Jet Zero Strategy

Lord Rooker Excerpts

Monday 14th November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

For once, I agree with the noble Baroness. Non-carbon dioxide emissions are incredibly important, yet the science is as yet unresolved. There are significant uncertainties around the impacts of all the different emissions produced by aircraft, particularly at high altitude. We are looking at the research and will be developing policies once we have had more time to consider where the science currently is.

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

Earlier on, my noble friend Lady Blackstone referred to “Conservative think tanks”. The only Conservative “un-think tanks” I have heard about spend all their time attacking net zero. Can we get absolute confirmation from the Minister that the Government will stand firm on this against the lobbying clearly coming from the gang started by the noble Lord, Lord Lawson, which is hell-bent on continuing to use fossil fuels?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I am grateful to be able to report that I have had no lobbying at all from anybody who is not in favour of net zero. As the noble Lord clearly knows, it is the law and we will be setting intermediate carbon budgets as we are required to do by law.

Transport: Hydrogen

Lord Rooker Excerpts

Monday 13th September 2021 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Rooker]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the potential of (1) hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, and (2) internal combustion engines fuelled by hydrogen, as alternatives to battery-powered electric vehicles.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Transport (Baroness Vere of Norbiton) (Con)]

My Lords, the Government’s recently published hydrogen strategy and transport decarbonisation plan both make clear that hydrogen has a key role to play in decarbonising transport, particularly in areas where batteries cannot reach. Our support is therefore focused on the use of hydrogen in heavier road vehicles, such as trucks, buses and coaches, as well as in rail, ships and planes.

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her Answer, but are the Government looking at an alternative to the rush to battery-powered cars—in particular, to avoid range anxiety and electricity overload? Can the excellent government hydrogen strategy be used to avoid putting all our eggs in one technical basket, so that zero emissions need not, as Jeremy Clarkson pointed out recently, lead to the end of the internal combustion engine? Finally, will the HydroFLEX train developed by Birmingham University be used at COP 26, and how about a flight for the key leaders at COP 26 in the ZeroAvia commercial aircraft developed at Cheltenham airport?

Merchant Shipping (Cargo Ship) (Bilge Alarm) Regulations 2021

Lord Rooker Excerpts

Tuesday 13th July 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rooker (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I am very happy to follow the previous three speakers—my noble friend Lord Berkeley, the noble Lord, Lord Patten, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett. In 1974, I made my maiden speech on industrial safety and served on the Standing Committee that introduced the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act, so I appreciate the broad encompassing nature of that legislation. I do not intend to repeat anything that the previous speakers have said, but to ask six questions. I will expect answers probably not from the Minister today but at some point by letter.

First, how many other delayed orders are lying around in the department? What is the list of current issues about which the department says, “Oh, we are waiting for parliamentary time. This is something we need to do”?

Secondly, has the Minister asked any questions about the delay? In some ways, I would expect the answer to that in her wind-up. I am keen to know because there are obviously different Ministers with different responsibilities in the department. Have Ministers asked questions about delayed orders that have been put on the rack over the 11 years of slothfulness?

Thirdly, in relation to these regulations, have there been representations at any time over the years from the Welsh, Scottish or Northern Ireland Governments? These regulations cover the UK and, therefore, the devolved Administrations are involved and affected. Have those Governments raised the issue of the delay with the Westminster Government and the department?

Fourthly, is there any record of trade union representations made over the years regarding why this statutory instrument has been delayed? From what the noble Lord, Lord Patten, and my noble friend Lord Berkeley said, we are dealing with an area that is probably not well unionised. Nevertheless, representatives have a legal responsibility to be asking the questions. Have there been any trade union representations over the years about the 11-year delay?

The fifth question is whether any Select Committee ever raised the delay, over the years, during other inquiries. These things pop up from time to time, as I have found from sitting on the EU Energy and Environment Sub-Committee. All kinds of ancillary issues were raised, which we sometimes went off at a tangent on and inquired about ourselves, so it would be interesting to know about that pressure.

