Transport Infrastructure: Lancashire

Tuesday 15th March 2016 Westminster Hall

16:30

[Seema Kennedy (South Ribble) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered transport infrastructure in Lancashire.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard.

The Government have quite rightly made a commitment to rebalancing the nation’s economy. For many years, under Governments of different political persuasions, our economy has been too focused and over-reliant on the service sector and too focused on London and the south-east. Of course, that was not always the case. We in Lancashire are very proud of our place in the nation’s industrial history. I pay tribute to the Friends of Real Lancashire for promoting the historical borders of real Lancashire—I am pleased to see the hon. Member for Southport (John Pugh) present—which boasted the two great northern cities of Manchester and Liverpool. Those two conurbations have changed beyond all recognition in the past half century and are forging ahead. Within its current borders, Lancashire also has a role to play in the important task of balancing the economy and strengthening our industrial base. I, for one, do not want to see Lancashire lose out at the expense of our larger urban neighbours—and certainly not to those “white rose” residents to the east.

The Lancashire city deal was signed by Preston City Council, South Ribble Borough Council and Lancashire County Council in September 2013. It is the second biggest city deal outside London and promises to create 17,000 homes and 20,000 jobs over its first decade. It is crucial to the whole county, and I pay tribute to all those involved in its preparation, particularly Councillor Margaret Smith, the visionary leader of South Ribble Borough Council. Some important pieces of road infrastructure were started immediately under the auspices of the city deal, including the Broughton bypass and the M55 junction. At this point I must pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale (David Morris), who worked so persistently on securing that infrastructure over the previous Parliament. The Preston western distributor road will improve access to the BAE site at Warton. In my constituency, work on the A582 is ongoing, with much of it already finished. The Penwortham bypass, for which people have been hoping for 30 or 40 years, will be finished by 2019-20. That will take a great deal of pressure off the A59 and will be a key connecting route between the motorway and local roads—a welcome development.

The key piece of infrastructure that has not yet been built but would link all the roads in the city deal region is the proposed new Ribble bridge. The most westerly and most recent bridge over the Ribble was completed more than 30 years ago. It links what is now the city of Preston with access routes to Penwortham, Leyland and the villages of west Lancashire. It becomes extremely clogged up at rush hour, and there have been terrible congestion problems when accidents or breakdowns have occurred on the bridge itself. The city deal makes provision for scoping works for the bridge. Indeed, the infrastructure plan states that it will

“define the general alignment and connections to a new bridge crossing of the River Ribble linking with the Preston Western Distributor”.

The local enterprise partnership’s report, “Lancashire as part of an Interconnected and Productive Northern Powerhouse”, envisages the bridge as the final link in the ring road.

There are compelling economic reasons for building the new bridge. It will complete the ring road and help to connect the two parts of the Lancashire enterprise zone at Samlesbury and Warton. It will pave the way for many more homes to be built. It is an important piece of infrastructure for not only the western part of Lancashire but the whole county and wider region. The “Central Lancashire Highways and Transport Masterplan” proposes that the bridge should be built post 2026, but that is another decade into the future and a good six or seven years after the Penwortham bypass will be finished. The delivery of the other road schemes has been accelerated through the city deal. Can the Minister say whether it is possible for the bridge to be assessed as a nationally significant infrastructure project and the build time brought forward from 2026?

[David Morris (Morecambe and Lunesdale) (Con)]

It is no big secret that Lancashire County Council has upwards of £430 million in reserves. Does my hon. Friend agree that releasing some of those reserves would speed up the process and facilitate the bridge being built quicker?

[Seema Kennedy]

Lancashire County Council is aware of the great desire for the bridge in the area. I have been having ongoing discussions with the council, and that is one of the things about which I have spoken to its representatives.

The Ribble bridge is clearly a regionally significant piece of transport infrastructure. I shall now touch on a project that, although much smaller, would bring enormous benefits to two villages in my constituency, if it were completed. For those who do not know South Ribble, the western part of the constituency comprises the flood plain of the Ribble. Thirty-two per cent. of land in the constituency is grade 1 and 9% is grade 2 agricultural land, making it the seventh highest-ranked constituency in England in terms of the proportion of such land within its boundaries. Hundreds of people are involved in the vegetable and salad industry, which is growing and reckoned to be worth hundreds of millions of pounds to the area.

During the winter there is the traditional farming of brassicas and potatoes, as well as some salads under glass. Such work has been going on for centuries. The vegetables used to be carried on small wagons or tractors, but of course this growing industry is now year round. Foods such as prepared vegetables and stuffed mushrooms —hard-pressed Members of Parliament might be familiar with such comestibles—are assembled. Salads, which of course cannot be grown in our country during the winter, are imported from Spain and Portugal and brought to the pack houses, where they are packed for the British consumer. The two small villages of Tarleton and Hesketh Bank in my constituency are now overrun with gargantuan heavy goods vehicles from Spain and Portugal that bring salads to the growers and take the assembled bagged items to the supermarkets.

