High Speed Rail (London-West Midlands) Bill

Lord Young of Norwood Green Excerpts

Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 24th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Faulkner of Worcester (Lab)]

Will the noble Earl take the trouble to read the very wise words of the noble Lord, Lord Brabazon, who spoke a few moments ago about the consequences of accepting these amendments? If one of them were passed, the Bill would have to be re-hybridised. It would have to go back to the hybrid Bill Committee and months and months would be taken up by looking at the Bill again with these provisions in it.

I cannot believe that the House would want to do that, bearing in mind the exceptionally good job that the hybrid committee did. I see a number of its members are in the Chamber at the moment and they deserve the thanks of all of us for looking at this Bill in such detail and displaying such patience in listening to huge numbers of petitions and far too many lawyers who were presenting them on behalf of people with, in some cases, entirely spurious objections. The committee went through that very well and came up with a series of recommendations for change, and the Government, to their great credit, have accepted them all either in spirit or literally. The fact that the committee has done that job and we have a Bill to which we can give Third Reading and get work under way is very important.

Old Oak Common is a wonderful place. It is where my great-grandfather lived in a Great Western Railway house when he was a top link driver on the railway in the early years of the 20th century. But it is not a place where people want to go when they are travelling on high-speed trains from Birmingham or the north of England. Indeed, the practicality of finishing a journey there has been addressed by Transport for London. It answers the point made by my noble friend Lord Berkeley about Crossrail. Yes, Crossrail is going really well and will be a great success. But when HS2 arrives at Old Oak Common, it is estimated that about a third of the passengers will get off, get on to Crossrail and go into the City. However, if they were all required to go on to the City, the difference between these two—HS2 terminating at Euston or at Old Oak Common—would, in the words of Transport for London, be the difference between Crossrail coping and Crossrail falling down. That would be the implication of accepting this amendment.

[Lord Young of Norwood Green (Lab)]

My Lords, it is nice to be thanked for one’s work. I see several Lords from the eclectic group who served on that committee, including the noble and learned Lord, Lord Walker of Gestingthorpe, whom I must congratulate on the way he handled both the hearings and the committee.

I have recently been reading a book—I hope this slight digression will be acceptable, as it relates to this amendment—called Mr Barry’s War, by Caroline Shenton, one of the archivists. The bit that I like is when she talks about an attempt by Barry and a group of architects—someone called William “Strata” Smith, a great geologist, was also involved—to find stone to build this place. They travelled all over the UK. They get to Lincoln, with its magnificent gothic minster, the Ancaster stone quarries—said to be Roman—then Grantham, Stamford and nearby Burghley House. Once they get through Kettering and Northampton by coach, they,

“made their way back to London by the novel means of Robert Stephenson’s thrilling new London and Birmingham Railway, which had opened along its whole length just five days previously on 17 September. This was the first London intercity rail line, and Euston station the first mainline terminus in a capital city anywhere in the world. Its magnificent Doric Propylaeum”—

I do not know if I pronounced that correctly—

“or entrance archway, made of millstone grit, stood for 125 years until pulled down by modernist planners in 1962”.

I could not help feeling that that was rather a propitious bit of reading prior to this debate.

We did not debate the overall cost—that was not in the committee’s remit—but we certainly debated some costings by my noble friend Lord Berkeley and his expert witnesses. I regret to say, however, that they did not stack up. Neither did Old Oak Common. I had to smile when someone said, “It’s just an interim stop”. We all know that if it finishes at Old Oak Common it will be a real stretch of the imagination to believe that that will be interim.

The noble Earl, Lord Glasgow, said that the route had not been decided. It has been decided, and we had a debate, I assure noble Lords, on whether it would be more desirable to terminate at Old Oak Common. That was not the view of the committee after listening to a range of expert witnesses and for some of the reasons cited by my noble friend Lord Faulkner.

We can all have a view, if you like, about people’s motives and intentions—I will assume that they are motivated by the best of all reasons—but one thing you cannot assume is that the process would be speedy, for either the first or the sixth amendment. This will be a lengthy process, and, as has been said, we are now seven years—I was going to say “down the track” but that is an unfortunate pun; if only we were. We have some way to go. As someone who, like the noble Lord, served on Crossrail, I remember just as many criticisms of that. Now it is all enthusiasm, but it was not at the time, I assure noble Lords; there were just as many doubters and naysayers.

