High Speed Rail (London-West Midlands) Bill

Baroness Mallalieu Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords & Committee: 1st sitting: House of Lords & Report stage: House of Lords
Tuesday 10th January 2017 Grand Committee

[Lord Framlingham (Con)]

My Lords, we have dealt with only two amendments so far, and any member of the public sitting listening to the Committee will be asking themselves: “Why on earth are you going ahead with this project?”. All we have are problems, which seem to me almost insurmountable; we have no answers to them. When we ask about the trek from St Pancras to Euston, the answer is, apparently, offer £3 million to the local authority as a prize if it can come up with the answer. That does not sound to me like much of a solution.

I know that this is not Second Reading, but we must ask ourselves whether there is any sense in going ahead with this whole project. We have not yet dealt with the environmental problems, which will be huge and last for years. We have heard from the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, whose amendment I support, that the whole scheme is not properly costed and nobody knows what will happen in the long run.

The Minister described it as a vital scheme. It is not. The money could be much better spent on all sorts of things: hospitals, schools, or Liverpool-to-Hull transport. If we pursue it, I think we will regret it for a long time. As this matter proceeds, I hope that your Lordships’ House will think it through very carefully and perhaps have second thoughts about proceeding with the whole scheme.

[Baroness Mallalieu (Lab)]

My Lords, I support all the amendments in this group, particularly Amendments 5 and 6, tabled in the name of my noble friend Lord Stevenson who, I understand, cannot be here today but will be here to make some remarks if Committee continues on Thursday. These amendments call for further things which need to be done before work starts on the project, the first being the cost-benefit analysis of the environmental impact of the work and the second being the traffic management requirements.

I apologise to the Committee: I was unable to speak at Second Reading and should therefore declare my interests. I lived in the Chilterns for 36 years, not in an area directly affected. Further along the proposed line, I know personally every one of the villages mentioned in the amendments on the Marshalled List today. Quainton, Twyford, Chetwode, Mixbury and Barton-Hartshorn—I know them all and have known them for 50 years. I do not just know the villages, their names and the roads; I know the farms, fields, the woodlands and some of the people still living there, and I have seen the devastating effect that the Bill is already having on their lives and their communities. The environmental, not to mention the social impact, is enormous. I know that I am not allowed to make a Second Reading speech, although I did not make one before, and I shall strain every sinew not to do so.

The Government tell us that the public have a right to require value for money, and I totally agree. The cost changes each time I see a figure, but £57 billion is the latest one, and no one with the slightest grasp of reality believes that it will stop there. This House, in the detailed report of the Economic Affairs Committee, chaired by my noble friend Lord Hollick, has already drawn attention to the need for a number of the central questions to be answered. Those questions were posed and not adequately answered by the Government’s very flimsy response in July 2005; nor do I believe they have been since, although I know the Minister said at Second Reading that he thought they had been. Where is the answer to a key question in that list, as to whether HS2 is the best way to spend £50 billion—although I up that now to £57 billion—to stimulate the UK economy?

One thing that has not been done is that the environmental impact has not been subject to any cost-benefit analysis. Surely the public, who are going to have to pay for this project in so many ways and relatively few of whom will see any actual benefit, are entitled to a proper cost-benefit analysis before our countryside is destroyed. As for the pressure to carry on with this project without a cost-benefit analysis, I will come to how it was conceived in a moment, but I understand from the noble Lord, Lord Mandelson, when he spoke in this House on an earlier debate on this topic, that the Labour Cabinet was searching for a legacy project and someone suggested that China and France had high-speed railways. I do not think the pressure for it comes from the rail users on Southern, from the commuters standing on trains day after day coming into London or even from those whose businesses in the north of England are hampered by the absence of a good trans-Pennine rail link. We are told there is going to be a lack of capacity, but it is not visible to me as I stand on the excellent Chiltern line stations and see an excellent service at present—not overcrowded —from London to Birmingham. What about spending money on capacity which is really urgent right now, as we have all been seeing in the last few weeks and indeed right up to today?

The reality is that, in choosing that legacy, scant consideration was given to the devastating environmental damage which will inevitably result to a very special piece of English countryside. My noble friend Lord Stevenson was going to talk about the Chilterns, and I will just say a few words about it. It is a unique area of beech wood but has also become, in the 36 years I have lived there, the lungs of London. Anyone who goes down to the Chilterns on a weekend will see people pouring out of London to walk and enjoy the peace which reigns over most of it. Beyond that, Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire, Northamptonshire and Warwickshire—the area I know well—is not tourist country. It is not even really walkers’ country but it is old England—the England that we ought to preserve and celebrate. If we destroy those things and take them away from the public, at vast expense and for relatively little benefit to very few people, without making a proper cost-benefit analysis of what we are doing, I do not think we will be forgiven. Indeed, not having such a cost-benefit analysis would be pure vandalism, and I hope the Minister will say that the Government will address all the things set out in the five amendments in the group before anybody starts work with the bulldozers and the concrete and does damage that can never be repaired.

