Haass Talks
Debate between Dan Byles and Theresa Villiers(10 years, 9 months ago)
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Mrs Villiers
I would hope that my constituents see the Haass proposals, as I do, as a workable basis for continuing discussions. It is obviously disappointing that the proposals are not yet in a state that means all five parties can sign up to them, but the reality is that getting any kind of solution to these issues will be very difficult.
The issues about the past, in particular, are very sensitive, not least because of anxieties about whether any process might end up with a disproportionate focus on state activity. We must, however, recognise the efforts made by Dr Haass and the participants in the working group to try to ensure that there are safeguards to prevent processes on the past ending up as one-sided, which is what the hon. Lady is concerned about.
Dan Byles (North Warwickshire) (Con)
The Haass discussions took place during a backdrop, in the run-up to Christmas, of increased efforts by dissidents to disrupt economic life in Northern Ireland. What recent discussions has my right hon. Friend had with the Chief Constable about the ongoing and future threat from dissidents?
Mrs Villiers
The attacks before Christmas by dissident republicans were disgraceful. It was particularly despicable that they were deliberately aimed at places where people were doing their Christmas shopping or were out for a festive drink, while the attack on commercial targets was deeply unpleasant. The message for these dissident republicans is that they will not succeed. These attacks are utterly pointless. They are disgraceful and they have been condemned almost universally across Northern Ireland. They have no political support and will achieve nothing. I am certain from my many conversations with the Chief Constable, the most recent of which was this morning, that the Police Service of Northern Ireland will leave no stone unturned in bringing to justice those responsible for the attacks before Christmas.
High Speed 2
Debate between Dan Byles and Theresa Villiers(13 years ago)
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The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Mrs Theresa Villiers)
I welcome the extensive support across the House for the Government’s proposals and in particular the clear expression of support from Her Majesty’s official Opposition. My time is too short to refer specifically to everyone, but I would like to make special mention of my hon. Friends the Members for Lichfield (Michael Fabricant) and for Kenilworth and Southam (Jeremy Wright), who are in their places. Their exacting scrutiny of the Government’s proposals has been effective and I welcome their robust input into the debate. I also mention my hon. Friend the Member for Elmet and Rothwell (Alec Shelbrooke), who is also in his place and who strongly supports this scheme.
I first emphasise that the Government fully recognise the legitimate concerns of communities along the preferred route about the potential impact on their local environment. That has been raised by Members such as the hon. Member for Coventry North West (Mr Robinson). About half of the preferred route that we inherited has been changed. In the sensitive Chilterns area of outstanding natural beauty, all but two miles of the preferred route is in a tunnel or deep cutting, or follows an existing transport corridor. I am confident that we can and will make further improvements as a result of the consultation responses that are under consideration as we speak.
I am also conscious of the enormous importance of getting the right answer at Euston. We will, of course, scrutinise carefully all the representations made by the right hon. Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Frank Dobson).
Mrs Villiers
I will not just yet, because my time is short.
HS1 is an example of how high-speed rail can be designed in a way that mitigates and minimises the impact on local communities. Equal care will be needed in phase 2 with the link to Heathrow. Again, we will be careful to listen to the concerns of the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) and his constituents.
My hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom) spoke about the predictions of passenger growth for HS2. The consultation document forecasts that passenger demand will roughly double for long-distance services on the west coast main line, as was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey (Stuart Andrew). That projection is over 30 years and is based on modest growth rates of about 2% a year. If anything, those numbers are cautious when one takes into account the fact that demand between London and Manchester rose by almost 60% over the four years to 2008 and that overall long-distance demand has grown every year since 1997 at an average of 5% a year. There is a wide-ranging consensus, which has been echoed by many Members today, that the southern end of the west coast route will be completely full within 10 to 15 years, or possibly sooner as was pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon (Stephen Hammond).
Mrs Villiers
We believe that version 4.1 gives a more robust analysis of passenger demand forecasts. I am confident that whichever methodology one uses to predict passenger demand, we face a capacity time bomb on the west coast main line. Even our efforts in undertaking the biggest programme of rail capacity improvement for 100 years will not be enough to meet our long-term capacity needs.
We desperately need additional inter-city transport capacity, as was pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert). No responsible Government can afford to sit back and ignore this problem. High-speed rail provides the best way to meet that pressing economic need. Contrary to the allegations of its detractors, HS2 is not and has never been a project designed to shave a few minutes off the journey time to Birmingham; it is about delivering the inter-city transport links that are crucial for the future success of our economy in this country, in both the north and the south.
Mrs Villiers
No, I will not.
No upgrade of the existing railways is capable of matching the increase in capacity that HS2 will deliver. A fundamental problem with the alternative schemes is that they rely on upgrades of the existing line. By definition, they cannot release any capacity on the existing network. The release of capacity is a fundamental part of the benefit that can be provided by HS2. As my hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey pointed out, the alternatives are simply sticking-plaster solutions. Of the alternatives formally considered, only one had a positive benefit-to-cost ratio. The solution put forward by my hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire of tinkering with first and second class is simply not credible; nor are the 51m proposals, which have not been adequately costed, do not take into account the massive cost of signalling remodelling and cannot deal with a peak-time crisis. Furthermore, trying to defuse the capacity time bomb with any kind of work on the existing line would involve extensive disruption, as was pointed out by the shadow Minister, and that would come not long after the people on this route had to put up with a decade of disruption for the last upgrade of the west coast line.
