HS2 and CH2M

Lord Framlingham Excerpts

Wednesday 5th April 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

I cannot agree with the premise of the noble Baroness’s initial comments. When issues came to the fore, HS2’s due processes were followed and CH2M took a decision which I think we all regard as the right one at that time. The Government are absolutely committed to HS2 in all its stages—she referred particularly to stages 2a and 2b. We remain on course also to deliver on the hybrid Bill by 2019.

[Lord Framlingham (Con)]

My Lords, given the deep and growing concern about this ridiculously expensive and unnecessary project, will the Minister commit today to making sure that it is subject to the most scrupulous transparency so that we can all see, as it progresses, just how expensive, how complicated and how ridiculous it is?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

I acknowledge that my noble friend has not been the biggest fan of this project. As I am sure noble Lords will acknowledge, this underwent full scrutiny during the passage of the Bill in both the House of Commons and in particular in your Lordships’ House. My noble friend referred to transparency. I am sure that he will acknowledge that many elements of the business contracts awarded are of a confidential nature and that it would be totally inappropriate to require that they were all fully transparent.

High Speed Rail (London–West Midlands) Bill

Lord Framlingham Excerpts

3rd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 31st January 2017 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Framlingham]

As an amendment to the motion that this bill do now pass, leave out “now” and insert “not”.

[Lord Framlingham (Con)]

My Lords, I am well aware of the gravity of the amendment I have tabled. I hope the House will understand that I have only decided to do this after long and careful consideration. I have been a Member of your Lordships’ House for six years, but I was a Member of the House of Commons for 27 years and a Deputy Speaker for 13 of those, so I am well aware of the proceedings and conventions surrounding the passage of a Bill. What we are doing today is a rare occurrence, but not without precedence and quite in order. Sometimes desperate situations require desperate remedies. In this case, your Lordships are all that stand between the wishes and welfare of the people and a folly on the greatest scale imaginable.

I have followed this issue carefully since it arrived in this House. I spoke against it at Second Reading, during the Queen’s Speech debate and in Committee. During all those stages I heard nothing but criticism of the project from every corner of the House, but noble Lords were still, for some reason, reluctant to speak against it in principle. So we arrive at the situation we face today—all the scheme’s credibility has long since gone, yet it is still bowling along with a momentum all of its own. It has been compared to Alice in Wonderland or the emperor’s new clothes. One journalist described it as the “zombie railway” that refuses to die. How has it got so far? The originators of the scheme, all those years ago, were bewitched by the idea of speed. They had looked at high-speed railways in France and Japan and thought we should do the same here, with speeds up to 250 miles per hour. This was the original motivation for the whole scheme and when the claims for speed were eventually discredited, the promoters started talking about capacity. Now that the figures on where capacity is needed most have been queried, confirming a report by Sir Rod Eddington, the former head of British Airways, there is little or nothing to be said for the scheme at all. In his report, Sir Rod also challenged the cult of speed for its own sake, pointing out that above 150 miles an hour energy use soars and rates of return plummet.

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[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have spoken in the debate. I recognise the strength of feeling expressed by my noble friend in raising this issue. Indeed, I met him again only yesterday to see whether we could allay some of his concerns. I do not share the experience that he cited of the passage of the Bill in your Lordships’ House; I am sure that most noble Lords across the House share my sentiment. Several noble Lords have rightly, at various stages of the Bill’s passage, challenged aspects of cost and detail, but—I look across the House to the noble Lords, Lord Berkeley and Lord Bradshaw—they made it clear that, while challenging key aspects of the construction of HS2, they did so with the understanding and absolute assurance that they were committed to the project.

The noble Lord, Lord Adonis, clearly articulated the benefits of HS2 and I thank him for putting the whole project into context and correcting some of the history of railways in our great country. He talked about the time pre-1838, before Queen Victoria’s coronation. I am surprised that the noble Lord, Lord West, is no longer in his place, but I am sure that he made a particular note of that.

