High Speed Rail (West Midlands–Crewe) Bill

Lord McNicol of West Kilbride Excerpts

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

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

My Lords, I had hoped that it would not be necessary for me to detain the House this afternoon because the noble Baroness, whom we hold in very high regard, would accept this amendment. However, I do not think that she is going to accept it so, alas, I will have to detain the House for a few minutes in putting forward the case for it. It is fundamental to the whole of the high-speed rail project that it should serve not just the West Midlands and the north-west but the East Midlands and Yorkshire. If it is a project just for one half of the country, it will by definition leave the other half behind.

If we just build a high-speed line up to Manchester and do not build a new railway up to Sheffield and Leeds and connecting on to the east coast main line, then—coming back to the Victorians—this would be the equivalent of the Victorians building a railway up to Manchester but leaving the canals to serve Sheffield and Leeds. It is fundamental to the project that it serves both halves of the country, and the great danger at the moment is that the Government are on track to cancelling or severely delaying the eastern part of the project. The Minister is not able to accept this amendment, which simply requires the Government to come forward with legislation for the eastern leg at the same time as that for the western leg. It was always integral to HS2 that phase 2b—the extension of the line north from Birmingham to Manchester—should take place at the same time as the extension of the line north-east from Birmingham to Sheffield and Leeds.

All that this proposal seeks—there is strong cross-party support for it—is to hold the Government to the original conception of HS2, which they have said they accept and have not actually said they reject. However, they will not take the steps required to deliver it. Those of us who know how government works know that when the Government do not rule out an option but refuse to take the practical steps required to deliver it, we should smell a rat and act accordingly. That is the purpose of this amendment.

The noble Baroness may drag the rug from under my feet and tell me that the Government are definitely committed to introducing legislation for the eastern leg of HS2 to Sheffield and Leeds at the same time as the Manchester legislation. If she says that, I will gladly withdraw my amendment. If she says that she is prepared to consider doing that between now and Third Reading I will go the last mile to reach consensus with her and withdraw this amendment. However, if she cannot give that commitment, then the House would be reasonable in concluding that the reason she will not is because the Government are contemplating cancelling the eastern leg of HS2 outright. This will undermine the integrity of the project. It will not be levelling up. By definition, it will level down for the East Midlands, Yorkshire and the north-east and we should carry this amendment today.

I am very glad to have the support of some of the speakers who will follow me. I would like to call the noble Lord, Lord Curry, my noble friend because he and I spent many months together on the economic inquiry into the future of the north-east, some five years ago. He is a very powerful champion of the north-east and completely understands the vital importance of the eastern leg of HS2, not just to the cities that it directly serves—Derby, Nottingham, Sheffield and Leeds—but to the east coast main line going further north-east.

My noble friend Lord Blunkett and the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, are very powerful champions for the city of Sheffield. I am told that I have managed a near-miraculous feat in uniting them this afternoon, which I am delighted to see. I welcome the noble Lord, Lord McLoughlin, to the House, particularly as he has now joined the club of former Transport Secretaries, which is the most distinguished club in the House. He was an immensely distinguished Transport Secretary and carried the HS2 project forward for more than three years. It is in no small part due to him personally that we are debating the Bill this afternoon.

This is not a party matter at all; the rhetoric of the Government is about levelling up and bringing the benefits of high-speed rail. We will hear all these phrases from the Minister in a moment. She is already nodding—she has them in the brief in front of her. The benefits of high-speed rail should be extended to the east Midlands, Yorkshire and the north-east. You cannot have the benefits of high-speed rail extended to the east Midlands, Yorkshire and the north-east unless they actually have high-speed rail. She will also have in her brief that rail should be integrated; they have this thing called the integrated rail plan, which we will hear lots about. Well, you cannot integrate nothing with something. King Lear had the answer to that one three centuries ago, or whatever it was:

“Nothing will come of nothing.”


If there is no high-speed line going to Sheffield and Leeds and connecting to the east coast main line, there is nothing to integrate. If the Minister wants an integrated rail plan and she wants the benefits of high-speed rail extended to the east Midlands, Yorkshire and the north-east, I am afraid there is only one way to do it: build the high-speed rail line through to Toton—the junction station between Derby and Nottingham—and to Sheffield, Leeds and the north-east.

I do not want to detain the House unduly. I set out all these arguments in Grand Committee. I even changed my amendment, in intense consultation with the clerks, to meet the objection of the Minister that we might delay the project; there is nothing I would less want to do. The form of this amendment involves no delay to the construction of the railway line from Birmingham to Crewe because it simply requires that “within six months” of the passage of the Act, the Government should come forward with plans for legislation for the eastern leg.

I end with two key points, so that your Lordships understand the vital importance of the proposition we are talking about today. If high-speed rail proceeds only to Manchester, and does not proceed to Sheffield and Leeds, when HS2 is completed the journey time from London to Manchester will be one hour, from London to Sheffield, and to Leeds, it will be two hours, and from London to Newcastle it will be three hours. Do I need to explain to your Lordships what the impact will be on business location decisions and the whole economic future of the country if that situation applies to these cities for most of the 21st century? If we are about building one nation, giving equal opportunity and incentives for all parts of the country to grow, and giving these phenomenally important cities of the east Midlands, Yorkshire and the north-east an opportunity to compete on a level playing field with the western cities of the country, then we must pass this amendment today. If we get into a situation where HS2 is only half-built, it will be the equivalent of the great Victorian pioneers building railways in the western part of the country only and leaving the whole of the eastern part with canals. I beg to move.

