High Speed 2

Angus Brendan MacNeil Excerpts

Tuesday 14th January 2014 Westminster Hall

[Sheila Gilmore]

The right hon. Lady will not be surprised that I do not entirely agree with her view. We have to remember, for example, that the lines between cities across the north are already being electrified, quite separately from HS2.

[Mr Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Sheila Gilmore]

I will shortly, but I want to complete my argument about why, if we want to grow regional economies, we need to improve connectivity and why that is not possible within the existing rail network. There has been a huge growth in rail over the past 20 years, and there is limited spare capacity. Investment in existing lines has been increased and, we acknowledge, that investment is continuing under this Government, but—this is perhaps the point that the right hon. Member for Chelmsford (Mr Burns) wished to make—the ability to make further improvements is decreasing because of the limits on capacity. If we decide that we are going to build new lines in various places, we may as well think about the high-speed line now.

[Mr MacNeil]

Did I understand the hon. Lady’s response to the right hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs Gillan) correctly as implying that, as a Scottish Member, she would prefer to have high-speed rail starting in London rather than in Scotland?

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[Mrs Gillan]

I am sure that most of the hon. Lady’s constituents will be travelling to Kings Cross, but plenty of people from Scotland travel to Euston. As she does not appear to want the route built to Scotland immediately, nor to want the northern routes to be constructed first, she can rest assured that there will be a lot of disruption right across the network as the project develops. I was surprised that she did not ask for the line to be built from Scotland to England, because there is to be a referendum in Scotland and, as I have always said, if we want Scotland to remain as part of the United Kingdom, connectivity to the rest of the United Kingdom is really important. Despite any differing views about HS2, I think that most people in the Chamber would agree that we want Scotland to remain part of the United Kingdom.

[Mr MacNeil]

Does it not show London’s priorities that, rather than building high-speed lines to the north, it built high-speed lines to the south and towards the continent—indeed, to countries that were not in political union with London?

[Mrs Gillan]

No, I do not at all agree with the hon. Gentleman on that, and he knows it. If that is a mischievous way of pushing the SNP’s message, I have to say that I believe that we are better off together and that the people and economy of Scotland will be a lot better off if it remains firmly as part of the United Kingdom.

Today we have a fightback from HS2, because Sir David Higgins takes up his appointment; we have already had the PR charm offensive from HS2 this morning, conducted from Old Oak Common. We heard that we will have a new further education college to train the 2,000 engineers that we do not currently have to complete the build over the next 20 years of HS2. The Government are constantly trying to talk up the project. We have had more fightbacks and comebacks on HS2 than we can possibly imagine. More alarmingly, we heard this morning that over the next six weeks, Sir David will prove that he can produce HS2 cheaper and quicker. That is what he has been charged to do. That will be interesting; it means that the past four years and the work by the Department for Transport and HS2 Ltd is obviously not good enough, and that a great rescuer can come in and show us, over the next six weeks, how we can do it quicker and cheaper. I wish him the best of luck, but it makes me wonder what we have paid nearly £1 billion for in terms of the work that has been carried out so far.

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[Mrs Gillan]

I will be grateful for a reply from the Minister then, of course. He knows that what I am doing is talking common sense and repeating what has happened, as opposed to making anything up. If this project is so good, perhaps the Minister will also, when he replies, let us know why the Government have still not published the Major Projects Authority reports, which highlight the risk. I believe that they have been classified as amber and red. If the Government are so convinced that this is such a wonderful project, it is important that those reports are made public. After all, we came into government saying that we would be the most transparent Government ever.

The hybrid Bill, which has been deposited, has also proved to be contentious. I think that tomorrow the Standing Orders Committee will meet for the first time since 2008 to examine the 14 Standing Orders that it may have transgressed. Alongside the hybrid Bill was deposited an environmental statement of nearly 50,000 pages, from which, as the Minister told me in answer to a question, some 877 pages were omitted. That and the fact that 56 days is the shortest period that has been given for any consultation on HS2 matters reflect the fact that the Government are not wanting to listen in detail to people who are raising valid and very worrying concerns about where we are going with this project.

