High Speed Rail (London-West Midlands) Bill

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords & Committee: 1st sitting: House of Lords & Report stage: House of Lords
Tuesday 10th January 2017 Grand Committee

[Lord Bradshaw (LD)]

If I may just follow up a few of the points made by my noble friend, we have discussed before the question of a link between Euston, St Pancras and King’s Cross. When I was deputy general manager at Euston back in the far-off days, it was being discussed—it is one of these projects that seems always to be under discussion but is never carried out. I am looking for something like the link you get between terminals in airports; that is, a wide, well-lit way of getting between the two stations with a travelator or similar device for your luggage. I am not looking for some form of futuristic railway, just a convenient, out-of-the-weather way for moving you and your luggage between the two places.

There will be a lot of time to think about this, because there will be a long period when Old Oak Common will be the London terminal for HS2. There can be dispute about how Old Oak Common could be used, but there will be six platforms there and the trains from Birmingham, which will take only 38 minutes, can almost be described as commuter trains. They will not require huge amounts of servicing at Old Oak Common, it will be possible to turn trains back there very quickly, and Euston may well not be needed until after phase 2A of HS2, so there is plenty of time to think about it and get it in place.

My noble friend commented on connections to HS1. I know that people in the south of England feel that it is very difficult for them to use it: they have to make a big journey. That will be alleviated if the Government could—again, they could work on this contemporaneously with the work on HS2—strengthen the link along the south coast between Brighton and Ashford. There are bits of that railway that need sorting out. I hope we can get some sort of assurance about what the Government intend to do.

Those are questions, not things that we will have disputes on, but we want to know what the Government envisage that they will do, in the long term, about the problems here.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, my Amendment 9 is grouped, although I am not sure it is closely connected to what the two previous speakers have been discussing. It would delete one of the amendments that the Select Committee proposed in its report. Let me make it quite clear: I do not criticise the Select Committee on this issue; I am sure its amendments are just what is needed. I ask the Minister, however: is it not a bit unusual for a Select Committee’s amendments to be incorporated in a Bill without debate? I had assumed that they might have been tabled for debate today, and we could have debated and no doubt approved them, but it was surprising that a new issue of the Bill was published in the past week as a result of the amendments being included. This may not be a question for the Minister—it may be a question for the Chairman of Committees or someone else—but it is something that we should debate. Perhaps it will be different next time, if there are to be more committees such as this.

While I am on my feet, the Minister kindly briefed us on progress just before we broke up for Christmas. One question that many asked him was: were the Government going to respond to the excellent report from the Select Committee? It would have been nice to have their response before Committee today. We have not had it, but can he assure me that we will receive it in good time for Report?

[Lord Snape (Lab)]

I support the amendments tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, and her colleagues. There are few benefits in old age but I am told that one is that one’s long-term memory improves, sometimes at the cost of one’s short-term memory. I suspect that I am the only Member present here today who served on the original Channel Tunnel Bill, and I well remember the promises made at the time about the connection between HS1and HS2. Even back in those days, there was lots of criticism about the apparent devotion to expenditure on railway and transport in the south of England at the expense of the rest of the country. Assurances were given at that time that there would be genuine benefits from the Channel Tunnel and the associated high-speed lines that would spin off to both the Midlands and the north.

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So there is surely an argument still, as there was 30 years ago, for through trains between this country and various capital cities in Europe. I again put it to the Minister that those promises were made, much expenditure was embarked on, trains were ordered and depots built, yet we have this farcical situation where the only way one can get, for example, from Birmingham to Paris by train is by negotiating the distance between Euston and St Pancras International by London Underground. No other country in the world would say that that was a sensible way to travel. Indeed, I believe we are becoming the laughing stock of the railway world—Europe-wise at least; there is a slight contradiction between the world and Europe, but the Committee will know what I am aiming at when I say that if this is the best we can do as a nation, most other countries would say that it is not good enough. The Minister should look again at a proper connection between the two high-speed lines and justify the amount of taxpayers’ money from the Midlands and the north being spent on the completely new stretches of railway line. For reasons that the Minister can no doubt outline to us, that would be money wasted without the connection as outlined earlier by the noble Baroness. I give way to my noble friend.

