Comment: The Conservative mistake that Labour has yet to rectify

In all the fuss about the future structure of the railways, there’s a rather big elephant in the room that has been left chomping away at the magic money tree.

And every day that passes is a missed opportunity to develop a positive story about the railways, and to turn a disastrous situation around (at least partly) on the nation’s biggest-ever transport scheme. That project is, of course, HS2.

Remember that? This behemoth is eating up some £150 million every week without much in the way of clear control or oversight.

Older readers will know that I have been an inveterate opponent of HS2, arguing that it was a ridiculously expensive scheme which did not integrate with the existing system, and which was designed in haste along the wrong route.

Nevertheless, to leave it as a site for mushroom-growing and for tourists from better-organised countries to laugh at is not an option. Yes, good money is chasing after bad - but there is no choice.

The first section will be built between Birmingham Curzon Street and Old Oak Common in west London (the Acton to Aston shuttle, as I have dubbed it), at a cost of up to £70 billion - and probably considerably more.

It will also reach Euston eventually, because there would be no sense in having a line that terminates five miles away from the centre of London, reached only by a very busy Elizabeth line that runs east-west.

But then what? It was one of the most callous and ill-thought-out moves by a Prime Minister in recent years to cancel Phase 2a of the scheme between Birmingham (or Handsacre Junction, where HS2 meets the West Coast Main Line) and Crewe.

It was announced at the 2023 Conservative Party conference by Rishi Sunak with the narrowest of short-term interests in mind, and without even the acquiescence of the Rail Minister at the time - the railway-friendly Huw Merriman.

This was the wrong decision for many reasons - not least because this was the most valuable and viable part of HS2, and the part of the route which most needed extra capacity.

No thought had been given to the consequences of this decision, other than spurious claims that the ‘money’ (which did not really exist anyway) could be recycled to other transport schemes, including roadbuilding and pothole filling.

The fact that the then-Transport Secretary Mark Harper acquiesced in this shameful episode confirms him in my mind as the worst holder of that job since I started writing about transport 30 years ago (and it has been a hotly contested field).

Now, it would be reassuring to be able to write that the new Labour government, in its first few months of office, had realised that HS2 was a project which had been left in limbo and needed addressing.

Unfortunately, that has not been the case. Essentially, the scheme is still in the same dismembered state that it has been in since Sunak’s announcement 18 months ago, and Labour ministers seem not to have understood the urgency of making a decision over the line north of Birmingham.

The need to do so is prompted by the fact that the original legislation to enable the Birmingham-Crewe section to be built was passed in February 2021 and only lasts for five years. This means that all the land must be acquired by that date, or the powers lapse.

They can be renewed, but essentially that would mean starting all over again with a Public Inquiry planning process or with a Transport and Works Act Order - both of which would be cumbersome and take several years, kicking any likely start date well into the 2030s.

The Department for Transport has not been pushing for a decision because it is aware that HM Treasury has become increasingly hostile to railway projects - which is partly understandable given the chaotic state of HS2.

However, leaving the project in limbo is probably the worst of all worlds. Eventually some phoenix will have to emerge from the ashes, and that is very likely to include a line at least to Crewe.

Incidentally, initially the new section of line could just run to Madeley in Staffordshire, where it will run parallel to the West Coast Main Line to Crewe - a distance of about 25 miles from Handsacre Junction, and relatively cheap as there is no need for tunnelling.

That, at least, would be an initial compromise that could probably be undertaken for £6bn-£7bn, if it were descoped to what insiders suggest is the best compromise line speed - between economy and passenger benefits - of 270kph (168mph), rather than the 400kph (225mph) originally envisaged.

Apparently, more than half the required land has already been bought, but the DfT is running out of time to ensure that the rest can be purchased before the February 2026 deadline. I have been advised that every day counts, and yet nothing seems to have moved since the General Election.

In the past, I have been sceptical of industry pressure groups lobbying for HS2. But it is difficult to disagree with the thrust of the paper just produced by the High Speed Rail Group (HSRG), and intended for consideration as part of HM Treasury’s imminent spending review stressing the importance of restarting the process of acquiring the land on what the HSRG rightly points out is the most useful section of the whole line.

Dyan Perry, chair of the HSRG, puts it succinctly: “HS2 is at a crossroads. If delivered correctly, it will unlock national transport capacity, generate a multi-billion-pound return to the Treasury, drive economic growth across the UK, and enhance regional connectivity.

“However, if cut short, the government risks wasting substantial investments to date, short-changing the national account and squandering HS2’s far-reaching socio-economic benefits.”

Even though I have previously opposed the scheme, I have to argue that this is spot-on.

The crucial point is that there are no easy decisions about HS2, given that so much money has been spent already, especially as the politics is always going to be fraught.

However, it could be presented as fitting in with wider aims such as improving transport in the North, rather than focusing so much on London and the South and allowing this section of HS2 to die while supporting initiatives in the South East such as the third runway at Heathrow (which despite being a private sector scheme will require considerable public money for road and other transport improvements) and the Lower Thames Crossing (which the Chancellor seems to have endorsed, despite an estimated cost of £10bn).

So, the Labour government, which professed to be seeking a green agenda and creating jobs in the deprived areas of the North, is favouring two unsustainable projects in the South, while allowing the most important transport infrastructure scheme of the century to moulder. It is not a great look.