Queen’s Speech

Earl of Glasgow Excerpts

Monday 13th May 2013 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Glasgow]

My Lords, it seems that all parties regard transport as a minor, even expendable, department of government. In the past three years of this Parliament, we have already had three Ministers of Transport. The job has become a staging post for Ministers moving on to what are generally regarded as more important ministerial roles. As someone who cares a lot about our public transport, I find this department’s continual relegation to the class of a lesser ministry quite depressing.

On the other hand, I have to accept that there is one aspect of the transport brief that must make it less attractive to ambitious career politicians: nearly all important transport policies and decisions have already been made before you take up the job, often—in fact, usually—by an earlier Government. Any major decision that you may make in office is likely to come to fruition only long after you have moved on, and there is little satisfaction when someone else takes the credit for the hard work that you did 15 years earlier. All the big planning decisions are made at least 10 years before they are implemented.

That, of course, is the situation in the case of HS2. It has been on the cards for at least five years and now at last we learn that the first phase of the controversial high-speed rail line from London to Birmingham is expected to be completed in about 15 years’ time, with the further extension to Manchester and Leeds seven years beyond that. Work, however, is not expected to start before 2017, so HS2 and other long-term projects, such as extra airport runways around London, can be safely planned only with the aid of a crystal ball. What sort of world will we be living in 20 years’ time? Will we really need more airport capacity? Will we be driving electric cars? Will the threat of global warming finally be taken seriously and carbon emissions substantially and forcibly reduced? Will we still be in Europe? When will we be seeing those flying cars that feature in so many science fiction films nowadays?

I am convinced of one thing. Our middle to long-distance journeys within the United Kingdom will increasingly be taken by train. Apart from anything else, it is the only civilised and potentially pleasant method of travelling long distances. Flying is always a hassle and uncomfortable if you are squashed up to a particularly large man—and unhealthy, too, if he has a streaming cold, as happened to me recently. Driving long distances in a car is always stressful. Cars should be used primarily for shopping at your local market town, visiting neighbours and driving to the station to catch a train. Incidentally, we need more safe parking at our suburban and country stations.

I believe that the train is the only long-term answer to our national transport problems and will continue to be so for at least the next 30 years. I am therefore very supportive of the HS2 plans announced in the Queen’s Speech. I would like the Minister’s assurance that the Government will not be diverted by a number of powerful anti-HS2 bodies who believe that they can persuade them to change their mind. Its opponents are against it on the grounds of cost, that the money would be better spent elsewhere, that the Government have got their projections and figures wrong, that it is not a good use of taxpayers’ money and that it will pollute the English countryside, particularly the Chilterns. I believe, however, that HS2 is a crucial element in Britain’s overall policy for improving our railway network and should, if anything, go ahead with more urgency and, if necessary, at even greater expense to ensure that it achieves the objectives to which it aspires.

One of the objectors’ arguments is that the money could be spent on improving the existing rail network, but I am under the impression that the existing network is to be upgraded at the same time. I would like the Minister’s assurance that that is indeed the case and that it is not an either/or option. After all, one of the justifications for high-speed rail is that it will free up capacity for the existing network and enable other lines to operate more efficiently.

Beside the country’s overall need for a faster and more efficient train service, another of HS2’s purposes is to bring London and the south-east closer to the north and the Midlands. It has been calculated that if London and the Home Counties formed a separate country, it would be by far the most prosperous in Europe, but when included within the rest of the United Kingdom we stand only about half way in the pecking order. Surely anything that helps to widen Britain’s areas of prosperity can only be a good thing, although it will be up to the Government to ensure that the new rail line is used more to encourage southerners and southern companies to go north, rather than seducing more northerners to come down south to London. The BBC’s move to Salford shows that major relocations can and do work.

The argument that high-speed rail will ruin beautiful countryside seems completely fatuous. If you live nearer than a quarter of a mile from a proposed route, you may well have reason to object, but I understand that those adversely affected will be amply compensated—and so they should be. Who nowadays objects to any of our existing railways passing through areas of outstanding natural beauty? In some cases, the railway actually enhances the countryside. No one has ever made a convincing case that wildlife has been more than temporarily disturbed by new railway lines. A railway is not like a motorway, particularly a motorway interchange or, worse still, an extended runway to an existing airport, which really can have an adverse effect on the surroundings and everyone living near it.

HS2 is a bold project and needs bold measures to ensure that it realises its potential. One of its detractors, the HS2 Action Alliance, calls it,

“arguably the single largest ever project ever contemplated in peace time by a British Government”.

It then goes on to list what it considers to be the project’s flaws. My fear is that compromise and elements of cold feet may infiltrate the Government’s future thinking. In the present plans, the project is to be completed in two main phases, followed rather vaguely by a contemplated further phase. However, these contemplated further phases are essential to the success of the whole project. For instance, there surely must be a direct connection to Heathrow Airport, and from there to Gatwick Airport. However, this is not intended in either of the first two phases. There must surely be a direct connection with High Speed 1 so that passengers from Manchester or Leeds can go straight through to Paris without having to change in London, yet this, too, is not included in the first two phases. HS2 needs to go north at least as far as Preston in order to make the time saving significant enough for passengers travelling to and from Scotland, ultimately making internal flights in the United Kingdom unnecessary. In the present two-phase plan, only three-quarters of an hour will be knocked off the journey time from Glasgow to London, which is not enough to deter many of us from taking the plane.

Phase 1 takes us only as far as Birmingham. If for any reason the line were to stop there, I would agree with the objectors that the whole thing had been a disgraceful waste of government money. When in phase 2 it reaches Manchester and Leeds, the project begins to make sense, but the real benefits come only when the distance travelled is considerably longer and when these other essential connections are made. The Government must therefore commit to phase 3 before even starting on phase 1. Delay the start if the financial situation demands it but, once started, all three phases must go ahead as quickly as possible, one after the other. The project cannot afford long gaps between phases, when the fares will be high and the benefits strictly limited.

The Government, supported by all three parties, are taking an expensive gamble on High Speed 2, a gamble that in my view will pay off handsomely in the end. However, the Government must be bold and buy wholeheartedly into the whole package, not progress slowly in small, hesitant steps. I would like the Minister’s assurance that this is indeed the Government’s intention and that they recognise the danger of progressing too slowly.