past. It was always the intention, and I thought it still was the formal intention of Her Majesty’s Government, that phase 2b —that is, Crewe through to Manchester and Birmingham through to Leeds—would be encompassed in one hybrid parliamentary Bill, not more. Because I have sat on both sides of the fence, not just as Secretary of State but when in more recent times I was privileged to be on the board of HS2, I know that three years ago we were then preparing for a single Bill to take HS2 from Crewe through to Manchester, and Birmingham through to Sheffield and Leeds. I think that under the constrained proceedings of the Grand Committee, the Minister cannot respond to me again but maybe she might respond me to in writing.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord McNicol of West Kilbride) (Lab)]

She can.

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[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

She can? Is it now the firm intention of the Government to split phase 2b and to have separate Bills for Crewe to Manchester, and then Birmingham to Leeds? The Government have made an extremely significant statement, if so.

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

The noble Lord, Lord Adonis, will know that because the hybrid Bills sometimes prove so challenging to get through, if they are too large, it was one of the recommendations of Oakervee to produce smaller Bills. It is, therefore, yes, one of the things that the Government are looking at.

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

I was not aware that the Government had stated that it was now their policy. The Minister has said that it is a matter of government policy this afternoon and that there would definitely not be a single Bill, so is it now the Government’s policy to separate the two?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

That is the case, yes.

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

My Lords, I say to my colleagues and friends who lead local authorities and are MPs for constituencies in the east Midlands and Yorkshire that they should take careful note of that extremely significant statement, because what it means is—and just at that point, the Division Bell rings.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord McNicol of West Kilbride) (Lab)]

But that is not for us.

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

Is it not? It is the Commons? It is so confusing. What that means is that the east Midlands—which has all the challenges of deprivation and economic growth referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, in his opening remarks—and Yorkshire will now definitely be downgraded relative to the north-west in the construction of HS2.

The important point about the separation of the hybrid Bills is that it will not just mean that the phasing is now separated, which risks the continuity referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, and my noble friend Lord Tunnicliffe—he has huge experience of constructing railways, as a former managing director of London Underground, so he absolutely understands this point. If the Bills are to be handled and passed separately, it is also very likely that there will be a substantial period between what is now to become phase 2b and phase 2c—Birmingham to the east Midlands, Sheffield and Leeds—even if the Government proceed with phase 2c. The separation of the Bills makes it all the more likely that phase 2c will be delayed for a substantial period beyond phase 2b.

I am grateful to the Minister for replying to the debate but I am more concerned after her remarks than I was before, and I hope that local authority and political leaders in the east Midlands and Yorkshire will have taken very careful note of what the Government have said today—a categorical statement that they intend to downgrade and possibly deny entirely the benefits of HS2 to the east Midlands and Yorkshire.

As I said, there is a problem of language here. The Minister said it was the Government’s policy to provide the benefits of high-speed rail to the east Midlands and Yorkshire. There is no way you can provide the benefits of high-speed rail to the east Midlands and Yorkshire unless you provide high-speed rail to the east Midlands and Yorkshire. The Government are using weasel words such as “benefits of” without making the commitment which must flow from that if these words are to have real meaning—actually to build the high-speed line. The Minister is smiling at me but the one thing she will not do, and has not done today, is make a commitment actually to build this railway. I say to her, as I say to the local authority leaders and MPs in these regions, that they must not accept a shedload of waffle from the Government about benefits, reviews, staging or integrated plans if there is not a commitment actually to build the railway.

At the end of the day there will either be a railway or not be a railway and the whole tendency of government policy at the moment is not to build the railway from Birmingham to Leeds, and that will have a really devastating impact on the society and economies of the east Midlands, Yorkshire and the north-east if that is the case. I make no apology for raising this issue. I will return to it on Report. But at this stage—does the Minister wish to come back? I am very keen that she does.