It is widely known that Buckinghamshire gets all the pain and none of the gain. I am not sure whether the new college that is being promoted by my colleagues in government will be dangled in front of Buckinghamshire —whether it could come to Buckinghamshire. If that were considered, at least it would be something more than we are getting at the moment, because if people start to look in detail at what is proposed and the impact on Buckinghamshire, they will see that it is very worrying.

I talked to my right hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Mr Lidington) before this debate. We were talking about the effects on the local economy and particularly on tourism in Wendover and beyond, and also in Great Missenden in my constituency. But also, more worryingly—my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford, who is also a former Health Minister, will know about this—concern has been expressed, because of what is proposed in changing the transport architecture locally, that even blue-light services could be affected during the construction phase of the project.

[Mr MacNeil]

I am grateful to the right hon. Lady for giving way; she has been very generous. She is painting a truly frightening picture of high-speed rail. I just wonder where high-speed rail has been constructed whether she would advocate digging it up and taking it away, because it does seem to be a very frightening project indeed.

[Mrs Gillan]

I think that I understood what the hon. Gentleman just said to me. We all know that we need to have a balanced economy and that we need to get growth across the country, but there are alternative ways of doing that. It always seems to me that HS2 was a project dreamt up by politicians—by Andrew Adonis in opposition—and adopted by the coalition when it came in and that no one really and truthfully sat down and said, “How do we get an integrated transport system? How do we join up our roads, railways and airports?” We do not appear to have done what I consider to be the overarching work to deliver an integrated transport system. [Interruption.] It is not yet going ahead. As we know, the hybrid Bill must pass through this House and the other House, so it has not got the final stamp of approval.

[Mr MacNeil]

Which ones would the right hon. Lady dig up?

[Mrs Gillan]

I am not digging up anything. The project has not got the final stamp of approval. There is still the option of pursuing other ways in which we could improve our economy.

Let me get back to my local picture, because I think that it is only fair to my constituents that some of their grievances are aired. The agricultural holdings in Chesham and Amersham will be severely impacted. Several farms will be badly affected by the construction, to such an extent that they will probably be put out of business. People cannot run an equestrian business next to a major construction site; nor can they use ground that has been submerged in 50 feet of soil. Will the Minister, although he is rightly going to defend his position, as he must, let me know what detailed work he had done on the losses that will be sustained by the businesses and particularly the farming and agricultural holdings in my neck of the woods? HS2 Ltd estimates that, across the whole route between Birmingham and London, about 300 existing businesses will be required to relocate to new premises, but people cannot relocate a farm and people cannot relocate a family business, when its land has been divided into two or part of its land has been appropriated.

I referred briefly to roads that will have to be closed, realigned or diverted during the construction phase. The impact on communities and local facilities will alter people’s travelling patterns and shopping habits, perhaps even for life. That is a great threat to the local economy. If people start to read through the detail of the environmental assessment, they can see some of the estimates of traffic congestion at the junctions of School lane and the A413, the Amersham bypass and the A404, and Chesham road and Bottrells lane—I could go on, but people will have got the idea. But I want to know what estimates the Department has made of the losses to our local economy from the delays, traffic congestion and disruption that years of construction will bring to Chesham and Amersham.

I believe that some of the claims made by consultants are not correct. There will be a lot of substitution in the economy. Yes, businesses will be attracted to the high-speed rail line and may move, as they did when the BBC, which the hon. Member for Edinburgh East referred to, went to Salford. That move has attracted many production companies and media companies to that area. However, that is substitution, because the businesses have been drawn from other parts; hence one of the very important things that was highlighted in the KPMG report was the disinvestment and the permanent loss to GDP of other regions as businesses are attracted falsely to the line.

This will be a distorting project. Many MPs around the country do not realise that there will be an effect on their constituency, which will suffer disinvestment as businesses move closer to new conurbations, for example into buildings created with Chinese investment, as we have heard, for the Manchester airport area and in other centres where they intend to build buildings that will accommodate businesses or shops.

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[Mark Lazarowicz]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I was about to come to that important point, so I will not repeat what she has said. As I suggested, high-speed rail stations can be important hubs and promoters of economic activity, and it will be up to local governments, communities and businesses to make the most of the opportunities that those connections offer. They will have to choose whether to view high-speed rail as a benefit, or as something that will suck prosperity away from their economy.