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord McNicol of West Kilbride) (Lab)]

My Lords, I remind all noble Lords in the Chamber to maintain social distancing for everyone’s safety. I call the next speaker, the noble Lord, Lord Curry of Kirkharle.

[Lord Curry of Kirkharle (CB) [V]]

My Lords, it is a privilege to follow the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, whose commitment to HS2 is very well known. I must say that I am impressed with his tie. I have a pair of socks which I clearly need to donate to him to match. As the noble Lord has mentioned, I have the honour of being a member of a commission which was established by the North East LEP and which was chaired by the noble Lord about five years ago. It was a revealing exercise even for someone like myself, who has lived in the north-east all my life.

It is almost slightly irritating for those of us who live in the far north of England—the north-east or the north-west—that, when viewed from London or the south-east, the north begins somewhere north of Nottingham and stretches to Sheffield and Manchester, while the vast area of England beyond that disappears into a fog and is too often regarded by those who live there as being neglected and ignored. This is the case with the existing plans for HS2. I have never regarded HS2 as just an attempt to deliver passengers from Euston to Birmingham 15 minutes earlier than is the case at present, but as a necessary investment to increase the capacity of the rail network. It is essential that the increased capacity planned is extended further north, beyond the current plan.

The north-east has some interesting and contrasting economic features. On the one hand, the region has one of the highest, if not the highest, proportion of GVA being exported of any English region, thanks to some very large companies such as Nissan. On the other hand, the north-east has some of the lowest indices in England, whether it be unemployment, average income levels, many social indicators, productivity and so on. For all these reasons—whether to support existing successful businesses or to help level up and address the long-standing economic and social issues—we need a commitment from Her Majesty’s Government to extend HS2 from the West Midlands to Leeds, as this amendment suggests, so that Yorkshire and the north-east can look forward to improved connectivity to assist in economic growth and address many of these long-seated social problems.

We all welcome the Government’s relatively recent announcement to invest in a whole range of infrastructure projects in the north. Many of these have been on our wish list for decades and are an important start to address the levelling-up commitment of the Government, but there is a very long way to go to satisfy the residents of the north of England. Supporting this amendment to extend HS2 would be a further, and very important, welcome step by the Government; it would show that they are committed to supporting the north and delivering an integrated rail network, as the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, has very effectively outlined. It is essential to improve access and assist in delivering economic growth. I do hope that the Minister will change her mind and accept this amendment.

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The noble Lord, Lord Adonis, is a great supporter of this project. I applaud the noble Lord once again for his tenacity and his diligence, and I remind him that the Prime Minister has been clear that the Government’s plans for the HS2 eastern leg will be set out in the integrated rail plan, and that this will be laid before Parliament within the timeframe of his amendment. I hope I have made the noble Lord sufficiently content, and that he will feel able to withdraw his amendment.

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord McNicol of West Kilbride) (Lab)]

My Lords, I have received no other requests to speak, so I call the noble Lord, Lord Adonis.

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

My Lords, there was a rare degree of unanimity in the House, and I am very grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken with a very great degree of passion. I think there is a great sense among noble Lords that the future of the country is at stake in the way that we proceed with HS2, just as the country that we live in today was to a very substantial extent shaped by those great Victorian railways and the way that they connected—or, in some cases, failed to connect—the great cities of our nation. The decisions that we take in Parliament over the next year or two on HS2 will shape the whole future of this country over the next century. Therefore, even though this has been a lengthy debate, I think it has been an important one, and hugely important for the direction of the country.

I said there has been near unanimity. I am afraid that the noble Baroness’s words do not go far enough; let me just do an exegesis on her words so that noble Lords are very clear about what she said. She said: “The Government have been very clear that the Prime Minister’s plans for the eastern leg will be set out in the integrated rail plan.” However, the key question is: what are the Prime Minister’s plans? Giving a commitment to set out the Prime Minister’s plans is absolutely pointless, unless those plans commit to building the eastern leg of HS2, which the noble Lord, Lord McLoughlin, his successors as Transport Secretary and I, on behalf of the then Government in 2010, committed to bringing forward as an integrated plan. Absolutely central to the whole philosophy of HS2 for the future of the country from the outset was that it should serve both the western and eastern parts of the country, and not, as one noble Lord said, replace a north-south divide with an east-west divide.

If the noble Baroness, who, as I say, we hold in very great respect, could commit to bringing forward legislation on the eastern leg at the same time as the western leg—that there will be definite legislation at the same time—I will withdraw my amendment. Is that a commitment the noble Baroness can make? Alas, my noble friend Lord Rooker invited her to rise to the occasion, seize the moment and make a declaration from the Dispatch Box—

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[The Deputy Speaker (Lord McNicol of West Kilbride) (Lab)]

We now come to the group beginning with Amendment 2. I remind noble Lords that Members other than the mover and the Minister may speak only once and that short questions of elucidation are discouraged. Anyone wishing to press this or anything else in this group to a Division should make that clear in debate.

Clause 22: Burial grounds

Amendment 2

Moved by

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Amendment 3 not moved.

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord McNicol of West Kilbride) (Lab)]

We now come to the group beginning with Amendment 4. I remind noble Lords that Members other than the mover and the Minister may speak only once and that short questions of elucidation are discouraged. Anyone wishing to press this or anything else in the group to a Division should make that clear in the debate.

Amendment 4

Moved by