High Speed Rail (West Midlands-Crewe) Bill

Lord Adonis Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 9th November 2020 Grand Committee

Moved by

[Lord Adonis]

1: Clause 1, page 1, line 18, at end insert—
“( ) The commencement of the scheduled works may not take place until the Secretary of State has presented a bill to Parliament providing for the construction of a high-speed railway from the West Midlands to Leeds.”

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to start the Committee stage of the Bill. On behalf of all noble Lords, I thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, and his colleagues, some of whom are here today, for the extraordinary work they did on the Bill in the Select Committee that considered the private interests at stake, which are considerable, given that we are building an entirely new railway. I had the privilege of sitting in on part of the Select Committee’s consideration and was extremely impressed by the way it handled this business. The House is enormously indebted to the noble and learned Lord and his colleagues.

We now come to the public interests at stake. The most important is clearly how the line from Birmingham to Crewe interacts with the wider plan for HS2, and that is what my amendment refers to. The key issue now is the scope of HS2 as a full project. This is clearly the extension of the first phase of HS2, London to Birmingham, which is currently being built. I am glad to say that it is now beyond the point of no return, with 250 construction sites between London and Birmingham, more than £10 billion having been spent and thousands of workers on-site. This is a critical national project for building better after Covid and enhancing the nation’s infrastructure.

However, the question is what the scope of HS2 will be north of Birmingham. Here, I wish to probe the Minister. The plan for HS2—which has been accepted by the Government and is the one laid down by the Labour Government, in which I was privileged to be Transport Secretary—is a 330-mile HS2 scheme extending to Manchester in the north-west and to Sheffield and Leeds in the north-east, in both cases connecting to the main lines going further north: the west coast main line, going on to Liverpool and Glasgow in the west, and the east coast main line, going on to Newcastle and Edinburgh in the east. However, the big issue now arising is what will happen to the eastern leg. By pursuing this measure, the Government are making clear their determination to go on to Manchester, since obviously, a high-speed line is not going to stop at Crewe. Indeed, the Government reaffirmed the detail of the route going into Manchester, including the quite tricky issues regarding the layout of the station and track at Manchester Piccadilly station a few weeks ago.

At the same time, the Government also raised a very big question mark about the line going to Sheffield and Leeds. They did not reaffirm the route. They could have done so because the route was agreed in detail when I was Secretary of State and has been reaffirmed several times since, with amendments to take account of further consultation, in which the biggest issue was the treatment of Sheffield, particularly the genuinely difficult question of whether the eastern leg should go through Sheffield or through Meadowhall, to the east of Sheffield. That has now been resolved, with the plan being to go through Sheffield itself. No one has so far produced a better plan than that, but the Government said a few weeks ago that they intended to consult further on that issue. A whole load of acronyms come into play at this point, with reviews of different lines in the north and how Northern Powerhouse Rail might interact with them. Given that, with any of those different schemes, the ultimate question is whether or not HS2 is built, in a sense they are irrelevant. Obviously, HS2 has to be integrated properly with other lines when it is built, but that does not affect the fundamental question of whether it is built or not.

The general view among stakeholders is that the Government are separating what was going to be a single phase 2b, which would have been Crewe to Manchester and Birmingham to Sheffield and Leeds, into either a phase 2b and phase 2c—that is, building Crewe to Manchester first and then Birmingham to Sheffield and Leeds—or, which I think is much more likely if the two are separated, cancelling the eastern leg. That might not be for ever; I suspect that once the line is built through to Manchester, the wave of concern on the eastern side of the Pennines will be so great that ultimately, we will end up building a line to Leeds. But it will not be part of the original HS2 scheme, and it could be opened 20, 30 or even 40 years after the Manchester line is opened.

So, I am keen to press the Minister on what the Government’s position is. I am expecting her to give me a lot of waffle: words that do not mean anything in terms of a firm commitment. She will tell us that there is a further review—she is nodding—and that it will report by the end of the year. I know all the stuff that is likely to be coming from the civil servants but, because I am still fairly well connected with her department and what is going on, I can say that at the moment a battle royale is taking place within Whitehall as to whether the eastern leg will proceed.

There is a confluence of forces that, unfortunately in this case, are extremely malign. Dominic Cummings, the Prime Minister’s chief adviser, has never liked HS2 and tried to get the whole thing cancelled. He was unable to persuade the Prime Minister of that in respect of the first phase, which is why the Government announced in February that London to Birmingham would definitely go ahead. It would have been truly perverse to have cancelled it at that stage because it was already being constructed, so it is proceeding. Because the part of the Bill dealing with Birmingham to Crewe was already in play and the implied commitment to Manchester was therefore simply too great—there are also some very powerful Conservative forces in Greater Manchester that want the line to proceed—he did not feel strong enough to oppose that.

What he is doing now is seeking to axe the eastern leg by means of endless review, and in this, of course, he has an ally in the Treasury, which has always been sceptical of HS2 because it does not like making big, long-term infrastructure commitments of any kind. With Covid-19 and all the pressures arising thereafter, having a long-standing and further review will, of course, suit its purposes in any event. That is the situation that we face now.

