The go-ahead for the £32bn High Speed 2 railway to the Midlands makes it the biggest public project in peacetime. It also qualifies as the worst. Objection has nothing to do with taxpayers' money enraging Tory shires, much as this delights the left. It has little to do with the loss of beautiful countryside, which should at least count for something. The fact is that a vast sum of money is going on a single upmarket project whose chief feature is its extravagant glamour. HS2 is gesture spending dressed up as growth. It is Concorde for slow learners.
Rail buffs love high-speed trains for making a nerdish hobby seem visionary and modern. That is the long and short of it. Super-speed rail is suitable for countries with cheap energy and long distances between stops, which is not England. It is costly in electricity and depends on premium fares to pay its way. The Whitehall evaluation team more or less shut up shop last year as energy costs soared and the benefit/cost ratio plummeted from 3.24 to 1.60, normally enough to kill any project. With a delivery date deep into the 2020s, the Treasury must have gone to sleep.
The new railway will do nothing for the recession, be voracious of carbon and do little to ease road congestion. To be remotely commercial, it must charge high fares – projected to rise at 27% over inflation – and be largely a replacement service for business travellers from Euston, whose first-class carriages are often near empty. The option of longer platforms, more overpasses and more standard seating carriages on existing lines has been dismissed by Network Rail (at the request of the Transport Department), but this study made no mention of value for money. Reusing existing corridors might, as Network Rail says, be "disruptive", but hardly disruptive to the tune of £32bn.
There is still no published strategy for rail investment in Britain. If there were, HS2 would never survive against electrifying the western region, or improving Britain's ramshackle cross-country services, or upgrading the intolerable state of most urban commuter services. The project only survived its last evaluation crisis because the Tories in opposition said it was an "alternative" to a new runway at Heathrow. The runway had nothing to do with the case, as HS2 goes nowhere near it. This was like proposing a school as an alternative to a hospital.
What motivates ministers to these gigantic projects remains a mystery. Commercial lobbyists claim that HS2 would be "worth £55bn to business", which makes it odd that they are risking a penny on it. Lord Adonis, HS2's long-standing cheerleader, calls it "the incredible democratisation … of low-cost mass-market high-speed transportation". HS2 has nothing to do with democracy, let alone the poor. Adonis's trains will be for the rich.
To encourage the poor to travel – a strange objective in a carbon-conscious age – we should improve coaches and roads, the poor man's highway, which are miserably overcrowded. A government that has billions to spare for HS2 this week could not even keep open London's rotting Hammersmith flyover. Friday nights at Euston may be crowded, but so is Friday night on most of the motorway network. "Predict demand and supply capacity" no longer applies to roads or hospitals. Why should it apply to trains, where at least the peaks can be managed by price?
The case against HS2 should never have been left to lovers of countryside, rather than to other transport users or taxpayers in general. This has played into the hands of the construction lobby, which has shrewdly allied itself with the naive left in depicting opposition to HS2 as confined to Tory nimbys. They can be dismissed by Cameron's macho urban court as effete and "anti-enterprise".
Modern government is addicted to multibillion-pound prestige projects, from aircraft carriers and health computers to the Olympics and HS2. This reflects the power of headlines, but also of industry lobbyists embedded in the Whitehall machine. Last week the chairman of the committee on standards in public life, Sir Christopher Kelly, warned that "preferential access to decision-makers" by powerful interests was damaging respect for Whitehall. But what he merely called "no smoke without fire" is a raging inferno, influencing campaigns for military procurement, runways, academy schools and planning changes.
The HS2 lobby has been led by contractors and consultants who manoeuvred themselves into what has become almost an arm of government. They promised ministers and officials untold glory in return for contracts. The lobby was actually set up by transport officials in 2009 to press their case, largely with the Treasury.
Since then the HS2 project has been allocated an astonishing £750m of public money – enough for how many schools or hospitals? – without a single spade being turned and before any decision was made to go ahead. As with Crossrail, the scale of spending and interests at stake banished reason and made the project unstoppable, besotting one transport secretary after another. The latest, Justine Greening, gasped over her plan today like Ahmadinejad over his latest nuclear enrichment plant.
This is money beyond all sense. It could have supplied trams to every big city in Britain. The truth is that railways, since their pseudo-privatisation in the mid-90s, have been consuming subsidy at five times the rate they did when nationalised. They take 20 times more bureaucrats to oversee them, while fares have risen to as much as 10 times the European average. Rail oversight has been one of the great failures of modern British government – without a word of inquiry or remorse.