My noble friend Lord Framlingham rightly raised the issue of costs and the control of costs. It is right that your Lordships’ House challenges the basic element of costs. However, given the recent experiences of infrastructure projects and the intense debates, discussions and scrutiny in Select Committees of both Houses on the Bill, it was very clear that that issue would be addressed. Noble Lords from across the House quoted the positive nature of projects such as Crossrail that are running to time and budget. The noble Lord, Lord Adonis, talked about the brave new world in which our country finds itself. It is projects such as Crossrail that we are taking to the world to showcase the best of British engineering, supply chains and apprenticeships. I believe earnestly that HS2 provides opportunities of this magnitude. For example, the training facilities associated with the skills element of the HS2 project are an important legacy of any infrastructure project.

I assure my noble friend again that the scrutiny of costs will not only be internal. As I am sure he is aware, the Commons Public Accounts Committee and the National Audit Office have already produced several reports on the costs of HS2, which are publicly available. These bodies will continue to examine the cost of HS2 as we move forward and as more detailed costs on the project become available.

I am mindful not to detain your Lordships’ House longer than necessary. It is important that this project is supported across your Lordships’ House, as it is in the other place. My noble friend Lord Framlingham raised the issue of the CBI and the BCC. They are fully supportive of HS2 and have gone on record to say that the additional capacity it will create is vital.

We have debated, discussed and scrutinised this Bill and this project in the true traditions of parliamentary democracy. In closing I again pay tribute to the incredible work that the Select Committees of both Houses have done. My noble friend has been a Member of both Houses and is testament to the incredible work that Select Committees do in scrutinising petitions to ensure that, whoever the petitioner is, their voice is heard, considered and validated. If valid concerns are raised, Bills and projects can be amended—and the same is true of HS2. If you look at the course of the Bill and its progress through your Lordships’ House—I commend the Select Committee analysis of the various petitions—you will see the detailed scrutiny, analysis and recommendations of your Lordships’ Select Committee, all of which the Government have accepted. As I said, there were differences of opinion and we have sought to resolve them. I thank all noble Lords who worked on a constructive basis in that sense.

As I said to my noble friend, both in your Lordships’ House and in other meetings we have held, I appreciate that he has been consistent in his position in opposing this project. However, we have addressed and scrutinised this issue and the project and we have put in place the checks and balances necessary to ensure that the cost implications of the project have been fully considered and will continue to be so. I implore my noble friend, even at this late stage, to consider carefully the responses I have given and the valid processes, checks and balances that we have put in place. As we have heard, this project is not only necessary for investment in our railways but is important to ensure connectivity, capacity and that our country is truly a 21st century country on the world stage.

My noble friend has made his consistent position absolutely clear. He knows that I have respected his position throughout the process, as I assured him again yesterday. However, when he reflects on the debate this afternoon, the other debates and scrutiny that have taken place and the assurances that the Government have given, I hope he will be minded to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Framlingham]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for his words. He has been diligent and gracious throughout. He asks me to reflect on my words and my actions today. I have done little else for quite a few days now and I would not have done what I have done unless I really believed it was the right thing to do—for me, for this House and for the country.

I hope that noble Lords in the House will be sure, when they leave the House, go outside and talk to other people, that they have done the right thing today. This is going to last for at least 10 years. I do not want to rehearse all of the arguments again, because I can pretty well tell when the House has had enough, and I am not going to refute all the arguments—although I could. I understand why other people want to put their points of view, and I am grateful to the Minister and particularly grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Mallalieu, for supporting me so well and being very much a kindred spirit in this. There are more of us around than I think anybody really appreciates. I say to the House, with all sincerity, that I have heard nothing this afternoon that makes me change my view that the HS2 project is fatally flawed and should not be given the blessing of your Lordships’ House. I want to test the opinion of the House. I beg to move.

High Speed Rail (London–West Midlands) Bill

Lord Framlingham Excerpts

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 12th January 2017 Grand Committee

18: After Clause 38, insert the following new Clause—
“Establishment of Regional Integrated Command Centre
(1) Within three months of the passing of this Act, the nominated undertaker must establish a Regional Integrated Command Centre to include representatives of Highways England, local highways authorities, emergency services, Transport for the West Midlands, Transport for London, transport operators and the nominated undertaker’s contractors.(2) The role of the Regional Integrated Command Centre shall be to ensure that the works authorised by this Act are co-ordinated so as to minimise the adverse effects of the works on other rail or road operations.”

