Airports: London
Lord Faulkner of Worcester Excerpts(10 years ago)
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Baroness Kramer
My Lords, it is absolutely important that as a Minister in the Department for Transport I make sure that the commission is always recognised as having full integrity and independence. Therefore, even when pressed with this question at my own party conference, I have always refused to give any answer other than that the Government will comment after the final report is submitted in 2015.
Lord Faulkner of Worcester (Lab)
My Lords, in view of the improbability of any new runway capacity being constructed in the south-east during the lifetime of most Members of your Lordships’ House, does the Minister not agree that this is the time to look very seriously at the role of regional airports such as Birmingham, which will be only 47 minutes from central London by High Speed 2?
Baroness Kramer
My Lords, I think that under all circumstances it is important to look at the potential for regional airports, Birmingham being one. There are numerous others across the country with ambitions.
Infrastructure Bill [HL]
Lord Faulkner of Worcester Excerpts(10 years ago)
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Lord Faulkner of Worcester (Lab)
My Lords, in moving Amendment 53A, which is in my name and the names of the noble Lords, Lord Ramsbotham, Lord Bradshaw and Lord Jenkin of Roding, whom I am delighted to see in his place at this late hour, I shall speak also to the other amendments in this group, which were tabled by the Minister and by the same group of four of us.
I start by expressing my very genuine thanks to the Minister for listening so closely to the arguments which were put forward in Grand Committee and for accepting the principle that the Infrastructure Bill is an appropriate vehicle to put right the anomalies surrounding the jurisdiction and powers of the British Transport Police. That is why I was happy to add my name to her Amendment 53. I shall not repeat the arguments that I made in Committee on 8 July, not least because the Minister has accepted many of those points.
However, there remains the one unresolved issue, to which the Minister referred, and that concerns Section 100(3)(b) of the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001. The Minister said that she wants to keep that in being and the purpose of our amendment is to take it out. In effect, subsection (3)(b) states that when a BTP officer is off-jurisdiction he or she has to decide whether to act and use the power of arrest. That involves a judgment call—indeed, the Minister used those words. This aspect has been addressed very directly by the chair of the British Transport Police Authority, Millie Banerjee, who wrote to the Minister about subsection (3)(b) last Friday. She wrote:
“This subsection requires BTP officers to work through a complex legal test, often in quick time, which can result in uncertainty, challenge and delays in responding to the public.
I illustrate the problem with subsection (3)(b) with a practical example on metal theft. BTP is the ACPO Lead Force for metal theft and officers regularly conduct visits to scrap metal dealers’ yards, which are outwith BTP jurisdiction, to inspect their record keeping. This enforcement activity has a proven deterrent and detection function which has been a critical factor in the substantial reductions in metal theft crime on the railways and other sectors across the UK.
Although BTP officers exploit intelligence to target their visits, there will often be an absence of specific grounds to suspect that stolen railway metal will be at the yard. In the strictest sense of the current legislation, under subsection (3)(b), BTP officers should arguably call upon local Home Office colleagues to attend the yard and exercise any relevant powers. This would be duplication of effort and is hard to justify to a public who understand the pressure on police resources. In reality BTP officers exercise the relevant powers but are having to make their action fit the complex provisions of this subsection. This is not in the view of the Authority satisfactory and introduces risk of legal challenge where none should exist. It is to the detriment of the fight against metal theft”.
The Minister is apparently concerned that if this provision were removed the BTP would go off-piste, as it were, and not dedicate their time to railway duties. That is simply not true. Indeed, Ms Banerjee answers that point directly:
“Should you feel able to support the removal of subsection (3)(b) I can allay any fears that BTP will stray from its clear focus on the railways. Chief Constable Paul Crowther has committed to reducing crime and disruption on the railways by 20% by 2019. This focus, reinforced by the oversight of the Authority and the requirement to satisfy BTP stakeholders, will ensure that strong control will be exercised with regard to any wider jurisdictional power granted for BTP”.
Very similar points have been made in letters and e-mails to me from Dame Shirley Pearce and Chief Constable Alex Marshall, the chair and chief executive officer respectively of the College of Policing, and by Roger Randall, the general secretary of the British Transport Police Federation. They all say that our original amendment should be supported because it removes the whole of Section 100(3) of the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001. Dame Shirley Pearce, in her letter to me, says:
“The general public expect the police to act and behave consistently and to work to consistently high standards. It is in the public interest that a parity is sought in the way in which police officers are able to discharge their duties and that, wherever practical, obstacles to consistency are identified and removed”.
