Railways: High Speed 2

Lord Scott of Foscote Excerpts

Wednesday 11th July 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Scott of Foscote]

My Lords, I will say a word or two in the gap in support of all those who have criticised this HS2 train proposal. I draw attention to the report produced by Mott MacDonald’s consortium, commissioned by and on behalf of the Department for Transport, investigating the economic consequences of the proposed train. In particular, the consortium’s report deals with the supposed economic benefits of the time to be saved by businessmen travelling on the train from London to Birmingham or, later, from Birmingham onwards. I am sure that the Minister will be familiar with this report. He may not agree with me that the information I have about it—I have been unable so far to obtain a copy; it runs to 170 pages—indicates that the supposed economic benefits of the journey in the new train saving businessmen’s time will be at best trivial and at worst spurious. I suggest that this particular report deserves a bit of attention before the Government decide to commit themselves irrevocably to this scheme.