High Speed 2

Andrew Bridgen Excerpts

Wednesday 10th July 2019 Westminster Hall

[Andrea Leadsom]

The hon. Gentleman mentioned that to me yesterday, and I am gravely concerned. As all right hon. and hon. Members will know, I am extremely unhappy at the prospect of non-disclosure agreements preventing whistleblowers from coming forward with information that is vital to the public interest or their own personal interest. People should not be gagged under any circumstances.

[Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on securing this debate on a topic we have discussed many times. I voted against HS2 at every opportunity in the House of Commons. In 2013, I predicted that it would cost in excess of £100 billion. The then Secretary of State laughed, and I think he was quite right to—it is clear that the project will be far in excess of £100 billion.

Does my right hon. Friend recall the report by Sir John Armitt in August 2018? His committee stated that, given that hubs are no longer in the centre of cities but on the outskirts, an extra £43 billion of infrastructure spending would be required to make use of the current hub sites that have been chosen. That has not been programmed into the budget at all.

[Andrea Leadsom]

My hon. Friend makes an important point about the lack of point-to-point movement in HS2. Passengers do not end up at the Bullring in Birmingham, or in the west end of London; they just end up somewhere on the outskirts wondering how on earth they will get to where they want to.

The business case for HS2 is seemingly not based on improved journey or improving capacity on journeys between the cities along the line of route. That was alarmingly confirmed by the chief executive of HS2 Ltd, Mark Thurston, in November last year, when he appeared before the all-party parliamentary rail group. At that meeting, Mr Thurston remarked that to remain on time and on budget, HS2 Ltd was considering fundamental changes to the project, including, but not limited to, reductions in the speed that HS2 trains will operate at and reductions in the total number of trains per hour.

With fewer and slower trains, it is hard to understand how the business case can be maintained, given the growing lack of incentive for passengers to choose to take a more expensive HS2 train over a classic service. I have asked HS2 Ltd to confirm whether it is modelling the impact of such changes, but so far I have been unable to obtain a definitive response.

As the former chairman of HS2 Ltd, Sir Terry Morgan, said when he appeared before the Economic Affairs Committee on the 22 January, nobody, not even he as a former chairman of the project, can say with any certainty what the final cost of HS2 will be. That cost has gone up and up over the years. In February 2011, we were told that HS2 would cost £37.5 billion. By January 2012, that figure had crept up to £40.8 billion. In June 2013, we were told the total cost had risen to £50.1 billion. Today, based on the funding envelope set out in November 2015 —not an estimate of the cost but rather the money available from DFT for the project—we are told that HS2 will cost the British taxpayer £55.7 billion. That is £55.7 billion for a single train line.

We have not actually seen a comprehensive breakdown of the costs for the full Y network of HS2 since 2013, although the National Audit Office has more recently said that, at the time of the 2015 spending review, the full cost should have been estimated at £65 billion. HS2’s land and property budget alone is expected to be five times greater than originally forecast, but that is of no help whatsoever to my constituents. I have had cases in South Northamptonshire where family farms have been cut in half, people have been forced to sell their businesses at a vastly undervalued rate and one constituent has been forced out of the family home that she had lived in for many years through a lifetime tenancy under the Agricultural Holdings Act 1986. There are countless examples where I have had to intervene time and again on behalf of my constituents, due to the insensitive behaviour and slow engagement of HS2.

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[Antoinette Sandbach (Eddisbury) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Luton North (Kelvin Hopkins). I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom) for securing this important debate.

The HS2 business case is clearly deeply flawed, as my right hon. Friend pointed out. When I was first elected, I was in two minds about HS2. I could see the damage it was doing to my constituency, but I thought it might be a worthwhile project for the country, if its administrators were savvy enough to resolve some local issues. Four years on, my view has shifted. The continuing and unceasing lack of care, interest or attention that HS2 pays to my constituents and my community have destroyed any faith that it can deliver the benefits that it promised.

Each individual failure is compounded to create an image of an organisation riven by incompetence and unable to deliver the project. For example, take-up of the need-to-sell scheme for phase 2b continues to be extremely low. The number of new applications has not exceeded double figures in the last nine months. Of applications placed before the panel, only a third have been accepted, whereas half the need-to-sell applications made in phases 1 and 2a were. The process remains time-consuming, and involves frequent requests for additional information and documentation. In spite of revisions, the guidance is still insufficiently detailed to enable applicants to understand fully what information and evidence is required for a successful application.

Further confusion has arisen in respect of the atypical or special circumstances route, which is intended to supplement the discretionary property schemes and provide a safety net where the specific requirements of existing schemes cannot be met. Departmental officials taking part in local public engagement events have been advising applicants that they should be applying under the atypical special circumstances scheme because of their particular situation, but applicants are then informed by HS2 that it is not available to them, as they are eligible to apply under one of the discretionary schemes.

Applicants understandably expect the advice that they are given by officials during public engagement events to be accurate and correct. The fact that that does not appear to be the case causes further unnecessary anxiety and frustration for applicants, as well as reinforcing the sense of distrust in HS2. It gives the impression that the right hand does not know what the left hand is doing.

[Andrew Bridgen]

Does my hon. Friend agree that HS2 appeared to be trying to create the perception that the project was beyond the point of no return—that we cannot stop it because so much money has been spent? Does she also agree that in business, the first loss is the best loss, and we are throwing good money after bad on this project?

[Antoinette Sandbach]

I certainly do. I remember stating the figure of £100 billion on television, only to be told that it was ridiculous. Now it looks like a certainty, rather than the ridiculous proposal that others claimed it was.

Issues continue even once applications under the property scheme are accepted. My constituents repeatedly tell me about the unco-operative and, at times, obstructive approach of surveyors acting on behalf of HS2. The surveyors’ repeated failures to acknowledge email correspondence, lengthy delays in responding to correspondence—even after numerous chase-ups and the involvement of members of HS2’s property team—and delays in arranging meetings are not only unacceptable but undermine my faith that HS2 can be delivered on its already inflated budget.

There is considerable concern, particularly for applications under the statutory blight scheme, that property valuations are based on the opinion of a single Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors surveyor, who is not local and is paid for by HS2, fostering a sense that the valuer is not impartial; in contrast, the need-to-sell scheme has an average of three property valuations. There have been repeated concerns that properties are being undervalued. HS2’s surveyors cite the additional compensation provided under the scheme, the suggestion being that the undervaluation is offset by the additional compensation, rather than there being recognition that the compensation is for the upheaval caused by moving property, and is not related to the value.

I know that the Minister has tried to mitigate some of these issues in the past, but time goes on and nothing changes, despite the Minister’s efforts; ministerial orders are ignored and overruled by HS2, which has come out with legions of excuses. If it cannot deliver for my constituents, how can it deliver for the country? My faith in this scheme is fundamentally undermined, as is my faith in the business case.