High Speed Rail (West Midlands-Crewe) Bill

Lord Bradshaw Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 9th November 2020 Grand Committee

All of these factors combined would be catastrophic for the economies of Yorkshire and the east Midlands if the western leg of HS2 proceeds without the eastern leg. These are hugely important issues—and I apologise for detaining the Committee for longer than normal—that go to the whole future economic and social geography of this country. It is vital that we proceed with the eastern as well as the western leg of HS2. Although I do not think that my remarks this afternoon will have persuaded the Minister to make any dramatic statements in her reply, I hope that they will strongly encourage the political and business leaders of the east Midlands and Yorkshire to campaign ferociously for the eastern leg of HS2 to proceed alongside the western leg; otherwise, we will proceed with, in effect, just half of the project for levelling up the Midlands and the north. I beg to move.

[Lord Bradshaw (LD) [V]]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Adonis. I was in the House when he introduced the original high-speed rail proposals. I think I appended a plaudit to his name then: I said that he was a sort of second Brunel, because at least he had the vision as to what could happen rather than thinking how difficult it was to do everything. It is extraordinarily difficult. I do not applaud the way in which HS2 has gone about it. It has been slow, it has been extravagant and it could have done the job better, but there remain important things to be done.

I wish to start by talking about the east Midlands, which has the lowest attainment and the lowest social mobility of the whole country. It is low down in the Government’s plans for investing any money anywhere, and it is extremely important that it be brought back into the fold, because much of the area is shamefully neglected. Train journeys from places such as Lincoln, Leicester and Derby into Birmingham average only about 30 miles per hour. That sort of speed would be quite unacceptable to people in other parts of the country.

This morning we saw published an RAC motoring report which somewhat joyfully hailed the death of public transport and the fact that at some point in the future we would have cars that emitted no pollution. It said that people would flock to their cars. In fact, congestion is caused by the vehicles being there, and previous attempts to build our way out of congestion on the roads have generally been an abject failure and have cost the country huge sums of money.

In Birmingham is an organisation called Midlands Engine, which reports up the various channels to a mayor in Birmingham who I believe is an avid Conservative. But go and talk to him about what he thinks about cutting a large part of the east Midlands out of the benefits which come from having a high-speed railway.

The noble Lord, Lord Adonis, mentioned the Welwyn viaduct. It is an impossible obstacle. I have tried many times in my railway career to see how it might be overcome, including by going to New Zealand at my own expense to see how the Japanese had attached wings to Auckland Harbour Bridge to make the road wider. That sort of thing cannot be done on a railway. Nothing but destruction would be wrought over the whole valley for a long time if anybody were to attempt to rebuild that viaduct.

As the noble Lord said, there is an extremely complicated compensation system, designed at privatisation, that perversely means that when you set out to improve a railway, the people you are improving it for get compensation for your efforts. It is a most ridiculous system which I hope might be one of the things addressed in the review of the railway which Keith Williams started—but I do not quite know where that is now.

One good thing to come out of recent developments in HS2 is the concept of a through station at Manchester. When we talk about the north-east, we see the need for a through station at Leeds, because the concept of terminus stations in the middle of high-speed lines is a very stupid one. I strongly support what the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, has said. It is incumbent on the Government to come clean, particularly with the large number of people in the east Midlands, many of whom voted for them at the last election, and to say, “Yes, we are going to build better, a lot better, because, by rebuilding, we can not only restore fast services but free up local services, which are so awful, and bring them up to modern standards”. I hope that the Minister might have some encouragement for us at the end of this debate.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP) [V]]

My Lords, it would probably be quite difficult to find two people who think more differently about the first leg of HS2 than me and the noble Lord, Lord Adonis. I disagree with a large part of what he said: the first leg is a dinosaur of a project. It is economically and environmentally disastrous. That it has gone ahead in spite of the Treasury and Dominic Cummings being against it staggers me—something has clearly gone wrong there.

However, I support the amendment, because it is important that there is a shape to the future. At the moment, I know that people in the north are extremely worried that HS2 will be seen by the Government as something that serves London, with the north forgotten. The Government have said that a Bill for the northern part of HS2 will not be brought forward until they have developed their overall strategy for rail transport in the north. That means that they could abandon that part of HS2 as well as the east-west railway, which Boris Johnson specifically promised as part of the Conservative manifesto and probably helped him win the election and the seats in the north. Without extending to the north, HS2 has zero hope of delivering on the already questionable value-for-money assessment conducted by the Government. Quite honestly, the north will judge the Government on whether its railways go ahead.

