Regulatory Impact Assessments Bill

Debate between Esther McVey and Philip Davies

2nd reading
Friday 20th October 2023 Commons Chamber

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

The Government would do well to listen to the former Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh), who I think was in that role for nine years, particularly about how we should better protect and better care about precious taxpayers’ money, which seems to be frittered away willy-nilly by politicians across the House—that is not a party political point.

I am conflicted. On the face of it, this seems like such an obvious thing to do. At face value, the Bill seems to be one of those where we think, “How on earth could anyone object to a Minister having to bring forward a cost-benefit analysis and impact assessment for any legislation they introduce?” But I am not sure that it is quite as simple as that. I will try to explain why and give some examples.

We have heard some examples, which are all interesting case studies about the pros and cons of what my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope) is proposing, and perhaps some of the reasons why, even if it were introduced, it would end up being completely pointless and meaningless and serve no purpose at all. The first example is about covid, as mentioned by my right hon. Friend the Member for Tatton (Esther McVey). She was right to do so, and it is good for my welfare to say that she was absolutely right in everything she said—I would not dream of saying otherwise. It was astonishing that the Government not only did not do a cost-benefit analysis of the most draconian restrictions on our freedoms that anyone can remember, but freely admitted that they had not done so. They looked at any Member of Parliament who asked for a cost-benefit analysis as if they had three heads—as if that was the most ridiculous thing in the world to ask for. Of course they should have done a cost-benefit analysis. Had they done so, with an impact assessment, they certainly would not have concluded that locking down the country for two years would be a good thing to do, not only because of the effect of locking down schools on children’s education, mental health and all the rest of it, which my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch mentioned, but because of the impact on the economy.

All the problems that we have seen in the economy since the pandemic have been because of the lockdown. The consequences of lockdown, and of coming out of it, are the main reasons why we have such high inflation. All of that was easily predictable, but neither the Government nor the Opposition seemed interested in what might come afterwards. Nobody could see beyond the end of their noses. That is basically the issue: nobody was prepared even to have the debate about what long-term impact the lockdown would have on the economy, on people’s finances, on NHS waiting times—the list goes on. Nobody was interested. Anybody who raised those concerns—even worse, some of us voted against the restrictions and lockdowns—was vilified for doing so. Everything that we predicted has come to pass, but Ministers were not interested.

It is even worse in many respects. The so-called experts on whom the Government were relying, who modelled how many people would die if we did not have lockdowns, and came out with all that absolute tripe at the time, have been giving evidence to the covid inquiry. It seems from what has been said that, in all that modelling, they did not even take into account how Government advice would change people’s behaviour without the need to introduce a law to force that change. They had not even looked at that. How on earth can we get to the point where supposedly intelligent experts did not even consider the impact on people’s behaviour of the Government saying, “We will not introduce any laws, but we think you should avoid close contact with elderly people and keep a two-metre distance”? In that sense, of course it would be right for the Government to conduct robust cost-benefit analyses and impact assessments when they come to decisions. We might hope that, if they did so, they would not come up with such ridiculous decisions as locking down the country for two years.

That also lies at the heart of my reservations about the Bill, which I relayed in my intervention on my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch when I asked whether, if a Government introduced a cost-benefit analysis and the cost was seen to outweigh the benefit, they would therefore be obliged not to bring forward that measure. My hon. Friend said that, no, they would still be free to bring forward that measure and it would be up to Members of Parliament to take that analysis into account. Somewhere therein lies the flaw in my hon. Friend’s plan, for a number of reasons that I will touch on.

The first is that, based on my covid analysis, the cost-benefit analysis would presumably have been done by the so-called experts, but they would not even have taken some costs into account anyway. Their cost-benefit analysis would not even have factored in whether or not the Government just advising people to do something would have changed behaviour—they had not thought about that—so how on earth could they be involved in a cost-benefit analysis? It would have been flawed in that sense. How much trust could we put in it? I do not really know. I think that my hon. Friend is, in effect, placing greater confidence in cost-benefit analyses than perhaps they deserve. He seems to be hanging his hat on them.

[Esther McVey]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Philip Davies]

I had better.

[Esther McVey]

Surely, if a cost-benefit analysis came forward in one way or another and was scrutinised on the Floor of the House, people could probe it and point out the failures within it. Without one, there is no opportunity to do even that. Would it not at least be a step in the right direction to make sure there is an impact assessment and cost-benefit analysis, because at least then we could have debated those for lockdown on the Floor of the House?

[Philip Davies]

My right hon. Friend makes a fair point, but I am not entirely sure that that necessarily follows, and I will give another example as to why.