I am not expecting—I am a realist in these matters—that the power of my rhetoric this afternoon will change the Minister’s mind and enable her unilaterally to make declarations that she would not otherwise make. I am well aware of what is going to come in a few minutes’ time. I am making these remarks—and will repeat them on Report—and hoping to build a coalition of supporters, particularly those who are affected by what might happen on the eastern leg, in order to build up public pressure on the Government. As with the first phase of HS2, it is only public pressure, particularly in relation to the impact on the levelling-up agenda—which the Government themselves say they believe in, and which will, of course, be wrecked if HS2 goes only one side of the Pennines—that will force the Government ultimately to commit to building both the eastern and the western legs.

In that cause, let me make clear, as the original architect of the scheme, why the eastern leg is so important. The three big arguments for HS2—capacity, connectivity and speed—are interconnected and apply equally to the eastern leg of HS2 through to Leeds as they do to the western leg through to Manchester. The capacity constraints of the Victorian railway—or, I should say, in large part the pre-Victorian railway, because the London-to- Birmingham railway opened before the coronation of Queen Victoria and is nearly 200 years old now—were just as great over time, although not immediately as great, on the Midland main line, which goes to Sheffield from St Pancras, and the east coast main line, which goes to York and Newcastle from King’s Cross. This was an absolutely critical factor in persuading Sir David Rowlands, the first chairman of HS2, and me, as Secretary of State, to proceed with the integrated plan for both the eastern and western legs. If we do not proceed with HS2 going through to both Manchester and Leeds, ultimately we will have to upgrade the Midland main line and the east coast main line, which would be ferociously expensive.

The noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, is speaking after me; he is a very eminent railway engineer and manager. My noble friend Lord Berkeley is in the Grand Committee as well. They might not be aware of it, but they were hugely influential in my making the decision to go east as well as west, because when I was Secretary of State, they came to present to me a plan for the upgrade of the east coast main line. The east coast main line, as noble Lords who know about the layout of the railways may know, has massive capacity constraints. In particular, the Welwyn Viaduct, which is very close to the beginning of the line at King’s Cross, is a huge and really problematic bottleneck on the line. It is one of the biggest viaducts in the country and can take only two tracks of what is otherwise a four-track railway, going all the way through to the Midlands. It would be ferociously expensive to widen, quite apart from the big planning battles that would ensue and the fact that there are big commuter flows across that line; Welwyn North station is actually on the edge of the viaduct.

When the noble Lords presented their plan to me in 2009, it entailed a £12 billion incremental upgrade of the east coast main line. I hope that I am not telling any stories out of school when I say that the moment that the two noble Lords left my office, the chief engineer of HS2, who was present with me at the meeting, said, “You can double all of those figures immediately” and that was then, in 2009. The chief engineer said that the cost of replacing Welwyn Viaduct alone—which is what would have to be done—would be several billion pounds. The cash cost is only the beginning of the problems that would be faced in upgrading the east coast main line, because, of course, the cost of disruption of one of the busiest main lines in the country would also have to be faced.

The cost of disruption was a big factor in the decision to go ahead with HS2, rather than carrying through yet another upgrade of the west coast main line. As noble Lords will be aware, in 2009 we had only just completed the previous upgrade of the west coast main line, which cost—in 2000 prices—£9 billion. It would be significantly more than that now to conduct a further upgrade. Of that £9 billion, £1 billion was needed to pay train operating companies not to run trains, because there were very complicated and expensive compensation payments. That did not begin to compensate private individuals and companies for the inconvenience and disruption costs of not having a railway for this period, which had been going on for the best part of 10 years. All those arguments will apply to the Midland main line and the east coast main line if there have to be upgrades because it is not possible to extend HS2 through to Leeds.

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[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord McNicol of West Kilbride) (Lab)]

I have received no requests to speak after the Minister.

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

I am grateful to all colleagues who have spoken, and to the Minister for replying to the debate. To be absolutely clear, I have no intention whatever of seeking to delay phase 2a. This amendment is a device to get a debate on what is to happen to the scheme as a whole. I am completely with all of my colleagues who have said that the importance of this is that we cannot see phase 2a in isolation. We obviously would not build a 36-mile high-speed railway in isolation; the interaction between phases 2a and 2b is the essence of the project, and I therefore make no apology for tabling this amendment.

A lot of good points were raised in the discussion. I fully respect the fact that the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, did not support the project to start with but she made the critical point that to build a railway stopping in Birmingham, and therefore to deny the north the benefits of the scheme and extend them only to the Midlands, would be perverse and counterproductive.

The point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, about the importance of continuity and mobile factories was very well made. One reason why our infrastructure costs are so high in this country is because of the stop-go attitude we have adopted historically to the building of major infrastructure. She mentioned the electrification of the Great Western Railway, which I also authorised when I was Secretary of State. The estimate that I was given then, in 2009, for the entire cost of the electrification of the Great Western from London right through to Bristol, Cardiff and Swansea was £1 billion. The noble Baroness can probably tell me what the latest estimate is, but when I last checked I think it was heading towards £4 billion, and it has been substantially descoped. For example, it is not going to Bristol Temple Meads but will now stop at Cardiff, which I would be very concerned about if I was in south Wales, and it has been massively delayed. That goes to the heart of the point the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, made about continuity in projects. If we separate Birmingham to Leeds from Birmingham to Crewe and Manchester, and turn it into a separate project with discontinuity between the two, that alone would probably ultimately double or triple the cost of the project, as well as delaying it and therefore delaying its economic benefits.

