On 21st August the Transport Minister, Grant Shapps MP announced the composition of the Oakervee Hs2 review panel. The deputy chair will be Lord Berkeley whilst the panel will consist of Michele Dix, Stephen Glaister, Patrick Harley, Sir Peter Hendy, Andrew Sentance, Andy Street, John Cridland and Tony Travers.
The members are both pro and anti Hs2, politicians, rail leaders and academics who’ll examine all the claims and counter claims made. It’s a well-balanced panel as academia will be tempered by real world experience and those who understand the issues and need to deliver results on the ground.
Progress will have to be rapid as their report is expected in the Autumn. I expect to see off some of the wilder claims and ‘alternatives’ and focus on why we’re building Hs2 in the first place. I also expect the claims that HS2 can be terminated at Old Oak Common seen off once and for all. I believe that making Lord Berkeley, a man who’s been a constant critic of HS2 whilst proposing a number of impractical ‘alternatives’ himself as Deputy Chair to be a clever move as he’s going to have to sign up to the report’s conclusions.
Let’s have a look at the panel in greater detail.
Doug Oakervee
Oakervee has decades of experience in delivering major civil engineering projects. A former President of the Institution of Civil Engineers, he was the Executive Chairman at Crossrail from Dec 2005 to May 2009 and non-Exec Chairman of Hs2 Ltd from March 2012 until December 2013.
Michèle Dix
A Chartered Civil Engineer and former board member of construction company Halcrow, Michele joined Transport for London in 2000 where she had responsibility for the congestion charge. In 2007 she became Managing Director of Planning. She was responsible for leading the planning strategy on the future transport needs of London. In February 2015 Michèle left Planning to become the Managing Director of Crossrail 2 and is now responsible for developing Crossrail 2 and gaining funding and powers for it. Her depth of understanding of the impact of Hs2 in London and its transport network will be extremely valuable.
Professor Stephen Glaister
Glaister is Professor of Transport and Infrastructure in the Centre for Transport Studies at Imperial College London. He’s a long-standing advisor to government on transport issues and economics and contributed to the Eddingtom report. He’s a ‘soft’ critic of HS2 who tends to see both sides of an argument without reaching any firm conclusion. He was interviewed by Halligan for his ‘Dispatches’ hatchet job on Hs2. Halligan asked him “is it (Hs2) good value”? Glaister replied “nobody knows”! I expect Glaister will offer the same non-committal advice to this committee.
Councillor Patrick Harley
Harley is a Conservative Cabinet Member at Dudley MBC and former Council Leader as well as a member of the West Midlands Combined Authority. He’s been a backer of transport initiatives in the West Midlands, including Hs2, which is very important to the area. Harley’s a strong supporter of Midland Metro and has highlighted links it will provide to HS2
Sir Peter Hendy CBE
Hendy needs little introduction. Currently the very active Chair of Network Rail he’s a former bus man, having started his career in the public transport industry in 1975. He was appointed to the position of Managing Director of Surface Transport for Transport for London in 2001. In 2006 he was appointed Commissioner of Transport for London before moving to Network Rail in 2015. Peter has enormous experience of running the sharp end of public transport and understands the need for a strategic vision for both London and the UK.
Andrew Sentence
Sentence is a business economist. Formerly Senior Economic Advisor to PWC from 2011 to 2018, previously he was an external member of the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee from 2006 -2011. He’s also a former head of economic policy and director of economic affairs at the CBI who has an interest in the low carbon economy. Amongst other things he’s a former member of the Commission for Integrated Transport (2006–10). I suspect he’ll bring a balanced look at the economics and Hs2’s potential to tackle carbon emissions.
Andy Street
Andy’s a former MD of John Lewis who’s currently the Conservative Mayor of the West Midlands and a strong pro Hs2 voice in the Tory party. He’s an unabashed ambassador for the West Midlands and the positive economic benefits better transport links like HS2 bring to the area.
John Cridland
John’s a former Director of the CBI (an organisation that supports HS2). He’s currently Chair of Transport for the North (TfN) and well placed to know the real issues. TfN have made it clear that HS2 phase 2 is essential to delivering Northern Powerhouse Rail.
Professor Tony Travers
Tony’s another academic. He’s currently Visiting Professor in LSE Department of Government and Director of of the London School of Economics who’s advised the Government on a number of occasions. A critic of HS2 but someone who focusses on costs of the project rather than the practicalities of it. Hardly surprising, as that’s the beauty of academia, you can ‘umm and ahh’ safe in the knowledge that it’s not your neck on the line.
