High Speed 2 (Economic Affairs Committee Report)

Lord Collins of Highbury Excerpts

Thursday 23rd January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

My Lords, I will start with both thanks and apologies, because my two Front-Bench colleagues who would normally reply to this debate are not here—my noble friend Lord Rosser unfortunately has to be at a funeral, and my noble friend Lord Tunnicliffe has to be at another railway event which is part of his career in railways. Therefore, two experts unfortunately cannot participate, and your Lordships have me. My expertise on railways is rather limited, but I am keen on development, which is what this debate is absolutely about. I too thank the chair of the committee, the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, and the committee, for their excellent report, Rethinking High Speed 2. I welcome the noble Lord’s comment that rethinking does not mean stopping.

Rethinking is about planning. One of the things I have been pleased about in the debate is the understanding that you need to rethink constantly in any huge project because, to use the words of that famous American politician, Donald Rumsfeld, there are always known knowns, known unknowns and so on. You can carry on with it, but it means that you must review and adapt as a project develops. That has certainly been a key lesson from the debate.

I, too, stress the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer: this is not an either/or debate. This is not about choosing one aspect of rail transport over another. It is fundamental. As we heard, the northern powerhouse will succeed only with HS2. We need both. It is not vice versa.

We also need to encourage a strong shift from road to rail for both passengers and freight. I was extremely pleased to hear the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, and my noble friend Lord Faulkner emphasise this point. I remember when I first came into this Chamber the speeches of my noble friend Lord Berkeley on the importance of freight on rail. We need to focus on that added dimension to the debate.

Of course, the debate has also been about capacity. The west coast and east coast main lines are often at full capacity, which will only worsen as the population increases—a point highlighted by the noble Lord, Lord Mair, and other noble Lords. Our country has an issue with productivity and slumping economic growth. I am a firm believer that HS2 is a response to those issues that may provide a solution. Parliament must ask itself whether it is the most efficient solution.

This week, we read in the leaked report that HS2 could cost up to £106 billion, which far exceeds the £56 billion estimated in 2015. As an aside, I am a member of the Lords Finance Committee. Every single project that we have examined in relation to Parliament has far exceeded its estimated business case budget. There have been many reasons for that, not least that we are dealing with an ancient building; we need to ensure that we uncover all the things we need to address in renewing it. That point applies partly to the HS2 project, because as we proceed, we will find more and more problems. HS2 must provide value for money; at such a cost, it is unclear whether the Government will ensure that it does. It is true that the headline figure fails to take into account a benefit-cost ratio with wider economic impacts.

Skills have been another key element of today’s debate. Someone said that the skills shortage is a reason for cancelling the project. Actually, the fact that we need to build skills in this country, and to ensure that those skills have an effect, is the reason for keeping it. As my noble friend Lord Monks said, it is extremely important that we maintain our capacity to build further infrastructure projects. Moreover, if the economic reports are true of returns as low as 60p, the Government have clearly failed to keep costs down and must make clear how they will do that as the project continues.

I totally agree with my noble friend Lord Adonis that the problem with so many projects in this country is their stop-start nature: will the project proceed? That is a risk in itself in terms of companies and others being committed to keep faith with a project and invest. I think my noble friend referred to the illusion of certainty. While it may be an illusion, that sense of certainty at the beginning of a project is how we build confidence, and as we uncover issues it is really important that we review. Reviewing is not a negative, it is a positive.

We have also heard about the environmental consequences, which I fully agree must be minimised. My noble friend Lady Young referred to reports from the Wildlife Trust of how HS2 could endanger 693 classified local wildlife sites, 108 ancient woodlands and 33 legally protected sites of special scientific interest. The High Speed Rail Group may dispute some of the figures, but we can all acknowledge that there will be some degree of negative impact on wildlife and woodlands. As the Government continue with HS2, they must be conscious of this and it has to be factored into the programme.

One policy solution which has been suggested as an antidote to these issues could be to lower speeds on the network. HS2 is due to be the fastest railway in the world, with potential speeds of up to 400 kilometres an hour. Trains are initially expected to run at least at 360 kph, but as has been mentioned in this debate, the French TGV and Japanese bullet trains both operate at 320 kph. If the line was slower, it has been argued today and in the report that the track would not have to be as rigid, greater flexibility would allow for the provision of different routes, costs could be reduced and some of the impacts on wildlife habitats would be avoided. However, in doing so, we do not want to compromise on the consumer appeal of the present estimated journey times as well as the status of tourism appeal, which has not been mentioned: it would be branded as the world’s fastest railway.

I was talking to my noble friend Lord Tunnicliffe about the projected costs when he was in his place. He was responsible for the Jubilee line extension. He felt that the costs would be exceeded, but they were working on a cost-benefit analysis that did not turn out to be the case. Traffic increased hugely on the Jubilee line, but that was not predicted when the initial decision was made. It is those things that we have to take into account. If the Government are to consider slower speeds, they must ensure that that is not done to the extent that passengers see no reason to use HS2 instead of the existing main lines.

We have also heard the case for using a different London terminus, with trains stopping at Old Oak Common in north-west London. Many will exit at that station to use the interchange with Crossrail and consequently have faster journey times to their end destinations. It has been suggested that there is no need to continue on to Euston and that the line should terminate there. I have heard those arguments and I think that they need to be taken into consideration as part of the review. As we have heard, that could save up to £8 billion. The Mayor for London has made quite a compelling argument that termination at Old Oak Common would mean that Crossrail would be full by the time it reaches central London, which is another factor that should be taken into account. Of course, we lose out on the main advantage of rail compared with air travel—that it is from city centre to city centre. These considerations should be taken into account, but I re-emphasise that agreeing that these things need to be considered is not a case for halting this project.

In conclusion, I stress that, as my noble friend Lord Monks said, HS2 has the potential to revitalise our economy, contribute to ending climate change and solve the capacity issue that frustrates the main lines—but a project of such enormous cost must be of benefit to communities across the United Kingdom, not just to those in London and Birmingham. There are worrying reports that the line may serve only our country’s first and second cities. That would be an abject failure to deliver on the improved connectivity the Government have so long promised. I absolutely agree with my friend Andy Burnham that:

“We cannot have a situation where there is a gold-plated railway service between London and Birmingham and a brass-plated one between the Midlands and the North. That will widen the North-South divide, not close it.”


It must be built alongside widespread electrification, the reopening of closed railway stations and the construction of new lines.

The issue at the moment is that many feel HS2 is an irrelevant project that will have no impact on their life, positive or negative. If we pair HS2 with wider improvements, we can use the project as a catalyst to revitalise our railways in a way that can regenerate communities, tackle climate change and boost our economy.