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

She would like to very briefly come back. I will not take a shedload of waffle from the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, either. He has taken a simple statement—that a very large and complex Bill may be broken up into smaller Bills to make it more manageable—in a direction which certainly was not the intention of those words and I cannot believe he has been able to read that into them. Be that as it may, all I have done is confirm that one big Bill may be split into smaller Bills. That is it.

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

Actually, the Minister has—

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord McNicol of West Kilbride) (Lab)]

We cannot have a debate. To clarify the procedure: if the proposer of an amendment, in their winding-up remarks, asks a further question of the Minister, the Minister may respond to those remarks. There is not then the opportunity—

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

I sense the mood of the Grand Committee. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord McNicol of West Kilbride) (Lab)]

Minister? You are fine?

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[Lord Hope of Craighead (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I should like, first, to thank the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, and the noble Baroness, Lady Vere of Norbiton, for their kind words about the work of the committee which I had the honour of chairing. This allows me the opportunity to thank the members of the committee who served with me through the various stages of our protracted proceedings. They were all a pleasure to work with, and I owe a great deal to their experience and the thoughtful contributions they made to our debates as we listened to the various petitioners whose concerns we had to deal with. It is also right to thank the broadcasting team, who had a very difficult job not only in dealing with us when we were sitting virtually, but when we came back to the Committee Room and sat in a hybrid fashion. They were with us in the room and I had first-hand experience of their difficulties in trying to set up those communications. I offer them my sincere thanks, as well as to the members of the committee.

Turning to the amendment, I am very much in sympathy with what lies behind the request of the noble Baroness for great care to be taken in dealing with artefacts of this kind, in particular historical monuments and remains. Like the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, I have to say that our attention was not drawn to any burial sites or monuments at any stage during the proceedings. I would have expected the relevant parish council to have done that if there were any burial sites of substantial size, and certainly monuments. One thinks of war memorial monuments, for example. I am pretty sure that we would have been told if any were on the line of the route or within the trace—the areas to either side of the route that will be used for construction purposes. There was no suggestion that problems of that kind were likely to occur.

I think the noble Baroness would wish me to say that there is always the unexpected. As soon as you start digging up ground, you find out what is beneath it. One has to be alive to the fact that in the course of the works, things may be discovered that no one knew were there before, but which turn out to be of historical interest. So, like the noble Baroness, I expect an assurance from the Minister that great care will be taken if, by any chance, something of this kind is discovered. The works should be stopped so that an assessment can be made by qualified persons of how the remains, monuments or historical artefacts, if there be any, can be best preserved before they proceed any further. I do not imagine that that would cause a great deal of delay; it is important that we do not lose these historical records before they are gone for ever.

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

I agree with everything that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, has just said. I would just add one point. Crossrail has considerable experience of burial sites and monuments and is generally acknowledged to have dealt with them sensitively and to have made a significant contribution to the archaeological history of Britain. In respect of dealing properly with human remains, it has been extremely sensitive at every stage and has arranged for reburial as appropriate. I would have thought that the Crossrail experience offers a good example to HS2.

[Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I generally support this amendment, which is really about tone.

The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, and my noble friend Lord Adonis have touched on the question of the treatment of any burial sites and monuments that we come across. I felt sure that there was something, somewhere that requires HS2 to show some respect in this regard. My research shows that an information paper on burial grounds was published on 15 February 2019 for the Bill before us. Paragraph 3.1 states:

“Any human remains affected by the Proposed Scheme will be treated with all due dignity, respect and care. Any impact caused by works to construct the Proposed Scheme on human remains and associated monuments is an emotive and complex matter and HS2 Ltd and the Promoter recognise their duty to address the concerns of individuals and communities.”


The essence of that assurance is that any remains should be treated with

“all due dignity, respect and care.”

Had that been carried into the Bill, perhaps through some wording in the Explanatory Notes, one would feel that this would be handled sensitively. During the works for the Jubilee Line extension we did end up building through burial sites, and we were sensitive to how that was managed. I think that we caused no offence as a result.

