High Speed Rail (Preparation) Bill

Lilian Greenwood Excerpts

Wednesday 26th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)]

As we have heard today from numerous hon. Members, the railways face an imminent capacity crunch. The lack of capacity is holding back growth and costing the taxpayer, as our existing infrastructure bears an ever heavier burden. Soon, on the west coast main line, the route will effectively be full. For passengers, this means overcrowded peak services, with many commuter trains regularly running at more than 150% capacity. I challenge anyone to use their travel time productively when they do not even have a seat to sit in. We need radical action to break through the logjam and provide additional connections between our major cities. That is why a new line is needed.

HS2 is a project for the country as a whole; it is a new north-south rail line to connect our cities, slash journey times and release additional capacity for freight and passenger services. As a major infrastructure project, it can drive economic growth, attracting additional investment along the route while delivering jobs and skills. We have heard already today about the failure of this Government on infrastructure spending, which was down by nearly 40% in the past year. That makes it even more important that a new line is built, but there must be strong oversight of its delivery.

A number of hon. Members have said that we should improve the infrastructure we already have. Of course, we must continue to invest in our existing network. We have always been clear that projects such as the northern hub must be complementary to a new line, but there are limits to what we can do with our current infrastructure. We have already spent more than £9 billion on the west coast upgrade. Hon. Members representing constituencies along the route will know just how disruptive that process was; indeed, the hon. Member for Milton Keynes South (Iain Stewart) described it as an absolute nightmare. Although that work made essential improvements, it did not provide the additional capacity needed to keep pace with passenger demand. As Network Rail has said:

“The lack of capacity will become even more acute beyond 2024 as demand continues to grow. The most effective and best value for money way to create additional capacity will be through building a new line.”

We must not look at passenger growth in isolation. The freight sector has enjoyed a decade of continual growth, but with limited additional paths available, there is a risk that freight operators will have to be turned away in the future. Any Government serious about climate change will want a growing rail freight sector to help reduce carbon emissions and congestion on our motorways. But the challenges facing freight underline the danger of treading water instead of delivering a new line.

We also have to consider the improvements that can be made to passenger services. As a constituency MP, I know how overcrowded and slow the services between Nottingham and Birmingham can be, holding back a growing commuter route, and inadequate connections between our core cities are stopping commuter routes developing at all. It can take more than two hours to travel from Nottingham to Leeds on existing services, but the new line should cut that journey time by two thirds.

A number of hon. Members, including the hon. Member for North West Leicestershire (Andrew Bridgen) and my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hall Green (Mr Godsiff), have suggested that high-speed rail will only benefit London, but that underplays the growth we have seen in regional traffic. From 2000 to 2010, passenger growth between Manchester and London was 70%, whereas between Manchester and Birmingham it was 105%. In addition, we must not forget that this project was driven forward, in part, by the regions. For example, Centro, the transport authority covering Birmingham, started to make the case for high-speed rail in 2008, before the last Labour Government became committed to the project.

The Government have announced this week a regional growth commission, chaired by Lord Deighton. Ministers must ensure that local authorities have every opportunity to contribute to that review. As my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman) rightly said, the Government must work with local bodies, including transport authorities and local enterprise partnerships, to maximise economic development and the benefits from released capacity. This is an area where the case has not been made strongly enough. So far, local media coverage has been dominated by HS2 Ltd’s suggestions for reductions to existing mainline services. That is a pity, because the released capacity and rolling stock could help enable more local services and even the reversal of some Beeching-era cuts, but Ministers and HS2 Ltd have not made that case. They must do so if the constituents of Members such as my hon. Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel) are to be convinced.

That is part of a wider problem. It sometimes feels like the project is being developed in isolation, with little regard for other transport needs. We know that we will not see a decision on a spur to Heathrow until the Davies commission reports, after the next election. We would have liked that decision to be made sooner.

We are also concerned about the day-to-day running of HS2 Ltd, for which Ministers are ultimately responsible. A station redesign for Euston was announced with no prior warning or consultation. My right hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Frank Dobson) spoke passionately on behalf of his constituents about that point and many others. New tunnels appeared for west London and the east midlands without clear information about how they would impact on the overall cost of the project.

According to the National Audit Office, the Department for Transport and HS2 Ltd need to do more to make the business case for high-speed rail. There has been no information on the cost of tickets. The new line cannot be a rich man’s toy; all fares must be subject to regulation on the same basis as the rest of the network.

We have also not had the commitments we would like on apprenticeships. We have said that an apprenticeship should be created for every £1 million spent, creating 33,000 apprenticeships over the lifetime of the construction project. A similar approach is training a new generation of skilled workers through Crossrail, and Ministers should build on the experience to ensure that apprenticeships and opportunities for young people are delivered as part of the new rail line.

Many right hon. and hon. Members and their constituents have understandable concerns and questions remaining about compensation and I would be grateful if the Minister could tell us when he expects the new consultation on the subject to be announced. We need to make sure that we are getting value for money, especially as we are debating a spending Bill today for a project that has increased its preparatory budget from £773 million in 2010 to more than £900 million today. We will continue to press the Government on these issues in Committee.

Let me recap. There are real questions that Ministers need to address. However, they are questions about how the project is being introduced, not about the need for it. We can meet our capacity challenges only through serious investment, and treading water is not an option.

For too long we ran a 19th century railway on the 20th century principle of “make do and mend”. In an age of rising passenger demand, that is no longer enough. We are not managing decline; we are investing in the future. The proposed line will cover 330 route miles, directly linking most of our major cities and cutting journey times from others. It will improve transport links between England, Scotland and Wales, as my hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd South (Susan Elan Jones) pointed out. It will meet or even exceed the standards of the rail infrastructure of our continental competitors. It will be a north-south rail line—one might even call it a one nation rail line.

It would have been better to have introduced a hybrid Bill for the whole route, but at least this preparation or paving Bill does cover both phases. We will support the Bill as we want the project to succeed, and we will hold the Government to account as we go into Committee.