HS2 Cancellation and Network North

Gavin Newlands Excerpts

Wednesday 17th January 2024 Westminster Hall

[Gavin Newlands (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Davies. I congratulate my Transport Committee compatriot, the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Jack Brereton), on setting out the issues so comprehensively. I disagree with most of his conclusions, but that will not come as a surprise to him. He described Network North as a coherent programme, which I thought was stretching the truth a little. Nevertheless, he led the debate very well.

The hon. Member for Lichfield (Michael Fabricant) spoke about the money spent in the west midlands with regard to Network North, which highlights how ridiculous Network North is; that spread means the money is being redirected from the north. The hon. Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) spoke about the reopening of Stone station, but he missed the opportunity to talk about high-speed rail to Rwanda. Perhaps he will bring up that issue later. It is much more likely to get to Rwanda than to the Scottish border.

The hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) spoke of death by a thousand cuts, and the fact that the Government have turned their back on Manchester and Leeds. I wholeheartedly agree, but they have also turned their back on all the areas north of Manchester and Leeds that are served by the west coast mainline. The right hon. Member for South Staffordshire (Sir Gavin Williamson) called HS2 a white elephant. It is certainly becoming one, but that need not have been the case.

The right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Liz Saville Roberts)—I am sorry if I have butchered the pronunciation of her constituency—was absolutely right that Wales has missed out on Barnett consequentials from this project. I have raised that issue many times myself. If it is good enough for Scotland and Northern Ireland, it is good enough for Wales.

The right hon. Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey) understandably focused on the potential benefits of Network North for her local area, and spoke of the return of any farmland purchased for phase 2 delivery. The hon. Member for Aylesbury (Rob Butler) spoke of the benefits of the local roads that may now be built as a result of HS2 cuts. Finally, the hon. Member for Leigh (James Grundy) understandably spoke of the desire for better rail links between Manchester and Liverpool.

It is absolutely right that the GB rail network is expanded. It is ludicrous that HS2 is the first mainline railway to be built on this island for more than a century. That it has taken until now for it to happen is a damning indictment of decades of short-termism, penny pinching and blinkered policies. In less than 50 years, France has built nearly 1,800 miles of TGV lines. If we are lucky, it will take the UK 20 years to build less than 8% of that length of track.

[Michael Fabricant]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Gavin Newlands]

I will if the hon. Gentleman is very brief, which is not in his nature.

[Michael Fabricant]

I will try to be on this occasion. Does the hon. Gentleman accept that in France commuter lines run a lot slower than in the United Kingdom? France has half the density of population and does not go through the same procedures as us on planning permission—it literally railroads the trains through.

[Gavin Newlands]

I recognise some aspects of what the hon. Gentleman said, but I disagree with other conclusions that he has drawn. It is obviously up to the Government to change planning regulations if they wish, but they have got themselves into a bit of a nightmare with HS2 land purchases.

We have done all that for the bargain price of £60 billion. I have said many times here and in the main Chamber that in the UK we are often too timid in taking on big infrastructure projects. Incremental change is good, but sometimes a big bang is the only thing that will change things fundamentally for the better. Many of us supported HS2 because behind the headline of a new supercharged branch line south of Birmingham was a substantial increase in capacity on the west coast mainline, and the broader rail network would be freed up when traffic was switched on to the new lines.

[Jack Brereton]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

--- Later in debate ---

[Gavin Newlands]

I will come back to the hon. Gentleman if I have time. He gave quite a long speech at the start, although I appreciate that he led the debate.

HS2 would not just have helped with the projected increase in passenger numbers, but would have freed up freight paths that could have played a huge part in modal shift by getting freight that is currently on the back of heavy goods vehicles on to rail. The cancellation of everything but phase 1 means that there are no capacity gains north of Birmingham, and any new services that were supposed to result from its capacity extension will somehow have to fit into the already full-to-bursting track—again, all for the bargain price of £60 billion. Only Great Britain could chuck more than £60 billion at a new cutting-edge, gold-plated railway line and end up with slow services to the majority of the country. At £8,000 per inch, it will cost a monstrous sum of money, delivering nothing to the north of England and Scotland, but downgrading services.

