Author: johnredwood

Yesterday saw the government announce the takeover of the Northern Rail franchise by the government from March. They tell me the aim is to introduce private sector capital and management again on a new basis. They warned against expecting too much from taking over the franchise.

Too many delays, cancelled services and old rolling stock have blighted the service. Many of the problems were entirely outside the control of the franchise holder, and will be no more under the control of the government franchise manager.

The Spanish company supplying new trains failed to meet deadlines for deliveries, forcing the franchise holder to battle on with old stock.

Network Rail, a nationalised business, failed to lengthen platforms in time to allow delivery and use of other new trains.

Some of the delays were caused by Network Rail failures with track and signals.

The franchise holder had problems with the new timetables in 2018 which were required of it from the rail authorities.

Various rail franchises have difficulties in securing Trade Union consent to new ways of working. There is no guarantee the Unions will change their mind over these disputes once they are dealing direct with a government franchise manager.

The bulk of the railway is already nationalised. Many of the delays throughout the network are caused by track or signal failures in the nationalised industry, or in a few cases by people and even vehicles intruding on track or disrupting operation of the system.

Nationalisation is no easy answer, and in the case of Northern it does not suddenly resolve the big issues over train delivery and driver availability that are part of the problem.

The UK needs to improve its supply chain for the many of the new trains the big surge in rail investment will require, and ensure most of the work is carried out in the UK.

The government wishes to crank up the scale and pace of new infrastructure investment in the UK. Many agree we need better railway links, more road capacity, more schools, hospitals and houses given the rising population, faster broadband and more water and electricity supply.

The government inherits a very expensive large railway project. The costs has spiralled before much work has been done on the ground. The eventual completion of the project linking northern cities to the southern and Midlands sections will not be complete until 2040. That is in five full Parliaments time. Who knows what our needs will then be, what technology will then be available for personal transport, and what the size of the population will then be.

HS2 is a reminder of what is wrong with UK infrastructure procurement. It takes far too long. It is highly contentious with the public. It is ruinously expensive. The governments that back it and take the flak in the early stages for it do not enjoy the benefits of its completion.

The Taxpayers Alliance has now drawn up a schedule of many transport projects we could afford if we cancelled the big line. Some of these are ready to go, and some are very popular in their localities. They are all much smaller than HS2 but taken together could provide a lot of improvement.

In order to speed up infrastructure investment there are some rules the government could adopt that would make it easier. Backing schemes that are strongly supported in an area would assist. Offering compensation as part of the plan to those who will be inconvenienced or adversely affected by the development would be a great help in speeding projects and reducing opposition. If someone’s house is close to a planned new rail line they should be offered enough money to be able to move if they don’t like the noise.

It is easier to put in broadband, water and power investments than to put in new roads or railway lines, as they have much less impact on people. They are much needed and can attract wholly or mainly private finance to pay for them. The government needs to expedite permissions and licences.

Last week the  EU’s effective political leader Mrs Merkel said she was worried by the big gap between the views of the establishment who see climate change as the gravest  threat facing us and the climate sceptics who do not. She asked for a proper dialogue between the two sides, presumably to search out some common ground or a way of respecting each other’s positions,.

As someone who is lobbied strenuously by all sides, I remind  the EU and governments that  climate change scepticism is not a single doctrine or united group of dissenters against current policy. It is not traditional right or left, and may  be motivated by many different considerations. So let us today consider some of the different forms of scepticism there is over this issue.

The first thing to grasp  is most climate sceptics do not deny the underlying science which rightly asserts that CO2 is a greenhouse gas. Nor do most deny that if nothing else changes and mankind pumps out a lot of extra CO2 average temperatures will rise.

Some sceptics however argue that current climate models do not capture the complexities of greenhouse gases. Natural CO2 exceeds manmade and that could vary in either direction. Volcanic activity can have a big impact on world climate. A view needs to be taken on the stability of various carbon sinks, including  the oceans. Water vapour is a more common greenhouse gas than CO2 so models need to capture variations in water vapour concentrations.  That also gets the forecaster into wind directions and cloud formation, which we see have daily big impacts on the weather and over time can affect the climate , if new trends and patterns emerge. These sceptics either say you cannot gauge temperature direction from simply measuring manmade CO2 or go further and argue other trends may be or are offsetting manmade CO2.