My view—and you have heard from other colleagues on the committee—is that we gave this a thorough examination, and I am certain that we also debated it in Committee. I cannot remember how many times I have heard this debate. As a former Attorney-General once said, repetition does not necessarily enhance the value of your contribution. I am beginning to feel that way in this case. I hope noble Lords will not support these amendments; I do not believe they add anything to the existing analysis. As I recall, in the recent Grand Committee debate the Minister reported to us that the National Audit Office has run its calculators over this. Every time there has been a challenge on the costings done by HS2—the classic one was on the tunnel costings in Wendover, which we may unfortunately return to again—they were independently checked. The proposed tunnelling at Colne Valley was independently validated and HS2 was found to be correct in those circumstances. I listened carefully to the argument but I incline to the views expressed by so many of my fellow committee members, and by my noble friend Lord Faulkner.

[Lord Adonis (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I echo my noble friend Lord Faulkner’s thanks to the Select Committee. There are no greater tasks which Members of your Lordships’ House take on than being members of these hybrid Bill Committees, which are like the Committee of Public Safety. I think they were sitting for four days a week over many months. Those noble Lords made a huge commitment to the work of the committee and at this very late stage—this last stage of the Bill’s passage through the House—we should certainly not seek to substitute our judgment, on the basis of a short debate, for the exhaustive examination which your Lordships’ Select Committee gave to this issue, among many others which are on the Marshalled List for later in our debates.

I hesitate to arbitrate between my noble friends Lord Faulkner and Lord Snape on the beauty of Old Oak Common, which depends very much on whether you have a great admiration for railway architecture of the Victorian age. It will become a thing of great beauty when the High Speed 2 station and all the wider development is completed there, but that will take some time. I do not think anybody could pretend now, when passing through it at not particularly high speeds on trains coming out of Paddington, that it is a great beauty spot—it is next to Wormwood Scrubs. However, a critical issue for us to consider this afternoon is its utility as a transport interchange. That was the issue considered by the Select Committee.

It is important for the House to understand that once HS2 is completed, we would be talking about all the traffic from Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds and the East Midlands coming in to one terminus if you allow only for Old Oak Common to be built. That is the equivalent of the entirety of the intercity traffic which currently goes into Euston and a good part of the intercity traffic which goes into King’s Cross. All of that would be going into one terminus station and all served by one line, Crossrail. As my noble friend Lord Faulkner emphasised, the resilience of that arrangement could not remotely be regarded as adequate for all the traffic going from the Midlands and the north into one station.

The estimate has been made that a third of passengers will transfer to Crossrail. I think some will get off at Old Oak Common and transfer on to Heathrow, which will be 10 minutes away in the other direction, but most of them will transfer on to Crossrail going east. That proportion may be higher. It is hard to know what transport patterns will emerge but when that interchange is available, it will be an extremely rapid and efficient connection not just to the City but to the West End as well. The next stops up from Paddington will be Bond Street, Tottenham Court Road, Farringdon and then Bank. It then goes on to Canary Wharf, so it will offer a range of fast and high-quality connections.

However, even if you stretch that third to a half—since no one can be sure what patterns will develop—still a very substantial proportion of the passengers would, on the projections made, wish either to regard Euston as their destination or to interchange there. By having the interchange at Euston we would then serve another large swathe of London directly, including that huge and important centre which Euston, King’s Cross and St Pancras will form themselves. Massive development work will be taking place there, which will be attracted there in no small part because of the development of the HS2 station. We also have there the Victoria and Northern lines, and in due course Crossrail 2, which will serve the new Euston terminus as well. When one considers that these termini will have to deal with all the traffic coming not just from Birmingham but from Sheffield, Crewe, Manchester and Leeds, as well as services going further north up to Scotland, it looks as though there will be a requirement for more than one dispersal point.

All these issues were gone into at great length by committees of both Houses. Their conclusion was that the Government’s proposals were correct in requiring an extension from Old Oak Common through to Euston. At this very late stage in the passage of the Bill, to pass an amendment calling for a further review—the only impact of which could be substantial delay and uncertainty—would not be wise.

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[Baroness Pidding (Con)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 3, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson of Balmacara. Before speaking, I draw noble Lords’ attention to the declaration of interests that I made in Committee.

