HS2 Action Alliance Blog

Professor David Begg, Director of Yes to HS2, denies that the project will cost every British family £1000.  He suggests this figure ignores the revenue from fares, and broader gains to the UK economy.

Yet the Prof’s analysis is not foolproof. In reality the only reliable figure provided by the Government is that the scheme will cost at least £32 billion. Once built, HS2 would most likely run at a loss, so that far from fares revenues off-setting the capital cost, they will be insufficient to cover running cost – as is the case for most of the UK’s railways today.

Begg’s denial is based on Government figures that greatly overestimate demand, ignore competition, and value benefits with an out of date view of gaining productivity from journey time savings and are against a completely artificial ‘do minimum’ comparator. Once time savings are viewed sensibly and the comparison is made against a realistic comparator, the claimed economic benefits are fundamentally undermined.

Far from overstating the cost, saying it will cost over £1,000 per family could turn out to be an understatement since there is a real prospect of annual subsidies being required to support services.  And given most construction projects end up costing more than originally planned even that figure could rocket…

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Manipulating numbers appears to come naturally to the pro HS2 campaign. “Latest poll reveals that the majority are in favour of HSR”, states the title of a recent Yes to High Speed Rail article. At first glance one could perhaps forgive this deceptive headline: a recent DFT report does indeed conclude that 47% of respondents were ‘in favour’ of HS2, compared to 9% against and 44% in the neutral category. It’s not exactly the ‘majority’ that Yes to High Speed Rail proclaim (that would, of course, be 51% or more), but it nonetheless suggests general support for this ridiculous rail line.

But then you start to dig a bit deeper, and look at the other figures that the DFT report offers. Firstly, if a poll is to have any weight, you need the people who respond to have a degree of understanding on the issue. Of the 2037 respondents to the DFT survey, 11% ‘knew a fair amount or a lot’ about HS2, while 42% ‘knew little or not very much’ and 47% ‘knew nothing at all’. In total, nearly 90% of respondents didn’t make an informed decision when responding to the survey. This means that at the very least, 72% of those who supported HS2 in the poll didn’t really know much about HS2 – hardly convincing evidence!

Then there’s the issue of cost. People are often in favour of lots of things: state of the art facilities for every school, no waiting times in hospitals, and a policeman or woman on every street corner. But supporting something as an ideal is not the same as supporting a project in practice. Improvements or reform cost money, and people realise that certain schemes or reforms are not affordable, especially during a time of economic instability. The respondents of the survey recognised this. Now is not the time to spend £30 billion on a rail line, while vital front line public services such as education, the NHS or the police force are being cut. 69% said they either ‘agreed’ or ‘strongly agreed’ that ‘HS2 is £30 billion we can’t afford’. 24% disagreed and 7% remained indifferent or neutral.

So, what do the findings really tell us? Well, less than half of respondents supported HS2 proposals, and a large majority of those supporters were completely or largely uniformed. But not only are they uniformed, they don’t want to pay for it either. Spending £30 billion on a rail line during a time of cuts to vital public services seems like an overwhelmingly bad idea to the respondents of this DFT survey. I, for one, can only agree.

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Philip Hammond and the pro HS2 campaign often portray their opponents as ‘NIMBYS’  (not in my back yard). They paint anti-HS2 protestors as self-interested and irrational, ignoring the national benefits that HS2 would supposedly bring. If HS2 ran through a different constituency or back-yard, these people would not campaign against it, or so Hammond and his supporters state.

Now, of course, we know this is not true. Many people in constituencies where HS2 does not enter are against HS2. Both the business and environmental case are of national interest to UK citizens, and people across the country are asking why the Government wants to spend ridiculous sums of money on a train line at the same time as vital public services are being cut. They are also asking why the Government would damage the Chilterns – a nationally protected and enjoyed area of outstanding national beauty.

But not only is the NIMBY argument flawed, Mr Hammond is a ripe old hypocrite. On one hand he is derogatorily labelling people NIMBYs for airing local grievances against HS2, yet on the other hand he heavily criticised the Central Railway plans that would run through his constituency of Runnymede and Weybridge. Click here to read a transcript of Hammond’s hypocrisy. Some illuminating quotes from the debate include:

“A major threat has been posed to hundreds of households in my constituency and thousands of households along the length of the proposed route of a railway line.”

“Whatever rationalisation the Government may offer, neither it nor the scheme will not be acceptable to my constituents in Runnymede and Weybridge.”