Some sceptics point out that the sun  is the main  source of warming the earth, and that there needs to be more information about solar activity rates, as the sun itself produces variable output over time as well as from night and day and the seasons.

Some sceptics are unconvinced that there has been a linear increase in average temperatures during the long period of industrialising since say 1820. They raise issues about historical records, and about how you actually calculate an average world temperature, as well as pointing to periods in  the published records when temperatures did not rise.

Other sceptics accept the predictions that manmade CO2 will take temperatures higher whatever the other forces do. They ask whether it is not wiser and cheaper  to spend money on adaptations where warming has adverse consequences rather than trying  to wean China and the USA off fossil fuels in  time to meet the needs of carbon reduction to head off the problem.

So I say to Mrs  Merkel she needs to engage her experts and the EU in a new dialogue which examines these various strands of sceptic thinking and deals with them sensibly, rather than castigating anyone who asks questions. A lot of people are in the middle on  this issue, seeking better information and guidance on the nature and scale of the threat. They are more likely to be persuaded  by well informed people with knowledge and balance than by angry politicians asserting you either accept their version or are some kind of denier of the truth.

I voted against HS2 when the decision in principle was made by Parliament. I did so because the business case for it was very weak. The forecasts of likely passenger numbers and revenues looked far too high. The negative impact on revenues and traveller numbers on the competing routes was not taken very seriously. The main argument that we need to get to Birmingham faster changed into an argument that we needed more capacity to get to Birmingham, which the figures did not seem to justify.

I was on the losing side, and accepted defeat with a good grace. I accepted thereafter government and Parliament wanted it to go ahead.

Now the government is holding a genuine review. The immediate cause is the massive escalation in projected costs compared with the figures Parliament used to make the original decision. There is also substantial delay in delivering HS2 in the north, which was meant to be the main reason for the scheme. This gives me the opportunity to make a case again for cancellation.

The business case has clearly got a lot worse, as the capital cost is so much bigger. There is no way that the nation can earn a decent return on such a huge investment, given the likely passenger numbers and fare revenue possible on this new railway and the impact on the competing railways. It points to more subsidy and more losses.

Today though I wish to engage with the political argument that this railway is a totem of commitment to the development of the north and to fairer capital spending around the country, and must not therefore be stopped.

The irony is that for the next few years if we continue  there will be massive capital spending in London on remodelling a main station and in London and the Home Counties as money is spent on providing a tunnel out of the city to limit the environmental damage.  HS2 to Birmingham will be yet another major investment project where most of the money is spent in London and the south east, yet it is a project that the people closest to  in London and the south east vehemently oppose.

HS2 will do nothing to ease congestion in London and the Home counties or to make it easer for people to get to work from outer London or Buckinghamshire. So it will be a big investment in the south east that is not helping the south east.

Meanwhile northern commuters will be frustrated that their journeys are still made difficult by old trains and too little capacity. HS2 unites a lot of people in both north and south saying this is not the right project. We all want better trains, with more capacity into the cities. HS2 does not provide that in ways most people want. If we cancel we could have a big boost to northern rail spending in ways that do  directly help, and still save money overall.

I will soon be submitting some thoughts to the government on possible constitutional reform.

The last Parliament submitted our constitution to a battering, as an alliance of MPs from all the Opposition parties aided by a few Conservatives who subsequently left the party worked with the Speaker and the law courts to delay or prevent Brexit. In acting in this way they opposed the decision of the majority in the referendum which most of them had previously pledged to honour. The Labour and former Conservative ones  also reneged on or redefined their promise to see Brexit through, made to win the 2017 election.

The main issues that arise include:

Fixed Term Parliament Act

This became a major problem, preventing a government from  holding an early election to resolve the tensions Parliament could not sort out. The Act also showed it was eventually meaningless, as we held three elections in four years under a law designed to limit elections to once every five years.

It should be repealed, leaving the power to hold an election at any time up to 5 years in the hands of the majority in the Commons. The Commons needs to have this option, as it also has the option of expressing or withdrawing confidence in any given government.

