High Speed 2 (Heathrow)

Debate between Brian H. Donohoe and Geoffrey Clifton-Brown

Tuesday 17th July 2012 Westminster Hall

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

In light of what I am about to say about the alternative hub possibility, it may be that some form of review of the whole HS2 route would be a good idea. Perhaps my hon. Friend’s concerns and my suggestions could be incorporated into one study.

In this Parliament alone we will be spending £750 million on HS2 before a spade enters the ground, with £529 million to be spent between 2012 and 2015, according to answers to my written parliamentary questions Nos. 106148 and 106541. With the greatest humility, I say to the Minister that it is vital that we get the scheme right. It is no good commencing works only to realise at a later date that we could have done something better, because by that point it will be too late to change course. The UK has lagged behind our European counterparts in the construction of a high-speed rail project, but that presents us with an opportunity to take on board what has worked previously, and learn from mistakes made in other countries. There appears to be a lack of a strategic link between our aviation and rail policies. Indeed, as the Transport Committee in its recent report on high-speed rail stated:

“The development of what could emerge as separate strategies for rail and aviation again highlights the absence of an overall transport strategy: this is a lacuna which must be filled.”

[Mr Brian H. Donohoe (Central Ayrshire) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this important debate. On the relationship between aviation and rail, does he think that by the time the project is actually completed, there may well be a totally different set of circumstances as far as air transport is concerned?

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

I anticipated that sort of intervention, and perhaps I will cover the hon. Gentleman’s point in my speech. If I do not, I will be happy to give way to him later in the debate.

We need only look at the Netherlands, Germany and France, and at airports such as Schiphol, Frankfurt and Charles de Gaulle, to see the routeing of new high-speed lines via hub airports to create a direct interchange between air, high-speed rail, and the existing classic rail network. The purpose of linking Heathrow and HS2 is to provide an integrated rail and aviation system that would release scarce airport capacity by shifting short-haul flights to rail.

The current proposal is to build a spur from HS2 to Heathrow. However, that will not happen until the 2030s at the earliest, so at best Heathrow will not receive a high-speed rail link for around 20 years. If HS2 were linked directly to Heathrow under the proposals that I am outlining, it would receive a high-speed link soon after construction on phase 1 begins in 2026.

Another important design factor is that because the spur points only north, rail services between Heathrow and Europe would not be possible, and the potential for replacing short-haul flights will not be fully realised. We would, therefore, have to wait even longer until the spur has been extended to form a southern loop around Heathrow to connect it with HS1, but no plans are in place for that, let alone a firm budget. Again, I say with great humility to the Minister that no other country deliberately seeks to bypass its main airport in that way.

The spur is also inherently inefficient as it relies solely on airport passengers filling trains. European precedents show the benefit of having airports on a main line, thereby allowing trains to serve both city-to-city and airport passengers, like a string of pearls linking each together.

[Mr Donohoe]

In a previous Adjournment debate, one question was never raised although it might have solved a lot of problems. Is the hon. Gentleman aware—as a regular customer of the airport, I am—of the distances and time it takes to travel between terminals at Heathrow? As a consequence of those times and distances, a single hub railway station would not really make a lot of difference.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

The hon. Gentleman picks up a very important point. I was not going to have time to make it in my speech, but I will now answer his intervention. I believe that it would be perfectly possible to have, from the hub that I am suggesting, a relatively high-speed bus that not only takes people into a terminal at Heathrow, but takes them directly to where the aircraft are. There are all sorts of exciting possibilities to make passenger journeys an awful lot easier than they are at present.

In the “Draft Aviation Policy Framework”, published last Friday by the Government, they recognise the following:

“Rail offers opportunities for efficient and environmentally-friendly connections to airports, particularly for larger airports where passenger numbers are sufficient to justify fast and frequent services.”