“An extensive and expensive scheme without demonstrating its economic viability, producing any sound environmental impact assessments, or, most importantly, having to commit to any timetable for progress. Under the procedure, homes can be blighted for years without any obligation on the person or company causing that blight to make progress.”

Clearly MPs have a duty to represent their constituents, and Mr Hammond fulfilled that role. What is distasteful however is that a Minister of State is using the derogatory term NIMBY to label anti HS2 campaigners when he, like most MPs, has acted in exactly the same manner – representing the constituents who elected him.  It is the duty of the Minister of State to act reasonably when discussing spending £30 billion of taxpayers’ money. It is unfair and irresponsible of Philip Hammond to use such language when he ought to be critically discussing the business and environmental case that HS2aa is so concerned about!

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Time is pretty central to the Government’s plan for HS2. Shortening journeys from Leeds, Manchester and Birmingham will supposedly increase productivity by freeing up the time of important businessmen and women. As Hilary Wharf recently pointed out at the Great Missenden rally, this productivity argument is at best debatable, and quite probably flawed: free wifi and good service during long-distance journeys make working on trains a productive experience, while video-conferencing and other technological advances reduce the necessity to travel. One also suspects more effective technology will exist by 2026 or 2032, when HS2 would be up-and-running.

But the point of this piece is not just to question the need for quicker journeys. Instead, new evidence suggests that the Government has not been fully truthful about how much quicker HS2 will be:

Leeds to London is the route in question. Page 30 of the Department for Transport’s HS2 Consultation Document clearly states that the current line from Leeds to London takes 2 hours 20 minutes, with HS2 knocking this down to 1 hour 20 minutes. That would be one extra hour of supposed productivity for business people.

However, on 22 May 2011, Great North Eastern Franchise announced a new timetable – their biggest revamp for 20 years. The first point to make is that the Leeds to London route has been reduced to 1 hour 59 minutes, only 39 minutes longer than the £30 billion HS2 plans. Numerous weekday services will set off at 7am from Leeds, arriving in London before 9am.

The second point is more under-hand. Major timetable revamps take months of consultation and fine tuning. With the HS2 consultation published less than 3 months ago, the DFT would probably have been aware of the forthcoming reduction in journey time on the Leeds to London line. Yet nowhere in the consultation was this mentioned. This reporter thinks up-to-date and important information ought to be freely available when people make up their minds on HS2!

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Some poignant poetry kicked-off the Great Missenden Rally. Local children recited numerous public sector cuts, before ending each verse ‘But still they’re buying the high speed train’.

Next up was Martin Tett, Conservative Councillor for Buckinghamshire. Tett confirmed that the children were right: ‘HS2 is one of the worst value for money projects that probably any Government since the war has come forward with’. Reflecting on meeting the DFT and Philip Hammond on four occasions, he pointed out their blatant disregard for the beauty of the Chilterns (‘its’ just fields’) and their failure to recognise the inadequacies of the business argument.

Something needed to be done, and a new campaign called 51M is part of the answer. Uniting local authorities from London to Birmingham, the campaign stands for the cost per Parliamentary constituency of HS2 – a staggering £51 million!

Director of HS2 Action Alliance, Hilary Wharf, then scrutinised the Government’s business case. The DFT claim shorter journeys for business individuals will allow them to get more work done, creating just over £13 billion of wealth. It all sounds reasonable, or at least if you ignore the technological advances of video conferencing and the ability to work productively on trains. Just imagine the technological advances by 2026 or 2032...

Finally it was the turn of Steve Rodrick, Chief Officer of the Chilterns Conservation Board. He rightly pointed out that the Chilterns are part of England’s national heritage, to be enjoyed and protected by the whole of our country. Then there was the factual inaccuracies pouring fourth from the DFT.  They claimed that 680,000 cubed meters of ground would be removed; in-fact it would be 12 million cubed meters – only 17 times off then!

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Those of us who remember ‘The Beds of Nails’ in Yes Minister may (perhaps) be tempted to pity Philip Hammond in his role as Transport Supremo.  Jim Hacker was smart enough to pass the poisoned chalice on – Hammond was not.

Hacker’s response to a damaging transport proposal was to put the cat among the pigeons in the PM’s own back yard.  A pioneering piece of pure Nimbyism – and it worked a treat.

Now Hammond is trying to turn the tables as his bed of nails really begins to bite. 

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