[Lord Berkeley]

My noble friend did not mention the chord that received permission under the HS1 Bill, built between the London end of High Speed 1 and the North London line. It is there, with tracks and electrification. It has no signals, so it would need a couple of those. We could run trains on the west coast main line from HS1 to Birmingham tomorrow. I do not know how much it cost, but it was a lot as it is quite a complicated piece of construction. It was built as a result of lobbying from the north-west in particular, led by a man called Ken Medlock, who is still alive aged 102 and still very interested. The problem is someone needs to run trains on it.

[Lord Snape]

I bow to my noble friend’s expertise on the geography of this stretch of railway line. I was aware that it was a single track; there was much mocking at the time because it was and it led to the North London line, with the consequential speed restrictions and additional traffic. There was concern that this was not an adequate link, but it is a link nevertheless. I am not blaming the Minister for having the line built—I might blame him for various other decisions he has taken—but perhaps he could tell us whether it is feasible to add signals to this line and give us some connection. Surely the Midlands, the north-west and north-east of England, and perhaps Scotland, deserve better for their taxes than to be told when they arrive in Euston, “Put your bags under your arm and catch the Northern line if you wish to proceed further towards Europe by train”. Surely the Minister and the country can do better than that.

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[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Transport (Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon) (Con)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate. Before I go any further, on behalf of the Government I join the noble Lords, Lord Adonis and Lord Rosser, in thanking the Select Committee. Members of the Select Committee did some incredible work and showed great dedication and devotion to the cause in terms of the petitions that were heard. I want to put on record my thanks and those of the Secretary of State and the Government as a whole for their work in that respect. I tuned into some of the sessions from afar, from my office at the DfT, and some very robust discussions took place in the committee.

The amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, goes to the very heart of the Bill. I thank the noble Baroness and acknowledge that these are probing amendments, seeking further clarification. As she rightly articulated, at Second Reading in the other place the principle of the Bill was agreed, and that did not include a spur such as the one being proposed. I empathise with her views and the views of those who support the amendment. I know that this is not the intention behind the amendment but if it was carried, it would have the result of re-hybridising the Bill. I am sure that is not the intention of the noble Baroness or those who spoke in support of the amendment.

[Lord Berkeley]

The question of hybridisation and additional provisions came up many times in the committee. The promoter wrote to me several times—this is one of the things I will talk about later—saying, “You cannot have an additional provision because it would have to go back to the Commons”. We knew all that but what nobody said was that there is a precedent for adding small works using the Transport and Works Act approval process. The argument that you cannot do something because it would turn it into a hybrid and send it back with additional provisions should not be used. If Ministers wanted to make a change, as they did with the HS1 Bill, when they added Stratford station under the Transport and Works Act, that would be a perfectly acceptable way of doing it. I hope the Minister will agree.

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Moved by

[Lord Berkeley]

2: Clause 1, page 1, line 11, at end insert—
“( ) Construction work otherwise authorised by this Act may not begin until— (a) the nominated undertaker has published an up-to-date estimate of costs for works authorised by this Act, broken down into geographical and system elements;(b) that estimate has been examined, reported on and approved by an independent expert panel appointed by the Secretary of State for that purpose; and(c) the report of the panel has been published.”

[Lord Berkeley]

My Lords, in moving Amendment 2 in my name and that of the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, I will speak to Amendments 3 and 4, which are in my name. I am getting very concerned about the costs of HS2. The reason for that is, as many noble Lords will know, that I with two experts, Jonathan Roberts and Michael Byng, came up with a scheme to provide a cheaper and more effective station at Euston for the end of HS2. I appeared with them in front of your Lordships’ Select Committee and, along with colleagues, pay tribute to the way that the members of the committee listened and took an interest. Frankly, I congratulate them on staying the course. If we ever get further such committees in both Houses, I hope that the House of Commons committees will learn something from the way that your Lordships’ committee operated, because it was really good.

