Asked by
To ask His Majesty’s Government what proportion of the £36
billion transport investment plan ‘Network North’ will be
allocated to schemes outside the Northern region.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for
Transport () (Con)
My Lords, £36 billion of funding redirected from HS2 will see
improvements to transport throughout the country. Every penny of
the £19.8 billion committed to the northern leg of HS2 will be
reinvested in the north, every penny of the £9.6 billion
committed to the Midlands leg will be reinvested in the Midlands,
and the £6.5 billion saved through our rescoped approach at
Euston will be spread across every other region of the
country.
(Lab)
My Lords, the Minister knows that this document, Network North,
is supposed to compensate the Midlands and the north for the
scrapping of HS2 north of Birmingham by providing lots of other
rail schemes more quickly. Will the Minister publish a list of
these new schemes, which does not seem to be available at the
moment, with estimates of the cost of each one and when they are
likely to be operational? Will he tell us how he calculates the
£36 billion that he says will be saved by the cancellation of HS2
north, bearing in mind that millions—possibly billions—have
already been spent and now wasted? Finally, how can a document
called Network North include among its proposals the promise of a
new station at Tavistock?
(Con)
I am very grateful to the noble Lord for his Question. I will
have to look at his point on the calculation and come back with
an answer; I do not have the figures broken down in front of me.
Network Northwill deliver a wide range of rail infrastructure
investments across the country. While I have already given the
exact figures for what we will spend on the northern leg of HS2
and have committed to the Midlands leg, we are also building a
brand-new station and line connection in Bradford, with journey
times reduced from 56 to 30 minutes to Manchester via
Huddersfield. We are better connecting major cities across the
north, with more frequent trains, increased capacity and faster
journeys, expanding the network. We will upgrade connections
between Manchester and Sheffield, Leeds and Sheffield, Leeds and
Hull, and Hull and Sheffield. We will fully fund the Midlands
rail hub, increasing investment to £1.75 billion and connecting
more than 50 stations. We will upgrade the rail links between
Newark and Nottingham, halving journey times between Nottingham
and Leeds. I could go on, but I am very happy to write to the
noble Lord with more detail.
(Non-Afl)
My Lords, I was pleased to see, towards the end of the Network
North report, mention of the A75 and the A77 in Scotland. Those
are very important roads for Northern Ireland travellers going to
England and Glasgow. Can the Minister update us on that, because
it is important for United Kingdom connectivity?
(Con)
Scotland will benefit from funding to deliver targeted
improvements on the A75 between Gretna and Stranraer, which is
one of the main routes from mainland Britain to Northern Ireland
via the Cairnryan ferry. The UK Government have committed to
providing £8 million development funding to the Scottish
Government for a detailed feasibility study to develop options to
improve the A75, and made it a priority action in our response to
the Union Connectivity Reviewof 7 December last year.
Additionally, as part of the announcements in Network North on 4
October, the UK Government have committed to provide funding to
deliver targeted improvements to the A75, pending a business case
being submitted by the Scottish Government.
(Lab)
My Lords, I remind the House that, when HS2 was cancelled, the
Prime Minister said that,
“we’ll reinvest every single penny, £36 billion, into hundreds of
transport projects in the North”.
and the Midlands. Yet the Minister’s predecessor, the noble
Baroness, Lady Vere, sent us a letter telling us that some of the
money, £8.4 billion, would be spent on pothole alleviation across
the country, including in such great northern counties as
Wiltshire, and that only 31 of 70 road schemes that would be
given the go-ahead were in the north and Midlands.
Following on from my noble friend Lord Grocott’s Question, will
the Minister write to me with a list of the business cases for
new public transport investment that have been presented to the
Treasury since this announcement was made in October? How many of
these business cases have been approved? I think that a lot would
be. On this side of the House, many of us believe that the
Government are holding back public investment so that they can
justify tax cuts within their fiscal rules.
(Con)
I will be very happy to write to the noble Lord and give him an
explanation of where the money is going. The Prime Minister
said:
“Every penny of the £19.8 billion committed to the Northern leg
of HS2 will be reinvested in the North; every penny of the £9.6
billion committed to the Midlands leg will be reinvested in the
Midlands; and the full £6.5 billion saved through our rescoped
approach at Euston will be spread across every other region in
the country”.
(LD)
My Lords, on 20 November the Minister wrote to us explaining how
£8.3 billion—already down from the £8.4 billion specified in the
letter from the noble Baroness, Lady Vere—would be divided up
among local authorities across Britain for use on road projects.
A third of that money is going to local authorities in the south
of England. Can the Minister explain to us whether, in future
allocations, a third of that money will go to the south of
England? Can he explain why no money at all is going to Wales?
The Government specified that HS2 would be of great benefit to
Wales for our links with the north of England. Now that those
links will never be created, Wales is at a disadvantage as a
result.
(Con)
I think the noble Baroness must have missed the fact that £1
billion is being spent on improving the north Wales line through
electrification. In November we announced the £8.3 billion of
truly additional highways maintenance funding over the period
from 2023 to 2034. The next thing is for local road surfacing and
wider highways maintenance. That covers £3.3 billion for local
authorities in the north-west, the north-east, Yorkshire and the
Humber, £2.2 billion for those in the West Midlands and the east
Midlands, and £2.8 billion for those in the east of England, the
south-east, the south-west and London.
(Con)
My Lords, I welcome the investment in the north and the Midlands,
particularly the improvement between Newark and Nottingham. I am
very aware that East Anglia is not quite in the north of England
but, if I may make a plug, can my noble friend the Minister give
us an update on any extra funding or resources going into
improving rail services in my home county of Cambridgeshire?
(Con)
My Lords, the Ely area capacity enhancement programme comprises a
series of infrastructure upgrades to increase rail freight and
passenger capacity in the east of England. Ely is a key hub on
the cross-country freight route from Felixstowe to the north
Midlands. The other, via London, is at operating capacity.
Existing infrastructure in the area and its layout limit the
ability to operate additional passenger and freight services. The
approximate cost for full delivery of the programme would be £550
million. The scheme would increase freight capacity into the Port
of Felixstowe from 36 to 42 trains per day, but the good news is
that this would be expected to remove 98,000 lorry journeys per
year from the roads.
(Lab)
Will the Minister arrange for himself and his colleagues to have
geography lessons?
(Con)
I happen to have an O-level in it.
(LD)
I am glad to hear that the Minister is interested in removing
lorries from roads. The major problem on the trans-Pennine links
is lack of rail capacity. The M62 is jammed with trucks carrying
containers between the east and west coasts. Unless there are new
rail paths across the Pennines, nothing will change. Are there
any plans to reinstitute the idea of a new rail line between
Manchester and Leeds?
(Con)
That is something I am not aware of at the moment, but I will
certainly look into it and come back to the noble Lord.
