HS2 Hybrid Bill

[exdeus]

First post but very long time lurker.

I thought it might be useful to have a thread detailing progress on the HS2 Hybrid Bill as the other HS2 thread deals mainly with the merits or otherwise of the project from an industry and enthusiast perspective.

The Hybrid Bill is due for deposit on 25 November and with the expected Environmental Statement is expected to run to over 55,000 pages so there should be lots to interest us.

Of significant precedent to this process is the previous Hybrid Bill of the Crossrail Act which can be researched in full detail here:

http://services.parliament.uk/bills/2007-08/crossrail.html

From First Reading to Royal Assent took 3 and half years exactly. This would put Royal Assent on the HS2 bill at around May 2017, far in excess of the Government's timetable.

Hybrid Bills go through a Petitioning Stage between second and third reading allowing affected parties to put their case. From the above link, for the Crossrail Bill, I count a total of 74 Committee meetings for the Commons alone. This process took about 1 year 9 months.

Obviously London is very populous and would therefore generate many petitions but HS2 covers a much larger area and of course also passes through sensitive parts of London. It's therefore difficult to imagine the new process being any shorter than that above.

Detractors are concentrating on the cost and disruption of HS2 at present but based on the above timetable there appears to be scope for a considerable delay to the project start. Will this bring the opening of Phase 1 and 2 closer together than we are currently expecting? The Government must be aware of the difficulties facing this Bill so was this always their intention?

I found this quote from Christopher Chope MP from 2005. Just shows the criticisms of HS2 are hardly original. Substitute Crossrail for HS2 and you have Ed Balls:

"The hon. Gentleman also asked me to make a commitment to the Crossrail project, but no serious prospective Government—such as we are—would be prepared to write a blank cheque for any project, however desirable people might think it is. If the hon. Gentleman is seeking a blank cheque from me today for the Crossrail project, I am afraid that he is going to be disappointed, just as he will have been disappointed by the failure of his own Government to provide one. The Minister talked about this being a £10 billion project, but we know that it is already projected to be much more expensive."

Finally, it is worth noting that the real battleground for this project is likely to take place in March 2014. This is pencilled in for Second Reading and is when the principles of the Bill will be voted on by MPs. If it passes, the Bill will be established and may not be overturned by evidence in Committee or from pressure groups. It could of course still be cancelled by Government but it looks as though anti-HS2 activity will reach fever-pitch early next year to co-incide with Second Reading.

 

[deltic]

One idea to speed up the Parliamentary process is to hold a joint Commons and Lords Committee - thereby roughly halving the time it will take. The downside is that having two bites at the cherry means issues unresolved as it goes through the Commons can be sorted by the time it gets to the Lords. With just a single committee it means more pressure to resolve issues quickly which usually involves greater cost.

Given that Petitioners have to appear in person and demonstrate that they are impacted directly by the Bill a lot of objectors will fall away. A lot of time between now and the summer will be spent by HS2 talking to potential objectors in attempt to limit the number of serious petitions received.

 

[Simon11]

55,000 pages

No wonder its taking so long!

 

[deltic]

much of the ecology work would take a year regardless of whether the project is large or small as assessments need to be done for each season

 

[exdeus]

Thinking about it some more, I now see why David Higgins has been asked to report on lowering the cost of HS2.

The report is due to be published in March 2014, just before the Hybrid Bill second reading which for the reasons above is when the real decision on the project will be taken and is the last obvious opportunity for Labour to u-turn and force cancellation.

Clearly the report wouldn't be established if they weren't confident savings could be found, so just before a crucial vote of MPs on HS2 it is a fair assumption that in March HS2's overall cost will go down and therefore the BCR will go up! Maybe even a speed up of Phase 2 to draw in the northern MPs.

Question now is, how will the cost be reduced?

An easy political win is to water down the engineering on Phase 2 to reduce total cost substantially. Since Phase 2 is not in this Hybrid Bill these decisions do not have to be set in stone. The expensive things could be added back in at a later date when Phase 2 is going through Parliament and when Phase 1 was already passed. That would be cynical however....

Any other suggestions how they will streamline the project?