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[Lord Bradshaw (LD) [V]]

I say simply that I accept entirely the arguments advanced by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope. I agree that the procedure is cumbersome and expensive and I would be very pleased to see some reforms brought forward in due course, but I am sorry, I cannot agree with the arguments put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley.

[Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I have to admit that I barely understand this debate. I did my best to research it and it seemed to be about giving the promoter considerable flexibility to exercise powers under the TWA procedure to create opportunities for activity on land that might be outside the Bill, as well as other rights to do things. I am sure the Minister, briefed by her excellent team, fully understands what this is all about and I will be very grateful if she explains it to me, ideally in words of one syllable.

High Speed Rail (West Midlands–Crewe) Bill

Lord Bradshaw Excerpts

Report stage & Report stage (Hansard) & Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 30th November 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rooker (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I put my name down to speak on this amendment because it seemed the one opportunity that I would have today to give general support to HS2, the Bill and this amendment, obviously, as opposed to the other amendments, which I consider to be wrecking amendments. I would be somewhat more negative about them. I did not have the opportunity to speak in earlier debates.

It gives me pleasure that, having spoken some years ago in favour of the London to Birmingham part, I have an opportunity to support the idea of the total concept outlined by my noble friend Lord Adonis and the noble Lord, Lord McLoughlin, who we have just heard from: the one-nation aspect of the project. It was never about London to Birmingham, but something much bigger. As has been said, it was not about speed either, but about capacity. However, for the first couple of years the PR was somewhat negative.

The Minister has heard pleas from others and I join them, although I understand the position that she is in and what she will want to say. By the way, I found there were occasions when it was possible to make policy at the Dispatch Box when replying in the Lords because of the pressure that you were under, and it helped to stave off a defeat. I always used to tell my Secretary of State when I went back, “I had to give way on that otherwise we would have been defeated.” By and large that was generally accepted, so there is a capacity to do that.

What the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, said about the last days of the Pacer trains is ironic. I remember that when I travelled around the country as a Minister, I was on one of those Pacer trains. I had never heard of them or seen them before. I cannot remember when it was; it was in my MAFF days so I am going back 20 years. I could not believe there were carriages like that on the railways, and of course there still were 20 years later. In some ways this is a bad day, because without the amendment the people of the north and north-east will feel as though they have been left behind.

I do not intend to speak for long. One of the most powerful points that the noble Lord, Lord McLoughlin, just made was about the blight. Everybody knows what the original plans were; they have seen the Y shape of the line. All of a sudden that has disappeared. The blight that that will leave on housing, industry, the movement of people and investment in particular will be massive. It is very difficult to put a cost on blight but it is very negative. Whatever the outcome is today, the Minister needs to point out to the department and the Government that it is in no one’s interest to have part of the country blighted in the way that that part will be if there is no government plan.

[Lord Bradshaw (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I support the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, entirely and all other noble Lords who have spoken. There are two things I want to mention because of my knowledge of the railway. If we do not get this addition to HS2 to the north-east, journeys will be very much slower than they would otherwise be. An HS2 train going from Toton through to Leeds will take 27 minutes; at the moment it takes 85 minutes by conventional railway. For Newcastle, the difference is between 93 and 160 minutes. It really is about putting the country together. There is no way that the existing infrastructure will be able to provide anything like what will be offered by HS2.

The second issue, which is very pertinent, and to which other noble Lords have referred, is the appalling standard of social mobility, education and health that pervade the area north of Toton, going up toward Sheffield and Leeds. HS2 will bring great opportunities. Lots of people will locate their industries and research institutions alongside HS2. It does not even have to built; it has to be promised, but promised faithfully, and people will move there in anticipation. The flow of education and training will bring hope to many people in that area who have abandoned hope. Some of the comments that people make about what it is like to live in these towns and villages show that they are pretty hopeless.

I implore the Government, for the sake of sensibly levelling up, to give this scheme the approval that it needs. I am afraid that if it is turned down, people will give up hope as their hopes have been so often dashed in that part of Britain.

[Lord Faulkner of Worcester (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, it is a privilege to follow the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, who is a most distinguished retired railway manager. He was working for the railway for many years in the last century, and he was a very prominent figure in the industry when I was working for the Board in the 1970s and 1980s.

This has been a remarkable debate in that every single speaker has spoken in favour of the amendment tabled by noble friend Lord Adonis, with cross-party support. I find it very heartening that there is such support for High Speed 2 across the House, and indeed in the other place as well. It is right that the Minister has been praised for backing it so wholeheartedly. I hope that she will not disappoint us when she responds to the debate and gives her view on what happens to this amendment.

