High Speed Rail

Frank Dobson Excerpts

Monday 28th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr McLoughlin]

I know how my right hon. Friend feels on this subject, and I appreciate how Members whose constituencies have the line going through them have strong representations to make in the House. However, starting the route in the north, on which, up until today, work had not been done, would not be a better way of getting greater connectivity and connections. We should bear in mind that the routes I have said are overcrowded are even more overcrowded when they come into London, which is where we need the extra capacity in the first instance.

[Frank Dobson (Holborn and St Pancras) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State has said that he will ensure that people are compensated fairly. In December 2010, his predecessor said exactly the same thing about the people in my constituency who are affected by the first phase. However, at a meeting on Thursday in my constituency, officials from HS2 Ltd and the Department for Transport made it crystal clear to many people living near Euston station, including some of those who had exercised their right to buy their council flats, that they would not be fully compensated, and that others, including people whose businesses will be totally destroyed, will not be compensated at all. Can we rely on the Secretary of State to ensure that, when he says one thing in the House of Commons, his officials do not set it aside in the country?

[Mr McLoughlin]

I believe the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes (Norman Baker), gave the right hon. Gentleman an assurance on that point last Friday. I am certainly prepared to meet the right hon. Gentleman to discuss these matters and to try and clear up what confusion there seems to be.

High Speed 2 (Birmingham)

Frank Dobson Excerpts

Friday 25th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Liam Byrne (Birmingham, Hodge Hill) (Lab)]

I am grateful for the chance to bring this subject to the Floor of the House for debate this afternoon. May I say to the Minister, who has now taken his place, that I am very grateful to the Secretary of State, and indeed to his predecessor and to his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, for meeting me to discuss this important subject? I rise, therefore, to reinforce a point.

The nub of the matter is extremely simple. Today High Speed 2 is consulting on safeguarding orders that, if put into effect, would lock up, sterilise and write off one of the most important development sites not just in the city of Birmingham but in the entire country. High Speed 2 proposes to do that in an area that has some of the worst unemployment in the country, and at a cost of some 7,500 jobs, which could not and would not be created in years to come if the proposal were implemented.

My argument this afternoon is very simple: to proceed with locking up the land on the LDV-Alstom site in Birmingham is tantamount to a monstrous economic crime against the city. It is a senseless act and an avoidable one. The city of Birmingham is looking to the Minister and to the Secretary of State to bring an end to this lunacy.

I want to preface my remarks by saying that I am a passionate and strong advocate of High Speed 2. I think it would transform the economic geography of our country and do an incredible amount for the economy of the west midlands and for the city of Birmingham. Some estimates have suggested that something in the order of 60,000 jobs could be created in and around the city. Heaven knows we need those jobs, not least in the light of the growth figures we saw this morning. I and other Members of Parliament in and around Birmingham want to join forces with the Government to ensure that the High Speed 2 legislation that is needed hits the statute book as quickly as possible. We want the project to go ahead and we want it to succeed, because we know what kind of prizes it can bring.

However, putting a marshalling yard in the middle of the inner city, in the middle of the worst unemployment blackspot in the country, is simply a recipe for hobbling the economic growth of the city, specifically east Birmingham, for literally the next 50 years. We in this House should not stand by and watch that happen. Around half the city’s unemployment is concentrated in three constituencies, Hodge Hill, Ladywood and Erdington, all of which are at the junction of the site in question, where High Speed 2 proposes to build its marshalling yard. There are 22,000 people on jobseeker’s allowance in those three constituencies. That is 42% of the number of people on the dole in the city of Birmingham. Simply, the problem confronting local MPs is that there are just not enough jobs to go around.

This morning I was pleased to meet some of the managers from my local jobcentre, who do an incredible job under the most difficult of circumstances. It is clear from what they tell me that there are simply not enough jobs to go around. Indeed, the unemployment statistics published earlier this week confirmed that in my constituency 24 people are chasing every job.

What is holding up unemployment in my part of the city of Birmingham is that we do not have the local jobs to go around. That is why a couple of years ago I suggested to officials at Birmingham city council and, indeed, to the owners of the site that a once-in-a-century moment was about to come to pass. After the liquidation of LDV and of the regional development agency in 2010, for the first time in 100 years three great pieces of the jigsaw puzzle on the LDV-Alstom site were about to come together. In so doing, it created the second biggest development site in the city of Birmingham, after Longbridge in the south of the city.

