High Speed Rail (West Midlands - Crewe) Bill

Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts

Report stage & 3rd reading & 3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Monday 15th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. What the hon. Lady is saying is important, and I presume that she will be linking her remarks to the new clauses.

[Laura Smith]

My speech is all about the way in which HS2 will help to deal with these matters, but I will speed it up, Mr Deputy Speaker. My apologies.

I am not for one moment suggesting that HS2 will solve all these problems alone, but it can and must play an important role as part of a wider strategy. As I said on Second Reading:

“My vision for HS2 is not as an end in itself, benefiting only businesses and commuters, but as a catalyst for the radical rebalancing of our economy”.—[Official Report, 30 January 2018; Vol. 635, c. 741-42.]

I firmly believe that we need to shift our economy towards investment-led growth. The choice that has been presented between HS2 and better east-west links in the north is an entirely false one. In any case, Northern Powerhouse Rail services will, at two of their most important regional links, run on HS2 infrastructure.

Some businesses choose to pay almost four times as much per square foot for premises in London and the south because of the poor connectivity in the north. Last year, a report by the Institute for Public Policy Research North indicated that planned transport investment in London was two and a half times higher per person than in the north of England, and productivity in London is reported to be some 40% greater than in the north, demonstrating a strong correlation between connectivity and productivity. In its recent report, High Speed Rail Industry Leaders set out why it believes that improved connectivity will lead to greater regional productivity, and enhanced specialisation that will help us to bring about a more balanced economy.

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[Mike Amesbury]

In 2017, Northern rail should have been delivering two trains an hour from Northwich to Manchester on the mid-Cheshire line; it is still not doing that. When we hear of HS2’s costs spiralling from £57 billion up to even £106 billion, people look at the northern powerhouse slogan as a real damp squib.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. I am just a little worried: we are obviously talking about new clauses to the Bill, and as much as we have all suffered with Northern rail, I want to try to keep the debate where it should be.

[Yvette Cooper]

Mr Deputy Speaker is completely right: we could go on for a very long time about the problems with Northern rail. My hon. Friend is also right. The review in new clause 4 should focus on the geographic impact and the impact for towns, because time and again we just see our town services go backwards and our chances of getting any capital investment in towns disappear, while the Government always talk about these huge billions of pounds going into connections for the cities. The compact between different parts of the country, particularly between our cities and towns, has now broken. I do not think anybody quite recognises the seriousness of that. This debate about HS2 is carrying on while we ignore that serious and growing divide.

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[Yvette Cooper]

I am conscious of the time and see Mr Deputy Speaker looking at me, so I shall give way only briefly.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)]

I am very relaxed.

[John Redwood]

How would a review help, given that the right hon. Lady’s Front-Bench colleagues and the current Government are united behind the current scheme, which does nothing to help our towns?

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[Michael Fabricant]

Mr Deputy Speaker, you will know that I am not a controversial person. Far be it from me for one moment to cause any internecine warfare between my two great friends on the Back Benches, my hon. Friends the Members for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy) and for The Cotswolds (Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown), but I am afraid that I am going to have to take the side of my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford on the case of the NFU. I have been involved both with phase 1 and phase 2a. My staff and I personally have been involved in trying to get people to meet HS2 and to have meetings with the NFU and HS2; it just does not often happen. HS2 has seen a huge turnover of staff, including managing directors and chairmen, so trying to get any form of co-ordination between one lot of HS2 people and another lot—let alone their meeting at the NFU locally—is often impossible. Does my hon. Friend agree?

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)]

And that is from a non-controversial Member.

[Jeremy Lefroy]

Sadly, I have to agree that what my hon. Friend says is sometimes the case, but I would hope that with the Minister’s intervention—she has been kind to intervene in a number of cases—matters will speed up.

Given that the Chair of High Speed Rail (West Midlands - Crewe) Bill Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Rochford and Southend East (James Duddridge), is in the House, let me just say that it has been remarkable how some matters have been settled just when they were about to go to his Committee. It is therefore a matter not just of an MP getting involved, but sometimes of an issue actually coming before the Committee. That should not be the case. Common sense should prevail; getting common-sense matters put in place should not depend on pressure from a Member of Parliament or the Committee.

I am most grateful for the forbearance of hon. Members, but there are several very important matters that the House needs to be aware of and which I have tried to summarise. The first is the overall cost, about which we need the Government and HS2 to be honest with the House. The second is the question of the use and reuse of the spoil from the railway, another matter about which HS2 needs to be frank and honest with the House because of the consequences for the transport network and costs. The third is a plea that HS2 is open and transparent with all those affected, that it deals with things on the spot and that it delegates authority to its staff on the ground so that decisions can be made without the great distress that has been caused to so many of my constituents.

