argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Rail Investment and Integrated Rail Plan — House of Commons, 2021-12-08
Topic: Transportation
Louise Margaret Haigh (Labour, Centre-left): This is exactly the problem. The problem that Ministers have is whether we can even trust what is being promised in this plan In this country we measure infrastructure investment not in months but in years and in decades. When the Victorians laid the foundations for our modern railway, it was a vote of confidence in our future. The integrated rail plan was the Government’s chance to build a railway fit for the century to come that would help us to tackle the climate crisis, but when the north came to cash its cheque, it bounced. At the heart of these broken promises are the missed opportunities for investment, for growth and for business. The OECD could not have been clearer when it said that investment in regional transport drives growth. Northern Powerhouse Rail could have increased productivity by 6%—a £22 billion boost to the northern economy. That opportunity has been squandered.
Rail Investment and Integrated Rail Plan — House of Commons, 2021-12-08
Topic: Transportation
Andrew John Gwynne (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend talks about missed opportunities. I can tell her of one big disappointment to residents in Greater Manchester, and that is the shaving of £4 billion off the cost for increasing capacity through Manchester city centre. We were promised a high-speed underground station. That is now not happening. We will end up with a sanitised version of trains on stilts that will completely halt the regeneration of my hon. Friend the shadow Minister’s constituency.
Rail Investment and Integrated Rail Plan — House of Commons, 2021-12-08
Topic: Transportation
Louise Margaret Haigh (Labour, Centre-left): This was about capacity, and it was about promises made that have been broken. Frankly, this plan is simply not future-proof I cannot imagine that the Treasury is happy. The business case for HS2 without the eastern leg no longer represents value for money. I imagine that many of those in the home counties will be wondering why their lives have been turned upside down for a project that would not even have been started under Treasury rules if it was not going all the way to Leeds. People across this country were told this would level up the north and provide a significant return on investment, but now it is doing neither The difficult truth for Ministers is this: if they can openly, clearly and publicly deceive people in our proud regions, why on earth should we believe anything else contained in this plan? As we saw crystal clear last night in the leaked video from No. 10, their bare-faced, brazen and shameless dishonesty is catching up with them. If No. 10 can laugh and lie about a party it held when lives were literally on the line, does that not that prove that the one thing we know for certain about this Government is that you cannot believe a single word they say? Given this record, can the Conservative Members lined up today to do the bidding of their Government really be confident that even the paltry plan they stand up to defend will ever be delivered The nonsense contained in the integrated rail plan that these plans will somehow be better for communities such as Peterborough, Wakefield or Newark is just that—nonsense. Failing to build new lines will put more fast, longer-distance trains on existing infrastructure and will crowd out local services. The Secretary of State needs to be honest with his colleagues in Broxtowe, Dewsbury and Bolsover about the level of disruption that they can expect to experience over the next decade, with the cancelled trains and longer journeys while their lines are being upgraded, and whether, at the end—if, of course, this work is ever done—they will have more services, more capacity or less than they currently enjoy.
Rail Investment and Integrated Rail Plan — House of Commons, 2021-12-08
Topic: Transportation
Ruth Margaret Cadbury (Labour, Centre-left): I thank my hon. Friend for the very powerful speech she is making and congratulate her on her new role. Does she agree that as well as squandering the opportunity to provide jobs and regenerate so many communities in the north, this plan squanders the opportunity to take freight and cars off the road, which would reduce congestion and pollution and increase journey speeds for those who need to be on the road?
Rail Investment and Integrated Rail Plan — House of Commons, 2021-12-08
Topic: Transportation
Louise Margaret Haigh (Labour, Centre-left): That is exactly the point, and it was the point of the original plans for HS2 and Northern Powerhouse Rail. The hon. Members for Shipley (Philip Davies) and for Keighley (Robbie Moore) understand that. They understand what it means to scale back NPR. They have described the decision as hugely and bitterly disappointing.
