High Speed Rail (Preparation) Bill

Debate between Mark Lazarowicz and Steve Barclay

Thursday 31st October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mark Lazarowicz]

I am grateful for that update, which has been circulating over the last hour or so as the information has reached the public domain. I presume that Baroness Kramer will not announce that high-speed is coming to Scotland, but I am looking forward to some positive announcements tomorrow. There is an opportunity here for the Scottish Government—of whatever colour, as we are obviously talking about a long-term process—to work with the UK Government. It is recognised that it will be possible to do some work on high-speed rail in Scotland, perhaps to link Edinburgh and Glasgow but also to provide the basis for a route further south. Although we cannot immediately have a high-speed route all the way from Edinburgh and Glasgow to London, other sections of high-speed rail would certainly benefit the Scottish economy. Just as the business case for high-speed rail further south is strengthened by bringing into it business from Scotland, any high-speed rail in Scotland that would bring passengers into the GB-wide high-speed system would be beneficial for the rest of the country.

I understand why those communities that will not be served directly by the line, especially those that currently have a good rail service, will be concerned that they could lose out as a result of HS2 being constructed. The answer for those communities is to engage as actively as they can with central Government and neighbouring local authorities to try to ensure that they put the case to get the best benefits. It is also important that connectivity is examined, the point of the amendment tabled by my hon. Friends on the Opposition Front Bench.

It is important for the Government, and for Front Benchers of all colours, to use the opportunity of developing HS2 to rebuild the vision for rail in the country as a whole. HS2 is not just a question of trains running on the high-speed line and then going no further; they can serve other destinations in the way they will serve Edinburgh and Glasgow. On the continent, high-speed trains do not just run on high-speed lines; they serve other communities too. That is something we should aim for in Britain.

The case for high-speed developments beyond HS2 is powerful. I understand why a Government would not want to start putting down lines on a map to other parts of Britain, because that would set off scare stories about costs, but the points made by the right hon. Member for Chelmsford (Mr Burns) on possible development should not be lost or forgotten—the lines to Scotland and routes to the north-east of England in particular. There are clear capacity problems between Yorkshire and the north-east of England and they will need to be on the agenda at some stage.

I started my comments by referring to the amendments on Scotland. The amendments tabled by the right hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs Gillan) and the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Mr MacNeil) are superfluous. The Scottish Government have accepted the Bill in its current form. The Scottish Parliament has passed the relevant Sewel motion endorsing the proposals in the Bill. I do not always agree with the current Scottish Government and Scottish Parliament, but on this occasion if it is good enough for them, it should be good enough for this House. I will not support the amendments, as they do not take the debate any further. We have good proposals that have achieved broad consensus across the House. I hope we can continue to proceed in that fashion.

[Stephen Barclay]

I shall speak to amendment 17 and, in particular, to the costs associated with connectivity.

On Sunday, it was my daughter’s third birthday. As the list of presents she was hoping to receive grew ever longer, I had to remind her that we did not have a magic money tree in the garden. Her response, quick as a flash, was to say, “Why don’t you plant one?” When we look at amendment 17 and consider the remarks at the beginning of the debate from the Chair of the Transport Committee, the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman), we need to reflect on the reality of a budget set at £42.6 billion—this seems to be used interchangeably with the spending envelope, albeit that it appears to have now grown to a £50 billion cap—that does not include the changes in design referred to in the powerful speech from the right hon. Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms).

I want to draw hon. Members’ attention to the remarks that David Prout made to the Public Accounts Committee. One might have expected the contingency to have anticipated changes in design costs. Of the £50 billion cap, £21 billion is currently unspecified. More than £14 billion includes dealing with optimism bias and risk inflation—the initial 10% on that £15 billion figure—and then on top of that there is a further contingency of more than £4 billion for phase 1. Nowhere do the figures address changes to design, yet many of hon. Members’ remarks have been based on exactly that premise. I predict there will be public campaigns in Camden where people will say, “If we are going to have High Speed 2, let us connect it to High Speed 1 in a far better way.” Dare I say it, but there may be one or two well-connected opinion-formers in north London who will help that campaign. Yet David Prout said:

“The contingency would not include major changes in scope, for example, that the Select Committee might require. If the Select Committee requires an additional station”—

as some in Sheffield are hoping for—

“that is not included in the contingency. If it required 20 more miles of tunnelling”—

as the people of east Cheshire are hoping to secure—

“that is not included in the contingency. What we would expect to include in the contingency are the more minor adjustments in Select Committee to mitigate environmental impact.”

Those are the very environmental issues on which we still do not have a report.