My sixth question is whether the issue of this order and its going to Parliament, because that recommendation was there, was covered in any of the new Ministers’ briefs for the 2010, 2015, 2017 and 2019 general elections. In my cellar, I have the first-day briefs for the departments I was moved to in Whitehall—six of them. I have a big one for 1997, when there was an expectation of a change of Government, but that is not the issue. This still happens when the Government do not change. The department has to produce briefs for incoming Ministers—the Government might change, but departments do not know that until election day—of the current workload on the department, the current issues and what requires parliamentary time. I want to know whether this order and the recommendation requiring it to go to Parliament were covered in any of the first-day briefs for new Ministers, after any of those four general elections, because it is the responsibility of the accounting officer in the department to make sure that those briefs are full and comprehensive.

I do not expect the Minister to answer these questions now, but they are quite specific, so I would like detailed answers that the House can see, in due course.

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Garden of Frognal) (LD)]

The noble Lord, Lord Bhatia, has withdrawn, so I now call the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson.

High Speed Rail (West Midlands–Crewe) Bill

Lord Rooker Excerpts

Tuesday 8th December 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Kramer (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I very much support the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, in coming back on Report to the issue of confidentiality agreements, more commonly referred to as NDAs. Thanks to more recent news articles, we now know that HS2 has required 339 bodies to sign confidentiality agreements, and that is required because otherwise they get no access to the information necessary to discuss HS2-related issues. I therefore hope that HS2 is now beginning to take on board the concerns of the public and many Members of Parliament, local authorities and civic groups, that confidentiality agreements are hindering the transparency which should underpin such an important project. I say that as a strong supporter of the project; I always have considered HS2 vital to economic growth across the UK.

Of course there are issues of commercial sensitivity which need to be covered by confidentiality agreements, and this amendment both accepts that and provides for it. However, the presumption should always be for transparency, with confidentiality on an exception basis. I have some hope that the Minister, Andrew Stephenson, recognises the problem. Gagging of any kind cuts Ministers off from the information they need. The late and slow leak of information, especially related to cost, land purchases and compensation, has harmed HS2 and generated suspicion. We need to be very open in explaining that, in any project on this scale, projecting costs and timetables is very difficult and will always change. I personally believe that the biggest problem we have with HS2 is understating its benefits, since it will serve us for generations, and most of the longer-term benefits and regeneration benefits away from the stations are not included in the official analysis.

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Vere, for organising a Zoom meeting between interested Lords, herself, Andrew Stephenson, who is the relevant Minister, DfT staff and HS2 to discuss the issue. I and others have received a follow-up letter. The letter does not exactly allay concerns, but it makes it clear that the risk assurance committee of HS2 will now review the matter and will, I hope, recognise the damage to trust and reputation that has been and is being caused. I have to say that HS2 is not alone. Organisations public and private across the globe are having to revise their notions of appropriate confidentiality. No entity any more can rest in the comfort zone of just releasing good news.

As we made clear in Committee, this amendment does not deal with the settlement agreements usually used to manage whistleblowers. The idea I have heard that settlement agreements do not act as gags is nonsense. Why does the Minister think that Doug Thornton—the best known whistleblower on HS2, who was HS2’s director of land and property until he was dismissed when he raised concerns internally—did not sign one? He could have saved himself years of agony if he had.

HS2 has provided me and others with copies of its whistleblowing policy. On paper it looks fine, but pretty much every financial institution, private sector company, hospital, care home, prison, social services department or bank that has been caught in appalling behaviour has an exemplary tick-box whistleblowing system. The system just does not work in practice. That is why the whole issue of whistleblowing needs an overhaul. Following the Zoom call I talked about earlier, I realised that some parties do not understand why the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, and I have spoken directly to only a few whistleblowers. It is because we are not prescribed persons. I suspect that the noble Baroness, Lady Vere, is not a prescribed person—the Minister, Andrew Stephenson MP, is a prescribed person, but it is a very narrow group. Any whistleblower speaking to me or to the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, is not protected by PIDA, the Public Interest Disclosure Act. I stop any whistleblower from speaking to me who is not going public anyway, and I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Berkley, does the same. It is much too risky for them.