At the start of the railway age, towns reacted in all sorts of ways to new railway lines. Some towns chose deliberately to keep the railways away and avoid building stations, but they soon started to campaign for branch lines to reach their communities. I believe that some communities close to the route of HS1 regret choosing not to have a station and reap the benefits that we now see. That emphasises the fact that communities across the country must take the opportunities that arise from HS2, because if they do not, they will not get the benefits.

There is a question about whether HS2 could damage the economic position of certain parts of the country. If HS2 does not go from London to the midlands, the north and Scotland, those parts of the country are in great danger of becoming worse off as a result of economic developments elsewhere. If there are improved transport links from London to elsewhere in Europe and the world, but no such links going further north, those of us from communities further north will be relatively worse off. In addition to the high-speed services from London to Brussels and Paris, operators are planning direct high-speed services all the way from London to Cologne and Frankfurt, for example. If people and businesses in London have access to that high-speed link, but we are relatively worse off further north, our economic position is likely to be damaged. That is why I strongly support the argument for high-speed routes reaching Scotland as early as possible.

It would be damaging if we had the development of high speed to Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds and York, but did not take further the benefits of those connections and faster services. That is why I welcomed the announcement from the UK and Scottish Governments a few months ago of a study to look at ways to ensure that high-speed rail reaches further north to Glasgow and the rest of Scotland. I understand that the parameters for the study laid out by the Department for Transport state that all options should be considered. That could include new lines, upgrading existing lines or a combination of both. I am interested in hearing from the Minister an update on that study of the lines and connections from the end of HS2, as currently planned, on to Edinburgh and Glasgow.

[Mr MacNeil]

I am sure that the hon. Gentleman would agree that it is important to take a wider perspective on how to ensure that HS1 and HS2 interact with each other seamlessly, so that we can travel from Scotland into the wider European market without hitting the buffers in London and having to change trains there.

[Mark Lazarowicz]

That is part of the argument, and that leads me on to the issue of where work on HS2 should start. Should it be from the north or the south, or somewhere in between? I am sure that the right hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham would like it to start as far north from her as possible and never actually make it to her constituency. That might be a bit unfair, but some people do seem to have put forward the argument for starting as far north as possible so that work does not start in the south.

To me, those options do not seem to be in opposition. Work obviously cannot start everywhere at the same time, but the idea that the line must start from the south and meander until it eventually reaches the north is the wrong approach. There are no economic or technical reasons why starts on the line could not be made at more than one location. I understand that part of the difficulty has more to do with politics. I understand the wish of the Government not to have to deal with the difficulties of the HS2 route from London to Birmingham alongside the difficulties of planning the route from Birmingham to Manchester, or from Manchester to further north. It would be great if Members on both Front Benches made it clear that time would be made available to allow planning for HS2 to go further north from Birmingham, and perhaps for work to be started in Scotland and the north at the same time as in the south. That option should be back on the political agenda, and I urge the Government to consider it.

[Mr MacNeil]

It is a political reality that we probably instinctively feel to be true that if the work started in the north, it would be more likely that a bridge between the two high-speed lines would be completed than that High Speed 2 would be extended further north via High Speed 3. The pressing political and physical reality would make it more likely that a gap would be filled than an extension completed.

[Mark Lazarowicz]

I recognise that there is a strong case for work to start as soon as possible on the London to Birmingham section. There are particular capacity issues there, so I do not think that that should be left until the end. At the same time, I feel that we should be discussing trying to do more work much earlier on in the process to benefit parts of the country that are further north as well.

I have taken longer than I intended, Sir Edward, so I will try to make my last few comments as brief as possible.

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[Mark Lazarowicz]

I am not suggesting that the process should be reversed. Others are obviously much more expert on the issue, but my point is that I do not see why we have to wait until 2033 for the lines to reach Manchester and York, and then perhaps 10 or 15 years beyond that for them to reach Edinburgh and Glasgow. The Government and Ministers should address that point, as should politicians from all parties who support HS2; we should try to make things happen as soon as possible.

[Mr MacNeil]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mark Lazarowicz]

I will give way, but it has to be the last time.

[Mr MacNeil]

I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman. Given the time scale he mentioned—up to 2033—and the wait, does he agree that Barnett consequentials are also important to the debate?

[Mark Lazarowicz]

I will have to leave that point.

