HS2 Funding Referendum Bill — House of Commons, 2015-01-23
Topic: Transportation
Frank Gordon Dobson (Labour, Centre-left): Generally speaking, I oppose referendums, but that opposition is slight by comparison with my opposition to the ludicrous High Speed 2 scheme, which is, it has to be said, both amateurish and grotesquely expensive It used to be fashionable to say that things had been formulated on the back of a cigarette packet; it sounds as though it will be possible to do that on the front of a cigarette packet fairly shortly. I gather, however, that it is more fashionable now to say that things have been drawn up on the back of an envelope—and in this case, it is a pretty poor envelope It is clear that HS2, and all the money it involves, is unpopular in every part of England and even more unpopular in Scotland and Wales. I can say without fear of contradiction that it is certainly unpopular in my constituency of Holborn and St Pancras, where it will involve the demolition of the homes of about 500 people and expose more than 5,000 people to living next door to Europe’s biggest demolition, engineering and building site for 12 to 15 years, without any compensation at all The boundaries of the compensation scheme are such that people can live 5 metres—in some cases, 5 centimetres —from the boundary and not get a penny. We have been told that the situation is not like in rural areas; urban areas, apparently, are used to noise—"people are used to railways, you know, in the Euston area." Indeed they are, but they are not used to living next to a major engineering site for a dozen or 15 years The five minutes that I was given to speak, under the procedures of the House, on Second Reading of the current HS2 Bill were not sufficient for me to do justice to the insanity of the proposals. The original proposals were for a total demolition and rebuilding of Euston station and its extension 75 metres to the west. They also included a link to the channel tunnel line, running across the North London line, above ground, from Primrose Hill to the back of St Pancras station. That latter proposal was rubbish from the start. No one thought it was sensible apart from officials at High Speed 2 and officials at the Department for Transport, which, even before the proposal was published, had been warned by everyone, including me, that the North London line would in effect need to be destroyed and rebuilt in order to enable high-speed trains to run along it. They had also been warned by the Institution of Civil Engineers that it was not a good idea Then the original estimate of the costs nearly doubled. We had warned people of this. They said it was because of new factors, one of which, apparently—it is in a parliamentary answer—was the need to widen the route. If they did not realise that would be needed from the start, they ought not to be employed in such projects Fairly recently, the proposal for the connection to the channel tunnel link was abandoned, so there is now no longer any rail connection to the European network, as had been promised. We were told that passengers could get off at Euston and then that they, rather than the trains, would be able to get to St Pancras: they could walk there in the rain or possibly use a travelator going along Euston road, which is, in terms of air pollution, the filthiest road in Britain. Recently, Sir David Higgins, the great new boss who has been brought in, told people that they could walk across Euston station, go to Euston Square tube station, get the tube to King’s Cross St Pancras, and then walk to the international trains. I would have thought that most people would not fancy that if they were carrying a bit of luggage. Anyway, that is the latest fancy proposal Let us look at the original proposals for the full-scale redevelopment of Euston and the bringing in of the high-speed trains. The original estimate was £1.2 billion. Just eight months later, the geniuses at HS2 acknowledged that that estimate—or guesstimate, or back-of-a-fag-packet stuff—had gone up to £2 billion. An escalation in price of £100 million a month is not bad, really—you have to admit that they are quite impressive at spending other people’s money. Then that was felt to be too expensive and abandoned, and they came up with the proposal known as revised option 8, which would, roughly speaking, leave Euston as it is, with a fancy lean-to shed next to it in which the glories of High Speed 2 would be displayed Those propositions—the link and revised option 8—were in the Bill that was considered on Second Reading in this House. One of them has been abandoned, and we are told that the Euston proposition has also been abandoned, without any debate in this House. Now HS2 wants to go back to the full-scale redevelopment of Euston, which has never been put before Parliament. If Parliament is not doing its job properly, perhaps the people will need to do their job properly in a referendum I have been tabling questions asking, "When are you going to come up with the revised proposals for Euston?" Last year we were told that those revised proposals would be out for consultation in October last year. The most recent answer to parliamentary questions that I have is that it is hoped they will be available in September this year. However, these people still have no idea of what the cost will be, and they cannot work out a viable scheme for the rebuilding of the station. I personally believe that they have been unable to overcome a lot of the engineering problems that would be caused by major works in the area. Parliament has not been doing its job properly; it has not had the opportunity to do so because it has been denied information by the Government. That is why we need a referendum To say that this is an unpopular idea is an understatement. In March last year, polling by ComRes showed that 52% of the UK population generally were against it and 30% were in favour. Last autumn it got a bit worse, from the point of view of those who are in favour of this ridiculous scheme, because, in a YouGov poll, 53% were against it and its supporters had gone down to 25%. A breakdown of the figures shows that no group anywhere in the country is, on balance, in favour. Among all men and all women, more are against than for. People in every age group are more against than for. All social classes are more against than for The hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) talked about the views of people in the north. I have the polling figures here. In the north-east, 62% are against and 20% are in favour. In Yorkshire and Humberside, 48% are against and 37% are in favour. The nearest thing to majority support anywhere is in the north-west, where there has been a lot of banging the drum for the wondrous likely impact on Manchester. To be fair, though, it is still quite close, with 43% against and 39% in favour, and the majority are still against My hon. Friend the Member for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham) talked about the west midlands, where 50% are against and 34% are in favour.