I hope very much that when the audit and risk assurance committee of HS2 looks at confidentiality agreements, it will also do a deep dive into its internal “Speak Out” whistleblowing system, including talking to professional bodies such as the Institution of Civil Engineers and the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors from which members often seek advice when they run into an issue like this. I also hope that it talks to civil society groups such as WhistleblowersUK and Protect. Those of us who are concerned with these issues are now relying on the Government to make sure that the flaws in the use of both confidentiality and settlement agreements at HS2 are sorted. As the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, said, the issue goes far wider than HS2 and far wider than rail, but we will be watching and listening because issues that are concealed never actually go away and, when they emerge, they come back to bite a project.

[Lord Rooker (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, like the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, I thought at one point that I would scratch myself from the remaining amendments. However, as I noticed my name was still there today, I thought I would do noble Lords the courtesy of not pulling out, although I do not have a lot to say on the detail. I am not familiar with what happened on this in Committee, and my noble friend Lord Berkeley said that it was the same amendment. However, subsection (6) of the proposed new clause looks to me as though it is retrospective. Are the promoters of this amendment seriously contemplating a change in the law to retro- spectively have all the current arrangements that, one assumes, have been mutually entered into reviewed by this independent assessor? Have I got that right? I do not quite see where the benefit of that would come from.

I fully accept, of course, that the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, is in support of HS2, but there are people who could look at this amendment and say, to be honest, that it comes from a desire for disclosure of sensitive information to damage the project. I know she does not have views in that respect and I can remember her support when she was a Minister, but the fact is that this amendment could turn into that problem. I am not familiar with all the details, and I was surprised at the number of non-disclosure agreements; there have been over 300. On the other hand, when one looks at what is involved here—at the scale of the project, the number of contractors, the number of people involved in it or affected by it—that turns out, on reflection, to be quite a small number.

Of course, if it is true that this helps to avoid placing homes and businesses in unnecessary blight, as HS2 claims, that is a good reason for such agreements and for protecting the personal information of the people involved. I am not in favour of curtailing the activities of whistleblowers, but I fully take the point that Members of the House of Lords are in a different position from Members of the House of Commons—rightly so, frankly.

I will leave it there, but I would be interested to hear what the Minister has to say about this amendment, which is ill thought-out and does not have my support.

High Speed Rail (West Midlands–Crewe) Bill

Lord Rooker Excerpts

Report stage (Hansard) & Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords & Report stage
Monday 30th November 2020 Lords Chamber

As we have said time and again, it has to be a case of levelling up the north—and by “the north” we are referring not just to Manchester, but to the eastern section. I hope that those thoughts can be taken on board by the Government, and that when the Minister responds she can give some encouragement over when the full plan will be announced and moved forward. The sooner that is done, the better.

[Lord Rooker (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I put my name down to speak on this amendment because it seemed the one opportunity that I would have today to give general support to HS2, the Bill and this amendment, obviously, as opposed to the other amendments, which I consider to be wrecking amendments. I would be somewhat more negative about them. I did not have the opportunity to speak in earlier debates.

It gives me pleasure that, having spoken some years ago in favour of the London to Birmingham part, I have an opportunity to support the idea of the total concept outlined by my noble friend Lord Adonis and the noble Lord, Lord McLoughlin, who we have just heard from: the one-nation aspect of the project. It was never about London to Birmingham, but something much bigger. As has been said, it was not about speed either, but about capacity. However, for the first couple of years the PR was somewhat negative.

The Minister has heard pleas from others and I join them, although I understand the position that she is in and what she will want to say. By the way, I found there were occasions when it was possible to make policy at the Dispatch Box when replying in the Lords because of the pressure that you were under, and it helped to stave off a defeat. I always used to tell my Secretary of State when I went back, “I had to give way on that otherwise we would have been defeated.” By and large that was generally accepted, so there is a capacity to do that.

