High Speed 2

Lord Truscott Excerpts

Thursday 24th October 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Truscott (Non-Afl)]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, for initiating this debate. It is high time that this House had a full and lengthy debate on this very important but, in my view, flawed project. During the debate last February in your Lordships’ House, I said that I feared with HS2 we are in danger of developing a huge and costly white elephant; with an ill-thought-out business case, social disruption and a catastrophic environmental impact. Sadly, nothing I have heard or read over the subsequent months and nothing that has been said in today’s debate has changed my mind. In fact, it has hardened my opinion.

The noble Lords, Lord Stevenson and Lord Grocott, mentioned compensation. I can only guess the anguish of those affected by this scheme faced with the offer of wholly inadequate compensation or no compensation at all.

This debate is really about the supposed benefits or otherwise of HS2. We have a project that has split views more or less down the middle; it has its supporters and detractors. The ranks of the latter, however, are swelling while the cohorts of the former are visibly shrinking. Here we have a scheme whose costs seem to go ever upwards. As a number of noble Lords, have said, the Secretary of State for Transport has already increased the cost of HS2 from £33 billion to £42.6 billion, excluding the £7.5 billion for the rolling stock which has been mentioned. The Treasury predicts that this will rise to £73 billion. The noble Lord, Lord Snape, has told us that some of the people criticising HS2 are not credible. He mentioned the Institute of Economic Affairs giving a figure of £80 billion or above. I hope that the noble Lord thinks that the Treasury is a capable source, otherwise we are all in trouble. The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, earlier mixed up his millions and billions, but we are talking here about tens of billions. These are indeed serious matters. On the face of it, HS2 looks like heading the way of Blue Streak and the TSR 2 programmes, both abandoned by the Ministry of Defence in the 1960s because of their spiralling costs over a number of years.

Quite apart from the fact that cross-party support faces collapse if the costs rise above £50 billion—either now or around the time of the next general election—we have to ask whether this scheme provides value for money. The Department for Transport now seems to be moving away from the benefit-to-cost ratio analysis. Now we are told to look at the bigger picture. No wonder, as the BCR is currently one pound for every one pound spent on phase 1, and the latest figures will bring it below that.

The public subsidy currently required is £33 billion. In congratulating the Minister on her appointment, I pose a question. Do the Government have a limit to how much public subsidy they are prepared to allow for HS2?

Apart from the bogus arguments about increasing passenger capacity and claiming that no one works on the trains, only 2% of rail passengers travel on the west coast main line intercity trains—the only route to benefit from phase 1 of HS2. The rest of the national network will be largely ignored. That is the reality.

The other issue rarely mentioned, but raised by my noble friend Lord Mandelson, was that HS2 will require £7.7 billion in cuts to existing rail services. The reality will be that a number of towns will experience worse services, not improved ones.

KPMG, as mentioned, reported on behalf of HS2 Limited that the country would benefit to the tune of £15 billion. What HS2 suppressed, however, was the fact that KPMG’s report also showed that many areas of the UK, such as Aberdeen, Bristol and Cardiff, would significantly lose out to HS2. The noble Lord, Lord Alton, mentioned Liverpool missing out as well. It is obvious when you think about it.

In short, we have a scheme that, if built, will primarily benefit the capital city, not the north. My noble friend Lord Mandelson, outlined that point. This has been the experience of all other high-speed trains in Europe, if we look at the lines to the capital cities Paris or Madrid. The scheme will devastate parts of our irreplaceable environment—I emphasise the word “irreplaceable”—including 67 ancient woodlands, as referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Mallalieu. The scheme will not even be the best use of the money to upgrade our rail infrastructure. Targeted, more widespread, upgrades would be more effective, and I say that as a regular rail user. Worse, it will make such upgrades unaffordable in the future.

Finally, can this country afford such monumental financial recklessness when there are other, greater national priorities, not only in terms of the rail network infrastructure but also such as developing airport capacity in the south-east?

I understand from the Minister—I thank her for her Answers to some of my Written Questions—that the forecast spend for HS2 for 2013-14 is already £378 million. For 2014-15, it will be another £442 million. These are huge levels of expenditure very early on in a programme whose costs are only going up and up. In conclusion, the Government need to think again before a penny more is wasted on this mother of all follies.