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Still smarting from his spanking in the courts, ‘celebrity’ conservationist Chris Packham has come up with another wheeze to try and stop HS2, the UK’s new high speed railway, of which phase 1 from North of Birmingham to London is already under construction. This time Packham hasn’t needed to persuade people to donate money for his expensive vanity project as he’s fallen back on an old StopHs2 favorite by starting a petition on the Government website! There’s a rag-bag of other names associated with the petition, but the only ones worthy of note are the veteran human rights lawyer Michael Mansfield QC (who lives near the route), plus Richard Walker, Managing Director of Iceland Foods, charity trustee and Ambassador for the Wildlife Trusts (by the way, that’s some of the same Wildlife Trusts that environmentalist George Monbiot flayed for ‘greenwashing’ road and housing projects in Buckinghamshire).
Packham and his friends have been busy since last week drumming up media support for the petition and exploiting his social media connections. So far, they’ve had quite a bit of success. As I write this, the petition has reached 47,000 signatures, nearly half-way to its target of 100,000 which it needs to hit by the closing date of 17th June 2021. On that performance, it stands a very good chance of being the very first anti HS2 petition to ever reach the magical 100,00 signatures.
There’s just one teeny, tiny problem that Packham and his fellow signatories aren’t admitting in their daft assertions and breathless bluster…
Parliament “must” vote! Really? Says who? No-one. Certainly not the Government petitions website, which points out that these petitions can’t make Parliament *do* anything, as they explain here.
So this may not be debated in June as there’s already been numerous debates (and primary legislation in the shape of 2 Hybrid Bills) already. Still, there’ll be a vote on repealing the HS2 Hybrid Bills AFTER the debate, won’t there?
Nope…
Oh, has Packham not mentioned that? How remiss of him!
You see, the petitions debates are held in Westminster Hall, not the main chamber of the House of Commons – and they’re just that – a debate. Or, to put it in simpler terms – it’s a talking shop! As the Westminster Hall website explains:
“Debates in Westminster Hall take place on ‘general debate’ motions expressed in neutral terms. These motions are worded ‘That this House has considered [a specific matter]’. Amendments to such motions cannot be tabled. Divisions (votes) cannot take place in Westminster Hall.”
So, in short, there’s no way on God’s green earth that the Government’s Parliamentary Managers – or Parliamentary process would allow this (or any other petition) to go to a division (vote) in the Commons. It’s a dead duck! Packham’s peddling the fiction that if 100,000 people sign this petition, MPs will stream into the House of Commons and (en-masse) vote to repeal both HS2 Hybrid Bills! It’s a fantasy that relies on the gullibility of people to have no idea how their Parliamentary democracy actually works.
So, let’s indulge ourselves in a flight of fancy just for one minute. What if there WAS a vote in the Commons on HS2? The Government would win it hands down – for several reasons…
- Parliamentary mathematics.
- HS2 has massive cross-party support and the Tories would almost certainly ‘whip’ their MPs to vote in favour. So, even in the even more ridiculous and fantastical scenario of everybody else’s MPs voting to oppose HS2 the Government have an 80 seat majority and can’t fail. But, as the only people who oppose HS2 are a handful of Plaid Cymru MPs and the solitary Green, that ain’t gonna happen – but then, neither’s the vote!
- The number of MPs who oppose HS2 has fallen in recent years as many of those who did back in 2014 have lost their seats or simply left Parliament, so I refer you back to 1.
In short, this petition’s a complete waste of time. It’s just another myth that Packham’s peddling – like his Court case which was eviscerated as a waste of time with no chance of success by the Judges. This time he’s peddling the fantasy that MPs in Parliament would (if they could) vote to repeal the HS2 bill when they can’t – and wouldn’t.
Oh, there’s also the small matter that by the time this petition ends in June, two tunnel boring machines (TBMs) will already be several miles into their progress digging the Chiltern Tunnels and there’s going to be a lot of earthworks and new bridges being created along the 140 mile route of the line! This is not like pulling the plug in a computer system no-one’s ever seen, and if you think the Government will allow such a visible, physical monument to failure to be left behind you really do need to give your head a wobble! The only monument to failure you’ll be seeing here has Chris Packham’s name written all over it.