Unfortunately, no reference is made to “dignity, respect and care” in the rest of that document. Nowhere in Schedule 20 is there any sense of that, nor is it set out in the Explanatory Notes. I hope that the Minister will find some way of assuring the Committee that those key cultural attitudes to burial sites will be carried through in the execution of the project.

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I hope that she will agree some or all of those because I could seek to persuade the House to set up a new Select Committee, as I have outlined, but I do not really want to and I hope that we can have some meetings first. I beg to move.

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

My Lords, I was having some difficulty following the arguments of my noble friend. He could of course move the motion he referred to on Report, but I can confidently predict that it would not be accepted by the House. Indeed, I am not sure that many other noble Lords would give it the time of day, precisely because we have had this exhaustive procedure up until now. Essentially, cutting through what my noble friend said—he has of course wanted to stop the scheme all the way through and has been a deep contrarian in that regard—he wants to create new avenues for opponents to stop the scheme. I recognise that, and it is a perfectly honourable thing to want to do.

What Parliament has to judge is whether the processes we have are robust and fair. My view is that they are very robust and very fair. They give complainants and people presenting petitions ample opportunity to make their case. The arrangements that pertain between the two Houses are there to keep a proper sense of proportion in the consideration of the petitions, so that all of the issues raised—the petitioning process is exhaustive and expensive—are not repeated ad nauseam in the second House. That is why the Private Bill arrangements are in place: so that you cannot re-open in the second House, as fully as my noble friend would wish, issues that have been considered by the first House. That seems to me to be perfectly reasonable. It does not withdraw the rights of petitioners to have their concerns properly assessed by Parliament. What it does is put in place a procedure that is fair and proportionate for the consideration of those petitions, which is very different.

The reason why my noble friend Lord Berkeley wants the TWA process to apply is that he is not content with parliamentary consideration of these petitions, and he therefore wants petitioners to be able to create a wholly new and additional process: the TWA process. That is grossly disproportionate. The point he made about changes to the first phase of the project, from London to Birmingham, confuses apples and pears. If you are going to make changes to legislation that has already been agreed by Parliament, you have no alternative but to go for a TWA-type process, unless you are going to produce an entirely new Bill. That is a completely separate issue from seeking to layer on top of parliamentary consideration of the Bill a wholly new process—the TWA process—while this legislation is going through and petitions are being considered. I do not think, having had close acquaintance with the processes, that petitioners are treated in any way unfairly. The arrangements between the two Houses give them ample opportunity, and the power is there for Parliament to make fundamental changes in respect of petitions that are raised between the two Houses. The allocation of responsibilities between the two Houses is laid down by convention.

What my noble friend Lord Berkeley wants to do, essentially, is to stop the scheme; I accept that. He wants to create as many possible avenues of further appeal and expense—this would add to expense—to delay it. Any reasonable observer, particularly those looking at the work of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, and his committee and the committee in the House of Commons, would think that Parliament has struck a fair and proper balance between the power of the Executive to propose a major project of this kind and the duty of Parliament to see that all private interests are properly considered before agreement is reached.

[Lord Liddle (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I very much agree with what my noble friend Lord Adonis has just said and disagree with my noble friend Lord Berkeley. As a member of the Select Committee, I did not feel bullied by the government counsel on this question. We considered the issue in depth, and the reasons why we said we would not consider such orders seemed valid in the light of that discussion. I am sure the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, can give a much more elegant legal explanation of these issues than I can.

When the Bill goes through the Commons, the Select Committee can recommend fundamental changes to the route of the line by making additional provisions, but the convention has been established that the Lords does not revisit these questions on petitions that are made to it. Therefore, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, announced at the start of our proceedings that we would not be recommending additional provisions and would be sticking with the convention. Then, of course, people say, “You could use transport and works orders”, but, in effect, they another form of additional provision. As I understand it, if this point were conceded, the decision-making process would be taken out of Parliament and put into the hands of the Secretary of State. It would then be subject to all the arguments about judicial review and whether things have been done properly that have bedevilled plans for airport expansion in this country, for example.

