High Speed 2

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Thursday 24th October 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I very much welcome this debate and I welcome the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, to her new position. I am sure that we will have some interesting debates now and in the future. I declare an interest as chairman of the Rail Freight Group.

I shall start by discussing the issue of capacity. My noble friend Lord Rooker mentioned freight. I shall quote from a paper from the HS2 Action Alliance. With a name like that, I would have thought that they would have been supporting HS2, wanting to make it go faster, but, surprisingly, they do not. It says:

“Improving the existing West Coast Mainline is a more cost effective and risk-free way to meet future rail capacity needs”.

Where are they living? Many noble Lords have spoken about the problems on that line, and I will not repeat what they have said. One of the problems is that if you improve a line, you either dig it up and close it or you extend it sideways into people’s properties. That will have just as much opposition as building a new line—in fact, probably more—because people will want compensation, as they do. Yes, the line is going past their property and has been there a long time, but their property is very valuable. That idea just does not work.

The real problem that I want to mention with regard to capacity, though, is freight. Freight is different from passengers because it runs only if the customers and the train operators want it to and therefore, hopefully, it will make a bit of money. There is no subsidy. The industry has forecast a doubling of demand for rail freight on the west coast main line in 20 years. That is because the type of traffic that goes up that line is mainly containers from retailers. That is what retailers like—noble Lords will have seen some of the supermarkets giving green credentials on a packet of cheese, or whatever they are selling—so they have asked for this. Freight is growing by leaps and bounds; it might treble, for all I know. However, if you want a doubling of traffic in 20 years, that is the equivalent of an extra two trains an hour on the west coast main line. It is full already, as other noble Lords have said, and we are having discussions with Network Rail about how this can be accommodated, particularly when phase one is built and it stops near Tamworth. Still, it is a wonderful challenge to have.

What is the alternative? There are two options. One is that it could go by road. Let us have a motorway through Little Missenden; I am sure that my noble friend Lord Stevenson would not like that. I was brought up in Great Missenden, and I would not like to see a motorway go through there; there is a railway there already, and a horrible road. If freight is not going to go by rail, therefore, it will go by road—or, the other option, it does not go at all. Do we want it not to go at all? What would be the consequences for the economy if it did not?

I reflect that the latest route through the Chilterns is going to affect about 100 properties, whereas in Camden it will affect 2,700. That is why the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, and I have come up with our alternative route through Camden that will, we hope, significantly reduce the demand for demolition, perhaps down to nothing at all. I look at HS2 as adding two more tracks to the west coast main line, for reasons of capacity. It is pity that it did not start off being sold that way, but it is indeed for capacity. We need HS2, otherwise the traffic will not go, or we go by road.

I conclude by commenting a little more on my noble friend Lord Snape’s comments about HS1, which I was also involved in. There is a study by Volterra consultants about the economic benefits of HS1, which could therefore apply to HS2. Apart from generating extra rail and car park revenues of £3.4 billion, which we may or may not want, the transport benefits include more than £100 million of congestion relief, an increase in rail revenue of £3.4 billion, while earnings per annum across the study area—Kent—have increased by between £62 million and £360 million due to the commuting facilities. You may not want to commute but perhaps you do. Overall this is estimated at a very significant benefit to the UK of HS1 over 60 years—it is a long-term project—of £17.6 billion. I think this is worth having.

I support the way that this project is going forward. I welcomed it when it was launched by my noble friend Lord Adonis. I welcomed this Government taking it up, and I agree with my noble friend Lord Rooker that it would be unthinkable to cancel it. I would like to see it go to Scotland in some shape or form.

I shall support this project. I want to see the costs come down and I shall work towards that. I think there should be better leadership and communication and I welcome Sir David Higgins to that role. I see no alternative to creating the necessary additional capacity if we want our economy to grow.