Passenger Train Services

Lord Adonis Excerpts

Wednesday 29th April 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

The noble and learned Lord is completely right: it is regrettable that some services have to be significantly scaled back, and these are being kept under review. I reassure him that station staff are available to help disabled passengers transfer between trains as necessary.

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

Can we thank all the staff who are working on the railways through this crisis and putting special arrangements in place? Given that the business model of the franchise is of course bust now and is likely to remain so after the crisis, what is the Government’s thinking: to try to reconstitute franchises on a new basis afterwards, or to move further in the direction of nationalisation?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

I join the noble Lord in paying tribute to all transport workers; they have done an astounding job during this crisis. At the moment, we do not know what the long-term implications for rail and indeed other public transport modes will be. However, we believe that there remains an urgent case for modernisation and reform, so we will be looking at the recommendations in the White Paper that will come out of the Williams Rail Review. They will be at the heart of any changes that we make to put the passenger at the heart of our rail system.

Smart Motorways

Lord Adonis Excerpts

Tuesday 17th March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

I am afraid I cannot agree with the noble Baroness. She is referring to stopped vehicle detection, which is just one type of technology and the safety case is not dependent on it. There are two other technologies that can also make sure that stopped vehicles are seen. They are MIDAS, as she well knows, and the CCTV that covers all elements of the smart motorway system. I would like the noble Baroness to consider one thing: does she accept that, if we were suddenly to turn around and put back the hard shoulder on all these motorways, by putting roadworks on those roads, we would immediately make those roads less safe?

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

My Lords, can the Minister give the House the accident rate on smart motorways as opposed to conventional motorways?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

My Lords, that was the absolute crux of the 79-page report that we have prepared. We looked at it in two different ways. We looked at the average numbers and then delved down into the detail on whether a motorway, when it becomes a smart motorway, is more or less safe. I therefore encourage the noble Lord to read the 79-page report, if he has time over the coming weeks. From that, he will see that, in most ways, smart motorways are safer. In a smaller number of ways, on specific things, they may not be, but that again is within the margin of error. We are acting on these 18 points because it is absolutely important that people should feel safe as well as being safe.

HS2

Lord Adonis Excerpts

Wednesday 11th March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

My Lords, yesterday was the 10th anniversary of my announcement of HS2 to the House. Taking account of what has happened in that period, Parliament and the country should be reasonably proud of the progress. This is the biggest infrastructure project that the country has engaged in since the Victorians. My noble friend Lord Faulkner mentioned the excavation that is taking place at Curzon Street at the moment. There are wonderful pictures on Twitter of the discovery of the original turntable for the steam trains that has just been excavated as part of that.

The work is proceeding. Parliament has given its consent to the first phase. It is the single biggest infrastructure project that the country has authorised since the completion of the Great Central Railway in 1899. It continues as a consensus project between the major political parties. It was begun by the Labour Government, continued by a coalition of the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats, and has continued under two different Conservative Governments since.

Being always an optimist and looking forward, to those who say we cannot do big infrastructure projects in this country and we certainly cannot build railways in straight lines because that involves too many concessions to protesters and so forth, I say: that is not true. Where Government, Parliament and the major political parties are aligned and put the national interest first, we are able to move on these projects and HS2 is an outstanding example.

The problem is that the Government at the moment are only half behind HS2. In the Statement the Prime Minister made on 11 February, he gave what I should call the fourth green light to the project, or a continuing green light, like those trains going 125 miles per hour down the Great Western Railway, about which my noble friend is such a great expert. For as long as the green light continues, you can keep up the progress, but as soon as you see the amber one, you start to slow down. We have had a continuing green light for the first phase, but the Government have now put the amber light on all of the subsequent developments north of Birmingham.