What the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, said about the last days of the Pacer trains is ironic. I remember that when I travelled around the country as a Minister, I was on one of those Pacer trains. I had never heard of them or seen them before. I cannot remember when it was; it was in my MAFF days so I am going back 20 years. I could not believe there were carriages like that on the railways, and of course there still were 20 years later. In some ways this is a bad day, because without the amendment the people of the north and north-east will feel as though they have been left behind.

I do not intend to speak for long. One of the most powerful points that the noble Lord, Lord McLoughlin, just made was about the blight. Everybody knows what the original plans were; they have seen the Y shape of the line. All of a sudden that has disappeared. The blight that that will leave on housing, industry, the movement of people and investment in particular will be massive. It is very difficult to put a cost on blight but it is very negative. Whatever the outcome is today, the Minister needs to point out to the department and the Government that it is in no one’s interest to have part of the country blighted in the way that that part will be if there is no government plan.

[Lord Bradshaw (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I support the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, entirely and all other noble Lords who have spoken. There are two things I want to mention because of my knowledge of the railway. If we do not get this addition to HS2 to the north-east, journeys will be very much slower than they would otherwise be. An HS2 train going from Toton through to Leeds will take 27 minutes; at the moment it takes 85 minutes by conventional railway. For Newcastle, the difference is between 93 and 160 minutes. It really is about putting the country together. There is no way that the existing infrastructure will be able to provide anything like what will be offered by HS2.

The second issue, which is very pertinent, and to which other noble Lords have referred, is the appalling standard of social mobility, education and health that pervade the area north of Toton, going up toward Sheffield and Leeds. HS2 will bring great opportunities. Lots of people will locate their industries and research institutions alongside HS2. It does not even have to built; it has to be promised, but promised faithfully, and people will move there in anticipation. The flow of education and training will bring hope to many people in that area who have abandoned hope. Some of the comments that people make about what it is like to live in these towns and villages show that they are pretty hopeless.

I implore the Government, for the sake of sensibly levelling up, to give this scheme the approval that it needs. I am afraid that if it is turned down, people will give up hope as their hopes have been so often dashed in that part of Britain.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Rooker (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I had better declare an interest because I am sitting here in south Shropshire. South Shropshire is unknown to the people who run Shrewsbury and north Shropshire. They think that we are in another world. As far as I am concerned, the biggest transport issue in Shropshire is the A49. It needs to be dualled from top to bottom. I can understand why people at the margin, particularly on the boundary between Shropshire and Staffordshire, might have an interest, but, to be honest, the way that this amendment is drafted—I have no personal criticism of anybody—I do not intend to vote for it. It is almost a wrecking amendment, as shown by the provisions of proposed new subsection (2). So, having declared my interest and made my case for better transport infrastructure in Shropshire, and partly rubbished the amendment, I am content to leave it there.

[Lord Liddle (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I have some sympathy for this amendment given my experience as a member of the HS2 committee. The representations that we heard from petitioners were basically very local: they were individual petitions—people who had particular grievances and concerns—and, to the extent that there was any collective representation, at the parish council level. It is a pity that broader questions of whether the county council, highways authority and those responsible for transport locally had looked at how the impact of HS2 could be mitigated, given that we do not want to stop it or change the line of the route, did not come up at our committee. I therefore have some sympathy with Amendment 4.

Public Transport: Face Coverings

Lord Rooker Excerpts

Thursday 25th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton [V]]

I thank the noble Baroness for her follow-up question. I assure her that compliance is at around 85% to 95% on rail, 90% on TfL and 70% on non-London buses. This soon after the mandating of face coverings, that is a pretty good return. We are looking at ways of explaining things, engaging with people and encouraging people to wear face masks. At this moment in time, heavy-handed enforcement would not be appropriate. Part of that explaining element is making sure that transport workers work hand in hand with the public and the police to explain to people exactly why they should wear a face covering and that they may not use public transport if they do not have one.