I will not go into the detail of the scheme. We had a lot of support from people privately within HS2, Network Rail, TfL and Camden, but many of them are restricted from saying publicly what they felt. I believe it would work. We could never get a cost for the HS2 scheme out of HS2, so we ended up costing it ourselves with Michael Byng, who is a real expert in railway costing and has written the textbook on costing railway works for Network Rail, which is being implemented—not before time, I would say—and has a lot of credibility. We ended up demonstrating that we could probably save the Government £1.8 billion by putting all the trains into Euston and giving the west coast main line services a new station on top, so to speak, alongside the HS2 station. On a like-for-like comparison, the saving was £3 billion to £4 billion. Interestingly, HS2 never challenged any of the costs in the committee, which surprised me.

The reason I tabled Amendment 3 was to suggest that, before the Government embark on construction work on the ground, they need a comprehensive, up-to-date and independent cost estimate of the section between Old Oak Common and Euston. Having got some further information from HS2 since we appeared in front of the committee, we understand that it will cost £8.25 billion at 2014 last-quarter prices. This includes contingencies, risk compensation and everything else one might want.

The problem for me, and perhaps for the Minister, is that in a Written Answer he gave me on 21 December, the equivalent cost for the whole phase 1 scheme was £24.3 billion, on the same basis. That means that the section from Old Oak Common to and including Euston is about 34% of the total cost. That leaves £16 billion for the remaining 200 kilometres of line.

I am sure that this is not how it has been thought about, but one sometimes gets the feeling that, “Well, London’s expensive to build in, but when you get north of the countryside in Northamptonshire and Buckinghamshire, it is quite easy”. The Committee should be aware that this is a line connecting the two major cities in this country. A tunnel has been proposed through the suburban areas in London, but not for the Birmingham area, from Water Orton to Curzon Street. It has to cross three motorways and several major railway lines and rivers. In fact, 40% of the total length is in either tunnel or viaduct, so it is a complicated structure. It will probably need new signal boxes and more power supply: my colleagues have calculated that the power needed for these high-speed trains is equivalent to half a Hinkley Point, when phase 2 is finished. It is a very big project.

We have got £16 billion to build 204 kilometres of line. Mr Byng has priced this, on the same basis that he presented to the Select Committee, pointing out that the cost of land acquisition, permanent and temporary, and disruption in the open areas is very expensive. We talked once to Professor McNaughton about the amount of compensation that was needed around Euston alone exceeding £1 billion—that was just the compensation. The costs are obviously very high. Mr Byng has now come up with an estimate, on the same basis, that the total cost of phase 1 of HS2 would be £53.6 billion, which is about double the figure that was in the Written Answer. Jonathan Roberts, who is a very experienced railway man, has compared those. I am not a cost engineer, but I respect the view of these two people. The costs when we started off at Euston have never been challenged. I want this scheme to happen, but I worry that there is no way that any bit of phase 1 can be completed at the price of £24 billion quoted in that Written Answer.

I believe that HS2 has spent about £1 billion on consultancy since it started, but why have they not done any credible costings on it? It is a very complicated route, but why have they not done it. We get back to the issue of value for money and business case, which my noble friend Lord Adonis mentioned earlier. Noble Lords will be aware that the chairman of the House of Commons Treasury Select Committee, Andrew Tyrie, wrote to Chris Grayling in the last week or so asking why they had increased the passenger number estimate, and whether it was just to improve the business case. I have not seen any answer, but I expect there is one. If one is going to increase the capital cost by anything approaching the figure I have given, that does not do a lot of good for the business case, because it goes down the other way. What can be done, because I do want this to happen? The first thing is to get a credible estimate by independent experts. I hope that Ministers will avoid the temptation of shooting the messenger, because it is important to get the figures right.

