HS2 Funding Referendum Bill

Debate between Dan Byles and Frank Dobson

Friday 23rd January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Frank Dobson]

I think that for these purposes Somerset is probably part of the south-west, where 60% are against and 25% are in favour. I should also add a late wire from the course: as of yesterday, a Daily Mirror poll showed that 80% are against and 20% are in favour.

There is something amiss if Parliament is not reflecting the views of the public, especially when they are so overwhelmingly in one direction. In the absence of Parliament reflecting those views, it seems to me that there is a case for a referendum, or possibly local referendums, on the proposals.

[Dan Byles]

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that, although we do not have referendums on infrastructure projects across the board, this is a unique infrastructure project, and that because every party capable of forming a Government is in favour of it, it is impossible for any party to claim a mandate for it?

[Frank Dobson]

There are mandates and there are mandates, are there not?

One of the problems is that as each argument in favour of this ludicrous proposition fails, the proponents come up with another. The first one was speed. Oh, it was wonderful! People would be able to speed to Birmingham —or speed from Birmingham to London, but that tended not to get mentioned too much. Time would also be saved for business people. The first calculations were based on time saved when using motorways, but people are not supposed to read when they are driving, so there is a considerable gain in getting from A to B as quickly as possible, whereas on a train they can do some work. The calculations were modified, but even then they were wrong.

The next argument was that the proposal was going to add to train capacity. The proponents then had to admit that sorting out two or three particular bottlenecks on the west coast main line, which they intended to do anyway, would add considerably to the line capacity. They have never done a calculation—this would be of interest to those who use the west coast main line—of the incapacity that the massive engineering works at Euston will force on the line. These works will result in a lot of interference to access to and egress from Euston. People’s journeys from the midlands and the north-west will be interfered with one way or another for the best part of 15 years, but that is not part of the capacity argument.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dan Byles (North Warwickshire) (Con)]

It is a privilege to speak in the debate, and I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) for bringing the matter before the House. It is a pleasure to follow my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs Gillan), who eloquently outlined many of the arguments and concerns. I share those concerns 100% and I do not propose to repeat the arguments, merely to endorse them, and I will not take up much of the House’s time today.

I endorse the comments made earlier about the Clerk to the Committee. Many of my constituents have come down to petition the Committee directly, as did I, and the Clerk has been extremely helpful to my constituents and to everybody who has taken part in what can be a daunting process for those who are not used to the somewhat arcane workings of this place.

My views on this project are well known and I have voted against it in this House at every opportunity. I am opposed to it on three levels: nationally, as I do not believe that there is any argument that stands up to scrutiny that shows this is the right way for the nation to spend some £50 billion; regionally, as I have deep concerns about its impact, thanks to strong evidence from around the world that smaller regional economies linked to larger regional economies suffer what is known as a negative agglomeration effect, whereby economic activity is not pushed out from the centre but is sucked in, and as Birmingham and the west midlands are the closest regional economic centre to London to be linked by high-speed rail, I am deeply concerned that potential investment that might have come to Birmingham and the west midlands will instead be pulled into London; and locally, as my constituency of North Warwickshire is almost certainly the worst affected constituency outside London—I add that caveat—as we have phase 1, phase 2, the delta junction and the Y junction as well as an enormous railhead close to Kingsbury. Although that railhead is technically a temporary structure, it will be there for a minimum of 15 years. The idea that people living next to the structure will not qualify for compensation because it is temporary, even though it will be there for 15 years, is staggering.

As I mentioned earlier, the economic analysis used for the case is woefully simplistic. It seems as though those who support the project believe it to be self-evidently good, given the woeful lack of sophistication in the economic analysis used to demonstrate that it is good. During the later stages of the argument, when the earlier bits of the case started to fall apart, the question of whether HS2 would help resolve the north-south divide started to be elevated as a key argument, even though it was not mentioned at the beginning. The north-south divide suddenly became a major selling point, and I remember the Select Committee on Transport’s ringing endorsement that

“only time will tell whether or not HS2 will…help…reduce the north-south divide.”

