High Speed 2 (Compensation)
Debate between William Cash and Cheryl Gillan(9 years, 7 months ago)
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Mrs Gillan
My right hon. and learned Friend makes an important point. Those people have worked hard, saved and invested in those properties.
Sir William Cash (Stone) (Con)
My right hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. Those of us who are between Birmingham and Manchester are extremely glad that we are going to have the opportunity to petition and to have our case heard by the High Speed Rail (London - West Midlands) Bill Select Committee, and we are grateful to her for everything she has done.
Mrs Gillan
I thank my hon. Friend. I glad to see that the Chairman of the Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Poole (Mr Syms), is in his place. I note that there are many hon. Members here tonight, and I welcome those who have just come into the Chamber. It is important to put these points to the Minister in as forceful a way as possible.
The home owner payment scheme proposes to give home owner payments to those living between 120 metres and 300 metres from the line. This once again limits compensation by distance from the line. It also does little to assist the functionality of the property market in affected areas. The payments on offer are too low and, as the effect of inflation is not considered, they might be inaccurate as well.
Like other colleagues, I have many farmers and landowners in my constituency, and none of the schemes properly addresses the impact of HS2 on them. I deal with a number of organisations, including the Country Land and Business Association and the National Farmers Union, that are campaigning hard to ensure that affected landowners receive fair and timely compensation, and I hope the Minister understands the special problems facing farmers and growers. He is a farmer himself, so I am hoping for that special understanding.
High Speed Rail (London – West Midlands) Bill
Debate between William Cash and Cheryl Gillan(10 years, 1 month ago)
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Mrs Gillan
I am awfully sorry, but if I give way to the right hon. Gentleman I will have to give way to others, and so many people want to speak that I will eat into the time allowed to them. The right hon. Gentleman can make his own speech.
The Secretary of State for Transport claims that HS2 is essential to deal with an impending capacity crisis on the west coast main line. However, the available figures show that intercity trains on the west coast main line coming into Euston are on average just 52% full in peak hours. There is severe commuter overcrowding on many commuter lines into all our major cities, and HS2 will do very little, or in many cases nothing at all, to relieve that. Is the commute into Euston really the priority over other areas?
The big picture is the claim that HS2 will heal the north-south divide. Even today the Institute of Economic Affairs has again questioned the promises of an economic transformation of the north. There is no academic peer-reviewed evidence to show that the presence of a high-speed rail line will lead to increased economic output at the levels suggested in what is now a questionable report from KPMG, commissioned by HS2. The report claims that HS2 would bring benefits of £15 billion per year. However, it assumes that rail connectivity is the only variable driving local economic growth. We know that that is simply not the case; if it were, Ebbsfleet in Kent would be a boom town.
However, London could be the winner. The majority of academic evidence available in other countries shows that where a high-speed rail line connects a dominant city to a less dominant town or city, it is the dominant city that gains. HS2 will suck skills and businesses to London rather than to our regions. If HS2 had a viable business case, it should have been built starting in the north, connecting the northern cities to each other and then eventually to London.
We are getting a project that has markedly changed since it was first proposed. HS2 was going to allow someone to jump on a train in Manchester and travel straight to Brussels, but that has now been ditched. The direct link to Heathrow has of course now been dropped, but in any event why are we not going for maximum connectivity to our airports in the south by finalising our high-speed rail policy after the result of the Howard Davies commission?
My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield would also like assurances from the Government on the so-called Heathrow spur, on which he still has many questions. Even the much vaunted connections between the towns and cities are far from perfect. In fact, HS2 connects only four city centres. The proposals for Euston are not settled and Old Oak Common will require an enormous amount of work to connect it to the rest of London’s transport infrastructure. The HS2 station in Birmingham is a 15 minute walk through an underpass to Birmingham New Street, where the rest of the city’s trains come in. If we look to the plans for Sheffield Meadowhall, Toton and Derby, the HS2 stations will be miles outside city centres. The latest business case included £8.3 billion of cuts to existing rail services, affecting many towns and cities, and the KPMG report showed that many local economies away from the line of the route would suffer. The main objective to shorten journey times drastically has now been questioned by calls from the Environmental Audit Committee to decrease average speeds. That means that HS2 may not even achieve its original aims on either speed or connectivity.
