Andrew Bridgen
Main Page: Andrew Bridgen (Independent - North West Leicestershire)Department Debates - View all Andrew Bridgen's debates with the Department for Transport
(11 months ago)
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Theo Clarke
The hon. Member is absolutely right, and if he bears with me, I will specifically come on to compensation to farmers and the points the NFU has raised.
Theo Clarke
Let me make some progress and I will give way in a few minutes.
I want all those seeking compensation to know that they have not been forgotten. I am speaking up for them all today, to ensure their views are heard at the highest levels of Government. Since being elected as the Member for Stafford, I have raised the issue of HS2 compensation six times in this House—six times—and I have still not had all of my outstanding local claims resolved. That is not acceptable when HS2’s behaviour towards my residents has been shocking. In addition, I have contacted numerous relevant Ministers and spent hundreds of hours working on the issue, visiting affected constituents and advocating for them.
My first piece of casework as a new MP involved a constituent who experienced the most awful mental health crisis because of the stress of the compensation process. I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Pendle (Andrew Stephenson), who as a Rail Minister worked constructively with me on that case. I appreciate, too, that the new Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman), has also met me recently to discuss these issues.
When the Prime Minister announced back in October last year that the phase 2 of HS2 north of Birmingham would be cancelled, I welcomed it as I have long believed that HS2 is a folly. In November the Prime Minister stated that
“we are committed to fair treatment for people affected by the changes”.—[Official Report, 15 November 2023; Vol. 740, c. 642.]
While I applaud the Prime Minister’s sentiments, there should absolutely be fair treatment for all those affected by the changes, so today I ask the Minister to ensure that HS2 Ltd pays compensation fairly. That is the crucial question made even more pressing in light of the Secretary of State’s comments back in November when he said he thinks that those affected by HS2
“have been properly compensated according to the law”.
I am sorry to say that that is not the case. I will go into more detail about why there has not been proper compensation in several instances.
When the HS2 route was announced over a decade ago, the value of property and land along the route immediately dropped. The land and properties had become blighted, and we had to set up a very complex compensation system. Those going through the process were advised to hire private agents to assist them through the negotiating process, but I have heard from numerous people that the complexity of the process has meant that they were offered far smaller sums in compensation than the property was worth because of HS2. This process is not only complex but also extremely slow and I am now being told those living along the cancelled phase 2 route who wish to repurchase their property are doing so at a far higher price. This is clearly unacceptable. Why on earth should we be penalising residents who have already been forced to sell their property and land due to the Government building a railway line through their homes?
Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Ind)
I commend the hon. Member for Stafford (Theo Clarke) for securing this debate.
The motion states:
“That this House calls on the Government to provide compensation to people who have been affected by the construction of HS2.”
I take a bit of exception to the word “construction”. There has been a great deal of cost and a great deal of injury, especially for the taxpayer. In my constituency, 22 miles of which have been affected by blight for more than a decade, there is certainly plenty of injury and need for compensation, but there has never been any actual construction.
As the House knows, HS2—the second project of the high-speed rail system—was initiated by the Labour Government before the 2010 election. I think it was Lord Adonis’s little pet project, which he formulated on the back of a fag packet as a gimmick for the Labour manifesto, but unfortunately George Osborne picked it up and ran with it.
Michael Fabricant
Did the hon. Gentleman know that before Lord Adonis got his grubby hands on it, a design for HS2 was made by Arup? HS2 would have connected with HS1, and would have gone into major transport hubs such as Birmingham New Street and Manchester Piccadilly. It would have been possible to travel directly from Manchester Piccadilly to France without any changes at all, and do you know what? It would have been cheaper as well, because there would have been no tunnelling through the Chilterns.
Andrew Bridgen
If we were to debate the many failings of HS2, we would need more than the time available today. That will be for another debate, and I have no doubt that the Government have learned lessons, as they always do, but they will have been very expensive lessons for the taxpayer. HS2 is the white elephant that got ever bigger on taxpayers’ money. I opposed the project before it even started. I voted and spoke against it at every opportunity for a decade, but the elephant got ever larger.