Powers of the courts to settle political and Parliamentary issues

The decision of the Supreme Court to delay Brexit by nine months  to require an Act of Parliament prior to sending  a letter necessitated by the referendum result was unhelpful and very costly to the country.

The decision of the Supreme Court to prevent a prorogation of Parliament which was only slightly longer than the normal September recess was seen by many as  a partisan decision as it was designed to allow those who wanted to stop Brexit more time to debate and vote on it.

These two decisions were damaging to our constitution. It is most important most people more of the time believe in the impartiality of the court system and believe the judgements are fair and reasonable.  Major issues of constitutional significance need to be decided by Parliament so both sides can put their case and the decision is made by majority vote, reflecting the votes of the people in a previous election.

These decisions were seen by many Brexiteers as being decisions to delay or prevent Brexit, however good the legal reasoning . It would have been better if the Supreme court had said in both cases they were not matters for a court but matters for Parliament to resolve, or a for a General election to settle.

The respective roles of  government, Parliament and courts in prerogative matters needs clarifying, with more protection of the courts by removing their competence in matters relating to how Parliament conducts its business or how government with Parliament  undertakes its Treaty roles and international negotiations.

The EU tells us they are going to stimulate faster growth in the Euro area through commitment to faster decarbonisation.

They have announced a “Green deal” with access to just Euro 7.5bn of transition funds to subsidise the losing areas that face closures of mines, coal power stations, gas plants, petro chemical plants and the rest. They hope to top these funds up through money already included in their budgets for regional development

The big push comes from capital investment, where they suggest they might help foster a Euro 1 trillion investment programme across many industries and countries over the next five years. The EU itself will contribute to this investment through loans from the European Investment Bank . They plan a series of new rules and checks for private sector investment companies to encourage more of the savings they handle to be put to work in companies pursuing the green agenda.

The Commission is currently wrestling with the problem of inherited schemes for substantial additional investment in gas supplies as replacements for coal being phased out and to ensure sufficient capacity in energy supply. Some think they should refuse to assist in funding more fossil fuel schemes to accelerate change, whilst others are concerned that without additional and replacement fossil fuel investment the Euro area will be short of energy.

The difficulty comes over pace of change and over the interconnections of different sectors and activities. Over the last year the EU motor industry has taken a hit because tax and regulation has put people off buying diesel cars before enough are ready to buy electric cars instead. Car volumes are down and manufacturing has declined. Too speedy a transition away from gas energy could leave countries short of energy in total or could drive prices up with adverse consequences for energy intensive industry in a very competitive world.

Of course setting up new factories, launching new products, and investing in new ways to generate electricity and to deliver power to factories and vehicles creates jobs and adds to growth. It has however to be done at a pace which more than offsets the loss of jobs in traditional products and methods of production and propulsion. There also need to be good ways to retrain the people who are out of work and to reuse the assets that the old businesses can no longer operate profitably.

Central to success is a new generation of home heating systems and vehicles that people want to buy.

One of the worst features of past highways mismanagement in the UK has been the practice of putting water pipes, gas mains, phone and broadband wires and electricity cables down the middle of busy roads and covering them with large amounts of concrete and tarmac.

The Highways authority has to grant access to the utility undertakers to close all or part of the road, dig it up and repair, monitor or replace the pipe or wire. Parliament has tried to impose some discipline, giving the Highways Authorities the power to schedule the work, to time limit it and to fine the contractor for non performance. Of course access has to be granted immediately if there is a gas burst or a water mains leak where safety is paramount. There are roads that are designated sensitive where the Authority can demand that repairs and replacements be done off peak or at night owing to how busy and crucial the road is.

I have urged utilities and Councils to put new networks and replacement networks into verges, under pavements or away from main  roads, preferably in accessible conduits so there  will be no need in future to drill through layers of tarmac and concrete to find your particular pipe or cable without skewering someone else’s. Wokingham Borough tell me they are doing this with new developments. It would be good if universally we were starting on a long work out to get rid of this problem.

In  the meantime we have to manage a situation where most cables and pipes are under main  roads. So today I ask how should Councils manage the demands for access to repair and replace? Do they need any new legislative powers? Is the balance right between the needs of the utilities and the needs of the users? Should we be tougher and demand mpre off peak working?