Supermarkets demand a 24-hour service, which means that the HGV drivers cannot avoid peak times such as rush hour or school runs. The main B road through the two villages sees domestic and commuter traffic competing with large tractors—they are much bigger than they used to be—and HGVs. Road surfaces and pavements are under constant stress. There have been several near misses in which HGVs have overturned. It is only by the grace of God that nobody has been killed in one of these accidents. The solution to the traffic tribulation in Tarleton and Hesketh Bank is the proposed Green Lane link, which would take traffic out of the main roads through the villages and on to the A59. The link is in the West Lancashire highways and transport masterplan.

At this point I should pay particular tribute to Tarleton and North Meols parish councils, which commissioned an excellent report outlining the safety and environmental benefits that the Green Lane link would bring to those villages. I am happy to provide a copy of the report to the Minister. I must also mention a tireless local champion of the link, County Councillor Malcolm Barron, who has assisted me greatly over the past two years in understanding not only the safety and environmental imperative for the link but its absolute economic necessity in supporting our local agricultural industry.

I want to speak briefly about rail links in Lancashire. The north-south links have improved greatly in the more than 20 years that I have regularly been using the line between Euston and Preston. There is one service that takes only two hours, compared with three hours in the early 1990s. I politely suggest to the Minister that Preston is the natural next staging point for HS2. We would be happy to begin the works in the north, rather than the south.

The Library briefing tells me that by 2033 the journey time should be a mere 77 minutes using HS2, which will be another boost for investment. However, before that can happen, Preston station, which currently has only six platforms, will need considerable modernisation and expansion. I will be grateful if the Minister can expand on any plans to do such work. Although north-south connections are improving, the links between Lancashire towns and Manchester are still poor.

[Chris Green (Bolton West) (Con)]

The electrification of the rail line between Manchester and Preston is very welcome, but does my hon. Friend share my concerns about the one-year delay? The line is very congested at the moment, so we need additional carriages and services on the track over the coming year until the electrification process is finished and the upgrades are completed.

[Seema Kennedy]

I thank my hon. Friend, who is from Bolton in the real Lancashire—the extended Lancashire area—for that intervention. Many of us have spent a bone-shaking hour travelling from Preston to Manchester. I understand that there were complications in the tunnelling works at Farnworth. The sooner the situation is improved, the better.

Such rail links result in more people taking to their cars. The A59 used to be the main road between Liverpool and York. It is my constituency’s main artery. In days gone by, there were two branch lines—one from Preston to Southport, and the other from Preston to Ormskirk. The first line was sadly completely dismantled and built over, but the second is intact. I pay tribute to the Ormskirk, Preston and Southport Travellers’ Association for helping me with my research.

At the moment, my constituents in Rufford and Croston who wish to carry on to Liverpool have to take a diesel train to Ormskirk and then get on an electric train to continue their journey because the line is broken. That train line also goes through the village of Midge Hall, whose station was closed in the 1960s. At Midge Hall, one witnesses a scene straight out of “Thomas the Tank Engine”: the driver gets off the train and exchanges a token to drive down the rest of the line. Although it is picturesque, it is inefficient, prolongs the journey time and persuades more of my constituents into their cars. There are compelling reasons to reopen the Midge Hall station. It is estimated that if it were reopened, 80% of Leyland residents—Leyland is a town that will expand as a result of the city deal—would be within walking distance of a railway station.

Although I have concentrated my comments on schemes in my constituency, they are relevant to the surrounding areas and the whole of Lancashire. Connectivity is crucial to the idea of the northern powerhouse—the notion that northern towns and cities can conglomerate to compete with London. If that is missing in Lancashire, we will be left out of what I believe can be a great northern renaissance.

16:43

[John Pugh (Southport) (LD)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for South Ribble (Seema Kennedy) on securing this debate. I often travel through her constituency, paying particular attention to the speed cameras in Penwortham that regularly trap an awful lot of my constituents.

The hon. Lady and I represent the same corner of Lancs. I am tempted to call it a forgotten corner because its priorities are masked by the greater priorities of and the vocabulary surrounding the city regions—Manchester, Liverpool and so on, which are part of the northern powerhouse. Laudable though such a city-focused agenda is, it risks neglecting the periphery—the areas that are not plum centre in the city regions.

I question the use of the word “periphery” in referring to this area, particularly when it is applied to the hon. Lady’s constituency and mine. A recent report pointed out that, although there are a number of thriving city regions in Lancashire—the triangle of Manchester, Liverpool and Preston—their connectivity has an important missing piece, which is a good direct rail link between Preston and Liverpool. Such a link would go through Southport, of course. It is a relatively small part of Lancashire, and its omission is to be regretted. That certainly was not the case before Beeching.

Why has that area been omitted? I have an explanation, which I hope the Minister will take in the spirit in which it is intended. There are several transport authorities in the area. Manchester has a very big, powerful one—the Transport for Greater Manchester Committee; Liverpool has the Merseytravel Committee; and then there is Lancashire, which is the problem. It is a two-tier system, and Lancashire is a very diffuse authority—it is broken and fragmented with many priorities lying elsewhere—so things get strangely omitted.