My constituents let out a collective sigh of relief when phase 2b was finally dispatched. Today’s debate is about compensation, which is defined as an award, normally money, paid in recognition of loss, suffering and injury. Although my constituency did not see any HS2 construction, we certainly had plenty of loss, suffering and injury. We had 10 years of blight, with an area the width of two football fields, running the whole length of the constituency—22 miles—being sterilised.
Countless houses were never built and at least one factory, at the Lounge coal washing site, had to be cancelled—that factory would have created 1,200 jobs. We have had this blight for 10 years. My constituency is fortunate to have the highest economic growth in the country, but that economic growth and prosperity would have been far greater without the blighted land running through the middle of the constituency for more than 10 years.
What compensation can the Minister offer my constituents? Some of them went to their grave, and the biggest worry in their life was that HS2 was supposed to be going through their back garden. I reassured them that it was never going to happen. Despite all the bull and bluster from the Government, it was always going to run out of money. When the route was announced in 2013, I said it was going to end up costing over £100 billion —it is in Hansard—and the House laughed. It was right to laugh, because it was not £100 billion, was it? It was £160 billion at its peak.
The hon. Member for Lichfield (Michael Fabricant) is right that the project was supposed to move people seamlessly around the country. As the Government could never afford to get HS2 into city centres because of its burgeoning costs, they quickly ended up aiming to move people from nearly London to nearly Birmingham. If phase 2 had proceeded, it would have gone to nearly Manchester. I do not know anyone who wants to go from nearly London to nearly Birmingham, but the project had to continue.
HS2 has blighted my North West Leicestershire constituency, but I want to talk about one community in particular. The village of Measham was the most affected settlement on the planned route. Nowhere south of Measham had the number of houses and businesses that would have been disrupted, without any mitigation. Knowing it is one of the most deprived communities in my constituency, we had a regeneration plan to work with a fantastic company called Measham Land, through which 450 desirable new houses were going to be built on wasteland in the middle of the village. Working with the Ashby Canal Trust, it was going to fund regeneration projects, including two aqueducts, to bring the canal back to Measham, with a café culture around a large basin at the end of the canal system where people could bring their longboats. There was going to be huge investment in the village until HS2 was announced.
The route went straight through the middle of the Measham Land site. The regeneration of Measham has been delayed for 10 years. The people of Measham have suffered loss and injury, but where is the compensation? Okay, the regeneration will now go ahead, but it is 10 years late. The project would have been completed by now. We have seen that all along the route, not just in my constituency.
Who else has been injured? I will declare an interest: I am probably the only Member of Parliament who had to sell their house to HS2—a house that I bought in 2011. It was a substantial Georgian rectory with outbuildings and 14 acres of grounds, and I was forced by a judge to sell it under the extreme hardship scheme. I sold it in 2015 to HS2. Being a Member of Parliament, I thought, “I can’t deal with HS2 myself, so I’ll employ some consultants to deal with it, so that it’s an arm’s length transaction.” They charged me £25,000. It took 18 months, and I went through the system. I explained to the Government afterwards how HS2 has swindled everybody along the line with its property prices, and I will explain to the House how it is done.
It appears to be a transparently fair system, but I can assure hon. and right hon. Members that it most certainly is not, given the psychology behind it. Everybody along the whole route is presented with the same options. If HS2 wants to buy a property or someone has to sell their property—whether it is land, a factory or a dwelling—for various reasons, they will be offered a list of 10 valuers by HS2. The valuers will be mainly London estate agents, of whom the seller will have no knowledge. They may know the names—some of the very big estate agencies are on the list of 10 valuers—but it will be dealt with by the London offices, with which people in the midlands or the north are unlikely to have ever had any contact. They will be asked to choose one of the valuers to value their property, and HS2 will choose another, which sounds pretty transparently fair. They will both come to the property, land or factory to do an valuation. If the valuations are within 10% of each other, HS2 will say, “Let’s split the difference and call that the valuation.”