I have to say, it’s sad to see that the UK ‘Green’ movement has been hijacked by ‘conservationists’ with no thoughts for the science of climate change, whose only answer to any practical solution to tackle cutting carbon emissions is “but, Trees!” It’s this blinkered, ‘lose not one tree, not one blade of grass’ fundamentalism that’s making them part of the problem, not the solution, and it’s playing right into the oil/road lobby’s hands.
Oh, I take it back when I say this petition’s a ‘complete’ waste of time. It does have a couple of uses, but Packham won’t like either of them.
Firstly, these petitions come with a handy map showing which constituencies the people who’ve signed it live in. This will allow me to map the decline in signatures of people who live in areas HS2 passes through as I have a wealth of data from years and years of other failed petitions!
Secondly, it allows us to see what people acre about MORE than HS2! For example, here’s the top 10 active petitions at the moment.
In comparison to these, Packham and it friends have a mountain to climb. Oh, and that’s without mentioning that the petition to stop Brexit had over 6.1 MILLION signatures. That worked well…
Enjoy watching HS2 being built! If I have time tomorrow I’ll be blogging an update on progress with its construction.
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This could actually be even worse for the Anti’s if they do get a debate, it will if nothing else I suspect expose all too brutally the hyperbole and mythology of the Stop HS2 narrative to the full glare of critical review where they need it least of all. Either way this undoubtedly won’t be pretty.
Indeed Phil, it will expose (yet again) their lack of political support. In his arrogance, Packham may just have put the final nail in their coffin. They can’t take any more failures – but they way this has been presented – it could be their most public one for years.
Whilst the petition will close in June it’s unlikely that there would be limited time to organise a debate before the summer recess (one month later), in which case it’s likely to be part way through September before anything is debated.
Even if that then prompted a vote (which it wouldn’t) it’s likely that it would be into October.
That’s potentially 10 months of construction before anything happens. However even if there was a vote then it’s likely that it would take time to organise the works to be stopped and then there’ll be a load of works after its ordered to stop to ensure that the sites are safe to be left.
All of which would take time and cost quite a lot of money.
If this was 18 months ago and before the parties where looking at their manifestos for the 2019 election then it could have been worth doing, however since then things have moved on. Including billions of pounds with of contacts have been let, which would cost a lot to roll back on.
Indeed.
There are other considerations too. This Government would be a worldwide laughing-stock for cancelling HS2. Politically, it would a disastrous decision that sent all the wrong messages.
And let’s not forget even allowing for a population of 50 million by removing 17 million to allow for the populations of Scotland, Wales and NI not to mention those out of the loop so to speak due to age and medical reasons every 100,000 is just 0.2% of the population so hardly anything like even a significant minority.
Very true Phil. It will be interesting to crunch the numbers when it closes and see just how many of the 2.6m who live on the constituencies HS2 will pass though have voted!
I’ve yet to watch it, but I assume the Transport Select Committee didn’t go well for the Anti’s today as there is virtually no comment on it on the Anti pages that I can see.
I haven’t had time to see it myself – yet. They’ve certainly not been crowing about it.
Good article Paul, I agree with pretty much all of it and I’m someone who will defer to no-one in my loathing of HS2 for what it’s doing to my farm and the local area generally. However, for good or ill HS2 is going ahead and nothing will stop it now, certainly not a pointless petition. However when you say;
Firstly, these petitions come with a handy map showing which constituencies the people who’ve signed it live in. This will allow me to map the decline in signatures of people who live in areas HS2 passes through as I have a wealth of data from years and years of other failed petitions!
I don’t know what you will be inferring about this decline in signatures of people most affected by HS2. The only reason I can see why they’re they’re not signing the petition is that they see the reality on the ground, know it’s pointless trying to stop it now so don’t bother, no other reason, certainly not a new found enthusiasm for HS2.
As a final thought you don’t help yourself with silly childish comments like this;
Enjoy watching HS2 being built!
Put yourself in our shoes for a minute and think how you would feel if you had a 24 hour construction site outside your back door for the next 10.15, ??? years……
Hello James,
The remark about the decline in signatures is based on this: In some areas the real opposition to HS2 came from those who were blighted. The majority of them have now been bought out and moved on, this is often reflected in the collapse of local ‘action’ groups and also petitions like this. I’m not claiming they’re converts to HS2, merely reflecting the reality on the ground. In some places there might well be an increase in signatories due to the Packham ‘fan club’ effect. Not they they’ll achieve anything as appearing out of the woodwork at this late stage of the game just to sign a petition is the epitome of uselessness.