As a non-lawyer, I was totally persuaded by the argument that we should not contemplate these orders. We listened to the argument that was made in the infamous case of the Stone depot, and I was totally unpersuaded that, even if we had had the power to make such an order, it was actually sensible.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Liddle (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I want to make a couple of brief points. First, it is important that there is some scheme of environmental monitoring, which I support. Three-monthly monitoring seems excessive, but it is good to have this amendment. Secondly, however, I am rather shocked by the tone of many noble Lords who are against HS2 in their treatment of these environmental questions. As one who served on your Lordships’ Select Committee on the Bill, HS2 seemed to me to display considerable concern and detailed knowledge of what it was doing on these points. Our exchanges with the Woodland Trust as witnesses were not in the tone of many noble Lords’ comments today. I thought that a good dialogue was opening up between the Woodland Trust and HS2. We made some recommendations in our report for more sensitive treatment of ancient woodland, particularly trying to avoid damage in the construction period, as well as recommendations on the planting of new woodland, but I am somewhat shocked by what I have heard this afternoon.

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

My Lords, I agree with everything my noble friend Lord Liddle just said. As a former member of the HS2 board and as the Minister who set up HS2 Ltd, environmental concerns were absolutely at the heart of what we sought to meet. By and large, HS2 has done a good job.

The fundamental concern many noble Lords have is that this railway is being built at all. We need to be quite clear about this. The impact on ancient woodland is miniscule as regards the proportion of woodland affected. Some noble Lords would prefer that the line was not built and there was no impact; I respect that entirely. However, Parliament has given these powers and it is a project of importance. The noble Lord, Lord Randall, says it is unpopular, but that is not what the polling shows at all. It shows that HS2 as a scheme is popular with the public at large. Railways are popular, and indeed, if I may point out to the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, they are particularly popular with Greens.

Unfortunately, a kind of parallel debate is taking place here. There is one between opponents of HS2 who are simply latching on to anything they can use to try to undermine the project, and the reality, which is that HS2 is doing, by and large, a good job. It could improve—of course all organisations can improve—but it is doing a good job of meeting its environmental obligations, and the requirements placed upon it by the Government are reasonable as regards no net loss.

I point out to the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, that he delivered one part of his speech condemning cost overruns at HS2, which was prefaced by calling for additional costs, which would be significant. He tried to pooh-pooh them away in a kind of rhetorical way, but it would be very significant if they were imposed on HS2. He needs to work out how he reconciles the first half of his speech with the second half.

On reporting, I am in strong support of full transparency and proper accounting processes, as I have been all the way through this project. I hope that the Minister will tell us what the process for reporting is. HS2 Ltd publishes a full annual report, which gives an update of the progress on the project across a number of dimensions, and it is regularly held to account by parliamentary committees, including the Public Accounts Committee, and internally by the Government.

However, I see merit, as my noble friend Lord Liddle said, in a requirement for an ongoing process for reporting on delivery against environmental and financial objectives. Subject to what the Minister says when she tells us what the reporting processes are, might it be possible to bring together my noble friend Lord Berkeley’s Amendment 4 and my noble friend Lord Tunnicliffe’s Amendment 9? The latter would require annual reporting in respect of the impact on ancient woodlands. My noble friend Lord Berkeley’s amendment would require quarterly reporting across a much wider range of impacts —not just environmental impacts, but costs of land acquisition, the progress of the project, and revenue forecasts and cost-benefit analyses. I support the broad range of issues that my noble friend Lord Berkeley wants to see reported on, but quarterly reporting is too regular. Subject to what the Minister says, if we are still not happy about the formal requirements for reporting after the Grand Committee, I wonder whether it might be possible to have annual reporting, as suggested in my noble friend Lord Tunnicliffe’s Amendment 9, across a broader range of indices. My noble friend is right that annual reporting is the way most organisations report on objectives and costs.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Barker) (LD)]

I call the noble Lord, Lord Framlingham. No? Perhaps we can come back to the noble Lord. I call the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead.