[Lord Framlingham (Con)]

My Lords, could I have an explanation on a point from Tuesday’s meeting of this Committee? I want clarification on a point that arose when I asked a question about the workings of this Committee. The Minister responded by saying that:

“In general terms, a Select Committee in consideration of such a hybrid Bill normally looks specifically and primarily at private interests raised by petitioners, which gives it a very exhaustive opportunity to look at the different options. The role of the Grand Committee is what it traditionally is: to consider the public law clauses of a Bill, not the specific details of a private petition”.—[Official Report, 10/1/17; col. GC 95.]

Will the Minister define for us what a “public law clause” is? Presumably the amendments before us have been accepted and put down in the right order and can be discussed and decided upon later, but I would particularly like to know what a public law clause is and how it applies to the workings of this Committee.

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

As I said on the previous Committee day, looking at public law clauses is what a Committee and a Grand Committee do; that is, it looks at the implications overall of any Bill that is presented. The difference with a Select Committee is that it provides an opportunity specifically for petitioners who have an issue to raise that requires more detailed scrutiny to present their case in detail to Members of your Lordships’ House. The specifics of their particular petition are given an exhaustive review, and that is the difference. It allows for a much more detailed analysis of the private interests behind a petition. This is a normal and standard procedure used for Bills that are of an infrastructure nature. It is not new or novel but something that has been used previously. I trust that that provides further clarification but, in the interest of moving forward on the Bill, I am quite happy to provide a more detailed response in writing.

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[Lord Berkeley]

My Lords, I am sorry to go on so long but we are nearly getting to the end.

Noble Lords may wonder why we have tabled this amendment. For the last 20 years we have had freight trains and passenger trains. They are separate, regulated separately if they are regulated, and they mostly operate on the same tracks. More recently, there has been greater pressure on passenger trains to carry bicycles—obviously, wheelchairs are allowed for anyway—but they have also started to take small packets of freight. I think many Ministers have agreed that that is a good way of getting small consignments off the road and on to rail at very little marginal cost. It happens on the midland main line now, with parcels, medical samples and things like that, and as noble Lords may know, it happens with crabs and lobsters from the West Country—Penzance—some of which are alive. That is extremely successful.

There is a lot of pressure from some people in the industry, both on the freight and the passenger side, to develop this quite dramatically. Eventually, you could use an old multiple unit train, put roll cages in there, take it up to a main line station and deliver things in a very much more environmentally friendly way than you could by running big lorries in all the way. However, there is a half-way stage of not having enough volume to justify a complete train but having more volume than goes in a suitcase.

It would be interesting to explore whether Ministers think that all new trains—of course, the trains in this amendment will have to be the High Speed 2 ones, although I hope it could be extended—would have some flexible space. At night, when there is not much traffic, there could perhaps be freight in the end coach; in the daytime there could be bicycles—there is a big demand for carrying bicycles; and for anything else that comes along, they could still have flap-down seats when not too many people need to stand.

This is therefore an opportunity to look at the design of coaches again with regard to a changing demand for both passenger and freight. I beg to move.

[Lord Framlingham]

Is not the noble Lord talking about the old guards’ van?

[Lord Berkeley]

The noble Lord is tempting me to get on to the issue of guards, which I shall not do. The answer is yes—but it is not for the guard but for other things. But there are not many left.

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[Lord Framlingham]

My Lords, I rise briefly to disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, and to support what the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, is trying to say. This is a long and complicated process and however far in advance one talks about timetables, surely there is little point in building something if it will not deliver what one wants at the end of the day. One must look at the end as well as the beginning to make sure that one gets the system right.

[Lord Adonis]

My Lords, just to be clear, the illustrative timetables have been published already and, indeed, have been a part of the business case. What my noble friend’s amendment refers to is a comprehensive and detailed working timetable, which, as I say, will greatly build up the expectations of those who will benefit and lead to big and controversial campaigns by those who will not. In some areas, particularly with regard to freight trains, I am assuming that they would not feature in any event.

[Lord Framlingham]

I hate to labour the point. I can understand why detailed timetables would not be wanted, but surely identifying possible bottlenecks and flaws well in advance is absolutely essential.