Rail Investment and Integrated Rail Plan — House of Commons, 2021-12-08
Topic: Transportation
Mathew Richard Allen Rodda (Labour, Centre-left): I wholeheartedly support my hon. Friend in the points she makes about how this Government have let down the north, London and other parts of the country. The electrification programme is a prime example. Electrification stops before it even gets to most of south Wales. It stops in Newbury in my region. Does she agree that there should be far greater investment in this important part of modernising our railway?
Rail Investment and Integrated Rail Plan — House of Commons, 2021-12-08
Topic: Transportation
Louise Margaret Haigh (Labour, Centre-left): I could not agree more with my hon. Friend Fundamentally the problem is that the integrated rail plan misunderstood the intention and benefits of High Speed 2 and Northern Powerhouse Rail. It was about freeing up fast, long-distance trains from the existing network and enabling more capacity for local services and rail freight. As a result, we have a set of proposals that will not deliver anything like what was promised for the north and the midlands. This scaling back is a massive double whammy for our regions. The worst part is that the communities that will feel the brunt of years of broken promises, empty words and inaction are, at the same time, being squeezed the hardest by the Conservatives’ tax hikes and rising bills, while those with the broadest shoulders remain largely untouched. Those same working people will likely face a record increase in rail fares next year. They will be paying more than 50% more to get to work than a decade ago, relying on an unreliable and overcrowded system Tonight, Conservative MPs face a very simple choice. Will they stand by the pledge they made to their constituents at election time—a pledge that their Government repeated 60 times? Will they vote for the investment they were elected to office to deliver? With trust in politics so low, will they now do the right thing? This great rail betrayal will hit millions of people—their constituents—and leave the north and the midlands in the slow lane for decades to come. Tonight, Tory MPs can join with Labour and right this wrong. They have a chance to stand up for their communities. If they vote against this Opposition motion tonight, their electorate will know where they stand, will know they cannot be trusted and rightly will not forgive them.
Rail Investment and Integrated Rail Plan — House of Commons, 2021-12-08
Topic: Transportation
Matthew Toby Perkins (Labour, Centre-left): The Secretary of State described this as a reforming Government, but what they are reforming is their manifesto after they have been elected on it. People in Chesterfield and across north Derbyshire were promised HS2, which would increase capacity. Instead, what we have got are slower services and years and years of delays while the reforms happen.
Rail Investment and Integrated Rail Plan — House of Commons, 2021-12-08
Topic: Transportation
Ruth Margaret Cadbury (Labour, Centre-left): Does the Secretary of State not recognise that upgrading existing lines is far more disruptive for the existing passengers of those lines than building new lines? Will he retract the statement that he made on the radio on the day he released the plan when he seemed more worried about car drivers on the M1 being upset by potential works on the new high speed link than about passengers on the existing rail network who will suffer years and years of disruption?
Rail Investment and Integrated Rail Plan — House of Commons, 2021-12-08
Topic: Transportation
Lilian Rachel Greenwood (Labour, Centre-left): Will the Secretary of State confirm that under his plans, the high speed line joins the midland main line at East Midlands Parkway and does not go any further north, thus depriving Nottingham and all the cities of the east midlands of the improved connectivity and faster journey times to Sheffield, Leeds, Newcastle and Scotland? Is that not precisely why my constituents are so angry about his broken promises?
Rail Investment and Integrated Rail Plan — House of Commons, 2021-12-08
Topic: Transportation
Helen Elizabeth Hayes (Labour, Centre-left): Can the Secretary of State confirm that, while he is letting down passengers across the north and the midlands, he is also letting down passengers in London? Can he confirm what conversations he has had with his colleagues in the north of England about the 43,000 jobs that will be put at risk if he does not agree further emergency funding for Transport for London? Can he say why he is neglecting our transport system in London three days from the current emergency funding running out?