When I asked city planners to undertake some rough and ready master planning of what could be done on a site so big and so neatly adjacent to the city centre and to our brilliant transport links in east Birmingham, they said, after a bit of work, that something in the order of 7,500 jobs could be created on the site. There, on the table, is a specific proposal to create 7,500 jobs in the middle of the worst unemployment blackspot in the country. That, at a stroke, would take one in six of those in the city’s dole queue off the dole and into work, paying tax and national insurance, not sitting on the dole and taking benefits. That is why this is too good a prize simply to throw away. Of course, what is worse is that if the proposal for a marshalling yard goes ahead, we will lose 850 jobs within the next couple of years. There are two big businesses on the site and they are both ambitious to expand, but they will be forced to move quickly if the proposal is given the green light.

This is not a theoretical problem. In the past year or so, two major businesses, both seeking something in the order of 1 million square feet, wanted to invest in the site, but ultimately they turned away to go elsewhere because of the uncertainty that HS2 has cast over the site. At a time of rising unemployment in east Birmingham, that is a tragedy.

My second big point is that I am not making this case simply on behalf of the citizens of Hodge Hill, Ladywood and Erdington. The problem confronts not just the citizens of east Birmingham but all residents in Birmingham. If a site this big, which constitutes half of the best urban land available in the city, is taken out, the city will, of course, be forced to take land out of the green belt—and, my goodness, what a lot of land it would have to take. In fact, it would have to take almost double the amount of green-belt land to compensate for the loss of land in Washwood Heath and Hodge Hill. That is the equivalent of 105 football pitches— 7 million square feet of green-belt land that would have to be taken from other parts of the green belt around the city. I suspect, although I am not an economic geographer, that a great deal of that land would come out of Sutton Coldfield. There are therefore big concerns not just for the residents of Hodge Hill but for citizens across the city.

My third major concern is that, if this proposal goes ahead, it will not last 10 minutes in court. I won and lost enough judicial reviews in my time as a Minister to recognise a process that is not judicial review-proof, and the selection of this site is in no way judicial review-proof. The objective criteria used to select the site have not been published. High Speed 2 has ignored much of its own guidance. Indeed, I have been told by one of the site owners that two of the three sites HS2 identified in its assessment are in green-belt land south of the city, but there has been no clear acknowledgement in its reporting of the economic devastation that the selection of the site at Washwood Heath would wreak. There has clearly not been a transparent and open process, and I should think that that would fall foul of a judicial review hearing in any court.

[Frank Dobson (Holborn and St Pancras) (Lab)]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for allowing me to make a brief intervention in his debate. As someone who has been trying to protect the interests of the people who live in my constituency, I sympathise with his efforts to protect the interests of his constituents.

May I advise my right hon. Friend not to give too much weight to any assurances that he may receive in this debate? On 20 December 2010, when originally announcing that HS2 was to go ahead, the then Transport Secretary, the right hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr Hammond), said that people adversely affected would be “compensated fairly”, and stated in response to the shadow Transport Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle), that

“it is right and proper that individuals who suffer serious financial loss in the national interest should be compensated.”—[Official Report, 20 December 2010; Vol. 520, c. 1207.]

Despite that, last night at a meeting in my constituency, officials from HS2 and the Department for Transport said that many people living near Euston station, including some who had exercised their right to buy from the council, would not be fully compensated, and others would not be compensated at all. Ministers are saying one thing in the House of Commons and officials are saying the opposite outside.

[Mr Byrne]

I am very grateful to my right hon. Friend for making those important points. What he says about the standard and quality of the way in which the High Speed 2 team have gone about public consultation rings very true.

I say gently to the Minister that this is one of the most important projects in the country. It will, I hope, be a railway for well over a century to come. It will transform the economic geography and economic prospects of my region. It is controversial, it is difficult, and it will have its ups and downs. It needs a powerful coalition across all parties to support it. That cross-party support is jeopardised when we have slipshod, mediocre management of a consultation process which, in the case of the landowners that have talked to me, has involved their producing very detailed and expensive submissions and getting but a letter of acknowledgement, without even the offer of a meeting or an invitation to come to consultation forums. AXA Insurance, one of the site owners, presented some very detailed proposals that were not even acknowledged by High Speed 2, provoking the former Secretary of State herself to have to apologise for the omission. When we have a project that is so significant to the country’s future, we need the world’s best team, not any old team, managing the consultation. I hope that the Minister will take that on board.

My final point is that some landowners, such as the Homes and Communities Agency, have a legal obligation, in transferring their assets, to seek the best possible outcome for local communities. I cannot see how such an obligation could be satisfied under the current proposals on the table.

I hope that the Minister has listened hard to the debate, and I look forward to a full response. I look forward even more to him and the Secretary of State taking the decision to put the marshalling yard somewhere else. Much better sites are available. There are sites much closer to the Y junction at Birmingham international airport, where there are significant land holdings in the hands of Birmingham city council. It is true that they are on green-belt land, but they are also land-locked by the M42 and therefore dead; they have no future economic purpose. They are in the middle of a very busy motorway junction that is perfectly suitable and appropriate for designs of this type.