A great Liberal Prime Minister, David Lloyd George, famously said, “When traversing a chasm, it is advisable to do so in one leap”. We were supposed to be moving on the development of the line north of Birmingham, which is absolutely integral to the project. The idea of building a high-speed line which is supposed to link London, the Midlands and the north, and stopping it at Birmingham, is of course absurd. The line obviously needs to go through to Manchester and Leeds. Just at the point when we were able to put before Parliament and develop this scheme as an integrated project, the Government have tried to split the difference with the critics, which is always a huge a huge mistake in my experience of government. We need only listen to the speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, to know that we cannot meet her half way. She is not capable of meeting half way; what she wants is to stop the thing. She does not want to see compromises on the way. Having a review of what happens north of Birmingham is not going to propitiate the noble Baroness. It is going to whet her appetite into thinking that once she gets going in the courts and with her protesters she will stop the whole scheme.

The right thing to do in this situation, where it is manifestly in the public interest—we need this rail capacity and we need the connectvity between our major cities—is to get on with it. The plan has been developed, was published, was agreed in principle by Parliament, and has stood the test of successive reviews. The right thing is to go ahead with all deliberate speed. The Prime Minister’s Statement on 11 February gave the green light for the continuation of the development of the scheme from London to Birmingham, which is already being built. Your Lordships need only go to Euston to see that the whole place is a massive construction site. HS2 Ltd is based in Birmingham, there are thousands of people based there too, and the excavation work is already beginning at Curzon Street station. So the Government gave the green light to continuation of that scheme, and they revived what is called the phase 2a Bill, the extension from Birmingham through to Crewe, although that had already started in Parliament in the middle of last year and was subject to a significant delay by last year’s political turbulence. What was supposed to happen this year was the introduction of the phase 2b Bill—the extension of the line from Crewe to Manchester, and from Birmingham through the junction station of Toton between Nottingham and Derby, and then up to Sheffield and through to Leeds.

In the timeframe set out by the Government when they gave the go-ahead in 2013 to the revised HS2 timetable—it was much slower than I would have taken it forward in 2010 but would at least have kept it moving—the plan was for the phase 2b legislation to be published this year. We already know the route, unless the Government are going to pull the whole scheme up by the roots and start again. The issue now is getting a political decision to proceed with the legislation for phase 2b, which means taking the clear decisions on routes, publishing the Bill, and putting it through the hybrid Bill process which is already starting with 2a. If this was being done properly, what would have happened was a direct continuation from the phase 2a Bill to the phase 2b Bill, and we could have treated this as a single project, have a single construction timeframe, and even try something really radical. This Government say they believe in the north—why could we not start constructing the line from the north southwards, as well as from London going northwards? It could be done in a much shorter timescale, it could give a much bigger impetus to development in the north, and it could also save a great deal of money. Extending this timeframe will add significantly to the costs of the overall project.

What always happens when a Government are in limbo, as they are on phase 2b, is a cascade of waffle. The telltale sign of a cascade of waffle is a Government Statement that comes out on a Friday afternoon. On 11 February, the Prime Minister said that there would be a further review of HS2 going north. We asked when the review would be announced and what the terms of reference would be, and the information was then smuggled out on a Friday afternoon with no press statement and no fanfare whatever. The reason it was smuggled out on a Friday afternoon was that between 11 February, when the first announcement of the Government’s policy on HS2 was made by the Prime Minister, and the declaration of the terms of reference and review of the northern phase of HS2, a huge delay had already been introduced.

The Prime Minister said that there would be a six-month review, and perhaps I may deal with that. We have just had a seven-month review of HS2 that was originally billed by the Prime Minister last July as a six-week review. Let us follow this through. The six-week review became a seven-month review. That seven-month review, the conclusions of which my noble friend Lord Faulkner read, recommended that phase 2b of HS2 should proceed. It did not set out qualifications or recommend a further review; it said that it should proceed now.

