High Speed 2

Paul Maynard Excerpts

Thursday 13th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the matter of High Speed 2.

I am delighted to have the opportunity to open the debate, and I am particularly grateful to all the Members —in all parts of the House and on all sides of the debate —who have turned up to participate. It is an incredibly important debate, because it involves £32 billion of taxpayers’ money. I am delighted to see that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport is not present, because, being an eternal optimist, I believe that he is delaying his decision until December—as he certainly should—and is keen to listen to the debate as it progresses. I know that not just you, Mr Speaker, but many right hon. and hon. Members have taken a great interest in this subject. Let me mention in particular my hon. Friends the Members for Lichfield (Michael Fabricant) and for Kenilworth and Southam (Jeremy Wright).

It is fashionable for those who oppose HS2 to be dismissed as nimbys. Let me make it clear that I am here today not just as a concerned constituency MP but as someone with 25 years of experience in finance, including project finance, and that I am determined to defend the taxpayer against what I consider to be an unjustifiable and eye-wateringly expensive project. If the route went from Truro to Paddington, or from Leeds to Edinburgh, I would still be here today defending the taxpayer.

When I first heard about HS2 I thought it was a superb idea, but 18 months later all the proposed benefits have fallen away one by one, and there is no hard evidence that spending £32 billion can truly be justified. For instance, there is no evidence that this project will solve the north-south divide. In fact, there is plenty of evidence from the experience in France and Germany, and from our own HS1, that high-speed trains can suck development out of the regions and into the major cities.

I also have an intuitive concern about the point-to-point nature of the project. The north is not a place; it is a region. Those close to the terminals will benefit of course, but it is unclear how people outside those areas can directly benefit. I recently spoke to my former constituency chairman in the Knowsley South seat, which I contested in 2005, and his view is that Knowsley South will end up paying its share of the cost of this project but will get little, if any, benefit.

[Paul Maynard (Blackpool North and Cleveleys) (Con)]

The north is not a region. It is made up of three regions—the north-west, Yorkshire and Humber and the north-east—all of which have their own identities, which I hope my hon. Friend will respect.

[Andrea Leadsom]

I thank my hon. Friend for making that point, and I certainly do respect the right of people in the north to economic regeneration. I am speaking as much for them as I am for people in Cornwall and the Isle of Wight when I say that £32 billion spent on this project is the wrong use of taxpayers’ money.

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[Stephen Hammond (Wimbledon) (Con)]

It is a great honour and pleasure to speak in this debate, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom) on securing it. She has allowed everybody who has a point of view the chance to make their case, expose the arguments of the other side and put forward their own.

In the last Parliament I was fortunate enough, along with the Minister of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet (Mrs Villiers), who is in her place, to be part of the shadow transport team who were the first authors of a major high-speed rail debate, and indeed of a high-speed rail policy.

The hon. Member for Coventry North West (Mr Robinson) is absolutely right that there is a principled case for opposition to the scheme. My constituents are affected, as are those of the right hon. Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Frank Dobson). What is not a principled position, however, is to say that there is no economic, environmental, financial or travel case for high-speed rail. There clearly is a case, although its merits might differ according to differing points of view.

I have read both the rail package 2 study and the “A Better Railway for Britain” study, the proposals in which are often referred to as an alternative to high-speed rail. I shall briefly examine—because I want to move on to the positives, rather than the negatives—the proposals in the latter study for overcoming the capacity issues on the west coast main line. It proposes to introduce 12 car trains, grade-separated junctions and an additional track south of Nuneaton. It claims that the costs, at best, would be £2.06 billion, but it takes that figure from another, flawed document. I do not know whether those who produced the study have ever spoken to any of the rail operators, but it will be extremely difficult to integrate 12 cars into 11-car sets.

[Paul Maynard]

Does my hon. Friend agree that rail package 2 plus and RP2 both admit that they do not tackle the peak-hour demand, which is the crucial concern of many of us travelling on the west coast main line?

[Stephen Hammond]

Absolutely. However, so much in “A Better Railway for Britain” is mere assertion. The good points, though, are like that television programme from so long ago, “Not Only… But Also”. Not only do we need to do the things mentioned in RP2, but also we need high-speed rail. The case for high-speed rail is clear. It revolves primarily around capacity. Official sources say that the west coast main line will be full by 2020, although some say 2026, while unofficial sources say 2015. The question, then, is about how we add capacity. We either build a classic new line or we build one that uses some of the new techniques and signalling. The latter is called high-speed rail.

