HS2: Economic and Environmental Impact

Lord Brougham and Vaux Excerpts

Thursday 16th November 2017 Grand Committee

[Lord Framlingham (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to have this debate, which is an opportunity to examine further the vexed question of HS2. I am grateful also to the Minister, who kindly arranged a meeting with me to discuss the issue.

Your Lordships may wonder what purpose this debate serves, given how far this ridiculous scheme has got. First, it is never too late to correct mistakes. Although considerable sums of money have already been spent, they pale into insignificance when compared with the eye-watering sums to come. We should not throw good money after bad. Although many lives, homes and businesses have already been damaged, many have not, and the environment is still as yet relatively unharmed. My first reason is to ask the Secretary of State, even at this stage, to undertake an urgent review of the scheme, its costs and benefits.

Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, I firmly believe that this is going to be the infrastructure horror of the 21st century and, along with others, have sought in vain to explain clearly why this is the case to those responsible, from the Prime Minister downward. I am determined that those who sanction HS2 should confirm that they understand all its ramifications, put their names to it and bear the responsibility as the horror unfolds.

I am sorry to burden the new Minister with this enormous responsibility, but I want to task her with one thing above any other. I do not expect her today to commit to a review or, better still, to halt the project. Quite simply, I ask her to read carefully the package of papers that I have given her and to make sure that her civil servants read it too, then to satisfy herself that both the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State understand the position as she will then understand it. If she will undertake to do that, I can for the moment do no more. I believe that from the very beginning a scheme as nonsensical and deeply damaging, economically and environmentally, as HS2, could not possibly have got off the ground if those responsible for giving it the go-ahead had taken the trouble—as all the experts opposed to it have done—to understand fully how little benefit it will bring, how much it will cost and how much damage it will do.

This is the biggest infrastructure project ever in this country. There is widespread awareness of it and almost total opposition, combined with a sad acceptance and a resignation that it will happen anyway. It is topical today to think about the gap—the dislocation between government and the people. Nothing could better reinforce the people’s view that government is completely out of step with reality than HS2. Last January, I gave your Lordships’ House the opportunity to stop HS2 by tabling what was described as a fatal amendment at Third Reading of the HS2 Bill. The majority of your Lordships failed to support my amendment, many telling me privately that they agreed with it, but 25 brave souls supported me and will go down in history as having done so. Significantly, two of them are ex-Permanent Secretaries to the Treasury. The noble Lord, Lord Burns, under Gordon Brown and the noble Lord, Lord Macpherson, under David Cameron, saw at first hand and in the closest possible detail the shortcomings of HS2. Both voted to put a stop to it just a few months ago and have spoken against it since.

The crucial point here—this is the most important point I want the Minister to take away from the debate—is that anyone who takes the time and trouble really to understand this project and see all its shortcomings simply finds that they cannot support it. I believe the Prime Minister and perhaps even the Secretary of State have been badly advised. For them not to fully understand the ramifications of a scheme as huge as this, if this proved to be the case, is truly frightening.

This mad scheme, the pipe dream of originally just two people, was based on the idea of speed, as seen in France and Japan, cutting the travelling time between London and Birmingham with speeds of 250 mph. The case for speed has been heavily and effectively criticised and is no longer deployed. The fallback position has been capacity, but this too does not hold water since, although some new capacity may be introduced, it creates other problems. In any case, extra capacity is needed much more in other areas. Some 83% of London’s rail passenger traffic comes from the south and east of London, not the north.

Any serious justification for the scheme no longer exists, except perhaps just job creation—we now have two HS2 colleges. I am all for creating more employment, but not for spending £100 billion for so little advantage. The NHS needs only £4 billion to see its way ahead. We need homes and ships. I am told you could rebuild every hospital in the country with this money. It is generally agreed that any money spent on the railway system should be on improving existing lines, trains and stations, along with the links between our northern cities and the east-west links in the north.

When it comes to cost we really do enter Alice in Wonderland territory. At £400 million per mile it will certainly be far and away the most expensive railway in the world. Unbelievably, HS2 has still not produced detailed estimates. The Government say the total scheme will cost £55.7 billion. Mr Michael Bing, the expert who devised the standard method used by Network Rail to cost its projects and who has advised the Government on these matters, says £104 billion. Mr Bing’s costings have never been challenged.