Rail Investment and Integrated Rail Plan — House of Commons, 2021-12-08
Topic: Macroeconomics
Paula Barker (Labour, Centre-left): The Secretary of State talked about leaders and the quotes. I want to touch on the quote of the Metro Mayor of the Liverpool City Region, Steve Rotherham. He said that the penny-pinchers at the Treasury have won the day to roll out a "cheap and nasty option". Isn’t that the case?
Rail Investment and Integrated Rail Plan — House of Commons, 2021-12-08
Topic: Transportation
Andrew Joseph McDonald (Labour, Centre-left): I am grateful to the Secretary of State for giving way, but he knows and I know that his predecessors committed to the full delivery of HS2. That was the way that the full economic benefits would be delivered. He talks about smaller towns. They are the ones that would directly benefit from a fully funded HS2, which would not only get people off the roads and away from aviation on to rail, but release capacity across the entire network. He knows that to be true. This is a shortfall. It pulls the rug from under his own plans and those of his predecessors. Is that not the case?
Rail Investment and Integrated Rail Plan — House of Commons, 2021-12-08
Topic: Transportation
George Edward Howarth (Labour, Centre-left): I want to address the way in which these new proposals affect the Liverpool city region, and specifically the way in which it will be affected by the upgrade, as distinct from the northern powerhouse option. Earlier in the debate, my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Paula Barker) quoted the metro Mayor, Steve Rotheram, who said that the upgrade was the "cheap and nasty" option. I do not think that there is any hyperbole in that; it is an accurate description of what is going on. I want to concentrate on the disruptive effect that this new proposal will have over the six years of its lifetime. For example, it will lead to 500,000 more road journeys annually, partly as a result of freight being shifted from the rail network on to the motorway network and partly as a result of private car journeys. That will mean a loss of something like 88 freight trains a week, which will lead to an additional 2,000 truck journeys a week and of course more car journeys. That is bound to have an adverse impact on the environment and on our net zero target. It will badly affect the Government’s levelling-up agenda. We estimate that the Liverpool city region economy will be worse off to the tune of £280 million—a vast sum of money—as a result of the disruption to trade In terms of rail travel, there will be only marginal or negative gains to journey times. For example, the journey time to Manchester will be reduced from 37 minutes to 35 minutes. Well, that is not going to make anyone in Liverpool want to go and work in Manchester, or vice versa. Those figures compare with the 23-minute journey time that the Northern Powerhouse Rail option offered. Turning to capacity, which is after all the main reason for HS2, the so-called upgrade proposal will add little or no additional capacity. For example, there will be 83% capacity compared with the industry standard of 85%. That sounds quite marginal, but it means that when there are adverse weather conditions, the system will go into chaos, because there will not be the capacity to deal with it. To summarise, the upgrade option will be disruptive, with little or no gain to be had Let me conclude by making what I hope will be a constructive suggestion to the Secretary of State. Steve Rotheram has made it plain that as a city region we are open to compromise, so will the Secretary of State agree today to meet the metro Mayors of the region, to see whether we can arrive at a compromise that will improve this outcome, in contrast to the rather bleak picture that I have just had to paint?
Rail Investment and Integrated Rail Plan — House of Commons, 2021-12-08
Topic: Transportation
Lilian Rachel Greenwood (Labour, Centre-left): Does the hon. Gentleman not think that this decision to reverse the previous decision to cancel the electrification of the midland main line shows that the Government do not have a proper strategy for delivering net zero or for delivering rail investment? Is this not the most inefficient way to electrify the railway? Should they not have a proper rolling programme rather than this stop-go approach?