--- Later in debate ---

I turn back to the amendments. I support all of them because, although obviously the impact of HS2 on the natural world is massive, it also affects people—individuals, families, communities. There are businesses that are going to be disrupted, possibly for a decade or more. That has to be taken into account, especially after the dreadful impact of the pandemic. In fact, the Covid response shows how the Government could put their hands in their pockets; they can track down that magic money tree and actually use money to try to make people’s lives better. I suggest that this is one of those situations where the Government have to do that and ensure that people are not harmed.

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

My Lords, I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, that I am not at all impugning her integrity; I am just disagreeing with her. It is perfectly in order for us to disagree, as we do on HS2. There is no issue of integrity at stake at all. I think that in transport terms HS2 is the greenest new infrastructure project taking place in the UK today because the alternative, unless we are going to stop people travelling and hold back economic growth, is to build more motorways or have more domestic aviation, and neither of those is more desirable than HS2. That is why green parties across most of the rest of the world have supported high-speed rail. In Germany, France and Spain, green parties have been leading protagonists of high-speed rail. The problem for the noble Baroness is that she represents the past, not the future, in terms of green policy. That is not impugning her integrity; I am afraid that it is simply stating a disagreement.

The issues raised by the noble Earl are serious but largely technical. They are not technical for the people involved, of course, who have an absolute right to fair and timely compensation, but they are technical in terms of the operational rules and they are very detailed. All I want to say is that all Members of the Grand Committee, whether they are for or against HS2, want to see fairness applied. We look to the Minister for her reply to the specific points that the noble Earl has raised. A lot of them are very technical so it may be that she does that in writing—she is nodding; the letter that follows may be a long one.

One of the great virtues of the House of Lords is that we have Members such as the noble Earl who have a high degree of expertise in these areas. That is a very great and positive thing about this House. With a very open mind, we want to take account of both what the noble Earl has said and what the Minister says in reply before deciding what to do on Report. However, I stress that being in favour of HS2 does not mean that one is in any way stinting with regard to the obligations of fairness and natural justice that the Government owe to the citizens of this country. I undertake personally to take a keen interest in what the Minister says in response to the noble Earl’s points, and I would be happy to be party to any meeting.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Barker) (LD)]

I call the next speaker, the noble Lord, Lord Framlingham.

High Speed Rail (West Midlands-Crewe) Bill

Lord Adonis Excerpts

Wednesday 8th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Transport (Baroness Vere of Norbiton) (Con)]

My Lords, over the last few months, people and organisations across the country have become accustomed to new ways of working. This has included the way in which business is conducted in your Lordships’ House—in the Chamber and in committees. Work has been done to modify Standing Orders, adapt courtesies and introduce technology, and I dare say that many noble Lords, including me, have learned new skills along the way.

The Bill for phase 2a of HS2 is a hybrid Bill and is governed by the Standing Orders for private business. It deals with, among other issues, the property and business interests of petitioners. It is not explicitly covered by the resolutions and guidance that have allowed the work of the House to continue, with Members taking part remotely. This Motion aims to rectify that.

Noble Lords will recall that the HS2 Phase 2a Bill completed its Second Reading on 9 September last year and that, following a revival Motion earlier this year, the Bill moved to Select Committee stage in your Lordships’ House to consider the petitions. This Select Committee had only just started its sittings in March when the health situation led the House to adapt its working practices, and the Select Committee suspended its sittings. This Motion would allow the committee to start sitting again from 20 July, with Members, petitioners and those appearing on behalf of the promoter able to take part remotely. This would be similar to the way in which other committees have already started working.

