High Speed Rail (London - West Midlands) Bill: Select Committee

Debate between Lyn Brown and Frank Dobson

Tuesday 29th April 2014 Commons Chamber

[Frank Dobson]

I welcome that reassurance.

I am particularly concerned, too, about the statutory and non-statutory provisions for compensation. Outside London, some people whose homes will not be demolished but whose property and general lifestyle will be adversely affected by a railway perhaps 50 yards away will be compensated, which I think is right. The situation in my constituency, however, is that people whose homes are 5 yards away from the line or 5 yards away from 10 years of engineering works will get no compensation. I hope that the Minister, the Department and HS2 Ltd are aware that the immediately preceding Director of Public Prosecutions, Sir Keir Starmer, has given us an opinion that the procedure followed in respect of my constituency is actually in breach of the law. I therefore hope that at least the House will have an opportunity to review it, even if the Committee cannot. I view it as strange that we are talking about a Committee supposedly looking at mitigation and compensation that is apparently not allowed to look at compensation. That needs to be revised.

My last but one point is that I very much support the amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Joan Walley), the Chair of the Environmental Audit Committee. I hope that the Government, as well as our Front-Bench team, will go along at least with the spirit of it.

My final point is about the amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston. I believe that if we are to have a High Speed 2, it is ludicrous for it not to be connected to High Speed 1. That does not mean that it makes any sense whatever to have the HS2-HS1 link that was originally proposed, which was crackers in practically every aspect and certainly does not go to the right place. I agree with those who believe that there needs to be a connection—and the best place to receive that connection, if that is the right word for it, is Stratford.

[Lyn Brown]

Hear, hear.

[Frank Dobson]

I hear my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown). It has just occurred to me that if HS2 did that and it went to Stratford, the most famous Englishman of all time might have ended up in a different Stratford from the one in which he was born and brought up. I think that would be a welcome move. I would ask anyone who thinks that we are going to see successful use of a travelator between Euston and St Pancras quite where this “covered way” is to be constructed. The proposal has been suggested about 25 times in the past and it has always been rejected as absolutely loopy.

Going back to the original proposition for the channel tunnel to come into King’s Cross, I remember moving an amendment to the effect that provision should be made to go from King’s Cross to the west midlands, but it was duly voted down. I have always been in favour of having proper connections. When the preposterous idea of placing a travelator along Euston road was proposed, it was received with mockery and derision then and it is still being received with mockery and derision now. The only way to avoid using Euston road would be to demolish even more houses in my constituency or to drill a hole through the British Library or through the Francis Crick Institute that is currently being constructed. I find it most extraordinary that some people think that a satisfactory link can be constructed.

I have noticed that the great hero of the hour is Sir David Higgins, so we are told that because he suggested the proposal, it must be a good idea. He suggested that the delay would be no more than that we experience when we have to go from one terminal building at Heathrow to another one. They are not quite the same. Not much rain falls on people when they travel from terminal 4 to terminal 1 at Heathrow, but Euston road really can get pretty wet. I thus very much support the spirit of the amendment proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston, but I could not bear to support it in full because it still includes the possibility of facilitating

“the provision at a later date of the spur”,

which has rightly been abandoned.

On all these issues, I urge the new Minister to bear in mind that every time local people—and me in trying to represent them—criticised the link and every time we criticised the design for Euston, we were treated, frankly, with contempt. Now the contemptibles have turned out to be right, yet the people who treated us with contempt are being asked to come up with alternatives to meet the requirements that everyone thinks are needed. The Minister needs to keep an eye on them: if they are the same people, the chances of them getting it right now are no better than the chances of them getting it right before.

My final point is this. The original proposal for Euston was to cost £1.2 billion. Eight months later, before anybody had done a trial bore or anything, the project came up with a revised costing of £2 billion. That is why the Minister needs to be very careful in entrusting the future of this project to people who can get a costing for a station £0.8 billion wrong and have to correct themselves within eight months. I offer friendly advice to a fellow Yorkshireman: “Have a good look at ’em, mate; have a good look at ’em.”

--- Later in debate ---

[Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)]

It is an absolute pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Meriden (Mrs Spelman); I agree with much of what she says. I hope that she has more purchase with her own Front Benchers than I might, and that they have listened very carefully to her speech and to those of others who have talked about the HS1-HS2 link. I rise in support of the amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart).

I want to reflect on the link between the existing route for High Speed 1 from St Pancras to the channel tunnel and the proposed High Speed 2 link. I am a supporter of HS2, but the proposed link, as my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood) rightly stated, would not have provided an adequate service. I was therefore happy to support its deletion from the Bill yesterday. It was to be a single track shared between international, freight and domestic passenger services, with limited potential to maximise the growth and regeneration benefits that high-speed rail could bring to the UK. It was not adequate to address anticipated demand. It would have allowed for just a small number of international services and created a conflict between those, freight and London orbital services, with limited potential for further inter-regional and intra-regional ones.

Recognising the shortcomings of that link route and removing it and its safeguarding from the Bill does not, of course, remove the strong arguments in favour of a good-quality link between the UK’s two high-speed lines and between the UK and the European high-speed rail network. Indeed, as I said yesterday, Richard Threlfall, head of infrastructure at KPMG, is quoted in the engineering press as saying that it is a “great tragedy” to scrap the link and “complete nonsense” not to have the two lines connected. I absolutely concur with his judgment. Clearly, at some time in the future we are going to need a much-enhanced capacity such as a dedicated twin-track line capable of working as a dual-purpose line for international and domestic services. We therefore need to look at the physical alternatives to the proposed and now rejected link, including the possibility of tunnelling to provide a connection with the west coast main line and HS2. We need to start that discussion and evaluation now.