What about the environment? Let us not pretend: the effect of HS2 on the environment was always going to be deeply damaging. Remember, a brand-new high-speed railway line is being driven through the middle of the country, where, incidentally, a functioning railway line already exists. Speed need straightness and straightness means you cannot avoid precious sites. Ten thousand acres of land will be affected. The Woodland Trust says that, as currently mapped, HS2 will destroy or damage 98 irreplaceable woodlands. Ancient woodlands really are irreplaceable; no amount of money will compensate for their loss. There are already reports of some 60 mature London planes being taken down in Camden to make way for a temporary taxi rank. In the Colne valley there are reports of unregulated clearance work taking place already. If that is true, it is very serious. The law and conditions laid down have to be strictly adhered to, otherwise not only does the environment suffer but so does Parliament’s reputation and credibility. Perhaps the Minister will let us know what arrangements are in place for monitoring these works.

This is the gravy train to end all gravy trains. Millions upon millions have already been spent on lawyers, accountants and planners. One firm is reported as having been paid £280,000 to extol the virtues of HS2 to primary schoolchildren along the route. Unauthorised enhanced redundancy payments have been paid to HS2 staff, against the direct instructions of the Secretary of State. The impression given is that HS2 is arrogant and sees itself as bombproof. Perhaps that it is not surprising. The Secretary of State himself, when asked on the “Today” programme what it might cost to complete HS2, replied, “What it takes”. As a separate matter, some concerns have been expressed about the role of members of the board of the National Infrastructure Commission, and its interest in and involvement with companies dealing with HS2. Perhaps the Minister could look into that for us.

The list of those opposed to HS2 is huge. A few days ago, Dame Margaret Hodge MP, former chairperson of the Public Accounts Committee in the House of Commons, said that the PAC could no longer keep a proper check on problems such as HS2, which she called a vanity project unlikely to help the north. Perhaps the most damaging critique of HS2 comes from a group of professional railway experts led by Tony May and Jonathan Tyler. That can be found in the Lords’ Library briefing—I do not have time to spell it out now. Even more damning is that fact that this group, which sought a meeting first with the Secretary of State and then with a junior Minister, were told, quite simply, that both were too busy.

I have with me a sheaf of quotations. I am not going to read them all out but I will read out two. The noble Lord, Lord Lawson, a former Chancellor, says that:

“HS2 is a huge mistake. The fact is, it is a crazy grandiose vanity project which doesn’t stack up economically at all”.


The noble Lord, Lord Mandelson, said, perhaps tellingly, that:

“In 2010, when the then Labour government decided to back HS2 … We were focusing on the coming electoral battle, not on the detailed facts and figures of an investment that did not present us with any immediate spending choices … I now fear HS2 could be an expensive mistake”.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Brougham and Vaux) (Con)]

Time is up.

[Lord Framlingham]

In conclusion, speed has always been important to railways. On 3 July 1938, a beautiful steam engine called the “Mallard” set a world record speed of 126 miles an hour—a triumph of engineering and something for the nation to be proud of. HS2 is not a “Mallard”; it is an albatross that will hang around the necks of the British people until 2033, costing over £100 billion. The Budget is just one week away and the NHS needs just £4 billion. We surely desperately need a review.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Snape]

I have not finished with him yet. I will give way in a moment.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees]

Order.

[Lord Snape]

He mentioned costs and benefits but talked solely about the costs and not about the benefits. If the noble Lord is going to intervene with something impromptu, rather than something he has read somewhere else, I will give way.

Space Industry Bill [HL]

Lord Brougham and Vaux Excerpts

Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 23rd October 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rosser]

I will be brief in moving this amendment. When we discussed the first group, Amendments 40 to 42, which dealt with the issue of the Henry VIII powers, I expressed our concern about the extent to which they appeared to preclude proper parliamentary scrutiny of what is, after all, simply a skeletal Bill, and in respect of regulations that were not even expected to be laid for nearly two years at the earliest.

I do not wish to go through again everything that I said when we discussed the first group of amendments, but obviously the points that I made then are applicable to the reason for putting down this particular amendment. The amendment provides for the use of the super-affirmative procedure rather than, when applicable, the affirmative procedure in the Bill for considering regulations and secondary legislation under what is a skeletal Bill. The amendment is similar to the terms of the provisions of the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Act 2006.