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[Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom) on securing the first debate on high-speed rail to be held in the Chamber. This is, however, the fourth debate that we have had on the subject since the election. We debated it in Westminster Hall on 23 November, 31 March and 13 July, so we have discussed it every four months or so. I notice that the period between debates is becoming ever shorter, so by the time HS2 delivers any value, we might be debating it every day.

Contrary to certain assumptions, I am the only Buckinghamshire MP whose constituency is not affected by the high-speed rail proposal. I know that your constituency is affected by it, Mr Speaker, and that your constituents have very strong views and that you submitted a substantial response to the consultation. The Secretary of State for Wales, my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs Gillan), responded robustly to the consultation on behalf of her constituents, delivering seven files of objections and evidence against HS2, which will cut a deep scar through the middle of the area of outstanding natural beauty in which her constituency sits. The Minister for Europe, my right hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Mr Lidington), and the Attorney-General, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve), were present earlier, and I know that their constituents are implacably opposed to HS2. Many other members of the Government also have objections, including the Lord Commissioner of Her Majesty's Treasury, my hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield (Michael Fabricant), who also has strong views.

Although my constituents are not directly affected, they oppose HS2 on a number of grounds, but before I go on to explain my opposition, I wish to welcome the Government’s noble intentions. Whether in seeking the rejuvenation of the economy, the revitalisation of the north or the protection of the environment, or in trying to attract international inward investment, their intentions are indeed noble, but I regret to say that I do not support the means by which they seek to meet those ends.

The Secretary of State reflected on capacity, carbon and international competition in his evidence to the Transport Committee. On the question of the economics, as we have already learned in this debate, it is possible to refer to the titles and authors of reports both for and against the proposal. I am afraid that for every economist who comes down on one side of the debate, there will always be another economist on the other side. The Economist magazine came out against HS2, and when I put that to the Secretary of State, he was quick to rebut it and explain that he was about to write a letter.

The truth is that this project is awash with entrepreneurial risk. It is impossible to get hold of any hard facts showing whether it is a good idea. There is certainly an economic case, but I am afraid that it is ethereal: the moment we grasp it, it seems to disappear.

[Paul Maynard]

My hon. Friend claims that there is no economic case, but does he recognise that there may be a strategic case?

[Steve Baker]

I enjoy serving on the Transport Committee with my hon. Friend, but I am not saying there is no economic case; rather, I am saying that we cannot nail down that case because of the entrepreneurial risk. In my view, when very large sums of capital are being allocated in an environment of entrepreneurial risk, entrepreneurs should bear that entrepreneurial risk.

I asked an international investor, “What do you think of HS2?” The answer was, “It would be wonderful to arrive fresh and relaxed in no time at all.” I then asked, “Would you invest in it?” The response now was, “That’s unfair. Of course I wouldn’t invest in it.” The market would not deliver high-speed rail, and that would be a market success, because to do so would be a misallocation of capital.

I put it to the Secretary of State that this project would socialise risk and privatise profit. He explained that that was to be expected, and we had to be realistic about it. I do not share that sense of “realism” on that point; I think that in reality this will be loss-making, in any commercial sense of the term. The whole point of loss is that it directs entrepreneurs to do something else with their capital, because if they are making a loss they are destroying value, not creating it.

I shall now deal with the carbon implications of this line. Something profound is going on in relation to carbon. The Secretary of State talked about the need to keep going until we were absolutely sure that we would decarbonise the roads. There is a vision at the heart of HS2 that we have not yet fully grasped. Given that I have 30 seconds available to me, and others wish to speak, I shall just refer to a letter that I sent shortly after I arrived in this place. I said that the Government could not afford high-speed rail, that they would not be able to afford it, that it would be a disaster if they did this—my basis for saying that was David Myddelton’s book “They Meant Well: Government Project Disasters” —and that the Government should not do it in any event, because it should be left to entrepreneurs. Nothing that I heard during the Select Committee on Transport inquiry has changed my mind.