Take, for example, the Burscough curves, which I have spoken about in Westminster Hall previously. Outside the hon. Lady’s constituency and mine, there are two stations in the thriving and expanding town of Burscough that are literally half a mile apart. They could be joined together by a piece of track, and there is certainly the capacity to do that. That proposal, which is supported by the Ormkirk, Preston and Southport Travellers Association, the organisation that the hon. Lady said helped her prepare for the debate, would link Manchester with Wigan, Bolton and Preston, and connect the Merseyrail network to the wider rail network. It would be an easy, very quick win and could be funded from the tea money from Crossrail or another big project. If those stations were anywhere but that particular corner of the north west, it would have been done. Were they in London, it would have been done 50 or 60 years ago, but it has not happened. It is a project that could be completed for a very small sum of money. It is, incidentally, going to be looked into as a feasibility prospect by the new franchiser for the northern franchise, Arriva.

There has been a lot of rhetoric about connectivity in connection with the northern powerhouse, but my constituency is very unfortunate because it will lose a connection to Manchester airport and the south Manchester business district, where many of my constituents are employed; yet paradoxically we are in the city region. There is clear evidence that the city regions of Manchester and Liverpool will be worse connected. The bit that will be worst connected is the northernmost tip of the Merseyside city region. [Interruption.] The Minister is looking at his map carefully—it is Southport.

I have another example of how things can be overlooked. There was an electrification taskforce, which the Minister served very creditably and chaired. Using objective evidence, it came up with a number of proposals, and I was delighted to see that one of them was electrification of the Southport line. It is hard to fathom what will come out of that report. I am very unsure about what action will be taken on it.

Not a lot happens in that area, although there is a lot that could be done, which would benefit communities and be relatively low-cost, compared with some of the larger projects that seem to please the Government more. Part of the problem is that the boundaries of the various transport regions are not situated in a way that helps either the hon. Lady’s constituency or mine. We are at the intersection of a number of different transport authority areas. Part of the problem is that, particularly in Lancashire, we are grappling with a two-tier system. The priorities identified by the districts are not necessarily priorities for the transport authorities.

There is a forgotten Lancashire. This area is forgotten in the vocabulary and rhetoric surrounding the city regions. I suspect that there are forgotten areas of many counties right across the country. I am grateful to the hon. Lady for giving me the opportunity to ensure that this forgotten area is forefront in the Minister’s mind, if only for the fleeting 10 minutes that he takes to reply.

16:03

[Paul Maynard (Blackpool North and Cleveleys) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for South Ribble (Seema Kennedy) on securing the debate. I have never been known to miss an opportunity to talk about transport in Lancashire and, if she set us all the challenge of how often we can use the phrase “northern powerhouse” in the course of the hour, I will try to beat her.

In recent weeks, I have had multiple calls to visit the constabulary headquarters in Preston, because I am on the police parliamentary scheme, and I am delighted to hear that Penwortham will get a bypass, because I have become acquainted with the long traffic jam that snakes through it at peak hours. I would be even more delighted about the Ribble bridge, if that ever comes about, because it would speed my journey still more. However, I am conscious of wanting to avoid, even if only for the Minister’s sake, my personal wish list for Blackpool—we have only 40 minutes until the end of the debate and that would not be long enough for me to go through every bus shelter, pothole and road improvement that can possibly be dreamed up.

The point I want to draw on was made by my hon. Friend and the hon. Member for Southport (John Pugh): Liverpool and Manchester are forging ahead, but I am not quite certain that Lancashire has yet seen the train arrive in the station, let alone boarded it or even known its destination. A fortnight ago, we received a glossy and colourful brochure from the county council. Such brochures always worry me, because the content rarely matches the presentation. It was the council’s transport infrastructure plan and full of wonderful projects, all of which I am sure are good in and of themselves, but I still cannot get to the bottom of how in Lancashire transport projects are assessed against each other—and I have been an MP for six years.

I have scoured the documents for benefit-cost ratios and I have submitted freedom of information requests to the local enterprise partnership, to the county council and, frankly, to anyone who moves and breathes in Lancashire, trying to work out how they assess the worthiness of all those competing projects. In six years, answer I have none. The Department for Transport has developed many tools that allow projects to be appraised, but Lancashire does not seem to be able to get its act together.

I recognise that benefit-cost ratios are not the answer to everything. We cannot compare the BCR for High Speed 2 with that for a local road in my area, but we can compare apples with apples. In a county with so many competing road schemes, for example, it strikes me that the tool deployed by the county council is to listen to who is shouting loudest, and then to ensure that everyone gets something, just so no MP shouts too loudly when they deign to come down to Westminster to brief us. That, to me, is not a transport strategy, but a back-covering strategy, which does nothing for systematic economic development.

I urge the Minister to use his response to explain, if possible, how he sees the systematic appraisal of schemes flowing from Transport for the North down to that local level. The first ever oral question I asked as a Member of Parliament was when we were going to get something such as Transport for the North, so the Minister deserves great credit for bringing that organisation to fruition. It will make a positive difference, but it needs to exert pressure on that median level in Lancashire, when the projects to run with are being selected—frankly, they cannot all get prizes, so not everyone will get what they want. It should not be about who shouts loudest.