I am aware that this issue was raised in Committee, but I fear that we did not get the fulsome response that we hoped for from the Minister. I would hope that all Governments, particularly a Conservative Government, would be interested in value for money. As the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, said, we are told what the total cost of the railway is—although it seems to change every time I see a figure, and few believe that it will stop there. But surely this is only half the issue. The environmental impact of this line, particularly over the Chilterns AONB, has not been costed, and the Government have been strangely reluctant to provide figures or the methodology used. Can the Minster let us have this information? At this stage a full explanation is imperative.

If the people of this country are going to get behind this project, surely we ought to be transparent about the figures that have been used to decide that 8.7 kilometres of additional tunnelling, which would preserve the AONB, is “too expensive” because the benefits to the environment are insufficient to outweigh the additional cost of tunnelling. If the figures stack up—I have no idea whether they do—we will at least have been transparent in the process. Surely the public, who will have to pay for this project in so many ways—and of whom relatively few will see any actual benefit—are entitled to a proper cost-benefit analysis before our countryside is destroyed.

If we destroy the AONB—and it will be destroyed—without making a proper cost-benefit analysis of what we are doing, we will not be forgiven. Indeed, not having such a cost-benefit analysis would be regarded as pure vandalism. I urge the Minister and the Government just to do what is requested in this sensible amendment.

[Lord Young of Norwood Green]

My Lords, I am surprised that yet again we are exploring the wonders of Wendover—which was one of the many exotic foreign trips we went on. It was important that we went out to see these places. I think it was a slight exaggeration when the noble Baroness, Lady Pidding, said that the area of outstanding natural beauty would be destroyed. There will be changes, but I do not believe that the area will be destroyed—and neither do members of the committee.

I return to the point made by my noble friend Lord Stevenson, who says, yet again, that we have not fully and transparently explored this issue. In fact we did—and of course it was done not only by us but by the Commons, who after two years of hearing petitions extended the tunnel by a significant amount. The next challenge that was put to us when we examined this in Committee was a challenge to the promoters’ assessment of tunnelling costs: “They would say that, wouldn’t they? They would make them come out cheaper”. The integrity of that costing procedure was disputed. In a way, that was a useful challenge, because we needed to be assured that that costing gave us a fair and accurate cost comparison of whether extending tunnelling even further—whether it was mined or bored—would achieve savings, which my noble friend Lord Berkeley also insisted would be the case.

That was a legitimate question until we got to the point of the proposed Colne Valley viaduct, where petitioners were asking for a fully bored tunnel instead of a viaduct. Those HS2 tunnelling costs were assessed in an independent cost analysis and were validated. So the idea that at this stage we have not had a full debate on this is preposterous, given everything that has happened—and, again, the idea that the public interest has not been protected is fallacious.

It is true to say—perhaps it is the one point on which I agree with my noble friend—that the hybrid Bill process is not ideal. We and the Commons agreed on that. As a committee we put in our view of how this Victorian process, as my noble friend rightly called it, could be improved. But that is one thing; it does not take away the main point of this amendment, which somehow seems to suggest to the House that, first, the public interest has not been fully served, and, secondly, that this has been a flawed process. I and the rest of my committee colleagues do not believe that to be the case. Again, I trust that noble Lords will reject this amendment.

[Baroness O'Cathain]

Maybe my memory is deceiving me, but the mined tunnel was through chalk, was it not? There was a problem about the slurry and it would not have been a practical proposition to go through—rather than a bored tunnel. I would like clarification on that, specifically the mined tunnel. Can the noble Lord, Lord Young, help me?

[Lord Young of Norwood Green]

No, I am not going to because I have just remembered that Peers are allowed only one contribution on an amendment.

[Lord Snape]

My Lords, I am not quite sure whether I can help the noble Baroness. I asked the same question about a mined tunnel in Committee and the noble Viscount, Lord Astor, explained it all to me. The problem is that I have forgotten the explanation. It sounded very plausible at the time. I am sure if the noble Baroness consults her noble friend she will get all the details of what should be done.

I listened to the noble Baroness who spoke earlier from the Conservative Benches. She made a fleeting appearance in Committee and said pretty much the same thing; I hope she will forgive me for saying so. I do not think emotive language about a two-track railway destroying the countryside takes this House or this debate any further forward. What did she say: “Just another 8.7 kilometres of tunnel”? That is in addition to the 47 kilometres of tunnel out of the 210 kilometres of the high-speed railway line. This is expensive lunacy in my view. I make a plea again on behalf of those who travel by train. People do not travel by train to gaze at a tunnel wall. Some of the semi-hysterical comments—I exempt my noble friend Lord Stevenson, he will be relieved to know—about the damage that the railway line will do to the Chilterns are just that, sheer hysteria. They were all made 30 years ago at the time of High Speed 1 across Kent, and none of it proved true then. Indeed, the economy of Kent has benefited enormously from High Speed 1.