I should say in passing that I cannot for the life of me understand why any Minister would not want to do a cost-benefit analysis of any proposal they were bringing forward. It seems to me extraordinary that a Minister would want to bring forward a proposal and not say, “Can somebody do a cost-benefit analysis of this, or an impact assessment?” Why on earth they would not want to do that Lord only knows, but that is a slightly different point. My point is this: what benefit does it have for the decision-making process?

--- Later in debate ---

[Philip Davies]

The Minister makes a fair point. Perhaps it is one of the reasons that I am perhaps not quite as persuaded as I would normally be by one of the Bills from my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch. I want to come back to the point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Tatton.

[Esther McVey]

I am not sure whether I could have intervened on the Minister there, but there should have been a cost-benefit analysis of industrial action, so that the public knew exactly how detrimental those strikes were, particularly on the railways, with the drop in productivity of the whole country. I do not agree that there are times when we should not do a cost-benefit analysis.

[Philip Davies]

If I have to choose between the Minister and my wife, I know who I am going to agree with, and the Minister is on a loser here. Unusually for me, there might be a compromise option, which is that a cost-benefit analysis should be done, but it may not necessarily need to be done before the original decision is made. Perhaps that could be a fair compromise and be considered subsequently.

I want to come back to the reason why what my right hon. Friend the Member for Tatton said earlier might not flow, though it logically should. She said that if we have a cost-benefit analysis, MPs can scrutinise things and make sensible decisions on whatever. I guess in an ideal world that would happen, but it seems to me that in the real world that does not happen. The House should not just take my word for it, because it did not happen during the passing of the Climate Change Act 2008.

As I touched on briefly in my intervention, when the Labour Government brought forward the Climate Change Bill, they did a cost-benefit analysis, as my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch would have urged them to do. These were not meaningless numbers—we were talking serious money, and literally hundreds of billions of pounds were in the credit and debit columns on this cost-benefit analysis. It was not one with a few hundred thousand here or a few million there.

The Labour Government at the time brought forward the Climate Change Bill with a cost-benefit analysis, as my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch would have wanted. The original impact assessment showed that the potential costs of introducing the Climate Change Bill were almost twice the maximum benefits, as calculated by the Government who were bringing forward the legislation. One would think that when a Government bring forward a Bill where the potential costs are twice as high as the maximum benefits, Members of Parliament would be fighting over themselves to vote it down. How on earth could anybody support such a ridiculous notion, let alone why a Government would bring forward such a Bill? However, on Second Reading just five MPs voted against it, when a cost-benefit analysis showed it was a non-starter.

What then happened was that Lord Lilley—at that time he was my right hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden—kicked up a fuss. I must add that during the passage of the Bill the potential cost barely came up—none of the Front Benchers from any party raised the cost, even though it was going to be hundreds of billions of pounds. However, Lord Lilley seized on the fact that the costs were twice the benefits and asked how on earth that could be, so the Government went away with a flea in their ear. But—would you believe it, Mr Deputy Speaker?—they came back having recalculated the cost-benefit analysis and having discovered hundreds of billions of pounds of new benefits that they had not identified when the Bill started its passage through this place. It was miraculous that they found hundreds of billions of pounds of benefits that they had not even thought about.

Either we should believe they were utterly incompetent and had not fully thought through the implications of their Bill before they brought it forward, or, if we are more cynical—I probably fall into that camp—we might believe they redid the figures and came back with some dodgy figures to make it look as if the Bill had a greater benefit than cost.

I am not sure the Bill succeeds on any level. The Climate Change Act 2008 showed me two things. First, the Government will come back with any figures they want just to prove there is a bigger benefit than cost, even if that is dubious, to say the least. Secondly, Members of Parliament are not even interested in cost-benefit analysis. If they were, more than five of us would have voted against the Bill on Second Reading. I am not being funny, Mr Deputy Speaker, but if you go into the voting Lobby and ask people what we are voting on, half the time they do not know, let alone know the cost-benefit analysis of what they are voting on, so I am not sure that a cost-benefit analysis would serve the purpose that my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch thinks it would. Therefore, I think the Climate Change Act 2008 represents an argument against his Bill.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough was absolutely right to mention a third Bill, which was about HS2. Everybody has known for years that HS2 was a catastrophic waste of money that was not even intended to benefit the north. History has been rewritten to say that it was going to be some great thing to benefit the north. The last Labour Government envisaged HS2 in order to try to reduce short-haul flights from Leeds Bradford and Manchester airports to Heathrow. It was never intended to benefit the north—that was not the purpose of HS2. History was rewritten and if we listen to Andy Burnham it was going to be the saviour of the north. What an absolute load of tripe. The cost went up and up. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Tatton said, it went from £37 billion until it eventually got to £180 billion, and pretty much all the people who were arguing for it when it was £37 billion were still arguing for it when it was £180 billion.