The super-affirmative procedure provides that a Minister must lay a draft order and explanatory document before both Houses and take account of any representations. Motions passed have to be passed by either House, and recommendations of a committee of either House also have to be taken into account by the Minister. After a 40-day period, the draft order must then be passed by both Houses. The procedure also gives the committee scrutinising the order the power to kill it by recommending that no further proceedings be taken, with this recommendation being able to be overturned only by a vote of the whole House.

If the Government and any future Government are to be held in check by Parliament to try to stop any novel or expanded interpretations of minor and consequential amendments—including, of course, under Clause 66, since the Government have declined to move on that—the super-affirmative procedure provides the best route, if the Government prove to be determined to keep Henry VIII powers in the Bill. No Government ought to be concerned about the super-affirmative procedure, rather than the affirmative procedure, in the context of a skeletal Bill, which it is difficult for Parliament to scrutinise effectively, since, as I have said, the crucial regulations will not even be consulted on until next year and will not come before Parliament for nearly two years at the earliest. Through using this procedure, at least the political and statutory consequences of any overenthusiastic government interpretation of what it is appropriate to put in regulations requiring the affirmative procedure can be properly drawn to the attention of both Houses before they decide whether to give their agreement to the secondary legislation in question. I beg to move.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Brougham and Vaux) (Con)]

I advise the Committee that, if this amendment is agreed to, I cannot call Amendments 46 to 50 inclusive.

[Lord McNally]

Over the past hour or so we have been wrestling with the same problem: that there is a deep unease in this House—and probably down the corridor as well—that our parliamentary procedures are not flexible enough to deal with much legislation that deals with rapid technological change. I refer to the Data Protection Bill, which we will soon be considering. Over the period of my involvement, in both Houses, in broadcasting and the media, often, 10 or 20 years have passed before a new technological development has arrived—for example, the introduction of radio in the 1920s, and then television, slightly delayed by the war, in the 1940s. Now, we can have technological change within months. How do we get the proper legislative framework in which our judges can work, in a system that is rapidly changing under our feet and before our eyes?

Every Minister that I have heard has always said that SIs give both Houses of Parliament a chance to look at something. To the uninitiated, that seems perfectly reasonable. However, particularly at this end of the building, we know that, if there is any attempt to mess around with SIs, all of a sudden the skirts are lifted and there is shame and outrage at what is going on—the second Chamber ignoring the democratic wishes of the other House, because the legislation will have gone through the Commons on the nod, or with hardly any debate. The noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, is then rolled out to give one of his opinions. The great thing about the noble Lord is that he has given an opinion in favour of almost any argument regarding change in this House, over his long and infamous career—I have enjoyed serving with him for 11 years of it.

Road Safety: Eye Tests

Lord Brougham and Vaux Excerpts

Monday 31st October 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

I congratulate the noble Viscount. He has been a vociferous and devoted campaigner for road safety, and I know that he recently received an award from the Police Federation recognising his achievements and service in this area. Highways England uses electronic variable message signs but, as the noble Viscount is aware, these are intended primarily to advise drivers of immediate safety issues and journey information. With regard to road safety week, we are intending, with Highways England, to use other forms of media, such as social media, to promote the importance of getting your eyes tested.

[Lord Brougham and Vaux (Con)]

Is my noble friend aware that in Switzerland, where my cousin lives, if you are over 70 you have to retake your test every two years? If you are over 80, you have to retake it every year, including an eye test and a full medical. Would he not consider something along those lines?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

It is always useful to hear personal anecdotes. I actually had my eyes tested on Saturday, and I passed. Turning to my noble friend’s question, the UK has one of the greatest road safety records. People aged 70 are required to sit the test to renew their licence for another three years, and we provide other services through DVLA. Pilots are also being taken up, including with GP practices in Birmingham, to raise awareness of eye tests, particularly for those over 70.

Infrastructure Bill [HL]

Lord Brougham and Vaux Excerpts

Monday 9th February 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb]

I thank the noble Lord for that intervention. The noble Lord, Lord Smith, who was then chair of the Environment Agency, reported to that Economic Affairs Committee that,

“groundwater contamination is the biggest environmental risk in the Act”.

The Labour spokesperson in the other place said that it was all or nothing: if the Government did not accept the amendment, including banning fracking near aquifers, the Labour Party would oppose fracking altogether. I look forward to that party reaffirming its opposition today. People might assume that as this is an unelected House, nobody watches what goes on here, but people do watch and they care out there. Fracking is a very controversial issue; people have already voiced their concerns and will continue to do so. A government U-turn on this is unforgiveable.