We know that legal challenges are occasionally made on the issue of jurisdiction. I shall share with your Lordships an extraordinary case from Scotland. On 21 May 2011, there was a disturbance—a fight—at a car boot sale in the car park of a primary school in Glasgow. A BTP sergeant, who was off-duty and not carrying his warrant card, happened to be there and made an arrest for breach of the peace. The arrested person made a legal challenge stating that it was an unlawful arrest because the officer did not have his warrant card on him. BTP had to pay £1,000 in damages and £240 in costs—not a good use of public money when all the officer was doing was acting in the public interest and conscientiously doing his duty when not on jurisdiction.
In conclusion, I am genuinely grateful to the Minister for moving such a long distance since we debated this in Grand Committee. Indeed, her amendment relating to level crossings in Section 172 of the Road Traffic Act is an improvement on ours, since it does not restrict the wording to railway offences. This is good news because road traffic offences occur on service roads and railway property and it is important for the BTP to deal with offences such as drink-driving or dangerous driving on those roads. Our only area of disagreement is subsection (3). I urge the Minister, please, to take account of the views of Members in all parts of this House, of the chair of the British Transport Police Authority, of the chair and chief executive officer of the College of Policing and of the general secretary of the BTP Federation, and agree with our amendment to remove it. I beg to move.
Lord Jenkin of Roding (Con)
I echo the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, in my thanks to the Minister for having gone so far to meet the case made very forcefully in Committee last July. As I said briefly then—I shall not be any longer tonight, I assure the House—I found the arguments that the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, advanced on that occasion to be absolutely incontrovertible. Like him, I am disappointed that the Minister has not gone the whole way.
I listened with great care to what the Minister said about why the Government have found it necessary to retain those restrictions, as they indeed are, on the British Transport Police’s activities in Section 100(3)(b) of the 2001 Act. Frankly, I find the suggestion that a British Transport Police officer will somehow be distracted from his primary duty of policing the railways because he finds it more exciting to do things, as it were, off his main beat to be a frivolous argument. I am sorry to sound a bit condemnatory, but I simply cannot see how it could conceivably happen.
I have not seen any of the correspondence that the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, has had and from which he quoted a few moments ago. However, one of those letters made it absolutely clear that the writer, a very senior officer in the British Transport Police, regarded this as so unlikely that it ought not to be seriously considered. That is exactly my view and I am very sorry to hear my noble friend advance that as an argument.
One knows that behind this is the long-standing argument between my noble friend’s department and the Home Office, which is responsible for the constables in the rest of the country, except of course in London. However, to try to compromise with that department on this issue is something that no noble Lord in this House or Member of Parliament in another place would feel was reasonable. For that reason, I very much hope that my noble friend—I recognise that we are not going to vote tonight; it would be a slightly weird Division—will reconsider this between now and Third Reading and bring forward another amendment, or, as the Bill was first introduced in this House, consider with her colleagues whether she might put this nonsense right in another place. Having got this far with something for which Parliament has argued and waited over many years, falling at the last fence would be very sad indeed. I beg my noble friend to recognise that her argument does not carry much weight and she should face up to the Home Secretary and say, “I’m sorry, we are going the whole way. We are going to repeal paragraph (b) also”.
Baroness Kramer
My Lords, I point out to the noble Lord, Lord Davies, that his Government failed to change any of these clauses and we are now getting to grips with a long-standing issue.
I first pick up on the issue raised by the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, who described a case that obviously outraged the House. That is exactly a situation that can no longer stand, given the amendments that the Government are bringing forward. An officer would not be in the position in which, in the absence of a warrant card, he would be vulnerable. The amendments that we have brought forward would precisely deal with that issue for an officer in plain clothes using a warrant card who was attempting to prevent an injury. That incident is clearly covered.