Last week at the Select Committee, we heard from the chairman of HS2, who confirmed to the hon. Member for Easington (Grahame Morris) that capacity between Manchester and London will be reduced as a result of the Government’s decision. Prior to that, we heard from the rolling-stock companies, which outlined how the use of classic compatible HS2 rolling stock currently planned by the Department for Transport could result in a 24-minute deterioration in journey times between Glasgow and London—so there would be high-speed rail for those in Birmingham, less so for those north of Manchester. Prior to that, the Committee heard from the former head of the Strategic Rail Authority—someone I hope the Government would accept knows his onions—that the decision to cancel everything bar phase 1 means that

“there is no material increase in capacity north of Lichfield”.

We are left with a shuttle service between two cities in the south of England that already have nearly 180 daily services between the stations, all for the bargain price of £60 billion.

Thirty years ago, the channel tunnel was meant to herald direct services from all parts of this island to the continent. Those of us outside the M25 were promised those services, adding to the links enjoyed by London and Kent. Of course, those regional services never happened. At least some of the trains that cost the taxpayer over £200 million—£400 million at today’s prices—got some use, later finding service on the French national railway in a happy bonus for those passengers at the expense of those of us who did without. Meanwhile, the Nightstar sleeper trains were flogged at rock-bottom prices to VIA Rail in Canada at a third of the price they were worth, and the promised link between the original high-speed line leading from the channel tunnel to the rest of the inter-city network never materialised—and it is extremely unlikely that it ever will.

To recap, trains meant for Manchester, Glasgow, Cardiff and Edinburgh ended up in Paris, Brussels, Toronto and Montreal. Those trains were paid for by the UK taxpayer but flogged overseas for a huge loss. The infrastructure promised by Government to improve regional connectivity failed to materialise, all while the rest of the UK—including Wales, with no benefit—paid tax into a Treasury that is only happy signing blank cheques for infrastructure that benefits London and the south-east. In other words, the HS2 debacle is not the first time Westminster and the UK Government have promised and failed to deliver for this island outside the M25. It will absolutely not be the last.

In contrast, the SNP Scottish Government have delivered 217 km of electrified track in the last decade. That is a 32% increase, including the Paisley Canal line, the Glasgow and Edinburgh to Stirling, Dunblane and Alloa line, Edinburgh to Glasgow via Falkirk High, Cumbernauld and Whifflet, Glasgow to Barrhead—with a new electrified services between Glasgow and Barrhead just starting in the last few weeks—and the East Kilbride line currently under way, with the preparatory work for the next project ongoing. We have new stations at Inverness airport, Reston, Robroyston, Kintore, East Linton and Laurencekirk. We have reopened the Stirling-Alloa and Airdrie-Bathgate lines, along with the hugely successful Borders Railway, and the Levenmouth link in Fife is nearly complete. We have the biggest rolling-stock order in ScotRail history, pre-covid passenger numbers were up 19% since 2011-12, the peak fare removal pilot has been extended and, of course, latterly ScotRail has been nationalised.

Only yesterday, we saw the real issues with the privatised model, given the reports about the Avanti presentation. That highlighted all that is wrong and the inherent waste of passengers’ and taxpayers’ money in the current privatised model. Avanti and other operators, including foreign state-owned rail operators, are laughing at us. One slide was headed:

“Roll-up, roll-up get your free money here!”

The presentation described how the Government asked the company to deliver good customer service and projects before sneering,

“then they pay for it…nearly all of it!”

Performance-related payments for staff were

“too good to be true”.

In the case of Avanti management, I think most of us would certainly agree that that is an understatement.

When the former Transport Secretary, the right hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Grant Shapps), announced the creation of GBR, the plan was for it to take over the development of rail strategies from the DFT. That is desperately needed because the omnishambles of HS2 has shown how catastrophically bad rail policy and management has become. We still do not know when legislation will be introduced to establish GBR, but whatever the shape of the post-election Administration, it has to be one of their transport priorities. We cannot end up waiting another century for network expansion to be on the agenda again and we cannot afford another £60-billion disaster.