Instead, the Government announced a six-month review. However—this is the reason the Statement came out on a Friday afternoon—that six-month review has already become a nine-month review, and that is before it has even started. In the review’s terms of reference, which were smuggled out on a Friday afternoon, we are told that the review will now conclude by the end of the year. Perhaps I may let noble Lords into another trick of government: when a statement includes words as vague as “the end of the year”, that almost certainly means well into next year. In my estimation, in terms of taking HS2 forward north of Birmingham, the effect of the Government trying to traverse this chasm in two leaps will be at least a two-year delay and probably a much longer delay because of the discontinuity involved in the phasing.

When you read the statement that was smuggled out on the Friday afternoon, you see that there is even more waffle. Perhaps I may read the key paragraph and deconstruct it for the House:

“The Oakervee review concluded that for Phase 2b of HS2 … a Y-shaped network was the right strategic answer for the country.”


That is completely right—that is what it says. However, it goes on to say that

“Phase 2b needs to be considered as part of an Integrated Rail Plan for the north and Midlands which also includes Northern Powerhouse Rail, Midlands Rail Hub, and other major Network Rail schemes to ensure these are scoped, designed, delivered, and can be operated as an integrated network.”

That may all be true but none of it is any reason for delaying the development of phase 2b north of Birmingham. Phase 2b would not have been due to open until 2032 if we had introduced the legislation this year, but delaying it means that it will be much closer to 2040. There is plenty of time to work out how the development of HS2 will integrate with other developments in the north. The key question is: are the Government going to stick to the Y-shaped route? If they are, they have to serve Manchester Airport, Manchester, Toton, Sheffield and Leeds. Once you have taken those key strategic decisions, the question of integration is how that line relates to the other lines. That is not a reason for delaying the construction and planning of HS2 north of Birmingham unless the aim is to change that route.

I can see that the noble Viscount is encouraging me to wind up. I assume that the Government are not seeking to change that route, so the right thing for them to do now is to scrap this further review. That would simply reaffirm the decision to proceed with phase 2b now, to publish the Bill later this year, and to do those things which in my day in government we used to think was our job, which was to take big decisions, make big investments and just get on with it.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Transport (Baroness Vere of Norbiton) (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, for enabling us, once again, to get the HS2 horse out of the stable for a quick canter round the track. I will focus my response on the route, the speed and the stations and will cover as many other topics as I can as time allows. I will of course write to cover any omissions or to provide more detail.

With the right reforms in place, HS2 will become the spine of the country’s transport network, bringing our biggest cities closer together, boosting productivity and rebalancing opportunity fairly across the country. This Government’s decision to proceed follows careful consideration of Douglas Oakervee’s independent review into HS2 and wider evidence, including the phase 1 full business case, which is imminent. The Oakervee report has now been published and sets out what the Prime Minister described as the

“clinching case for high-speed rail”.—[Official Report, Commons, 11/2/20; col. 712]

Each of the issues being debate today—the route, speed and stations—have been carefully considered by the Government following not only the Oakervee Review but years of planning, development, public consultation and parliamentary scrutiny, taking a full range of views into account in making their decisions.

As noted by many noble Lords, HS2 has been a long time in the making—and there is still a little way to go—but the reasoning behind the design of HS2 began long before the Oakervee Review. As the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, pointed out, this has been supported by successive Governments and, since the publication in 2006 of the Eddington Transport Study, they have affirmed their goal to invest in transport infrastructure to meet growing demand for north-south movement and to strategically rebalance the economy. Between 2009 and 2012, domestic aviation and new motorways were appraised as modal alternatives to rail to meet these requirements, but rail was preferred on the basis of capacity, journey time and environmental impacts. A new conventional speed railway and upgrades to existing railways were also considered. The conclusion was that a new high-speed railway is the best option to meet the stated policy goals of improving transport capacity and connectivity between the UK’s largest cities and facilitating long-term economic growth.

Following the conclusion to progress a new high-speed railway, various scheme designs were considered for HS2. The current Y scheme was selected ahead of alternative designs on the basis of its relative affordability, journey times and environmental impact. For phase 1, the route was then refined by the passage of the phase 1 Bill through the Select Committee process, with some significant amendments being made. As such, the Government are confident in HS2’s design, specification and strategic objectives, which the Oakervee Review confirmed.