I suppose that I have been in the department for only a year, but I am conscious of the constant attempts to raid the BTP for many other services, and the view of a lot of the forces across the country that the BTP ought to be an available resource. We are absolutely clear that changing the language in the way in which the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, suggested would make this a far easier task. It is crucial for the future of rail transport that there is a genuinely dedicated force. I point out again that it is paid for by the railway industry, which adds to its concern that its force would be available to operate in any neighbourhood on any issue. I ask it to make a judgment; police forces make judgments the whole time, and the judgment that we are asking the force to make is well within the scope of its competence on the few such occasions that arise, without the general change that has been requested. I think we have gone as far as we can on this and I also ask your Lordships to rethink the position they are taking, because it is genuinely important that we keep the British Transport Police dedicated to the railways in the way that it is at present.
Lord Faulkner of Worcester
My Lords, I naturally accept the Minister’s point. Nobody is a greater defender of the BTP’s role in policing our railways than I am. For her to say that none of this was undertaken during the years of the previous Government is a bit unfair to those of us who have been raising the issue of the role and jurisdiction of the BTP since, in my case, 2001. Putting that to one side, the officer in the punch-up in the school playground would still have had to make the judgment call required in subsection (3)(b). A clever lawyer could easily say he acted without thinking properly. That would not have applied to any other officer and subsection (3)(b) is unacceptable because it treats BTP officers differently from civil police officers and puts them on a different level. As public policy, that is not in anybody’s interest.
I am obviously not going to invite the House to come to a decision on this tonight and I will ask permission to withdraw the amendment to the Government’s amendment. However, I very much reinforce the arguments made by the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin of Roding—I thank him for them—which were very persuasive, particularly in suggesting to the Minister that she might use the few weeks between now and Third Reading to consider whether the Government can come back.
There is one other matter to which I did not refer in my speech because I was a little taken aback by what the Minister said in hers in relation to Scotland and its attitude to the Bill. Will she be kind enough to write to me about that decision, which I had not heard about before and which came as a bit of a bombshell tonight? Could she explain what that piece of legislation means in terms of BTP operation in Scotland? Obviously, the law relating to level crossings is fine and we have no disagreement on that. However, it strikes me as very odd indeed that Scotland may not be willing to accept such a simple change as the one we are proposing.
In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Infrastructure Bill [HL]
Lord Faulkner of Worcester Excerpts(10 years, 1 month ago)
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The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Faulkner of Worcester) (Lab)
I have to advise the Committee that if Amendment 98AZA is approved, I shall not be able to call Amendment 98AB for reason of pre-emption.
Amendment 98AZA
Railways: High Speed 3
Lord Faulkner of Worcester Excerpts(10 years, 4 months ago)
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Baroness Kramer
My Lords, I know my noble friend’s interest in the Calder Valley so I can say generically that we have been investing very heavily in transport schemes in the north. Some £554 million for schemes outside London was announced in the 2012 Autumn Statement, of which £378 million—more than half—was for the north. As for the Calder Valley, the northern electrification task force has been set up to recommend lines for electrification, in which I know the noble Baroness is interested. We would expect it to consider this line alongside other scheme proposals. The task force expects to submit its interim report in February 2015.
Lord Faulkner of Worcester (Lab)
My Lords, while it is generally understood that the Chancellor’s announcement about HS3 came as a complete surprise to the Department for Transport, is the noble Baroness aware that the Government’s commitment to the extension of high speed rail is very welcome and can she confirm that no country in the world that has embarked on a programme of high speed rail construction has regretted it?
Infrastructure Bill [HL]
Lord Faulkner of Worcester Excerpts(10 years, 4 months ago)
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“Powers of the British Transport Police to protect transport infrastructure
(1) In section 100 of the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001 (jurisdiction of transport police)—
(a) at the end of subsection (2)(b) insert “or to prevent damage to property”; and(b) omit subsection (3).(2) In section 172(2) of the Road Traffic Act 1988 (duty to give information as to the identity of driver etc in certain circumstances), in relation to an offence involving a railway crossing, “chief officer of police” includes the Chief Officer of the British Transport Police.”
Lord Faulkner of Worcester (Lab)
My Lords, in moving Amendment 63, I remind the Committee that we in this House have debated the role, jurisdiction and effectiveness of the British Transport Police on a number of occasions over the past decade, and on each occasion the unanimous view has been that it does a remarkably effective job, not just in helping to keep the railways of England, Wales and Scotland safe and free from crime but also in contributing to the policing of our society as a whole. It has been around since the earliest days of the railway. Indeed, the officers employed on the Stockton and Darlington railway in 1826 predate the passing of the Metropolitan Police Act by three years.