The secondary point—the great unmentionable in this debate on the demand for tunnels—is of course that some people making these points about additional tunnelling do so on the grounds that there is no benefit from high-speed rail passing through the Chilterns to those who live there because there are not any stations. Well, there may be at some time in the future, as we have heard. Again, I exempt my noble friend from that; he is my Whip and I had better tread carefully. Once you get out of London, the M40 passes through the Chilterns without a mile of tunnel. Has that motorway destroyed that part of the world? I do not think it has. My noble friend nods his head but I do not think most people agree. Mind you, of course many of them use the M40 and that they are not going to be able to use the train is behind a great deal of the opposition, in my view. I hope that the Minister resists temptation. Whether it is cheaper to build a mined tunnel or go ahead with the existing proposals, as the Select Committee recommended, I know not. Nobody could have worked harder than the committee to look at those objections. I think there is quite sufficient tunnelling already so far as this high-speed railway is concerned, much of it expensive and unnecessary.

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[Lord Young of Norwood Green]

My Lords, to concur with what the noble Baroness, Lady O’Cathain, said, we did discuss this at great length in the committee. A target of 28% target has been set; it is certainly not a maximum, as I am sure the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, knows. Most of the points that she made are valid, except for the comparison. We are not comparing like with like. In Crossrail, for example, although a significant amount of spoil was shifted using the river, it had to get to the river first. That was part of the problem. This is an unrealistic target, which does not mean to say that we should not be ensuring that the contractors make every effort to take the maximum amount by rail. They have an incentive to do so but there are limitations—for instance, as to how much you can take out of Euston by rail and the times at which it can be done. All that was discussed.

Although it appears reasonable to set this kind of target, I concur with the noble Baroness, Lady O’Cathain, that it is not the right way to go about it. There should be—the Secretary of State will ensure that there will be—very significant pressure on the contractors to take the maximum amount off the road, for all the reasons that the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, said. I look forward to hearing what further assurances the Minister can give.

Camden may not have got everything, but it received 100 assurances, which were legal requirements, given by the promotor during the course of its own negotiations, and further additions that we made as the result of our hearings.

[Lord Berkeley]

My Lords, I declare an interest as chairman of the Rail Freight Group. I think I have some good news. I pay tribute the Select Committee’s work on this. I know that it tried very hard and quizzed lots of people as to how it could be done. As is so often the case, when it gets to the stage of involving contractors, sometimes contractors have good ideas. I was talking to some of them and their specialists last week. One of the key ideas is if you bore tunnels from Old Oak Common to Euston and you complete at least one at any early stage, you can take the spoil out through the tunnel. This is a very good idea because you can then deal with it at Old Oak Common. I am told it is possible; they are trying to work it into the programme. If it is possible, the figure for getting spoil and demolition out would probably go up to above 50%—I was told 70% or 80%—which is really good news. In other words, they have come up with some creative ideas. Maybe we were wrong to criticise HS2 in the past for not coming up with such ideas. It has given us a lot of debating time and the committee several days of discussion, but at least people have come up with a good idea. I think four contractors are tendering and I do not know whether they will all adopt this, but it demonstrates that it is possible. I hope Ministers will do all they can to encourage the contractors to be similarly creative.

There is another issue. In Committee we discussed concreting materials and other materials. The present amendment covers just concreting materials. The creative people are now saying, quite rightly, that they cannot bring cement in by train because it takes too long to unload, but that they can bring in most of the concreting aggregate by train and they can put a batching plant for mixing it somewhere on site. I am sure the committee looked at different locations for that; I have, and it is possible. As the noble Baroness said in her opening remarks, there is not a capacity problem for these trains going into Euston at night. It could easily be done.

I hope the Minister will accept these amendments as pointing the way forward to encouraging HS2 to continue to be creative like this. We do not want 1,500 trucks a day in Camden because the construction will last for 19 years—not that all those trucks will be there for 19 years, but they will still there be there for a considerable period. The basic movement out of spoil and demolition material by rail and bringing in concreting aggregate by rail would make a lot of people happy. I am convinced that the project can be done on that basis without any adverse effect on its programme or cost. If it is set up to do that, the contractors will do it well and it will work well.