In many regards, the only person to have a sensible approach to HS2, in terms of cost-benefit analysis, has been the Prime Minister. He said, not unreasonably, that he supported HS2 when the cost was £37 billion, but he could not support it when the cost reached £180 billion. That is a sensible decision for somebody to make, having looked at a cost-benefit analysis. The Leader of the Opposition will not be interested in a cost-benefit analysis—he opposed HS2 when it was £37 billion and supported it when it was £180 billion. How on earth are we expected to make sense of that? The decision making is absolutely ludicrous.

Politicians do not tend to make logical or financially sensible decisions; they make political decisions. They are not really interested in the cost-benefit analysis. They are interested in what it might look like in a headline in a paper, or in a campaign in a by-election. In many respects, the reason why HS2 goes against what my hon. Friend is trying to achieve here is that actually the Government had done a cost-benefit analysis of HS2. They just kept it quiet, because it did not deliver what people wanted it to deliver. Andrew Gilligan, who was the transport adviser when Boris Johnson was Prime Minister, revealed that, even before the latest increase in cost, the Treasury’s cost-benefit analysis had shown that for every pound spent on HS2, it would deliver only a 90p return. Although that was the Government’s official cost-benefit analysis, they were still pressing ahead with it at the time, until the costs became even more astronomical.

Although my hon. Friend is right that cost-benefit analyses should be at the forefront of decision making by Government and by Members of Parliament when they are scrutinising legislation, I just wonder, really and truly, how often people care that much about it. I can only conclude that they do not really care that much at all.

High Speed Rail (Crewe - Manchester) Bill

Debate between Esther McVey and Philip Davies

2nd reading
Monday 20th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Esther McVey (Tatton) (Con)]

I rise to oppose the Bill, which is highly contentious, especially for my constituents in Tatton. The Minister will be well aware of my long-standing opposition to this white elephant. In fact, it will come as no surprise when I say that I would like nothing more than for this project to be consigned to the history books where it belongs. It was conceived by the Labour lord, Lord Adonis, back in 2004, which is so long ago to a world that has moved on significantly. Since covid and lockdown, people no longer need to travel hundreds of miles for a meeting when they can do it online, saving both money and time.

HS2 has had a bumpy ride. What was the justification? What was its purpose? When it was devised in 2004, it was about an alternative to airport expansion; it was to connect regional airports to Heathrow. When that case fell, it became all about speed—hence High Speed 2. In fact, in Tatton it is now known as “Low Speed, High Cost”. When that reason fell, it was all about capacity; capacity was what we needed. Now it seems to have moved on from that to job creation. As one business case falls, another is seized on. If it is about job creation, I remind the Minister that we have 1.3 million job vacancies in this country at the moment. Where will we get that workforce from? Let us hear no more justifications for this project. What we need instead is reliable, digital infrastructure and 1 gigabit capability—which would benefit everyone, everywhere—along with better local transport links and an east-west line across the north of England. That would do significantly more for the levelling-up agenda than this out-of-date project.

As a constituent wrote to me only the other week when I asked a question at Prime Minister’s questions—he wrote to me and the Prime Minister—HS2 is nothing other than “political virtue signalling” and it has totally lost its cause and purpose. If something costed at £150 billion has such a great business case, can we have sight of that business case? The cost is breath taking. In reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies), the Minister said that she and fellow Ministers were keeping a close eye on cost, so let me remind them that the cost, which started off as £37.5 billion, is now up to £150 billion and continues to rise. I am not sure how closely their eyes are on that cost.

[Philip Davies]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for highlighting my intervention on the Minister. Does she agree that given that the Minister said in her opening remarks that there was not a blank cheque for HS2, it would be helpful if the Minister who winds up told us what the cost of HS2 would have to reach before the Government scrap it altogether?

[Esther McVey]

I agree with my hon. Friend. With the pressures on steel and raw materials and rising inflation, the cost is set to soar further. I reiterate his question: is there a price at which HS2 is no longer seen as value for money by the Government, or are they prepared to build it irrespective of cost? If that is the case, for Conservatives who believe in value for money, it is an unjustifiable extravagance and a waste of taxpayers’ money.

A recent petition saw 155,000 people calling for HS2 to be scrapped, and more than 2,000 of the signatories were from across Tatton—the highest number from any constituency opposing phase 2b of the line. I must pay tribute to the excellent work of people and groups in Tatton, including Ashley parish council, Lach Dennis and Lostock Green parish council, Mid Cheshire Against HS2 and geologist Ros Todhunter. They have worked tirelessly to unearth the shortcomings of HS2 with regard to the fundamental concept of the line and its business case.