What can be done in a more positive way? As noble Lords have already said, one thing is to slow the trains down a bit, because the running costs of going at 400 kilometres an hour, or even 360, are extremely high, as are the capital costs of the trains and the track. Does it really matter if it takes two minutes longer to get to Birmingham? My view is that it does not, especially when you have got to walk 20 minutes from the new Curzon Street station to New Street, though that is a separate issue. You could leave out everything from Old Oak Common eastwards, as the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, mentioned earlier. He said it would work and I agree. Or we could adopt the cheaper scheme that we proposed for going to Euston. You could leave out the Handsacre link, which is not so expensive—maybe £1 billion—which links the top end of phase 1 to the west coast main line. It is a particularly worrying design because you have got six tracks coming together into three.

Beyond Handsacre, going towards Stafford, there is a section of the west coast main line that is not four tracks but three. I am not quite sure why it is only three; I think that somebody who had a large estate did not want his land built on. Anyway, it has a serious effect on the capacity of the line. If you did not put in the Handsacre link and you carried straight on to Crewe, which is where it is needed, people in Stafford and Stoke-on-Trent might not be so happy; on the other hand, if the west coast main line is to operate well, as it does, they might be happy. That is another way of perhaps saving £1 billion.

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I therefore hope that noble Lords recognise that sufficient protections already exist in the commitments that have been made, and that the Government have sought to listen in addressing and mitigating issues of both noise and the environment. Any further requirements are unnecessary and will serve only to delay the start of construction on what most recognise as a vital infrastructure project. Furthermore, I believe that this House should respect the decisions of the Select Committees, whose members, as we have recognised, spent many hours considering many of the issues that have been discussed this afternoon in detail with the evidence in front of them before they came to their reasoned conclusions. Therefore, with the assurances that I have provided, I hope that the amendments will not be pressed.

[Lord Berkeley]

My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken in this short debate. At one stage, I felt that I had really put the cat among the pigeons in an unacceptable way, but we have come back to the text of the amendments, and I am grateful for the Minister’s response. I want the scheme to go ahead. It is needed for capacity, as my noble friend Lord Adonis said. My worry is to do with the costs. As the Minister knows, I have been meeting senior officials of HS2 and his department, probably for two years. In connection with the Euston scheme, it was clear to me that there was no cost estimate for the AP3 scheme, as it is called; that is why we decided to price it for them. The figure came out at £8.25 billion. Because it was so high in relation to the total cost of phase 1, I thought it was very likely that there would be a serious cost overrun for phase 1, which could put the project at risk, which I do not want to happen.

If HS2 or his department have figures for costs, is the Minister willing to share them with us? We have a big schedule here of the costs of the whole project from railway control systems, train power, enabling works and building works to signalling. If we have got it wrong, I would like to know about it. We have a blank screen at the moment. Could we have a meeting on this before Report when we could share these costs with his officials?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

If there is anything that we can assist with between different stages of the Bill I would welcome meetings, either directly with myself or with officials, and if schedules allow we will arrange them. On the cost of the Euston AP3 scheme, an estimate of expense was deposited in September 2015, as required by Standing Orders, and I hope that the noble Lord is aware of this.

[Lord Berkeley]

I am grateful to the Minister. Perhaps we can follow this up afterwards. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 2 withdrawn.

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[Lord Berkeley]

Maybe I can help. My noble friend at some stage probably came down the Channel Tunnel while we were building it. We had boring machines boring the tunnels, but there were two caverns for crossovers, which were mined using something called the new Austrian tunnelling method, which involves more or less what the noble Viscount said. It is a big digger on tracks with a revolving arm and cutters that stick out. Something then gets the spoil that goes underneath it, then you spray concrete with reinforcing mesh on it and put in in situ or precast concrete later. It is supposed to be a lot cheaper; you do not need a boring machine. My colleagues have looked at the costs and they reckon that there is about £750 million to save. It is a very good scheme.

[Lord Adonis]

My Lords—

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[Lord Berkeley]

Is the noble Lord aware of proposals for altering the routes of the tunnels under Park Village East to try and avoid that awful birdcage structure, which I believe can be done without an additional provision? I have heard that they are looking at it. I do not know enough about it to know whether that improves the situation or not, but I know there are moves afoot, because that birdcage is a very tricky structure to build and could put all those houses and Park Village East at risk due to settlement, because it is a tricky piece of construction.

