High Speed Rail (Preparation) Bill

Clive Betts Excerpts

Wednesday 26th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr McLoughlin]

It is a normal level of contingency that would be put into a scheme of this sort, and it is built in on an internationally based calculation.

This is the right way to plan for the project. In addition, with or without HS2, new rolling stock will be needed on the key inter-city routes linking London and the north over the next 20 years. I hope that deals with the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for North West Leicestershire (Andrew Bridgen). We are therefore budgeting £7.5 billion for HS2 rolling stock. To put that in perspective, the current inter-city express programme to replace trains on the east coast and Great Western lines, which is creating jobs in the north east, will cost £4.9 billion. The money that I have just announced for the rolling stock for HS2 also includes a contingency of some £1.5 billion.

Good infrastructure is an investment in economic growth. We are investing £14.5 billion to build Crossrail, while £11 billion has been invested in new infrastructure at Heathrow since 2003. Over the period of construction, the cost of HS2 will be less than 0.15% of GDP—I repeat, less than 0.15% of GDP. This is an investment that the country can sustain and needs. That is why tomorrow the Chief Secretary will set out the detailed HS2 funding allocations for the six-year period until 2020-21.

Before I finish, I want to explain what we are doing for those affected by the line. As I said earlier and have tried to make clear throughout this Second Reading speech, I do not dismiss those with objections as irrelevant. We do indeed need to design HS2 carefully, consult properly and compensate fairly. I hope that I can reassure people about why it is right to go ahead. Some have concerns about the impact of HS2 on the landscape. While I cannot deny that a project of this scale will have an effect, I believe that the positive experience of our first high-speed line in Kent shows that the consequences can be managed without wrecking the countryside. For instance, while not a single mile of the M1 is in-tunnel, about 40 miles of HS2 will be in-tunnel. Of the 12.4 miles that crosses the Chilterns area of outstanding natural beauty, 5.8 miles will be in-tunnel and 3.5 miles will be in deep cuttings. No part of phase 2 of the route crosses any national parks or areas of outstanding natural beauty.

It is also important to ensure that proper compensation is made to those affected by HS2. That is why we have introduced the exceptional hardship scheme although there was no statutory requirement to do so. We believe that home owners already affected with a pressing need to move should have recourse to compensation, but without the authority of Parliament to incur expenditure to continue with this compensation, I would need to consider carefully what other mechanisms, if any, we could use. Very soon, we will start a new consultation on compensation.

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

I have met some of my constituents in Greasbro road in Tinsley in Sheffield, whose homes will be demolished by the scheme. They accept that to a degree, but they ask me whether it is reasonable that people who, for the greater good of the country, are moving out of a home that they do not want to leave will simply get 100% of the market value, plus home loss. Is there no room for the Secretary of State to be more generous and say to people, “You are doing something for the good of the country. Therefore, you should receive more than 100% of the market value”?

[Mr McLoughlin]

The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point. We have said that we will go out to consultation. I fully accept that the position of his constituents is slightly different because the consultation, in the first instance, will relate to phase 1. It is not possible to consult on phase 2 until we have confirmed the route, but there will have to be a consultation on that. Given that he is the Chairman of the Communities and Local Government Committee, which has an important role in this area, no doubt his Committee will want to consider the matter.

We will consider a range of compensation options, including a property bond, about which a number of Members have made representations.

In building HS2, we need to ensure that we make the best use of British skills and workers. For Crossrail, 97% of the contracts have been won by British-based companies. From 2017, HS2 will create 19,000 engineering and construction jobs.

--- Later in debate ---

[Maria Eagle]

I am willing to support anything that can properly, fairly and reasonably compensate people in a way that still meets the obligation to be reasonable with taxpayers’ money. I would thus be happy to look at the details of the scheme, as I think the Secretary of State has said he is, too. I think we have a particular obligation to treat those affected as fairly as we possibly can and within as speedy a time scale as possible.

[Mr Betts]

I would like to mention a point raised with the Secretary of State a while ago. Asking people to make a sacrifice for the good of the country—that is effectively what we are asking the people whose homes are to be demolished to do— and saying to them, “This is the value of your property now and you can have 10% extra for the loss of your home” is really not adequate compensation. We should be able to do a bit better than that for people who are being forced to move home through no fault of their own and no choice of their own.

[Maria Eagle]

That is an important point. Such action could, indeed, lead to other benefits, if it meant that matters were settled earlier than they would otherwise have been. I believe that some European countries do as my hon. Friend suggests, and end up building their lines rather more quickly than we seem to manage to.

