High Speed Rail (West Midlands–Crewe) Bill

Lord Faulkner of Worcester Excerpts

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

[Lord Randall of Uxbridge (Con) [V]]

My Lords, at the end of the Committee stage, the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, who it is always a pleasure to follow, implied, and has somewhat repeated today, that those who want to improve the Bill in any way are trying to stop it entirely. Although I am not a fan of the current HS2 project, I am in favour of high-speed rail. The problem was around the routing. However, I accept that the first phase, which affected me most, is going ahead.

The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, put his finger on two things, the first of which was the Hybrid Bill procedure. That is not for the Chamber today, but is something for us all to think about. The noble Lord, Lord Adonis, said that it is not customary procedure. That points out that there is a procedure which is not customary, and perhaps that should be looked at again.

Secondly, the most important thing that the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, said, was that there will always be a few people who will be upset by the result, as with a Planning Committee. If your planning application goes ahead, those who opposed it think there is some skulduggery afoot, and vice versa. The noble Lord mentioned the Wendover situation, which is in phase 1 and is effectively done and dusted. I do not want the same problems again following phases of HS2. It is paramount that the Government take as many of the public along with them as possible, not only those whose lives are affected, sometimes dramatically, but the rest of the country, who might see this as quite an expensive project. To persuade the people who have put the Government in place that this is a good project, some of these TWAOs should be heard.

I understand that this is not the customary procedure, and that it is late now. I do not particularly want this Bill delayed any further—we might as well get on with it. However, the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, has raised a very interesting and useful point of debate. If there are going to be such projects, we should think about how to maximise support for them with the public.

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

My Lords, I refer to my railway interests on the register, and apologise that I was not able to take part in Committee. However, I have read Hansard, and it is clear to me and, I suspect, any objective reader that my noble friend Lord Berkeley was unable to persuade the other Members that further reviews of HS2, such as the one that he is suggesting in his amendment this afternoon, are needed. It was put during Committee that he was attempting to kill the project through endless reviews. My noble friend Lord Adonis went as far as to accuse him of being disingenuous. I am not sure whether that is a parliamentary term or whether it would be regarded as acerbity of speech, but it seems extraordinary that having served on the Oakervee review—as deputy chairman, no less—alongside the most distinguished group of independents drawn from academia, industry, the City, the national railway, Transport for London and local government, including the Conservative Mayor of the West Midlands, my noble friend, having failed to convince them, should now be saying that we should halt the progress of this Bill while yet another Select Committee is appointed.

I would be grateful if, when he replies, my noble friend could explain one aspect of his amendment which he did not mention: his attempt to tie the hands of the Committee of Selection and limit the membership of the proposed new committee. I do not remember seeing that before in your Lordships’ House. It would be a very undesirable precedent. It is a rather different tone to the one that my noble friend adopted when the House approved the composition of the Hybrid Bill Select Committee on 5 March. He said then

“I offer a few words of congratulation to the noble Lords appointed to this committee. With previous Select Committees, the House of Lords has really done very well in listening to petitions and coming up with recommendations… my plea to noble Lords on the committee, apart from wishing them well, is to listen to petitioners, give them time and listen to the evidence—I know that they will—rather more than sometimes happens in the Select Committees of the other place, where everybody is in a hurry.”—[Official Report, 05/3/20; cols. 725-26.]

While I am quoting my noble friend, let me share with the House his words at the Second Reading of the High Speed Rail (London-West Midlands) Bill, which contradicts something that my noble friend Lord Adonis said a moment ago:

“Many speakers have spoken to support the line. I support HS2 and I declare an interest as chairman of the Rail Freight Group.”—[Official Report, 14/4/16; col. 405.]


What many of us find hard to understand is what or who has got to him to make him change his mind.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I support the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, because it is important to hear from local groups, from those with a lot of expertise, from people with specialist skills and from those who really care about their immediate environment. It is valuable.

An earlier speaker said that the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, was back in the Victorian age. I have known the noble Lord for a long time, and I was told long before I met him that he was a real fanatic, if I may say that, who loves railways, as I do. I do not have a car; I go everywhere by train, and my partner works on the railways. There is no doubt that I like railways and trains. I want to make that clear, in case any aspersions are cast against me by later speakers. The Victorian age was the most incredible time for building railways, so that was a very inapt historical comment—a bit shaky on the history.

I am sorry for people who cannot keep up with the change in society that is happening so fast. Have we really learned nothing from the pandemic over the past year, when people have taken to remote working and have loved staying at home and seeing more of their kids, having more time and working and shopping locally? From that point of view, it has been a real success. From my point of view as a big opponent of HS2, HS2 has caused, and will cause, untold damage to our natural environment. It is being built for a market that will not exist in a future that will not happen, and I really wish that people could keep up with what is going on.

--- Later in debate ---

[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.

[Lord Snape (Lab)]

My Lords, I am a supporter of this project and congratulate previous speakers on their support for the amendment. I suspect that the amendment comes about as a result of almost a throwaway line from the Minister in Committee. She said, to my surprise—and, I note, the surprise of my noble friend Lord Adonis and, I suspect, some other members of the Committee—that the eastern leg of the high-speed network would mean more than one Bill. I think she said at least two Bills would be needed in order to go ahead. That rang alarm bells, certainly so far as my noble friend Lord Adonis was concerned, and he questioned the Minister. Like my noble friend Lord Blunkett, who spoke earlier, I fear that if we were to have more than one Bill to take the eastern leg forward, there could be not just a delay but a cancellation of part of what was proposed as part of the original Y-shaped HS2 system. That, as my noble friend Lord Blunkett said, in his memorable speech, would be disastrous for cities such as Sheffield and Leeds, and also for those of us who want to see HS2 continue beyond there and on to the east coast main line, and then further north.

There are worrying rumours, which I hope the Minister can deny, that, as was also said earlier, the intention will be to run a piece of the eastern leg as far as Toton and expect those travelling to Leeds and Sheffield to go via Manchester, through a connection between the proposed HS2 western leg as far as Manchester, and a new HS3—or whatever name one likes to give it—taking the railway forward across the east of England towards Sheffield and Leeds. I live in the city of Birmingham and, although hardly a native of it, as one might be able to tell from my accent, if I were going to Sheffield and Leeds I would not necessarily want to go via Manchester—a city for which I have great admiration, as I was born and brought up in the Manchester area and served on a local authority there.