Service quality is at the mercy not of professional managers, but of passing politicians with no knowledge of transport economics, besieged by company lawyers, the Office of Rail Regulation and the Health and Safety Executive. They all pore over hundred-page contracts and risk assessments, measuring costs against subsidies and fines, hiring and firing subcontractors with abandon.
The rail lobbyists have now achieved the grandest squander of public money after warships and computers, and these at least can be scrapped without wrecking the Vale of Aylesbury. Taxpayers must now find £1bn a year in interest payments alone, so a few rich business people can get to Birmingham half an hour earlier. Cameron and Osborne should never again complain about Labour debts. They have allowed through a thoroughly bad project.
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10 January 2012 9:12PM
call me daves poll tax moment
that he can spend half a million of our money to divert the line away from some blonde nonentities constituency tells you all you need to know.
we are the new lala land.
10 January 2012 9:15PM
Cheryl Gillan the Welsh secretary threatens to resign because the line goes through her middle england constituency.
She said resign because it is a collossal waste of taxpayers money and provides no benefit to the people of Wales who she purports to represent.
10 January 2012 9:16PM
Simon
Your article was ruined by your unfortunate reference to trainspotters as nerds! Everyone to their own I say, no one is castigating you for your interests in all things to do with the Countryside....or churches. Incidentally I am not a trainspotter!!
10 January 2012 9:18PM
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10 January 2012 9:18PM
Considering Miliband spent all day promising NOT to spend money we haven't got in 2015 then I fail to see why on earth he hasn't spoken out against this project.
Whatever the reason he had the golden opportunity to show Labour have changed and he blew it totally, same old Labour, same old vanity projects to placate business and the unions.
If Milliband can't take tough decisions in opposition then he hasn't a cat in hell's chance of convincing anyone he'll take them in Government.
But at least Cameron & Clegg can stop saying austerity is because there's no money left - clearly there's at least £30billion+ lying around and since the project will overrun by anywhere from 50% to 100% that will amount to £50billion soon enough.
10 January 2012 9:20PM
What if they widened the Great Union Canal and used the aircraft carriers for folk who weren't in such a hurry?
10 January 2012 9:21PM
Nice one Hermione. It's all madness, what with the Scotland referendum issue Cameron is digging some very deep holes for himself, though more unfortunately for the Country. Call me Dave's Poll Tax moment sums it up succinctly!
Regards Daffers.
10 January 2012 9:23PM
Excellent article.
Our politicians have gone mad.
The only positive outcome would be that it might leave the country too broke for it to get involved in any further illegal wars.
10 January 2012 9:23PM
meanwhile out in the real world, and after years of intense lobbying, network rail have eventually agreeed to re-instate the 500m (!!) todmorden curve to permit a direct burnley-manchester service.
They are still aguing about £15M to restore the double track on sections of the blackburn-bolton line to improve the hourly service to two per hour.
10 January 2012 9:24PM
At one stage there were over 40 competing tram schemes then the last government decided not to pursue them as buses were considered better. Trams and bicycles especially as a way to bring Brownfield sites into use would be much more benficial imho.
10 January 2012 9:25PM
I am not a fan of spending on showcase prestige projects in general. However, we had a discussion of HS2 a few months ago, possibly in response to a Simon Jenkins article. The main point I remember, made by people who seemed to be knowledgeable, is that there is a problem with capacity on the rail network. If expanding capacity requires the building of an additional line, and the question is whether to make it a high-speed or conventional line, then the relevant parameter is the cost difference between the two options, not the full cost of the high-speed line. Given the long time frame over which the investment will be used, it seems to me that high-speed may well be a sensible investment decision. There is no point building the cheapest possible alternative, which will be already be overcrowded and obsolete by the time construction is finished.
However, I do take the point of the article, that if the aim is to shift journeys from road to rail, then the most effective way to do this is by making rail travel a lot cheaper, by subsidies if necessary. If the taxpayer, rather than the train operating companies, are paying to build the line, then I don't see why the train companies should be allowed to charge premium prices for a premium product they did not create. I also think the government should consider the tradeoffs between using money to subsidise fares, and using it to proivde.
10 January 2012 9:26PM
apologies: should have read.... train buffs nerdish hobbies.
10 January 2012 9:26PM
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10 January 2012 9:27PM
@daffers
there was a great article today in of all places the daily maill pointing out dave has no grasp on actual minutiae just the headlines. a bit like tony...
with hs2 he is actually pissing off his own party. idiot.
10 January 2012 9:28PM
I presume that the companies who are going to build it at a cost of £32bn (plus the rest when the cost inevitably outstrip the budget) are all donators to the funds of the senior party in the current coalition government.
Wonder how many ex-ministers will turn up on their boards over the next few years?
