High-Speed Rail

Debate between Geoffrey Robinson and John Stevenson

Thursday 31st March 2011 Westminster Hall

[Mr Robinson]

We have these generalisations, and people talk about a classic British compromise. We have all these platitudinous, stupid arguments, with people saying, “The Germans have one”, “We’ve got one” and “My dad’s bigger than your dad.” I have never heard anything so daft. We should look at the facts and figures and study these things objectively. If the hon. Gentleman cannot, the people in the Department can.

One Government Member has said that the terms of reference mean that the whole process has been hijacked by the pro-HS2 lobby, and there it has stayed. Nothing else has been analysed objectively. The OBR was set up to make sure that the Government’s general finances, economic policy and investments at the national level that are unrelated to infrastructure are properly evaluated, and the case for doing the same for infrastructure projects is stronger still. The Government should introduce such a body, and I would commend them if they did.

The green case has also collapsed. There is no net benefit in terms of the reduction in carbon from the scheme. The movement from air traffic constitutes only 7% of the eventual traffic to be carried on HS2, which is terribly small. Most importantly, this project is so long term that all the forecasts are meaningless; they have to be. Many of us will have heard Robert Chote on the “Tonight” programme saying that forecasts are very difficult. Robert Chote has all the power of the Institute for Fiscal Studies and all the stuff that he has brought into the new OBR, but the OBR has not got a forecast right from the Budget last June, to last November’s pre-Budget report, to the Budget this month. In about 10 months, it has changed its mind three times. To justify their demand forecasts, the Government have pushed them out 35 years; they have added 10 years on to get the volume increase they need to justify the project. What they are doing is so obvious, and that sort of stupidity is invalidating their case and making all of us who will be affected by this project, including those whose homes will be torn up, increasingly angry.

[John Stevenson (Carlisle) (Con)]

The same could apply to the hon. Gentleman’s forecasts. They could be underestimates as well. The economic benefits could be far greater than any of us anticipate.

[Mr Robinson]

That is a very fair point. It is difficult when one looks at such wildly different forecasts. One has to look at the history. Let us take demand forecasts for the rail industry. Nine out of 10 have been grossly exaggerated by at least twice. That is roughly the proportion we have between the conservative forecast and the Department for Transport’s forecast today. In the case of HS1, it has only just now, after nearly a decade of some sort of operation, reached the lowest level of forecast we ever thought remotely possible. As we know, HS1 has just been sold off as a dead loss, at a loss of £3 billion.

[John Stevenson]

On the west coast line the increase in traffic has been far beyond the forecasts made originally.

[Mr Robinson]

I do not think I can talk to that point. We come back to the fact that it can be done much more cheaply—I hope the Minister is listening. RP2 should be analysed and developed properly. It can also be done much earlier. In this period of difficult recovery, we need projects that generate growth and employment now. This is not going to come in—on the best of cases—until 2026 to Birmingham, and then it goes another 20 years beyond that. That is far too late. I was speaking to Geoff Inskip, managing director of Centro the other day, and he said we cannot wait so long, we need the increasing capacity now, as soon as possible. He is convinced that four-tracking between Coventry and Birmingham should be proceeded with forthwith. That is the first step towards RP2 and it should be taken now; we should not wait until 2026. That is an absurd proposition for meeting the country’s capacity needs for rail transport.