[Baroness Buscombe]

My Lords, I thank noble Lords who have spoken in this brief debate. Perhaps I may say that the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, is correct in saying that much of this has already been responded to in speaking to Amendment 22. However, I can understand and empathise with the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, as to where he is coming from in the need to ensure that thought is being given to the timetables. Indeed, dare I say it, I recall the experience of when Reading station was opened by Network Rail and there were no timetables for half of the stations. The service was extremely unreliable and uncertain, so experience encourages one to consider these issues with care to ensure that the Government are thinking all this through.

I am pleased to say that, as set out in a Treasury minute published on 19 December last year, the Government have already committed to developing an integrated train plan for the entire west coast corridor from 2019 and will consult on that plan. This work will be led by the recently announced West Coast Partnership franchise. It would not be possible to do the work earlier as the West Coast Partnership will not be in place until 2018.

The key point is that a number of well-established statutory and regulatory procedures are in use on the railway to ensure that timetables are developed in a considered and structured way. This amendment appears to cut across that process, and given that the Government have already committed to a timeframe for a timetable, I hope that the noble Lord will see fit to withdraw his amendment as, again, we feel that it is not necessary; in fact, it would be otiose to legislate.

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[Lord Berkeley]

Noble Lords will be aware that there was a consultation on the hybrid Bill procedure, which closed just before Christmas and on which the clerks can provide us all with details. I think that is the forum for discussing how the procedure works, whether improvements could be made, whether everybody was treated fairly, and so on. I suspect it will be the first of a number of inquiries. We all learn from these processes, but I am not sure that today’s Committee is the right forum in which to discuss them in detail.

[Lord Framlingham]

My Lords, in a sense this goes to the point I was trying to make when we first started about the function of this Committee. We are dealing with a huge, modern project within a Victorian legislative system, which will be improved in time—but not in time to take care of the problems that face us. We all ought to bear that in mind. I, like every other member of this Committee, I am sure, have no wish to denigrate the work of the Select Committee. We acknowledge all the hours its members put in and what they went through. But if this Committee today is to have any function or usefulness at all, then it has to deal with and reflect on what they thought, what we think and how things should go forward.

We are talking about the biggest infrastructure project this country will ever undertake. It is an enormous project. The work involved will have a huge impact on both the urban and rural environment. Surely we must leave no stone unturned to ensure that it is correct. The Select Committee may think it has done that, but if anybody has more concerns, as we have today, they should be able to express them. This project is going to last for years. It will affect thousands of people’s lives for years in all sorts of ways. It is all right having a complaints system but complaints happen after the result, when the damage is done.

I am talking today about awareness: making HS2 aware of its obligations from the beginning and having someone—an adjudicator, or whatever you want to call it—to keep an eye on it from the beginning. People also need to be reassured that the adjudicator, or whatever official we decide upon, will support and defend their interests. I declare my own interest: I have always been interested in trees. I am an ex-president of the Arboricultural Association and I like ancient woodlands. Believe you me, an hour’s work with a JCB in the wrong place will do untold and irreparable damage that no amount of money, apologies, complaints or acceptance of responsibility by HS2 will put right. From the very beginning, if it is to work at all—I still do not want it to go ahead—there must be an awareness on both sides. That means, on the part of HS2, an awareness of its obligations on every little detail so that the general public are reassured that their interests will be properly defended. What structure or person that would need, be it an adjudicator or whatever we like to call it, I am not sure, but that mechanism must somehow be put in place.

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[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara]

I beg to move this amendment standing in my name. I realise that my following remarks risk throwing petrol on an already blazing flame and that my great friend and former colleague my noble friend Lord Young will probably never speak to me again. However, I say again that I fully acknowledge that the committee did exactly what was required of it and went to extraordinary lengths and made a huge personal commitment in doing so. In no sense was anything I said on the earlier amendments meant to imply anything other than huge admiration for what it has done. I hope that point is well taken. However, I was trying—obviously ineffectively—to argue that the work of the committee, however good, could never address the sorts of issues that I was trying to articulate as they concerned private interests.