My noble friend Lord Liddle said that there is a debate in the further north-west, going up towards Scotland in Carlisle and Cumbria, about the benefits. He is absolutely right that there will be direct benefits because it will take an hour off the journey time to Carlisle from London. However, he said that the saving in journey time would be to London and the south-east in that respect. It is absolutely crucial to understand that there is also a massive journey time saving to the Midlands, because the first stop on the line out of London is in the West Midlands and that is a huge benefit to the north-west, as it would be to the east Midlands and to Leeds if the eastern leg is built.

I am not going to respond to all the other points raised, except to congratulate my noble friend Lord Berkeley on his massive ingenuity in bringing in the services to Paris and Brussels. The Minister did not rise to that challenge but I assume that she will address it in due course.

Coming to the Minister’s response, I am now much more concerned. She speaks with such elegance that she is of course beguiling, but what she actually said in the content of her speech left me much more concerned after than before. She said something which I was not aware of before, but which I will take up and probe significantly on Report. She said that there will be Bills—plural—for phase 2b. I have never seen that stated by the Government in the past. It was always the intention, and I thought it still was the formal intention of Her Majesty’s Government, that phase 2b —that is, Crewe through to Manchester and Birmingham through to Leeds—would be encompassed in one hybrid parliamentary Bill, not more. Because I have sat on both sides of the fence, not just as Secretary of State but when in more recent times I was privileged to be on the board of HS2, I know that three years ago we were then preparing for a single Bill to take HS2 from Crewe through to Manchester, and Birmingham through to Sheffield and Leeds. I think that under the constrained proceedings of the Grand Committee, the Minister cannot respond to me again but maybe she might respond me to in writing.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord McNicol of West Kilbride) (Lab)]

She can.

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[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

She can? Is it now the firm intention of the Government to split phase 2b and to have separate Bills for Crewe to Manchester, and then Birmingham to Leeds? The Government have made an extremely significant statement, if so.

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

The noble Lord, Lord Adonis, will know that because the hybrid Bills sometimes prove so challenging to get through, if they are too large, it was one of the recommendations of Oakervee to produce smaller Bills. It is, therefore, yes, one of the things that the Government are looking at.

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

I was not aware that the Government had stated that it was now their policy. The Minister has said that it is a matter of government policy this afternoon and that there would definitely not be a single Bill, so is it now the Government’s policy to separate the two?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

That is the case, yes.

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

My Lords, I say to my colleagues and friends who lead local authorities and are MPs for constituencies in the east Midlands and Yorkshire that they should take careful note of that extremely significant statement, because what it means is—and just at that point, the Division Bell rings.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord McNicol of West Kilbride) (Lab)]

But that is not for us.

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

Is it not? It is the Commons? It is so confusing. What that means is that the east Midlands—which has all the challenges of deprivation and economic growth referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, in his opening remarks—and Yorkshire will now definitely be downgraded relative to the north-west in the construction of HS2.

The important point about the separation of the hybrid Bills is that it will not just mean that the phasing is now separated, which risks the continuity referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, and my noble friend Lord Tunnicliffe—he has huge experience of constructing railways, as a former managing director of London Underground, so he absolutely understands this point. If the Bills are to be handled and passed separately, it is also very likely that there will be a substantial period between what is now to become phase 2b and phase 2c—Birmingham to the east Midlands, Sheffield and Leeds—even if the Government proceed with phase 2c. The separation of the Bills makes it all the more likely that phase 2c will be delayed for a substantial period beyond phase 2b.

I am grateful to the Minister for replying to the debate but I am more concerned after her remarks than I was before, and I hope that local authority and political leaders in the east Midlands and Yorkshire will have taken very careful note of what the Government have said today—a categorical statement that they intend to downgrade and possibly deny entirely the benefits of HS2 to the east Midlands and Yorkshire.

As I said, there is a problem of language here. The Minister said it was the Government’s policy to provide the benefits of high-speed rail to the east Midlands and Yorkshire. There is no way you can provide the benefits of high-speed rail to the east Midlands and Yorkshire unless you provide high-speed rail to the east Midlands and Yorkshire. The Government are using weasel words such as “benefits of” without making the commitment which must flow from that if these words are to have real meaning—actually to build the high-speed line. The Minister is smiling at me but the one thing she will not do, and has not done today, is make a commitment actually to build this railway. I say to her, as I say to the local authority leaders and MPs in these regions, that they must not accept a shedload of waffle from the Government about benefits, reviews, staging or integrated plans if there is not a commitment actually to build the railway.

At the end of the day there will either be a railway or not be a railway and the whole tendency of government policy at the moment is not to build the railway from Birmingham to Leeds, and that will have a really devastating impact on the society and economies of the east Midlands, Yorkshire and the north-east if that is the case. I make no apology for raising this issue. I will return to it on Report. But at this stage—does the Minister wish to come back? I am very keen that she does.

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

She would like to very briefly come back. I will not take a shedload of waffle from the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, either. He has taken a simple statement—that a very large and complex Bill may be broken up into smaller Bills to make it more manageable—in a direction which certainly was not the intention of those words and I cannot believe he has been able to read that into them. Be that as it may, all I have done is confirm that one big Bill may be split into smaller Bills. That is it.

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

Actually, the Minister has—

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord McNicol of West Kilbride) (Lab)]

We cannot have a debate. To clarify the procedure: if the proposer of an amendment, in their winding-up remarks, asks a further question of the Minister, the Minister may respond to those remarks. There is not then the opportunity—

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

I sense the mood of the Grand Committee. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord McNicol of West Kilbride) (Lab)]

Minister? You are fine?

