Category: HS2

TORIES CAN BE NORTHERN CHAMPIONS

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I never expected to say this after Eric Pickles destroyed our regional development agencies, but the party has a chance next week to position itself as the defender of the North.

 

The private consensus in Brighton was that Ed Balls was preparing us for a Labour government to scupper HS2. His remarks, and those of other party spokesman after his speech on Monday, went beyond legitimate worries over escalating costs. Balls has got his eyes on the £50bn projected cost of HS2 for other projects. The problem is that in practice that money has been assembled for this scheme and would not automatically be available for health or schools.

 

How depressingly familiar all this is. I thought the Olympics marked an end of timid party squabbling Britain unable to take the big decisions at the right time. In fact we are late with this scheme. The West Coast main line is already over capacity south of Rugby. That’s why places like Blackpool are denied a direct service. North of Rugby HS2 would connect our great northern cities like Leeds and Manchester and crucially allow the existing rail network to improve the service to towns and cities not directly on the HS2 line.

 

There are broadly three groups opposed to HS2. There are the small but vocal number of people directly affected by the line who’s homes are already blighted. We must sympathise with them and compensate them very generously. I know how it feels. My home was demolished for a roundabout in the 1960s.

 

There is the London lobby already campaigning for Crossrail 2 oblivious to the historic scandalous imbalance in transport investment between the capital and the rest of the country.

 

And now we have elements of the Labour Party and others who want to spend the money elsewhere. Their argument ignores the point I made above that £50bn won’t be available to be transferred, and it fails to answer the question of what will happen when we are trying to use a Victorian railway two hundred years after it was built.

 

So in Manchester next week I would suggest the Tories seize the initiative. They will be meeting in a building that symbolises the need to move on when it comes to rail investment. Manchester Central station closed in 1969 and is now their conference centre. The government are investing in the Northern Hub, the Ordsall Chord, and electrifying the Liverpool to Manchester line to dramatically improve services on the existing network across the North.

 

The Transport Secretary Patrick Mcloughlin should burnish his credentials as a former miner and claim that it is the Tories who have the best interests of the North at heart in backing HS2. They certainly need some arguments after Labour’s conference in Brighton.

 

RED ED.

 

I asked last week for some distinctive policies for Labour to campaign on and to be fair we got some. The promise to scrap the bedroom tax and the energy price freeze are the best indications yet of how different an Ed led party is from how his brother would have run things.

 

These are concrete proposals with a definite left wing thrust. The more the energy companies squeal the more will people identify with Ed. The claim that, in response to world market forces, energy prices go up like a rocket and down like a feather rings true with hard pressed families in the North.

 

The question is how broad this appeal will be? Are there enough struggling voters in the South to join Ed’s crusade or will they be frightened off as they were when Neil Kinnock was in charge?

 

 

 

ON ILKLEY MOOR BAHT HS2

 

HIGH SPEED RAIL

 

At a meeting at the Yorkshire Show earlier this month, the HS2 project was apparently given the big thumbs down. Perhaps Dales farmers have more pressing things on their minds, but it does illustrate that this £40bn project is dividing opinion across the North.

 

The report on opinion across the Pennines was given at the annual get together of the North West CBI and MPs where Dave Watts, the St Helens North MP pointed to the escalating costs and said the project was “masquerading as a northern scheme”. This reflects fears that the huge investment in one project could be used as an excuse not to fund other infrastructure schemes across the North.

 

But Blackpool Tory Paul Maynard is a fan. He told the assembled business people that cities linked by high speed rail had prospered. Although a supporter he said reduced journey time was not the key reason he was backing HS2. It would increase capacity on the West Coast Main Line (WCML) something he was particularly in favour of. Maynard said his campaign to get a direct train service from Blackpool to London was currently being blocked because of lack of capacity on the WCML south of Rugby.

 

Maynard also criticised the tone of the High Speed rail Campaign who have recently launched a “your jobs or their lawns” attack on wealthy objectors to the line in the Chilterns. The Tory MP preferred positive campaigning for further transport investment in the North. Now that we’ve got the Northern Hub rail improvement scheme based on Manchester, we should be thinking what the next project should be. Maynard pointed out that this was the way Boris Johnston approached things. The Mayor of London was already demanding Crossrail 2.

 

Other contributors to the discussion included Alan Rigby, Head of Corporate Banking at HSBC. He felt the two hour journey was just about right for people with work to do on laptops while Len Collinson believed that technology would reduce the need for people to physically meet.

BANK LENDING.

 

This topic is being debated everywhere and our gathering held at the magnificent and expanding Chester Zoo, was no exception. Andrew Miller is the MP for Ellesmere Port. His Commons Science committee is about to publish a report entitled “Bridging the valley of death”. It conjures up the nightmare for many SMEs in their search for funding. Miller will be calling for better links between the entrepreneur, funders and universities.

 

Paul Maynard came to the defence of bankers saying they had to apply different criteria in the post 2008 world. They were being ordered to lend and build up their reserves at the same time.

 

Alan Rigby of HSBC said the problem sometimes lay with SMEs. Their bids could lack knowledge of their real needs. Banks are not always the answer. Equity options were often better.

 

NORTHERN REVOLUTION PART TWO.

 

Downtown’s recent discussion on how the North should be governed was taken up at the Chester meeting. Dave Watts once again condemned the abolition of Yorkshire Forward and the North West Development Agency. He hinted that Labour might restore them but I had to point out that senior shadow ministers had already said they would live with the patchwork of Local Enterprise Partnerships.

 

However there seems to be all party support emerging for some overarching northern council to tackle issues like transport, the economy and skills. Conservative Paul Maynard favoured this approach.

 

On the economy in general there was a feeling at the meeting that the corner is being turned which possibly explains the resurgence in Tory morale at Westminster recently. Ed Miliband will need to get his row with the unions over quickly to try and re-establish his opinion poll lead which has evaporated.