High Speed Rail (London-West Midlands) Bill

Lord Bradshaw 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?

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I will not go on. I think that I have set out the reasons for tabling these amendments, but I urge the Minister to undertake this independent cost analysis and everything else that goes with it before the construction starts. Otherwise, in a couple of years, whoever is the Minister will say, “Sorry. It’s going ahead and we’ll need more money”. I can see Ministers in this Government and probably in any other Government saying, “Well, if you want more money, you’d better find it from the other railway budget”. That would be a complete disaster. I beg to move.

[Lord Bradshaw]

I support what the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, has said. The scheme as envisaged is extravagant, and this is not a time when we can afford extravagance. There is a good case for having an independent assessment of the costs, particularly to consider such things as how long this railway can terminate at Old Oak Common, which would set aside a considerable sum of money. If a connection has to be made to Euston, how can that be done in the most economical way? I do not believe that that issue has been addressed. We are not talking about small sums of money; we are talking about billions of pounds.

One thing that I was told about the Bill was that people had made assumptions about the time it took to turn round a train from the north that was heading in the direction of London. I have run a lot of London stations. I can assure noble Lords that, with the number of trains that it is proposed to run from Manchester to Old Oak Common, it would be quite easy, given the six platforms there, to turn the trains round. What one has to factor in is the capacity at Old Oak Common. That means that there has to be a sufficient number of people to service the trains. Special attention also needs to be given to the access to and from the platforms.

I rather agree with the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, about the Handsacre link, which seems to cost a lot of money. I certainly agree on the issue about speed. There is a complete misapprehension of the value of journey time savings when we talk about savings of two minutes or less, yet that structure holds up the whole of our transport evaluation, whether in road, rail or anything else—the biggest factor to be taken into consideration is the value of the small time savings, which are all added together and form a colossal sum. However, people making a journey do not take into consideration whether they are going to be two minutes quicker, because in lots of modes of transport unpredictability is a much bigger factor than the journey time saving.

I also want to probe—to push very hard—on the time savings. We should be very careful about speeds which go much above 125 miles per hour, possibly up to 150. It costs a lot once you push speeds towards the upper end of the limit. I am happy to join the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, in his call for independent costings, but there is also a need for re-evaluation of the economic basis on which the line is to be built.

[Lord Framlingham (Con)]

My Lords, we have dealt with only two amendments so far, and any member of the public sitting listening to the Committee will be asking themselves: “Why on earth are you going ahead with this project?”. All we have are problems, which seem to me almost insurmountable; we have no answers to them. When we ask about the trek from St Pancras to Euston, the answer is, apparently, offer £3 million to the local authority as a prize if it can come up with the answer. That does not sound to me like much of a solution.

I know that this is not Second Reading, but we must ask ourselves whether there is any sense in going ahead with this whole project. We have not yet dealt with the environmental problems, which will be huge and last for years. We have heard from the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, whose amendment I support, that the whole scheme is not properly costed and nobody knows what will happen in the long run.

The Minister described it as a vital scheme. It is not. The money could be much better spent on all sorts of things: hospitals, schools, or Liverpool-to-Hull transport. If we pursue it, I think we will regret it for a long time. As this matter proceeds, I hope that your Lordships’ House will think it through very carefully and perhaps have second thoughts about proceeding with the whole scheme.

High Speed Rail (London–West Midlands) Bill

Lord Bradshaw Excerpts

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 12th January 2017 Grand Committee

[Lord Berkeley]

My Lords, Amendment 18, standing in my name and that of the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, is to do with traffic and transport issues during the construction of phase 1. It came from a conversation I had with people at the West Midlands transport authority—I think that is the right name; it has just been changed—who expressed concern that the Bill could allow HS2 to restrict the flows on motorways or national rail services as it felt necessary without any consideration for the needs of other rail travellers or drivers on the motorway and local roads. They felt that the consultation had been not that comprehensive to start off with and they were really quite worried about this issue, which they say could cause major trouble and problems for traffic on rail and road during the construction. It seems that Camden Council has similar worries and I think that TfL probably does, too. Their solution was to propose this idea of a regional integrated command centre. I do not know whether that is the right term. It is not a sort of Army command centre but a co-ordination body to bring all the bodies which I have listed, including,

“Highways England, local highways authorities, emergency services”—

the transport authorities local and regional—

“transport operators and the nominated undertaker’s contractors”,

and probably a few more, together on a regular basis to plan what is going on and minimise the adverse effect of traffic and transport on the users.