The second issue is that of trespass. I think there is a later amendment that deals with this, but it does not go far enough.

Groundwater contamination is one of the key environmental public health risks from fracking and is a huge risk to the well-being of the population. In some parts of the UK, more than 70% of public drinking water comes from groundwater. As for the Government promising to redefine groundwater source areas, that is a secondary legislation issue. The original idea from the Labour amendment was, however, that this should be in the Bill; it should be primary legislation, not secondary.

A leaked letter from the Chancellor had instructions to pull out all the stops to make for an easier life for fracking companies. This is probably not surprising when our Prime Minister has said that we are going “all out for shale”. I can accept that that side of the House is very gung-ho on fracking but I hope for something better on this side. The original Amendment 21 would also give us an opportunity to vote against the issue of trespass within this Bill.

Despite assertions that shale gas is a fantastic new source of energy, it is time for us to consider whether and by how much it would have a lower carbon footprint. It probably would not, if CO₂ and methane are included.

Fracking is one of those things that we can go for very hard when we do not know all the risks, but we have to understand that those risks exist. This House has a duty to people outside who know that there are risks. Some 360,000 people voiced their concerns about issues such as trespass. Many people also responded to a consultation on the risks of fracking. There is concern out there that I feel is not well represented in this House and I urge the Government to think again about this amendment.

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Brougham and Vaux) (Con)]

My Lords, I remind noble Lords that if Amendment 21E is agreed to, I cannot call Amendment 21G by reason of pre-emption.

[Lord Turnbull]

My Lords, I confess that I am somewhat mystified why we are discussing a fracking moratorium. It was not in the Bill as it left the Lords and the Commons declined to insert an amendment. What is there left for the Lords to consider?

There are two approaches for analysing this issue. The first we might call the appeal to reason. That was the title of the book by the noble Lord, Lord Lawson. What is the logic of the moratorium? It seems to me to be completely incoherent. It is argued, first, that we do not know enough to permit this technique to be deployed in the UK, but the moratorium would prevent drilling under careful restraints of the kind that the Minister has pointed out and it would prevent us advancing our knowledge. In my view, it is the logic of the GM-crop tramplers.

The next argument is that we cannot allow our shale reserves to be exploited as this would be inconsistent with the decarbonisation targets of the Climate Change Act. Setting aside the fact that our exploitation of shale is pretty immaterial in a world where China has said that its CO₂ emissions will continue to rise until 2030 and India refuses to set any such objective, this proposal ignores the fact that the largest part of gas usage is for heat in our homes and the feedstock for chemicals. That is not going to change for a long time given the slow turnover in our housing stock for several decades.

This morning, I looked at where the various sources of energy came from. At 11 am on a very cold and still day, we were using 46 gigawatts of energy. Of that, 6% came from wind and 43% from gas. This proposal ignores the fact that we need access to gas to provide the back-up when the wind does not blow in precisely these climatic conditions, which are repeated quite often each winter.

Infrastructure Bill [HL]

Lord Brougham and Vaux Excerpts

Tuesday 8th July 2014 Grand Committee

Amendment 61 not moved.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Brougham and Vaux) (Con)]

My Lords, if Amendment 61A is agreed, I cannot call Amendment 61AA due to pre-emption.

Amendment 61A

Moved by

Local Government Finance Bill

Lord Brougham and Vaux Excerpts

Thursday 5th July 2012 Grand Committee

This is a very serious situation and the Government should take account of that in the speed with which and the way in which they implement this legislation. The adult social care funding system is bust. Until the Government grasp the nettle of repairing it quickly, we should not use this Bill to make a bad situation worse. I beg to move.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Brougham and Vaux)]

I must advise the Committee that, following a printing error, Amendments 54A and 54B should be numbered Amendments 56A and 56B to Schedule 2.

[Lord Best]

My Lords, I shall be brief in supporting the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Warner. We all owe him a debt of gratitude. He was one of the three Dilnot commissioners, along with Dame Jo Williams and Andrew Dilnot. Their report remains the key piece of policy guidance to which we all look to reform the system fundamentally.

I have declared my interest as president of the Local Government Association, which is right behind this amendment. The LGA has made adult social care its highest priority. It is the issue about which it is most concerned at the moment. If we take out the dedicated schools grant, social care is already much the largest area of local government spending. The 28% cut to central government support for local authorities over the current spending review period has not, I am glad to say, led to a 28% reduction in social care services for older people, adults with learning difficulties and others in need of care. Local authorities have absorbed some 85% of those cuts through service redesign and efficiency savings. However, this can go on for only so long before very painful results become apparent.