The force deploys capabilities similar to Home Office forces in undertaking counterterrorism, firearms, public order, response policing and criminal investigations. It participates in joint operations such as the G8 and the Olympics and in cable theft operations. The force has ACPO officers in command, trains its officers to national standards and has a high degree of interoperability with partner forces.
The situation relating to its jurisdiction is, however, neither straightforward nor satisfactory, and the purpose of my amendment is to put right one or two of those anomalies. I believe that it has the support of the Home Office and a section of the Department for Transport. It certainly has the support of the British Transport Police itself, and I hope that it will have the support of the Minister.
I start with Section 100 of the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001. Subsection (2) states:
“Members of the British Transport Police Force have in any police area the same powers and privileges as constables of the police force for that police area—
(a) in relation to persons whom they suspect on reasonable grounds of having committed, being in the course of committing or being about to commit an offence, or
(b) if they believe on reasonable grounds that they need those powers and privileges in order to save life or to prevent or minimise personal injury”.
That is fine until you read subsection (3), which states that members of the British Transport Police force,
“have powers and privileges by virtue of subsection (2) only if”
—I repeat: only if—
“(a) they are in uniform or have with them documentary evidence that they are members of that Force, and
(b) they believe on reasonable grounds that a power of a constable which they would not have apart from that subsection ought to be exercised and that, if it cannot be exercised until they secure the attendance of or a request under subsection (1) by a constable who has it, the purpose for which they believe it ought to be exercised will be frustrated or seriously prejudiced”.
I shall describe to the Committee what that means. Let us imagine that a BTP officer is off railway jurisdiction—perhaps walking between one railway station and another close by—and the officer comes across an incident where a member of the public requests his or her help and there may be a need to arrest someone. First, the officer has to check whether the local force will make a request for the BTP officer to deal with it. If it does, the BTP officer has the power to arrest. That could result, however, in considerable delay and lead to the loss of evidence and, worse, loss of the offender. It also damages public confidence in the police service, bearing in mind that the public do not distinguish between police officers from BTP and other forces. They see a police officer in uniform and expect a responsive and effective service.
There is an exception where making those inquires or requests could frustrate or seriously prejudice the exercise of the arrest function. The crucial point is: how are the circumstances that will amount to a frustration or serious prejudice defined? Different officers and different bystanders will have different interpretations, and that can lead to uncertainty, confusion and delay.
There is also a requirement for the BTP officer either to be in uniform or to be in possession of documentary evidence that they are a member of the force, such as a warrant card. For Home Office forces there is no such legislative requirement in general for making an arrest. Although it may be good practice to carry a warrant card, there seems to be no justification for making this rule apply solely to the BTP. That could compromise criminal cases where an off-duty BTP officer who was acting in the public good made an arrest but did not have the warrant card on them. I am, therefore, proposing the complete removal of subsection (3) from the Act.
My amendment also suggests the insertion of the words,
“or to prevent damage to property”,
at the end of subsection (2)(b). This is important and necessary because it will authorise the BTP to take action to prevent or detect incidents in a suddenly escalating public disorder situation. Imagine that BTP officers come across incidents of disorder in a high street when they are passing by. The public and owners of businesses expect the police to protect their property when necessary, and they are not going to be interested in whether they are from a Home Office force or from the British Transport Police.
Baroness Kramer
I say to the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, that we have a great deal of sympathy with the issues that he has brought forward. The question is whether, from an entirely practical perspective, we are able to resolve all the various policy implications and clearances in time for inclusion in the Bill—not least by working out whether we need legislative consent from the Scottish Government; obviously, there is that additional layer of complication over the BTP and devolution issues. That would all need to be resolved.
Given that situation, we have particular concern that the BTP has all the necessary powers needed to take enforcement activity at level crossings. I can say that we will give this issue careful consideration and will review the current arrangement to consider how best to address this anomaly, including whether amendments are required to the various Acts and sections that the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, described. As I say, at this point, it is not clear that we can resolve all this in time for inclusion in the Bill, which is my primary concern. I therefore ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment, but we will consider it and see what is possible within the timeframe that we have to work with.
