What's the alternative?

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I was surprised to see that Plaid are apparently signing up to the campaign to stop HS2 completely, using the hashtag #NoToHS2 on the propaganda which has appeared on social media over the last day or two.  I understand the argument that Wales should receive a Barnett consequential for the expenditure which benefits only England, although the extent to which I agree with that argument depends on whether HS2 is seen as the beginning and end of high speed rail in the UK or as just the next phase of a plan to connect the whole UK.  As presented by the UK Government currently it is a stand-alone project, and as such should unquestionably generate a consequential under the Barnett formula.  But if it were just the first phase, with a subsequent phase being a connection to Wales, then the argument that it is a UK-wide project becomes much stronger.  Arguing for either a consequential budget payment, or else for Wales to be part of the next phase, seem to me to be entirely valid stances for Plaid to pursue – arguing that another country (England) shouldn’t go ahead with the project at all seems a strange position to take.

I’m not entirely convinced by the argument that Wales won’t benefit at all, either.  Certainly, Glamorgan and Gwent won’t benefit (and will even lose out if they remain excluded), and that’s where the majority of the population live, but it isn’t the whole of Wales.  There is no necessary reason why high-speed trains are confined to operating on high-speed lines if the system is designed appropriately (and the whole network electrified) from the outset.  French TGV trains, for instance, travel beyond the high-speed network to a range of destinations on the ‘normal’ network, albeit at lower speeds.  There is no fundamental obstacle to using HS2 trains for direct services from North Wales to London, joining the high-speed network at Crewe.  It might be a benefit at the margins, but it’s still a potential benefit, subject to the big ‘if’ of whether it’s planned that way.  And, in the same way, parts of Wales west of Cardiff could benefit from a future high-speed link to Bristol/Cardiff from London.

There are, of course, sound environmental arguments for opposing the project; there is no doubt that it will do damage along the whole of the route, wherever it’s built and however many phases it comprises.  And I’m completely unimpressed by the argument that shaving time off journeys to and from London is adequate justification for such a project.  The question is, though, whether the project can be looked at in isolation, or whether we need to compare it with the alternatives.  What, in short, happens if it doesn’t go ahead?

The ‘best’ alternative, in environmental terms, is for people to travel less, but I doubt very much that that will happen if it’s left to millions of individual decisions, and I can’t imagine any elected government taking measures to prevent people from making journeys around the UK.  The demand is growing, not falling, and the question is about how to cope with that.  If rail transport is not expanded, then either road traffic will increase or else domestic air traffic will increase, both of which are likely to be more damaging than a high-speed rail network. 

Ultimately, that strikes me as the best argument for developing a high-speed rail network across the UK – fast, reliable surface transport using low carbon energy is a better alternative than continued growth in air traffic.  One of my biggest criticisms of the current plans is the use of a new terminal in London rather than the existing HS1 terminal, a decision which makes it impossible to have an easy interchange onto trains bound for the mainland, let alone have the direct through trains which I’m sure I remember we were promised at the time of the agreement to build the Channel Tunnel.  Reducing the number (or at least halting the growth) of short-haul flights should be a key element of government policy, and that means either restricting the right to travel or else providing a viable alternative.  It’s not the most ringing of endorsements, but high-speed rail appears to me to be the least-worst option available.

Agreeing with the opposition 2

Tweet Following on from Friday’s post, the second story in Thursday’s Western Mail leading me to agree with a comment from an unusual quarter was this opinion piece by Stephen Crabb.  The devil is in the detail, however.

His core argument – the bit that I agree with – is that we should see major transport infrastructure investment not just in narrow terms about what Wales does or does not get, but as a wider question of vision for the future.  A proper transport infrastructure does not stop at, nor is it confined to, national borders or jurisdictions. 

It’s a pity, however, that he seems to see the issue merely in terms of which borders confine the vision.  He attacks insular politics in Wales but seems to want to replace a narrow focus on Wales with a narrow focus on the UK, seeing everything from a London-centric viewpoint.

The two biggest concerns that I have had about HS2 from the outset are: firstly that it’s been looked at as a stand-alone investment, rather than a first step (HS2 isn’t a network, as he described it, it’s a line – I only wish that it were indeed part of a network); and secondly, that using a different London terminus from that used by HS1 creates an artificial and unnecessary break in a European network.

Whilst Crabb and the UK parties – to whatever extent they still support the project – are looking solely at transport within the UK, the rest of continental Europe is busy building an integrated high speed network allowing direct connections across the continent.  Now that is truly a vision freed of Crabb’s insular politics (using insular in its more literal meaning).  And it recognises that building a line through one country can often benefit another; joint planning is key.

For a nationalist wanting to see Wales taking her place as a European nation, the link to Brussels is every bit as important as the link to London, which from this perspective is merely a stop along the route.  An important stop, sure, but just a stop all the same.

Destructive jealousy

Tweet I don’t really understand why people are getting so worked up about the clear conclusion that if some areas of the UK benefit from the development of the new HS2 rail line, other areas of the UK will lose.  That is surely an inevitable concomitant of any investment in improved infrastructure – ‘extra’ economic activity in one place is lust as likely to be ‘displaced’ economic activity from somewhere else as it is to be genuinely ‘extra’.  Justifying a project on the basis of the competitive advantages derived in one place has an inevitable concomitant elsewhere.

I particularly don’t understand the knee-jerk reaction of some which is to argue that because some areas lose out from a particular investment, then that investment should not proceed.  It’s a bit like saying ‘because we can’t have it neither can you’.  Surely the more constructive responses to say ‘if you’re having it we want it too’?