I hope that the Secretary of State and the Minister can take a degree of inspiration from our history. One hundred years ago, the city of Birmingham doubled in size following Acts passed in this House in 1911 and 1912. A century ago, in 1913, the city of Birmingham published in full its ambitious plans to create a bigger, better city in east Birmingham, building on the foundations set by some of our great civic entrepreneurs—Joseph Wright and his sons who built the great Metro Cammell engine works; Herbert Austin who built the great site that was the forerunner of Austin cars and LDV; and, of course, Lord Norton, the last lord of the manor at Saltley, who laid out the streets in the design that can still be seen today. Those great civic and industrial engineers helped to create the mighty city of Birmingham and set a standard against which we should judge ourselves. I hope the Minister and the Secretary of State will not fall short.

--- Later in debate ---

[Norman Baker]

On Birmingham city council officers, the right hon. Gentleman will know from his time in ministerial office that Ministers discuss matters in some detail with officials so that they are properly prepared for Adjournment debates. I raised that specific point and was given an assurance that Birmingham city council officers had indeed responded in that way. That is why I included it in my comments. He questions the robustness of the process, but I am satisfied that there has been a thorough examination.

Would Birmingham benefit more from other use of the land? The right hon. Gentleman made the case that it would, and HS2 Ltd recognises his concerns and those of the landowners at Washwood Heath which have emerged since the selection process I have described. HS2 Ltd is currently looking in detail at their concerns and the alternative sites they have proposed for the rolling stock maintenance depot, and will report to the Department for Transport in February, when Ministers will consider them. I hope that gives him comfort that the matter is being considered at the highest level by Ministers.

Given where we are in the process and the need to progress the scheme, I expect the Secretary of State to wait to receive the outcomes of HS2 Ltd’s examination to understand the most appropriate mechanism formally to address the concerns of the landowners and Birmingham city council. However, I should like to make two further points. First, the site in question has remained largely as it is for many years, including through the last economic boom, and it is not immediately clear—or at least the Government are not persuaded—how realistic the development proposals are. Secondly, the proposals for the rolling stock maintenance depot would bring employment directly associated with building and operating the railway, create opportunities for supporting employment uses, and make valuable use of the site, which, I might add, has an historic association with the railway.

The right hon. Gentleman spoke of the impacts on businesses based on the Washwood Heath site. UKMail has a particularly large presence there, and I assure him of the Government’s commitment to work with the company to ensure that the business can either continue to operate there or move to another location. HS2 Ltd has had regular and constructive conversations with it and I expect them to continue.

Some people have said that HS2 Ltd is proposing to safeguard too much land. HS2 Ltd needs to safeguard a larger area of land initially to ensure that the land is kept available for the depot and that HS2 Ltd can be notified of any future proposals that might compromise our ability to build and operate the facility. That does not mean that all the land will be taken by HS2, but we need to ensure that conflicts do not arise.

Draft safeguarding consultation began in October 2012 and is due to close on 31 January. As the engineering design for the depot and railway develops, HS2 Ltd will continue to meet Birmingham city council officers to share emerging designs and to discuss the potential of developing a planning framework for the area, enabling additional employment uses to exist alongside the depot, and providing certainty for landowners and developers on the extent of future land availability and use.

I am aware that Birmingham city council recently consulted on options for the future growth of the city, and in particular identified the need to expand into the green belt, to which the right hon. Gentleman referred, to accommodate future employment growth. There was a recognised need to do that, even without the rolling stock maintenance depot located at Washwood Heath, so he has made his point about how far he thinks that ingression needs to go.

In addition to supporting the preparation of a planning framework, HS2 Ltd will continue to work with the city council to ensure that the proposed rolling stock maintenance depot maximises the opportunities created by locating the hub of the national high-speed network at Washwood Heath, both in terms of employment opportunities created by the construction and operation of the railway, and in attracting investment and new jobs to this area of Birmingham.

The Government and HS2 Ltd are working hard to implement a scheme that will not only bring the widest possible benefits to the country, but help all those who would be impacted. HS2 Ltd is already engaged with UKMail and other interested parties concerning the future of the Washwood Heath site. It is HS2 Ltd’s intention to work with Birmingham city council and key landowners to share emerging design solutions, and to prepare a planning framework for the site, enabling the rolling stock maintenance depot to co-exist with additional employment uses. We should not forget the direct job creation this opportunity will bring: approximately 300 operational jobs with phase 1 and approximately 700 with phase 2. The site offers opportunities for more jobs, local training opportunities and the attraction of wider rail industries, as the site becomes a hub of high-speed rail activities in the region, and therefore one of national importance. The Government and HS2 Ltd will continue to support these aspirations for HS2 and continue to do what we can to support the economy of Birmingham and the west midlands.