Rail Investment and Integrated Rail Plan — House of Commons, 2021-12-08
Topic: Transportation
Andrew Joseph McDonald (Labour, Centre-left): It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard) Much has been said about the disintegrated rail plan, the watering down of the northern powerhouse and the scrapping of the eastern leg of HS2, and all that criticism is well founded. The bottom line is that this Government have broken their promises. I see the northern rail network as a beating heart, and the arteries are badly clogged. So much so, we need stents where the blockages are most severe and some major bypasses to take the pressure off the entire system The conventional system needs upgrading as well as the high-speed intercity connections. The Tories, the Prime Minister and a succession of Transport Secretaries, including the latest one, have argued that we need both. That is what HS2 and NPR, as promised, would have delivered, but it has all been tossed aside by the Tories’ integrated rail plan, which is nothing short of a betrayal For all the talk of levelling up, the Government are failing constituents like mine in Middlesbrough. When I came into Parliament at the end of 2012, I immediately began to campaign for better transport services in our region. One element of that was a direct rail service from Middlesbrough to London, as we were the largest conurbation in the UK without a direct rail link to our capital city. Despite its late arrival, we will finally be getting that service next week, but it is only one train out and one train back each day. It is a start, but the fight continues. I will do everything I can to make sure we get the promised seven trains out and six trains back a day, and that they materialise as soon as possible Another key issue on which I have pressed the Department for Transport from the moment I arrived in the House is the expansion of electrified rail from Northallerton on the east coast main line to Middlesbrough. Electrification is a hugely important infrastructure development for our wider ambitions. Back in 2013, a national electrification taskforce reported to the then Secretary of State, who is now the right hon. Lord McLoughlin, highlighting 12 northern routes that should be electrified by 2024. Northallerton to Middlesbrough was among the 12 routes earmarked for completion in the period 2019 to 2024, but since then the Government have gone completely silent on the schemes. We need a modern mass transit system connecting our communities, with full connectivity of our rail services across and beyond our region. That would be truly transformative for our community.
Rail Investment and Integrated Rail Plan — House of Commons, 2021-12-08
Topic: Transportation
Tahir Ali (Labour, Centre-left): On the point about connecting communities, does my hon. Friend agree that HS2 was not just about building track, building stations or reducing journey times; it was more about regeneration and connecting regions and cities, and about the economic benefits that could flow between them?
Rail Investment and Integrated Rail Plan — House of Commons, 2021-12-08
Topic: Transportation
Andrew Joseph McDonald (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend makes a very good point. The entire purpose of HS2, which was supported by successive Governments—the Prime Minister stood at the Dispatch Box and supported it himself—was to release capacity on our conventional rail line. If we really want to make that advance, take vehicles off our roads and get people off aviation and into rail, HS2 is the way to deliver it. Give us the option to go all the way up to Scotland, because that is critical. Sadly, that opportunity has been lost with the plan that has been announced Observing your strictures, Madam Deputy Speaker, I will draw my remarks to a close. We want those improvements in our systems, and there is no reason in the world why we should not strive for exactly that. Frankly, however, I have no faith that the Government will deliver on any of their past promises, and I fear that their further promises are destined to be broken.