 

[HSTEd]

Reduce the contingency by a few billion.

Job done.

 

[YorkshireBear]

Reduce the contingency by a few billion.

Job done.

Yep, i think it would also be good to find a way of letting the Private sector fund the rolling stock as originally planned as that has added 7bn to the project!

 

[MidlandMainlie]

Reduce the contingency by a few billion.

Job done.

The cynic in me feels this is what Labour have been aiming for in their apparent "opposition" to HS2. When Sir David Higgins reports in March Labour will claim the credit for forcing the government to tackle the rising costs of HS2 and boost their credibility in managing public finances.

 

[Peter Mugridge]

Reduce the contingency by a few billion.

Job done.

Interesting point here; the BCR was recently announced as having reduced from 2.5:1 to 2.3:1. Since that was after the £14bn contingency was introduced, then logically the underlying BCR has gone up quite a bit hasn't it?

Or did they use adjusted figures in order to compare it properly? That's not clear...

 

[gordonthemoron]

Maybe even a speed up of Phase 2 to draw in the northern MPs.

I thought Northern MPs were already in favour?

 

[YorkshireBear]

I thought Northern MPs were already in favour?

Generally yes, but getting all of them may be helpful.

 

[jon0844]

The cynic in me feels this is what Labour have been aiming for in their apparent "opposition" to HS2. When Sir David Higgins reports in March Labour will claim the credit for forcing the government to tackle the rising costs of HS2 and boost their credibility in managing public finances.

Yes, I think so too. Simply because we know that all parties would do this.

But at least it means we can be 99.99% sure Labour will fully support HS2 and it will go ahead because of this.

 

[GRALISTAIR]

55,000 pages

No wonder its taking so long!

CONSULTANTS - If you can not find a solution, there is a lot of money to be gained by prolonging the problem.

 

[Deerfold]

Yep, i think it would also be good to find a way of letting the Private sector fund the rolling stock as originally planned as that has added 7bn to the project!

I'd imagine avoiding ROSCOs at all costs would be good.

 

[nerd]

Interesting point here; the BCR was recently announced as having reduced from 2.5:1 to 2.3:1. Since that was after the £14bn contingency was introduced, then logically the underlying BCR has gone up quite a bit hasn't it?

Or did they use adjusted figures in order to compare it properly? That's not clear...

HS2 ltd don't recognise the Treasury's £42.6bn P95 cost figure. They used the P50 cost figure of £38.4bn for the BCR calculation

 

[Peter Mugridge]

Do we know for sure that the Commons statement used the HS2 BCR figure rather than a Treasury provided version, though?

 

[MidlandMainlie]

An interesting article on the BBC website about Labour and HS2 By Chris Mason, Political correspondent, BBC News .

Is Labour right behind HS2?

"Yes, but..."

If you needed two words to describe what was becoming Labour's position on the planned new north-south high speed rail line, HS2, they would be the two I would opt for.

Led by shadow chancellor Ed Balls, Labour began to sound increasingly sceptical about an idea it had originally signed off in government.

It wasn't cancelling the train, but there were problems. There were, if you like, leaves on the line.

More on those leaves in a moment.

There would be, Labour repeatedly told us, "no blank cheque" for the project.

Mr Balls argued that the costs of the project had spiralled and any responsible shadow chancellor had to be responsible with the public finances.

'Beggared belief'

Many at Westminster mused that the price tag for HS2, £50bn, was a tantalising pot of money for a shadow chancellor to consider spending elsewhere and his scepticism was a vehicle for trying to convince people that he, and Labour, could be trusted with the country's money.

It was no surprise that the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats ridiculed the apparent equivocation and prevarication.

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg said it was "miserable," "pathetic" and "absolutely beggared belief."

But what was far more tricky for Labour was what the party's own big noises in the north of England had to say.

These are people who aren't big names outside their own cities.

But they run some of England's biggest places outside London: Birmingham, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Nottingham, Sheffield and Newcastle.

With Labour out of power at Westminster, they hold some of the most powerful offices of government, albeit local government, held by any Labour figures in the country.