May I correct one thing that the noble Lord, Lord McLoughlin, said about Pacers? He may not be aware of it, but there is a Pacer rail group, dedicated to buying at least one of these trains. There are Pacers in use on heritage railways now, and there will be one in the National Railway Museum. If he redevelops a wish to see Pacers, they will be around for some while yet, although happily not on the national network.

I take this opportunity to congratulate the Government on supporting the railways of Britain, not just through the present emergency but committing to their expansion in the future as well. That is why it is important that these good intentions are not undermined in the case of the eastern link of High Speed 2. There is a cross-party consensus that increasing the capability, the capacity and the use of the national electrified rail network is crucial to delivering the Government’s zero carbon agenda. No other transport project comes as close to achieving that goal as High Speed 2. Travelling on High Speed 2 will emit almost seven times fewer carbon emissions per passenger kilometre than the equivalent car journey, and 17 times fewer than the equivalent domestic flight.

Part of the essential case for High Speed 2 is the need to create new capacity on the three main lines going north from Euston, St Pancras and King’s Cross to allow substantial numbers of extra freight trains to run on them. The eastern branch of HS2, connecting Birmingham and the cities of the East Midlands with Sheffield and Leeds is, therefore, vital. We know from the 10-year experience of modernising the west coast main line earlier this century that attempting to create a 21st-century railway by tinkering with a Victorian one creates years of disruption, delay and increased cost. The situation would be as bad or worse if the same were to be tried with the Midland main line and the east coast main line, rather than building the eastern leg of High Speed 2.

I finish with a comment from the director of Transport for the North, Tim Wood, in an interview with Modern Railways magazine in the current edition. He said that the eastern leg is as important as the 2b route to Crewe, Manchester and Liverpool:

“We all welcome the move, as further progress in delivering a step change for rail travel in the north. The plans to integrate the network on the east of the Pennines need full commitment and to be progressed at speed as well.”


I do hope that the Minister will agree, and that she will accept the amendment.

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This amendment, with its requirement for further consultation and a subsequent report to Parliament on both the impact of the HS2 works and the possible benefits that could accrue to local communities in the form of improved transport links, providing connections to HS2 to enable them to benefit from it, will enable that much-needed hands-on approach, led or closely overseen—one hopes—by the new Minister, to happen in a productive and positive way for all concerned. Whether I seek a vote on this amendment will be dependent on what is said, including by the Government, during the debate. I beg to move.

[Lord Bradshaw (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I have an entirely different point to make, which I believe the Minister will need to take into account as HS2 progresses: the question of the stations at the northern end, be they at Leeds or Manchester. I believe it has now been decided that the Manchester station should be capable of dealing with through-trains. At Leeds—I now speak in the name of the late Lord Shutt of Greetland, who was very strong on this issue—the idea of a terminal station that is a dead end is anathema to most railwaymen.

In order to get connectivity through a system, it is ideal to have platforms that allow through-trains to serve the larger stations because these are not the terminal points to which people want to go; they want to connect on further, and, in the case of Leeds, it will obviously be a desire to go on to Newcastle, York and, possibly, Scotland. I imagine that, when you get to Manchester, you will want to go on to Bradford and then to Leeds in the end.

In supporting this amendment, my plea is not about the small issues of connectivity, to which the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, has referred in his remarks, but about developing a network that is able to connect through to other places itself so that we maximise the possibility of HS2 and of it connecting with tram and express-bus systems, which are really needed to provide the integrated transport network that many people want.

[Lord Haselhurst (Con) [V]]

My Lords, the only comment I wish to make on this amendment is to express surprise that some of the issues were not brought to the attention of the Select Committee by one means or another. We carried out a visit and saw some of the nature of the problems that could arise so far as road traffic was concerned, but it seemed to us, as the report indicates, that these were things that were being actively examined by HS2. We also felt that the lead on getting what was felt to be necessary for the benefit of local people should be taken by the local authorities. We were disposed to believe that they had some slack to take up in relation to addressing the real needs.

On extra stations, I think that, while it is inevitable that some people will say, “Well, if we have got this splendid new railway, can we not connect to it?”, every connection will add to journey time, of course, unless the extra stations should really be serving the lines that are being freed of the traffic by the construction of HS2. The idea that we should report to Parliament with the kind of frequency suggested means that people will be spending an awful lot of time doing that rather than, perhaps, getting on with negotiations to try to achieve the maximum amount of local understanding and support.