I follow the noble Lord, Lord Framlingham, in saying that a 19th century Victorian approach to dealing with the vested interests of private landowners is being used in a situation where it is completely inappropriate. It is not in any sense the committee’s fault that we are today talking about the issues that it may feel it knocked on the head and put to bed. There are still issues out there and they were raised by my new friend, the noble Baroness, Lady Pidding, because she has experience, as I have, of how they will operate in practice. This issue is about structure.

I have submitted evidence on all this to the committee that was set up to look at hybrid Bills. I hope that it will consider that evidence as we go forward. Why have we not had an opportunity to discuss the committee’s report? That could still be done. It is the biggest gap of all. As I understand it, there is no procedure as regards discussing the excellent report, which I have read. I have looked at every piece of evidence the committee received and I have read every transcript of the events, so I am not unaware of its work. I almost died but I did it. However, the report will never be discussed. That seems an extraordinary lacuna in the process of looking at the Bill. It needs to be picked up because there are things in the report which ought to be brought out and discussed. There are things which perhaps we could agree to disagree about but at least they could be aired and ventilated in a discussion. That is a terrible mistake. I move on.

My last point concerns an issue that came up and reflects points made on it both today and on Tuesday.

[Lord Framlingham]

I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord, but he was not here on Tuesday, when I think that the Minister gave us assurances that the response to the report will be available before the Report stage.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara]

I have taken note of and am aware of that, but a response is not a debate. While of course I am looking forward to the response and will read it with considerable interest, it will not give us the opportunity to debate and discuss all the other issues, and that is disappointing.

The amendment before us asks whether a duty of care should be placed on the promoter and the nominated undertaker in relation to the acquisition of land by compulsory purchase and associated issues. The reason for tabling it stems from our discussions on questions of how HS2 has been dealing with the people with whom it has to engage around the acquisition of land in preparation for the construction phase. It is clear that the ability to purchase land compulsorily should always be used with a sense of great responsibility and as a last resort. The ability to purchase the property of another against their will is a really substantial power and one hopes that it will be used and exercised with care.

When the Bill before us today receives Royal Assent, HS2 Ltd will have compulsory purchase powers. However, many people feel that the organisation has not really earned the right to move ahead in the way it has done because of how it has operated before in terms of dealing with them. Those most affected by the scheme seem to be the most upset about it, and that is obviously a concern which perhaps will be picked up by better and more informed engagement, but the more that people push top-down on engagement, possibly the less effective it will be. This duty of care is not about disrupting or delaying the Bill—we are not in any sense trying to do that—but introducing a set of standards against which HS2 Ltd can be judged; that is, how is it treating those who are losing land or property to the scheme?

Examples which have led to this amendment have been reported to me and I am happy to share them with the Minister if he wishes me to do so. I am keeping them neutral at this stage, but there is evidence to back up what I am saying. Examples include landowners finding out about significant changes to the design of a scheme only once the information has been released to the public. In some cases, landowners have had meetings with HS2 representatives only shortly before changes were announced, but at which it was denied that any changes were forthcoming. There has been a refusal to engage in extensive discussions with landowners, and that is obviously very frustrating. If adaptations to the design are going to be made, previous plans will not necessarily follow. This has often meant that almost fake meetings have been set up where discussions have been held, but it was clear that another agenda was in place which had not been revealed to the landowner.

There are examples of the failure to pay properly for access to land. Some landowners have agreed to allow HS2 Ltd access on the basis of a fee, but those fees have still not been paid. That seems to be a very poor practice. Some sense of a duty of care being overseen by an independent complaints commission of the type talked about by the noble Baroness when she addressed the last amendment may be a way forward on this, and I am sure would help, but it may mean that the whole process needs to be stiffened by having a formal duty of care. I do not think that this should be seen as being in any way bureaucratic, because obviously that is not allowed. It also should not be seen as in any sense a way of slowing down the scheme. In fact, in some ways a duty of care might actually set standards that would improve the quality of the process between landowners and HS2 Ltd. It is important to look at whether that might be the right way forward.

There is a lot of uncertainty up and down the line about how much land will finally be taken, for how long, on what basis it will be paid for, and how the timing of those payments will work out. This is not helping in terms of making the scheme a success. It would be sensible to have the basic structure of a duty of care as provided for in this amendment, which I commend. I beg to move.