[Lord Rooker (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, to what extent are the Government hoping that the travelling public will help to police this policy?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton [V]]

My Lords, I do not expect the travelling public to police this policy. It is important to be aware that there are exemptions to it. Gentle guidance from transport operators will be absolutely key, as will them working hand in hand with the police and, for example, TfL-authorised personnel.

High Speed Rail (Preparation) Bill

Lord Rooker Excerpts

Tuesday 19th November 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

My Lords, I ask myself, “Has everything already been said about HS2?”, but I think the answer to that is no. I shall just repeat two points that I made on 24 October. The first is that it needs better leadership. The noble Lord, Lord Rodgers, in reading out that paragraph, identified that. I still do not know who is in charge, although I realise that Sir David Higgins will obviously be in charge. The second point is that it is not about a few minutes off journey times.

The Secretary of State made an excellent speech on 11 September at the Institution of Civil Engineers, but the noble Lord, Lord Heseltine, made a much better speech at the Royal Town Planning Institute on 12 November. We could do a lot worse than get the podcast in here tonight, switch it on and go home. The Library provided me with the podcast; it is no good reading it, listen to it. It is electrifying to hear the noble Lord set out the case for HS2.

At this point I need to mention a couple of interests. I do so in particular because the Register of Lords’ Interests is frequently attacked over a lack of transparency. I can say that I have never discussed HS2 with either the company or other rail operators; I have had no discussion with the roads lobby, the landowners lobby or the airlines lobby; and I have had no discussions with local government, although I have requested written briefings. However, earlier this year, HMG was seeking someone to chair the HS2 planning forum, which is the meetings between HS2 Ltd, the Department of Transport and the local authorities along the proposed route. It was for just a handful of days per year. I offered. I did not get past the first cut and I have never spoken to anybody. I have nothing to register but I am being open and transparent, because the offer is there in the files, so that trouble makers in the future cannot make any mileage out of my position.

Following the sad death of my noble friend Lord Corbett of Castle Vale, I was asked by residents to take on the chair of the partnership board at Castle Vale, which is a very large-scale regeneration project on an estate of 10,000 citizens in my late noble friend’s constituency of Birmingham, Erdington. Colleagues will have driven past it. There were 34 tower blocks there at one time; there are now two. The link from the north-south route of HS2 into the centre of Birmingham will traverse the outer perimeter of Castle Vale. It has not been on the agenda of the board to date, although various local representatives have attended consultation meetings. I have not been involved to date, but the Castle Vale partnership board is in the register anyway.

I support the HS2 project. I am not locked into one route or to the starting stations. There will probably be some changes as the thing makes further progress. It has to be straight and cannot stop too often as it has to be fast. Those are a given and I do not see a problem with that. A new north-south link, which in my view should reach both Glasgow and Edinburgh, using modern technology, will bring benefit to generations and regions in the UK. Not many of us here today, as the noble Lord, Lord Heseltine, said, will see the benefit, but the crazy way in which the figures are presented is designed to put people off, designed to put supporters off, even. If it is going to benefit generations, why are most of the headline figures less than half a lifetime? It does not make sense. Talk about selling the project short.

My noble friend Lord Adonis in his excellent speech mentioned some of the alternatives. What are they? We could raise the fares; stop people using the railways. Reduce demand—it can be done, but it will not be much good for connectivity, economic productivity and growth. There could be a major expansion of domestic air flights, with extra check-in times, more pollution and a few more local runways. Enough said. We could build more motorways. The road lobby would welcome that. In fact, I wonder how much it is spending on anti-HS2, but I am not making any point about that. Of course, we need to improve the motorway network, junctions and feeder roads, especially on the M40 and the M20, but a major network of new motorways cannot be what the country needs. I have to assume that nobody from the Chilterns ever goes on the M6 north of Birmingham. That road has been 60 feet from the bedrooms of some of my ex-constituents, from 24 May 1972 until today: an elevated section at rooftop level 60 feet from their houses. Think about that for the way people move around the country. It works, but we do not want any more. We do not want a new motorway system. The idea that nobody travels on the existing infrastructure, which does disturb people, is, of course, palpable nonsense.

