HS2 Reset

Debate between Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill and Lord Grocott

Thursday 19th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I can indeed absolutely assure the noble Lord of that. One of the difficulties I found in coming into this position is that clearly the previous management of HS2 thought it was a construction project—I think there are some lessons from Crossrail here too. There was a view that somehow it was a big construction project and at the end you incidentally got a railway. That cannot be right. The original justification for this was the capacity constraint on the west coast main line, which is still there, and the projected inability to do anything serious about its capacity without years of disruption. What has resulted is a project that has created years of disruption, but somewhere else other than on the railway. I have it in mind constantly that this project will produce a new railway for the United Kingdom that will be regarded as part of the railway network by its customers. I refer to the ludicrous proposition that Euston should have had two platform 1s. Nobody cares anything about that. What they want is a train to Birmingham or a train to Manchester, and they want it to run reliably. We have that very much in mind. Indeed, Mark Wild, as the chief executive, knows perfectly well that he needs to turn this present construction activity into a railway, which is what he did with the Elizabeth line, and I have every confidence that he will do it again.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Lords, this is a necessary but pretty depressing Statement announcing, as it effectively is, that when it comes to major infrastructure projects, whether they are railways or power stations or airports, this country does them very badly indeed. I hope we learn some lessons from that. I ask my noble friend to reflect that, on timescale, the Victorians managed in a period of 30 years, from 1830 to 1860, to build the whole rail network, and we cannot deal with one line in less time than that. I remind him as well that in the international context, pretty well every other country in the world—Italy, France, Germany, Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark and others—has been building, is building or has planned major high-speed rail systems. Will my noble friend give us answers to these questions? Why do these projects take so long when we know from our history that it is possible to do them much more speedily? What can we learn from all these other countries that do not seem to have any of the headaches, disasters, mismanagement and overspend that we have in building a very necessary railway because the old Victorian one, wonderful though it was, is crumbling?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

My noble friend is not quite right. We do not always do these things badly. Indeed, I deliberately referred to the trans-Pennine upgrade in my previous remarks because it is a very large project. It is very complex because it is being carried out on an operating railway. Its current value is £14 billion. It has been through innumerable scope changes, sadly, but it is now being delivered on time and badly.

Channel Tunnel: International Rail Strategy

Debate between Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill and Lord Grocott

Monday 2nd June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

The noble Baroness is right about the environmental benefits of travelling by train and of replacing short-haul air traffic. That is why we are putting in so much effort to create opportunities now for greater use of the tunnel to more destinations and by more operators. I have recently seen all but one of the potential competitors for Eurostar. The noble Baroness may know that the greatest difficulty is the availability of depot space in London. The Office of Rail and Road recently concluded an interim report, and I have asked the department to look urgently at other sites that can be used to increase depot capacity and therefore the number of passenger trains through the tunnel.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Lords, the only high-speed line we have in this country is the 70-mile line from London to the Channel Tunnel, which opened in 2007. In the meantime, countries all around the world have been developing high-speed rail, while we, under the previous Tory Government, simply cancelled two of the high-speed lines that were being prepared. First, can my noble friend at the very least protect the routes of the planned lines to the north-west and the north-east? Secondly, is it not time that this Government developed a strategy for high-speed rail, which is being done by so many comparable countries across the world?

Stockton and Darlington Railway: 200th Anniversary

Debate between Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill and Lord Grocott

Tuesday 25th February 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

Well, it is not much of a leap to funding in the spending review, so the noble Lord has answered his own question—the CRSTS2 budget is in process, there will be a spending review, and my department is extraordinarily active in making sure that the position of transport is well represented to the Chancellor in the Budget. But he will have to wait, as everybody else will, for the outcome of the spending review in due course.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Lords, is it not worth reflecting that, 200 years ago, British engineering designed and built the first steam locomotives, built a phenomenal network of railways across our country, most of which is still intact and used today, exported all over the world and built railways in pretty well every continent? Fast forward to today and we have a situation where, while large numbers of countries across the world are building new railways and new high-speed lines, the last Tory Government took the absurd and costly decision to cancel HS2 north of Birmingham. Would not it be a wonderful way of celebrating 200 years of railway history if the Minister could come to this Dispatch Box and say, “We are going to clear up the Tory mess and build HS2”?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend for that. The first priority of this Government is to get the present phase 1 of HS2 back under control. This Government inherited a situation where they could predict neither the cost nor the timescale of completion of the line between London and Birmingham. The Chancellor has taken the brave but right decision of restarting the tunnels to Euston, without which the railway would have no proper end, and our job is to make that work. Our job is also to put forward a plan for railway infrastructure for the rest of the country, particularly the Midlands and the north, and a lot of effort is going on in my department to do that logically, properly and in a properly costed and prioritised way.

HS2: Purchased Land

Debate between Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill and Lord Grocott

Wednesday 23rd October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Grocott]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what plans they have in respect of land already purchased for HS2 north of Birmingham.

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill) (Lab)]

My Lords, the Government are thoroughly reviewing the position they have inherited before setting out more detailed plans in due course. This includes our position on HS2 phase 2 safeguarding and on the land that was previously acquired for HS2’s cancelled phases. Any land acquired for phase 2 that is no longer required will be sold in line with Treasury rules through a disposal programme.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Lords, as my noble friend the Minister knows, when Rishi Sunak cancelled the northern leg of HS2, he did so in the full knowledge that substantial sums of money had already been spent. Can my noble friend tell me his estimate of precisely how much had been spent before the cancellation? Further, so that money is not entirely wasted, can he give the House a clear assurance, which I am not sure he gave in his Answer, that the Government will at least protect the route of the line to Manchester, including retaining land that has already been purchased? I am sure he would agree that, in so doing, he will make it much easier for any future Government—this one, I hope—to complete the project, which should never have been cancelled in the first place.

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend for his supplementary question. As reported by the National Audit Office, by March 2024 £2.3 billion had been spent on phase 2 which, as he says, was cancelled by the previous Government. No property on the hastily cancelled phase 2a has yet been disposed of. The Government are carefully considering what to do. He will know as I do that railway infrastructure lasts 150 or more years, so the right thing is to have a considered long-term plan for the benefit of the economic growth, jobs and housing in this country.

Mail Carriage by Rail

Debate between Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill and Lord Grocott

Monday 22nd July 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

My understanding is that the Mode Shift Revenue Support scheme, which has a budget of £18 million for 2024-25, has been effective. The current scheme expires on 31 March 2025, but my current understanding is that it does not apply to the carriage of mail by rail.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

Can the Minister, whose appointment I also welcome, confirm that one of the arguments for HS2 to Birmingham was very much to free up capacity on the existing west coast main line by an additional route from London to Birmingham? In that connection, does he agree that one of the many disastrous decisions made by the previous Government was to scrap the HS2 project north of Birmingham? What assurance can he give us that the current Government, among the many changes they have planned, will change that particularly bad decision?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend for that question but it moves quite a long way from the carriage of mail by rail. I think there might be more appropriate times at which to consider the railway infrastructure of Great Britain and the future infrastructure plans of this Government.