The right hon. Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Frank Dobson) raised an issue about consultation—a meeting from last night of which I obviously have no knowledge. All I would say is that it is the Government’s intention to ensure that there is proper compensation, and that has not changed since the statement made by the previous Secretary of State for Transport, the right hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr Hammond).

[Frank Dobson]

Will the Minister try to ensure that officials from HS2 Ltd and the Department for Transport are made aware of ministerial desires and intentions, because they were denying them outright last night?

[Norman Baker]

As I say, I was not at the meeting and I would be surprised if that was indeed the case. I have restated the position to the House that we believe in proper compensation for people affected by HS2.

West Coast Main Line

Frank Dobson Excerpts

Monday 15th October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr McLoughlin]

Given that my right hon. Friend was closely involved in setting up the original model, I should naturally defer to his great expertise in this matter. I do not want to prejudge the findings of any of the reviews that I have set up, but I am sure that Mr Brown will have heard my right hon. Friend’s comments and that he may well want to investigate that solution further.

[Frank Dobson (Holborn and St Pancras) (Lab)]

May I express my sympathy for the new Secretary of State’s having to deal with this mess? However, in view of the fact that the Department could not come up with figures that would be valid 10 years hence, how can he believe that the same Department, the same officials and the same advisers can come up with accurate predictions on passenger levels, and on inflation generally, in relation to High Speed 2, which does not exist and for which there is no evidence to draw on? I think he needs to look at that matter again. I will not say that he needs to go back to the drawing board; in the case of HS2, it is more a matter of going back to the ouija board.

[Mr McLoughlin]

I am interested to hear what the right hon. Gentleman says. A number of points have been raised since I made the announcement. The HS2 business case has undergone an extensive quality assurance process, and we are confident that it is accurate. The August 2012 update on the economic case was supported by a 400-person day of independent quality assurance, and HS2 Ltd has appointed independent auditors to undertake a line-by-line check of the analysis being prepared for the deposit of the hybrid Bill. This is all in addition to the existing quality assurance arrangements. I am glad to say that there was a commitment to these proposals in the right hon. Gentleman’s party manifesto to the country as well as in our own.

Rail Investment

Frank Dobson Excerpts

Monday 16th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

We want many communities to benefit from the announcement, and frankly, the more people we can get on the railways, the more successful they will be. That means connecting as many communities as possible, which is the approach that I am taking to High Speed 2 and to the current network. That is one reason why, for the first time, I have set aside some money for new stations.

[Frank Dobson (Holborn and St Pancras) (Lab)]

As the Member representing St Pancras, may I ask the Secretary of State whether she is really satisfied that it will be 2019 before the first electric train arrives from Sheffield at that magnificent station, which was so magnificently refurbished under the Labour Government to provide a connection for the channel tunnel link and fast trains to the Olympic games?

[Justine Greening]

The right hon. Gentleman looks forward, as I do, to a time when trains that arrive at St Pancras are not dirty diesel trains but clean electric ones. I think that that will have a positive impact on the environment in that station. St Pancras station is an amazing building. It is impossible to walk in without gasping at the wonderful architecture, and those of us who want more members of the next generation go into design, technology and engineering should take them to St Pancras, which will get them fired up.

High-speed Rail

Frank Dobson Excerpts

Tuesday 10th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

As I said, we are very keen to ensure that we progress phases 1 and 2 as quickly as possible, and I will be in discussions with the Scottish Government about the future development of the line that they have aspirations for, as well.

[Frank Dobson (Holborn and St Pancras) (Lab)]

I am sorry, Mr Speaker, if I break into this aura of unanimity. I represent people living around Euston, 350 of whom will lose their homes, and up to now they have received no guarantees whatever from Ministers, the Department or the HS2 project team. The area has already seen the abandonment of the intended rebuilding of a Roman Catholic convent school, part of the site of which will be taken, and a large number of small businesses will be put out of business as a result of this. Also, Euston will be even more overcrowded when the new line comes in, and there are no proposals whatever to improve the connections, by tube or bus, to Euston station to take the extra traffic.

High Speed 2

Frank Dobson Excerpts

Thursday 13th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Frank Dobson (Holborn and St Pancras) (Lab)]

Besides being the Member for Holborn and St Pancras, I am the Member for King’s Cross and Euston. I feel like I have been here before. About 20 years ago, the sort of people who are now proposing HS2 were proposing that the channel tunnel link should come into a vast concrete cavern to be excavated under King’s Cross station. Many local people opposed it, and when the project team asked what I suggested, I said, “You could use St Pancras, it would be a much better idea.” That was denounced as ridiculous for a time, but in due course St Pancras International was opened and is probably the most magnificent station in the whole world.