Finally, HS2 is not really green. A meagre 1% of HS2 passengers are predicted to transfer from air, and just 4% from cars. The remaining 95% of passengers are predicted to be new journeys or transfers from less polluting modes of transport, and that is before we examine closely the vast amount of power needed to power the railway. If the project goes ahead, it is important that we protect the environment and the people who will be affected. People expect the project to be implemented to the highest standards, ensuring the best environmental protections and giving support to the communities and individuals who are severely affected.
The Chilterns area of outstanding natural beauty is in my constituency, as everybody now knows. It is known as the lungs of London and is the last large expanse of protected unspoilt countryside in the south-east of England. There are more than 50 million visits annually, and many of the villages, hamlets, ancient woodlands and hedgerows remain largely unchanged since Norman times. The Chilterns is designated under the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000, and the Government have a legal duty to adhere to those protections: anything less would make a mockery of all the Government’s pledges to protect our natural environment.
The Environmental Audit Committee’s report of 7 April was highly critical of the project and said that the Government have “significant work to do” to prove that they are prioritising environmental protection. Some 40% of the route is yet to be examined. If the project does proceed, I now believe that the only way to mitigate properly the damage to the AONB is to fully tunnel the whole area. The demand for longer tunnelling through the AONB was the most frequently raised concern in the responses to the environmental statement, with more than 8,000 people raising it as an issue. The line will already have a devastating impact on the AONB, including destroying 10.2 hectares of irreplaceable ancient woodland, as well as communities such as South Heath and Wendover.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury and I have worked together on considering HS2 and the long tunnelling option. He has said to me that if he is not satisfied with the arrangements for mitigation of the AONB and compensation, particularly where Dunsmore, Wendover Dean and Wendover are concerned, he will join me in the Lobby and vote against the project on Report and Third Reading. As it stands, Buckinghamshire will take all the pain and have no gain. My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield has constituents in Denham who remain entirely unpersuaded by the arguments put forward both in respect of the generality of the proposal for HS2 and of the detail. The impact of the Colne valley viaduct travelling through a site of special scientific interest, with no details on how the noise will impact on the local community, is a source of real anxiety. His constituents have argued for further tunnelling under the Colne. It is important to remember that the voices of our Buckinghamshire colleagues in Government are as equally important as the voices of Back Benchers, if not more so. I want allies inside the Government, as well as on the Back Benches, as we scrutinise this project.
On compensation, we have had no fewer than five consultations and still those people whose homes and livelihoods have been devastated by HS2 have had to wait for over four years for the final compensation scheme to be announced. The eventual compensation announcement on 9 April was not popular. I know that the concerns are shared by Mr Speaker. He believes that the fact there is no provision for homeowners whose properties are further than 300 metres from the line but who have seen their property fall in value as a result, is unacceptable and so do I.
Mrs Gillan
I am sorry.
People blighted by HS2 will not only be negatively affected by the line itself, but by the construction, noise, traffic, impact on our blue light services, decrease in tourism, and the disruption to our waterways; I need not go on. The effect of these has not been explored fully to any adequate degree.
Lastly, what worries me most, and what is in my reasoned amendment, is this: if the project goes ahead, this House should be aware of the risks. Many people are concerned at what I consider to be the wholly deplorable position of the Government in not publishing the Major Projects Authority’s reports into the project. The Information Commissioner is now challenging the veto placed on it by the Government in the courts and maintains that the release of the documents is in the public interest, as do I. The reports rate the project as amber/red, meaning that successful delivery is “in doubt” because of major risks or issues in key areas. The Government expect the support of Members to carry the Bill, so they should be expected to produce this information and make it accessible to Members of this House. All projects carry risk. It is unacceptable that we should not be aware of the risks when we are spending such vast sums of taxpayers’ money.
I will be voting for my reasoned amendment to halt the project and I hope that colleagues will join me in the Lobby. I know that many colleagues will abstain, but I hope that the vote tonight—even though this is David and Goliath and for once Goliath is going to win—will ensure that, as the Bill passes through Committee, our colleagues who are scrutinising it will be able to support the maximum environmental protection and compensation for those communities and people who will be paying the highest price for this project with their homes, businesses and local countryside. They will be gaining none of the benefit. Whoever joins me tonight in the Lobby, I am grateful for their support. I do not expect that we will win the vote, but my goodness we are giving notice to the Government, and any future Government in charge of this project, that it will be scrutinised inch by inch.
High Speed Rail (Preparation) Bill
Debate between William Cash and Cheryl Gillan(10 years, 7 months ago)
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Mrs Gillan
My amendments are intended to probe the Government’s intention. I believe that they should have made provision to include more stops on the line. For example, I would have thought that between Manchester and elsewhere, there could have been other stops giving greater benefit to some of the areas that will be destroyed by the line.