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[Lord Hope of Craighead (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I should like, first, to thank the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, and the noble Baroness, Lady Vere of Norbiton, for their kind words about the work of the committee which I had the honour of chairing. This allows me the opportunity to thank the members of the committee who served with me through the various stages of our protracted proceedings. They were all a pleasure to work with, and I owe a great deal to their experience and the thoughtful contributions they made to our debates as we listened to the various petitioners whose concerns we had to deal with. It is also right to thank the broadcasting team, who had a very difficult job not only in dealing with us when we were sitting virtually, but when we came back to the Committee Room and sat in a hybrid fashion. They were with us in the room and I had first-hand experience of their difficulties in trying to set up those communications. I offer them my sincere thanks, as well as to the members of the committee.

Turning to the amendment, I am very much in sympathy with what lies behind the request of the noble Baroness for great care to be taken in dealing with artefacts of this kind, in particular historical monuments and remains. Like the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, I have to say that our attention was not drawn to any burial sites or monuments at any stage during the proceedings. I would have expected the relevant parish council to have done that if there were any burial sites of substantial size, and certainly monuments. One thinks of war memorial monuments, for example. I am pretty sure that we would have been told if any were on the line of the route or within the trace—the areas to either side of the route that will be used for construction purposes. There was no suggestion that problems of that kind were likely to occur.

I think the noble Baroness would wish me to say that there is always the unexpected. As soon as you start digging up ground, you find out what is beneath it. One has to be alive to the fact that in the course of the works, things may be discovered that no one knew were there before, but which turn out to be of historical interest. So, like the noble Baroness, I expect an assurance from the Minister that great care will be taken if, by any chance, something of this kind is discovered. The works should be stopped so that an assessment can be made by qualified persons of how the remains, monuments or historical artefacts, if there be any, can be best preserved before they proceed any further. I do not imagine that that would cause a great deal of delay; it is important that we do not lose these historical records before they are gone for ever.

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

I agree with everything that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, has just said. I would just add one point. Crossrail has considerable experience of burial sites and monuments and is generally acknowledged to have dealt with them sensitively and to have made a significant contribution to the archaeological history of Britain. In respect of dealing properly with human remains, it has been extremely sensitive at every stage and has arranged for reburial as appropriate. I would have thought that the Crossrail experience offers a good example to HS2.

[Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I generally support this amendment, which is really about tone.

The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, and my noble friend Lord Adonis have touched on the question of the treatment of any burial sites and monuments that we come across. I felt sure that there was something, somewhere that requires HS2 to show some respect in this regard. My research shows that an information paper on burial grounds was published on 15 February 2019 for the Bill before us. Paragraph 3.1 states:

“Any human remains affected by the Proposed Scheme will be treated with all due dignity, respect and care. Any impact caused by works to construct the Proposed Scheme on human remains and associated monuments is an emotive and complex matter and HS2 Ltd and the Promoter recognise their duty to address the concerns of individuals and communities.”


The essence of that assurance is that any remains should be treated with

“all due dignity, respect and care.”

Had that been carried into the Bill, perhaps through some wording in the Explanatory Notes, one would feel that this would be handled sensitively. During the works for the Jubilee Line extension we did end up building through burial sites, and we were sensitive to how that was managed. I think that we caused no offence as a result.

Unfortunately, no reference is made to “dignity, respect and care” in the rest of that document. Nowhere in Schedule 20 is there any sense of that, nor is it set out in the Explanatory Notes. I hope that the Minister will find some way of assuring the Committee that those key cultural attitudes to burial sites will be carried through in the execution of the project.

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I hope that she will agree some or all of those because I could seek to persuade the House to set up a new Select Committee, as I have outlined, but I do not really want to and I hope that we can have some meetings first. I beg to move.

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

My Lords, I was having some difficulty following the arguments of my noble friend. He could of course move the motion he referred to on Report, but I can confidently predict that it would not be accepted by the House. Indeed, I am not sure that many other noble Lords would give it the time of day, precisely because we have had this exhaustive procedure up until now. Essentially, cutting through what my noble friend said—he has of course wanted to stop the scheme all the way through and has been a deep contrarian in that regard—he wants to create new avenues for opponents to stop the scheme. I recognise that, and it is a perfectly honourable thing to want to do.

What Parliament has to judge is whether the processes we have are robust and fair. My view is that they are very robust and very fair. They give complainants and people presenting petitions ample opportunity to make their case. The arrangements that pertain between the two Houses are there to keep a proper sense of proportion in the consideration of the petitions, so that all of the issues raised—the petitioning process is exhaustive and expensive—are not repeated ad nauseam in the second House. That is why the Private Bill arrangements are in place: so that you cannot re-open in the second House, as fully as my noble friend would wish, issues that have been considered by the first House. That seems to me to be perfectly reasonable. It does not withdraw the rights of petitioners to have their concerns properly assessed by Parliament. What it does is put in place a procedure that is fair and proportionate for the consideration of those petitions, which is very different.