I will make some final points as briefly as possible. First, one strong argument for committing to high-speed routes as well as high-speed trains going to Scotland is that the economic case for the entire line is improved if Scotland is linked into the process at an early stage. That point has been made by other people, and I strongly endorse it.

My second point is about the economic benefits of the line, not just in the long term, but in the construction phase, as a direct consequence of engineering and construction. The Government must assure people like me that they are making every effort to ensure that the benefits are spread as far as possible throughout the country. A document on HS2 was recently produced, I think by the Department for Transport, that emphasised how Crossrail had brought a wide range of job benefits to large parts of the country. If one looks at the chart in that document, the vast majority of the benefits, perhaps unsurprisingly, were focused around the Crossrail route and south-east England. Hardly any benefits from construction, engineering and knock-on consequences reached further north. The Government must ensure that a major effort is made to make sure that the indirect benefits from the construction phase—jobs and employment—reach the entire country.

Finally, I have a question for the Minister about the further education college that has been proposed to provide trained workers for the high-speed line. I recognise that the college must be based somewhere, but all its activities need not be based around one location; nor must they take place at just one physical college. That initiative should be aimed at ensuring that the job benefits from the construction phase of HS2 are spread as far as possible throughout the country. I suggest to the Minister that it would be worth while to enter into discussions with the Scottish Government at an early stage, so that there could perhaps be a linked initiative in Scotland to provide similar benefits to the section of the HS2 line that I hope will be promoted by both the UK and Scottish Governments at a relatively early stage. In that way, we too can see the jobs benefits, as well as the longer-term economic benefits, of HS2, for which I think the case is very strong.

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[Mr Burns]

I suggest that my right hon. Friend has a word with Councillor Tett; as he is a constituent of hers, it should not be difficult for her to contact him. Certainly, when I talked to officials at Kent county council as a Minister, they made it quite clear that they were more than happy to talk to county councils, and officials there told me that Buckinghamshire was reluctant to engage in any meetings with them on the subject.

On the economic benefits, the most important thing is capacity. Faster speeds for the rail network are important, but so is capacity. The west coast main line will reach its full capacity by 2024-25. Given that it is the spine of the country up to Scotland, and that we need those communications for passengers and freight, it is crucial that we relieve that capacity. People in Buckinghamshire and parts of London will say, “It brings no benefit to us.” Of course it will bring benefit to them as well. Although High Speed 2 will not stop in Buckinghamshire, the released capacity on the conventional west coast line that goes through Buckinghamshire and other related conventional lines will ensure that passengers using those lines to commute to London will have more capacity and a better journey experience, because others who might otherwise have been on those conventional trains travelling to London will be using the high-speed line.

High Speed 2 will also give eight of the 10 largest cities in England far greater connectivity, as was said by the hon. Members for Edinburgh East, and for Stalybridge and Hyde (Jonathan Reynolds). That is crucial. As the experience of Kent has shown, it will also create jobs through the actual building of the railways and through increased business activity, particularly around stations, whether at Birmingham, outside Sheffield, at Manchester, or elsewhere where there might be stations. The figures that I have seen, which some people would say are on the conservative side, suggest that 100,000 extra jobs will be created, although a conglomeration of local authorities has come up with the bolder suggestion of 400,000 jobs. Equally importantly, 70% of the economic benefits of the project are expected to be seen outside London, although obviously parts of London will benefit from the project.

I would like to mention the KPMG report. I know that people who do not support High Speed 2 rubbish it, but people like me who do support the project have a more open and reasonable approach to it. According to the report, when High Speed 2 is up and running to Leeds and Manchester, the annual benefit to the economy is anticipated to be in the region of £15 billion a year. Of course, as was said, some businesses and jobs may well be pulled away from other areas. That is part of economic life, but it does not mean that we should not allow a project that will bring a potential £15 billion a year in improvement to the economy once it is up and running. People must be careful about rubbishing a report that shows the potential for job creation, increased and enhanced economic development and growth, and an improvement in the growth abilities of our economy as a whole.