[Lord Snape]

My Lords, my noble friend who has just sat down started her speech by saying she was not going to make a Second Reading speech and then, if I may say so, did exactly that. We can all make the sort of Second Reading speech that the noble Lord opposite made too, but we are supposed to be talking about particular amendments to the Bill. Thirty-something years ago, I made a speech in the other place in favour of the Channel Tunnel. The response, largely from my own side of the Chamber, was that there were lots of other priorities that we should spend our money on, such as housing, social services, hospitals, et cetera—the sort of speech that the noble Lord opposite has just made. It was Dennis Skinner who objected to my advocacy of the Channel Tunnel, so the noble Lord opposite has now become the Dennis Skinner of the Conservative Party—not a label I would have thought that he would go out to seek normally.

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[Viscount Astor (Con)]

My Lords, my amendment—and possibly those that follow—may rehybridise the Bill. However, as this is Grand Committee there are no votes and that is not likely to happen today. I have tabled them to elicit a response from the Minister. While rehybridising and recommitment does not often happen, it is not unprecedented. As a Minister in a long-past Government, it happened to me on a Scottish transport Bill. Lord Burton put down an amendment about badgers and otters crossing roads—a subject which your Lordships would get rather worked up about. My speaking notes from the department at the time said: “Resist at all costs”, which I gamely tried to do. However, I was somewhat undermined half way through the debate by the noble and learned Lord who had chaired the Select Committee standing up and saying that there was an omission that the committee had failed to debate or look at. He therefore supported Lord Burton’s amendment that it be looked at again, whereupon I had to retire hurt. It did work, and the Bill finally came forward with Lord Burton’s amendment.

These amendments are important because the Select Committee had a very limited remit when it looked at the Bill. It could not stray from its rather narrow route. That said, it produced a good and admirable report. It made some general points about the promoter engaging in effective and timely public engagement and noted that it found the complexity of the process difficult for petitioners to understand. Petitioners sometimes also found the documentation provided by the promoter, “arcane, opaque and unhelpful”. They were also sometimes unfairly treated by late replies after months of silence, suggesting that their concerns had perhaps been met. I am sure the Minister will be the opposite this afternoon: clear, helpful and responsive.

In its report, the Select Committee noted the issues that surround Wendover and reported that it had directed a longer Chilterns bored tunnel, greater noise protection for Wendover and better construction arrangements in Hillingdon. It did not comment on the evidence presented on the proposed mined tunnel further along the route. It could not consider changes that require an additional provision without a direction from the House. We have the opportunity at a later stage of the Bill to give that direction for it to be looked at via a transport works order. The initial longer, mined tunnel was rejected by the promoter on grounds of cost. Although it is obvious that a longer tunnel is more costly and complicated, the promoter did not fully take account of the possible savings on the compulsory purchase of land and housing and the effect on the environment. There were two experts and, as we all know, experts on both sides of the argument hate being proved wrong. Those who wished for a longer tunnel provided an expert—described by the Select Committee as a credible witness—who disputed the costs. Indeed, those costs were not greater but actually a saving on the promoters’ costs. That is because the mined tunnel would be 4.2 kilometres long and it would save just over a kilometre of viaduct. As we know—as the experts tell me, anyway, and I think they are right—viaducts are expensive to build and maintain. There could be a saving on property, there could be a saving on costs, and it would solve noise issues. Mined tunnels are cheaper and have been done before. The area is virtually the same type of chalk as the other Wendover tunnel. Indeed, the water table does not present an insoluble problem.

I am no expert. I hesitate to say who is right between tunnelling and rail experts. I leave that expertise to the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, who does know about these things. But I do know that this is an issue that should be re-examined as there is clearly a difference between acknowledged experts. In the overall scheme of timing and costs, it is actually quite minimal but for the people of Wendover it is extremely important and there is no excuse for the Government and the promoters not to get it right. Those affected by the route have a right to have their case heard and their petitions properly scrutinised, not rejected out of hand for the convenience of the process. I have tabled this amendment to ask the Government to look again at the issues of cost and to ask the Minister whether he will consider having a short, quick, independent review into whether this is feasible. I beg to move.