The reason why my noble friend Lord Berkeley wants the TWA process to apply is that he is not content with parliamentary consideration of these petitions, and he therefore wants petitioners to be able to create a wholly new and additional process: the TWA process. That is grossly disproportionate. The point he made about changes to the first phase of the project, from London to Birmingham, confuses apples and pears. If you are going to make changes to legislation that has already been agreed by Parliament, you have no alternative but to go for a TWA-type process, unless you are going to produce an entirely new Bill. That is a completely separate issue from seeking to layer on top of parliamentary consideration of the Bill a wholly new process—the TWA process—while this legislation is going through and petitions are being considered. I do not think, having had close acquaintance with the processes, that petitioners are treated in any way unfairly. The arrangements between the two Houses give them ample opportunity, and the power is there for Parliament to make fundamental changes in respect of petitions that are raised between the two Houses. The allocation of responsibilities between the two Houses is laid down by convention.

What my noble friend Lord Berkeley wants to do, essentially, is to stop the scheme; I accept that. He wants to create as many possible avenues of further appeal and expense—this would add to expense—to delay it. Any reasonable observer, particularly those looking at the work of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, and his committee and the committee in the House of Commons, would think that Parliament has struck a fair and proper balance between the power of the Executive to propose a major project of this kind and the duty of Parliament to see that all private interests are properly considered before agreement is reached.

[Lord Liddle (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I very much agree with what my noble friend Lord Adonis has just said and disagree with my noble friend Lord Berkeley. As a member of the Select Committee, I did not feel bullied by the government counsel on this question. We considered the issue in depth, and the reasons why we said we would not consider such orders seemed valid in the light of that discussion. I am sure the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, can give a much more elegant legal explanation of these issues than I can.

When the Bill goes through the Commons, the Select Committee can recommend fundamental changes to the route of the line by making additional provisions, but the convention has been established that the Lords does not revisit these questions on petitions that are made to it. Therefore, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, announced at the start of our proceedings that we would not be recommending additional provisions and would be sticking with the convention. Then, of course, people say, “You could use transport and works orders”, but, in effect, they another form of additional provision. As I understand it, if this point were conceded, the decision-making process would be taken out of Parliament and put into the hands of the Secretary of State. It would then be subject to all the arguments about judicial review and whether things have been done properly that have bedevilled plans for airport expansion in this country, for example.

As a non-lawyer, I was totally persuaded by the argument that we should not contemplate these orders. We listened to the argument that was made in the infamous case of the Stone depot, and I was totally unpersuaded that, even if we had had the power to make such an order, it was actually sensible.

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[Lord Liddle (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I want to make a couple of brief points. First, it is important that there is some scheme of environmental monitoring, which I support. Three-monthly monitoring seems excessive, but it is good to have this amendment. Secondly, however, I am rather shocked by the tone of many noble Lords who are against HS2 in their treatment of these environmental questions. As one who served on your Lordships’ Select Committee on the Bill, HS2 seemed to me to display considerable concern and detailed knowledge of what it was doing on these points. Our exchanges with the Woodland Trust as witnesses were not in the tone of many noble Lords’ comments today. I thought that a good dialogue was opening up between the Woodland Trust and HS2. We made some recommendations in our report for more sensitive treatment of ancient woodland, particularly trying to avoid damage in the construction period, as well as recommendations on the planting of new woodland, but I am somewhat shocked by what I have heard this afternoon.

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

My Lords, I agree with everything my noble friend Lord Liddle just said. As a former member of the HS2 board and as the Minister who set up HS2 Ltd, environmental concerns were absolutely at the heart of what we sought to meet. By and large, HS2 has done a good job.

The fundamental concern many noble Lords have is that this railway is being built at all. We need to be quite clear about this. The impact on ancient woodland is miniscule as regards the proportion of woodland affected. Some noble Lords would prefer that the line was not built and there was no impact; I respect that entirely. However, Parliament has given these powers and it is a project of importance. The noble Lord, Lord Randall, says it is unpopular, but that is not what the polling shows at all. It shows that HS2 as a scheme is popular with the public at large. Railways are popular, and indeed, if I may point out to the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, they are particularly popular with Greens.

Unfortunately, a kind of parallel debate is taking place here. There is one between opponents of HS2 who are simply latching on to anything they can use to try to undermine the project, and the reality, which is that HS2 is doing, by and large, a good job. It could improve—of course all organisations can improve—but it is doing a good job of meeting its environmental obligations, and the requirements placed upon it by the Government are reasonable as regards no net loss.

I point out to the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, that he delivered one part of his speech condemning cost overruns at HS2, which was prefaced by calling for additional costs, which would be significant. He tried to pooh-pooh them away in a kind of rhetorical way, but it would be very significant if they were imposed on HS2. He needs to work out how he reconciles the first half of his speech with the second half.

On reporting, I am in strong support of full transparency and proper accounting processes, as I have been all the way through this project. I hope that the Minister will tell us what the process for reporting is. HS2 Ltd publishes a full annual report, which gives an update of the progress on the project across a number of dimensions, and it is regularly held to account by parliamentary committees, including the Public Accounts Committee, and internally by the Government.

