Integrated Rail Plan: North and Midlands — House of Lords, 2021-11-22
Topic: Transportation
Charlotte Vere (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, and the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, for their considered responses to the integrated rail plan. I too had the opportunity, over the weekend, to read the documents in detail and consider the sorts of questions I might face today. Actually, noble Lords have not disappointed so far in the issues that they have raised—and I accept that they feel very strongly about this Having read the documents and considered this more carefully, I think the integrated rail plan is an elegant solution. We had a very outdated plan, the old plan, which did not properly take into account some developments, particularly from the national transport bodies, notably Transport for the North and Northern Powerhouse Rail, and Midlands Engine Rail, Midlands Connect and the Midlands Rail Hub. None of them had a proper look-in in the plans. We saw that costs were rising and that the whole thing did not fit well together, so it was absolutely right for the Government to go back, look at the plans, set them all out and consider what we are actually trying to achieve. The goal is not to build new railways; it is just something that enables people to get from A to B more quickly, more frequently and at a cheaper cost. That is what we are trying to do How we choose to do that is a combination of stretches of new railway, as noble Lords know, and some upgrades to existing railways. That is a very elegant situation that comes at a lower cost to the taxpayer. I will not and see no reason to apologise for that at all. It also happens much more quickly than it would otherwise, so we need to take a step back. There are a lot of winners here. I would like to be living in Nottingham, quite frankly; people there are going to have a great time. Good old Derby will have direct access to HS2, which it was nowhere close to prior to this. Also, all the places along the Midlands main line will get electrification and have more reliable journeys now. They did not even get a look-in in the old plans We have taken a more considered approach to the system as a whole. I accept that life has changed slightly for Leeds, but Leeds is also benefiting from this. We have said that we will spend £100 million on looking at how to get HS2 to Leeds. We will look at whether the current station can absorb the additional capacity and we will finally start work on the West Yorkshire mass transit system. This is great news for Leeds, so I do not share the doom and gloom of the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, about its economic future. Actually, having a train line that goes to Manchester is just one of the things that people in Leeds might want; they might also want to travel around their own city on a mass transit system. I think we have been able to help Leeds in this regard. The impact on economies will be set out in the business cases for all the different schemes, as we go forward On TfN and its change of role, this is not at all unusual within the Department for Transport. We have a good relationship with TfN and it has an important role in providing us with statutory advice. However, the Northern Powerhouse Rail programme will be in the Government’s major projects portfolio and it requires clear accountability to the Secretary of State. Therefore, the client will be the Department for Transport, but that does not cut out Transport for the North. It has a joint sponsorship role, and again it is important that it can offer advice and knows what is going on with the project. In terms of delivery, however, it must be accountable to the Secretary of State to make sure that we keep things moving as we need to There was a comment about the Government not being a fan of devolution, on which I beg to differ. The city region sustainable transport settlements have committed £5.7 billion to our major cities. That is truly transport devolution on a large scale The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, came up with a litany of delays that had happened previously. I do not disagree that sometimes large transport infrastructure projects suffer from delays. None of us involved in transport likes delays but sometimes they happen. However, I am not entirely sure why they would not then happen to elements of HS2. Given that the previous full "Y" going all the way up was not going to be delivered until the mid-2040s, my goodness, we could be looking to the mid-2060s before that was delivered then, had it been delayed. I am not sure that that is necessarily a reason for not liking the Government’s plans On the issue of disruption, all transport infrastructure projects are disruptive. We know that. However, the approach taken by this IRP will cause less disruption that previous plans would have. For example, the HS2 eastern leg in full would have caused significant disruption to the motorway network. It would have crossed it 13 times. I am the Roads Minister—that disruption would have been quite challenging. We know that enhancements to existing lines will ease bottlenecks and make rail services more reliable. We will work very closely with the rail industry to minimise disruption as the schemes are developed and delivered I turn now to the issue of digital signalling. If I may, I will write on this issue so I can provide the most up-to-date information that I have The noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, asked what percentage will be electrified when this is all finished. In my brief I have the figure of 75%, which I want to check. It feels right—but you think, okay, we are going to go from quite a small percentage to 75%. We are going to be electrifying hundreds of miles of railway line, so this probably is right but, again, I will write to 100% confirm that number. This is a huge electrification programme, as I am sure the noble Baroness will understand Let us turn to money. The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, mentioned it and so did the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson. This is the sort of thing that I get a little bit confused by. We are in a strange parallel universe where it matters only how much you are spending rather than what you are spending it on. That strikes me as bizarre. People are saying to me "But you are not spending this money on this railway line,". No, but we are providing more benefits to more people, more quickly for less money. Surely that is a good thing I say to the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, that I believe that the leader of the Opposition has in mind to establish something called the value for money office, should he ever become Prime Minister. He may well think that that is a very good idea. But I say to the noble Lord that, if he had the Government’s integrated rail plan at £96 billion—providing some pretty good service uplifts and some good improvements in journey times—versus the previous outdated plans costing £185 billion, and if he were to give those to this new-fangled value for money office, I wonder which one it would choose.