[Baroness Mallalieu]

My Lords, I support the noble Viscount’s amendment. It appears that this provision was not in fact looked at by the Select Committee. It is a provision which, unlike the concerns that were raised by the noble Lord, Lord Snape, is likely to save money rather than cost more—

[Lord Snape]

“My noble friend”.

[Baroness Mallalieu]

My noble friend, I am sorry. On the face of it, it will not require any delay either. The Select Committee was not able to look at it. It was told that the proposal that was then before it was additional provision.

The end result is that Wendover, which I think members of the Select Committee will remember is the village from which they had the largest number of letters, received the benefits, I suppose you could call them, only of a rejection of any sound barriers, which, although they were thought by the committee to be effective, would have been visibly intrusive. It was told that the donation to the church of £250,000 was generous. It is a very musical church which is going to have great difficulty in continuing as the centre for various concerts and performances. A new cricket pavilion was to be provided by the promoters on an alternative ground. That was the end result of Wendover’s concerted effort to bring about some changes in the proposals.

This proposal—if it is right, and I have no means of knowing whether it is—would appear to be one that would have the support of that community, would go a considerable way towards helping to ameliorate some of the worst parts of the line and, as I said, would result in some savings and no delay. Surely it would be possible for the Minister to say that this is one of the proposals that, respecting what the committee has said, was not before it and should be looked at before it is rejected out of hand.

[Lord Snape]

My Lords, I do not necessarily oppose the amendment, although I listened with interest to what my noble friend said about how this would save money. I am not sure what costings the noble Viscount has carried out. There has been some criticism of the costings so far as the whole project is concerned, yet we are told by the noble Viscount and my noble friend that this will actually save money. Perhaps, for the clarification of the Committee, they could tell us how their conclusions have been arrived at. I am no expert. My noble friend Lord Berkeley might tell me. I am not quite sure what a mined tunnel is and what differentiates a mined tunnel from a normal railway tunnel.

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[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

I thank all noble Lords for their contributions. After the interventions by the noble Lords, Lord Adonis and Lord Young, I feel that there is little left for me to say except to clarify that they are both correct. It is important to underline that point for the record.

I will start with the amendment in the name of my noble friend. As he recognised, the issue would lead to a rehybridisation of the Bill. He talked of his own experience and I fully accept that it is procedurally possible for this to happen, but we need to think long and hard about whether such amendments should be made. I reassure the noble Baroness, Lady Mallalieu, that, as we heard from a member of the Select Committee, this was given a fair and detailed hearing by that committee, as well as in the other place. Despite not being able to consider changes that would require an additional provision without a direction from the House, your Lordships’ Select Committee nevertheless heard further arguments on the case for a mined tunnel at Wendover, on the supposition that an order under the Transport and Works Act 1992 could be used to enable further powers to be secured if needed. After that extensive and exhaustive review, neither Select Committee felt the need to recommend that additional work be undertaken to investigate the merits of or provision for a mined tunnel—we all know what that is now—at Wendover.

I reiterate that we have provided a range of additional assurances for the residents of Wendover, which, as well as the ones that I have spoken about, include noise barriers on the Small Dean embankment, an assurance relating to noise mitigation measures at Wendover Campus School and funding for a bespoke package of noise insulation at St Mary’s Church, Wendover, to allow it to continue to function as a concert venue. I have already talked about the 100-metre Wendover tunnel extension and the noise barriers that were secured in the other place. I have also alluded to the independent review of costs—the noble Lord, Lord Young, also mentioned it—conducted by the non-executive director, Ed Smith. I reiterate the hope that the noble Baroness will reflect not just on what I have said today but on the appropriate sections of the Select Committee report, which also considered this matter.

While I continue to recognise the valid concerns that my noble friend raised about remaining impacts on Wendover, the area has been given many commitments to manage the impacts of the new railway. I believe that this House should respect the decisions of the Select Committees in the House of Commons and in your Lordships’ House.

[Baroness Mallalieu]

I apologise for interrupting, but I just want to be clear about this. I am looking at the relevant section of the report—120—and it appears that the committee looked at a bored tunnel but not at a mined tunnel. If I am wrong about that, I would be grateful if I could be corrected. Notwithstanding the fact that the committee was in some doubt about whether it should look at it, it looked at a bored tunnel, whereas the proposal that is now being made by the noble Viscount is a somewhat different project.

[Lord Young of Norwood Green]

I can assure your Lordships that we looked at all the alternatives at great length on many occasions. Although I did not always enjoy the repetition, it was important that we heard the arguments. We heard from experts on both sides, so if there is one thing this Committee need not worry about, it is whether these alternatives were given a lengthy and fair hearing.