High Speed Rail (West Midlands–Crewe) Bill

Baroness Randerson Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 9th September 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, I start with a reference to procedure. The Government’s attempt to impose an arbitrary time limit on speeches on this Bill is a great discourtesy to the House, and in particular, to the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, and my noble friend Lord Bradshaw. The noble Lord, Lord Adonis, was the Minister who initiated this scheme, and my noble friend Lord Bradshaw has a lifetime of experience as a leader within the railway industry. We are talking about a multibillion-pound project. The Government should cease to be carried away by their attempts to stifle scrutiny of their record on Brexit by proroguing this House; they should be paying attention—proper attention—to what is said here.

The Liberal Democrats have always been, and remain, firm supporters of HS2. In our view, a high-speed spinal railway linking London to Scotland is the correct strategy, for two fundamental reasons. First, the Midlands and the north of England badly need economic regeneration and to share in the prosperity of the south-east. Improved long-distance communication is fundamental to this. Secondly, we have a moral duty to use every available initiative to reduce carbon emissions, which threaten our planet. HS2 does this by encouraging people to take the train for long journeys rather than their car, or even to fly. It is not as straightforward as counting the number of people who will sit on HS2 trains. HS2 will take direct intercity services on to dedicated high-speed lines and hence free up capacity on existing lines for more trains on local and regional routes. That will make daily commuting to work by train a feasible option outside London; it will therefore get people out of their cars and reduce congestion on our roads. So long as the whole project goes ahead, it will remove the attractiveness of internal flights. It will free up new freight paths, taking freight off the roads. It is important to remember that freight reduces carbon emissions by 76% compared with road haulage.

The west coast main line is the busiest mixed-use railway line in Europe. We have simply run out of options to squeeze any more capacity from it. The noble Lord, Lord Adonis, and my noble friend Lord Bradshaw both made that point. We have no more rail paths available and have already used the option of longer trains. To those who say, “Just improve what we already have”, I respond that that would lead to a decade or more of intense disruption to existing routes. I say this as a regular commuter on the Great Western Railway line, where for years we have been disrupted by the electrification process—a process that we welcome strongly but it is very disruptive.

The cost of HS2 is eye-watering but so are the benefits: just look at the economic growth already impacting on Birmingham. When the whole HS2 project is completed, it will link 25 towns and cities and 30 million people. The Liberal Democrats are supportive but, as the House will have heard today from my noble friends, we are very much critical friends, so unlike the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, I welcome this review. I am reassured that the panel appointed to undertake the review is sufficiently experienced and balanced in its viewpoints to ensure that it is not being used just as an excuse to cancel the project. I have to confess that that was at the top of my mind when I heard that there was to be a review. It has been a very real fear. The Prime Minister himself has sown seeds of doubt and many Tory MPs have taken political pot-shots at the project. I note that most of them represent seats in the south-east, where transport spend is three times per head of population that in the north of England. I feared that the Government could be searching for a reason to cancel it because the huge costs of a no-deal Brexit will simply swallow up funding for major projects such as this across the country.

Of course, HS2 has left itself open to criticism, with sloppy management and spiralling costs. It has 1,300 staff and, astonishingly, more than one-quarter of them earn more than £100,000 a year. Even more surprisingly, despite those pay packets, they do not seem to have the skills required at this time. Consultants were employed on 31 separate occasions in 2013, at a cost of £60 million. There are things in the management of HS2 that have to be addressed. The project was agreed in 2013 so rising costs are not a surprise, but it is clear that they are not currently under control. I refer noble Lords to the National Audit Office report, which referred to the use of,

“fragile numbers, out-of-data data and assumptions which do not reflect real life”.

This review gives us an opportunity to nail down these costs and to address some of the proposals to reduce costs; for instance, reducing the length of rail line that will go through tunnels. Another suggestion is the use of Old Oak Common as a terminus, at least in the early years, to avoid a decade of costly disruption at Euston. The question that has to be asked—and will, I hope, be answered—is: is this being overengineered? Would it be significantly cheaper to cut, say, 20 mph off the maximum speed? It is clear that the time advantage over road travel will be very substantial, even at a lower speed.

Concerns remain, of course. There are concerns over delays which add to our unwelcome reputation as a nation which is pretty hopeless at building major projects. My noble friend Lady Kramer referred to the impact of overcrowding on existing railways that will be caused by the delays to this project. I caution that ending up with just phase 1 of HS2 would make Birmingham an outer London suburb—a new commuter zone. That would be the worst of all worlds. I live in Wales, so I am concerned that the vision of the Crewe hub is implemented. That in itself could transform the economy of north Wales. The review must bring this project under control and satisfy the critics. It must reassure those who, like me, support the principle of HS2 but worry about efficiency, cost control, transparency, whether those who live nearby are being given a fair deal, and the environmental impact of the building process. The review must clear the air and enable a fresh start on a firmer basis. My noble friend Lord Teverson raised the issue of comparative costs with other countries and used an example from France. Will the review look as far as comparative costs with other countries? It should do so. Some £8 billion has already been spent on this, 9,000 jobs have been created and 2,000 businesses are involved.

At this time of national emergency, when we face the potential for a massive economic downturn, it should be unthinkable that we cancel HS2. Instead, the Government should redouble their efforts and their ambitions and recommit to building the whole route to Scotland. They should also announce the powers and funding for Transport for the North, so that it can plan and build the east-west rail routes—the sorts of routes that have been referred to by my noble friends Lord Wallace and Lord Greaves. These need to be created to hang on the HS2 spine, in order to maximise its success.

We understand fully that there must be no blank cheque for HS2. It must be brought under control without undermining the central scope or purpose of the project. In the long term, as a country, we simply must look again at how we approach such projects. We need to be able to look long term in order to make difficult, ambitious, big spending decisions, to support and control our long-term infrastructure vision. We have failed for decades to do this. I realise it is a bit of a forlorn hope at the moment, when the Government are consumed with short-term tactics, but as a nation, we really have to get to the basis of this.