“TRAINS ARE A RICH MANS TOY”

Press Release: HAMMOND TELLS SELECT COMMITTEE; TRAINS ARE “A RICH MANS TOY” WHILE HS2 LTD STAFF SAY; ‘WE HAVEN’T DONE THE WORK’

The final session of the Transport Select Committee inquiry Secretary of State for Transport Philip Hammond, admitted that when looking at inter-city travel; the railway was “a rich mans toy” , before going on to say that a factory worker in Manchester might never use it in his life, but that would be OK, because his boss would use it. Mr Hammond gave evidence directly after staff from HS2 Ltd. Chief Engineer Andrew McNaughton, Chief Executive Alison Munro and Chairman Brian Briscoe all gave evidence to the committee of MPs, but consistently frustrated them repeating the answer; “We haven’t done the work on that” .

Stop HS2 Campaign Coordinator Joe Rukin said:

“Philip Hammond admitted that inter-city travel is the preserve of the rich. He has the brass to say that and then says he wants to give £33bn plus the massive cost over-runs which are already evident to the construction industry just to build a fast train line which will be the preserve of the super-rich in areas which are already well connected. At this time that is very hard to swallow for the majority of people in Britain will be hard to take for many, what happened to ‘We’re all in this together?’. The Government’s own business case for HS2 puts the average wages of those using the train at £70,000. That’s not a rich mans toy, that’s a super rich mans toy.”

“As for the level of knowledge from the staff of HS2 Ltd, they didn’t have answers to many of the questions they have consistently been asked for months. They were asked about various aspects of the fare structure and they said they hadn’t done the work, they were asked if they had assessed the negative economic impacts where there are no stations and they said they hadn’t done the work, and they were asked if they had looked at how the Chiltern Line upgrade effects the business plan and they said they hadn’t done the work on that either. This kept happening over and again, it’s hard to believe that the public consultation on the principle has already been and gone. They fully admitted they were never told to look into any wider strategy for UK transport and we just told by Lord Adonis to get on with it.

“At points it didn’t seem staff of HS2 realised they were meant to be defending it. Brian Briscoe admitted that ‘the business case is independent of the fare structure’, Alison Munro said that they have used standard practice on passenger forecasts: but HS1 should be carrying 25 million passengers a year by now but hasn’t ever managed 10 million. Andrew McNaughton no matter how many times he’s been asked still doesn’t even know the land take, the very first thing you’d expect to know in any construction project.”

Prior to the Transport Select Committee, campaigners paraded a giant inflating white elephant outside parliament.

Notes to Editors:

1. For more information contact Joe Rukin on 07811 371880 or Penny Gaines on 07765 780553.
2. People can sign the petition against HS2 via the Stop HS2 website; https://stophs2.org/news/378-petition-government-stop-hs2/ .

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