[Lord Hunt of Wirral]

I am very grateful to the noble Lord for the suggestion he makes, which rather reinforces my plea to the Minister for an assurance that his door is open.

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[Baroness Pidding (Con)]

My Lords, in the unavoidable absence of the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson of Balmacara, and with his permission, I will speak to his Amendment 15, which I support. I must first declare two interests. First, my partner is a Lloyd’s underwriter and is part of the tendering process for the insurance provision for the construction of HS2. Secondly, we live in an area affected by the project.

The amendment raises the issue of the design for the gantries being used in the Chilterns AONB from the point at which it emerges from the bored tunnel and proceeds on the surface to Wendover. My appeal to the Minister is that the promoter and the nominated undertaker should think very carefully about the appearance of these intrusive overhead power lines. In particular, they should explore the possibility of removing as much as possible of this unappealing infrastructure to compensate for the imposition of the railway on the sensitive landscapes of this precious part of our countryside. There is, I accept, a design panel and I am sure it will do what it can to mitigate these unwelcome intrusions of which I speak. But we must all do what we can to protect this rural environment.

I look forward to hearing my noble friend the Minister’s response and hope that he has it in his power to give undertakings: that sensitivity will be used in design; that local people will be consulted; and that all efforts will be made in the Chilterns AONB to conceal power lines, which currently, on the design presented by HS2, will be attached to towers twice the height of the existing pylons. Of course, the ideal solution would be to bury overhead power lines associated with this project in the AONB underground. Will he indicate whether this would be a possible solution?

[Lord Berkeley]

My Lords, I follow my noble friend’s example. While I fully support her wish to have woodland preserved, I do not know much about it. I think it is a very good idea and I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response. I hope that it will be in the response next week. However, I have problems with Amendment 15. Overhead power lines for railways are a necessary part of making the trains run, unless you use diesels. Diesels are not only polluting, they are very heavy and they do not really like going as fast as is planned for HS2.

Noble Lords may be aware that when the east coast main line was electrified—before my day, but perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Snape, was around then—it was done on the cheap and the wires do come down with depressing regularity. Network Rail, in electrifying the Great Western, have therefore gone to the opposite extreme and put up some pretty hefty towers, supported on piles in the ground, and the wires will be so strong that they will probably resist a good hurricane. But then the people of Bath said that they did not want wires on the railway going past the beautiful city of Bath. When Bath was built, there was not a railway, was there? But a railway was put through it so that the good people of Bath could get to Bristol and London and other places. They did not want a catenary at all; they wanted a third rail because you would not see it. It would have cost billions to develop a special train to go just there so you would not see the wires. The later idea was that the people of Goring, somewhere between Didcot and Reading, did not like the look of these posts and so they are taking legal action, I believe, against Network Rail to have the posts redesigned.

If we want to move around in a modern way, we need electric wires to move the trains. The further apart you put the posts, the more the wires are likely to come down when there is any wind. There has to be a compromise. Yes, we have railways going through AONBs and other places but if you go to places such as the Swiss Alps, the Austrian Alps or other beautiful parts of the continent, all the lines are electrified and the wires just blend in with the rest of the infrastructure. I would strongly resist HS2 being told to have special architect-designed posts for a particular area. It will not work. It will cost an enormous amount of money. These things will fit in with the surroundings quite well. Frankly, when 40% of the line is in a tunnel anyway, you are not going to have too many posts around to look at.

[Lord Rosser]

I want to make just one or two comments about Amendment 28, to which my noble friend Lady Young of Old Scone has spoken. Obviously, I am aware of the comments that have been made by the Select Committee, which was not, let us say, fully enamoured of the report by Natural England. Equally, as I understand it, it was a report that Natural England was asked to produce in relation to this issue. As my noble friend has said, it has made its recommendations. The Select Committee took the view that it did not feel the reference to a scale of 30:1 was evidence-based. Before I go any further, I accept that I was not a member of the committee and therefore do not know everything that was said when evidence was taken. I do not doubt in that sense that the committee had good reason for making the point it has.

