High Speed 2

Kelvin Hopkins Excerpts

Wednesday 25th March 2015 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Gillan]

I am proud of my colleagues who are in government—and should remain in government—who have spoken up and pointed out the failings of this project from within Government, as I did when I was part of the Government. I have had the good fortune of being liberated on the Back Benches, and am able to speak out freely in public. That is not always possible. However, I always observed Cabinet collective responsibility and only spoke on platforms in my constituency. I wish the same could be said of the Liberal Democrats, who seem to have cast Cabinet collective responsibility, and that sort of responsibility for being in government, to the wind. The politics of convenience are not my politics, so I am proud of the part that my colleagues have played. They have been stalwart compatriots in a very difficult subject area for all of us. None of us here is really naturally a rebel, and this is a difficult issue to grasp, as I hope people will appreciate.

By default, HS2 has been part of that long-term economic plan. As the doubts have been growing about it, I think we need to ask ourselves whether this is the best way forward for the honestly held ambitions of Conservatives for this country—or indeed, of any other party. There is only a small chance that the incoming Government will totally abandon the plans, and if they do, it may now only be because they are being held to ransom by a smaller party. Alex Salmond declared that one of his demands as the price for propping up a Labour Government would be to start the high-speed rail link from Scotland to England, before connecting Birmingham to London.

I like and admire many of my Labour colleagues. No prisoners are ever taken by them, and I am second to none in my admiration for the right hon. Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Frank Dobson), who has trodden this path with me over five years, but surely even the Labour party, should it be successful, would not want that sort of political blackmail as the hallmark of its term in government.

[Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)]

Will the right hon. Lady give way?

[Mrs Gillan]

I will, but my next sentence is that I do not want a Labour, or Labour-led, Government.

[Kelvin Hopkins]

I just say that if the Scottish National party is so keen, perhaps the Scottish Parliament could pay for it.

[Mrs Gillan]

There is a lot of support for that on this side of the House. I do not want a Labour-led Government, and certainly not one that will be blackmailed by a smaller party. I want an incoming Conservative Government with a healthy majority to rethink, refine and re-engineer this project before we are locked into the most expensive Procrustean bed in history.

I turn to some of the detail and the increasing problems. On the current plans for HS2 phase 1, there is still no confirmed connection to central London. The Euston proposals have gone back to the drawing board and Old Oak Common just might be the final terminus. That will connect with nowhere meaningful for many years.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Betts, and to follow the right hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs Gillan). I have spoken on HS2 on previous occasions in the House and I remain of the view—in fact, it has got stronger—that is wholly unnecessary and ridiculously expensive. The figure of £50 billion is talked about quite a bit, but Hansard on 5 March shows that my hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) drew attention to evidence presented to the HS2 Committee that

“hidden costs will raise the overall cost of the HS2…to £138 billion”. —[Official Report, 5 March 2015; Vol. 593, c. 1062.]

That is a massively higher figure. My contacts in the industry suggest that that figure is perfectly justifiable and some say that the real figure would be even more.

Even if things are expensive, I would still support them if they are the right thing to do, but this project is not. I made a written submission to the House of Lords Committee to set out my views in more detail, which is available on the internet. I have spoken on them before, but let us get the first nonsense of HS2 out of the way first of all: that must be Euston. It is the wrong station in the wrong place. The last place that a business traveller from Birmingham or whatever who wants to get to the City or Canary Wharf wants to arrive is Euston. They would want to get to somewhere linked on to Crossrail to get through to those places, and not have to struggle with their laptop and wheelie case from Euston on to the tube and then the docklands light railway to get to Canary Wharf. That is a nonsense.

[Michael Fabricant]

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. Is he also aware that a business traveller from the Birmingham area first has to get to Birmingham New Street and then, with all their baggage, has to walk across Birmingham to get to Curzon Street station, only to end up at the wrong station—Euston? As I said earlier on, any hope of getting directly to France has now evaporated.

[Kelvin Hopkins]

I am not yet a Privy Counsellor and I do not suppose that I ever will be, but the hon. Gentleman’s point about Curzon Street was absolutely right; I was coming to it myself. In my submission to the House of Lords Committee, which was titled, “Sensible alternatives to HS2”, I gave three specific alternatives that would cost a fraction of that amount but solve all the problems that HS2 might supposedly solve.

First, I suggested the electrification of the Birmingham Snow Hill line, via Banbury, to London. It currently goes to Marylebone or Paddington, but it could easily be linked—the tracks are already there, so all it needs is a bit of track work—to Crossrail going in both directions. If we had an electric train from Snow Hill in the middle of the Birmingham business district that went direct to Canary Wharf at 125 mph, someone could work on a laptop without changing trains and I bet that train would beat HS2 if otherwise that person had to get to Curzon Street and then get two tube trains at the London end. HS2 is a complete and total nonsense, but that suggestion would provide wonderful extra capacity.

That would also allow travel direct to Heathrow from the centre of Birmingham and it could be linked through from Leamington Spa on to the west coast main line, so we could have Birmingham airport linked to Heathrow airport with a direct, 125 mph, one-hour service. They could almost be hubs or satellites for each other. There could be trains from further north—from Manchester—coming down the west coast main line, joining the Banbury line and going directly from the centre of Manchester to Heathrow or Canary Wharf. It is possible for a tiny fraction of the cost of HS2.

[Frank Dobson]

Does my hon. Friend agree that it is the benefits that the alternatives to HS2 would bring to other parts of the country that probably explain why there is a majority against HS2 in every region of this country, according to the opinion polls, even in the north-west, where people are most enthusiastic about it? Even there, the divide is 43% to 39%.

[Kelvin Hopkins]

My right hon. Friend has spoken wisely, as always.

[Mr Clive Betts (in the Chair)]

Will the hon. Gentleman bring his remarks to a conclusion, please, so the Front-Bench spokesmen can respond?

--- Later in debate ---

[Kelvin Hopkins]

Yes, indeed.

My second alternative to HS2 is to upgrade the east coast main line. It needs to be four-tracked at Welwyn with an extra viaduct, a flyover at Peterborough, a flyover at Newark and four-tracking in various places, so that there can be non-stop services from King’s Cross to Edinburgh in three and a half hours, which was done on a test run in 1990; indeed, that test run was slightly faster than is being proposed with HS2. [Interruption.] Not a problem.

Finally I will propose what I have proposed before, which is the GB Freight Route. That is a dedicated rail freight line, to carry lorries on trains from the channel tunnel to every major region of Britain, using old trackbed and under-utilised lines, without causing any environmental or planning problems. The details are included in my paper here, which I have submitted to others from time to time.

Those three alternatives together would cost a tiny fraction of what it is proposed HS2 will cost and would be infinitely more useful. Indeed, the freight line would pay for itself.

I will leave my case there. I would love to speak for longer; I can speak for another two hours unaided, if you wish, Mr Betts, but I have probably said enough.

[Mr Clive Betts (in the Chair)]

I will not aid the hon. Gentleman in that course.

I ask the hon. Gentleman—Nick Hurd—just to keep his remarks to two minutes. I am sorry, but the Minister needs to have time to reply to the debate.