I believe also that we must embrace high-speed rail beyond Leeds and Manchester. That is why I am so pleased that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport, along with the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Mr Goodwill), set up a project in October 2012 to examine the benefits of extending a phase 3 into Scotland, to Glasgow and Edinburgh. Personally, freed from ministerial responsibility, I believe that that is an important next stage for High Speed 2. I also see HS2 as a spine. In time, when there is a business case and financial resources available, it should have spurs to other parts of the country that could benefit economically. The areas that come to mind as potential candidates for a continuation of High Speed 2 are Liverpool, south Wales and the south-west of England.

[Mr MacNeil]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Burns]

I will, but very briefly, as my time is almost up.

[Mr MacNeil]

May I add to that a plea for Inverness and Aberdeen, and for the integration of Scotland into the high-speed European network as well?

[Mr Burns]

The hon. Gentleman makes an extremely valid point. That is what is so exciting about the project’s potential throughout the whole United Kingdom. In conclusion—

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[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship today, Sir Edward.

I begin by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh East (Sheila Gilmore) on securing this important debate. A constant champion of the railways in this Parliament, her speech this morning exemplified both the passion and the attention to detail that she brings to discussions of rail issues.

I think that all right hon. and hon. Members would agree that the exponential growth in passenger demand now poses a serious challenge for our railways. We have debated the causes of that growth at length before and I do not propose to revisit those arguments today, but it is a fact that passenger demand has doubled in the last 20 years and we are now accommodating the same number of passengers as there were in the 1920s on a network less than half the size it was then. That growth has continued through periods of infrastructure disruption and even through recession. Technology is making it easier for people to travel and young people are now the group who are most predisposed to travel by rail.

Passenger numbers grew by 7.3% at the start of last year compared with the first quarter of 2012, and across the network conflicts between inter-city, commuter and freight trains are common as competing grades of traffic jostle for scarce paths. As my hon. Friend spelled out, some sections are already approaching the limits of their capacity, especially on the west coast main line, where the number of trains being run has doubled during the past 15 years, leading Network Rail to warn that the line will effectively be full by 2024. All this has happened despite the west coast route modernisation project, which cost £9 billion and caused enormous disruption over a period of 12 years without delivering the long-term capacity benefits that we as a country need.

I have full sympathy with right hon. and hon. Members and local authorities who represent communities served by the west coast main line, and they have made it clear that they have no wish to relive the experience. Unfortunately, the heavy demands on the line mean that expensive periods of disruption continue. In 2014, there are three planned closures of the line in the Watford area alone, which means that the southern end of the line will be closed for most of August as track and signalling is replaced. Such closures require sizeable compensation payments to train operators—Network Rail puts the cost for such works on the west coast main line at 18% of its overall budget—and cause delays and inconvenience to businesses and individual passengers, the costs of which are much more difficult to quantify.

Consequently, before I talk about the economic case for HS2, we should consider the economic impacts of inaction. Commuter trains could be cut as train paths are reassigned to more profitable long-distance trains—a process familiar to transport planners and passengers in the west midlands. In the most extreme cases, some smaller stations in Staffordshire were closed while the west coast main line was being modernised, and they have not reopened. Thousands of passengers are already being left standing on their morning commute, not only on routes into London but on the approaches to Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds and Sheffield. In addition, growing congestion on the lines hits resilience and reliability, undermining rail’s traditional advantage over other modes of travel. A consequence of the growing number of services provided is that journey times have not improved on most of the main lines, and in many cases have got worse in the past 20 years. Even after the intercity express programme trains are introduced on the east coast main line, a number of important long-distance journeys will still take the same time as they did in 1991.

There is a clear need for capacity improvements, and as the British Chambers of Commerce has said:

“Future business success depends on infrastructure networks that meet demand. Rail is no exception. The UK rail network must have the capacity to meet rocketing business demand - for long-distance services, for commuter rail services, and for the transport of freight.”

That was why Lord Adonis, when he was Transport Secretary in the last Labour Government, developed proposals for a new north-south line.

[Mr MacNeil]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Lilian Greenwood]

No. I will not take an intervention at the moment.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Mary Creagh) said on Third Reading of the High Speed Rail (Preparation) Bill:

“High Speed 2 is a project that is in the national interest.”—[Official Report, 31 October 2013; Vol. 569, c. 1179.]

That is why Labour supports HS2 to meet our north-south capacity requirements and provide the connections between the core cities that our regional economies need to thrive.