After Labour's reshuffle, they wrote to the new shadow transport secretary, Mary Creagh, to express their exacerbation at what they called "a significant weakening of the party's commitment to the project".

'On track'

They warned, rather strikingly, of a "protracted public conflict between the party leadership and the Labour led core cities" if this wasn't resolved.

A matter of days later, Ed Balls spoke at the CBI conference.

My colleague James Landale blogged then on what he spotted as a possible change of tone from Labour, to sound a little more positive.

And now back to those leaves on the line I was referring to.

In an interview with Ed Balls' regional newspaper, the Yorkshire Post, the former Shadow Transport Secretary, Maria Eagle, now in the environment brief, appears to have a little dig at her shadow cabinet colleague.

"It's all back on track... There's been some leaves on the line, I think, that Ed Miliband has cleared away. Our position now is very clear," she told the newspaper.

And she said she understood why some had demanded greater clarity from Labour's leadership on HS2: "I understand the concerns and why they feel the need to express their views, and I think our position is now very clear. Ed Miliband has made it very clear. And it's pretty much what I was saying when I was doing the job. We're going to deliver this north-south railway line."

Next March is likely to be the moment when the legislation needed to make HS2 happen, known as a hybrid bill, reaches a crucial stage in the Commons.

Labour sources suggest that even then won't necessarily have to be the moment the party definitively commits one way or another.

But it's unlikely too much equivocation and prevarication will be sustainable either.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-24920028

 

[HowardGWR]

An interesting article on the BBC website about Labour and HS2 By Chris Mason, Political correspondent, BBC News .



http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-24920028

I didn't find a change of mood arising from Ed Balls' speech to the CBI, just going by the transcript. It must have been the tone that caused Lansdale to blog as he did.

I believe the project is safe. Balls will not want to reduce the advantage in the polls by sowing too much dissent. If he really does plan to scupper it, it will become a disastrous situation, if or when they get power. A bit like Brown and Blair only over a different topic, but at its root, the blinding ambition of politicians. One can't rule it out though.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Sorry, just one more thing; is your moniker a typo?

 

[MidlandMainlie]

I didn't find a change of mood arising from Ed Balls' speech to the CBI, just going by the transcript. It must have been the tone that caused Lansdale to blog as he did.

I believe the project is safe. Balls will not want to reduce the advantage in the polls by sowing too much dissent. If he really does plan to scupper it, it will become a disastrous situation, if or when they get power. A bit like Brown and Blair only over a different topic, but at its root, the blinding ambition of politicians. One can't rule it out though.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Sorry, just one more thing; is your moniker a typo?

I have to agree with your points, If Balls abandons support for HS2 it would will cause a damaging rift between himself and Milliband who supports the project; (Balls supports a 3rd runway at Heathrow which Milliband opposes). Also as the article alludes too there would be a backlash from the Labour lead councils of all the Northern cities that benefit from HS2 , something I think Milliband will want to avoid 13 months before an election.

As to answer your other question sadly my Dyslexia got the better of me when I registered

 

[Chris125]

I didn't find a change of mood arising from Ed Balls' speech to the CBI, just going by the transcript. It must have been the tone that caused Lansdale to blog as he did.

I actually found his speech very telling. He wasn't going to row back on what he'd said before but he did feel the need to confirm Labour's support for HS2 - something he'd been trying to avoid during the Labour conference and which Maria Eagle had been forced to ad-lib in her speech.

Chris

 

[al green]

Given that Petitioners have to appear in person and demonstrate that they are impacted directly by the Bill a lot of objectors will fall away. A lot of time between now and the summer will be spent by HS2 talking to potential objectors in attempt to limit the number of serious petitions received.

Not necessarily. I appeared at Crossrail select committee although not directly affected as a property owner. Crossrail took the decision to allow all petitioners.

On the other hand I also tried to appear on CTRL bill. There the proposers tried to exclude as many as possible and it was ruled that I didn't have locus standii. But I still appeared before the committee to plead my case for locus standii. I think that's why Crossrail decided to allow all petitioners because it was easier and possibly quicker than fighting their right to be heard.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

The cynic in me feels this is what Labour have been aiming for in their apparent "opposition" to HS2. When Sir David Higgins reports in March Labour will claim the credit for forcing the government to tackle the rising costs of HS2 and boost their credibility in managing public finances.