However, I see merit, as my noble friend Lord Liddle said, in a requirement for an ongoing process for reporting on delivery against environmental and financial objectives. Subject to what the Minister says when she tells us what the reporting processes are, might it be possible to bring together my noble friend Lord Berkeley’s Amendment 4 and my noble friend Lord Tunnicliffe’s Amendment 9? The latter would require annual reporting in respect of the impact on ancient woodlands. My noble friend Lord Berkeley’s amendment would require quarterly reporting across a much wider range of impacts —not just environmental impacts, but costs of land acquisition, the progress of the project, and revenue forecasts and cost-benefit analyses. I support the broad range of issues that my noble friend Lord Berkeley wants to see reported on, but quarterly reporting is too regular. Subject to what the Minister says, if we are still not happy about the formal requirements for reporting after the Grand Committee, I wonder whether it might be possible to have annual reporting, as suggested in my noble friend Lord Tunnicliffe’s Amendment 9, across a broader range of indices. My noble friend is right that annual reporting is the way most organisations report on objectives and costs.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Barker) (LD)]

I call the noble Lord, Lord Framlingham. No? Perhaps we can come back to the noble Lord. I call the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead.

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I turn back to the amendments. I support all of them because, although obviously the impact of HS2 on the natural world is massive, it also affects people—individuals, families, communities. There are businesses that are going to be disrupted, possibly for a decade or more. That has to be taken into account, especially after the dreadful impact of the pandemic. In fact, the Covid response shows how the Government could put their hands in their pockets; they can track down that magic money tree and actually use money to try to make people’s lives better. I suggest that this is one of those situations where the Government have to do that and ensure that people are not harmed.

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

My Lords, I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, that I am not at all impugning her integrity; I am just disagreeing with her. It is perfectly in order for us to disagree, as we do on HS2. There is no issue of integrity at stake at all. I think that in transport terms HS2 is the greenest new infrastructure project taking place in the UK today because the alternative, unless we are going to stop people travelling and hold back economic growth, is to build more motorways or have more domestic aviation, and neither of those is more desirable than HS2. That is why green parties across most of the rest of the world have supported high-speed rail. In Germany, France and Spain, green parties have been leading protagonists of high-speed rail. The problem for the noble Baroness is that she represents the past, not the future, in terms of green policy. That is not impugning her integrity; I am afraid that it is simply stating a disagreement.

The issues raised by the noble Earl are serious but largely technical. They are not technical for the people involved, of course, who have an absolute right to fair and timely compensation, but they are technical in terms of the operational rules and they are very detailed. All I want to say is that all Members of the Grand Committee, whether they are for or against HS2, want to see fairness applied. We look to the Minister for her reply to the specific points that the noble Earl has raised. A lot of them are very technical so it may be that she does that in writing—she is nodding; the letter that follows may be a long one.

One of the great virtues of the House of Lords is that we have Members such as the noble Earl who have a high degree of expertise in these areas. That is a very great and positive thing about this House. With a very open mind, we want to take account of both what the noble Earl has said and what the Minister says in reply before deciding what to do on Report. However, I stress that being in favour of HS2 does not mean that one is in any way stinting with regard to the obligations of fairness and natural justice that the Government owe to the citizens of this country. I undertake personally to take a keen interest in what the Minister says in response to the noble Earl’s points, and I would be happy to be party to any meeting.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Barker) (LD)]

I call the next speaker, the noble Lord, Lord Framlingham.

High Speed Rail (West Midlands-Crewe) Bill

Lord Adonis Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords & Committee: 2nd sitting : House of Lords & Committee: 2nd sitting
Thursday 12th November 2020 Grand Committee

[Lord Liddle (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I oppose the amendment. I do not see any point in it whatever. It seems to me that in this country we can never make up our minds about whether we are going to do anything that is big and expensive. We have constant reviews, and we are constantly cancelling projects that have already made some advance. We have just had the independent Oakervee review of HS2, and we have just had a government decision to go ahead with the line to Manchester—although I share the worries of my noble friend Lord Adonis about what the Government are thinking about the eastern leg. However, I see no purpose in launching another review now.

My noble friend Lord Berkeley says that it is very difficult to get independent advice regarding all these concerns about costs, et cetera. Of course it is difficult to get independent advice, as the people who really know the facts are the ones who are doing the job. Unless the taxpayer is to fund an independent organisation to be critical of a scheme that Parliament has voted for and that the Government have reaffirmed and have cross-party support for, then this is a ludicrous proposal. I suppose that the answer to my noble friend’s legitimate concerns is to have an effective HS2 board. If there is an answer to this problem, it lies in having an effective board to supervise the management of the project. That is the point that the Government ought to be satisfying themselves on. I honestly do not think that this is a matter for legislation at all.

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

My Lords, I agree with every word that my noble friend Lord Liddle has said, and I hope that the Minister will not give an inch to this amendment and will comprehensively refute it when she speaks. HS2 has been reviewed to death.

I find it utterly astonishing that my noble friend Lord Berkeley should be moving this amendment because he has brought his great, independent wisdom and distinction to the biggest review yet of HS2, which concluded only this February after the best part of six months’ work. When he says that there are no independent people to conduct that review, it is a lot of complete nonsense. The members of the Oakervee review were very eminent and very independent: Doug Oakervee himself, a man of immense distinction in the delivery of infrastructure projects here and internationally, including some of the most successful developed in modern economies, in Hong Kong; my noble friend, who was the deputy chairman; Sir John Cridland, who is the former director-general of the CBI; Michèle Dix, who is responsible for directing Crossrail 2; Stephen Glaister, one of the most eminent transport economists in the world; Sir Peter Hendy, the chairman of Network Rail and former commissioner of Transport for London; Andrew Sentance, of the Bank of England; Professor Tony Travers, who is one of the most independent-minded and distinguished professors of government in the world and holds a chair at the London School of Economics; Andy Street, who is the elected Mayor of the West Midlands; and Patrick Harley, who is the leader of Dudley council. So I ask my noble friend Lord Berkeley to tell us in his reply: what sort of independence does he have in mind? Who are these great independent judges of infrastructure projects who can bring their wisdom to bear and have not already been consulted? At the end of the Oakervee report, which is 130 pages long, there is a list of the people who submitted evidence and were consulted. That list extends to more than 400 people and organisations.