Ros Todhunter is an expert in her field and made clear the impact that the line will have on the area, given its complex geography. She has provided Ministers and HS2 with high-level technical reports that explain some of the real difficulties that such a line would pose for the area and for the project; the land is unstable with sinkholes and salt mines, yet the Government continue to push ahead.

The line will cause huge devastation across Cheshire, as documented by Mid Cheshire Against HS2, which has described it as a running scar from Crewe to Manchester. It has calculated that, across Cheshire, HS2 will irreparably damage five internationally protected wildlife sites, 639 local wildlife sites, 108 ancient woodlands and 33 legally protected scientific sites. Although the Minister talks about new trees being planted, I am sure that we can all see the difference between saplings and ancient woodland.

We need to dispel the myth that the Department is touting some kind of carbon zero travel of the future. Its figures show that only 1% of travellers will switch from planes to rail, and only 4% will switch from cars to rail, yet the construction of the line alone will add 1.5 million tonnes of carbon to the atmosphere and HS2 will still produce a net increase in carbon emissions 120 years on. I was also curious about how much energy will be needed to power HS2. A former National Grid electrical engineer told me that the power needed per year would be a third of what Hinkley Point produces. As we have all become aware of energy, its cost and where we will get it from, Ministers should pause and think about that.

I must also mention the suffering that many constituents have faced—some have been dealing with this for 12 years. Their properties have been and remain under threat. Many will be hugely affected but do not qualify for any compensation. They have nowhere to move to and they cannot sell their homes. Other constituents have been in conversation with HS2 to try to negotiate terms for their property or for mitigating issues, but I am afraid that they have got nowhere. They describe it as like talking to a brick wall. HS2 Ltd has been a particularly difficult organisation for people to engage with, as the Prime Minister acknowledged in February 2020 when he suggested that it would not be the delivery body for phase 2b. Here we are today, however: it is still representing, so my constituents are still dealing with it and suffering.

For many of us, this trainline has run out of track. The best thing for the project would be to put it out of its misery and scrap it altogether, but if the Government are determined to press on regardless, there are certain things that absolutely need to be done for my constituency and my constituents. As has been mentioned, my constituents need to know the exact location of Manchester airport station, its construction, whether it will be adequately sized and how accessible it will be—will we be able to get there on the mid-Cheshire lines or via the Altrincham Metrolink? Can we make sure that we do not lose the Wilmslow to Euston line that serves people well at the moment? The mid-Cheshire rail line also needs to be put into a cutting.

There is also a question about whether the infrastructure maintenance bases are in the right place and whether suitable consideration has been given to them. Ashley parish council makes it clear that there is no justification for locating a large, incongruous, permanent industrial facility in the heart of a rural community, especially when its function could be more appropriately carried out from Aldersley Rough, which would maintain the entire western leg of HS2 in perpetuity without any need for satellite infrastructure maintenance bases at Ashley or Crewe.

Thought has not been given to how parts of Tatton will be isolated, and I bet that is true for other rural areas too. One example is the planned closure and diversion of Ashley Road—a busy and important road that connects Ashley to Knutsford and the wider rural area. It is regularly used by emergency service vehicles, with people travelling to Manchester airport and Wythenshawe Hospital, but that will be significantly affected with everyone driving through Mobberley.

There is also the construction of a viaduct crossing of the A556 at the Lostock Gralam triangle, which will cut a swathe through Winnington wood and destroy 30% of ancient woodland. We have no information from HS2 on the proposed embankment, but a width at ground level of over 100 metres suggests that it will go up to 30 metres high, which equates to almost the height of Stockport viaduct or more than six double-decker buses.

Ministers should give a thought to the residents of Ascol Drive—I will highlight only one road—who will be subjected to 10 years of noise, dust and light pollution from the main construction compound sited on the field to the south of their road. That will affect them for some time to come, as well as affecting yet another site of special scientific interest.

The land-grab is significant too, and residents cannot understand how the information keeps changing so significantly. The land-grab between the Morrisons roundabout and the Lostock triangle is 150% greater on January 2022 maps than in the October 2018 working draft.

Those are just some of the issues. If I were to relay all of them, we would be here for some time. If that is true of Tatton, it must be true across the country for other places. I want to stand up for those people who are going to be significantly affected at an astronomical cost. It is time that we brought this project to an end. We cannot just keep throwing money at it or giving it another purpose, justification or reason for being. It is time for a Conservative Government to say, “Enough is enough—HS2 must be scrapped.”