10 January 2012 9:29PM
I think that it should go ahead. We need the extra capacity*, and will need it even more in future. Its also providing much needed jobs when they're needed most.
* The magic word that needs to be understood.
10 January 2012 9:29PM
The fact that politicians are even talking about spending such a vast sum of money on an unnecessary vanity project, let alone likely to approve it, shows how completely clueless they are. This country is led by people who are quite simply not fit for purpose. This will be the most staggeringly expensive white elephant in the country's history, which is saying something.
10 January 2012 9:29PM
Good point!
Although I suspect when it comes to a War the funding will appear. Death and destruction must come first in priorities before the NHS etc!
10 January 2012 9:29PM
I agree with your characterisation of Simon Jenkins but every now and again (maybe twice a year) he writes something that actually stands up. I haven't informed myself fully as to the details of this but it does seem to be the Edinburgh trams fiasco writ large. Personally I think we need to re-nationalise the rail network and increase capacity where there exists chronic shortages. That would surely deliver greater benefit for less cost?
10 January 2012 9:32PM
You hit several nails on the head there Simon.
Now, what we really need to do is, firstly, renationalise the railways. You cannot make strategic decisions with such a fragmented system which, as you say COSTS FIVE TIMES MORE than the old British Rail. (It would also be politically popular too, in case you're read Ed M or Maria Eagle).
Then, rather than spend billions on a project which won't deliver its dubious benefits for decades, spend much less money on electrifying and upgrading the network, especially the Chiltern Line.
Bring carriages which are quietly being left to rot by the idiotic train operators (many owned by foreign countries) back into service and build more carriages - in the UK - so that peak demand trains actually have space and we still retain a strategic rail industry.
Stop the equally cretinous airline style demand management which means that regular services are pointless because the only way to get an affordable fare is to commit to one specific train.
invest in the freight only lines which are woefully under used.
Introduce a proper regional policy which means getting to London 15 minutes quicker is not quite as important.
I love travelling by train whwn i can, and support the railways, but we need an excellent railway for the man, not a high speed line for the few.
10 January 2012 9:34PM
i don't disagree but couldn't we start by making what we already have work BETTER than throwing 32 billion
at something untried & untested?
x
10 January 2012 9:34PM
Thanks for the link.....will I need to be cleansed after reading the Daily Mail? and most importantly might I experience a nasty bout of MadMelitis?
D x
10 January 2012 9:35PM
I meant, of course, "an excellent railway for the many, not high speed rail for the few."
10 January 2012 9:35PM
The high-speed rail to Paris following the euro is another prime example, neocolonialism. Someone spoke of the Concorde. Don’t think these things are isolated. You will see what kind of projects will follow the privatisation of Scotland, to disclose the area, call it independence.
10 January 2012 9:37PM
Ah yes, the Tory Party being the political wing of erm, the civil engineering industry.
And when did you all ditch your idea of spending our way out of the doldrums? Let me guess Tory spending on public infrastructure is a cynical Bullingdon ploy but Labour doing it means social justice or whatever. You lot do make me laugh.
I know practically nothing of this but knocking a mere 35mins off the trip to Brum doesn't sound like a great return in all honesty.
10 January 2012 9:39PM
Keep taking the tablets Simon and get some new teeth while you are at it as I can hear your teeth grinding from here.
Within five years of completion, the line capacity will be full and that means a lot of cars off the road. But I guess only rich people drive cars ?
I really enjoy it when Guardian writers are up in arms as it normally mean that good decisions are being made for the benefit of the country as a whole and not for minority interest.
Grind away Simon - it'll do no good as the majority speaketh, and you're in the small petty minority of whiners.
10 January 2012 9:40PM
I thought the aircraft carriers came in pretty useful during the Falklands War though I know you are disgusted at Britain's 'Imperialism' in fighting any battle anywhere, at least they help protect lives of the personnel that are asked to fight.
Maybe HS2 is not such a cut & dry case but then neither was the Dome, Wembley or the Olympics & they've turned out to be somewhat successfully realised as mega-projects.
If people like Simon were in charge the wheel would have been banned as an unnecessary & costly extravagance.
10 January 2012 9:41PM
Only according to the Train Companies who want big subsidies.
I live adjacent to WCML and regulalry travel. Large sections of the Pendolinos run empty (1st class) whils the few standard class carriages are crushed.
Capacity is (relatively) easy to solve.
1) scrap or reduce 1st class (ebding the taxpayer subsidies for 1st class seats would be a start)
2) make the trains longer
3) make the platforms longer
It would cost a LOT less than the £50 billion HS2 will end up costing and we could sctually start tomorrow instead of waiting until 2026 (2030+ allowing for overruns)
10 January 2012 9:42PM
When do we get the US version of this CiF?
