High Speed Rail (London-West Midlands) Bill

Baroness Pidding Excerpts

Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 24th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley]

My Lords, since we appear to be merging the two groups together, I will speak briefly to Amendment 5, which is about Wendover. I do not want to rehearse what we have already spoken about this afternoon or elsewhere. However, I have a question for the Minister. Now that we are moving towards Royal Assent—this may come up in discussions about any changes that may happen at Euston to keep the trains running, which is in a later amendment—to what extent is the successful contractor able to come up with his own ideas for either doing some of the work more cheaply or with less environmental impact? Wendover tunnel comes to mind, because I am advised that building a tunnel in place of the open cut and viaduct is cheaper—and of course it has a much reduced environmental impact. Provided that he does it within the limits of deviation and all the other limits on the drawings, presumably it is up to the contractor to propose it to HS2—which presumably will accept it if all those conditions are met.

Alternatively, is there another way to do this? I will be interested to hear the Minister’s response, because tunnels are cheaper—somewhat surprisingly, but we discussed it in Committee—and would obviously have a reduced environmental impact. If it is within the limits of deviation and the other limits on the legislation, it would be good if the contractor just chose to do that—in which case there would be benefits all round.

[Baroness Pidding (Con)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 3, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson of Balmacara. Before speaking, I draw noble Lords’ attention to the declaration of interests that I made in Committee.

I am aware that this issue was raised in Committee, but I fear that we did not get the fulsome response that we hoped for from the Minister. I would hope that all Governments, particularly a Conservative Government, would be interested in value for money. As the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, said, we are told what the total cost of the railway is—although it seems to change every time I see a figure, and few believe that it will stop there. But surely this is only half the issue. The environmental impact of this line, particularly over the Chilterns AONB, has not been costed, and the Government have been strangely reluctant to provide figures or the methodology used. Can the Minster let us have this information? At this stage a full explanation is imperative.

If the people of this country are going to get behind this project, surely we ought to be transparent about the figures that have been used to decide that 8.7 kilometres of additional tunnelling, which would preserve the AONB, is “too expensive” because the benefits to the environment are insufficient to outweigh the additional cost of tunnelling. If the figures stack up—I have no idea whether they do—we will at least have been transparent in the process. Surely the public, who will have to pay for this project in so many ways—and of whom relatively few will see any actual benefit—are entitled to a proper cost-benefit analysis before our countryside is destroyed.

If we destroy the AONB—and it will be destroyed—without making a proper cost-benefit analysis of what we are doing, we will not be forgiven. Indeed, not having such a cost-benefit analysis would be regarded as pure vandalism. I urge the Minister and the Government just to do what is requested in this sensible amendment.

[Lord Young of Norwood Green]

My Lords, I am surprised that yet again we are exploring the wonders of Wendover—which was one of the many exotic foreign trips we went on. It was important that we went out to see these places. I think it was a slight exaggeration when the noble Baroness, Lady Pidding, said that the area of outstanding natural beauty would be destroyed. There will be changes, but I do not believe that the area will be destroyed—and neither do members of the committee.

I return to the point made by my noble friend Lord Stevenson, who says, yet again, that we have not fully and transparently explored this issue. In fact we did—and of course it was done not only by us but by the Commons, who after two years of hearing petitions extended the tunnel by a significant amount. The next challenge that was put to us when we examined this in Committee was a challenge to the promoters’ assessment of tunnelling costs: “They would say that, wouldn’t they? They would make them come out cheaper”. The integrity of that costing procedure was disputed. In a way, that was a useful challenge, because we needed to be assured that that costing gave us a fair and accurate cost comparison of whether extending tunnelling even further—whether it was mined or bored—would achieve savings, which my noble friend Lord Berkeley also insisted would be the case.

That was a legitimate question until we got to the point of the proposed Colne Valley viaduct, where petitioners were asking for a fully bored tunnel instead of a viaduct. Those HS2 tunnelling costs were assessed in an independent cost analysis and were validated. So the idea that at this stage we have not had a full debate on this is preposterous, given everything that has happened—and, again, the idea that the public interest has not been protected is fallacious.

It is true to say—perhaps it is the one point on which I agree with my noble friend—that the hybrid Bill process is not ideal. We and the Commons agreed on that. As a committee we put in our view of how this Victorian process, as my noble friend rightly called it, could be improved. But that is one thing; it does not take away the main point of this amendment, which somehow seems to suggest to the House that, first, the public interest has not been fully served, and, secondly, that this has been a flawed process. I and the rest of my committee colleagues do not believe that to be the case. Again, I trust that noble Lords will reject this amendment.