High Speed Rail (West Midlands– Crewe) Bill

Debate between Lord Grocott and Lord Berkeley

Motion to revive Bill
Tuesday 25th February 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Lords, like my noble friend Lord Blunkett, I feel slightly disorientated in agreeing wholeheartedly with my noble friend Lord Adonis. I particularly agree with his point about needing some clarity about 2b. I slightly wondered whether the Prime Minister had introduced reference to 2b just so that he could make his gag about “2b or not 2b”. The crucial thing is how long that reconsideration or re-examination will take. Of all the questions the Minister has had thrown at her, perhaps she can at least give a specific answer to the question: how long will that take and when will it start?

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lord, can the Minister tell the House a bit more about the review that the Government published last week, I think, about HS2 and the northern powerhouse—the Williams Rail Review? I believe it answers some of the questions posed by my noble friend Lord Adonis about the review that is to be led by the Government—perhaps she can tell us who in the Government—but with input from the National Infrastructure Commission, to cover not only the whole of phase 2b but the northern powerhouse and possibly Midlands Connect. Can she also explain why the National Infrastructure Commission has been asked to look at this bit of HS2 but the Infrastructure and Projects Authority has been asked to look at phase 1? It seems a bit odd that two separate government organisations are looking at different bits of the same project.

High Speed Rail (London-West Midlands) Bill

Debate between Lord Grocott and Lord Berkeley

Thursday 5th May 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I shall speak briefly to all four amendments, two of which are in my name. First, I congratulate the Chairman of Committees on the quality of the committee that he is announcing today. There is a lot of talent and experience there, as one would expect from your Lordships’ House, but I also know that under the chairmanship of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Walker of Gestingthorpe, the committee’s procedures will be conducted properly and fairly. As the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, said in a letter to most noble Lords who spoke in the last debate, this will be a proceeding under quasi-judicial conditions. That is very important and I certainly welcome it.

I turn to the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, concerning the committee taking advice from a technical expert. My worry is to do with timing. The experience of the House of Commons Select Committee was that there was no time for people to bring in their own technical experts because the hearings were very much truncated, and in my view the committee ended up taking advice from the promoter without questioning any of it at all. I was particularly concerned when I read a letter from a number of groups in Camden—the Camden Cutting Group, the HS2 Euston Action Group and the Camden Civic Society—to the chief executive of HS2, basically saying that the consultation that was supposed to have taken place had not worked at all. That is supported by two other reports—those by PACAC and Bynoe. The Bynoe report says:

“We are concerned that HS2 has failed to identify with what we believe to be the root cause of the”,

consultation,

“forums’ failings: namely that the process was treated as a one way ‘box-ticking’ exercise by HS2 Ltd, with no genuine two way engagement”.

Many noble Lords have been involved in consultation processes, as have I. Some are good and some are bad, but this is some of the worst criticism that I have ever seen, and I trust that HS2 and Ministers will take note and put it right.

My final comment concerns my amendment to the Motion that would leave out the words,

“if the Committee so wishes”,

to publish evidence. I am surprised at this being in the instruction because, after all, the evidence is given in public hearings of the committee. I envisage a slippery slope—not with this committee but it would be possible—where the hearings are held in secret and there is no justification for the committee’s decisions. I argue that all evidence should be published, or that at least there should be a public link to a publication in another journal, so that anyone can read all the documentation referred to or produced as part of the committee hearings.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Lords, I want to make a brief comment. In many ways, it is a great strength of our democracy in both Houses that projects such as HS2 are subject to the most intense scrutiny over a long period. By the setting up of this Select Committee, we are now moving on to a further period of intense scrutiny. I am minded of two factors when I refer to this. First, why is it that other countries—notably France, but also countries much further away such as Japan and China—seem to manage to build high-speed railways at a phenomenal rate of knots in comparison with our procedures, bearing in mind, as I said, that it is important that there is proper scrutiny? Secondly, we in this House ought to be particularly mindful of the fact that the first attempt to build a railway from London to Birmingham in the 1830s was thrown out by this House. I am very happy to say that the judgment of their Lordships in that period was eventually overruled, otherwise I do not know how we would get from here to Birmingham—by stage-coach, I suppose.