We're on track (pun intended) for the same fate.
10 January 2012 9:43PM
What a waste of money. Very sad decision. Even worse Labour have missed the boat or train on this one. Miliband should be all over the Tories on this one.
How many other more important infrastructure jobs could be created for the benefit of many more people with £32 billion ?
If Labour can miss this open goal then there is no hope for them until both Ed's are sacked.
10 January 2012 9:44PM
I'm not an expert, but apparently we are already using the existing lines at or near capacity. We may be able to squeeze out a bit more capacity by running trains closer (with better signalling to improve safety) but ultimately the only way to increase capacity is by adding extra lanes. Again, I don't know the costs of doing this right next to existing lines as opposed to a completely new track.
I don't see untried and untested as a problem, necessarily. That is how technological progress happens, and that is what the UK economy needs.
10 January 2012 9:45PM
"There is still no published strategy for rail investment in Britain." says simon
ho ho ha ha ha, my sides split. Well what is high speed rail then other than a strategy for the future? You could have fooled me but Network Rail does have a strategy for the network its called 'route utilisation strategies', do a google Simon. The strategy includes buying electrification trains to electrify the Great Western, Glasgow Edinburgh, Transpennine, all the spurs of the East coast main line. Lengthening commuting trains and platforms around London (which incidentally is a sticking plaster for capacity issues on the intercity lines).There are plenty of projects to increase demand on our existing infrastructure. What do Network Rail recommend looking out at 15-30 years time for future demand? That's right high speed rail to replicate overload trunk lines
can I get a job being a newspaper commentator? I would like to comment on medical issues and they military, things I know nothing about either!
10 January 2012 9:45PM
The new line is a huge blunder by the government. Not only will it lead to every bleeding heart with a cause to use the "if you can spend £32billion on a train set, why can't you find £50 grand for my badger refuge?" line, but it will destroy thousands of acres of fine country and blight thousands more, while the fares will be so huge that the trains will only be used by those on expenses. It has "white elephant" written all over it.
Finally, but crucially in such a finely-balanced political age, it will seriously piss off thousands of hitherto loyal Tory voters in a score of hitherto solid Tory seats. What price UKIP breaking into parliament in some of them?
All in all, this decision is deeply, indeed almost wilfully, stupid, and the government will regret it deeply.
10 January 2012 9:48PM
HS2 may be needed when the rest of the rail network is up to scratch. Unfortunately the line from Bedford to Sheffield is not electrified and there are many other examples of important new investment which need to be attended to first.
London to Brum is about 1hr 20 mins. Reducing it to 40 mins is no big deal. The only point in its favour is if the capacity of the current line is not enough but there are other ways of solving that problem.
10 January 2012 9:49PM
listened to the unfortunately named lord 'adonis' this morning on 'today' who i have a lot of time for on transport issues because he, unusually knew his brief for a peer but even he didn't quite convince
10 January 2012 9:49PM
"Modern government is addicted to multibillion-pound prestige projects, from aircraft carriers and health computers to the Olympics and HS2. This reflects the power of headlines, but also of industry lobbyists embedded in the Whitehall machine. "
Well that might be true for some industries, Finance and arms suppliers give that impression, but as someone who works in the construction industry i can tell you they are crap at lobbying, its a constant complaint that the government never listens, especially about long term planning (which incidentally brings down construction costs rather than piecemeal lets react and deliver when things become a problem).
Plus i would say actually the NHS IT system sounded like a good idea badly executed. Same for the aircraft carriers
10 January 2012 9:50PM
I started cynical about this wheeze, but am a convert. We need to get people off planes and out of cars: fast, reliable trains does that. Climate change demands that.
The existing East and West coats main line are capacity constrained. It's NOT about getting to Birmingham 20 minutes quicker - it's about how many million passengers you can push through a pipeline. Plus freight, which gets 44-ton trucks off the roads too.
More coaches, longer platforms is not the answer to that one - even if such changes were possible in busy inner cities without, say, demolishing the Bull Ring to make room.
For exactly the same reason, building more tracks alongside existing main lines does not work - especially once you get into cities.
OK, the project is expensive. That has not stopped most of Europe investing in TGV lines etc. Investment being the operative word. And many, many jobs will be created making all this happen: something we should be cheering from the rooftops in the present climate.
This is good, this is exciting: let's do it.
10 January 2012 9:50PM
I have experienced that too. I agree with all your suggestions, but I don't know if they are enough.