In that respect, I am happy to declare an interest as an east midlands MP. There are relatively good links from Nottingham to London, which are due to be strengthened by electrification of the midland main line, but our inadequate rail connections to Birmingham and Leeds hold back growth. As the right hon. Member for Chelmsford (Mr Burns) said, increasing capacity is vital, but so are connectivity and journey time improvements. It can take two hours to travel from Nottingham to Leeds by rail, but with HS2 that journey time would be cut by two thirds. Although it is important that we continue to invest in our existing network—the budgets published up to 2020-21 show that investment is not being diverted from conventional lines—high-speed rail will bring real improvements for journeys between cities outside London.

It is important to stress that communities away from the high-speed rail stations also stand to benefit, as more local services can be run on the conventional network. The right hon. Gentleman drew attention to people’s experience of HS1 in Kent. Similarly, compatible trains will run off the new high-speed rail line, enabling faster journey times and direct connections to the new network. I draw hon. Members’ attention to Network Rail’s “Better Connections” report, which examined how additional services can be provided. We need to see more of this sort of work from both Network Rail and local bodies, who should be emboldened as they plan how to maximise the benefits of HS2 as part of the transport devolution agenda.

When the High Speed Rail (Preparation) Bill was in Committee, we took evidence from two academics who both agreed that regional benefits would depend on the quality of the local plans that were put in place, so my first question to the Minister is: what steps is he taking to encourage transport authorities that are not on the immediate high-speed rail route to plan for HS2? We have already seen how high-speed rail can be a catalyst for regeneration in west London. Plans have been outlined by Queens Park Rangers football club to relocate to Old Oak Common in order to create a new 40,000-seat stadium, a project that the developers say will support 24,000 new houses. In Birmingham, the city council has said that the arrival of HS2

“presents a huge opportunity to breathe new life”

into the Eastside area. The new station is planned to be at Curzon Street, which was the original terminus of the first London to Birmingham railway and which last saw long-distance services in the 1850s. If the planners get the design and the connections right, the reborn Curzon Street station promises to be the jewel in the crown of Birmingham Eastside’s rejuvenation. Centro, the west midlands transport authority, has developed a wide-ranging plan for integrating high-speed rail with its Metro system, commuter rail lines and bus services.

My hon. Friends the Members for Edinburgh North and Leith (Mark Lazarowicz) and for Stalybridge and Hyde (Jonathan Reynolds) have touched on the importance of the HS2 line for Edinburgh and Manchester, and as an east midlands MP I can point to other examples of how HS2 can act as a spur to investment. A recent report by consultants Volterra found that development in the immediate vicinity of the planned station at Toton could build 650 to 875 houses and support up to 1,500 administrative jobs. However, more can be done to promote jobs and skills. Can the Minister update us on how many apprenticeships have now been created by HS2, both directly and indirectly? Also, will he commit to the target of creating an apprenticeship for every £1 million spent on the project, as my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition has called for?

[Mr MacNeil]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Lilian Greenwood]

I will not give way as I have very limited time to speak.

We heard this morning that the Business Secretary has announced plans for a new further education college to educate the work force we need to build HS2. That is welcome news, but we want a proper jobs and skills strategy. Last year, during the evidence sessions for the High Speed Rail (Preparation) Bill, we were told that that document was being prepared. Can the Minister tell us when it will be published? As he knows, the current Crossrail project has begun to train a new generation of highly skilled workers, and a plan must be in place for the HS2 project too.

Labour successfully amended the High Speed Rail (Preparation) Bill to make the Government account for the number of vocational qualifications gained each year. Another Labour amendment that was accepted will compel the Government to account for any underspending or overspending in the project’s annual budget. I note that the Minister’s colleague in the Lords, Baroness Kramer, described the process that we put in place as

“a very vigorous reporting process under which the Government must report back annually and record any deviation from budget, and the consequences of that…which has put in place a very intense scrutiny process around the budget.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 19 November 2013; Vol. 749, c. 949.]

I am glad that Labour successfully wrote a “vigorous reporting process” into the primary legislation, but the truth is that the Government should have got a grip on escalating costs since the election.

The right hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs Gillan) rightly raised concerns on behalf of her constituents about the uncertainty about compensation after the Government’s initial consultation was deemed to be unfair—