On paper, that sounds very fair, but think about the psychology of it. Those 10 valuers are the valuers for the whole route. They will only ever work for an individual who chooses them at random, because no seller has any knowledge of them whatsoever—it is a purely random choice. By choosing a valuer, someone has done all they can for them; the valuer will get paid their fee from HS2 for doing the valuation. But what the valuers on the list all want to be is the valuer that gets chosen every time by HS2. Given the pressure from the burgeoning costs of the project and the evidence given by whistleblowers who have left the land procurement side of HS2, which of the valuers do hon. and right hon. Members think HS2 will choose on the next occasion: the valuer who puts in the highest price to buy my house and land from me, or the valuer who puts in the lowest price for my property and land? The fact is that the system used by HS2 was always going to drive down the land and property prices paid to those affected by the route, and it is provable that that is exactly what it did.
There have been two notable whistleblowers who have left HS2, and I have spoken to both of them over the years. A former director of HS2, Doug Thornton, was put in charge of planning and performance. He was later put in charge of a £2.8 billion project to acquire all the land and properties that were needed along parts of the route. He went back to HS2 and said, “£2.8 billion is not enough. You can’t make a budget and just say we’re going to buy all the land and buildings for £2.8 billion.” He said it was nearer £4.8 billion, but he was told that he had to buy them for that price. Does that sound like HS2 was ever paying a fair price for the properties it needed to acquire along the route?
I have also recently spoken to Andrew Bruce, who was in charge of buying land and properties for HS2 until 2016. He had told his superiors that they had never paid a fair market price for any of the land and buildings that he bought while he was there, and he was asked to shred a report that he had done on that.
The two whistleblowers suffered loss and injury as well, because I am told that they were unable to get another job in the industry after they whistleblew on the practices that they experienced in HS2. They might need some compensation as well. We should protect whistleblowers, because without them we would still have a continuation of the Horizon/Post Office scandal. I maintain that individuals and communities have been damaged by HS2, and I would be interested to know what compensation the village of Measham will get, and what we are going to do for every householder and landowner along that route, who I can prove did not get the right price.
The Minister has promised me a meeting twice in the last two months, and I still do not have a date for it. I really hope that he will come through for me. I hope that lessons have been learned by HS2 and the Government. It has been a week of scandals— Horizon/Post Office, the loan charge, HS2—and the Government have not covered themselves in glory.
Several hon. Members rose—
Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)
I thank my near neighbour and hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Theo Clarke) for introducing this debate. We have heard a catalogue of problems from various colleagues here on both sides of the House. The sad thing is that they are not unique. They are repeated up and down the country.
When I was a Whip, I instituted a system—I am looking at my hon. Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Ruth Edwards), who is the Whip, to see whether this system still operates—where we would look at our Members of Parliament to see how many staff they got through in a short period, because clearly there was a problem if someone could not hold on to their staff for long. We would think that the Minister or Back Bencher in question was seriously flawed in some way. How many chairmen and chief executives has HS2 gone through? It has gone through a lot, because they are flawed in a serious way; they are dysfunctional.
Andrew Bridgen
That is made even more amazing by the fact that they have gone through all these senior staff at HS2, and yet it is the highest paid role in the civil service.
Michael Fabricant
It is extraordinary, and it just demonstrates what an organisation this is—not only dysfunctional, but unfair. In an intervention, I talked about my constituent Siân Froggatt, who is not being allowed to reclaim land that was compulsorily taken from her, even though the land is now not needed because the railway is not going ahead on phase 2a. I might add that she is still waiting to be paid—waiting to be paid, and still unable able to reclaim that land.
I took the opportunity of looking at my cellphone during the debate, not because I was looking at tractors or anything like that, but because I was doing some research about the Crichel Down rules. It says on the Government’s own website that
“The Crichel Down Rules require government departments… to offer back surplus land to the former owner or the former owner’s successors at the current market value.”
It has to be offered back to the same people. Not only is it not being offered back at a reasonable price, but it is often not being offered back to the same people.
I came in at the very last moment to speak in this debate, so I will not take up a great deal of time. I will listen with interest to the Minister’s response, which I suspect might be the same as the answer he gave yesterday in a different debate regarding the Handsacre junction, which happens to be in my constituency. I ask that in these dying days of HS2—dying days in one way or another—the Government get a grip and ensure that, just we asked in the previous debate, justice is done for our constituents. The sense of justice we have in this nation extends not only to His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, as in the previous debate, but to HS2 Limited in this one.