As for the ‘childish’ comment. Many people will enjoy watching HS2 being built. Students of engineering, people who appreciate design and the cleverness of construction. People who look to the future and who’re relieved to see the UK finally starting to catch up with the rest of the work in modernising its outdated infrastructure. People who follow the science and know we need the rail capacity to get modal shift from road/air to rail to tackle Climate Change. There’s a whole host of folk who will enjoy watching the line being built.
Yes, I appreciate there will be disruption for some living/working near the line. I covered the construction of HS1 and I worked on the building of the new railway line in Staffs in the last decade. But those works are only temporary. As for 24 hours? Parliament has not mandated 24 hour construction. Nor is there any need for it. This is not an operational railway where the line has to be reopened at 06:00 so work has to take place overnight. Bulldozers won’t be running at Midnight.
Paul, any thoughts on the likely delays and possible cancellation of the HS route northwards to Sheffield, Leeds and Newcastle? And probably also Manchester / Liverpool too.
I have never agreed with the short-sighted comments that £100bn is a waste of money to shave little more than 20 minutes off the London to Birmingham journey time, HS2 is clearly about far more than that. Increased rail capacity is a major pro-HS2 argument, but then if progress onwards to the Northeast is delayed or stopped, then the only significant capacity benefit that HS2 will achieve is that small section between Coventry and Birmingham, which means those apparently short-sighted anti-HS2 comments gain huge weight.
We all know that the Chiltern route won’t be changed now, but it has always been the North that really needs to benefit from rail improvements. The UK is about a lot more than just London, but HS2 is on the slippery slope towards being just another London-centric project, which understandably annoys many, many people.
I guess you might resort to blaming Covid for decimating rail patronage and thus making progress beyond Birmingham harder to justify, but many of us have said for years that HS2 should focus primarily on the North, in case of unforeseen problems, so that at least the North can benefit even if full completion of the project is threatened for any reason. HS2 trains could have run on existing lines to London from either Rugby or Leicester, before accelerating on the new route(s) northwards from those places (or more accurately from closer to where they meet the existing HS2 extensions). Thus, instead of saving 20 minutes on London-Birmingham, this would have meant saving more like an hour between many northern city pairs.
Your thoughts?
Chris. South of Rugby, and Leicester and Peterborough, there is even less spare capacity than in the north. There is little point in growing traffic in the north if the trunk of the network between London and the cities of the north is full. They both need to be grown.
It’s worth noting that a large shift in the freight market has freed up capacity in the north and sucked up capacity in the south in the last 20 to 30 years, the decline of coal versus the growth of Intermodal.
And the north has platforms longer than trains due to historical factors, not something that can be said in the south any more.
Hi Phil, sorry I missed seeing your reply, I’m new to this site and for some reason I didn’t receive any notification that it had arrived. With regard to capacity I was thinking that Birmingham to Coventry seems to suffer more from delays due to lack of capacity than south of Rugby does. The availability of four tracks south of Rugby (albeit that one pair runs via Northampton for the northern few miles) has the effect of offering more than twice the capacity of two tracks, because of the addition of flexibility to switch trains between them. Many, many times I’ve been stuck on fast trains from Coventry to New Street, behind all stations stoppers and it really is wearing!
But it’s not just about capacity, the time savings between northern city pairs is far greater than the time savings on Birmingham – London, and this also comes with far lower costs than tunneling through the Chilterns and the routing through London suburbs. I remain unconvinced that starting at the London end was the right thing to do for the UK as a whole.
Hi Chris.
You are missing the Trent Valley north of Rugby, 4 tracks all the way (except for one short stretch of 3 track from Brinklow to Nuneaton) to Crewe. So the 4 tracks south of Rugby have to cope with trains off 6 tracks. So capacity issues are very much at their worst south of Rugby. So starting at London is very much the right thing to do, it will free up core capacity on the WCML, ECML and even the MML and Chilterns that will allow for growth across the whole system.
Not sure how you come to the conclusion that time savings in the north are better than down south as train speed would be the same and this the time savings per unit of distance would be the same. And driving a railway through the Pennies would almost certainly be just as if not more expensive as the Chilterns, in particular as you would need tunnels for engineering reasons rather than mitigation reasons.
And you can bet some people in the north would object, NIMBY’s and those with other reasons to oppose a new railway exist in all areas.
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