Rt Hon MP
Prime Minister
No 10 Downing St.
20 April 2021
Dear Boris,
HS2 – New Civil Engineer: letter to the Prime Minister
from and other ex-Secretaries of State (attached).
The signatories to this letter have one thing in common when it
comes to HS2. Most travel by train to and from London, and most
in First Class. So clearly they believe that a faster, more
comfortable train service must be supported, and clearly all
their constituents will want the same thing.
But how many of these signatories have tried to commute locally
in the North or Midlands, find they cannot get a standing place
let alone a seat, of even given up on trying to get a better job
a little further from their home because of the awful rail
services that existed, or go by car?
If money is no object, then let them have HS2 and much improved
local services. This will cost the taxpayer over £250 bn. What is
really needed in the regions, including parts of HS2 integrated
into this, would cost £107bn.
As National Infrastructure Commission Chair Sir John Armitt said
at the All-Party Rail Group meeting on 26 January 2021, ‘you can
have the rest of HS2 or you can have regional rail improvement
but I cannot see ministers agreeing to both.’
No doubt the eminent ex-ministers who signed this letter will be
feeling that freedom from ministerial responsibility by being on
the back benches allows them the liberty to ask for what they
would never have allowed when they were ministers. This must be
especially true at a time of great uncertainty about future
demands for rail travel and whether the massive financial demand
of HS2 cannot be better spent elsewhere.
I await publication of the Department for Transport’s Integrated
Rail Plan.
Best wishes, Tony
