High Speed 2

Lord Faulkner of Worcester Excerpts

Thursday 24th October 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Faulkner of Worcester (Lab)]

My Lords, we are all indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, for giving us the opportunity to debate this really important issue. I congratulate him on the way that he successfully corrected some of the more absurd misconceptions about High Speed 2 which its opponents are attempting to put about.

First, though, I should like to welcome the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, to the Dispatch Box for her first debate in the Chamber. Hers is a promotion much deserved and we look forward to her speech greatly.

The case for High Speed 2 is not primarily about the length of time that it takes to travel from London to Birmingham, although it is obvious that if we build a new railway, it should be built to 21st-century standards using technology that is tried and tested throughout Europe and Asia, rather than that of the Victorian age, and that means high speeds and shorter journey times. No, this debate is about something much more important: it is about what sort of transport infrastructure we are to bequeath to our children and grandchildren. We could go back to the thinking of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, when it was assumed that private motoring and heavy lorries would reign supreme. The transport imperative then was to build motorways on a predict-and-provide basis to serve them. The railways at that time were expected to decline gracefully, with many more lines being closed and services replaced by buses, passengers being discouraged by ever higher fares, and the rail freight business being largely abolished except for heavy-haul bulk loads and some container traffic.

However, the British public were not prepared to see their railways decline and die, and by July 2001 the distinguished City correspondent Christopher Fildes was able to write in the Spectator:

“Railways are a growth industry. Their most sustained attempts to drive away their customers have not succeeded”.

Let us look at what has happened since then. In July this year, Network Rail published a report, Better Connections—Options for the Integration of High Speed. Let me quote one or two of its findings. First, it says:

“Over the last decade the number of journeys made by rail has increased by almost 50% … But demand is still increasing. By 2020 another 400 million rail journeys will be made every year”.

Indeed, there are a million more trains running each year, while the busiest stations individually handle more passengers than Heathrow Airport. Network Rail makes the point, as the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, did, that it has done its best to make the best use of its remaining capacity and squeezed every last incremental change out of what it has. To quote again from its report:

“As demand continues to grow, this becomes harder and in some places impossible ... parts of the existing network will be unable to accommodate the forecast demand leading to significant overcrowding; in the peak, passengers may not even be able to board a train on some routes. Further, there will be no opportunity to accommodate the expected levels of increased freight traffic on the network”.

There you have the essential case for building High Speed 2—not as a separate line, physically and operationally away from the current railway, but as a crucial part of a reshaped and improved national network.

Some of those opposed to High Speed 2 argue that the money it will cost would be better spent on upgrading the present network and in trying to add capacity piecemeal to the west coast and east coast main lines. To add to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, let me remind those opponents that the last time we upgraded the west coast main line it was supposed to take six years, cost £2 billion and deliver 140 miles per hour trains. What actually happened was that it took nine years, cost almost £10 billion, and we still have 125 miles per hour trains, with unimaginable disruption of existing services in the process, with endless closures and bus substitutions at weekends, and sometimes longer. Does anyone believe that more than a fraction of the funds allocated to High Speed 2 would ever find their way to funding new investment on the existing network if High Speed 2 were to be abandoned?

Let us be clear: many of those arguing against High Speed 2 have no interest in growing the railway. The author of the Institute of Economic Affairs’ pathetic publication on HS2 makes clear his preference for an investment in roadbuilding—a transport policy which is 20 years out of date—and rubbishes the construction of the Jubilee Line and High Speed 1. It is inconceivable that London could function now without the Jubilee Line and the success of High Speed 1 is also clear. The economics consultancy Volterra produced a report in 2009 showing that the benefit to the UK economy of High Speed 1 over 60 years is estimated at £17.6 billion, plus a series of development, trading, housing and transport benefits.

I have no doubt that the benefits of High Speed 2 will be even greater. Looking just at the jobs which will be created in the life of the project, Albion Economics, working for Greengauge 21, estimates the total job years to be almost 890,000—the equivalent of creating 89,000 full-time jobs. We have to recognise that the future of inland transport in Britain belongs to high-speed rail and in having a world-class transport system that brings Scotland, north England, the Midlands and the south closer together; that drives opportunity and economic growth; and that makes sound environmental sense too. After the success of High Speed 1, it is time for the whole of Britain and for your Lordships to embrace High Speed 2.