The route for HS2 has been designed to provide much needed rail capacity, primarily along one of the UK’s busiest rail corridors—the west coast main line. This route is currently the main route for passengers between London and major cities in the Midlands and the north-west, including Birmingham and Manchester. Since HS2 uses brand-new, dedicated lines, it will also free up space for services on the existing network. Network Rail estimates that more than 100 other towns and cities could benefit from this released capacity, and this Government are looking beyond that and looking to connect more towns and smaller places to the rail network, with funding to reopen some Beeching closures. Unfortunately, I have to disappoint the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, because I have no further information on that, but I will write to him if there is any available.

Some 25 towns and cities will be directly served by HS2. The Government have consulted extensively on its route, through public consultation and parliamentary scrutiny, and taken into account reviews such as the one most recently led by Douglas Oakervee. Clearly, the Government are conscious that, even with extensive consultation, communities along the route will continue to have concerns about the route chosen for the railway. It is impossible to construct a project of the size and scale of HS2 without affecting some people’s private properties. Where that is the case, we want to make sure that property owners are fairly compensated and that their cases are dealt with sensitively and with dignity and respect.

The phase 1 route was intended to minimise impacts on the natural environment. In this respect, the Chilterns tunnel was extended during the Bill’s parliamentary passage and many ancient woodland sites have been avoided. I note the comparison that was made—I forget by which noble Lord—between this and the construction of the A21. I thought that was extremely interesting. Certainly, the designers of HS2 have done their best to avoid as many ancient woodland sites as possible. It is true to say that HS2 Ltd has on occasion fallen short in its response to communities and property owners, which is why, in responding to the Oakervee Review, the Government have committed to looking at strengthening the role of the HS2 residents’ commissioner.

The speed of HS2 was raised by the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, and many others. I have said before and I will say again that it is not all about speed. It is about capacity. The focus on how fast the trains will run has detracted from the wider intended benefits of the project. We know that the west coast main line is full, and that we will get new capacity and connectivity from HS2. HS2 is procuring trains capable of speeds of up to 360 kph. As the noble Lord pointed out, why would it not if such trains are available? However, the timetable assumes an operating speed of 330 kph. The extra 30 kph will allow the system to catch up should any delays occur.

Both the Oakervee Review and its former deputy chairman, the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, separately agreed that a reduction in speed could cut costs. However, as both also pointed out, major savings could be achieved only through significant changes to the route design and alignment, which would require a completely new Act of Parliament for HS2 phase 1. Not only would this delay the start of construction by several years, causing uncertainty to people and blight to communities along the route, but any savings would be offset by the additional costs of a new hybrid Bill and environmental statement. The debate on reducing speed is not new; it has been considered many times and this Government believe that the right balance has been struck.

As with the route, the location of HS2 stations have been thoroughly tested, not only through public consultation but through parliamentary scrutiny and debate and reviews. The choice and location of the four phase 1 stations, at Euston, Old Oak Common, Birmingham Interchange and Birmingham Curzon Street, were tested by the Select Committee process for the HS2 phase 1 Bill, which received Royal Assent back in 2017. Of course, it is no secret that taking a new high-speed train line into the centre of London will be complex, and we have had the debate as to whether Old Oak Common would be a good permanent terminus. I believe that, having considered all the evidence, most noble Lords who took part in that debate agreed that it would be good to get the train going all the way to Euston.

On Calvert, specifically raised by the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, some of the key conclusions from Doug Oakervee’s review remain outstanding. The Government will respond to the Oakervee conclusion on passive provision for a station at Calvert in due course.

I was pleased to hear the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, bang the drum for Crewe, which turns out not to be the gateway to the north after all, but the gateway to Wales.