Lord Faulkner of Worcester
My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister, and I shall come to what she said in a moment. First, however, I thank colleagues in all parts of the Committee of three different political parties who have supported this amendment. The noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, and I entered the House at the same time 15 years ago, and we have indeed been consistent campaigners for the BTP during that whole time. The noble Lord will recall that when we started, there was a suggestion, particularly from some forces in London, that the BTP no longer needed to exist as an independent force. There was a mayor who, as I recall, was quite keen on absorbing the BTP within the Metropolitan force and for the BTP’s regional activities to go to county forces. We saw off that very misguided approach through argument and through the good practice of the force whose work and reputation has grown steadily over the past decade. It is now recognised as one of the finest forces in the entire country.
I am grateful for the Minister’s sympathy for this approach. The idea that this has to be held up because of some fear over what might happen in the Scottish independence referendum is a little depressing. I shall read very carefully what the Minister has said. I cannot say that I will not bring it back on Report because, with so much support in this Committee, it will be interesting to see whether the House as a whole takes the view that this is the moment when these anomalies—everybody accepts that they are anomalies—should be corrected. I am grateful for the support from my noble friend on the Front Bench because that will also be of great significance.
The force’s reputation is recognised. The Minister accepts that these anomalies have to be put right. I am willing to withdraw the amendment today, but I think we should come back to it for further debate on Report. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Railways: Line Resilience
Lord Faulkner of Worcester Excerpts(10 years, 8 months ago)
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Baroness Kramer
I hope that very shortly we will have the terms of reference for the Network Rail study, which it intends to carry out in close co-operation with local authorities and LEPs. Network Rail has made a request to me that people pass ideas on particular routes back to it directly. However, if any Peer wishes to do so through my office, I will make sure that that information is communicated so that the study is as thorough as it needs to be.
Lord Faulkner of Worcester (Lab)
My Lords, the Minister’s initial Answer was very welcome and we look forward to seeing the outcome of those studies. Will she take this opportunity to congratulate Network Rail on bringing the line through Dawlish back into use significantly earlier than appeared to be likely? I understand that Network Rail had something like 100 people working seven days a week on the restoration of the line, and it is to come back into use on 4 April or even earlier. I declare an interest as a member of the First Great Western stakeholder board.
Baroness Kramer
I say to the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, that that is probably the most delightful question I have ever received because it indeed gives me the opportunity to congratulate and thank Network Rail for its incredibly hard work both during the days of crisis and since. We expect the Dawlish line to be back in use no later than 4 April—well in time for Easter—and that took a very strenuous effort. While I am at the Dispatch Box, perhaps I may also thank: the travelling public, who handled this situation so well; the bus and coach companies, which provided an alternative to rail; the train operators themselves, which provided, for example, special ticketing arrangements whereby people did not lose out because they could not make advance bookings; Flybe, which doubled the number of its flights to Newquay; and probably others whom I have missed. There are many to thank and I appreciate this opportunity to do so.
High Speed Rail (Preparation) Bill
Lord Faulkner of Worcester Excerpts(11 years ago)
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Lord Faulkner of Worcester (Lab)
My Lords, I hope that the House will forgive me if I do not follow the noble Lord, Lord Howard of Rising, in all the points he made. Needless to say, I disagree with every single one of them. On the question of cost—
Lord Faulkner of Worcester
On the question of cost, to which he referred, if he reads the speech by his noble friend Lord Heseltine to the Royal Town Planning Institute, he will find that a number of those issues are addressed and answered very fully. I draw his attention to the fact that the noble Lord, Lord Heseltine, refers to the Government selling a 30-year concession in 2011 for High Speed 1 to a Canadian pension fund for £2.1 billion. I understand that something in the order of £10 billion could be realised for a similar concession on HS2, and there is a great deal more of the same.
I start by thanking the Minister—the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer—for convening the meeting for Peers with her officials last Tuesday. I certainly found it helpful and informative and left the Committee Room hopeful that this Bill and, indeed, the whole High Speed 2 project are in good hands. As we had such an excellent debate on High Speed 2 in your Lordships’ House on 24 October, there is no need for me to go over the ground that I covered then. However, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for quoting a sentence from what I said that evening.
The important thing that came out of the debate was a demonstration of the overwhelming need to add capacity to our railways as a consequence of the phenomenal growth in demand for rail transport over the past 20 years. Passenger demand has doubled since 1995. As the noble Lord, Lord Rodgers, is still in his place, I will go back to 1976 and recall a conversation that Sir Peter Parker had with Tony Crosland, who was then Secretary of State for the Environment, which Sir Peter wrote about in his autobiography. He said that he was depressed by Tony Crosland saying to him:
“Peter, I see a future for BR as a smaller, sensible little railway”.
