I have always felt conflicted by the HS2 rail plan. An excessively complex railway designed for speed and as a consequence accessible for pricing reasons to a very limited part of the population who will gain as a consequence relatively small amounts of time whose economic benefit Is hard to justify has always appeared to me to be in conflict with the need to upgrade so many local railways in ways that can actually provide much greater environmental gain. At the planning level I do, as a result, have a little difficulty criticising all aspects of yesterday's decision on this issue by the government. What I am, however, certain about is that the reason for it being made is entirely wrong.
The HS2 route to Sheffield and Leeds is not being cancelled for technical reasons. What is more, climate change has almost certainly increased the economic case for it being built. However, it ran foul of Treasury dogma.
As Rishi Sunak announced in October, the Treasury now has a new fiscal rule. The aim is to eliminate borrowing for day to day spending, and to limit borrowing for capital expenditure to 3% whilst reducing the overall debt to GDP ratio. The inevitable consequence is capital rationing for projects that might otherwise meet every condition for viability. I have little doubt that this rule is the real reason why HS2 has been cancelled. Spending on the scale that HS2 requires (and it is big) threatened Sunak's rule, and when it comes down to the conflict between meeting people's needs, tackling transport issues, dealing with the environmental crisis, or making rational economic appraisal as opposed to complying with a politician's artificially imposed economic rule will the latter always come first.
Why did Leeds suffer? Simply because it was the easiest bit to lop off the plan. Candidly I doubt that there was anything more rational to this than that. Something had to go to keep Sunak happy, and Leeds paid the price despite all the effort that has been made to promote it as a major regional hub.
The really disturbing aspect of this is its irrationality. The government can at present borrow at net negative real interest rates. The real capital cost of investment is, as a consequence, inconsequential to the government's borrowing cost. In that case finding a financial case against taking HS2 to Leeds would have been very hard. Despite that the massively risky political decision to cancel was taken simply because despite the very obvious massive appetite for government debt that exists in financial markets the government believes that its borrowing crowds out private investment when there is no evidence that this is true. it also believes that borrowing must be repaid when, again, over a period of more than 300 years there is persistent evidence that there has never been reason to repay debt, or demand for the government to do so.
There was, in that case, no justification for the political risk that Boris Johnson took yesterday except for his need to pacify those in the Treasury who persist in pursuing economic policy based on beliefs that are obviously contrary to evidence, let alone the well-being of the people of this country.
If this causes temporary embarrassment to Boris Johnson I am not worried. However, as anyone who knows anything about the climate crisis realises, the process of both mitigating its impact and then adapting to the demands that it will make will require significant public investment. There is no way around this. That is where yesterday's precedent is worrying.
In the future, if we are told that the choice is between human life on earth or meeting an arbitrary and irrational rule set by Treasury politicians the current likelihood is that the Treasury will decide that life on earth is worth less than meeting their rule set for reasons that no one can possibly explain. And when economic irrationality might literally become the biggest threat to human life we all need to worry.
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“as anyone who knows anything about the climate crisis realises,”
“the choice is between human life on earth or meeting an arbitrary and irrational rule set by Treasury politicians”
Who is saying that is the choice? Can you quote a source that says human life on earth is threatened? Because nowhere in the latest IPCC report does it say human life on earth is threatened, even under their worst case scenario. If you know “anything about the climate crisis” why don’t you know what’s in the IPCC report?
You’re being hysterical and alarmist. The former is obviously just part of your personality but what are your motives for the latter?
You are talking utter nonsense
Climate science does show that very large parts of the planet might become uninhabitable very soon, and that climate change sufficient to make almost all of the available land mass unfit for habitation is entirely possible
That means that human life on earth is most definitely threatened
What do you gain by lying about that?
I thought trolls could at least read!
IF we are told that the choice is between human life on earth or meeting an arbitrary and irrational rule set by Treasury politicians
Richard did not state that is the choice, although it very well may be.
I fear the Leeds part of HS2 is merely collateral damage in the next Tory Leadership battle which is bubbling under!
How to get across the idea that it is irrelevant how much money the Government creates and spends.
What matters is the fate of that money after it is spent.
Will it continue to circulate in the economy? If so, the Government will get it back in the long run.
Is it the best available way to improve our lives?
Will it prevent predictable long term harm (climate change)?
Will it provide resilience to Black Swan events (pandemics)?
As Richard’s post points out, these are not easy questions. But they are where the debate should be focussed.
I think of Sunak on the Titanic, carefully counting the deckchairs, rather than the lifeboats.
So true….
I agree that there is a very strong case for the government investing in public transport – but very little evidence that what they are doing is a thought-out strategy. A process of investing in the detailed planning for, and then cancelling, a high-speed line is clear evidence of that.
Most of our European neighbours have had fully electrified railways for decades, and then built high speed networks that succeed in attracting people on to rail who might otherwise drive or fly. Britain has a lot of catching up to do, and it would make sense to do first whatever has the biggest impact.
