Transport: HS2

Lord Faulkner of Worcester Excerpts

Tuesday 26th February 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Faulkner of Worcester]

My Lords, this is a very high-speed debate and I am pleased to have the opportunity to repeat my wholehearted support for High Speed 2. I, too, am going to make just two points.

First, we are not in uncharted territory. HS1 has given us experience of the environmental and social impact of high-speed railways. Noble Lords have recalled the furore that greeted British Rail’s proposals to build the high-speed line across Kent in 1987. Protest groups were formed and scare stories circulated, so why do we not hear more about the environmental and social intrusion of HS1 today? Kent lives happily with its high-speed line, and for the county council and local businesses it is a major asset as it encourages inward investment and visitors. The reason is that the line was engineered carefully to minimise environmental intrusion, as the noble Lord, Lord Freeman, said. The use of tunnels, cuttings and noise barriers all help to reduce the sound, which is low anyway because the new track is laid on deep ballast, and the new trains minimise noise that would otherwise be created at the point of contact between wheel and rail. It is far less than that created by motorway traffic, which is intrusive 24 hours a day. Today, the Kent transport network could not function effectively without the high-speed line.

My second point is about how high-speed rail changes the way Britain does business. We tend not to be very good at assessing the benefits of new rail schemes. A cost-benefit approach has been adopted to satisfy the requirement for analysis where public policy or public money is involved. However, cost-benefit appraisals for rail schemes have consistently underestimated the benefits that they bring. The growth in passenger numbers is often achieved much earlier than forecast. Total passenger numbers in 2012 were higher than at any time in our country since 1922, and parts of the railway are already full.

Cost-benefit ratios are only part of the story. The railway will transform the way we do business in Britain. It will offer benefits that we are only beginning to understand, just as it has for high-speed lines in countries all over the world. Its speed will link the south-east economy with other parts of Great Britain and help to encourage economic development in every part that it touches—a point made by the heads of the chambers of commerce in their briefing to us yesterday. It will attract significant numbers of people from road and air, just as Eurostar has between London, Paris and Brussels, and as high-speed rail has in continental Europe. It will release capacity on the classic rail network, which can be used to provide more trains to towns not well served currently, and, in particular, carry more freight.

I congratulate the Government on their commitment to stick to, and indeed expand, what my noble friend Lord Adonis set in train when Secretary of State for Transport, and I hope that they succeed in accelerating the legislative timetable. I want HS2 built in my lifetime, and I want my grandchildren to benefit from the new railway age of the 21st century.