Spare capacity was ruthlessly removed throughout the 1970s and 1980s as BR desperately tried to cut costs to meet the financial objectives imposed on it by the Treasury, about which my noble friend Lord Adonis spoke so eloquently earlier. Therefore, it is no wonder that more capacity is needed for the railways now.
Given the gloomy forecasts for passenger and freight demand produced at that time, which were all proved hopelessly wrong within 10 years, I am reminded of the words of the great economist John Kenneth Galbraith, who said:
“The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable”.
The lesson we should have learnt, post Beeching, is that you must keep your options open, retain the flexibility for future growth and never sell the track bed as it is a resource that must be protected.
At the Minister’s meeting on Tuesday I pointed out that the task of building a high-speed railway to the Midlands and the north would have been much easier if previous Labour and Conservative Governments had not closed the Great Central Railway—the last main line to be built in Britain until High Speed 1, and the only main line, until High Speed 1, built to the continental gauge. One of its routes to Rugby, Leicester, Nottingham and Sheffield went straight through the Chilterns, including the towns of Amersham, Great Missenden and Wendover. I am sorry that my noble friend Lord Stevenson is not here to—
Lord Faulkner of Worcester
Oh, he is here. He has moved down to the Front Bench. I expect that a number of your Lordships have been on the receiving end of lobbying from residents of these places. As my noble friend is in his place—I am delighted to see him—I say to him that this lobbying from people in the villages and towns of the Chilterns has to be balanced against the voice of the representatives, from all political parties, of the eight core cities of England outside London: Birmingham, Bristol, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, Nottingham and Sheffield. In their letter to the Daily Telegraph, published on 29 May this year, they wrote:
“Research has shown that an over-reliance on the capital city is bad for national economies. England needs these eight core cities to succeed. If these cities performed at the national average, another £1.3 billion would be put into the economy every year. Unlocking growth relies on rebalancing the economy of Britain, which HS2 will help to do, bringing regeneration benefits outside the South East … High-speed rail is not just about fast trains. Increasing capacity on the rail network is critical to our economic future. There is an important relationship between growth, jobs and HS2. High-speed rail is the best way to achieve a more sustainable economic future for the nation as a whole”.
Of course, the residents of the Chilterns are entitled to express their views, although I have to say to them that the effectiveness of their lobbying would be enhanced if they wrote individually to us. For last month’s debate, the first seven paragraphs of all the e-mails I received were exactly the same, and the same happened with the e-mails sent to me about this debate—all of which, incidentally, got the date of this debate wrong. If you do a little research, you discover that they were all generated through an American company which, according to its website,
“has developed a cloud based service that solves the challenge of email delivery by delivering emails on behalf of companies”.
This is not exactly evidence of spontaneous local initiatives on the part of the residents.
However, I would certainly support generous compensation for those affected. As the Minister reminded us last Tuesday, and again this evening, the levels being offered are far greater than those which have been paid—and, as far as I know, continue to be paid—to those affected by highway schemes.
While we are on the subject of the Chilterns and its area of outstanding natural beauty—I know about this, having been brought up, like the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, in that part of England—is it possible to imagine a more destructive transport project than the construction of the M40 in the 1970s right through the heart of the Chiltern escarpment above the Vale of Aylesbury, known as the Stokenchurch Gap? That was driven through the middle of the Aston Rowant National Nature Reserve, and all pleas to the inspector to put the motorway in a tunnel or follow a different route were ignored. Still active today is the M40 Chiltern Environmental Group, which says on its website that it represents 25,000 people who live along the M40 corridor from junction 3 to junction 8, and say:
“Day and night we all suffer from intolerable noise pollution”.
By comparison, the residents of Amersham and Great Missenden are being offered a pretty good deal in terms of compensation and environmental protection. This will be confirmed by the residents of Kent, where HS1, so controversial when proposed 20 years ago, is simply no longer an issue. Indeed, it is hard to hear the trains in Kent because of the noise from the M20.