What a ringing endorsement of what has become a key plank in the project!

When the budget miraculously increased significantly, I noted that in order to maintain some semblance of a benefit-cost ratio that worked, the benefits had to be increased significantly almost overnight. I recall watching a Transport Minister—I will not mention which one, although I hasten to add that it was not the one who is sitting on the Front Bench now, my right hon. Friend the Minister of State—struggling on “Newsnight” to explain how they had suddenly found billions in additional benefit almost out of their back pocket in order to maintain some semblance of a benefit-cost ratio that looked right, given the costs that had been added to the budget.

[Frank Dobson]

Does the hon. Gentleman accept, as I am afraid I do, that the economic arguments from those in favour and those against are pretty thin and are based on guesswork about who might be using a train and why in the year 2040?

High Speed Rail (London - West Midlands) Bill: Select Committee

Debate between Dan Byles and Frank Dobson

Tuesday 29th April 2014 Commons Chamber

[Frank Dobson]

I am grateful for that clarification, but I am sorry about the direction of it.

[Dan Byles (North Warwickshire) (Con)]

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that some very small businesses would have greatly benefited from being treated as individuals? Why someone running a very small business, going about their normal, day-to-day activity, should be considered a greater expert in the petitioning process than an individual is quite beyond me.

[Frank Dobson]

I entirely share the hon. Gentleman’s views about that. I am glad that Camden council is organising workshops for individuals and small businesses and making its best efforts to ensure that their petitions are in order and, in some cases, that the £20 is handed over and logged, and then passed to me, so that I can personally hand it in, in the hope that their petitions will be valid.

That leads me on to the £20 fee. It is said, generally speaking, that it is not a deterrent. Well, if it is not a deterrent, why do we have it? People do not have to pay a £20 fee to give evidence at a public inquiry. The fee will raise quite a trivial sum. Even if thousands of people submit petitions, at £20 each, the fee will not raise any worthwhile amount of money for the House of Commons. If the fee is not a deterrent, why do we have it? I think it will be a deterrent for the worst-off. As the right hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs Gillan) said, it is a fifth of a single pensioner’s pension, which is a lot of money for a pensioner—or some pensioners, anyway—to find. Whatever the outcome in this case, the whole hybrid Bill approach needs to be looked at. We talk about modernising, and by God there is some modernising needed for this hybrid procedure.

That takes me back to the instruction that the Committee

“shall not hear any Petition to the extent that it relates to whether or not there should be a spur from Old Oak Common to the Channel Tunnel Rail Link.”

No one trusts the processes involved, so there is something that is still not clear to me. I am sure the Minister is trying to get the truth out, but to return to the proposition that I was trying to explain earlier, let us suppose that the Committee complies with that instruction—as it must—and cannot reintroduce the proposal for a spur from HS2 to HS1, but the matter returns to the House after the Committee has looked at it and made all its recommendations. As I understand it, the House could then reinstate the link, if it wanted to. If it did, would there be any procedure to enable petitions from those affected? If not, in effect we are banning people’s petitions from being examined now, while they might not be able to petition later if there were a further proposition.

Health and Social Care (Re-committed) Bill

Debate between Dan Byles and Frank Dobson

Tuesday 6th September 2011 Commons Chamber

[Frank Dobson]

In fairness, I think that given the accuracy of the present Government’s aim, if they tried to rubber-stamp something they would probably miss.

[Dan Byles]

In view of the speech that the right hon. Gentleman is making and his definition of a “proper Conservative”, I wonder whether he has just come out of the closet as a proper Conservative himself.

[Frank Dobson]

People have described me as old Labour, but I have moved on from that. I am now heritage Labour. Part of our heritage, however, is the national health service, and it is not the Tories’ heritage either. Those who play with the national health service—which is what I think the Government are doing, purely for ideological reasons—do us a disservice in two ways. They threaten the likely performance of the national health service and the people working in it, and they threaten the relationship between the British people and the national health service.