Transport in the North — House of Commons, 2017-11-06
Topic: Transportation
Joanne Marie Platt (Labour, Centre-left): I thank my hon. Friend for that point, and I completely agree with her My constituency was among many in the north that formed the engine of the industrial revolution. I am going to include the spinning jenny, seeing as everyone else has done so. The key to my constituency’s success was not only the ingenious and powerful inventions, but its connectivity to the regional and national economy. However, since then the country has turned its back on the industrious and innovative towns of the north Although there has, since the 1980s, rightly been investment in our great northern cities—Manchester to the east, and Liverpool to the west—our crumbling transport infrastructure cannot cope with demand and suffers from chronic underinvestment. Our road and motorway networks are gridlocked, our trains are over capacity and, with cuts to local authority budgets, our public transport system no longer serves the most disconnected in our communities. Great things were promised to the residents of Leigh when HS2 was announced. It would boost connectivity and the regional economy, and the disruption would be mitigated by the benefits of improved infrastructure. Instead, however, HS2 is due to split my constituency in two, uprooting residents and causing enormous disruption. Leigh will be the largest town in the north without a rail station, and I am aware of no current plans to connect Leigh with any station. To add insult to injury, when I asked the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard), who has responsibility for HS2, about the matter in a written question, his response was that the Department had never assessed the cost of a direct rail line or ways to reduce journey times between Leigh and HS2. To spell out what that means, it will take longer for my residents in one area of my constituency to connect to HS2 than it will for them to travel from that area into Birmingham, which is not right I make this case not just because of the need for transport and infrastructure, which I do not believe would instantly solve all our problems, but because an improved transport infrastructure would directly assist a number of concerns unique to Leigh, such as the social mobility problem, the ongoing skills shortage and the under-investment in local businesses. We therefore need from the Government an assurance of investment, and an assurance that any investments in the local transport infrastructure via regional bodies such as Transport for the North and Transport for Greater Manchester are based on a published assessment of local economic needs In conclusion, this debate is not just about transport links in the north, but about the entire regional economy. I welcome this Government’s commitment to the northern powerhouse project, but it cannot succeed unless every town in the north is connected and offered the same opportunities as the inner cities. We cannot expect the regional economy to boom when so many towns are being held back. Put quite simply, the north will succeed when our northern towns succeed. I hope this debate will highlight the importance of transport connectivity to our local economies and ensure that towns such as Leigh receive their fair share of investment in the future.