Now we have the proposition of HS2. I say to those who are in favour of it that to bring it in to Euston is just about as stupid as the King’s Cross concrete box idea. Euston is already overcrowded, and getting to and from it by either bus or tube is extremely difficult. There are no proposals to improve that. Also, Euston is not on the Heathrow Express line and is not going to be on Crossrail. In recognition of that, the people behind HS2 are proposing the parkway station at Wormwood Scrubs, hereinafter to be known as Old Oak Common, which is on the Heathrow Express and will be on Crossrail. That suggests that they accept that it would be a good idea to have that station as the terminus if HS2 is built. I say that from a strategic and passenger point of view, but I do not pretend that it is my basic point of view. I try to represent the people in the constituency that I have represented for 30-odd years, which I am proud to do.

The proposal involves the demolition of the houses and homes of more than 350 of my constituents. Their attitude, and mine, is not nimby—“not in my back yard”—but “not through my front room”, because that is what is being proposed. If HS2 is to be built, it would be totally unacceptable from a local point of view, and silly from a national point of view, to bring it into Euston.

[Graham Stringer]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Frank Dobson]

No, I shall not, because I want other people to get their speeches in.

I am particularly concerned to end the planning blight that now afflicts the people who live in the area affected and those in the area behind it, Primrose Hill, who may also be disturbed by the developments. I therefore wrote to the Secretary of State asking what guarantees he was willing to give about suitable alternative accommodation for the people affected. I asked whether it would be in the neighbourhood; whether they would remain tenants of the council; how soon such alternative accommodation would be provided; whether people would have to live in temporary accommodation while permanent accommodation was built; what security of tenure they would have; and what the effect would be on their rents and service charges. I got a letter back from him saying, “Oh, all that will need to be looked into in the fullness of time.” As far as I am concerned, that leaves 350 of my constituents on planning blight death row, and we have to do something about that. There is absolutely no reason why the Minister could not say today that she can offer all the guarantees that those people want, and that those guarantees will be one of the conditions of any agreement if the mad proposal finally goes ahead and HS2 comes into Euston.

[John Pugh (Southport) (LD)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

--- Later in debate ---

[Frank Dobson]

No, I want to sit down as quickly as I can so that other people can get in.

I believe that Euston is a stupid place to use as the terminus, even from the point of view of those who favour High Speed 2, and that it is a disastrous proposition from the point of view of the people I represent.

High-Speed Rail

Frank Dobson Excerpts

Thursday 31st March 2011 Westminster Hall

[Frank Dobson (Holborn and St Pancras) (Lab)]

I declare an interest as the representative for King’s Cross, Euston and St Pancras stations, and as a member of the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers—I pay it a subscription; it pays me nothing. I do not apologise if I seem nimbyish. I understand that the Secretary of State has attacked people for being nimbys, but 350 to 360 people in my constituency face the demolition of their homes, and “nimby” does not cover that. For many of my constituents, it is not “not in my backyard”, but “not in my front room”. My job is to try to represent them.

The proposed 50-metre extension to the west of Euston station would involve, in addition to knocking down people’s homes, concreting over a small park and preventing the proposed rebuilding of Maria Fidelis convent school. In addition to the formal extension, all sorts of changes would be needed to the approach roads. There would have to be provision for off-station taxi ranks and all sorts of other things, which would involve further demolition outside the lines that have so far been drawn on the map. My opposition started with those points, and I make no apology for it.

However, the more I look at the proposals, the more doubtful I have become. Let us assume that High Speed 2 is a good idea. Even if it is, it is not a good idea to have Euston as the terminus. It has no connection with the Heathrow Express, and never will. It will have no connection with Crossrail, and it has no connection with High Speed 1, so it is not well connected.

[Tony Baldry]

I seek information, as I am now totally confused. Will the right hon. Gentleman explain to the Chamber what the connection is between HS2, Heathrow airport and Crossrail?

[Frank Dobson]

As I understand it, because Euston does not have a connection to Heathrow Express and Crossrail, it has been necessary to propose a parkway station at Old Oak Common that will have connections to those lines. That additional expense could otherwise have been avoided. As a result of the inadequacies of Euston, the parkway proposition for Old Oak Common—alias Wormwood Scrubs—had to be added to the proposal. Instead, the line could be brought into Paddington station, which already has links to Heathrow Express and will be on Crossrail. When I pushed that point, people from High Speed 2 said that Paddington could not cope with the number of passengers. Paddington has as many tube connections as Euston and, as I have pointed out, it will link to Heathrow Express and Crossrail. That excuse for not using Paddington appears to be of little relevance.

[Kelvin Hopkins]

Another point is that unlike Paddington, the Euston option would require expensive tunnelling to get through London. Once Crossrail is built, Paddington will have extra capacity for a platform for HS2, were we to go ahead with it.

