UK: No rail guarantees if Tories win election

[John Ashworth]

'No guarantees' over major rail schemes if Tories win election

Posted: 3rd February 2010 | 7 Comments

RAILNEWS EXCLUSIVE

If the Conservatives win the General Election, many railway projects and plans will come under review.

That’s the warning from the party’s shadow transport secretary, Theresa Villiers. She believes commitments made by the present government may not be affordable.

She told Railnews: “Take electrification. It is easy to make promises, and I am certainly a supporter of railway electrification in principle. I can also see a good case for choosing the routes which the government has named – the Great Western Main Line to Swansea, Oxford and Newbury and several in the north west. They are all very strong candidates.

“But the real issue is affordability, and I cannot give a guarantee that any scheme would go ahead under a Conservative government until we have applied the Value for Money test. The government certainly sounds committed to these plans, but the real question will be whether it will be able to come through on its promises.”

She is also reluctant to give any commitment on such major procurements as the Thameslink Programme fleet and Intercity Express.

“The benefits of new rolling stock are understood. But whether the fleets can be ordered as they have been described is another matter. I am not transport secretary. If, speaking hypothetically, I were to be transport secretary after the election then I would be able to scrutinise the proposed contracts. At the moment, I can’t. We are also waiting for the government’s delayed Rolling Stock Plan. Until we see the components in that Plan it is very difficult to say what we might do.

“The main problem, of course, is the general financial position that we will inherit. The government has created substantial debts, and it can’t go on writing cheques forever. So any project will have to come under review after the election. I would say the Crossrail project will be included in that review as well. But Crossrail would bring important benefits, so the test will be one of affordability.”

The transport secretary Andrew Adonis told Railnews in autumn 2009 that he was seeking a cross-party consensus on High Speed Rail, at least in general terms, and from what Ms Villiers says it does seem that he might have achieved it.

However, Ms Villiers’ vision is slightly different from that of the Government. She said: “We’ve prepared a detailed model and business case for a High Speed Line from London, serving Heathrow as well, and then going north to Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds. A route has not yet been decided, but those are the places which will be served first.“It is essential that we do start building a High Speed network, and the places I have mentioned will form the first stage. After that we would go on from Leeds to Newcastle, and then on to Scotland. But we would see this project being developed, built and opened in several stages in any case. That’s been the typical pattern in other countries.

“As for costings, we reckon London/Birmingham/Manchester/Leeds will need £20 billion. Under our plans, just over three quarters of that investment would come from the taxpayer, and £4.3 billion from the private sector. Fares would be comparable with intercity generally. I’m not ruling out premium fares altogether, but our business model does not assume them.”

The timescale for the Conservative High Speed network would not see construction start before 2015, with completion of the first stage twelve years later.“We are confident of our figures,” says Ms Villiers, “because we have done extensive modelling as part of our business case.”

(c) Railnews Ltd 2010

[John Ashworth]

Tory fears of vote backlash put high-speed rail route in doubt

Refusal to back London-Midlands plan shatters consensus on 200mph trains

* Dan Milmo, transport correspondent
* guardian.co.uk, Thursday 18 February 2010 20.52 GMT

The Conservatives have refused to back a proposed 200mph London-to-Birmingham rail route in a move that shatters the political consensus over a high-speed train network.

The transport secretary, Lord Adonis, has warned that the multibillion-pound infrastructure project must be "above politics" if it is to succeed. However, the Tories will not endorse a route proposal amid fears of a backlash from voters in the home counties and West Midlands whose homes may be blighted.

Theresa Villiers, the shadow transport secretary, told the Guardian that the Conservatives had refused offers to view an advanced copy of the high-speed rail white paper, due to be published next month, which will be followed by a public consultation on a route linking the capital with Britain's second city. "We are not going to give a political blank cheque to Labour," said Villiers. The Tories have instead reserved the right to draw up an alternative London-to-Birmingham route should they win the election, saying it would be "unfair" to strike a deal behind closed doors.

Villiers said: "We would not want to close down debate on a route before the people affected by it have the chance to be heard. It would be very unfair for the people affected if they thought there was a cosy political consensus on the route."

The Conservatives remain committed to high-speed rail and have commissioned a team of independent rail experts to scrutinise the plans, which have been drawn up by a government-owned company, High Speed Two. The experts have received verbal briefings but have not seen the final HS2 report, which was delivered to Adonis last December, and have not seen the final London-to-Birmingham route.

Villiers said the Conservatives had been offered, and had declined, the opportunity to view HS2's findings before publication. "We appreciate the offer from the secretary of state but we feel that it would be inappropriate to take a decision on the route without talking to the communities involved."

Last night Adonis said there was "no question" of a route being finalised without consulting the public. He added: "Full public consultation will of course take place on any route proposed by the government. The consensus I seek is on the principle of high-speed rail, so that it can be taken forward on a cross-party basis in the next parliament."

Adonis is prepared to risk alarming potential Labour voters by publishing a detailed London-to-Birmingham proposal in the white paper that locates the tracks to within five metres in urban areas and 25 metres in the countryside. Endorsing such a tightly planned route could spell trouble for the Tories as well because it is widely expected to slice through the Conservative heartland of Buckinghamshire, including a swath of the Chiltern hills – one of 40 areas of outstanding natural beauty in England and Wales.

One Tory party source acknowledged concerns that the route could go through key constituencies between the home counties and the West Midlands, triggering complaints about property blight from houseowners. "We don't want to lose 10 seats backing a route blindly," said the source. The Conservatives have pledged to build a London-to-Birmingham line instead of a third runway at Heathrow and their vision of how the line links with Britain's largest airport is a point of contention between the parties. The Tories are believed to be sympathetic to a proposal by the engineering firm Arup that makes Heathrow a central feature of the route. Under the Arup vision, a major rail hub would be based to the north of the airport and all trains would go via the station.

Villiers said: "We see high-speed rail as providing an alternative to short-haul flights, so we want it to be easy to switch from plane to rail at Heathrow. I am not confident that what the government will come up with will necessarily be the best solution for high-speed rail."

The likely Adonis route, however, now being widely discussed in rail industry circles, would see Heathrow positioned off the main line. It would be linked to the network by a spur or loop at Old Oak Common in west London, which trains would reach from a London terminal at Euston station.