High Speed Rail (London-West Midlands) Bill

Lord Framlingham Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords & Committee: 1st sitting: House of Lords & Report stage: House of Lords
Tuesday 10th January 2017 Grand Committee

[Lord Bradshaw]

I support what the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, has said. The scheme as envisaged is extravagant, and this is not a time when we can afford extravagance. There is a good case for having an independent assessment of the costs, particularly to consider such things as how long this railway can terminate at Old Oak Common, which would set aside a considerable sum of money. If a connection has to be made to Euston, how can that be done in the most economical way? I do not believe that that issue has been addressed. We are not talking about small sums of money; we are talking about billions of pounds.

One thing that I was told about the Bill was that people had made assumptions about the time it took to turn round a train from the north that was heading in the direction of London. I have run a lot of London stations. I can assure noble Lords that, with the number of trains that it is proposed to run from Manchester to Old Oak Common, it would be quite easy, given the six platforms there, to turn the trains round. What one has to factor in is the capacity at Old Oak Common. That means that there has to be a sufficient number of people to service the trains. Special attention also needs to be given to the access to and from the platforms.

I rather agree with the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, about the Handsacre link, which seems to cost a lot of money. I certainly agree on the issue about speed. There is a complete misapprehension of the value of journey time savings when we talk about savings of two minutes or less, yet that structure holds up the whole of our transport evaluation, whether in road, rail or anything else—the biggest factor to be taken into consideration is the value of the small time savings, which are all added together and form a colossal sum. However, people making a journey do not take into consideration whether they are going to be two minutes quicker, because in lots of modes of transport unpredictability is a much bigger factor than the journey time saving.

I also want to probe—to push very hard—on the time savings. We should be very careful about speeds which go much above 125 miles per hour, possibly up to 150. It costs a lot once you push speeds towards the upper end of the limit. I am happy to join the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, in his call for independent costings, but there is also a need for re-evaluation of the economic basis on which the line is to be built.

[Lord Framlingham (Con)]

My Lords, we have dealt with only two amendments so far, and any member of the public sitting listening to the Committee will be asking themselves: “Why on earth are you going ahead with this project?”. All we have are problems, which seem to me almost insurmountable; we have no answers to them. When we ask about the trek from St Pancras to Euston, the answer is, apparently, offer £3 million to the local authority as a prize if it can come up with the answer. That does not sound to me like much of a solution.

I know that this is not Second Reading, but we must ask ourselves whether there is any sense in going ahead with this whole project. We have not yet dealt with the environmental problems, which will be huge and last for years. We have heard from the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, whose amendment I support, that the whole scheme is not properly costed and nobody knows what will happen in the long run.

The Minister described it as a vital scheme. It is not. The money could be much better spent on all sorts of things: hospitals, schools, or Liverpool-to-Hull transport. If we pursue it, I think we will regret it for a long time. As this matter proceeds, I hope that your Lordships’ House will think it through very carefully and perhaps have second thoughts about proceeding with the whole scheme.

[Baroness Mallalieu (Lab)]

My Lords, I support all the amendments in this group, particularly Amendments 5 and 6, tabled in the name of my noble friend Lord Stevenson who, I understand, cannot be here today but will be here to make some remarks if Committee continues on Thursday. These amendments call for further things which need to be done before work starts on the project, the first being the cost-benefit analysis of the environmental impact of the work and the second being the traffic management requirements.

I apologise to the Committee: I was unable to speak at Second Reading and should therefore declare my interests. I lived in the Chilterns for 36 years, not in an area directly affected. Further along the proposed line, I know personally every one of the villages mentioned in the amendments on the Marshalled List today. Quainton, Twyford, Chetwode, Mixbury and Barton-Hartshorn—I know them all and have known them for 50 years. I do not just know the villages, their names and the roads; I know the farms, fields, the woodlands and some of the people still living there, and I have seen the devastating effect that the Bill is already having on their lives and their communities. The environmental, not to mention the social impact, is enormous. I know that I am not allowed to make a Second Reading speech, although I did not make one before, and I shall strain every sinew not to do so.