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[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Russell of Liverpool) (CB)]

My Lords, I have received no requests to speak after the Minister, so I call—

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

Sorry: I was not quite sure who I was supposed to email under this complicated regime. I emailed someone, but clearly the wrong person.

Perhaps I could ask the Minister a question. She gave she gave a compelling response as to why we should not have a review. She was less convincing in response to my noble friend Lord Rosser about cost/benefits, because costs and benefits change over time, which was part of the point my noble friend was making. The noble Lord, Lord Framlingham, was so concerned that we should pay attention to cost/benefits; can the Minister confirm that when it comes to the next review of cost/benefits, it is very important that the costs of upgrading the three principal lines running north from London—the west coast main line, the Midlands main line and the east coast main line—will be set against the costs if HS2 does not proceed? All the estimates made of those costs are that they are huge and should not be discounted in any future cost/benefit analysis.

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord for that intervention, but what he notes are the counterfactual opportunity costs of not having to do those upgrades. I am not sure how they would factor into a standard cost/benefit analysis, but it is certainly the case, as he pointed out, that they would be fairly costly and that HS2 brings not only speed but capacity.

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[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP) [V]]

My Lords, I apologise for my ineptitude with the mute button. I am afraid that I have been infantilised by the previous system, but I promise to do better.

I strongly support this amendment because this is another thing that ought to be standard in public life. Government works are for the public good and private contractors are there to perform that role for the Government on behalf of the public good. It is about trying to achieve that outcome and transparency should be a central pillar of all public works. Lack of transparency breeds distrust, fuels conspiracy theories and undermines whatever public good the Government are trying to and might achieve in doing the work. In particular, non-disclosure agreements should never be used for political purposes; for example, to avoid embarrassment or controversy. Perhaps the Minister could give us an explanation of the full range of NDAs being used in relation to HS2 and precisely why they are being used. That would help us move forward on this issue.

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

My Lords, while I recognise that there is a fixed order of speakers, I really want to speak after the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, because I know that in the past she took up the case of a particular whistleblower. I think that it relates to the time when she was the Minister responsible for HS2. In thinking how I can use creatively the processes of the Grand Committee, now that I know which clerk to email in order to speak after the Minister, if I have anything to say after the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, has spoken, I shall do so by those means.

What the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, has just said about non-disclosure agreements not being used for political purposes is of course completely correct and all noble Lords would agree with that. I am very keen to hear from the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, because I think that she is going set out her concerns about a particular case or cases, and obviously I am also keen to hear the Minister’s response to those.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Russell of Liverpool) (CB)]

The noble Lord, Lord Haselhurst, has withdrawn from speaking to this amendment and so I now call the noble Lord, Lord Liddle.

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[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Watkins of Tavistock) (CB)]

I have received requests to speak after the Minister from the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, and the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer.

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

The Minister’s response has been compelling. She is right to point up the importance of HS2 Ltd being able to discuss with local authorities confidentially different route options, treatment of works, and so on. That is completely correct. Of course, if that was not possible, HS2 probably would not be able to have some of those conversations, because the issues raised would be too sensitive. Therefore, I do not think that the case for this amendment has been made even in principle.

I note that the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, is going to come in after me. If she is going to try to persuade the Committee that there should be some more different and onerous process for HS2 Ltd in respect of non-disclosure agreements, she will have to be franker with the Committee about that. I do not think that we should have general statements made that would lead to substantive changes in a non-disclosure agreement that could impede the work of HS2 Ltd, unless we are given instances that we find compelling to justify that.

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I do not think I have anything further to say to the noble Lord, Lord Adonis. I too would very much appreciate hearing from the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer.

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[Baroness Randerson (LD) [V]]

My Lords, in speaking to Amendment 11, I shall refer to the amendment in the name of the Labour Party.

The finances of HS2 do not stack up, unless it is used as a spine from which to hang a network of substantial improvements to existing rail services and a programme of new lines and stations. Amendment 11 in my name is designed to cover this by way of an annual review by the Secretary of State. The frequency is intended to keep the process of future planning under constant review because, for the sake of efficiency and cost effectiveness, it is essential that there is a steady flow of work for the rail manufacturing and construction industry. The Department for Transport needs to move away from the cumbersome feast-and-famine approach to railway building which has so hampered the industry in recent years.

The noble Lord, Lord Adonis, queried whether the eastern leg of HS2, phase 2b, would be built following the Minister’s confirmation in our previous debate on Monday that Bills for the eastern and the western legs will be separated. I invite the Minister to tell us whether there is any truth in the rumour that the National Infrastructure Commission, which is developing the strategic rail plan, might recommend that HS2 as a new line should be built only from Birmingham to East Midlands Parkway, and that thereafter trains would join the existing main line to Nottingham, Derby and Leeds. Even if that line is improved and electrified, this would mean that there will be no gains in capacity and speed, and it will mean the loss of the economic development potential of HS2 which we have seen so well illustrated already in Birmingham. If there is truth in this rumour, it illustrates the UK’s fatal flaw: our failure to raise our eyes to the horizon, to build for the future, to plan for the future.