This particular committee is quasi-judicial in nature. Criminal and civil courts have also been using remote proceedings during the Covid-19 pandemic, as has the Planning Inspectorate. The petitioners scheduled to appear this month have all agreed to appear virtually. Guidance and frequently asked questions have been revised and distributed, setting out how such meetings will be conducted to ensure that petitioners are able to present their evidence easily and get a fair hearing. I can assure noble Lords that the committee will ensure that any technical issues that may be encountered will not be allowed to prevent petitioners from making their case in full.

I have spoken to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, the chairman of the Select Committee, and he is seized of the importance that all petitioners must have the opportunity of a fair hearing. Furthermore, as government guidance and House practices allow, the committee will consider all options for the most suitable way of carrying out hearings in the future. While the Motion sets out that

“the Committee may decline to hear the petition of any petitioner who refuses to be heard by virtual proceedings”,

the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, is clear that this would be only as a last resort, and in circumstances when all other reasonable alternatives and support had been considered and offered.

I understand that it is the intention of the committee to have completed all the hearings in September. This Motion enables virtual hearings if physical and hybrid hearings are not practicable in that timeframe. I am very grateful to the Legislation Office for progressing this work. I beg to move.

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

My Lords, I strongly support this Motion. It is absolutely right that the Bill should proceed and that we should use the technology available to the House and the procedures which the House is adopting at large in doing so. We cannot “build, build, build” unless, with all deliberate speed, we move on the largest infrastructure project in the country, and it is absolutely right that this should proceed.

I wish to ask the noble Baroness about the review being conducted on phase 2b. Before the virus, and all the problems it caused, the Minister gave an undertaking to the House that this review would be completed by the end of the year. If we are going to “build, build, build”, it is essential that phase 2a is followed swiftly by phase 2b. The Government have put that into commission with a review; could she assure the House that the review is not being delayed by the pandemic, and that it will be completed by the end of the year, so that we can proceed with the full extension of HS2 to Manchester and Leeds in a timely fashion?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, for his support of this Motion. It is essential that we make progress on the Bill, as the noble Lord says, so that we can “build, build, build” for the future. He asked about the phase 2b review and, while I do not have an update on the timelines for him, I can reassure him that the HS2 Minister, Andrew Stephenson, has been incredibly busy on HS2 throughout the recent months, even during these very challenging times with the response to the Covid pandemic. If I am able to find out any further information from him when I return to the department, perhaps I might write.

Covid-19: Transport

Lord Adonis Excerpts

Thursday 14th May 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

It is not within my remit to answer that last question. However, my noble friend is right that London is not the UK. That is why Sir Peter Hendy has been working with the TOCs to open up rail services across the country. We are of course opening up all transport services across the country; that is incredibly important. On the point that he raises about 14-day quarantine and who that will apply to, as I have said previously, the scheme is still being finalised. The final details have not yet been announced, including whether there will be any exemptions.

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

The noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, raised a crucial point about staggering the start and end of working times so that the peak is reduced, which makes it possible for more people to travel safely on the Tube. The Minister’s reply greatly concerned me, however, because she said that she was going to phone the London employer organisations tomorrow. Why is she doing it, rather than Transport for London and the mayor’s staff? This clearly needs military-style organisation, big employer by big employer, with spreadsheets and all the rest of it. With the best will in the world, I do not imagine that the Minister and her officials are undertaking that military-style campaign, but it is obviously appropriate for Transport for London and the mayor to do so. Will she clarify who is responsible for undertaking this work with the major employers in London?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

I speak to TfL every few days and our call tomorrow will be done together, because we felt that that would be the most appropriate way to get the message across. As I think my noble friend Lord Blencathra said, London sometimes likes to think of itself differently. Adding in national government indicates that this effort has to happen across the entire country, which is why I am talking with the metro mayors as well. I am doing it with TfL, not to TfL, and there are certainly some very capable individuals within TfL who have excellent relationships with the employers. All I am doing is adding my help, but it is with the agreement of TfL.