The cost of adult social care services is now set to rise, on a trajectory that the LGA has calculated, from some £14.4 billion to £26.7 billion over 18 years. That is an increase of 85%. By the time we get 18 years down the road, we very much hope that a series of measures will be in place to head this off before we get to the point at which virtually all local government expenditure must be on social care. However, there is the period in between in which things may get worse and we do not want this legislation to heighten those dangers.

It seems unlikely that a Bill could be introduced before the next election. If something came forward in 2015, it would probably be enacted in 2016 and become effective in 2017-18. We would already be several years down the road. The King’s Fund has estimated that by 2014-15 the gap in social care provision will already have reached £1.2 billion a year. Central government support needs to be in place now. We will get a reset in 2020 but in the intervening period funding for social care is a really important consideration for the Government. Although there may not be an expectation of the noble Lord’s amendment being accepted in its entirety, the sentiment behind it is strongly supported by the Local Government Association.

Postal Services Bill

Lord Brougham and Vaux Excerpts

Wednesday 4th May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe]

My Lords, I support my noble friend Lord Stevenson. I do not think that there has been any conversion on the part of the Labour Party. I was an employee when NATS was a PPP. I was an employee share representative acting on behalf of the employees and I was a partnership director. It is true that the employees had 5 per cent of the shares, which is less than what is on offer at the moment, but the Labour Government’s policy was to try to develop more employee involvement than there had been in the past. I suspect that, had they stayed the course with the previous Bill, we might have seen the emergence of something like that. There were certainly plenty of private discussions about the possibilities. Indeed, prior to the Bill being presented, some of us had conversations with Royal Mail about the prospects of creating a trust for employee shares, and we tried to be quite innovative in our approach. Some of us identified that one of the major issues facing postal employees was problems over home ownership. If we created employee shares within the company, while those shares would not be on the open market but would be kept within the trust, why could an arrangement not be created whereby the share ownership was offset against support from building societies to assist employees in purchasing or part-purchasing their homes? Royal Mail looked into that at one stage. Therefore, I welcome what the Government are trying to do. Perhaps the Minister, with all her powers of persuasion, can get round the Treasury and convince it that it should move from 10 to 15 per cent.

It has been pointed out to me that this offer is the biggest ever to be made during the course of a privatisation. I believe that if we check the records to see what happened with the bus industry, where deregulation and privatisation took place on a great scale around the country, we will find that many employees and managers had the opportunity to purchase shares in many of the bus companies in the country. Indeed, in some instances, they took them over 100 per cent, some of them also being put into trusts and some into ESOPs. Therefore, I believe that there is a precedent for offering a level of ownership higher than 10 per cent. I suggest that the Minister has a look at the bus industry if she needs some supporting evidence for her arguments in persuading the Treasury to go beyond the 10 per cent offer.

Secondly, I believe that there should be a trust, although I shall not repeat all the arguments that have been made before. There is a natural temptation for some people to get their hands on the shares and perhaps to dispose of them fairly quickly, as we have seen happen in several privatisations, but I believe that a trust provides a means for an employee to be more permanently committed to the company and to the welfare and profitability of the company in the long term. I hope that the Government will come forward with proposals on a trust.

Thirdly, that leads me to the final point made by my noble friend Lord Stevenson concerning representation on the board. I hope that shares will be issued on the basis of equality, regardless of people’s grades within the company, so that the managing director will get no more shares than a postal worker. Equally, I hope that, if there are instances in which votes have to take place within the trust, each vote will carry the same weight and value. In particular, an opportunity should be created—probably for the first time; certainly my Government did not do it—for there to be an employee director on the company that would be created under the privatisation proposals to represent the interests of the employees’ shares.

This is a chance for the Government to be progressive and to effect some changes in a new way. I see that on 7 June Mr Francis Maude is to speak to a gathering on employee ownership in the Strangers’ Dining Room in the other place. Perhaps he will float what the Government have in mind regarding further changes in the nature of ownership within the public service, with a greater push for employees to have a greater stake in the ventures in which they are involved. This could be linked up with what is happening in Royal Mail.

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Brougham and Vaux)]

My Lords, I should have announced that, if this amendment is agreed to, I cannot call Amendment 17 due to pre-emption.