The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Huw Merriman)
I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Theo Clarke) for securing this important debate and I acknowledge all contributions from right hon. and hon. Members. I will come to them in the course of my response.
As the House will be aware, the Government laid a written ministerial statement this morning announcing the lifting of safeguarding directions along the former HS2 route between the west midlands and Crewe. By lifting safeguarding, the Government are providing certainty to people along the former route of phase 2a and making development easier, as HS2 Ltd will no longer object to proposed development in the area to which the safeguarding direction had applied.
To be clear, however, the lifting of safeguarding does not in any way trigger the start of a sell-off of property already acquired by the Secretary of State. No land owned by the Secretary of State will be sold off until we are ready. Safeguarding applies to land owned privately. The imposition of safeguarding on phase 2a had hitherto protected HS2 from conflicting development from any private landowner.
Safeguarding has now been lifted from phase 2a, with one notable exception: the continued safeguarding of land close to the village of Handsacre, north of Lichfield in Staffordshire. That junction, which I know is dear to my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford, and indeed to the constituency MP, my hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield (Michael Fabricant), is now an even more critical part of the HS2 infrastructure. It will allow HS2 trains to join the west coast main line through a connection to the existing rail network. I can confirm that the Government remain committed to delivering the Handsacre connection, as we are committed to delivering HS2 phase 1.
From London to the midlands, 140 miles of new railway is being built by thousands of engineers and construction workers at 350 active construction sites. At Euston, we are working with our development partner, Lendlease, to model an ambitious redeveloped Euston quarter and deliver thousands of homes and offices that will provide the financing for HS2 trains into central London. Today’s important announcement is further evidence that we are listening to businesses and residents along the former phase 2a route, and we will continue to do so.
Let me give the further information that my right hon. Friend the Member for South Staffordshire (Sir Gavin Williamson) and my hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield requested. We will amend the safeguarding on the remainder of the phase 2 route of HS2—from Crewe to Manchester and from the west midlands to Leeds—by the summer, to allow for any safeguarding needed for Northern Powerhouse Rail. To respond to the point made by my right hon. Friend, we will shortly design a programme for the disposing of any property that is no longer needed by HS2, and will set out more details soon.
I can confirm that any land and property that was acquired for HS2 compulsorily or via statutory blight but is no longer required will be sold, subject to the Crichel Down rules. Those rules, as my hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield set out, require Government Departments, under certain circumstances, to offer back surplus land and property for sale to the former owner, or their successors, at the current market value. I therefore assure my hon. Friend that we are ensuring that property is offered back at a fair price to original owners with first refusal.
Andrew Bridgen
The Minister says that the properties acquired by HS2 that are no longer required will be sold at the current market price, but does he accept that, as I have explained to the House, HS2 did not pay a fair market price at the time of the acquisition of those assets?
Huw Merriman
I am due to meet the hon. Member. He said that I had declined to meet him after two requests; actually, I had a meeting in his diary yesterday, but according to his office he was unable to make that meeting. We have set another date for 31 January. I will talk to the hon. Member about the matters he raises; the Department and the HS2 team have looked at them before and do not agree with the conclusions he has mentioned, but we will discuss those matters when we meet on the 31st.
As has been set out by my hon. Friends and other Members who have spoken, property owners who have found themselves obliged to deal with HS2 Ltd and its contractors have had varied and, at times, inconsistent experiences. Those property owners are understandably less interested in what HS2 can or cannot deliver for transport and the wider economy: their focus has instead been on seeking the compensation they are entitled to, and navigating what must at times have seemed like an unequal relationship with HS2 Ltd.
I readily acknowledge how important it is that those owed compensation, such as money for the purchase of their property or expenses or costs associated with such transactions, are paid in as timely a manner as is possible. I have always sought to impress on the company and its agents that it is unacceptable that cases should drag on. That is of no benefit to anyone—certainly not the property owner, and certainly not the taxpayer.
When it comes to paying owners for title to properties that they have, in many cases, sold unwillingly, it is only right that those owners should receive recompense in full and as fast as is practicable. That said, each property transaction is unique, so presents its own set of circumstances. As many in this House will be aware, when negotiating and settling compensation claims, HS2 Ltd follows the principles set out in the compensation code. There are also a number of discretionary schemes that offer further help to those not eligible under the statutory framework—in effect, they go above and beyond that framework.
