Northern Powerhouse Rail

Lord Faulkner of Worcester Excerpts

Monday 19th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

Let us not assume that the cap will be busted, because the progress on the trans-Pennine route upgrade demonstrates pretty satisfactorily that, planned properly, you can make substantial railway enhancements without limitless additions to the budget. We will come back to this House and the other House in short order about the costs and timescale of HS2, but there are some really substantial lessons to be learned from starting a project with no specification and giving contractors, in essence, a licence to print money. There is no way that this Government are prepared to do that with anything that has been announced in the past few days. One of the consequences of that is to allow ourselves time to plan what needs to be done properly, to cost it properly and to contract for it properly. I do not think that we can tolerate assuming that caps will be busted, because we have a terrible example of it at the moment, and we should leave that example in isolation and deliver projects properly, having planned them first.

[Lord Faulkner of Worcester (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank every noble Lord who has spoken in this exchange and warmly welcome the Statement that was made last week in the other place. I congratulate the Minister on getting his head around the facts and being able to explain what is happening with such clarity—for example, to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Newcastle on her remarkably technical but important question about the Leamside line. Did the Minister see the press coverage at the weekend on the completion of the Chiltern tunnel for High Speed 2, and does he agree that it is time that we started to celebrate such engineering feats? When it is built, the railway is going to have some marvellous engineering—not just tunnels but viaducts as well—which I think will make our railway the envy of the world.

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I agree with my noble friend. There are some remarkable structures, either in the ground or coming out of the ground, for HS2, but he would have to agree with me that you have to be tinged with sadness to stand here and not know how much they have cost so far. That is a shocking weakness, which we will come back to and no doubt debate at some stage. My noble friend is right that British engineering can produce some extraordinary feats, and the tunnel that was in the newspapers at the weekend and the viaduct across the Colne Valley are very elegant structures.

Incidentally, if noble Lords who take a train journey between Manchester and Leeds would like to give me prior notice, I can arrange for them to travel in the cab with the driver, and they can see the extraordinary amount of work that is being done on an operating railway, which is neither trivial nor simple, and get some understanding about what is going on there. My noble friend Lord Faulkner is right to highlight these great structures on HS2, but, equally, what has been going on between Leeds and Manchester and out to York is extraordinary, and it has been done with relatively little disruption to the train service. If any noble Lords—within reason—would like to see it at some time, I will arrange for them to be able to do that.