[Frank Dobson]

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. Another point is the connection with HS1. We are told that great strategists with vinegar-soaked towels around their heads came up with HS2 as the first stage of a great, high-speed rail network. They seemed not to notice that they had not proposed a connection with the only existing part of the high-speed rail network, High Speed 1, which comes into St Pancras station.

[Mrs Villiers]

I assure the right hon. Gentleman that the mistake that the previous Government made in not providing for a link between domestic and international services has been remedied by the current Government; such a link is part of our plans.

--- Later in debate ---

[Frank Dobson]

I know the Minister is an optimist, but if she thinks I am going to leap to the defence of Lord Adonis, she is a super-optimist. There was no connection—oh dear, the great strategists clean forgot. Now they have bodged a connection. There will be a third bore—if hon. Members will excuse the term—from Old Oak Common, coming out at Primrose Hill. The tunnel will be bored in parallel with the other two tunnels coming into Euston, and will proceed along the North London line to connect to HS1. So far, no one has explained whether it will connect to HS1 through the HS1 line, or by going into the HS1 part of St Pancras station. Perhaps the Minister can elucidate, but I doubt it because I do not think the people at HS2 quite know what they are talking about. Something else that did not appear in the announcement is that the proposal is for that tunnel, and the bit on the North London line, to proceed only at conventional speed. It will be HS2, then a slow bit, then HS1—and we are still supposed to regard the people who came up with that proposition as a set of railway strategists.

When HS1 was being built, I recall that the people from Bechtel looked at the possibility of using the North London line as the route into St Pancras. They decided that the cuttings, embankments and bridges along that line were so lousy that it would be cheaper to bore through to St Pancras, which was a considerable distance. When I pointed that out to someone from HS2, they were unaware of that small and apparently irrelevant fact.

If we talk of strategy, we must look at the promises made for the high-speed rail network. People have been told that it will be a great network, and that we will continue it further north. Under the strategy, the line will split at Birmingham and part of it will go to Manchester and eventually to Glasgow. In the east it will go first to Leeds and then to Newcastle and Edinburgh. The proposal is for the line to get as far as Birmingham by 2026. I, however, am confident enough to make two forecasts of my own about the London to Birmingham line. First, it will not be in operation by 2026, and secondly it will cost more than the present estimate. I am willing to take bets from any hon. Members present at the end of the debate. If I lose, they will no doubt have to pursue my grandchildren for the debt.

I do not pay attention to the prognostications, if there are any, about the likely weight of traffic on the route, or what the scheme is likely to bring in. As my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry North West (Mr Robinson) said, if the Office for Budget Responsibility cannot come up with a suggestion for what is likely to happen at the end of the current year, there are slim chances of anyone—whether for, against or doubtful about the project—coming up with an accurate prognostication about what will happen in 2025-26 or, in the case of Leeds and Manchester, 2035 or 2040. Then there are Glasgow and Edinburgh. My grandchildren, who now reappear in this story, are likely to go on the train from London to Glasgow using their senior railcards; that is the time scale we are talking about.

[David Mowat]

The right hon. Gentleman speaks well about the difficulties in forecasting, particularly far into the future. That is why it is extremely important that the business case for the scheme is based on a conservative estimate. Does he admit that while long-distance rail travel has increased by 5% per annum over the past 15 years, in its business case, the Department for Transport has put that increase at 1.4% over the next decade or so? That is pretty conservative.

[Frank Dobson]

I do not wish to be rude, but the only thing to add to the hon. Gentleman’s contribution is, “Or I will eat my hat.” I do not have the faintest idea which of those estimates is true, and the odds are that neither will prove true. He knows that as well as I do. We should not be whacking in all this money on the basis of estimates that nobody can back up. All we are really faced with is the proposition that we should support a fast shuttle between Birmingham and London.

[Angie Bray]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Angie Bray]

I will be very brief. The right hon. Gentleman’s case seems to be that we should never do anything on the basis that we might not be absolutely certain about it. Sometimes projects have to be started. If we never start a project, we will never get any progress.

[Frank Dobson]

I will finish on that point. I was always a strong supporter of the channel tunnel and the channel tunnel link. When the same preposterous railway strategists came up with a proposal to place the terminus for High Speed 1 in a cave under King’s Cross station, I was among those who led the opposition to that and proposed St Pancras station instead; we were not entirely nimbyist. Whatever anybody says, that has been a brilliant success. I do not believe that the people who come up with these proposals have done the work properly. If we are to have a proper high-speed network, this is the last way and last place in which to start it.

High Speed Rail

Frank Dobson Excerpts

Monday 20th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

I think that my hon. Friend is referring to the point at which the railway will cross the M6 at Coleshill. At my request, HS 2 looked into whether it was possible to build under the motorway, but I am afraid that that is not technically possible. HS 2 has managed to reduce the height of the proposed flyover by a modest amount, but I am afraid that it will still be quite high at Coleshill.

