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Transport: High-speed Rail

My Lords, I do not wish to follow the speech we have just heard, which was almost insulting to the Secretary of State. I should like to thank him not only for the announcement in the Statement, but for the drive which he has personally put into this project. I am quite convinced that Britain needs a high-speed line because in many ways it would embrace what I will call the forgotten north, the big cities of the north which do not have good railway services. Many noble Lords and many civil servants use the railway services around London, but the services around Manchester, Leeds, and Sheffield are disgraceful, with old, overcrowded trains. What has been said today will give some hope to the north that it is not forgotten and that it will be included in the future which has been outlined. I want to express my confidence in the fact that engineers can design a railway which is far less intrusive than any motorway network. They can work on aerodynamics, regenerative braking, noise suppression and I am quite certain that the railway we will receive will be far better than anything we have now. If you live anywhere near a motorway, you will know the awful noise which you have to put up with continuously. I should like a number of assurances, the first of which the Secretary of State has given. I should like an assurance that the money for high-speed rail will not be extracted from the rest of the network; otherwise we will have the French situation: a superb TGV network and an awful secondary network. I suggest to the Secretary of State, as part of the programme, that there is space for the continuous upgrading of the east coast main line north of Leeds. If that is intended to be used for the high-speed train, any engineering work done on that line now should take account of the fact that that line may be used for high-speed trains in the future. I make a plea to the Secretary of State that the whole project does not become a meal ticket for consultants and the various hangers-on who seem to pervade many projects in this country. I also ask him to consider not applying NATA—the new approach to transport appraisal methodology—to this project. We need real goals; not goals which economists look at round their feet so forgetting the big picture. We need to have some real objectives in view and to measure our way going towards them. The western end of Crossrail still worries me greatly. A lot of thought needs to be given to where those trains are going to go once they leave Paddington. It is quite inconceivable that metro trains stopping at every station west of Paddington will be in any way suitable for the distribution of people who will arrive at the new station near Wormwood Scrubs. Will the Secretary of State also consider the relationship with Network Rail and the rail regulator? The costs that Network Rail incurs are far too high in anybody’s judgment and I want to see a better arrangement than there is for HS1, where Network Rail has apparently taken over the maintenance without any real check on its efficiency. Whoever is maintaining something needs those checks on efficiency. I had written on my notes that at this point I would make some comments on the Conservative view, but quite honestly, there is just nothing to talk about. The Secretary of State and I disagree about many things, but I am happy, in this case, to promise the full support of those on these Benches. In the pantheon of railway greats, which might include Brunel, Stephenson, Brassey and Sam Fay, I believe that the Secretary of State has at least got his foot on the lowest step.