We could patch and mend the railway. I have not seen the attack on the 2,500 weekends. Basically, it is 14 years of weekend working, as the Minister said, on two out of the three north-south lines at any one time. That is the reality and what is more, it would cost £19 billion to £20 billion and we would not get a great deal from it. None of these alternatives will create the ingredients for regional economic growth and bring the private sector investment on the back of public expenditure which has occurred elsewhere. A new classic rail, the figures say, will cost 9% less than high speed, but high speed rail delivers journey time benefits by a factor of more than 5:1. It is not about journey times but the factor has to be taken into account that HS2, compared to the classic rail, is 5:1.

Not everything has to done at once, which is the impression given by the loose talk of some about the costs. The noble Lord, Lord Heseltine, mentioned that the annual £2 billion on London Crossrail ends as the HS2 annual expenditure of £2 billion starts. The two things merge together, and this benefits the whole country, not just the capital city. That has to be taken into account. Buried deep in the publications on HS2 is the point that we are talking about generations benefiting. Therefore, why cannot we use assumptions beyond the 20 years set out in the main body of the documents? The cost-benefit ratio goes from 1 to 2.3 to 1 to 4.5 if we go to 2040. It is preposterous to say that it will benefit generations and then cut off all the calculations showing how beneficial it will be at half a lifetime. It does not make sense. It may be the way that it has been done in the past by the Department of Transport and the Treasury, but it does not make sense in making the case.

I would like to hear from the Minister about one aspect of the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Heseltine, as I thought that it was the most important point he made. He said that the Government should propose development corporations at points of development on the route in order for the public to recoup some of the planning gains in exactly the same way we did in Docklands. Let us face it, in Docklands four local authorities did nothing for 30 years. That is why Docklands had to be seized into a development corporation to get the planning gain back for the public investment. That is exactly what the noble Lord said we can do along the HS2 route. I would genuinely like to know about that because it has not been referred to elsewhere. We cannot be certain—nothing is fixed about this—but the evidence in Docklands, the Thames Gateway and other areas of public investment, such as in the new city of Milton Keynes, which is doubling in size, is that along with public investment comes private investment to create the jobs and an economic future. We cannot, however, factor that into the calculations, although it is clearly self-evident. The noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, made that point. The public sector must lead on this project. It is no good saying that the private sector should build HS2; the public sector has to lead but it does not have to do it all. By using our brains we can recoup as much of the extra land values as possible, as we have done in the past.

I hope that with this Bill we can hear the whistle blown for HS2 to leave the station of Whitehall to spread economic and social regeneration throughout the UK. So far, the only whistle I have heard regarding HS2 is the dog whistle blown by some colleagues in Labour’s high command, aimed at those living in the Home Counties. Dog-whistle politics are not honest politics in any case. In this case, it happened that the dog whistle was heard in the town hall corridors of the northern cities of this country, and the message came back loud and clear. I hope that we hear no more of the dog whistle.

This is a visionary project on a scale that transcends the Channel Tunnel—although that is unique by definition—and the post-war new towns. It cannot be right, therefore, for any political leader to claim the project for themselves, and the Prime Minister is not doing that. As my noble friend Lord Adonis said, it is to the credit of this Government that they have taken this project forward. This has to be all-party or it will not happen; it is as simple as that. Furthermore, the final decision cannot be left to the financial bean counters because we know that the finance figures are fiddled. The 20-year cut-off helps to destroy the case, so I do not accept it. I reject the scrimping “Britain can’t do it” approach. Leaders need to lead and show vision. They should connect public good investment, much of which can be recouped, with the substantial private gains in jobs and economic and social prosperity. A petty, party, tribal approach is to be condemned and condemned hard and fast to nip it in the bud, otherwise this 20-year project will not get off the ground. I am happy to support the preparation Bill.