North of Crewe, there are plans for four further new stations: at Manchester Airport, Manchester Piccadilly, Toton and Leeds, which are all part of the plans for phase 2b, which have already been subject to public consultation. To repeat an old joke, the Prime Minister has been clear that

“we are not asking whether it is phase 2b or not 2b. That is not the question.”—[Official Report, Commons, 11/2/20; col. 713.]

There is no amber light, as the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, stated. The question is how it will proceed when it comes to integration with all the other major rail projects that the Government are financing in the north. That is why we are working with the National Infrastructure Commission and regional leaders to develop an integrated rail plan for the north and Midlands. It is not a review but a plan. Tens of billions of pounds are at stake in a number of rail schemes across the north and the Midlands, and we must get it absolutely right.

[Lord Adonis]

My Lords, the noble Baroness is doing a good job of reading out the brief from the department. However, could she help us by telling us when she expects phase 2b will therefore be open?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

I wrote some of this brief, so I feel a little offended. I do not have that particular piece of data to hand, which I am disappointed about, but I will certainly write to the noble Lord when I can get it from my officials at the department.

High Speed Rail (West Midlands– Crewe) Bill

Lord Adonis Excerpts

Motion to revive Bill
Tuesday 25th February 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

My Lords, I strongly support the Motion and join the Minister in paying tribute to noble Lords who have agreed to serve on the Select Committee. However, as she is aware, the extension of HS2 from Birmingham to Crewe—the phase 2a Bill we are talking about—is integrally linked to the 2b provisions that will extend HS2 from Crewe to Manchester and from Birmingham to Leeds.

In the Statement of policy made two weeks ago, the Prime Minister said that there would be a further review of the northern elements of HS2 covered by phase 2b. He indicated that the review would last about six months, but no detail has been given so far. Because it is so vital to understanding the implications of 2a, can the Minister tell the House more about the review? Who will conduct it? What will the timescale be? When will the Government publish the terms of reference? When will the review start? Is she aware that there is serious concern in Crewe, Manchester, Derby, Nottingham, Sheffield, Leeds and Scotland—where HS2 will ultimately terminate—that, if the review is unduly delayed, we will end up with a high-speed line that goes to Birmingham and Crewe but does not extend these vital benefits to the north?

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, I endorse what my noble friend has said. It is important that consideration is given to the further extension, particularly to Scotland. In addition, there have been reports that China has expressed interest in taking over the construction of the high-speed link, and that it could do it more quickly and cheaply. Is that a serious proposal? Is it being looked at by the Government? If so, when will it be considered by Parliament?

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, and his new friend, the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, for their interventions in this very short HS2 debate—which I feared was going to turn into a much larger debate; but I am sure there will be many of those to come.

First, I will address the comments about the integrated rail plan—which I point out is a rail plan, not a rail review. Obviously, it is being led by the Secretary of State for Transport, and he will have assistance from the National Infrastructure Commission, as well as from the Infrastructure and Projects Authority, which, as noble Lords will know, is taking a much closer look at the way that large projects are being run in government; indeed, this afternoon I have a meeting with it on roads.

The noble Lord, Lord Adonis, will be relieved to know that the terms of reference for the plan have already been published—they were published last Friday—so he can look at them and I will be happy to answer any further questions he may have. We aim to publish the integrated rail plan—IRP—by the end of the year to ensure clarity on how best to proceed with HS2, Northern Powerhouse Rail, the Midlands rail hub and all the other major projects in the Midlands and the north, because it is essential that these projects work well together in order that we can maximise the opportunities they provide.

The noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, asked whether China will be building the railway. China’s involvement has not come to my attention, apart from some stuff in the media, but if I can find anything out, I will write to him.

As for Crewe, services on HS2 will run into Crewe station. I have visited Crewe station and it is undergoing significant redevelopment, which I think will be hugely beneficial to Crewe and the services that will be coming into it.

The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, mentioned the location of stations. I fear that at this point we get into the whole HS2 debate and I might just leave that one for another day: I am sure there will be many more opportunities to discuss that.