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[Jim McMahon]

I should say that I think Labour has a good track record on devolution and devolving power. Does my hon. Friend accept that the concept of the northern powerhouse is like the concept of a cake without the ingredients?

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)]

I do not want to hear too much about cake.

[Mr Lewis]

I know exactly what my hon. Friend is saying, although I do not watch “The Great British Bake Off” regularly. He is right and he was in the vanguard as one of the local government leaders in Greater Manchester who were the most dynamic and entrepreneurial in looking at the potential of devolution to transform the communities that he now represents in this place. He demonstrated that local leadership in that capacity could make a transformational difference and I pay tribute to him for that.

My hon. Friend also articulated, more than most, the risks of the northern powerhouse model that was presented, in terms of the lack of resources and investment, and the failure to transfer adequate powers. He is right that the Labour Government did some good things on devolution. I remember attending seminar after seminar at No.10 Downing Street about how to improve buses outside London. Every time we were asked the question and at every opportunity we said, “Reregulation and integration”, but that was refused by the then Government. While it is true that many good things were done, that Government were reluctant to devolve in the way that they should have done.

Hon. Members have expressed concerns about the specific nature of HS2, but it is sad that we do not hear enough from them about the centrality of rebalancing the economy if we are to achieve our potential on a long-term basis. Whether we are for or against Brexit, that is a fact. If we continue to ensure that swathes of this country are not supported to fulfil their potential through investment, we are not only damaging those communities and preventing individuals from having the opportunities and life chances that others have, we are damaging UK plc by failing to see that it has a massive dampening effect on our productivity, our competitiveness and our capacity for innovation.

Hon. Members on both sides of the House and representing all areas of the country should acknowledge that this issue is about the national interest. It is not just about the interests of the north of England, although we are here to represent and articulate those interests, but about the long-term interests of the country. Our constituents have been short-changed for far too long in terms of the share of the cake that is available to be distributed under any Government.

I say gently to one or two Conservative Members that Lord Adonis has not been a Transport Minister for about nine years, so Conservative Ministers have had opportunities to make one or two amendments to the scheme if they are uncomfortable with it. I wonder whether their concerns about Lord Adonis have something to do with other factors than his tweaking of the route—

[Michael Fabricant]

I am bemused by the hon. Gentleman’s talk of one or two amendments and tweaking. Does he not think it is more than a tweak when the railway line was originally proposed to use an existing transport corridor up the M40 and then suddenly was changed with a ruler to go straight through the most virgin of countryside? That was more than a tweak.

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Do not give way again.

[Mr Lewis]

I have been following instructions from you for 20 years, Mr Deputy Speaker, so I will continue to do so in this debate. The hon. Gentleman used his usual colourful language, but my point was that for nine years Lord Adonis has been nowhere near this scheme or the Department for Transport. If the hon. Gentleman genuinely feels that a massive mistake was made, Lord Adonis’s successors have had plenty of opportunities to address those concerns.

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[Mr Lewis]

I say genuinely to the right hon. Gentleman that that is a false choice. In Greater Manchester, thanks to changes the Government have made, we are seeking finally to have the capacity to reintegrate, re-coordinate and, where appropriate, re-regulate our buses. However, the level of subsidy per commuter in Greater Manchester, compared with London, is frankly shocking in terms of the Mayor of Greater Manchester’s capacity to radically improve bus services across the conurbation. I genuinely say to the right hon. Gentleman—this is not a party political point—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. We are straying way off. We are not about bus services. We are not about subsidies. I am sure the Member for Bury South will not be tempted. That is what Members are trying to do: they are trying to tempt him into a debate that we are not having at this stage.

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[Rachael Maskell]

I remind the right hon. Gentleman that we are debating phase 2a of the HS2 project. That is the remit of the Bill—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. That is for me to judge. I have been very lenient to Members on both sides throughout the debate. To try to stop these remarks at this late stage would be a bit unjust. I have tried to stop Members being tempted, but everybody is trying to build on the debate that took us out of scope, and I recognise that at times, we have gone out of scope. We have been in this area once already and it would be remiss of me not—

[Rachael Maskell]

It was with regards to my amendment.

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Of course we will come to your amendment.

[Rachael Maskell]

I just wanted to say to the right hon. Gentleman that my amendment can therefore apply only to phase 2a. His aspiration may be to review the whole project, but my amendment applies only to the contents of the Bill.