I really urge the Minister to reconsider his position, because such a link also opens up the possibility of inter-regional and intra-regional services, as well as international links. We know there is demand for direct rail services from the midlands, the north-west and Yorkshire to east London, Essex and Kent without having to go through central London.

I reiterate the tribute I paid yesterday to colleagues across the political spectrum from Kent and Essex county councils who have collaborated with my own borough of Newham to demonstrate that demand through research published in the 2013 report, “Travel market demand and the HS1-HS2 link”. It concluded that potential increases in domestic demand enabled by an HS2-HS1 link of adequate capacity would bring significant benefits and, therefore, strengthen the business case for HS2 overall. Consultants commissioned by Greengauge 21 research highlighted an historic lack of long-distance, cross-London connectivity, only some of which will be addressed by the additions from Thameslink and Crossrail. The net effect is that many journeys end up being made by car, making use of the busy M25 simply to avoid the difficulty of cross-London transfers. I have to admit that I am guilty of making such journeys.

The report discerned in particular seven inter-regional domestic service markets that would benefit from a transfer to rail from other modes—especially car journeys on the M25—if there were an HS2-HS1 link. It concluded:

“The increase in rail share is between 7% and 23%, which is a remarkably high transfer”,

such that a

“new geography would get direct benefit from HS2 services: Essex, East/South East London, Kent, parts of Suffolk and East Sussex”.

Five of the seven inter-regional services include a focus on Stratford and enable connections to the west midlands and the north-west, the west of England and south Wales, the east midlands, Yorkshire and Humberside, and north-west London and Milton Keynes. The report aggregates that increase in domestic inter-regional demand as equating to 45% of demand emanating from central London, or 25% of the whole demand from Greater London. Along with increases in international demand from the link, those benefits will justify investment in the HS2-HS1 link and add significantly to the core business case for HS2. It will be seen that Stratford would play a key role in such substantial service development.

It strikes me as a great pity that there has not yet been any work to give a financial value to the opportunities to run those inter-regional services, even though the demand is clearly there. The Government must surely take note of that: the interconnectivity cannot be denied and the common sense of the link is obvious. The time to act is now and I seek an assurance today from the Government that they will commission a further examination of the demand, assess the economic benefit and put that into the mix when reviewing the potential for a future link between HS1 and HS2.

Although I am conscious of and totally support the need to contain the costs of HS2, I am also conscious of the old maxim, “penny wise, pound foolish”. We must take care not to take decisions now—indeed, we should avoid them—that would create obstacles down the line to securing maximum growth in the economy, particularly in regions to the north of London and in the midlands, as well as in east London.

The current approach also fails to recognise the environmental advantages, including reducing car travel on crucial networks such as the M25 and relieving pressure on central London interchanges and termini. We know that connectivity and capacity are far and away the most important issues for travellers—more important even than speed. Stratford International has both in spades, and I make no apology for reminding the House of that fact yet again.

We are discussing investment for a high-speed railway network designed to last until the next century. We must be strategic in our approach, squeeze value from every pound of spending and not overlook the opportunity to strengthen the business case for the entire network. Dragging our suitcases along streets in London, however desirable those streets may be, is not a 21st-century solution to the issue of connectivity.

[Frank Dobson]

Does my hon. Friend accept that the proposed walk is along Euston road, which has the worst air pollution in London, and for which the Government are being prosecuted under European air quality legislation?

[Lyn Brown]

I am very grateful to my right hon. Friend for supporting my case in his speech and in that intervention. Frankly, the Stratford option would help us enormously with the difficulties in his own area, which he has raised.

Above all, we need to consider how we can, in the not-too-distant future, secure an improved, fully integrated, robust link between HS1 and HS2. The link should be available for international and domestic services routed through Stratford at the heart of the growing east London economy, and benefiting economies in the midlands, in the north and indeed across the whole country.

Health and Social Care (Re-committed) Bill

Debate between Lyn Brown and Frank Dobson

Tuesday 6th September 2011 Commons Chamber

[Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)]

Bearing in mind the lack of popularity of the proposals among our constituents, is my right hon. Friend as worried as I and my constituents are about the £850 million that is being spent on redundancies and the projected £2 billion of primary care trusts’ budgets that is being held back from patient care to cover the risks and costs associated with the reorganisation?

[Frank Dobson]

I entirely agree. Nobody could possibly claim that redundancy payments constitute money being spent on improving services for our constituents. That is just money down the drain as far as patient care is concerned.

The fundamental problem behind the proposals is that the Government are, in effect, proposing a further major fragmentation of the national health service. In the past, up to the point at which the previous Tory Government introduced an internal market, the spending on administration in the NHS amounted to 4% of the total. That was largely because great big slugs of money were transferred round the system, and I am prepared to accept that there might be some disadvantages in that arrangement. Since then, however, under that Government and the Labour Government, the system has changed to one in which the money follows the patient. That has led to the creation of all sorts of exceptionally expensive systems to bring about individualised transactions, which has resulted in the cost of administering the national health service rising to 12% of the total—an increase of 8%. The NHS is spending about £100 billion a year at the moment, so an extra £8 billion that should have been spent on patient services is now being spent on the administration of the semi-fragmented system. What is now being proposed will involve yet further fragmentation, and I shall explain why I believe we will end up spending yet more money, but not on patients.