High Speed 2

Debate between Christopher Pincher and Martin Horwood

Tuesday 23rd November 2010 Westminster Hall

[Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Weir. I congratulate the hon. Member for Wycombe (Steve Baker) on securing the debate. He has put a strong case on behalf of his constituents, and it was also interesting, given his ideology of free market deregulation.

I want to make a couple of points before asking a few questions. The coalition agreement was absolutely right to commit to high-speed rail, which is a potentially incredibly important and transformational project. However, there is no either/or choice between high-speed rail and the conventional railway network. The Government have done extraordinarily well to protect almost the totality of the £14 billion of planned investment in the rest of the rail network during the battles over the comprehensive spending review. With the possible exception of my beloved redoubling of the Swindon to Kemble line, no rail project has been abandoned as a result of the CSR or the commitment to high-speed rail. The hon. Gentleman should be reassured by that.

The bigger picture is the UK’s ability to meet its long-term carbon emission targets, but we need more robust data. Some quite high numbers are being talked about, and we have heard about 23 million tonnes of carbon being saved over 60 years. However, there is a question mark over some of the numbers, given that about 77% of the journeys quoted by High Speed 2 Ltd apparently increase carbon emissions, as 50% of passengers shift from less energy-intensive railway journeys to high-speed rail and another 27% make new journeys. Of course, that probably underestimates the impact on the conventional rail network, given that other people might take up the capacity that is freed up there and we might see a parallel modal shift from car journeys to conventional rail journeys.

The figures also underestimate the impact of the long-term plan, which brings me to my first question. What is the Government’s latest thinking on the long-term commitment to connections to Scotland and the north-east? I might even add Wales and the west. There is clear evidence that there will be a profound impact on aviation over those longer distances—they are longer than the initial London to Birmingham stretch. A company called Travelport, which owns two of the four back-office systems that support airline and high-speed rail bookings around the world, has suggested to me that in the first month after the introduction of a high-speed rail link over such a distance, one third of the air travel on the same route vanishes, and that aviation drops by two thirds within three months. If that is true when we eventually have longer high-speed rail links in this country, it will have a profound impact on our carbon emissions.

[Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend accept that air traffic north to south is already falling, so we should not expect a massive decline in air travel as a result of building High Speed 2?

[Martin Horwood]

I am not sure that that is right. I must confess past sins. I used to work for a marketing agency that had clients in Scotland and I am afraid that I regularly took the team on a flight up to Edinburgh. I am now very guilty about that, and it was probably very carbon-inefficient, but the truth is that high-speed rail could have a massive impact on such business journeys, on recreational travel and on other connections between Scotland and London. All the evidence from other parts of the world is that that impact is quite consistent.

Turning now to my questions, I want to ask first about the status of the Heathrow interchange in the Government’s plans. If one is trying to reduce carbon emissions, it seems illogical to make sure that people can get to airports even more efficiently, so I do not see the Heathrow interchange as particularly important. The fact that it is being retained even as a long-term objective or possibility might militate against the option pointed out by the right hon. Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Frank Dobson), who spoke of the logic of a connection between High Speed 1 and High Speed 2.

Secondly, I would urge sensitivity to local issues. Caroline Pidgeon on the London assembly has raised the issue of houses in London that might be only a couple of metres above the tunnel when it is eventually built. Even though those houses are built on London clay and often do not have deep foundations, the householders do not appear to have access to the hardship fund. I would welcome the Minister’s latest thoughts on that.

Finally, there is the issue of planning. I have long been an advocate of a democratic planning system. I have made the case for such a system to people who propose nuclear power stations and, for consistency, even to my friends in the wind energy industry. However, it is a bit more difficult to take a site-by-site approach with a long railway route; we cannot just take out Berkshire and expect there to be no impact on the rest of the network.

In that respect, I commend to hon. Members and Ministers the words of the Campaign to Protect Rural England, which has taken an enlightened approach to this issue. It points out that High Speed 1 runs through the Kent downs area of outstanding natural beauty, adding:

“Noise from trains is barely noticeable compared to the background noise of traffic, while earth mounds and wooden barriers help conceal the line itself…No stations are proposed for HS2 between London and Birmingham, so like the Central Railway proposal it would not offer local benefits. HS2’s trains are likely to whoosh past in seconds unlike noisy diesel freight trains proposed to trundle along the Central Railway, so the noise impacts should be less but this still would mean ‘something for nothing’ for the communities it would pass through.”

The “something for nothing” argument is important. The CPRE suggests that a number of benefits could be built into the long-term scheme. It says that “Electricity pylons” could

“run along much of the route including in the Chilterns AONB and these could be undergrounded next to the track…Low noise surfaces could be installed on local roads to improve tranquillity…New and improved Rights of Way and Open Access Land could improve outdoor opportunities around the path of the route”.

It makes many other suggestions for improvements that would benefit people along the route as this important project is put in place. There may be environmental consequences—there is no escaping that—but the bigger picture is important. As I said at the beginning, this could be a transformational project, very important for our long-term goal of reducing carbon emissions, and one I strongly support from the Liberal Democrat benches.