Ministers must now engage in a debate about the eventual cost of using the new north-south line, because that goes to the heart of the question of what kind of railway we believe in. There have been fears about the issue ever since the former Transport Secretary, the right hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr Hammond), started talking about rich men’s toys.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

I, too, will support the Bill. I supported the Y route before it was the policy of the last Government, let alone of the parties in this Government, and argued strongly for it. I also agree with the comments made in the excellent speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Blackley and Broughton (Graham Stringer), in which he recognised the importance of this scheme for our economy and the fact that over the years we have fallen behind our competitors in our investment in infrastructure.

This is an important long-term investment for the country. Of course, different cost-benefit analyses will say different things. The problem is that the scheme will take 20 years to build and then will—we hope—deliver benefits for the country for many years after that, and if we put minor changes of assumptions into any cost-benefit analysis we will come up with very different results. To some extent, this is an act of faith. Do we believe that investment in the infrastructure of this country over the long term is likely to be good for the economy? I do, and I believe that high-speed rail is part of that long-term investment.

For the same reasons, it will be important to the rebalancing of our economy by concentrating on the major growth points, which will be our city regions in the midlands and the north. As my hon. Friend the Member for Blackley and Broughton said, the impacts will be different in different parts of the country, but the greatest benefits will tend to be in the city regions. We need to ensure that we get those benefits.

I am therefore very pleased that Sheffield is on the route, and that there will be a station there. That has been welcomed by all parties in the city and by the public and private sectors. There is a difference of opinion on where the Sheffield station should be located. I understand the argument for having a loop into the city centre, but I equally accept that a station at Meadowhall in my constituency could have incredible benefits for the wider city region, provided the need for connectivity to the region is properly recognised. We do not want to hear the argument in the future that, because we have high-speed rail, we will get no further investment in our transport infrastructure, and that everything will be for local councils to decide.

Looking ahead to the tram-train project, we need to determine how to develop that means of transport. I am sure it will be a success, even though it has taken nearly 10 years to get this far. When it has been proved to be a success, we must immediately start planning how to use it as a way of linking the Sheffield city region into the station hub at Meadowhall. That would benefit the whole city region.

I also want to mention compensation. There are industries in my constituency that will be affected by the project, including Outokumpu, a major steel works. It is important, when we compensate such industries, that we recognise the time that they will need to prepare for the changes that high-speed rail will force them to make. It is also important to ensure that we give the compensation in a way that does not allow a firm to take the money and run, taking the jobs elsewhere.

The Government’s exceptional hardship scheme is a welcome step forward, in regard to compensating people for their homes. We need to recognise that there might be people who have to move house, for whatever reason, before the full compensation scheme comes into effect, as well as those who might want to move for family or other reasons.

[Mrs Gillan]

Does the hon. Gentleman appreciate that compensation has already been paid to some people, and that it can continue to be paid without this Bill? The problem is that the exceptional hardship scheme is proving difficult for people who meet the criteria but find that the compensation does not meet their circumstances because the value of their house has gone down so dramatically.

[Mr Betts]

I can understand that. I think that the right hon. Lady is making a wider point about the need to look at the whole compensation scheme, and I shall come to that in a second.

Property owners in my constituency have not yet had any experience of the exceptional hardship scheme, but I wonder whether it could be widened to include those who want to move and make the same choices for their families as anyone else could make, but who are unable to do so while the potential blight from the high-speed line is hanging over them.

[Frank Dobson]

In my constituency, someone who used to be an owner-occupier got a job elsewhere and let their place. They have been told that they do not qualify for compensation because it is intended only for owner-occupiers.

[Mr Betts]

I understand that point. I have a constituent who bought a small property as an investment with a view to putting down a deposit on another family home into which they were planning to move in a year’s time. They, too, have been caught by that provision.

I made the point earlier to the Secretary of State and to my hon. Friend the Member for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle) that if we are asking people to make sacrifices for the benefit of the country, they deserve compensation of more than 100% of the value of their homes. They would get 100% if they chose to sell, but they are not choosing to sell; they are having to move, and we need to be more generous. My hon. Friend the Member for Garston and Halewood made the very reasonable point that if we were more generous, it would almost certainly speed up the process, so let us have a look at that.

In particular, let us have a look at the circumstances of my constituents who live on Greasbro road, which is a very low-value area. It is next to an ex-steelworks and to the motorway, and many people would not choose to live there, but it is a friendly road where people know their neighbours and family members who live nearby. They are worried about moving, and they know that they will probably not be able to buy another house in the local area with the compensation they will get. They ask why they should be penalised and forced to move away from the community that they know. Something more than the market value of their homes would help those people. It would not have to be a percentage increase on the market value; a lump sum in excess of the market value would particularly help people in low-value properties who do not want to reach retirement age in 10 years’ time and find that they have to take out an extra mortgage that they cannot afford.

I support the high-speed rail scheme wholeheartedly, and I support it coming to Sheffield, but let us see whether we can help those people who will be affected and make the benefits to the community more generally accessible.