As I said, passing this Motion will give a lot of closure to those who are affected by the Bill.

[Lord Adonis]

Before the Minister sits down, I would be grateful for her further response. I note that “six months” has already become “the end of the year”, which is already a significant extension. She said that this review will be led by the Secretary of State for Transport, but we were led to understand there would be a new HS2 Minister, who I understand the Government also announced last week. Is this an HS2 Minister who is not, in fact, really responsible for HS2?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

No, not at all. As the noble Lord knows, all Ministers within the department are ultimately responsible to the Secretary of State, and that includes the HS2 Minister. The noble Lord will be very pleased to know that Andrew Stephenson has been appointed Minister of State in the Department for Transport with specific responsibilities to oversee HS2, Northern Powerhouse Rail, which of course is closely integrated, and the trans-Pennine upgrade. I beg to move.

High Speed 2 (Economic Affairs Committee Report)

Lord Adonis Excerpts

Thursday 23rd January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

My Lords, for reasons I cannot begin to fathom, when I was Secretary of State for Transport, they called me the “thin controller”. Whether or not that was true, I bear some responsibility for this scheme and should therefore participate in the debate.

My noble friend Lord Hollick referred to the National Infrastructure Commission, which I had the privilege of founding and was its first chairman. I agree entirely with him that it should be put on a statutory basis. We need much stronger and more robust long-term infra- structure planning in this country. Having a permanent commission on a statutory basis would be a good step forward. However, when I chaired the National Infrastructure Commission, one of my principle recommendations—I urge it on the House very strongly —was to avoid the curse of stop-start infrastructure planning, which has bedevilled our development of infrastructure over the past 100 years, and which we are in acute danger of doing again with HS2.

I pay great tribute to the work of the Economic Affairs Committee and the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, but he presented his report as if these issues were being considered for the first time when the committee debated them. They have been considered exhaustively since the scheme was first announced, and I had the privilege of presenting it to this House on 11 March 2010. Not only have they been considered exhaustively but they have been decided by Parliament. Four years ago, on 23 March 2016, the legislation that is now being implemented to build the line from London to the West Midlands was agreed by the House of Commons by 399 votes to 42 votes. That is one of the most emphatic votes in favour of a large project in the history of Parliament. That came after months of consideration by a hybrid Bill committee of the other House looking at all the issues which my noble friend Lord Hollick and the noble Lords, Lord Forsyth and Lord Kerr, have raised.

The issue of whether to terminate at Old Oak Common or go through to Euston was considered exhaustively by the Select Committee—I could go through all the arguments for the House. It is true that a lot of passengers will wish to transfer to the Elizabeth Line when it is completed—another project that is over budget and delayed. But it is also the case that there are big resilience factors in having the whole of the rail traffic in this country coming from the north and the Midlands—as my noble friend Lord Hunt said, the Midlands is a crucial part of the scheme—decanting at one station on to just one line. You have only the Elizabeth Line if you terminate at Old Oak Common, whereas coming through to Euston, which the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, does not seem to think is in central London, there are another three lines—I am all in favour of the arch coming back, like the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, but one could debate that too. Once you join up properly with St Pancras, which is part of the scheme, you will also link in with High Speed 1 and a whole array of other services.

The issues of commuter and freight services have been raised. They were considered exhaustively by the HS2 company that advised me in 2010 and by the hybrid Bill committee before that vote of 399 to 42 in the House of Commons. A key issue raised by the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, in respect of commuter and freight services is the freeing up of capacity by HS2, by taking all the long-distance trains off the west coast main line; a lot of them off the Midland main line, because the service is to Sheffield; and a lot of them off the east coast main line, which goes up to York and Newcastle. They would all go on to the HS2 line, thus freeing up huge capacity to run additional commuter and freight services into the West Midlands, Leeds, Sheffield, Manchester and Newcastle.