However, do not forget that the Labour Party were chastised in very strong terms by the leaders of the ruling Labour bodies in both Liverpool and Manchester for their perceived lack of support for the North-West on HS2 and its forward economic development by their general dithering. Notable it is that after that rebuke, the Labour Party were suddenly galvanised into action.

 

[RailwaysToday]

Will be interested to see what the outcome of this is. McLoughlin is appearing before the transport select committee on Nov 26th as they take a deeper look at the KPMG report. I hope they haven't overdone it in the report as it will just undermine the overall case. There some interesting facts on the case for HS2 in this infographic: http://www.politics.co.uk/opinion-formers/alstom/article/north-south-new-rail-link

 

[deltic]

Will be interested to see what the outcome of this is. McLoughlin is appearing before the transport select committee on Nov 26th as they take a deeper look at the KPMG report. I hope they haven't overdone it in the report as it will just undermine the overall case. There some interesting facts on the case for HS2 in this infographic: http://www.politics.co.uk/opinion-formers/alstom/article/north-south-new-rail-link

I'd be surprised if anyone on the Committee understands the technicalities behind the KPMG report which is as much to do with benefits arising from the use of released capacity on the classic network as with HS2 services themselves.

 

[exdeus]

Louise Ellman, chair of the Transport Select Committee was questioned during Report Stage on the Paving Bill about whether her Committee had looked closely enough at the Government assumptions.

She could only answer along the lines that their last report was in 2011 and that a number of questions they had asked the Government were still being raised so it's obvious they will want to exercise a little control before the Hybrid Bill gets going in earnest. This appearance is their way of doing that although I expect McLoughlin to use it as an extended press release for the project, seeing as it is only one day after the Hybrid Bill and statement to parliament.

I do expect the updated report produced by the Committee, of which this appearance is one segment, to be a powerful debating weapon during Second Reading though, either for or against - probably both.

Ms Ellman herself is a supporter of HS2 and spoke in favour of it during the Paving Bill debate.


--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
HS2 Paving Bill now passed and Royal Assent expected on 21 November.

Baroness Kramer confirmed the Hybrid Bill will be introduced on Monday 25 November.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

HS2 Paving Bill now passed and Royal Assent expected on 21 November. Baroness Kramer confirmed the Hybrid Bill will be introduced on Monday 25 November.

Thanks for this updated information.

 

[HowardGWR]

I'd be surprised if anyone on the Committee understands the technicalities behind the KPMG report which is as much to do with benefits arising from the use of released capacity on the classic network as with HS2 services themselves.

If there is only one person on the TSC, who will understand the technicalities, it will Mrs Louise Ellman MP.

 

[exdeus]

High Speed Rail Bill now being read a first time.

Environment Statement and associated documents to follow online imminently.

Here they are:

http://www.hs2.org.uk/hs2-phase-one-hybrid-bill/hybrid-bill

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

High Speed Rail Bill now being read a first time.
Environment Statement and associated documents to follow online imminently.
Here they are:
http://www.hs2.org.uk/hs2-phase-one-hybrid-bill/hybrid-bill

Mountainous documents.
The most relevant ones technically are the Gov's response to some route refinements after consultation.
They are all confirmed much as proposed (eg Euston low level terminal and NLL widening).
Nothing really new in all this.

On R5 Live, Peter Allen has just asked the Labour shadow transport sec if she backed the bill, and we got the usual "no blank cheque" stuff.
This is without having read a single page.

Meanwhile, in the Guardian, their city man says it's all a waste of money and we only need rebuild "14 miles of railway" to produce an independent freight artery from the continent to the north instead.
It would also avoid all this environmental trouble.
He didn't name the site, but I guess it's Woodhead and reopening the GC.
The other 250 miles will cost peanuts and have no impact, of course (some of it in the Chilterns!).
And will still not free up passenger capacity on WCML/MML/ECML.

 

[Ironside]

HS2 win in the supreme court today! Anti campaign suggest they will petition EU but Supreme court has not given them permission to appeal there.