HS2 Ltd must achieve a careful balance between meeting the needs of the claimant and delivering value for money to the taxpayer. The compensation code requires claimants to provide robust evidence for their claims. It is often when claimants are struggling to provide sufficient suitable evidence for their claims that negotiations become frustrated, leading to delays. I will be frank: the extent to which claimants’ agents provide suitable evidence, or are willing to negotiate from a realistic standpoint, varies considerably—I have found myself in the middle of some discussions of that type in constituents’ homes. It is important to understand that background, as it helps to explain why, in some instances, property owners consider that they are having payments withheld. When late payments do occur, they are never acceptable, but our data shows that they are the exception rather than the rule.
Property cases should be concluded as soon as is practicable, within the constraints imposed by the balance of the property owner’s interests and those of the taxpayer. The evidence shows—I will happily write to every right hon. and hon. Member who has taken part in this debate—that HS2 Ltd is succeeding in closing down claims, despite the considerable complexities that those claims involve. However, I acknowledge that there are a number of impacted parties with whom HS2 Ltd has not yet been able to reach agreement and negotiations have become challenging, and we have heard about many of them this afternoon. As I mentioned, I have got myself involved in many of those cases to move them further along and challenge HS2 as to the position taken.
My hon. Friend the Member for Stafford is a tireless advocate for the cases that have arisen in her constituency, some of which she and I have previously discussed, as she mentioned. She has cited some particular cases during the debate; I will write back to her with my latest understanding of where matters sit regarding her constituents Mr and Mrs Tabernor and Mr Collier. The same applies to other constituent cases named in this debate by my right hon. Friend the Member for South Staffordshire and others.
With regard to the point about intimidation—I say this as someone who chaired the Transport Select Committee—I believe that everyone should be able to give clear, frank, open and transparent evidence without fear or favour. If there is any evidence of intimidation, I will of course look at it and make sure that it is eradicated. I give everyone in the House that assurance. As my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Greg Smith) has demanded, I am determined that HS2 Ltd should continue to up its game in dealing with difficult and disputed cases, such as the ones that have been mentioned today and others that I am aware of.
Let me touch on a few matters raised by other hon. Members we have heard from but I have not mentioned. The hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Sarah Green) referenced a number of cases. I am very happy to meet her, as I have previously. She is a tireless advocate on her constituents’ behalf and I will meet her again to discuss some of those cases. I have touched on the points made by the hon. Member for North West Leicestershire (Andrew Bridgen) and look forward to meeting him and going through the points he made in the debate.
My hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Dr Mullan) has been a tireless advocate of the benefits that HS2 could deliver to his constituency, and it is the one part of the country that I believe needs particular mention. I spent a morning with him and local Cheshire East councillors looking at the potential and at what the team had brought. It will not have escaped his attention that the local government Minister—the Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, my hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare)—has entered the Chamber. The two of us spoke earlier this week about the needs of Crewe, and we also spoke to other colleagues. He has been a tireless champion of the council, with the predicament that it finds itself in, and when I and the local government Minister meet the team from Cheshire East, my hon. Friend is certainly welcome to join us. We have made such points to other colleagues, and we are determined to help and to work together. I know that the local government Minister cares about these matters and will work with us to do so.
I say gently to the hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Mike Kane)—he is a fellow football player with me, as well as a good friend—that the Labour position appears to keep changing. Just last week, the Leader of the Opposition went to Manchester to say that HS2 would no longer continue, which was slightly inconsistent with what we heard this afternoon. It may well be the case that many dispute the plan we have in place, but the plan is not to go ahead with HS2 north of Handsacre, and instead to spend that money—the £36 billion—on projects across the country, particularly to benefit all cities across the north and the midlands. That is the plan, but I think we would all like to know what Labour’s plan is. Is it going to deliver HS2? If it is not going to deliver HS2 beyond the midlands, is it going to commit to the £36 billion that this Government are committing to levelling up? I think we would all like that clarity, not least the constituents represented by all those sitting behind me.