[John Pugh]

I concur with the hon. Gentleman’s views about Transport for the North, but is not the danger that the best prepared local authorities—by that I mean Manchester and Liverpool—knowing what they are going to do, will have disproportionate influence compared with other areas?

[Paul Maynard]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that, because that is largely my point—Lancashire risks being left behind. Equally, the challenge of devolution is that the responsibility of local government in Lancashire is not to get left behind. It is hard for central Government to yank Lancashire into line; they need to enthuse and equip Lancashire, certainly, but the onus is on local government to ensure that it is playing its part.

I also want to touch briefly on another aspect of public transport infrastructure in Lancashire. The last time that I faced the Minister, it was on this point—I wanted to give him some good news for once, which is that thanks to his personal intervention, I suspect, Lancashire County Council performed a U-turn. My constituents who are residents of Cleveleys, who had lost their free access to the trams, have had it restored to them. Everyone in Cleveleys is absolutely delighted. Now, of course, we have the bun fight about who claims the credit. I hope that the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner), will forgive me if I make a slightly partisan point, which I do not normally like to do in Westminster Hall, because it is often better to be edified here. It amuses me, however, to see the Labour party seeking to claim credit for the U-turn on a decision that it originally implemented.

Labour does not want to say that the price of the U-turn appears to have been a decimation of local bus services. My constituents might have had their NoWcard restored for use on the trams, but they do not have many buses left to get on. That is a real concern in Lancashire and, frankly, I am disappointed that more Members are not present to shout about it—not least because the county council itself does not seem to have a clue what is happening.

Every month, we get a helpful email with a little leaflet attached as a PDF document, announcing this month’s bus changes. It was a fascinating read this month, because it was saying, “We don’t really know what’s going on.” I read it and I had no idea what was going on; they have no idea what is going on. I have involved the county council’s chief executive. She has forwarded my email on somewhere deep into the bureaucracy of the county council and denies all knowledge of it—no one in Lancashire seems to have a clue about what is going on, least of all the date on which the precious NoWcard will be restored to all my constituents. It is an absolute shambles. I urge the Minister to try and persuade Lancashire to ensure that we, the representatives of the people of Lancashire, understand exactly what buses will run on 1 April, because at the moment no one has a clue.

Finally, I re-emphasise that we could all come here with long lists of desirable transport projects. I am grateful that the A585 will be improved at some future date—I hope that 2019 will be the start date—and for some of the other investments, not least the electrification of the main line into Blackpool. I could spend a whole separate debate discussing rail services from Blackpool, but I will spare hon. Members. However, I also urge that when we are comparing apples with apples, the new, devolved transport authorities need to ensure that they present further information to allow us to compare the relative benefits of different projects, all of which are highly appealing, but need to be judged against each other, like for like. That would aid the decision-making process and might also help to clarify what exactly Lancashire thinks its economic strategy might be in the future.

16:57

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard.

I congratulate the hon. Member for South Ribble (Seema Kennedy) on securing the debate. She made a series of detailed points well, and I am sure that the Minister was listening closely. The hon. Lady also referred to city deals and, as a Member with a city deal in my part of the world, I cannot help but reflect that they are sometimes similar to the candyfloss that I used to buy on Blackpool seafront when I was at the Labour party conference—they look magnificent and sound wonderful, but a bit further down the line they can seem a touch insubstantial. That is a word of caution.

[Seema Kennedy]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for attending, because shadow Ministers do not always have to come to 60-minute debates. I appreciate that. As I said in my speech, however, in the first three years of the Lancashire city deal, substantial infrastructure projects have already taken place and are making a real on-the-ground difference to road times. So our city deal is going very well.

[Mark Pritchard (in the Chair)]

I do not like to correct the hon. Lady, because she is rarely wrong, but shadow Ministers do have to attend 60-minute debates; they do not have to attend 30-minute debates. I just to ensure that we get that on the record. They may attend whatever debate they wish.

[Daniel Zeichner]

Thank you, Mr Pritchard. I am here very happily.

I have also listened closely to the other contributions to the debate, and I have consulted colleagues who know a little more about Lancashire than I do—I come from the east of England. I have heard worries from colleagues about cuts to bus services, as we have heard this afternoon, and about old recycled trains trundling along through east Lancashire. I must say that I have also heard talk of Chorley being given insufficient mention in transport plans, but my source will have to remain anonymous.

In January this year, the Lancashire enterprise partnership argued that connectivity, in Lancashire as elsewhere, is fundamental to maximising our growth potential. Sadly, however, Lancashire’s average economic performance is more than 20% below the national average, in terms of gross value added per resident. Clearly, in order to unlock and harness the economic power of Lancashire, we need far greater and more efficient delivery of promised projects to improve transport connectivity in the region than we have had so far—delivery, not just announcements.