We can debate whether there should be one centre covering the whole route or several. The amendment I have tabled says that there should be one but that is for discussion. This is one of those things which, if it does not happen, probably would happen several years on when there had been a crisis or disaster. My suggestion is that it should be set up from the beginning, whether that takes three months or six months or whatever. I hope that it would be funded by HS2; after all, they are the people causing the problem. I think this would be welcomed by all the different users and could be a major benefit to the communities along the route and the longer-distance travellers, who would see all the obvious problems which come with construction mitigated to some extent. I look forward to some interesting comments and debate on this proposal, which would be extremely cheap to run and very beneficial. I beg to move.

[Lord Bradshaw (LD)]

I shall speak very briefly. The Minister has already said in reply to a previous amendment that local authorities would have substantial powers in organising traffic. I am anxious to have some assurance that HS2 Ltd will not, as it were, have overriding powers which prevent the proper processes taking place.

[Baroness O'Cathain (Con)]

My Lords, perhaps we could probe this amendment. A lot of the work that we did on the Select Committee referred to HS1, Crossrail and the tunnel. With all his expertise and knowledge, can the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, tell me whether this actually occurred in the case of HS1—the Channel Tunnel route—and Crossrail? Perhaps we should benefit from that, because we frequently went back to the experience of those two projects. There was no point to going through them if you were not going to get some learning from them. Are we trying to reinvent the wheel here or was there a separate way of doing it, which the noble Lord thinks was not good enough and is why he has tabled this amendment?

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[Lord Berkeley]

My Lords, for the convenience of the Committee, I can speak to Amendments 19 and 20 together, which should save us a little time. This is a very short and probing amendment which comes out of experience with HS1. When the HS1 legislation was going through, Ministers seemed to have a lot of intentions to set it up so that it could be sold to the highest bidder in the shortest possible time and at the highest price. They seemed to think that if they did not have independent regulators keeping an eye on what was going on, that would dramatically increase the sale price. Anyway, the Bill received Royal Assent and it all happened, but a few years later we realised that, having no regulator with any teeth at all, the infrastructure manager, which could have been in the private sector, could charge exactly what it liked for the trains to run on it, could close it when it liked, and did not have to justify its costs of operation or anything else. All I have put down in these amendments is simply to probe the Minister to ensure that he is not trying to do that this time. I have no evidence that he is at all but I just wanted to probe to make sure. We spent an awful lot of time in the years after the HS1 Act—the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, and I did a lot of it together—bringing in regulations, which the Government accepted, to right the mistakes of the first Act.

[Lord Bradshaw]

Perhaps I may just draw the Minister’s attention to the large number of occasions on which Ministers of both parties have committed themselves to the fares on HS2 not being excessive and taking into account ordinary people and various other things— I have about 20 of them. This is not a railway that is apart from the rest of the railway, I hope.

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

My Lords, I thank both noble Lords and I shall turn first to that final point. There are other Ministers taking part in the Committee today. I back exactly the sentiments of the noble Lord and would add my name to the list, in the sense that the HS2 project underlines the importance of the railway infrastructure as a whole. We have discussed in previous debates the importance of the building of HS2 not just for itself but also in terms of the impact it will have on the railway infrastructure.

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, for explaining that the amendment is probing in nature, but perhaps I may refer to the specifics. With respect to the Railways Act 1993, only one minor change is being made, which is a partial disapplication of the licensing provision so that the pre-operation testing phase does not require a licence. It is simply not considered to be necessary during that period. As I have said, we learn from experience; such a change was made for the Crossrail Act 2008 and a rather wider disapplication was also included in the Channel Tunnel Rail Link Act 1996, in which I am sure both noble Lords are well versed. The Bill would also disapply closure provisions in the Railways Act 2005 in the case of closures that are necessary because of the construction of the works. In this regard there is only one closure, that of the Wycombe Single to allow Old Oak Common to be constructed. This has already been discussed in the Select Committee of your Lordships’ House on the Bill, and it was decided that the closure procedures in the 2005 Act should not apply as Parliament will have already approved the closure. As I say, such a provision was also included in the Crossrail Act.

I appreciate that in the interests of time the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, has spoken to Amendments 19 and 20. Specifically on Amendment 20, I can confirm that the existing safety and economic regulatory regime for the railway is unchanged by the Bill and so it would continue to apply to HS2 in the same way that the regulator, who as he pointed out has an important role, sees fit. For these reasons, we believe that this amendment is unnecessary.

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[Lord Bradshaw]

Just to have a bit of up-to-date experience, I always travel on the bus in the morning. Yesterday, there was one wheelchair, three buggies and two ladies with wheeled trolleys. The driver should not have taken them, but he did. As time goes on, we are going to have to get round this issue of flexible space—perhaps it is a little more sophisticated than using tip-up seats. We have to adjust what we have got to take account of the traffic on offer.

