Tory MP resigns over ‘white elephant’ HS2
Ministers who think this expensive white elephant represents value for money are living in a fantasy land
Bob Seely, the Tory MP, says he resigned from the Government over its support of the “white elephant” High Speed 2 rail project. Writing in today’s Daily Telegraph, Mr Seely, who backs Boris Johnson for prime minister, calls for the “pie-in-the-sky” scheme to be scrapped. He resigned as a parliamentary private secretary in order to vote against an HS2 Bill in the Commons on Monday. It is the 50th resignation from Theresa May’s administration.
If Boris Johnson becomes prime minister next week – as I hope he will – one of his key tasks will be to encourage economic growth across all regions. Some cities are major global successes, but we need to do more to help other parts of Britain thrive.
To do that, we need to spend taxpayers’ money wisely, which is why I cannot understand why any government can support the High Speed Rail 2 (HS2) project. I certainly can’t, and when an HS2 Bill came back to Parliament on Monday I refused to vote in favour of a white elephant.
This meant I had to resign as a parliamentary private secretary and leave the Government.
The cost of HS2 is staggering.
Initially costed at £33.4 billion, the Government’s 2015 Spending Review put the price of phases 1 and 2 to 2033 at nearly £65 billion. One Governmentcommissioned review estimated a build cost of £403 million per mile. This is breathtakingly expensive, even by government standards. And what’s worse, even these extraordinary sums may not represent the full total. The Institute of Economic Affairs has estimated the real cost to be £80 billion and, according to Terry Morgan, former chairman of HS2 Ltd, “everybody has their own guesstimate”. What is true is that every honest review has considered it a bad return for the taxpayer.
Why do politicians fall for grandiose schemes when time and time again studies show incremental projects deliver better value? Academics who study the phenomenon of megaprojects argue that the unholy combination of ego, long planning horizons and a merry-go-round of designers and consultants fuels “optimism bias”. The Oxford academic Bent Flyvbjerg believes that the megaprojects most likely to be initiated are those that construct “a fantasy world of underestimated costs, overestimated revenues, overvalued local development effects and underestimated environmental impacts”. HS2 meets every one of these fantasy fallacies.
We should scrap this pie-in-the-sky project and use the money to turbocharge a Priority Projects Investment Fund which can be ruthlessly focused on delivering the biggest bang-forbuck projects that will improve the quality of life for taxpayers now, not in the distant future.
In my constituency, the Isle of Wight, the rolling stock on our “modern” railway line is older – 1938 – than much of the rolling stock on our Heritage Steam Railway. Although we are an outlier, too many rail routes in the North, Midlands and South tell a similar story of ageing rolling stock, bumpy rides and rundown stations.
Pumping HS2 money into projects such as the Northern Powerhouse Rail plan to improve and develop links between cities in the North could make a major difference to quality of life and businesses.
On hard-pressed suburban routes, introducing new technology such as the European Train Control System Level Three alongside moving block signalling could reduce the time interval between trains by 10-20 per cent and deliver 40 per cent more capacity. Over half of rail users (55 per cent) are commuters, compared with just 9 per cent who use it for business. This is a no-brainer.
For inner-city travel, we need to ensure all major cities have integrated metro systems. Leeds is the largest city in Europe without one and this isn’t good enough. Ministers should also be presuming in favour of reopening railway lines. Options include Skiptoncolne, Beverley-york, Keswickpenrith, Stourbridge-lichfield and on the Isle of Wight, too.
Nor is high speed in the 21st century only about physical journeys. Far more useful than a quicker railway line between London and Birmingham would be full-fibre broadband for every home in the country – as Boris Johnson has promised.
HS2 will have its defenders – Labour will vote for most things that spend taxpayers’ money – but I think we can do better. We need to build the infrastructure: digital, rail and road, that people need now, not grande projets fuelled by optimism, bias and ego. I hope a Johnson government will review HS2 with the ruthless scrutiny it deserves, and spend the windfall evenly across the UK.