The Secretary of State for Transport told us last week:

“I do not think I need to encourage the Chancellor on infrastructure spending. I have been incredibly successful in securing funding for infrastructure from the Chancellor, who certainly gets the importance of infrastructure investment, not least in the north. Indeed, it is his policy to pursue the northern powerhouse and to take forward transport for the north. That will have a transformative effect on transport between our northern cities and is something other parts of the country are looking to follow.”—[Official Report, 10 March 2016; Vol. 607, c. 424.]

The rhetoric is good, but the record is not so good. Despite the claims, the Government have a poor record on transport infrastructure. In 2010, they cut a huge £4 billion from the strategic road network, which created major uncertainty and saw existing schemes scrapped and delayed. Road maintenance budgets have fallen in real terms and we discovered recently that the much vaunted permanent pothole fund is yet to fill a pothole. We have bus passes preserved, but in too many cases there are no buses on which to use them, and manifesto promises to electrify key rail lines have been broken. Those are hardly the actions of a Government that certainly gets the importance of infrastructure investment.

Indeed, Britain is lagging behind other countries when it comes to delivering major projects. Embarrassingly, we are now 28th in the World Economic Forum rankings for infrastructure quality. We should be trailblazing for transport infrastructure, not trailing behind. The Government’s sluggish delivery of infrastructure projects in Lancashire aptly illustrates that failure.

In December 2014, nine new schemes to improve major roads in the north-west were announced, worth around £800 million. However, just one of those schemes has an updated cost estimate and that cost is careering out of control. Latest estimates on the Highways England website suggest that the M6 junction 19 improvements will cost between £192 million and £274 million, but in the “Road investment strategy: investment plan”, they were estimated to cost between just £25 million and £50 million. That single scheme is now projected to cost ten times as much as initially predicted.

What of the other eight schemes? When my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Richard Burden) asked a question last week requesting the latest cost estimates for schemes announced in 2014, the question—as so often—was ducked. Will the Minister give us an update on the delivery and projected cost of those schemes now? We worry that those announcements were little more than part of a pre-election stunt. Also, the numbers keep changing. A £15.2 billion road investment strategy was announced in December 2014, yet in the Office of Road and Rail’s first “Highways England Monitor”, a different figure of £11 billion emerged. We suggest that the Government have been announcing those road plans since July 2013 and we need some action to accompany the announcements.

Transport Focus has identified that, in the north-west, car and van drivers’ top priorities for major road improvements are improved quality of road surfaces, safer design and upkeep of roads and better management of roadworks. While in both 2013 and 2015 the Government committed £6 billion

“to resurface 80% of the SRN and keep our network in top condition”,

it was reported last month that Highways England will not meet that target. Will the Minister now tell us where the billions have vanished and which projects have had to be scrapped?

On rail, too, Lancashire and the north-west is being let down. Labour supports the extension of high-speed rail services. The Secretary of State for Transport has said of HS2:

“When we start the service from Birmingham, it will be possible to link with conventional rail routes, rather as high-speed trains currently run from St Pancras to Ashford and then beyond. I hope that the northern parts of the United Kingdom will be served by HS2 straightaway.”—[Official Report, 28 January 2016; Vol. 605, c. 394.]

Indeed, Lancashire local enterprise partnership is planning to modernise Preston station as part of its HS2 growth strategy in order to accommodate HS2 trains and to reduce journey times between Preston and London from the current 128 minutes to 77 minutes by 2033 after phase 2 of HS2 is complete, but, unfortunately, we are still waiting for Ministers to confirm the route and the station locations for HS2 north of Birmingham. We were told that the route for phase 2 of HS2 would be confirmed by the end of 2014, but the target has now been deferred for at least another two years. That lack of certainty is damaging for residents, damaging for potential investment and damaging for the Government’s credibility when they profess their commitment to HS2 in the north.

We are full of questions today and we have some more. How can Lancashire and other areas in the north-west plan to benefit from HS2 when its route and station locations have not yet been confirmed? Why has that confirmation been kicked into the long grass and why are the Government letting down the north by dragging their heels?

[John Pugh]

Does the hon. Gentleman accept that for many people who live in Lancashire—I know he does not, so he cannot be expected to know this—HS2 is a distant dream? The improvements they would most like are some ease of getting by train from, say, Preston to Liverpool, or anywhere in east Lancashire from the coast.

[Daniel Zeichner]

While I recognise that it may seem like a distant dream, as far as we are concerned it is certainly an improvement on the current situation and that is why we will continue to support it.

The Government also paused the trans-Pennine electrification last year; pausing seems to be a characteristic of this Government when what we actually need is fast-forward. Furthermore, after recommencing in September, completion of the whole Manchester to Leeds and York corridor was pushed back from 2019 to 2022. Transport infrastructure improvements in the north, including in Lancashire and the wider north-west, have too often been characterised by dithering and delay. There is still no official estimate of the cost of the trans-Pennine electrification outside the initial funding commitment of £300 million and the £92 million that has been spent so far on contracts.

In addition to delays in infrastructural improvement, Lancashire has also suffered severe cuts to its funding from central Government. Lancashire County Council has had to reduce funding of bus services from £7 million to £2 million to make £85 million in budget savings next year. The hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard) has already referred to bus issues, but I have said it before and I will say it again: the Government are devolving cuts, not power. They are putting local authorities in impossible positions and keeping their own hands clean.