The Government tell us that the public have a right to require value for money, and I totally agree. The cost changes each time I see a figure, but £57 billion is the latest one, and no one with the slightest grasp of reality believes that it will stop there. This House, in the detailed report of the Economic Affairs Committee, chaired by my noble friend Lord Hollick, has already drawn attention to the need for a number of the central questions to be answered. Those questions were posed and not adequately answered by the Government’s very flimsy response in July 2005; nor do I believe they have been since, although I know the Minister said at Second Reading that he thought they had been. Where is the answer to a key question in that list, as to whether HS2 is the best way to spend £50 billion—although I up that now to £57 billion—to stimulate the UK economy?

One thing that has not been done is that the environmental impact has not been subject to any cost-benefit analysis. Surely the public, who are going to have to pay for this project in so many ways and relatively few of whom will see any actual benefit, are entitled to a proper cost-benefit analysis before our countryside is destroyed. As for the pressure to carry on with this project without a cost-benefit analysis, I will come to how it was conceived in a moment, but I understand from the noble Lord, Lord Mandelson, when he spoke in this House on an earlier debate on this topic, that the Labour Cabinet was searching for a legacy project and someone suggested that China and France had high-speed railways. I do not think the pressure for it comes from the rail users on Southern, from the commuters standing on trains day after day coming into London or even from those whose businesses in the north of England are hampered by the absence of a good trans-Pennine rail link. We are told there is going to be a lack of capacity, but it is not visible to me as I stand on the excellent Chiltern line stations and see an excellent service at present—not overcrowded —from London to Birmingham. What about spending money on capacity which is really urgent right now, as we have all been seeing in the last few weeks and indeed right up to today?

The reality is that, in choosing that legacy, scant consideration was given to the devastating environmental damage which will inevitably result to a very special piece of English countryside. My noble friend Lord Stevenson was going to talk about the Chilterns, and I will just say a few words about it. It is a unique area of beech wood but has also become, in the 36 years I have lived there, the lungs of London. Anyone who goes down to the Chilterns on a weekend will see people pouring out of London to walk and enjoy the peace which reigns over most of it. Beyond that, Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire, Northamptonshire and Warwickshire—the area I know well—is not tourist country. It is not even really walkers’ country but it is old England—the England that we ought to preserve and celebrate. If we destroy those things and take them away from the public, at vast expense and for relatively little benefit to very few people, without making a proper cost-benefit analysis of what we are doing, I do not think we will be forgiven. Indeed, not having such a cost-benefit analysis would be pure vandalism, and I hope the Minister will say that the Government will address all the things set out in the five amendments in the group before anybody starts work with the bulldozers and the concrete and does damage that can never be repaired.

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[Lord Framlingham]

I understand that this is not the place to make a Second Reading speech but we are entitled to talk about the value of these amendments in the whole scheme. What is being highlighted is that there are no solutions and that is very important.

[Lord Snape]

Again, with respect to the noble Lord, I do not mind him speaking about the amendments; procedural matters are not for me, anyway. But he said, in effect, that the money being spent—whether that is £50 billion as my noble friend said or whatever—would be better spent on other things. That, I have to say, is a Second Reading speech, and the question, “Why are you spending money on this rather than that?” could be asked in either Chamber in relation to any matter under the sun. As for my noble friend’s contribution, while I had better be careful that I do not make a Second Reading speech myself, I am somewhat sick of hearing about the enormous damage that is being done to an area of natural beauty by a two-track railway line.

[Lord Snape]

I will come to the tunnels in later amendments—my noble friend should not distract me just yet; I will deal with them in a moment or two.

As it was said, the garden of England, Kent, was not destroyed by High Speed 1, although I sat and listened for months on end to petitioners telling me that it would be. I am glad to say that was the last hybrid Bill I served on; I do not want to do another one after that experience. The destruction never happened, and, indeed, the economy of various parts of Kent has been boosted enormously by HS1, as we heard earlier. I do not know where my noble friend was when the M40 was being built. There are of course no tunnels on it, but I presume that it is a great asset to the Chilterns. I would have thought that objections to it, such as they were, would have been somewhat muted by the convenience to the objectors of getting their motor cars back to London from the lovely parts of the Chilterns in which they lived or were visiting.

