Peter Mandelson’s surprise rejection of high-speed rail in this morning’s FT is another sign that the wheels are coming off this project. But while the project’s critics on the backbenches – particularly those on the Tory side such as Cheryl Gillan and Michael Fabricant who are campaigning vociferously against the plan – will be thrilled, the continuing cross-party consensus means you won’t hear Cameron being probed on this at Prime Minister’s Questions, for instance, or Maria Eagle castigating Patrick McLoughlin at the next departmental question time in the Commons.
But Mandelson’s concerns about the project are about its spiralling cost, not the impact on one MP’s constituency (or their majority, for that matter). And they underline that ministers’ desire to win the global race can often, in their zeal to show they are running that race, mean they fail to work out whether the projects they’re using aren’t the right ones. He writes:
Probably the most glaring gap in our analysis were the alternative ways of spending the £30bn cost, appraised against the stated objectives of HS2. These included the provision of future rail capacity, the creation of economic growth and jobs, the rebalancing of the economy between north and south and a contribution to a low-carbon future. Ambitious claims for HS2 were made in all these respects. All were based on the central assumption that if you could cut the travelling time between London, Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds, HS2 would transmit business and economic growth across the country, justifying the tens of billions of expenditure involved.
This assumption was neither quantified nor proved. We are still waiting for independent analysis to support it. Meanwhile, alternatives – upgrading the east and west coast mainlines, major regional rail enhancements and mass transit projects in regions and provincial cities – were not actively considered.
This is a strangely humble article from the Dark Lord, as it admits mistakes on the part of the last Labour government. Fortunately he returns to type by the end of the article, warning the Labour party particularly that ‘all the parties – especially Labour – should think twice before irrevocably binding themselves to HS2’.
Mandelson has offered kindly advice from on high to Labour’s frontbench before. It didn’t gain much currency, as his criticism that the party risked focusing too much on social justice and not enough on prosperity was sufficiently New Labour for Ed Miliband to feel comfortable rejecting it. But this new piece of advice is more significant because it involves Mandelson admitting he was wrong. If nothing else, it should herald a slightly less breathless discussion of the benefits or otherwise of HS2.
Comments