I hope the Government will look sympathetically on the amendment. Certainly, I, too, wish to hear what their response is to the report and the review by Natural England. If their view is that they do not feel they can go down the road of that report, I hope they will set out very clearly what their reasons are and perhaps whether they have alternative propositions to those that have been made. I hope the response will be, at least in large measure if not in its entirety, that they would be willing to accept what was in the report that Natural England was asked to prepare.

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[Lord Brabazon of Tara (Con)]

I am grateful to my noble friend for having explained the new schedule, which extends to four-and-a-half pages of quite draconian powers being asked for by the Secretary of State. It is most unfortunate for it to be introduced now, after the Bill has been through the hybrid Bill committee in both Houses, therefore denying the highway authorities the opportunity to petition against it, which I think I can say authoritatively that they would have done. I have been briefed by Camden Council, which says that it would have petitioned against the new clause, and I think the same can be said for Transport for London and various other highway authorities along the route, notably Buckinghamshire County Council.

It is most unfortunate that my noble friend should be introducing four-and-a-half pages of such a draconian new schedule but not allowing the people involved to petition against it. I would also like to know whether the Minister has actually consulted on the new schedule with any of the highway authorities that are likely to be affected by it. My understanding is that no consultation has taken place so far. I also rather wonder what the purpose is of HS2 information paper E13, which deals with the management of traffic during construction and how much of it is now being negated by the introduction of the new schedule. I hope my noble friend will consider whether it is really necessary or whether he might not just drop the whole thing and rely on the powers that the Government already have.

[Lord Berkeley]

My Lords, I echo the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Brabazon. I have had communications from Transport for London, Camden Council and the West Midland Transport Authority, all expressing serious concerns about both the procedure being used and the practicality of what is proposed. In his opening remarks, the Minister said that the size of this project was unprecedented and therefore all these special regulations were needed to make sure you could get along the road. It is bigger than HS1, but not that much. Crossrail, going all the way through London was a pretty major project, too, and had many traffic issues. I was vaguely involved in both of them. As the noble Lord, Lord Brabazon, said, that begs the question of why, if this legislation was thought necessary, it was not in the original Bill so that local authorities could petition.

In terms of consultation, I have a letter here from Transport for London, dated 6 January, to the Department for Transport expressing concern that it had a meeting before Christmas where the consultation consisted of bringing up this draft regulation under AOB and that was it. It states that the discussion focused on the removal of vehicles and did not cover the amendments. So there was no consultation. Camden, in particular, must be worried about lorries: the latest figure for the borough is 1,500 per day. We shall probably come to that in a later amendment. It is no good HS2 trying to ride roughshod over TfL’s Safer Lorry scheme or using bus lanes for its heavy commercial vehicles. For a bus user, why should HS2 trucks get in the way of buses? London has to continue to operate. The cycle superhighway network—which I love, of course—is apparently going to be affected. None of these organisations appears to have been consulted.

There is a way forward. All these organisations—and I am sure Bucks county council and others are the same—want to consult and find a solution. I urge the Minister to withdraw the amendment and organise some far-reaching and comprehensive consultations so that, if there has to be legislation, a new draft can be brought forward on Report. If he does not withdraw the amendment, I shall oppose it.

[Baroness Randerson]

My Lords, I share the serious concerns that have been voiced around the room this evening. The way in which this is being attempted undermines trust in the whole process. We just heard the noble Baroness go to great lengths to reassure us about the care and concern that has been taken over an issue such as ancient woodland, and we are all very pleased to hear that. However, then to hear that the lives of thousands of residents and many thousands of drivers could be seriously affected by the introduction of changes to traffic regulations that have been subject to virtually no scrutiny and are contrary to the wishes of the local councils and traffic authorities means that the whole approach is unbalanced. I urge the Minister to think again, to reach out and discuss it with the authorities concerned and give them an opportunity to put their case. Some form of compromise can probably be reached. At least they will have been properly consulted. If that is not done, it feels a bit like sharp practice. I dare say that it is the result of people thinking about the need for this rather late, but I also tend to think that it is an overreaction and probably is not needed. As the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, said, other big schemes have managed without it.