[Lord Framlingham]

I accept what the noble Lord says about the building of a two-track railway, but surely given the size of this project he will concede that every possible effort should be made to ensure it has a minimum impact on the countryside. Given that huge size—£55 billion—even reasonable amounts of money should be given, without much discussion, to make sure the damage is kept to a minimum.

[Lord Snape]

I am immensely sorry to refute the noble Lord’s assertions but we spent a long time looking into this project and a considerable amount of money has been and is being spent trying to meet some of the objections that he outlined.

Those who, like my noble friend, were against the project denounced it for costing some £50 billion, yet with every speech they want to add to that cost because there is something in their area that they wish to preserve. I pay tribute, as others have, to the Select Committee, and note that my noble friend Lord Adonis has joined us. It spent months listening to various petitioners, many of whom were against the project, but all anxious for more public money to be spent on the bit they objected to. We could go on like this for ever and not build anything at all. Presumably that was the objective behind the speech of the noble Lord opposite. For my noble friend to pray in aid my noble friend Lord Mandelson by describing it as a vanity project—this from the man in charge of the Dome, a vanity project if ever there one—is, in addition to the other Second Reading speeches that have been made, of no great service to the Committee or the project.

I am fascinated by the agreement between my noble friend Lord Berkeley and the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw. My noble friend wants to extend the line from Hanslope to Crewe. I am not sure how much that would cost. He also wants to build a four-track railway to replace the short distance of three-track railway from Hanslope Junction—as he will recall, there is another three-track railway going north from Rugby. Although it is neither in the Bill nor his amendments, it should not be too great a project to build that replacement. The noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, meanwhile, wants to reduce the other end of the line to Old Oak Common. Yet they say they are in agreement with one another—by the sound of it, they both want to redesign the whole project. I am not quite sure how much that would cost, either.

I do not know whether there is any great merit in these amendments. I know that my noble friend and the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, spent a considerable time behind the scenes in the attempt to redesign Euston station and I am sure that we will come to that issue under a future amendment. However, it seems to me that this Committee will not make much progress if those who were against the project in the first place make similar speeches on every set of amendments between now and whenever the Committee adjourns later today or on Thursday.

--- Later in debate ---

[Viscount Astor]

All I can say to the noble Lord is that some of those involved in parish councils felt unable to present in the way that they should have; I quite respect what he said.

[Lord Framlingham]

I am sorry to speak again, but I am beginning to wonder what we are doing. If the Select Committee has done everything that needs doing and the Minister will not accept any of the amendments, I am not sure how this Committee will contribute much to the process.

[Viscount Astor]

I do not know whether my noble friend wants to answer that, but perhaps I may finish responding to the noble Lord. He is quite right that there were a lot of petitions, and I am not in any way criticising the Select Committee or any of the work it did, but the petitions affected the route as proposed. The committee was unable to look any wider into some of the other issues. That was the point I was trying to make. I was not disagreeing with the noble Lord, but I was pointing out that the Select Committee was under certain restrictions. Having said that, unless my noble friend wishes to say anything, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

HS2 Update

Lord Framlingham Excerpts

Tuesday 15th November 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Framlingham (Con)]

My Lords, I am sorry to introduce a slightly discordant note, but is it not really a question of priorities? At a time when the National Health Service had a deficit, last year, of £1.8 billion, and we are asking it to save £22 billion by 2020-21, does it not seem a bit ridiculous to be spending £55 billion-plus on what is a non-essential project that is going to be hugely disruptive?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

My noble friend draws a comparison with other areas, but in no way does our investment in HS2 take away from the importance of the National Health Service. I would counter his suggestion by not just looking at the project in terms of the cost. The whole project, once up and running, seeks to deliver over £103 billion of economic benefits to the country as a whole. I alluded to connectivity in my Statement, and the noble Lords who have already asked questions raised important issues about it. This is not just about connecting parts of London to the Midlands or elsewhere but about connecting the whole country. This is an important project. It is one of the biggest rail infrastructure projects, and the first major one outside London, since the Victorian age, and we now need to move forward and get HS2 built.