Make no mistake; if we do not build High Speed 2, we will have few options to meet the demand for transport. One would be to return to the days of the 1970s and 1980s and resume a massive programme of motorway construction. However, we should remember that the width of land required for a dual three-lane motorway is 36 metres, compared with just 22 metres which will be needed for High Speed 2. Over the entire 330-mile route, HS2’s land take will be 11.7 square kilometres, compared with 19.1 square kilometres for the equivalent length of motorway.
The other option would be to patch up Victorian railways, even though we know, as we have heard from other speakers tonight, that that will come nowhere near meeting the demand for rail travel after 2020. It is worth remembering that “make do and mend” would inflict on all of us 2,770 weekend closures, endless bus substitutions and increased journey times over 14 years —all for a capacity increase between London and Birmingham of just 53%, compared with High Speed 2’s 143%, with no increase in current line speed.
At some point I hope that the whole nation will again take pride in its railways, in the same way as other countries with modern high-speed lines do, such as France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Japan, China and Taiwan. Some of our finest architecture and engineering structures are to be found on our railways. Just consider such icons as Brunel’s bridges across the Thames and the Tamar, Robert Stephenson’s Royal Border Bridge at Berwick, the fantastic Forth Rail Bridge, wonderful Victorian stations, as fine as our medieval cathedrals, such as Bristol Temple Meads, York, Newcastle, Glasgow Central, and modern treasures such as Manchester Piccadilly, St Pancras and now, again, King’s Cross. There is no reason why High Speed 2 should not be in the same league as Brunel’s Great Western Railway or Stephenson’s London & Birmingham Railway, adding to, not detracting from, the landscape, with soaring viaducts, fine stations and supremely engineered track and alignments. Above all, it is a project that will meet the nation’s transport needs in the 21st century.
Railways: British Rail
Lord Faulkner of Worcester Excerpts(11 years ago)
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Baroness Kramer
I can certainly confirm those comments from the noble Lord, Lord Mawhinney. He is absolutely right that at the time of privatisation— 5 November 1993, which I assume is the date to be commemorated in the Question in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Spicer—the railway essentially was expected to fall into decline, having had a long history of underinvestment and of stop-and-start annual budgets. Since then, the UK has seen a doubling of passenger journeys to the highest level since the 1920s; 4,000 more services a day than in the mid-1990s; a 60% increase in rail freight; and the fastest growth of European railways. The UK railway now carries nearly 20% of the EU’s passenger journeys.
Lord Faulkner of Worcester (Lab)
My Lords, has any assessment been made of the sort of railway that we would be enjoying today had the British Railways Board received the same levels of support and investment —much of which has come from the taxpayer, despite what the noble Lord, Lord Mawhinney, said, but has been made available to privatised industry—and had the railway not been subject to the negative influences of decline and contraction, to which the Minister rightly referred, largely at the behest of Her Majesty’s Treasury?
Baroness Kramer
The noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, gets to the heart of the problem. Under a system in which this was a Government-run industry, an essential feature was the constant stop-start and underinvestment. It is by putting in place a structure with the ability to set up arrangements that force the Government into long-term decision-making and long-term commitment that we have been able to rebuild the infrastructure.
Railways: Passenger Demand
Lord Faulkner of Worcester Excerpts(11 years ago)
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Lord Faulkner of Worcester
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what estimates they have made of the cost of upgrading the West Coast and East Coast main railway lines to bring them up to the standard likely to be required to meet passenger demand after 2020.
The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Baroness Kramer) (LD)
My Lords, the only viable option for solving problems on the west and east coast main lines beyond 2020 is HS2. The Government have looked at alternatives, including upgrading these routes. The lead alternative looks to enhance all three existing north-south main lines at a cost of £19.2 billion, £2.5 billion of which is required for the west coast and £11.5 billion for the east coast. None of these alternatives delivers the scale of benefits of HS2.
Lord Faulkner of Worcester (Lab)
My Lords, I welcome the Minister to the Dispatch Box for her first Oral Question and warmly congratulate her on that Answer. With the number of people travelling by train now higher than at any time in the history of Britain’s railways, with growth over the past five years running at 5%, does she agree with Network Rail’s assessment that a make-do-and-mend approach to the main lines built by our Victorian ancestors would require 2,770 weekend closures, endless bus substitutions and increased journey times over 14 years, and do little for economic growth for our great cities outside London?