[Paul Maynard]

As the shadow Front-Bench spokesman, might the hon. Gentleman be able to help me by encouraging his colleagues in Lancashire to explain to us what the £400 million in reserves at county hall are being kept back for? When will it rain to such an extent that we need the rainy day fund? That is our key question to the Labour party.

[Daniel Zeichner]

Ah, reserves—they are always quoted on all sides as the answer to every question. Of course it is for every authority to decide responsibly how to use its resources appropriately, and I do not think that Government Members can really deny that there has been a squeeze on resources.

Lancashire County Council has said that in the next five years it will need to make savings of £262 million on top of those agreed in previous budgets. It describes that as

“an unprecedented financial challenge due to continued cuts in Government funding, rising costs and increasing demand for key services.”

It states that by April 2018 it will not have sufficient financial resources to meet its statutory obligations even if it does not deliver any of the non-statutory services.

In the comprehensive spending review, the Government announced a reduction of 24% in central Government funding for local government over the spending review period. The Local Government Association tells us:

“Even if councils stopped filling in potholes, maintaining parks, closed all children’s centres, libraries, museums, leisure centres and turned off every street light, they will not have saved enough money to plug the financial black hole they face by 2020.”

In conclusion, those cuts alongside the uncosted deferment of major transport infrastructure projects is preventing Lancashire—and other areas—from reaching its full potential. Lancashire is rightly ambitious to unlock the potential for economic growth, but that will happen only when the Government move from their current practice of recycling announcements and actually start to deliver.

17:07

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Andrew Jones)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. May I start by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for South Ribble (Seema Kennedy) on securing the debate? I will be replying as one of those rascally white rose-types just from the east, but we will move on from that.

I am sure everyone is aware that last week we saw the publication of “The Northern Transport Strategy: Spring 2016 Report”. The importance of the transport infrastructure of the north is therefore right at the front of our minds. We have been working closely with our partners at Transport for the North, and that is our first annual update of the northern transport strategy, which was originally set out a year ago.

The report outlines the significant progress that the Government and our partners have made in laying the foundation for transformative transport projects right across the north of England. It sets out the next steps for projects, which include major improvements to the north’s road networks, better connecting the northern regions by rail and enhancing the passenger experience of travelling across the north using smart and integrated ticketing technologies. This is therefore a proper milestone in the Government’s plans as we build for Britain’s future, making the biggest investment in transport infrastructure in generations, starting with that £13 billion committed for transport infrastructure in the north over this Parliament and then looking into the future with the work that Transport for the North is undertaking. All of that investment will help to create a northern powerhouse, which is, as my hon. Friend the Member for South Ribble explained, critical for rebalancing our country’s economy. It will enable the north to pool its strengths and become greater than the sum of its parts. We are working closely with Transport for the North to deliver improvements in the short term and are making progress on longer-term projects, all of which benefit the north as a whole.

There have been a number of questions from Members in the course of this debate. I am now surrounded by papers with the detailed answers. I will get to all of them, but I will first outline some of our thinking and the progress we have made. Following the extension of Transport for the North to include all the areas in the north, Lancashire has become an integral part of TfN and its importance to the northern powerhouse is fully recognised. The northern powerhouse without Lancashire is unimaginable.

Lancashire has a £25 billion economy—one of the largest in the north of England. It has more than 40,000 businesses employing more than 670,000 people. Its key strengths of advanced manufacturing, aerospace and automotive are well known, but it also has a strong tradition in energy, higher education, professional and business services and logistics. Lancashire also has Britain’s most famous and largest seaside resort, which my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard) frequently mentions, although he did not do so today. Lancashire’s four enterprise zones are also at the forefront of propelling Lancashire’s future growth as part of the northern powerhouse.

We cannot create the northern powerhouse unless we have good transport and connectivity at its heart; those are key to Lancashire’s future growth. The M6 and west coast main line are vital north-south arteries. The M65 and M55 support key growth corridors both east and west, and the proximity of the great northern conurbations of Leeds, Manchester and Liverpool to much of Lancashire’s population mean that improved connectivity can further strengthen Lancashire’s growth. We have recognised the importance of Lancashire’s transport infrastructure and are investing in it on a scale not seen in that part of the world for some time.

On the strategic road network, we have delivered a number of key improvements, such as unblocking pinch points at junction 32 of the M6 and junction 1 of the M55, at the A585 at Windy Harbour and at junction 5 of the M65. Our road investment strategy includes a commitment to significant further investment on the A585 to improve connectivity to Fleetwood and the Hillhouse enterprise zone and to the construction of what is sometimes called the “missing” junction 2 on the M55 linking to the Preston western distributor road, which we are funding through the Preston city deal and the Lancashire growth deal. The route strategy process, which will inform RIS2—our second road investment strategy—will commence in the near future, enabling Highways England to work with local partners to determine future investment priorities for the strategic road network in Lancashire.