The other vitally important issue is that there is no such thing as a free lunch—I wish there were. If we are not going to invest in HS2, we will have to do massive upgrades of the existing lines. When I was Secretary of State for Transport, the very first public engagement I undertook was to reopen the west coast main line after the upgrade which had taken place. It was a modest upgrade by comparison with HS2 to allow for the faster running of some trains, some additional train lengthening and some additional trains. Many noble Lords will remember that upgrade. For the best part of 10 years, services were disrupted on the west coast main line almost every other weekend. The price, as it was then—now you would have to double or treble the figure—was £10 billion, of which £1 billion was spent on compensating the train companies for not running any trains. I can tell noble Lords that if you are running a train company, the easiest thing you can do is to have big upgrade work done on your lines so that you are given huge payments for not running any trains at all. That is what train operating companies love most: being paid billions of pounds for not running any trains.

If you proceed with the conventional upgrades that would be required—they are huge; you are conducting open heart surgery on a moving patient—you will end up with a colossal cost, estimated by advisers in 2010 to be more, in cash terms, than the cost of HS2. When the Cameron Government made their alternative evaluation, they came up with a credible alternative upgrade scheme that would provide a quarter of the capacity of HS2 for half of the cost. All that is out there: this is not new information; it has all been published. The issue facing us is whether we are now going to do what Parliament itself authorised and build this line. It is under construction at the moment; we are not talking about giving it the green light. Colossal construction is already taking place at Euston: £9 billion has been spent and 2,000 people are working on the scheme. It is being constructed.

The noble Lord, Lord Kerr, is absolutely right to differentiate between sunk costs and future costs, but the crucial point is that if we are going to proceed with this scheme, to pull it up by the roots now with another big evaluation that would add further to the costs would be simply to repeat the curse of British infrastructure planning. The reason we have such a substandard infrastructure compared with so many other advanced industrialised countries is that we start projects, stop them, start them up again, stop them and then start them again. That is an accurate description of what has happened with HS2; this is the fifth review that has taken place since 2010, and the third since Parliament voted in favour of it by 10 to one.

My noble friend Lord Hunt is absolutely right to stress the importance of this project to the West Midlands. This is not a scheme that predominantly benefits the south. Some 200 of the 330 route miles of HS2 will run between the West Midlands and the north-west to Manchester, and the West Midlands to West Yorkshire up to Leeds. This will be transformational for connectivity between the Midlands and the north, and within the north. A large part of the northern powerhouse will depend on HS2, and the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, mentioned the line from Liverpool to Manchester. Half of the northern powerhouse railway from Liverpool to Manchester will be on HS2 lines, so they need to be, and should be, drawn together.

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard]

Why is all that not part of phase 1? Why is phase 1 all about tunnelling under Primrose Hill?

[Lord Adonis]

My Lords, this is 330 miles-worth of line. If it could all be put in place in one phase, that would be great. However, setting up a project of that size all in one phase would carry huge risks. Again, I hesitate to keep pointing this out to the House, but all of this has been considered: whether there should be one phase of HS2 with 330 miles of line or whether it should be divided.

I want to make a final point—

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Lord Adonis]

My noble friend will be speaking in a few minutes, so he can make his point in his own speech.

The Mayor of the West Midlands is a Conservative, and a man who I hold in high regard as a former managing director of John Lewis. He has a very strong sense of the economic imperatives driving his great county. He has written to your Lordships, and these are the concluding words of his letter:

“So far the promise of the new high-speed rail link alone has had a transformational impact on the Midlands. Inward investment is increasing, evidenced by the 43% increase in the number of jobs created in 2017/18. On top of this, HS2 has the potential to add £14 billion to the West Midlands economy and support 100,000 jobs in the region. No other planned infrastructure project can come close to that, and if the government is serious about ‘levelling up’ the UK’s regions then HS2 is the place to start.”


I agree with him. HS2 is the place to start, so let us not pull the whole thing up by the roots again and end up doubling or trebling the cost.