It is unfortunate that, thanks to rail privatisation and the incentive structures it has created, we can't trust government on the question of whether the extra capacity is really needed or not. But I don't find Simon Jenkins any more unbiased a voice. And since, by his own admission, he is not interested in technology or numbers, his opinion is rather generic - governments waste money. But most of the infrastructure we rely on today is the wasted money of past governments.
10 January 2012 9:51PM
Have to laugh at some of the comments here, like HS2 was dreamt up by the tories. It has been going for at least 3 years. Wonder what government was in office at the time, that would be daft enough to propose something like this?
10 January 2012 9:52PM
I'm quite enthusiastic about HS2. Not because I trust the Tories to put the wheels in motion of something worthwhile, and not because HS2 on its own will do much, but because it means that something is happening to our railways (it isn't a Tory project anyway).
Simon Jenkins and others are symbols of a Britain in absolute decline on an inward spiral with no room for imagination on how to change the infrastructure of this country.
I also think part of the resistance towards HS2 is the fact that people in general don't feel much ownership over the railways in Britain - thanks to privatisation. The answer is to see moments like these as an opportunity to reinvigorate the debate about public ownership of the railways. We need new railways, we need better railways, so let's make it part of a public programme.
Oh yes, and then there are the Nimbys...
I also wonder about this juxtaposition Jenkins and other paint, namely that the money for HS2 means nothing for everything else. Surely, this should be part of a long-term rejuvenation of the railways - again this should be part of a positive campaign for the public value and good of railways.
Most comparable countries in Europe have high-speed rail and well-functioning programmes to continuously build rail infrastructure and shorten times, make connections more accessible etc...only Britain refuses to do this; partly because of the terrible privatisation process which has seen investment plummet, partly because of Nimbyism, partly because of the huge inward turn in British society.
China, Japan, and others are investing heavily in rail and high-speed rail, and the UK will look like (perhaps already looks like) a developing country in that respect.
This is a good opportunity for a wholesale re-evaluation of what infrastructure and transport means for the British public and society.
Oh yes, and this...
...is just patronising crap.
10 January 2012 9:53PM
The capacity issue is not relatively easy to solve, this report explains why
http://assets.dft.gov.uk/publications/hs2-review-of-strategic-alternatives/hs2-review-of-strategic-alternatives.pdf
10 January 2012 9:53PM
So you favour reducing everyone to cattle class? Then what? Rip out the seats?
10 January 2012 9:54PM
Grow up, and smell the real world coffee.
10 January 2012 9:57PM
A new runway at Heathrow would cost the taxpayer nothing and save all that countryside.
Seems callmeDave has lost the plot what next i wonder ?
10 January 2012 9:58PM
Thanks for that post.
Only a nimby Tory supporter could make a Cameron decision a Labour failure. Truly Orwellian.
If you don't like it blame your own.
10 January 2012 9:58PM
Yes another Blair vanity project carried on by a government with no sense of priority or political nous.
Why not use this money to build houses and hospitals,why cut benefits for people in wheel chairs so others can get to London half an hour faster.
Our railway system has been a pigs ear since privatisation and I for one resent any more tax payers money going to the private sector whilst we starve the public sector of the funds it needs to look after the most vulnerable.old and young in this country.
10 January 2012 9:59PM
How is this a vanity project exactly? The trains are already overcrowded, another line such as this is going to have to be built anyway. Why not make it high speed? London has serious congestion and transport problems. It will allow people to work in the capital yet live outside of it. How many Southeners would like to live in the Midlands for half the cost yet still work in London for the same wages? Put another way, how many Midlanders/northerners would like to be able to get decent paying jobs without having to pay the cost of living down south?
P.s. when do you see the countryside alliance and single issue NIMBY crowd come out against open cast coal mining?
10 January 2012 10:00PM
I live adjacent to WCML and regulalry travel. Large sections of the Pendolinos run empty (1st class) whils the few standard class carriages are crushed.
New 11 car pendolinos are in course of delivery as are additional cars to lenghten the existing pendolinos
10 January 2012 10:00PM
Anyone know why the French can build about 102 km of TGV Est line (and a few trains) for €2.1bn, but in the UK it'll cost more like £7bn to build 210km from London to Birmingham?
http://www.railwaygazette.com/news/single-view/view/lgv-est-phase-2-tendering-gets-underway.html
And we might reach Manchester in 2032?
10 January 2012 10:00PM
Cameron has developed delusions of invincibility. After his 'veto' and the NHS Bill he believes himself to be politically invulnerable. He must have read the Iliad at Eton - perhaps Steve Bell could draw him being dipped into the Styx by that latex nipple.