High Speed Rail (West Midlands-Crewe) Bill

Debate between Lord Adonis and Baroness Randerson

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

[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.”