My biggest reservation from the start about the HS2 proposal has been that it has been put forward as a stand-alone project rather than part of an overall strategy.  I can understand other areas being ahead of us in the queue, but my concern is about the fact that we don’t even seem to be in the queue at the moment and nobody seems to be putting the case that we should be.  Rather than opposing a scheme which will benefit others surely it is far more productive and constructive to demand inclusion of Wales in the longer term plans.

There’s a danger in the attitude being displayed here that infrastructure investment becomes a race to the bottom.

Not necessarily 5% of everything

Tweet When it comes to the way in which governments spend money, “need” - and I put it in quotes because although it’s easy to say, it isn’t at all easy to define – should be a more important driver than equality, a point which I highlighted in this post last week.  Ultimately that assertion is the basis of much of the argument for Barnett reform – Wales has greater need per head on average for those services which are devolved to the Welsh government and should therefore receive a greater share of resources.

It does not mean of course that that greater need is equally distributed across the whole of Wales (similarly, the English average is just that – an average - as well; it varies greatly across England).  It often strikes me as being incongruous, at the least, to see politicians arguing for a reform of the Barnett formula to give Wales a greater share, and then jumping on bandwagons about “postcode lotteries” within Wales when they see inequalities within our country.

Fairness is difficult to define when we look simply at revenue expenditure on devolved matters.  It’s even harder to define when we look at major capital infrastructure projects – such as HS2 for instance.

The call for a Barnett consequential for HS2 has a certain political appeal, supporting the narrative that Wales is losing out, but surely the nature of individual capital projects is that they will inevitably favour some areas over others.  The question of fairness is only relevant when looking at the total of all capital expenditure over a longer period rather than individual projects.

There’s a further complication as well – capital projects which impact major conurbations are likely to be more expensive in terms of £ per mile of road or railway than the same or similar projects in rural areas.  Does that mean that London “needs” more capital expenditure per head than Wales, and that a needs-based distribution should proportionately give a greater share to London?

Or what about the putative HS3?  If a line is built providing fast rail services to Bristol and Cardiff, what proportion of that expenditure should be counted as “Welsh”?  Probably 90% of the capital expenditure would be in England – but that would not reflect the way in which any benefits are shared.

I’m not actually arguing that London should get a greater share of UK capital expenditure; nor even that Wales gets her fair share at present.  But the simplistic response demanding our Barnett share of capital expenditure based on an arithmetical percentage of individual capital projects no more reflects need than does the current Barnett formula.  The question of fairness is far more complex than that.

Shifting the traffic

Tweet In recent weeks, the HS2 rail scheme has come under increasing and sustained attack from a range of directions.  At least some of the government’s problems on the HS2 project are entirely self-inflicted – they’ve been using the wrong arguments from the outset.

Building a business case for the project on the basis of the minutes shaved off the journey was always a dubious approach.  The claim that it would free up the time of businessmen and women to do other things was equally dubious – and I’m even more sceptical about the methodology being used to convert that time into increased GDP.  As Parkinson’s Law tells us, work expands to fill the time available: much of the “work” done - on trains or elsewhere, come to that - has little impact on anything.

It was also a mistake to concentrate so heavily on business travel.  Having used France’s TGVs on a number of occasions, I reckon that few of the passengers – on trains which always seem to be full – are travelling on business.  A fast – and cheap compared to UK fares – service attracts all sorts of people to use it; for leisure, for visiting family etc.

The debate, from the outset, should have been about capacity and the best way to provide it, and the government at last seems to be moving in that direction, albeit focused far too narrowly on rail capacity.  The case for building a high-speed rail network in the UK is based on the answers to two simple questions, in my view.

The first question is this: given that the demand for travel is growing inexorably, are we going to provide the infrastructure to accommodate that demand, or are we instead going to try and manage that demand downwards?

The “greenest” answer of course is to try and manage the demand downwards; take away the demand and there is no need for any new infrastructure.  In theory, that could be done; but I doubt that the will or the means exist do it consistently and over the decades of timespan which would be necessary to sustain such a policy effectively.

If the demand cannot be produced or managed, and more capacity is needed, that brings us to the second question: what is the best (or perhaps “least worst”) way of providing that extra capacity?

The “default”, if we make no attempt to plan and manage the demand, is that the number of road trips will increase, as will the number of short haul flights.  There are limits to the extent to which simply adding more cars to the roads and more planes to the skies is possible without more roads and runways, but we haven’t reached those limits yet.  Short-term, the effect of increasing the use of existing capacity is to increase congestion and make delays more likely, but there is no doubt that more capacity can be squeezed out of the system.

Eventually, however, continued growth makes investment in more infrastructure inevitable – hence the question “how?”.  Of the alternatives available, I’m convinced that electric railways are the “least worst” option, despite all the difficulties associated with building them. 

Do they need to be high speed?  Strictly speaking, and seeing them solely as a means of solving the capacity problem, the answer would have to be no.  However, if we see them also as an alternative to short haul flights, as well as an alternative to road journeys, speed becomes more important.  The faster the train, the greater the distance of the short haul flights which can be supplanted by rail travel.

And that ultimately is the attraction of HS2 – and HS3 and HS4 which I hope will follow.  Not as a single stand-alone project to cut a few minutes off journey times for businessmen and women, but as a long-term planned approach to shifting travel onto a less environmentally damaging platform.  Sadly, that aspect seems, thus far at last, to be peripheral to the considerations of those making the decisions.