Many colleagues have mentioned rail, and it is therefore appropriate to highlight how we are significantly improving rail in Lancashire through investment. As of last year, electric services are operating between Preston and Liverpool, and we are currently upgrading the line between Preston and Manchester to deliver faster, more frequent and less crowded journeys for passengers by December 2017. We are building the foundations for better journeys across the north.

The Farnworth tunnel, which was mentioned earlier, is a significant project. Network Rail has enlarged the railway tunnel in order to accommodate the new wires that will soon be installed for electrification of the line. The tunnel boring machine used by Network Rail was made in Oldham and is larger than the machines used to build Crossrail. Around 120 people worked on the project 24/7, moving 30,000 tonnes of material from a 270-metre long tunnel. I wanted to go and see it, but I am afraid to say that the Secretary of State, who has an interest in tunnelling, decided that that would be his particular priority. That progress is a sign of our commitment to the people of the north. We are already well under way with works on the line from Manchester to Blackpool via Chorley, due to be completed to Preston in December 2017 and to Blackpool by spring 2018.

If I may, I will take a moment to update Members on an issue that is very important to me in transport: accessibility. At Leyland station, which my hon. Friend the Member for South Ribble mentioned, we have spent £4.5 million—including more than £200,000 of third-party funding—to provide an accessible route into the station and to each platform with a new footbridge and three lifts. Network Rail started on site last summer and the work will complete in July. The footbridge is already in public use, while work continues to complete the new lifts. That will be a significant change for the people using the station. I have looked at pictures of the work in progress, and it looks fantastic.

At a local level, we have provided funding via the regional growth fund for Lancashire to reopen the Todmorden curve. The reinstatement of that 500-metre curve through local funding and the regional growth fund has enabled the reintroduction of direct rail services between Burnley and Manchester city centre for the first time in 40 years, significantly reducing journey times. I have checked the passenger usage, and we have already seen passenger numbers grow significantly as a result of that new service. We have also supported upgrades between Blackburn and Bolton, which will support more regular services to Greater Manchester.

[John Pugh]

I am interested in what the Minister says about the Todmorden curve, because it shows that small-scale curve reinstallation—as I outlined in the case of Burscough—can pay dividends. He mentioned his commitment to connectivity, which I think we all share. As part of that commitment, will he look into the mooted change to the Southport to Manchester line? Under those new arrangements, my residents will lose any chance of getting to south Manchester and the airport; we are actually losing connectivity, rather than gaining it. That has not been finally decided, but will he look into what is happening?

[Andrew Jones]

I will indeed look into the matter that the hon. Gentleman raises, as well as all other matters that colleagues have raised. I am aware of the issue of the Burscough curves because he has explained them to me on previous occasions. As a comparison, we used the local growth fund to reinstate the Halton curve elsewhere in the Liverpool city region, as he knows. That key project shows that where local areas prioritise, we are able to provide support. I simply urge the hon. Gentleman to ensure that his LEP continues to prioritise rail investment, including that particular project.

Lancashire will benefit significantly from our plans for HS2. Phase 2a to Crewe, which will bring the project forward by six years, will result in the benefits from classic compatible services arriving in Lancashire by 2027. The completion of phase 2 will bring journey times between London and Preston down from the current 128 minutes to 77 minutes by 2033. HS2 is not being delayed, as the shadow Minister said. We are doing all we can to accelerate HS2, and later this year we will announce the potential routes from Birmingham up into Manchester and Leeds. HS2 is a critical part of rebalancing our economy.

We are supporting a significant investment programme in Lancashire’s local transport infrastructure through the city deal process, which vitally puts Lancashire partners at the forefront of determining the transport investment that they need to grow and support the Lancashire economy. The Preston, South Ribble and Lancashire city deal, which is key to the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for South Ribble, was signed in 2013 and is worth more than £430 million to the local economy. The road infrastructure that the deal will deliver, including the Preston western distributor and the Broughton bypass, will support significant housing growth and the advanced manufacturing enterprise zone and will make Preston one of the most commercially dynamic locations in the UK.

The Lancashire growth deal, signed in 2014, is supporting a truly significant investment programme, with a local growth fund of more than £250 million allocated to the LEP to deliver its programme. That programme includes 14 local transport schemes that will see new roads in and around Preston and to St Anne’s; key maintenance projects in Burnley and Blackpool; rail improvements in Blackburn; a new tramway in Blackpool; cycling networks in east Lancashire; and improvements to the M65 growth corridor.

We are funding schemes that have been on the waiting list for years. For example, work started in January on a bypass for Broughton after years of plans that had all come to nothing. Perhaps the best example is the Heysham link road, linking the port of Heysham to junction 34 of the M6 and providing congestion relief to the centre of Lancashire. After 60 years of waiting, it should open later this year, following £111 million of support from the Government towards the total £123 million cost. I hope that time allows me to mention the near £32 million that we have invested in the Pennine Reach bus scheme for east Lancashire, significantly improving east-west bus linkages in the area.

Looking ahead, Transport for Lancashire, on behalf of the LEP, has produced its strategic transport prospectus setting out the transport infrastructure that it believes is needed to deliver Lancashire’s potential. My hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys had some reservations about the nature of that document, and particularly its print type—it is a very glossy document—but I think we should welcome the idea that local areas are taking responsibility, showing aspiration for those areas and determining what they need. That is at the heart of what Transport for the North is all about.