High Speed 2
Lord Faulkner of Worcester Excerpts(11 years, 1 month ago)
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Lord Faulkner of Worcester (Lab)
My Lords, we are all indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, for giving us the opportunity to debate this really important issue. I congratulate him on the way that he successfully corrected some of the more absurd misconceptions about High Speed 2 which its opponents are attempting to put about.
First, though, I should like to welcome the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, to the Dispatch Box for her first debate in the Chamber. Hers is a promotion much deserved and we look forward to her speech greatly.
The case for High Speed 2 is not primarily about the length of time that it takes to travel from London to Birmingham, although it is obvious that if we build a new railway, it should be built to 21st-century standards using technology that is tried and tested throughout Europe and Asia, rather than that of the Victorian age, and that means high speeds and shorter journey times. No, this debate is about something much more important: it is about what sort of transport infrastructure we are to bequeath to our children and grandchildren. We could go back to the thinking of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, when it was assumed that private motoring and heavy lorries would reign supreme. The transport imperative then was to build motorways on a predict-and-provide basis to serve them. The railways at that time were expected to decline gracefully, with many more lines being closed and services replaced by buses, passengers being discouraged by ever higher fares, and the rail freight business being largely abolished except for heavy-haul bulk loads and some container traffic.
However, the British public were not prepared to see their railways decline and die, and by July 2001 the distinguished City correspondent Christopher Fildes was able to write in the Spectator:
“Railways are a growth industry. Their most sustained attempts to drive away their customers have not succeeded”.
Let us look at what has happened since then. In July this year, Network Rail published a report, Better Connections—Options for the Integration of High Speed. Let me quote one or two of its findings. First, it says:
“Over the last decade the number of journeys made by rail has increased by almost 50% … But demand is still increasing. By 2020 another 400 million rail journeys will be made every year”.
Indeed, there are a million more trains running each year, while the busiest stations individually handle more passengers than Heathrow Airport. Network Rail makes the point, as the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, did, that it has done its best to make the best use of its remaining capacity and squeezed every last incremental change out of what it has. To quote again from its report:
“As demand continues to grow, this becomes harder and in some places impossible ... parts of the existing network will be unable to accommodate the forecast demand leading to significant overcrowding; in the peak, passengers may not even be able to board a train on some routes. Further, there will be no opportunity to accommodate the expected levels of increased freight traffic on the network”.
There you have the essential case for building High Speed 2—not as a separate line, physically and operationally away from the current railway, but as a crucial part of a reshaped and improved national network.
Some of those opposed to High Speed 2 argue that the money it will cost would be better spent on upgrading the present network and in trying to add capacity piecemeal to the west coast and east coast main lines. To add to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, let me remind those opponents that the last time we upgraded the west coast main line it was supposed to take six years, cost £2 billion and deliver 140 miles per hour trains. What actually happened was that it took nine years, cost almost £10 billion, and we still have 125 miles per hour trains, with unimaginable disruption of existing services in the process, with endless closures and bus substitutions at weekends, and sometimes longer. Does anyone believe that more than a fraction of the funds allocated to High Speed 2 would ever find their way to funding new investment on the existing network if High Speed 2 were to be abandoned?
Let us be clear: many of those arguing against High Speed 2 have no interest in growing the railway. The author of the Institute of Economic Affairs’ pathetic publication on HS2 makes clear his preference for an investment in roadbuilding—a transport policy which is 20 years out of date—and rubbishes the construction of the Jubilee Line and High Speed 1. It is inconceivable that London could function now without the Jubilee Line and the success of High Speed 1 is also clear. The economics consultancy Volterra produced a report in 2009 showing that the benefit to the UK economy of High Speed 1 over 60 years is estimated at £17.6 billion, plus a series of development, trading, housing and transport benefits.
I have no doubt that the benefits of High Speed 2 will be even greater. Looking just at the jobs which will be created in the life of the project, Albion Economics, working for Greengauge 21, estimates the total job years to be almost 890,000—the equivalent of creating 89,000 full-time jobs. We have to recognise that the future of inland transport in Britain belongs to high-speed rail and in having a world-class transport system that brings Scotland, north England, the Midlands and the south closer together; that drives opportunity and economic growth; and that makes sound environmental sense too. After the success of High Speed 1, it is time for the whole of Britain and for your Lordships to embrace High Speed 2.