Concern has been expressed that our analysis does not take account of the fact that time on a train can be used productively. However, stress-testing our business case figures shows that factoring in productive time on trains actually slightly strengthens the case for high-speed rail. The additional capacity provided by HS2 would enable more people to get a seat and get some productive work done on a train. What is more, failing to deliver a new line would lead to ever more serious overcrowding problems, making it even more difficult to work on a train. The fact that Stop HS2 keeps making the point about work demonstrates the overall weakness of its argument.
Mrs Villiers
No.
A fundamentally weak point put by the opponents of HS2 is the claim that it will disadvantage the regions that it will serve. That is startling when one thinks of the vigorous campaigns fought around the world by towns and cities desperate to connect to the high-speed rail networks that their countries are building. It is no surprise to hear of those campaigns when one takes on board the fact that Euralille has the third largest office complex in France, beaten into second place by Lyon’s Part-Dieu TGV station with its 5.3 million square feet of office space—economic development that would have been entirely impossible without the high-speed rail network in France. Survey work undertaken in relation to the TGV network clearly showed that the regions it served, rather than Paris, had experienced the greatest boost in their economies. It is simply not credible to claim that the north and the west midlands will be disadvantaged by high-speed rail, as evidenced by the strong support for the project in those areas.
If we need evidence of the startling benefits that transport links can bring, we have only to walk 30 yards from the Chamber to Westminster tube station and get on the Jubilee line extension. Now one of the biggest financial centres in the world, Canary Wharf simply would not exist without the Jubilee line extension. The benefits of high-speed rail will be felt right across the north and midlands, with a boost to the whole country’s economy.
I reiterate that our assumptions about the viability of HS2 and the expected fare box do not factor in or depend on a premium for high-speed services. Our appraisal is based on fares in line with the existing services. In response to a point made by my hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire, the level of fares on Southeastern has absolutely nothing to do with HS1; neither do the performance issues on that route.
It is clear that in the longer term, the benefits of high-speed rail will exceed its construction costs, but the reality is that if we examine the scale of the project and average out the cost over the years it will take to deliver it, we see that it is by no means out of line with projects such as Crossrail. The claim that the rest of the rail network would be starved of funds if HS2 went ahead is undermined by the fact that the Government are committed to delivering the largest and most extensive package of rail capacity upgrades since the Victorian era, a number of which will carry on into the period during which HS2 is expected to be under construction.
Finally, I refer to the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Steve Baker), who rather let the cat out of the bag. If arguments such as his had been accepted, we would never have built the channel tunnel, HS1, the Jubilee line extension or the motorway network. Not even the Victorian railways on which we still depend would have been built, because although they were built by the private sector, the people who built them lost their shirts and largely went out of business.
The Government’s two most important goals are to address the deficit and to secure economic growth. Improving our transport infrastructure has a central part to play in delivering those goals, and we believe that high-speed rail can and should have a central role in our transport plans for the future.
High-Speed Rail
Debate between Dan Byles and Theresa Villiers(13 years, 7 months ago)
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Dan Byles
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom) on securing the debate after months of dogged perseverance, along with myself and the hon. Member for Coventry North West (Mr Robinson), and for her tour de force of a speech, which I think we all agree made the points very eloquently. I am also delighted to see Mr Speaker here; he obviously has a great interest in the matter.
The high number of Members attending demonstrates the importance of the issue, not just to those whose constituencies are affected, but to the entire country. It also clearly demonstrates the need for a full debate on the matter on the Floor of the House before the end of the consultation period. This involves a huge sum of money on a hugely important national infrastructure project. I believe it deserves full debate and discussion by the House.
Due to the large number of Members wishing to speak, and in particular due to the excellent job that my hon. Friend made in pointing out the serious flaws in the business case, I will not speak for too long. I see no need to repeat many of the points that have been made. We have heard that the net benefit ratio is potentially lower than some of the alternatives that we do not believe have been adequately explored. The NBR depends on extremely optimistic passenger growth numbers over which there are serious questions. As the hon. Member for Coventry North West said, we know that the Department for Transport’s record on estimating passenger numbers for HS1 was frankly diabolical. To risk £17 billion of taxpayers’ money on what might be equally diabolical passenger forecast numbers would be very wrong, without considerably more work being done.
I oppose the proposal in respect of the national business case. However, I would also like to point out my serious concern about the possible impact of the project on the regions. There has been a lot of discussion and talk about the benefits of rebalancing the economy and pushing economic growth from the south-east to the regions. That is often used as a principal argument in favour of this project. However, I do not believe that the Department or HS2 Ltd have adequately analysed the evidence from existing high-speed rail networks in other countries. The impact assessments produced by HS2 Ltd clearly demonstrate that one of the costs of HS2 will be slower and less frequent train services for some of the surrounding towns and cities—a point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Tony Baldry). I am less shy than the hon. Member for Coventry North West in saying that Coventry will see its direct rail services potentially slashed from three to one an hour. The remaining one will be slower.
Mrs Villiers
That is simply not true. There are some indicative forecasts in the HS2 analysis about how services might be configured in future. The reality is that Coventry is going to continue to enjoy frequent fast services. With HS2, it gets additional capacity for other journey opportunities, in particular, commuters get vital relief from overcrowding and lack of reliability as a result of overcrowding on the network.