[Frank Dobson (Holborn and St Pancras) (Lab)]

Will the Secretary of State confirm that what he has announced will involve the demolition of 350 flats in my constituency, the building over of a well-loved park, and the abandonment of a proposal to rebuild a girls’ Catholic secondary school on the part of the site that has been taken over? While people in Primrose Hill may welcome the minor changes that he has announced, they will feel a little surrounded if there is to be a further tunnel on the other side of Primrose Hill, emerging at Chalk Farm, because they will have a tunnel on both sides. Does the Secretary of State accept that HS2 Ltd really ought to go back to the drawing board? The idea that the connection of a significant network will be dependent on a spur connecting HS 2 with HS 1 is preposterous, and the company really ought to start again.

[Mr Hammond]

Before the right hon. Gentleman describes the proposal as preposterous, he should look at what has been published and consider it carefully. It is a carefully worked-out engineering solution that provides a value-for-money answer for people who believe that it is essential for trains to run directly from the midlands and the north of England, through the channel tunnel, and onwards to the European high-speed network.

The right hon. Gentleman asked about the impact on his constituency, which arises largely from the planned expansion of Euston station. Yes, there will be a number of property demolitions and replacements. It is planned to replace the properties that I have seen alongside the railway in his constituency with new properties. Some of the existing properties date from the 1920s and 1930s, and could do with being replaced. As he said, part of a small park will also be required.

The detailed design for the replacement Euston station has not yet been completed, but it is possible that it will be largely below ground level. At present, a large piece of the structure effectively creates a barrier down the middle of the right hon. Gentleman’s constituency, separating east from west. Camden council is keen for that barrier to go, and for a natural pattern of streets to be opened up at the back of Euston station. I hope that we shall be able to facilitate that through this project, and to bring a positive benefit to the people of Camden.

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[Mr Hammond]

The hon. Lady is, I think, repeating the suspicion—I can only describe it as that—of the Opposition spokesman, who expressed some concern that we might not be going to continue beyond Birmingham. Our firm intention is to go to Leeds and Manchester. Indeed, the business case will be based on the completion of the Y network to Manchester and Birmingham, but I would not like anyone to be—

[Frank Dobson]

And Leeds?

[Mr Hammond]

Yes, and Leeds. However, I would not like anyone to be under the illusion that benefits for people living north of Birmingham will begin to accrue only when the second phase is built. The point of reconnecting the first phase of the line to the west coast main line is that people travelling to Manchester, Liverpool and Scotland will enjoy journey-time savings from the point at which the first phase to Birmingham is opened. That is because the trains we will operate on this proposed railway will run straight off the high-speed line and on to the classic line, dropping the speed down to the line speed of the classic line, but allowing passengers to enjoy the benefit of the journey-time saving between London and Birmingham.

[Mr Hammond]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his question. Yes, we have looked very closely at what has happened in France and at what is happening in Spain, and we have drawn on the experience of those countries in modelling the business case and addressing the approach to mitigation. My hon. Friend’s question reminds me to make a rather important point. We will not be committing to orders for trains for this railway until almost 2020, so there is another 10 years’ worth of train design development before the commitment has to be made.

[Frank Dobson]

Like for the aircraft carriers.

[Mr Hammond]

Well, they were your aircraft carriers, and I am not going to let the right hon. Gentleman anywhere near designing our trains; that is for sure.

The Eurostar trains that run on HS 1 were designed nearly 20 years ago and have concentrated power cars at front and rear. There will therefore be about 30 years of evolution in train design in respect of reducing noise and increasing fuel efficiency between the design of the Eurostar trains and the design of the trains that will run on these lines.

I also say to my hon. Friend that where we can hide this line, we will hide it. Where we cannot hide it, we will ensure that it is architecturally designed and that it is something that people are pleased to look at, not a British Rail engineering-style eyesore.

High Speed 2

Frank Dobson Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd November 2010 Westminster Hall

[Frank Dobson (Holborn and St Pancras) (Lab)]

When I first looked at the plans for High Speed 2, I was principally concerned with its immediate impact on my constituency where it comes into Euston station. Its effect there would be the demolition of 350 flats, about two thirds of a small park, St James’s gardens, being concreted over, a massive inhibition on the much-needed rebuilding of Maria Fidelis Catholic girls secondary school, and problems for people in the Primrose Hill area, whose homes would be tunnelled under in a big way. However, the more I looked at the proposal, the more I thought that it was not just a matter of the damage that it was likely to do in my constituency, but that the whole project of bringing the line into Euston station and other aspects of the proposal were daft and expensive.