Rail Investment and Integrated Rail Plan — House of Commons, 2021-12-08
Topic: Transportation
Daniel Owen Jarvis (Labour, Centre-left): I declare an interest as a metro Mayor. Also, it would be churlish of me not to acknowledge the fact that both Ministers on the Front Bench—the hon. Members for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris) and for Pendle (Andrew Stephenson)—have been unfailingly helpful and cheerful in supporting the work we are trying to do in South Yorkshire, so the critique of the Government’s plans that I am about to make is aimed not at them personally but at decisions that have been made in Downing Street When the Prime Minister first set out his levelling-up agenda back in July 2019, he made an unequivocal pledge to fund Northern Powerhouse Rail. Since then, he and his Government have repeated that pledge not once, not twice but 60 times—not in part and not with compromises, but in full. The Prime Minister was right to make those promises, because the delivery of Northern Powerhouse Rail and, indeed, HS2 in full is the least that the north could expect. It is not some extravagant fantasy—another airport in the Thames or bridge over the Irish sea—and it is not special treatment; it is the bare minimum to redress a legacy of decades of neglect Set against that neglect, Transport for the North’s plan of investment, spread over 30 years, is entirely reasonable, but instead we have ended up with a cut-price, compromise scheme that leaves Sheffield disconnected from any high-speed link to Manchester or Hull; that does nothing to fix the unacceptably slow and infrequent connection to our sister powerhouse city of Leeds, just 35 miles away; that leaves the great city of Bradford isolated on a branch line; and that does too little to mend the north-south divide and risks widening the east-west divide Worse yet, the IRP sets the stage for decades to come. This was the moment to invest in our railway infrastructure for generations to come; it was not the moment to cut corners. Instead, the plan bakes in mediocrity for a generation and delays the structural improvements needed for the fundamental change that levelling up is supposed to be all about. Sadly, all this is par for the course. The Government have a consistent track record of dressing up half measures and telling voters that they amount to transformation. If it means anything, levelling up must mean that, for a change, the north gets what it needs—that we do not get second best Let us be clear: this is a betrayal not just of the north but of the whole country Northern Powerhouse Rail could have helped to create 850,000 extra jobs and unlock £3.4 billion of gross value added every year. It could have reduced the £14 billion a year regional inequality that it is estimated to cost in lost tax revenue and higher health and benefit spending, but, as it stands, the IRP only confirms the utter poverty of vision of this Government and the insincerity of their pledges. Perhaps some people are so used to this that they have forgotten to be outraged, but I say to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, that I have not, and enough is enough.
Rail Investment and Integrated Rail Plan — House of Commons, 2021-12-08
Topic: Transportation
Nia Rhiannon Griffith (Labour, Centre-left): It is not just the north that has been badly let down by this Government, but the people in Wales. All of us recognise the need for rail investment not just for the immediate economic and commercial benefits, but in order to decarbonise our transport, which currently accounts for some 27% of all emissions. Electrification of the railways and investment in the renewable generation of electricity are an obvious way in which emissions can be reduced. Then of course there is the need to increase capacity. I have frequently raised with railway professionals the question of why more freight cannot be transported by rail, and I am told that, in many instances, there is simply not the capacity The truth is that the people in Wales have been badly short-changed by this Government in respect of investment in rail infrastructure, because, although Wales has some 11% of the UK’s rail track, we have barely had a 2% share of investment in rail infrastructure. Matters are currently compounded by the fact that HS2 has been designated as an England and Wales project—
Rail Investment and Integrated Rail Plan — House of Commons, 2021-12-08
Topic: Transportation
Nia Rhiannon Griffith (Labour, Centre-left): No, I will not give way. The hon. Member has had his say Matters are currently compounded by the fact that HS2 has been designated as an England and Wales project in spite of the fact that, according to the Government’s own analysis, rather than benefiting from the project, Wales will actually miss out. The designation means that Wales does not receive any Barnett consequentials, so I again ask the Government whether they will now follow the recommendations of the Welsh Affairs Committee and redesignate HS2 as an England-only project, and then accord Wales the appropriate funding in the form of Barnett consequentials Sadly, time and again, we have heard the Tory Government talk of lavish investment, but it is all talk that is not backed up in reality. Instead, we have had announcements that are reduced in scope, re-announced as if they were new, delayed, postponed or completely forgotten. All we know is that they are broken promises that are not delivered. One such case is the electrification of the Great Western main line. In 2009, the former Labour Government announced a £1.1 billion project to electrify the line to Swansea. However, in 2010, the incoming Tory Government immediately axed the Cardiff to Swansea leg. After some considerable campaigning by local MPs, a promise was made in 2012 that the electrification would in fact continue to Swansea. However, in 2017, the Government again broke their promise and axed the Cardiff to Swansea leg. When this issue was raised recently, the Secretary of State for Wales responded glibly that there was no point in doing it because the nature of the track meant that speeds would not be significantly improved—what a pathetic answer. For the sake simply of combating climate change, electrification makes sense. Indeed, it is essential if we are to decarbonise our transport.