High Speed 2

Lord Rooker Excerpts

Thursday 24th October 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rooker (Lab Ind)]

My Lords, I, too, congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, on her new appointment and look forward to the wind-up.

If we did not already have the motorways, canals and, I dare say, the railways, we would never be able to build them. We have no aircraft runways under construction, and no high-tech nuclear green power stations under construction—mainly because of a catastrophic energy White Paper in 2003. In the days of the great engineering projects, approved in private Bills by this Parliament, the likes of Brunel and Telford got on with their vision and won through in the end, and thank goodness they did. They would be ashamed and astonished to see us today, a scrimping nation getting by—or, at least, we think that we are. We pollute the overcrowded roads with congestion and cause the inefficient use of today’s very efficient car engines because of that congestion. We pollute the sky with internal flights. It will all come to a stop; there is not enough capacity on rail, so even more freight gets on to the roads. Then they clog—and it will end up as national gridlock.

Is HS2 the complete answer? Of course it is not. Is the planned route the best? I cannot say—although it appears fairly straight, which I assume is a key factor for high speed. Should it be built? Most certainly. However, success will require better leadership of the project and I am not clear who is in charge. Major infrastructure projects by definition reach across the Parliaments and, while I would not insist on 100% agreement, there has to be a degree of operating outside the tribe on these projects. I do not see that at present. It is a pity that one of the first acts of the coalition was to abolish the Infrastructure Planning Commission before it had a chance to get going.

In the recent HS2 publications, I am at a loss to understand why freight effects have not been considered. Is it because freight will not be on HS2 but, because of HS2, more of it will use the extra capacity on existing lines? That seems to me a major failure of communication on behalf of the project. I have been informed that HS2 could take 500,000 lorries off the roads.

I much look forward to seeing Sir David Higgins as the chair of HS2 in the new year. I declare that I briefly worked with him when I was Regeneration Minister a decade ago and he was the chief executive of English Partnerships. He is impressive and he delivers, as his record shows. I hope that he will review all aspects of HS2—and that has to include the board. The Opposition had better give him full support. The Labour Government started this project, and it would be inconceivable to withdraw support. I am getting cheesed off listening to ex-Ministers swanning around the political salons pouring cold water on the project. I agreed with every word of the Secretary of State’s 11 September speech at the Institution of Civil Engineers. As such, I urge the shadow Cabinet not to quit on the project but to fight for it, and I urge HS2 to make its communications and operations a bit more transparent. I also have some news for the BBC: I do not expect Land’s End, Great Yarmouth, Anglesey or John o’ Groats to benefit as much as the great city regions. I thought the way the BBC treated the KPMG material on last week’s “Newsnight” was a journalistic disgrace, but it should not have had to use an FoI request to get the figures explaining the map in the report.

HS2 is not about minutes off journey times. It is about capacity and not relying on lines laid over 100 years ago. It is about serving one in five of the UK’s population. It is about, not serving, but creating city regions on a par with our EU partners, because we have not got any at present. That is why there is a constant drift to London. According to Sir Albert Bore, leader of Birmingham City Council, the West Midlands could see a minimum of 20,000 extra jobs and 50,000 with the package of local transport connectivity. Phase two could deliver up to 70,000 jobs according to Sir Richard Leese, leader of Manchester City Council. Some 70% of the extra jobs will be outside London.

As for the line, it must end in Glasgow and Edinburgh. There is no question about that: there has to be a phase three. I hope we can then stop the environmentally wasteful, polluting internal aircraft flights. I would be happier if the Bill included the line to Manchester and Leeds. I would hope and expect construction to start in more than one location. England is not the wild west frontier that the great railways opened up in America. We should be able to start in London, Manchester and Birmingham and meet in the middle, as we did with the Channel Tunnel.