Sometimes, it is almost impossible to get projects going because of the interminable mechanisms involved before the go-ahead can be given. I know that the Chairman of Committees is not speaking for the Government, but I congratulate the Government on continuing this project. It is of fundamental importance to the economy in the West Midlands and, indeed, to the country as a whole. However, I hope that it is not part of the Chairman’s remit when he responds to indicate how long this committee is likely to be sitting. I hope that it does its job thoroughly but does not take an interminable length of time.

Public Bodies (Abolition of the Railway Heritage Committee) Order 2013

Debate between Lord Grocott and Lord Berkeley

Monday 17th December 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Grocott]

My Lords, I will take the opportunity first and foremost to congratulate my noble friend Lord Faulkner on his unremitting commitment to this subject, on his many years of service on the committee and on the relentless way in which he has turned the issue around. I am sure that the Government must regret publishing their long list of bodies to be abolished, only to discover a little late in the day that many of them were doing incredibly useful work that was much valued not just by the people directly involved but by the community at large. That is the point I will make about railway heritage. As the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, said, the issue is important not just to those of us—of whom I am not ashamed to acknowledge that I am one—who are rail enthusiasts. The income of several generations of my family depended on the rail industry, but the importance of the work of this committee goes much wider.

There can be few countries worldwide where one cannot find examples of British railway engineering. We not only invented the railways but in many countries of the world built them, along with the locomotives that ran on them. I will mention the railways of Paraguay and Zambia because I have seen them. Companies from Birmingham, Wolverhampton, Glasgow and Manchester make the equipment that built their locomotives and that maintains their railways. I do not want to indulge in hyperbole but I imagine that there are few countries in the world where there is no British railway engineering. This is an achievement we should celebrate. It is a national issue, rather than one simply for people interested in railway heritage.

Perhaps I may be forgiven for being slightly parochial in drawing the attention of the House to Coalbrookdale in the Ironbridge Gorge, Telford, the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution. It was the marriage of Richard Trevithick and the Coalbrookdale Company that produced the steam locomotive that ran on iron rails in the first decade of the 19th century. There is a replica in the Ironbridge Gorge Museum. The tradition that it celebrates is a wonderful example of something that is of tremendous interest—I repeat—to many more people than simply those who are interested in railways. Half a million people visit the Ironbridge Gorge Museum every year.

I conclude by saying that it is not just history that we should celebrate. The rail heritage industry—perhaps it is not so much an industry as a movement—is of real relevance to our economy today. Engineering activities are taking place in a number of centres that are keeping skills going that otherwise would be lost. Locomotives are being built at Boston Lodge in north Wales, and there are engineering apprenticeships at Crewe that even today are keeping going skills that might otherwise be lost. That is of tremendous importance. Finally, the subject is of great importance to the tourism industry. Members of the other place who have a heritage railway in their constituency know that it attracts visitors and brings strength to the economy.

My noble friend has embarked on a noble exercise to ensure that the committee’s functions are maintained. As this is an amicable debate I will not introduce a sour note, but perhaps I may send a gentle and friendly memo to this Government and to what I hope will be the subsequent Labour Government, suggesting that before they abolish something they should check whether it is doing something useful.

[Lord Berkeley]

My Lords, I add my congratulations to my noble friend Lord Faulkner. He has worked tirelessly on railway heritage. If it was not for him, we would now be in a complete mess. I was very surprised to hear the Minister say that the Railway Heritage Committee was a good example of voluntary work that has now been moved to the Science Museum. He said that it had had a bit of administrative support from the Science Museum before, or that it now has it. I cannot see what the difference is between them. It is moving the deckchairs for the sake of it. I suspect that it will cost more and do exactly the same thing; where is the benefit? My noble friend Lord Grocott talked about old steam engines. A month ago I went round the National Railway Museum in New Delhi, where most of the engines, as he said, were built in this country—largely in Glasgow—and they were very fine. I hope that this tradition continues. Of course, they now build very good engines of their own in India.

Having listened to the Minister’s explanation, which I believe lasted a good seven minutes, and to the story that my noble friend Lord Faulkner told about the work that he had to do just to move things across to the Science Museum, I am afraid that my only conclusion is: thank God he was there to do it. It will be fine in the future when the next Labour Government make things better, but this is a classic case of dogma ruling brain when it started. As my noble friend Lord Grocott said, I hope that it is not repeated.