High Speed 2 (Economic Affairs Committee Report)

Lord Mair Excerpts

Thursday 23rd January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Mair (CB)]

My Lords, I declare my interests and draw attention to the register. As Professor of Civil Engineering at the University of Cambridge and a practising consultant, I have given specialist engineering advice to HS2. I also chair the Science Advisory Council at the Department for Transport and I am a former president of the Institution of Civil Engineers.

The report by this House’s Economic Affairs Committee identified three principal areas of concern for HS2: priorities for rail investment, the process used to evaluate the project and cost reduction considerations. I will focus principally on engineering cost-reduction considerations but will first make some more general points.

There is undoubtedly a growing need for additional rail capacity in the UK. The population will be around 75 million by 2050, nine million more than today’s figure. Rail passenger numbers have increased very significantly in the past decade and are expected to increase substantially in the coming years. To meet this expected demand, there is a pressing need for increased investment in new rail capacity as well as investment in existing routes.

We also have a legally binding commitment to deliver net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. That presents a major challenge. In 2013, the transport sector accounted for 20% of carbon emissions. By 2018, this had grown to 33% of all CO₂ emissions, with the majority of these originating from road transport. Electrified rail is significantly cleaner than existing road traffic.

HS2 and the associated improved transport network will provide the much-needed additional rail capacity for the country, encouraging a shift from road to rail. The considerably improved rail network will contribute to a significant reduction in CO₂ emissions by discouraging car use and putting more freight on rail.

There have recently been various important reviews of and reports about HS2. There is the Douglas Oakervee review which, although leaked, has not yet been made public, although the dissenting report by the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, has been. In addition, there is the advice, HS2 Chairman’s Stocktake, by the chairman of HS2, Allan Cook, made public in September 2019. It makes the very important point that HS2 is an integral part of the plans of Transport for the North, Northern Powerhouse Rail and Midlands Connect. It highlights that HS2 will provide 50% of the lines needed by Northern Powerhouse Rail.

Crucially, Allan Cook’s advice makes it clear that the budget and target schedule for the HS2 programme have to date proved unrealistic. Of course, it is most important that this be addressed as a matter of urgency. But he also emphasised that at the same time, the benefits of HS2 have been understated, particularly the future societal impacts, together with wider industrial, regenerative and economic impacts.

Allan Cook’s recommended areas of further work include three key points. One is to consider more effective ways to capture the wider strategic and long-term benefits for the country’s transport system. A second is to develop improved commercial models that drive the right outcomes. The third concerns cost reductions. I would now like to focus on this third area of cost reduction considerations. Allan Cook’s advice is for HS2 to continue to develop further cost efficiencies, including challenging standards and specifications. It is cost efficiencies and the challenging of existing standards and specifications that I wish to address.

The construction sector deal for the industrial strategy has three key strategic themes. All three have the potential to transform the construction industry, improving productivity and reducing costs. The first is digital: delivering better, more certain outcomes using digital technologies, particularly building information modelling. This involves constructing digital twins of infrastructure at the outset, before the real construction actually begins. The digital revolution is affecting all areas of our lives. Digitalisation can also bring dramatic changes for infrastructure construction, leading to efficiencies and cost savings.

The second construction sector deal strategic theme is manufacturing: improving productivity, quality and safety by increasing the use of off-site manufacture. This House’s Select Committee on Science and Technology undertook an inquiry into off-site manufacturing and construction in 2018. Our report concluded that there is a compelling case for the widespread use of off-site manufacturing to reduce costs and improve productivity. Components of infrastructure can be manufactured under factory-controlled conditions and then assembled on site. It would be highly desirable for HS2 to adopt off-site manufacturing in as many ways as possible.

The third construction sector deal strategic theme is performance. Here, there is considerable potential for cost reduction. Innovative sensor technologies, combined with data analytics, can lead to significant cost savings. The current practice has been to rely on overly conservative, overly robust designs to ensure against any uncertainty and provide safeguards against any potential problems throughout the future design life. However, much of this current practice is now out of date. Construction is one of the few engineering sectors in which, over the years, there have been very few advances and improvements in standards and specifications. It is a particularly conservative industry. This can now change. The opportunities for much smarter and more economic construction now exist.

By installing sensors in critical parts of new infrastructure such as HS2, there are opportunities for significantly more economic designs. Data generated by sensors now enables continuous monitoring of the infrastructure throughout its operational life. Sensors mean that we will now be able to measure exactly how a tunnel, bridge, embankment, slope or railway line performs throughout its lifetime. It means that the performance of the infrastructure can be continuously monitored, just as in an aeroplane or a motor car. This provides information for more rational maintenance and repair strategies: a concrete slab may not need to be as thick; piles may not need to be as long; cut slopes may not need to be as shallow.

All that means moving on from overly conservative, overly robust designs. Crucially, it should enable designers to challenge existing standards and specifications, many of which have not changed for decades. The very distinguished scientist Lord Kelvin famously said:

“If you cannot measure it, you cannot improve it.”


He was so right. More take-up of innovative sensor technologies, data analytics and artificial intelligence is needed for HS2. These can certainly lead to significant economies.

My final point is that the three themes of digital, off-site manufacturing and performance are the new modern methods of construction. They are key parts of the industrial strategy’s construction sector deal and must be adopted right across our infrastructure. Indeed, they are beginning to be adopted by HS2, but there is potential for much more. The Government announced the construction sector deal in their industrial strategy White Paper, published in November 2017. One of its key objectives was a 33% reduction in the cost of construction and whole-life cost of assets. With smart and innovative engineering, there is still considerable scope for cost reduction for HS2.