The review’s remit
Importantly, each member will focus on a specific area, feeding into and being consulted on the report’s conclusions, without having a right of veto. I expect the academics to do what academics do – and the politicians and business leaders to draw up the conclusion. After all, it’s the elected politicians whose necks will be on the line, and there’s plenty of experienced people on the panel to pose the question, “if not Hs2, what’s your plan B, and you’d better come up with it PDQ!”
I would be surprised if the review delivers a major policy change on HS2. The phase 1 project is too far down the line to be sent back to the drawing board as that would result in chaos on the railways at huge additional cost. On the (potential) eve of Brexit it would also deliver entirely the wrong political message. Don’t expect Hs2 to be cut back to Old Oak Common either, the technical problems with such an idea are huge.
What could be possible is for elements of phase 2 to be changed. Imagine if some of the funding for the sections around Leeds and Manchester was diverted to Transport for the North to deliver (at an earlier date) the elements of Hs2 that would be integral to Northern Powerhouse Rail? This budget reallocation wouldn’t stop Hs2, but it would address some of the cost issues and politically, it would show a real commitment to the North that the Prime Minister has already stated. Then, when Hs2 phase 2 is built it can simply link up with existing NPR infrastructure. Of course, all this is entirely speculative. We’ll have to wait until the autumn to see what the review decides.
Paul Bigland 
I fear you are being too optimistic. My expectation is a cancellation no matter what the panel says. Remember, we are in the “post-expert” world nowadays according to Michael Gove.
There’s a lot of lovely London land up for grabs if this lot gets stopped, so brown envelopes will be heading from developer to MPs. Those who have contracts will still get most of the money, without having to deliver. As Private Eye would say “Trebbles all round!”
Most importantly though, the cancellation will play very well in the true-blue constituencies, which for a government with no majority, is the ONLY thing that matters.
Sorry, there’s nothing of substance here. ‘Brown envelopes’? Parliament has already passed the Phase 1 Hybrid Bill by a huge majority and the project’s got Royal Assent. ‘Developers’ would be wasting their money trying to bribe MPs.
As for cancellation playing well in the Tory Shires, that’s a fact-free claim too. I’ve been monitoring election results since 2010 and the only thing they show is that Hs2’s never been an electoral issue except to a tiny bunch of people who live right in the path of it, those a few hundred metres away don’t really give a stuff and certainly wouldn’t vote against their own party to stop it – as the failure of UKIP to gain a single seat in the Chilterns demonstrates. Now UKIP are history and many Tories won’t touch the Brexit party. meanwhile, many of those people who did live in the way of Hs2 have been bought out and moved on. It’s no longer an issue for them. They’ll stick to their party allegencies.
HS2 might be a non-issue in an election, but you can be sure that the anti-camp will yet again prove to be better at getting their mugs in front of the media than the pro-camp. The trouble is that those of use in favour, tend to use facts that aren’t really that exciting whereas the anti will just start screaming about a tree or something else vague. The media love loons, they are entertaining to cover.
Now if MPs look at the numbers then yes HS2 is safe. If they look really hard then some of the concessions such as the long Chiltern Tunnels could be cut back by the review (Perhaps we need to counter “Put the whole line in a tunnel!!!!!” with “But then we need to spend even more money and this cute child doesn’t get their medicine” or other heart-string tugging response) in an effort to cut costs.
Maybe in the post Brexit era, I’m too pessimistic but I don’t believe that the line will be safe until the last part is completed. The UK needs it and cancellation would be an expensive mistake, but like the Millenium Dome, there will always be someone who can think of a better use for the cash even if the amount needed for their pet project is WAY in excess of the money for HS2.
The campaign has started already: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/08/21/hs2-colossal-waste-money-finally-have-impetus-scrap/
You can guess David Davies position from the web address.
LOL – that’s David “sock puppet of the TPA” Davis. No bias there then.
We are in a country where Earnest Marples set off the Beeching report. Just because an MP is wildly and unreasonably biased, doesn’t mean they don’t get to decide policy.
It will be interesting to see what the noble Lord Berkeley has to say at the upcoming 2nd reading debate on the Phase 2A Bill in the Lords on 4th September now that he’s “inside the tent.” I’m not expecting a conversion though.
In the same debate, it’ll interesting to whether their Lordships can restrain themselves to just the phase 2A bill or whether it becomes another bun fight about the entire scheme.
Indeed! His problem is that HS2 enjoys massive support in the Lords.