As the Bill for HS2 approached Parliament, the Government continued to blame poor communications for the problems the project has encountered. This blog entry considers whether communications are being used as a convenient scapegoat to cover for wider issues with the project.
The Government was recently forced to re-launch HS2 for around the fifth time – many people have now lost count – to demonstrate that the figures justifying the scheme stack up. It is said that a poor communications strategy has led to the need for re-launches, has failed to cement support and has not pushed the benefits of the scheme. The communications, it is claimed, have focused too much on speed and not enough on the extra capacity that would be delivered by HS2, and have failed to stress the opportunities for rebalancing the economy and the help HS2 would provide to cities across the country not just those served directly.
However, a look back at speeches over time shows that this isn’t strictly true. Politicians and others have stressed the widespread benefits of the project. Blaming communications is being used as smokescreen to mask weaknesses in the project and failings of Ministers to sell the benefits.
When Theresa Villiers, then Shadow Secretary of State for Transport, spoke at the 2008 Conservative party conference she said:
“The case for high-speed rail is clear… It would generate huge economic benefits, it would dramatically improve transport links between north and south and it would give a vitally important boost to our efforts to protect future generations from catastrophic climate change.â€
The Conservative party’s support for high-speed rail was a way of ditching expansion at Heathrow and, at the time, was sold on an environmental basis.
In early 2009, at the Arup Conference on High-Speed Rail, Villiers spoke about high-speed rail’s potential to “transform our transport network†and set out a vision for a network which would connect London with Birmingham, Manchester and across the Pennines to Leeds.
Andrew Adonis, as the then Secretary of State for Transport, and the person who set the whole project in motion in the first place talked about new capacity and an inter-city network. He too focused on the environmental credentials of high-speed rail and said, at the Labour Party conference in 2009 stated:
“This high speed vision is possible if we make green transport our common cause.â€
Not to be outdone, the Lib Dem transport strategy released at their 2008 party conference talked about:
“Building an extensive high speed rail network to significantly increase the capacity and capabilities of Britain’s rail network.…A network of high speed rail lines will promote travel by train rather than plane, with rapid transfers possible between British cities and the Continent.â€
Nick Clegg speaking in 2010 said:
“The Liberal Democrats strongly support these plans for a rail network fit for the 21st century. Creating jobs, attracting investment and spurring economic growth.â€
So speed has been part of the pitch for HS2 but not the main part of the argument; even if one could be forgiven for thinking that, given the project’s name!Communications are being blamed, it appears, to shift emphasis away from the legal challenges to the process of project development, consultation and other problems, not least the regular apparent shifts in the cost benefit and other figures used as support. In other words, the opponents have been allowed the space to make the running because of the perceived faults in the justifications and/or the way that the public consultation was undertaken.
YouGov’s figures show there is now a lack of public support for the plans, and they also suggested that there is a lack of support from the voters of the northern cities that are said to benefit economically from the plans.
A real problem lies with failings in the statistics used. For instance, as part of the latest re-launch a new figure on how much delay and cost would be involved in an upgrade of the West Coast Main Line emerged. This seemed to be a fairly transparent scare tactic, focusing not on the benefits of the scheme but the dis-benefits of the alternatives. This confuses the message.
The latest re-launch figures did look at the economic benefits of HS2 but they received a robust kicking by the Transport Select Committee in an evidence session.
None of this is to say that the communications have been faultless. Cities supporting the scheme came in behind it quite forcefully at first but then until recently went very quiet. Only now are they again publically rolling in behind the project. If the supporters are not supporting then why should anyone else?
It has recently been suggested that tickets will be available for between £5 and £10. Quite how anybody can be sure 13 years before the line opens is unclear, but if this is the case then why not highlight this earlier?
There has certainly been a lack of lead from the very top of the DfT and it has taken Lord Heseltine to make the most impact in recent months.
The Government is also making efforts to retro-fit the project into the narrative centred on ‘winning the global race’.
The communications for the project have got a raw deal. The issues go deeper and if these are not addressed then the Bill will have a difficult journey in Parliament which could impact on its timescale and progress.