I beg to move,
That this House has considered transport funding for Wales and HS2.
Bore da. Good morning. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairpersonship, Sir Edward. I am here to talk about HS2 and particularly funding for the railways in Wales. We are all aware that tomorrow the Chancellor has his Budget, that next week is COP26 and that the Government have been talking about connecting the Union, levelling up and net zero. When we think about all those together, there is a compelling case that the Chancellor should look to give Wales our fair Barnett consequential, akin to the Scottish one, so that we can tool up, gear up, connect up and help move the UK towards net zero with more rail investment.
The Welsh Affairs Committee, on which some of us here serve, recently recommended that Wales should receive the same Barnett consequential share as Scotland. Simply put, Scotland gets 91.7%, as a proportion of population, of its share of the total costs of HS2. If Wales got 91.7% of our 5% share of HS2, and if for argument’s sake HS2 cost £100 billion, Wales would get something in the region of £4.6 billion. If HS2 ended up costing twice that, we would get something in the region of £9.2 billion. I am sure that we will hear about this from the Minister soon, but we have heard that the projected costs have moved from £38 billion to £100 billion, and now there is talk of costs of £160 billion to £200 billion.
HS2 is obviously a UK scheme. However, it is a north-south spinal scheme, so it will clearly benefit Scotland more than Wales. One could argue that Wales should receive a higher proportionate share than Scotland, but that is not what I am arguing; I am simply arguing that we get our fair share.
I know that the Minister is a great expert in HS2. Phase 1 was originally due to be completed in 2027. That has been kicked forward to 2033, and the latest news from the hon. Member for North West Leicestershire (Andrew Bridgen) is that we are looking at something like 2041. Given the timescale for action that is projected by COP26, we really must get a move on. There is a very strong case that Wales should have its share of the money to get on with shovel-ready schemes in both north and south Wales, to help build productivity and connectivity, to help with levelling up and to help deliver net zero.
We know that the Leeds section of HS2 has been cancelled. We also know that, because of the amount of concrete that will be used, HS2 will take 100 years to become carbon neutral, and that two thirds of the woodlands cut down will be burned by Drax power station, which will affect carbon emissions and air quality.
However, let us assume that HS2 is going ahead full throttle—namely that phase 1 might be over by 2041. We in Wales then have a case to get moving now and to get schemes delivered on the ground. I should disclose that, as people may know, a long time ago I was the leader of Croydon Council. I delivered the Croydon Tramlink scheme, a light rail electrified orbital tram system, which is 26 km long and connects Beckenham, Croydon and Wimbledon. That cost £200 million gross, but £100 million net, because it was a public-private partnership. That scheme, which connected three constituencies, cost the Exchequer only £100 million. With HS2, we are talking about £100 billion—a thousand times that scheme. My point is that there is a lot to be said for small, cluster-based schemes around the country, particularly on an east-west basis. I am talking about the northern powerhouse as well as connectivity to Wales and, very importantly, within Wales.
The situation in terms of relative competitiveness is that I can go from London to Manchester in two hours and 10 minutes, and from London to Swansea in about three hours. With HS2—if it does happen—we will be able to get to Manchester in one hour, so we have to ask what investors are going to do. We have already seen Virgin pull out of Swansea and go to Manchester because of this, and KPMG did a study some years ago showing that we will lose tens of thousands of jobs from south Wales unless we get some investment of our own to connect up, in particular, the clusters of Swansea and westwards with Cardiff and Bristol, to make that engine turn faster.