The work of Midlands Connect, for example, and its Midlands Engine Rail plans illustrates perfectly the way in which HS2 can and should be used to stimulate major improvements in rail services across the area and, beyond that, further to the north. It has planned three packages of improvements. Package West uses phases 1 and 2a as well as capacity in existing lines which is released by HS2. It would enable 20 more trains per hour into and out of Birmingham Moor Street station, improving links with the south-west, Wales and the east Midlands. There are plans to improve connectivity at Birmingham Airport and for faster trains on existing lines between Birmingham and Manchester. Then there is its Package East: a multimodal strategy to connect towns across the region into the HS2 hub station at Toton. But possibly most significant is its Package Connect. It has plans to enhance the east-west connection between, for example, Crewe and Derby, Nottingham and Lincoln, and so on, significantly improving journey times in an area where the percentage of commuters who travel by rail is woefully low. Why is that? It is largely because the speeds of the trains—the services at the moment—are low, and the services are infrequent. I must also not forget the importance of freight. Putting more goods on to the railways is important, and essential to a green future and to avoiding climate change.

The single unifying factor in all these plans is that they all depend in some way on the impetus that HS2 will provide. A high-speed long-distance railway leads to improved services for commuters, shoppers and leisure travellers as well as additional capacity for freight. Despite the falling numbers of rail passengers, and despite the fact that the pandemic has made us think again, there is every reason to believe that people will return to travel in the future. Indeed, they already have. Already, we are at roughly 100% of pre-pandemic road traffic levels, at a time when only 59% of us are back in work in our offices. If we were all to go back to work as we have done before, that would be an additional 2.7 million cars and other vehicles on the road per day. It is simply not possible and sustainable in terms of congestion, let alone the impact on air quality and emissions. For a green future we have to plan for a modern, fast and efficient railway.

I remind the Minister that in the general election last year the Government received a huge boost from electors in the Midlands and the north, who put their faith in the Government’s levelling-up rhetoric. Now the Government have to deliver on that, and HS2 is a key part of that deal. But as I hope I have illustrated, HS2 must be used as a catalyst for much more—for much greater change—and the north of England and the Midlands will have a pretty dim view of government promises if that does not go ahead as planned. I beg to move.

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, has made some powerful points. She has also teed me up splendidly because her amendment raises the issue of connectivity. I can see that the Minister is much looking forward to the fact that I am going to speak again about the connectivity of the east Midlands, Yorkshire and the north-east, which is imminently threatened by this review and potential cancellation of HS2 east.

Lest noble Lords think that I am unnecessarily alarmist on this, I am doing my public duty to see that this catastrophic and historic error is not made. Every time I raise this issue and engage with stakeholders, my concerns become greater. Since I made my remarks on Monday I have had a number of private representations, which it would not be proper for me to reveal because I gave non-disclosure agreements in response to those, but I have also had a very significant public representation —which I have forwarded to the Minister to give her an opportunity to respond in her reply—from Professor David Rae, who is a professor of enterprise at De Montfort University in Leicester, an area which would gain enormously from the benefits of HS2 east. Perhaps I may read the key part of his letter to the Grand Committee, because it specifically responds to the points I raised in our previous sitting on Monday. He writes:

“Consistent with your Twitter messages”—


I tweet summaries of my speeches because they are far too long to inflict on the public at their full extent—

“regarding the threatened axing of the HS2 Eastern link, a well-informed source tells me that the National Infrastructure Commission, which is preparing the Rail Plan”—

the one that the noble Baroness keeps referring to, and which she rightly says I do not like because it is the disguise for delaying or cancelling it—

“which will recommend the future investment, is more likely to propose that HS2 East is only built from Birmingham to East Midlands Parkway (EMP) and there to join the existing Midland Mainline and follow existing … lines to Nottingham, Derby and North to Leeds. Even if this is approved, there are multiple negative effects. In terms of rail, there will be few gains in either rail capacity or speed, and none north of EMP. In effect the Leeds and Northern HS2 link would be via HS2 to Manchester and thence via Transpennine Rail”.

I should say in parenthesis that that means that the east Midlands would gain very little out of HS2 and the journey times to Leeds and the north-east would be significantly delayed because all of their HS2 journeys would need to go via Manchester. That presupposes that a tunnel is built under the Pennines at high speed to take the line from Manchester to Leeds, which itself, as I know from having looked at the costings, is a hugely expensive and very problematic project.

Professor David Rae continues:

“There is also a large economic development loss to the region. As you will know, the development of the Toton ‘Garden of Innovation’ new community and innovation district around the HS2 station—


the junction station between Derby and Nottingham that is proposed as part of HS2 east—

“is of strategic importance to the region and is one to which the Councils in Derby, Nottingham and respective Counties as well as the Local Enterprise Partnership … are committed. This is crucial to grow the high-value and high-skill capacity of the region, predicated on HS2, and if lost will set back the region’s economic development by 5 years. We simply cannot afford this loss, set against the effects of COVID-19 job losses and anticipated Brexit impacts.”

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[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Henig) (Lab)]

I call the noble Lord, Lord Adonis.

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

I have nothing to say on this amendment.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Henig) (Lab)]

I then call the next speaker, the noble Lord, Lord Snape.