High Speed Rail (London-West Midlands) Bill

Debate between Lord Framlingham and Lord Snape

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords & Committee: 1st sitting: House of Lords & Report stage: House of Lords
Tuesday 10th January 2017 Grand Committee

[Lord Framlingham]

I understand that this is not the place to make a Second Reading speech but we are entitled to talk about the value of these amendments in the whole scheme. What is being highlighted is that there are no solutions and that is very important.

[Lord Snape]

Again, with respect to the noble Lord, I do not mind him speaking about the amendments; procedural matters are not for me, anyway. But he said, in effect, that the money being spent—whether that is £50 billion as my noble friend said or whatever—would be better spent on other things. That, I have to say, is a Second Reading speech, and the question, “Why are you spending money on this rather than that?” could be asked in either Chamber in relation to any matter under the sun. As for my noble friend’s contribution, while I had better be careful that I do not make a Second Reading speech myself, I am somewhat sick of hearing about the enormous damage that is being done to an area of natural beauty by a two-track railway line.

[Lord Snape]

I will come to the tunnels in later amendments—my noble friend should not distract me just yet; I will deal with them in a moment or two.

As it was said, the garden of England, Kent, was not destroyed by High Speed 1, although I sat and listened for months on end to petitioners telling me that it would be. I am glad to say that was the last hybrid Bill I served on; I do not want to do another one after that experience. The destruction never happened, and, indeed, the economy of various parts of Kent has been boosted enormously by HS1, as we heard earlier. I do not know where my noble friend was when the M40 was being built. There are of course no tunnels on it, but I presume that it is a great asset to the Chilterns. I would have thought that objections to it, such as they were, would have been somewhat muted by the convenience to the objectors of getting their motor cars back to London from the lovely parts of the Chilterns in which they lived or were visiting.

[Lord Framlingham]

I accept what the noble Lord says about the building of a two-track railway, but surely given the size of this project he will concede that every possible effort should be made to ensure it has a minimum impact on the countryside. Given that huge size—£55 billion—even reasonable amounts of money should be given, without much discussion, to make sure the damage is kept to a minimum.

[Lord Snape]

I am immensely sorry to refute the noble Lord’s assertions but we spent a long time looking into this project and a considerable amount of money has been and is being spent trying to meet some of the objections that he outlined.

Those who, like my noble friend, were against the project denounced it for costing some £50 billion, yet with every speech they want to add to that cost because there is something in their area that they wish to preserve. I pay tribute, as others have, to the Select Committee, and note that my noble friend Lord Adonis has joined us. It spent months listening to various petitioners, many of whom were against the project, but all anxious for more public money to be spent on the bit they objected to. We could go on like this for ever and not build anything at all. Presumably that was the objective behind the speech of the noble Lord opposite. For my noble friend to pray in aid my noble friend Lord Mandelson by describing it as a vanity project—this from the man in charge of the Dome, a vanity project if ever there one—is, in addition to the other Second Reading speeches that have been made, of no great service to the Committee or the project.

I am fascinated by the agreement between my noble friend Lord Berkeley and the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw. My noble friend wants to extend the line from Hanslope to Crewe. I am not sure how much that would cost. He also wants to build a four-track railway to replace the short distance of three-track railway from Hanslope Junction—as he will recall, there is another three-track railway going north from Rugby. Although it is neither in the Bill nor his amendments, it should not be too great a project to build that replacement. The noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, meanwhile, wants to reduce the other end of the line to Old Oak Common. Yet they say they are in agreement with one another—by the sound of it, they both want to redesign the whole project. I am not quite sure how much that would cost, either.

I do not know whether there is any great merit in these amendments. I know that my noble friend and the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, spent a considerable time behind the scenes in the attempt to redesign Euston station and I am sure that we will come to that issue under a future amendment. However, it seems to me that this Committee will not make much progress if those who were against the project in the first place make similar speeches on every set of amendments between now and whenever the Committee adjourns later today or on Thursday.