Given the cancelled route involved connections with Yorkshire, one target for improvements might be the pinch points in the current network (for example, the East Coast main line is currently restricted by capacity over a stretch in Hertfordshire – this would be expensive necessitating new bridges and tunnels, but massively fewer than HS2). And it needs to be established where the benefits would be much greater with a completely new line (probably sections of the trans-Pennine route) but consider whether it needs to satisfy requirements for high speed trains or would deliver the benefit by enabling normal express train speeds at lower cost.
Given transport is such a major source of CO2 emission, stopping the planet going into climate over-run will need a change of behaviour – and one way is ensuring we have the less emitting public transport options to switch to. However I fear the government will just shelve any significant investment.
The modified rail plan is already costing tens of billions which Sunak is happy to fund but there will be a huge cost and time overruns as with the Euston – Birmingham ecological disaster route now being built.
Where do I start?
This might be a good place
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/nov/19/london-to-edinburgh-train-brochures-passengers-screens
In the early 1960s, only five or six trains a day left Edinburgh Waverley for London King’s Cross, with nameboards advertising them variously as the Flying Scotsman, the Talisman, the Heart of Midlothian and the Queen of Scots. The fastest journey took six hours. Today, there are 28 trains each way, with average journey times of four hours 30 minutes.
In 1984 I made the journey by sea from Liverpool to Ardrossan via Douglas on the Isle of Man Steam Packet Co’s Ben My Cree – not the current monstrosity.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Ben-my-Chree_(1965)
The Ben’s boiler pressure was 415psi, however when I made my usual visit to the engine room, I was surprised to see the inlet pressure on the turbines was only 175 and the usually fast ship plodding along. This was pre ‘Global Warming’ but it was because she could do Douglas to Ardrossan in 6 hours on half the fuel it took to do it in 5.
OK its a ship but exactly the same sort of thing happens with a train or car. If you dont go so fast you use less energy.
So my first point might be rather than HS2 why not Conventional 2?
Then if we want to reduce Carbon emissions what about the embodied carbon in all that steel & concrete? As Low Tech magazine points out here
https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2007/04/planes-on-whe-1.html
We end up with planes on wheels in terms of emissions.
At the moment in the UK about 8% of passenger miles or freight ton miles are on rail, or about 2% of all journeys. Simon Jenkins in the Guardian – ex BR board member made the very good point that 75% of journeys are less than 5 miles and really we need to be looking at what we can do to improve those, that means cycling, walking and buses or trams , not HS2 which does nothing for these.
Then there is the question of who will use these trains? There is a strong linkage between income and how far or fast you travel, the beneficiaries are likely to be the well off making business journeys.
Finally of course as BR’s own business model forecast if you increase train speeds you get more passengers, but thats the last thing the planet can afford.
I might agree with the idea of capacity improvements but surely we need to be travelling less and slower?
How about going back to the 70’s and starting by reducing the speed limit on the roads to 60mph on motorways and dual carriageways, and 50 on other roads. Also cutting or ending most internal flights? Carbon cuts at the stroke of a pen.
You hit many of my concerns that I hope I hinted at
Call me cynical but I see the Treasury Politicians hands firmly on the tiller here. In the Treasury Politicians mindset with respect to finance, book balancing, it is difficult to cut one single high cost project before an election without suffering political damage. Consequently yesterday was an exercise in breaking the money down into a ragbag of projects that could be cut and cancelled at anytime and more importantly each one on its own would only affect a few people thereby mitigating electoral damage.
Noted
If the Treasury were really concerned about financial proberty, they should be listening to the Insulate Britain protesters, and investing faster in renewable energy! At my last estimate, the UK spends upto £10B every year importing natural gas, mostly from Norway.
As far as I am concerned the only part of the scheme that even might have come close to justifying the destruction involved in it was the linking up of the big northern cities, now completely scrapped. I lived in Barnsley for a time, and once had to travel from there to Liverpool to pick up a passport – it took longer doing that than it did travelling to London by train, although the latter was much longer in distance terms.
When the railways were privatised it was on the back of huge cuts to infrastructure to make it look attractive. I saw cost cutting everywhere – a lot of de-quadrification of mainline track with more trains running on fewer pathways and some mothballed routes cut altogether to save money that can only reduce capacity. There are shorter trains in terms of room and space – the trans Pennine route I used in the late 1980’s used to run with a loco and 8 coach trains and now run as 4 or less (2!) as did many BR and then later Virgin inter regional trains with late model spacious Mark 2D/E/F coaches.
If the train was too full, a relief train was put on. Now, if its not in a contract, it costs an arm and a leg to sort that out.
All the effort went into selling land and retail space.
This is not a long term railway. It’s only strategic aim (and I use that term lightly in this case) is to deliver returns to investors and providers as quickly as possible using sardine cans as rail vehicles and asset stripping railways assets.
It ought to be called ‘Rentier Railways Inc’ and I can’t see it changing at all.
It’s been totally messed up by the Tories – and lets not forget it!