High Speed Rail (Preparation) Bill

Debate between Frank Dobson and Jack Straw

Thursday 31st October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Straw]

I will in a moment, but I am conscious that others want to get in before the knife.

I come to the issue of the costs. No one is in favour of providing blank cheques for schemes, but I have seen no evidence that a blank cheque is being provided for this scheme. What we are talking about is £42 billion until 2033, which works out at just over £2 billion a year. That is a lot of money but, in the grand scheme of things, including infrastructure investment, it is not huge, particularly when compared with the massive amount of money that has rightly been put in by successive Governments to improve infrastructure in London and the south-east. I would be happy to support that, but it is time that the investment went elsewhere.

[Frank Dobson]

Does my right hon. Friend feel that some people might be a bit suspicious that a contingency sum of £14 billion closely resembles a blank cheque?

[Mr Straw]

Not in the least. I was just about to come on to the central issue of the level of contingency, and when I do so I shall explain why that is the case, but before I do, however, I will give way to the hon. Member for North West Leicestershire (Andrew Bridgen).

[Mr Straw]

I have certainly never wished to speak for my right hon. and noble Friend Lord Mandelson. All I can report as a matter of fact is that my right hon. and noble Friend was in the same Cabinet Room in 2009 when the project was endorsed. If he has had some reverse damascene conversion, it is for him to explain that, not me.

Let me turn to the issue of costs. I was chairman of the Cabinet Committee on the Olympics for its first four years. The first bid was put in at about £2.5 billion and the ultimate cost came out at £9 billion. Let me explain why there is no direct comparison. The bid was not based on the contingency but on a prayer that we would win it. Not a huge amount of effort was put into costing it because, frankly, very few people ever thought we would win. It was only after we had won on 6 July 2005 that the serious work began and led, quite properly, by the Treasury, we considered the contingencies.

I say to my right hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Frank Dobson) that a contingency of such a size is sensible, because there needs to be an optimism bias. That was what was put into the budget for the Olympics by the man who is now Sir David Higgins, who turned that project around. Contrary to what was said by the right hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs Gillan), the Olympics as an infrastructure project came in not only on time, because it had to, but on budget. Those who are worried about a blank cheque—any Chancellor or shadow Chancellor needs to be—should be reassured that Sir David Higgins is now in charge. I have every confidence in him, not only from his time running this operation and the Olympics, but from his time at Network Rail. He got costs down and took a close interest in the detail of the projects.

[Frank Dobson]

Can my right hon. Friend confirm that Sir David Higgins spent all the contingency sum on the Olympics?

[Mr Straw]

Not quite, I think. There were reasons for that, however, and for the contingencies. These are very large projects. There were also contingencies for Crossrail, for Thameslink and for the expansion of Euston in 1968 and I do not recall Members who would have benefited directly from those projects raising issues about contingencies at the time.