Railways: High Speed Rail

Lord Steel of Aikwood Excerpts

Monday 28th January 2013 Lords Chamber

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, HS2 has a good business case. If local areas seize the opportunity it presents, we can expect the benefits to be even greater. We are continuing to work with stakeholders to realise these benefits. The latest available estimates suggest that HS2 will return around £2-worth of benefits for every £1 spent. HS2 has the potential to generate transport-user benefits with a net present value of up to £48 billion, and revenues with a net present value of up to £33 billion. The construction costs of HS2 are broadly similar to the sort of money we are spending on Crossrail, so the incidence of expenditure on the project will be affordable.

[Lord Steel of Aikwood]

My Lords, there was one slightly opaque sentence in the Statement, which otherwise I welcomed. It referred to consultations with the Scottish Government. Might I persuade the Minister to enlarge a little on that? The last thing we want is a good, high-speed service as far as the north of England and then second-rate ones thereafter.

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, I can assure my noble friend that there are ongoing discussions on that particular issue between my right honourable friend the Secretary of State and the Scottish Government. The southern portion of the HS2 system has the better business case and therefore it makes sense to start that first, safe in the knowledge that Scotland will still benefit from the reduced journey times to London.