FORUM - HS2: a clever man sells a dumb scheme

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Published: 3 March, 2011

The planned new high-speed rail link from Euston to Birmingham will cost billions and simply makes no sense 

MUCH as Phillip Hammond would like to be at the Treasury, he isn’t. As Secretary of State for Transport he’s lumbered with selling the new high-speed rail link from London to Birmingham – HS2, the sizzle without a sausage.

How do you do this if you are a clever man?  First of all you make claims about HS2’s impeccable environ­mental credentials and you produce a “Command Paper” which is as thick as a small loaf, detailing the business case for spending £33billion of taxpayers’ money and which no one will bother to read anyway.

Then, give £46million to HS2 Ltd in the current year and £777million over the following four years. Next, quietly take £3billion from the classic Rail-track budget.

Get a team of 54 people together and pay them £3.8million in the current year (£70,000 pa on average)

Unfortunately, someone does take the time to look at the “Command Paper”. Friends of The Earth and the Green Party tell you that in terms of the environment HS2 is a joke – a very poor one – and should not be built.

Internationally acknowledged rail economists tell you that your figures are all wrong. The Adam Smith Institute and The TaxPayers’ Alliance, both beloved of Mrs Thatcher, tell you HS2 is potty. 

Oh, and something else you didn’t know, people actually work on trains and so are not that bothered about arriving 10 minutes early. And by the way, there are no passenger flights between London and Birmingham to replace.

They undermine your claims of dealing with rail capacity, eventually, in 2026 and come up with all kinds of annoying cheaper options (which you are already aware of but kept quiet about). These alternatives would start rail and speed of travel improvements immediately and incrementally.

You are a clever bloke, so how should you respond now? Well, stop talking about the environment in any clear terms for a start. Then just make assertions.

All the local groups coming together in a “big society” to object to the loss of some of the most beautiful parts of the country are Nimbys. “It isn’t Constable country after all, is it?” You could say, you probably shouldn’t, but you do say, to the people in Camden whose social housing is going to be knocked down, that it should be knocked down anyway.

Tell anyone who will listen that all the other grown-up European countries have got One so we must have One. Forget that the Spanish are desperately trying to get private investment to bail out their ailing scheme and that French passengers are up in arms because fares for the TGV have escalated massively and other rail services have been cut.

Next talk about the fantastic Regional Benefits that the TGV has brought to Lille in France (forgetting, if you ever knew, that its unemployment rate has  gone up since the TGV arrived and is currently one of the highest in France).

Then, the best wheeze: state that whatever else might be wrong with HS2 and whatever anyone says, it is in the National Interest – unanswerable.

On the assertion front, it might also be handy to get a load of businessmen who haven’t a clue about the economic fundamentals of HS2, but who might want political favours, to line up. I’ll bet Topshop owner Philip Green wouldn’t mind getting a few well-heeled Brummies to Oxford Street. Wasn’t it his idea to go ahead with it when he did his advice note for us?

Cue consultation on February 28. Venue, Birmingham, whose airport currently has a spare capacity of 90 million seats per annum. That’s a third runway for Heathrow then.

But consultation about what? Is it the “principle” of High Speed rail that has never been consulted on? – No. Is it the route that was never consulted on before it was announced? – No

Is it going to consist of  a “road-show” making completely unmediated positive assertions about HS2 up and down the route? – Oh Yes!

What about the economics and business case? Easy – project so far into the future that no one can know or argue and then extrapolate; suck all the projected benefit back into the present and come up with a meaty cost/benefit figure. It’s a bit like crystal ball-gazing or like the thinking behind those clever credit default swaps that were so popular and made so much money until recently. You could also redistribute existing jobs and call it “job creation”.

But oh dear, just  before the consultation announcement, local councils up and down the proposed line are uniting to fight the proposals saying: “The authorities along the route have come together to oppose the proposals for High Speed Rail as they are currently proposed.

“We do not believe that the business case stacks up and therefore cannot support the route suggested by Government and are actively working on a plan to strongly object to the proposals.

“We are opposed to the current High Speed Rail proposals as they are currently outlined and do not believe that they are in the best interests of the UK as a whole in terms of the benefits claimed in the business case.

“We are not opposed to the need for higher speed rail per se and fully acknowledge the need for strategic improvements to the National Rail infrastructure but cannot agree with the current proposals as the economic and environmental benefits are not at all credible.

“We do not believe that all the other alternatives to achieve the transport capacity, regeneration and environmental benefits have been fully explored by the government and with in excess of £30billion proposed to be invested we owe it to the nation to ensure these are fully explored.”

Bloody tin-pot councils. Thank god for Boris, you think to yourself. We can rely on him, we had him over a barrel on Crossrail when he promised his support for HS2 and after all, he’s going to get a brand new Underground infrastructure at Euston courtesy of the UK taxpayers, most of whom will never see it.

Looking to the future, you feel confident that you will have faced down the nimbys, the tree huggers, the “nickel and diming” economists and those jumped-up little local councillors.

Job done Phillip! You delivered HS2 to Hybrid Bill stage and you can go off to do proper clever things at the Treasury.

Time passes, time passes. Note to Permanent Secretary for the Treasury: “What’s this £17 billion we’re due to find over the next few years? It looks like someone’s sold us a sizzle without a sausage to me – Bin it, quick! ”

• Peter Jones is a spokes­man for 15 residents’ and tenants’ groups in Regent’s Park, Camden Town, Primrose Hill, Belsize Park and Swiss Cottage