HS2 only works if it fast-tracks the North of England
SOME political decisions have totemic status, impacting far beyond their apparent boundaries: one thinks of Mrs Thatcher’s decision to send a huge British military force halfway across the world to take back the Falkland Islands or Tony Blair’s to dump the avowedly socialist Clause 4 of the Labour Party’s constitution.
These tough choices sent out much wider signals about the nature and stature of the person taking them.
For Boris Johnson, just such a decision now looms. Within a few weeks he will give an imperial thumbs up or thumbs down to the huge High Speed 2 rail infrastructure project as currently conceived.Waiting on his desk as he returns from holiday is a review of the project that gives the green light for a state-of-the-art new line, to speed the journey between central London and Birmingham by about 20 minutes, with just a few tweaks to the original plan.
But now, thank goodness, someone has thrown a spanner in the works. Lord Berkeley, the deputy chairman of the review panel, has effectively labelled it a stitch-up by big, vested interests. He says the scheme does not represent good value for money and will cost £107billion rather than the £55billion originally estimated.
He reckons the first phase, from our capital city to our second city, won’t be completed until 2031, rather than 2029, and that the next phase wouldn’t reach major northern cities such as Manchester and Leeds until 2040.
HE IS pushing for major changes that will involve a more modest upgrade of the existing London to Birmingham line, combined with bigger rail improvements across the North and the Midlands to give these areas “the same standard of commuting service as the South-east”.
In the election Mr Johnson triumphed largely because he won the trust and support of many more voters across these traditionally pro-Labour regions than any modern Tory predecessor. He explicitly recognised this, saying his administration would repay that trust by “levelling up across the whole UK”.
He could try to paint the present version of HS2 as contributing to that by whizzing Midlands business folk to London a bit quicker and, eventually, extending that dubious honour to their counterparts in the North-west and Yorkshire.
But that won’t wash. Not for a PM with an historic opportunity to fundamentally rebalance the UK economy. Nor, probably, for several million voters in the Midlands and North who “lent” their support to Mr Johnson and his Tories last month.
So, before the arrival of spring and possibly even before
Brexit Day at the end of this month, Mr Johnson should take a very big decision that will upset developers and Treasury bean-counters too.
He should side with Lord Berkeley and back a radical reconfiguration of HS2. A triangle of new high-speed lines linking Manchester, Leeds and Birmingham should get priority, followed by extensions to Liverpool and Hull and a spur up to the North-east.
Only once that lot is done, and the connectivity of our great northern cities has been transformed as a result, should we move on to the Birmingham to London link. While access to London is important for many businesses, the capital is as likely to suck more economic activity southwards as it is to boost northern order books if the North’s own rail networks remain in such a parlous state.
Mr Johnson is a politician who has always been able to see the bigger picture, at times proposing seemingly outlandish schemes such as a road bridge between Northern Ireland and Scotland or a new international airport in the Thames Estuary.
Demonstrating he is serious about rebalancing the UK economy and that his previous statements were not just votewinning words would electrify public and business sentiment in the northern half of England.
CYNICISM about the Northern Powerhouse and the Midlands Engine concepts would be swept away and, in my view, social attitudes towards educational attainment and acquiring vocational skills could also be rewired in places that for 40 years have simply assumed they will continue to be left behind.
The Midlands and the North were cradles of the Industrial Revolution. They can now be cradles of a post-industrial revolution that embraces hightech, financial services, artificial intelligence and much more. Or we can stick with business-asusual because only London has global “critical mass”.
Boris has a big call to make. Let’s hope he gets it right.
‘Lord Berkeley has labelled it a stitch-up by big, vested interests’