In saying that the London terminal should be Euston station, the projectors had to come up with ways of coping with the fact that Euston station is not on the Heathrow Express line and is not intended to be on the Crossrail route, so it does not have major connections that would be important for High Speed 2. To cope with that, the projectors proposed building a sort of super-parkway station at Old Oak Common—more commonly known as Wormwood Scrubs—and then rebuilding Euston as well. Bringing the line into Euston would also involve the boring of a 5½ mile tunnel, which as we all know is a fairly expensive item.

If the projectors had instead proposed that the line came into Paddington station, that would have made sense, because Paddington is already the terminus for the Heathrow Express and will be on the Crossrail route. The idea of coming into Euston seems to spring entirely from the fact that trains from Birmingham have always come into Euston. There is no more justification for it than that.

When I looked at the plan more widely, it seemed to me that there were other major shortcomings with it. High Speed 1 has been a great success, and certainly the refurbishment of St Pancras station in my constituency—I think that I was the first person to suggest that St Pancras should be the High Speed 1 terminal—has been a great success. The idea that we shall have just one leg of a high-speed system coming into London but not connected to High Speed 1 seems simply stupid. If we are to have a high-speed rail system that is on the end of the high-speed system in the rest of Europe, it would not be a bad idea if it was connected to it, which is not the present proposition.

Similarly, if only one leg of the system from the north will come into London, that will mean that the system is vulnerable to a major crash or terrorist activity that would close down the whole system. I make no comment on where the line should run outside London, but it seems to me that rather than a Y-shape arrangement, there ought to be an H-shape arrangement, so that coming into London are two legs, at least one of which is directly connected to High Speed 1 and would allow trains to come from the east side of Scotland, and the north-east and Yorkshire, and, if they wanted to, come into Paddington. Other trains from, say, Glasgow or Manchester would be able to cross over and come into wherever the link to High Speed 1 was located.

The scheme is badly thought out and extremely expensive. It will be amazingly damaging for my constituency. It should be withdrawn and criteria should be established that set out what on earth it is supposed to achieve. We should then come up with proposals that go some way towards achieving that.

I will move on to the scheme’s affordability. I have, in theory, a degree in economics. I am convinced that economic forecasts for more than 18 months nearly always turn out to be total rubbish. I therefore do not give much weight to anybody’s economic forecasts or assessments of viability for or against the scheme. History shows that all the major railway engineering projects of the 19th century went bust, were involved deeply in fraud or, more commonly, both. I do not think that a major railway project has ever paid back the original investors, unless they have benefited from fraud, such as the huge Ponzi scheme of the line to the north-east. I think we must accept that such projects never will repay their investors and that there is no free-market solution. Apparently, the Institute of Economic Affairs wants to rip up High Speed 1.

[Steve Baker]

On coming to this place, I did not think that I would find myself much in agreement with the right hon. Gentleman, but I am delighted to hear him speak against rail. Would it not have been good if the market had stopped the rail programmes that he has mentioned because insufficient people freely chose them to make them profitable? Money would then not have been wasted on such infrastructure.

[Frank Dobson]

I have never heard anybody suggest that the 19th-century railway boom in every industrialised country in the world did not contribute substantially to the economic development of those countries. Perhaps some people at the Institute of Economic Affairs are so stupid and reactionary that they believe that, but that is by the bye.

The impact of the scheme on my constituency will be dreadful and I reject it on a parochial basis. I also believe that it is ill thought out and will not achieve most of the things that are sought by people who are in favour of a high-speed system in this country.

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[David Mowat]

I accept that. Indeed, where we have areas of high unemployment, the ability of people who live there to enjoy their environment is much less than it would be otherwise. The Government also have a duty to take into account the impact on prosperity and employment throughout the country.

I want to make a couple of slightly more detailed points. It is important that whatever we build is linked to Heathrow. Those are probably the Government’s plans, but it seems to be absolute nonsense to build a high-speed rail link to the north and not to link properly Manchester airport and Heathrow, so as to see some of the traffic from Heathrow move.

I am of the view that the line needs to go to Euston and should not stop and link to Crossrail. I am not an expert, but Euston seems to be close to the business centres of London, so the impact of achieving that would be substantial.

I would like to see a spur to Warrington and Preston as soon as possibly, but I realise that the Minister might not think that that is her highest priority.

With reference to an earlier point, not linking High Speed 2 with High Speed 1 would be absurd. In my understanding of the initial business case for High Speed 1, the reason why we went into St Pancras in the first place was to allow that line, eventually, to go north. We are now building a High Speed 2 line to the north, so it ought to be linked.

Finally, it is very important that the Government maintain their commitment to the plan and realise that they are the Government for the entire country, and the entire country needs this.

[Frank Dobson]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[David Mowat]

I have finished now, so I will not give way.