Transport in the North — House of Commons, 2017-11-06
Topic: Transportation
James Ian Mearns (Labour, Centre-left): I would welcome more jobs for the north-east, which was the industrial home of the railways in ancient times At present, the people of Tyne and Wear and their parliamentary representatives are being treated with complete contempt by the Government, who have failed to answer a letter from 10 Members of Parliament after more than 120 days. [Interruption.] Conservative Members would not accept that. May I ask you, Madam Deputy Speaker, whether it is normal parliamentary procedure for a letter to a Secretary of State, signed by 10 MPs, to be completely ignored for more than 120 days? I am still waiting The latest figures from the Treasury show that investment in infrastructure in the north-east is the second lowest in the UK, the lowest being in Northern Ireland. As we know, Northern Ireland has a financial benefit with which it can do something that will be determined for and by itself. Between 2011 and 2016, investment in the north-east was very low by comparison with the national average, and very low indeed by comparison with investment in London and the south-east. London enjoyed £30 billion of investment, and London and the south-east benefited from nearly 50% of all infrastructure investment. In the north-east, our commuters regularly endure journeys of less than 15 miles that take more than an hour. The recently completed road-widening scheme on the A1 around the Metro Centre in my constituency has done little to ease that. Another scheme to widen the stretch of A1 alongside the neighbouring constituency has already been delayed until late 2020 in favour of investment elsewhere. Given such a disparity in spending between mine and other regions, my question must be this: why can we not have some investment for the north? "Fair funding" for us would not be fair, because it would not come to terms with that historical lag—the historical disparity that has left us in the doldrums The road network in the north-east, and the network that links it with other northern English regions and with Scotland, is beyond a joke. As has already been mentioned, the A1, the A19, the A66 and the A69 all suffer congestion and low travel speeds. The A1 around my constituency and to the west of Newcastle is one of the most heavily congested roads in the country, and the A1M which runs south from Gateshead to Scotch Corner—a distance of less than 40 miles—is motorway in name only. It often takes more than an hour to travel 40 miles on something that is designated a motorway. It is all too often dangerous, as is the A1 North link between Tyneside and Scotland Our internal regional railways are antiquated, uncomfortable and painfully slow. The region that gave this nation its railways is being left behind: that is beyond dispute. The right hon. Member for Derbyshire Dales (Sir Patrick McLoughlin) stood at the Dispatch Box and told us that by 2035, HS2 would cut journey times from London to Newcastle via Leeds by 20 minutes. Twenty years ago we could travel by train from Newcastle to London in two hours and 38 minutes, and in 20 years’ time, with HS2, the journey will be 20 minutes faster. So 40 years will have elapsed, we will have spent £56 billion, and we will have saved 20 minutes on the journey time from Newcastle to London. This will increase capacity, but it will do nothing for the economy of the north-east until we get the north-east’s transport infrastructure improved dramatically. We are being ignored.