I tabled an amendment in Committee, and it must have struck a chord, because the official Opposition have tabled something very similar, and I am delighted to say that the Government, in an attempt to hug the Opposition closer, have now signed up to it and it has become a Government amendment. I congratulate the shadow Secretary of State on her victory. One of the major problems is with the connectivity of HS2. If it is not fully connected and integrated into our transport system, it will be the white elephant that so many of us believe it will be.
Mr William Cash (Stone) (Con)
I congratulate my right hon. Friend on tabling the amendment. It is not only the Opposition and the Government who need congratulating; she needs congratulating herself.
Mrs Gillan
That is most gratifying. I am glad that my hon. Friend has observed the first rule of politicians: one can never over-flatter another politician.
Connectivity is at the heart of some of the failures of this project. For example, it does not go to Heathrow; it does not connect properly with the channel tunnel rail link; indeed, it does not even go into the centres of the cities it is supposed to serve, whether Sheffield, Derby or Nottingham. All the time savings claimed by the Government come to nought if travellers have to make their way from outside the city centre, as I know will be the case for Sheffield. We need to ensure that if this is ever built, the connectivity is as good as it can be.
High Speed Rail (Preparation) Bill
Debate between William Cash and Cheryl Gillan(10 years, 11 months ago)
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Mr William Cash (Stone) (Con)
I oppose this Bill on national and local grounds. I pay tribute to the people of Stone, Swynnerton, Whitmore and Madeley for the meetings we have had to discuss these matters, and I also pay tribute to the Country Land and Business Association and Stop HS2 for the back-up they have given at these meetings and in consideration of all these matters.
I oppose the Bill for many reasons. The route will cut a swathe right the way through my constituency from top to bottom. I also agree very much with the comments of my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs Gillan) and my neighbour and good friend the hon. Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy). I do not need to repeat their points. They have made them forcefully and so have many others, and they are right.
The reality is that my constituents gain no benefit from this whatever. As has rightly been said, it is all pain and no gain. The unfairness of the current arrangements is so gross that it has to be rectified; there is a complete failure to understand that in the 21st century we must have a proper compensation arrangement if this Bill is to go through, as many predict.
I do not believe that the comments of the Public Accounts Committee can be in any way disputed, and as for the question of the amount of money involved, that is the biggest white elephant of all time. As has been noted, the amount has already gone up to £50 billion-plus, and I will not be surprised if it is £75 billion by the time this is finished. The reality is that this is a very expensive operation that is blighting people’s homes already in a way that is completely unfair, and it deserves to be discarded.
On the question of compensation, the arrangements favour the acquirer so much against the claimant, and they do not even say how the compensation is to be calculated. As for the exceptional hardship scheme, three quarters of the applications have been rejected, as the Minister knows, and compensation is available only through a discretionary scheme.
Mrs Gillan
Does my hon. Friend agree that there is nothing in this Bill that either pushes forward any compensation scheme or stops the Government continuing to pay compensation, and what we really want is the new consultation on compensation, which I hope the Department will launch as soon as tomorrow or the next day?
Mr Cash
I could not agree more. The fact is that the current arrangements for compensation are wholly inadequate to deal with this unique—and, I believe, appalling—scheme.
We are also now pressing for a property bond scheme, which would underwrite the property values where this project has an adverse impact. That needs to be set up. Members will know that it is fear of the unknown that has the greatest impact on the property market. A property bond scheme would create stability in the market, and the idea has already been propagated by the BAA and Central Railway. The ideas are out there, and amendments will doubtless be tabled in Committee to show how such a scheme could work in practice; the argument can be made in more detail then.
As far as I am aware, this scheme has no support whatsoever in my constituency. I have held many meetings in packed rooms and overflowing halls. At the end of them, I have asked, “Does anybody agree with the proposed scheme?” Only one person, who I think was from HS2 Ltd himself, said yes. The amount of very sensible opposition to the scheme is amazing.
The west coast main line is a very good service. My hon. Friend the Member for Stafford hit the nail on the head: it is available and can be improved. Extensions can be made to Euston to improve the availability of the service.
The bottom line is that the whole scheme should be rejected. I shall vote against it with absolute determination tonight, and if we lose, we move on to the compensation arrangements. In fairness to the people who have been completely blighted and whose lives have been destroyed, we must have a property bond and proper arrangements. It is disgraceful.