[Lord Rosser]

Can the Minister provide an assurance— I am sure that he will be able to—that these facilities will be available on the high-speed trains, including for wheelchair users, and that there is no possibility whatever of anyone seeking to argue that, since other services will be running between Birmingham and London, Manchester and London and Leeds and London, on what is described as the classic network, people with bicycles, wheelchair users and people with pushchairs will have to go on those services rather than on HS2?

High Speed Rail (London-West Midlands) Bill

Lord Bradshaw Excerpts

Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 24th January 2017 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Bradshaw]

1: Clause 1, page 1, line 11, at end insert—
“( ) Construction work otherwise authorised by this Act may not begin until—(a) the Secretary of State has commissioned a review of the merits of establishing Old Oak Common station as an interim eastern terminus for Phase One of High Speed 2, with the provision of convenient access arrangements with London Overground routes to the east and west of the station, and(b) the report of that review has been published.”

[Lord Bradshaw (LD)]

My Lords, I would like to make it absolutely plain at the outset that we wholeheartedly support the intentions of the Bill. We are concerned, for example, that all the routes out of London to the north are now overloaded. They are unreliable and extremely difficult to expand. There would be absolutely years and years of delay if such expansion were attempted. Our concern is that the HS2 scheme as it now stands, and as we now understand the costings to be, does not comply with the funding envelope contained in the Minister’s answer to this House in December of last year. We do not believe that the costings of HS2 are soundly based. We will explore in more detail why that is, but they are not up to date and have not been prepared by people who are absolutely competent to do so. A question of financial propriety is involved as regards whether the Government should get involved in the scheme as it now stands with such flimsy cost estimates. We further believe that if economies are not made now in the part of high-speed rail that goes from London to Birmingham, there will not be enough money in the funding envelope to extend HS2 north of Birmingham. As that is the principal purpose of the line, it seems rather odd that we would not manage to complete the line as planned.

The principal economy that it is possible to make concerns Old Oak Common, where the first London terminal is, and Euston station, which it is proposed will be reached at a further stage. Old Oak Common is a large area. It is connected to Crossrail 1, Heathrow and, obviously, to Canary Wharf. I further suggest that that station should be designed so that it is easy to turn trains around there, provided that there are sufficient staff; and that the connections between Old Oak Common station, the West London line and the line from Richmond —the two lines of London Overground—would in fact give a lot more facility for people to be dispersed from the railway. This would require Old Oak Common to be the interim terminus in London. While most people do not even know where Old Oak Common is, it is not far from London; it is well connected by road; and because of the good connections which I have described and the potential good connections which could be provided, I do not believe that when trains come from Birmingham or the north, if they could go to Euston, people would choose to stay on them as far as Euston. They will get off at Old Oak Common and disperse from there.

A huge amount of money is involved in the extension of High Speed 2 from Old Oak Common to Euston, and that represents a large economy, which would help the project to stay within the funding envelopes which the Government are providing. It is therefore time to re-examine and reappraise the Euston connection to see what benefit it will bring. However, there is no reason in the interim why Network Rail should not get on and modernise Euston station, which sadly needs it, and of course it would provide an interval during which people could decide whether extending the railway from Old Oak Common to Euston was a good proposition. I have set out simply what we are trying to do: we are trying to protect HS2 in its projection to the north of England, and to bring financial discipline to the whole project, which has not been done. I beg to move.

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[Lord Bradshaw]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his response. First, in answer to the noble Lord, Lord Brabazon, I have checked that the termination of trains for a period at Old Oak Common would not rehybridise the Bill, because it would not deviate from what has already been agreed. Secondly, I fully go along with the urgency of the project. It is a very sensible project and I have always thought it necessary; I do not argue with it. I am concerned that it will be subject to a lot of cost overruns because I do not believe that the preparatory work has been done as thoroughly as it should.

Reference was made to Old Oak Common by the noble Baroness, Lady O’Cathain. I have managed the railway at Old Oak Common. It has never been a station. It has been a locomotive depot with lots of sidings, but it gives an opportunity. It is a vast area. There are no buildings of architectural merit there, so it is possible to clear an area. There is no reason why a station should not be constructed at Old Oak Common so that trains can be turned around. In phase 1, the trains from Birmingham will be no more than commuter trains. If they take 30 or 40 minutes to get to Old Oak Common, that will not be a long journey and it will not be difficult to turn them around and send them back to Birmingham quite quickly.

I want real attention focused on how we get economically from Old Oak Common to Euston, because I very much fear that the costs of that last bit as they now stand will explode the issue and, as I said, unless the Government make more money available, stop the extension beyond Birmingham.

These are serious issues. I have listened carefully to what the Minister said. However, I started with the issue of financial propriety. I think it is our duty to say to the Government that this has not been properly costed from one end to the other. We should get on with the bit that we know—or think—is sound, and push the other one, not to a long delay, but until such time as the figures can be agreed. I beg to test the opinion of the House.