The document helpfully sets out interventions that have a potentially pan-northern impact and are therefore of particular interest to Transport for the North, as well as key local schemes, such as the South Ribble crossing, which are vital to local growth. I urge Lancashire partners to take full advantage of the opportunities provided by Transport for the North, devolution and growth deals to move their proposals forward.

We are seeing a significant change in the way that we handle transport. My hon. Friend mentioned that he had called for Transport for the North a long time before it was actually created. We are seeing a partnership that has brought together 29 partners locally to determine what they think is required. Transport for the North will be running the franchises on our rail network in the north, in partnership with the Department for Transport. It is from the north, for the north. We will have better decisions when they are taken as near as possible to where a service is delivered. This is a significant development in transport. The Bill to put it on a statutory basis received Royal Assent at the end of January, and we are working towards Transport for the North being set up on a statutory basis within a year.

I have been asked many questions, which I shall try to answer as quickly as I can. Let me start with those asked my hon. Friend. How are schemes appraised? All schemes appraised and promoted by the LEP should be assessed in accordance with its assurance framework. That has to be WebTAG compliant and all results should be published—he is looking sceptical. If he would like any kind of technical briefing on the WebTAG process, I am happy for that to be arranged for him—he should just let me know afterwards.

My hon. Friend highlighted the importance of bus services, and I agree; bus services are critical for local areas. However, we have managed to retain the BSOG—the bus service operators grant—in the spending review programme, in recognition of the importance that we place on protecting buses. They are absolutely vital to our network.

I turn to the points raised the hon. Member for Southport (John Pugh). I am aware that areas away from our core cities feel that they may get a slighter deal from Transport for the North and devolution. People in other parts of the north have raised that issue. I simply say that it has appointed an independent chair—independent from the local authorities—ex-CBI president, John Cridland. We have discussed this issue, and Transport for the North is acutely aware of it and is determined that it should not happen or even be seen to happen. The Government are giving it £50 million over the course of this Parliament so that it can do its job and work with all its partners, including Lancashire, to ensure that all projects are developed in an integrated manner.

Let me address some of the concerns raised by my hon. Friend the Member for South Ribble. The development of the new South Ribble crossing project is certainly an issue for Lancashire County Council. It is a local scheme. The LEP’s strategic transport prospectus identifies it as a key project. The county council says that it is examining how it could be accelerated and funded. A £12 billion local growth fund was announced in the spending review, including £475 million for large local majors, and this is the sort of scheme that could be considered a large local major. I suggest that she picks that matter up on a local basis.

We recognise the importance of HS2. It is worth continuing to highlight how much people in the north, in my estimate—not everybody, but certainly the overwhelming majority—welcome the arrival of HS2 and are impatient for it to happen. I am sure that they are pleased that we will be able to take HS2 up to Crewe six years earlier than planned. That will speed up services to Lancashire sooner. The greater connectivity that it will provide, and the greater capacity that it will inject into our network will be a great help in allowing more services, and therefore, more benefits to flow from it.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West (Chris Green) mentioned additional carriages at Bolton. As I am sure he is aware, the rail franchises included significant upgrades to the rolling stock—both the TransPennine and Northern franchises—and our new franchises start only on the first of next month, so passengers will start to see the benefits flow through in the not-too-distant future.

I cannot ignore some of the questions from the shadow Minister. The new franchises that I just mentioned will deliver new-build trains—more than 500 carriages, in fact, across the north, and that will create room for 40,000 more passengers across the region as a whole.

Potholes were also mentioned, and I should highlight that we have announced a £6 billion fund for local road maintenance up to 2021. Allocations have been given to local councils. I have the information if colleagues wish to know the allocation for their particular area. The point is that we have been able to provide some clarity for the years ahead, so that local councils can plan appropriately.

If the shadow Minister does not mind me saying so, there was a slightly churlish element to his comments. The impatience for transport delivery is obviously fair—we are all impatient. I could perhaps highlight that, after 10 miles of electrification were delivered in 13 years of Labour government, all the good schemes that we have referred to have been welcomed in the north. We need to remember that many of the councils in the north are run by the Labour party, and what we hear locally from Labour and what we hear nationally from Labour are utterly disconnected.

The idea that the transport inheritance that this Government took on from the Labour party is strong is, I am afraid, not borne out by facts. The shadow Minister mentioned the World Economic Forum’s infrastructure league table. During the Labour years, our performance fell from seventh to 33rd in that league table. It was a shocking record, and we are now recovering that position. The Labour party has a poor record and it should start to get behind the programme, as some of its local members have.

I hope that I have managed to convince Members that this is not a forgotten corner of the north—very far from it. It clearly has strong and powerful advocates who have developed a good reputation for championing it already. It is not a forgotten corner; it is a key part of our northern powerhouse. We cannot deliver a strong northern powerhouse without a strong Lancashire—and I say that as a proud Yorkshireman.

Transport is at the heart of what we are delivering. That is clear across all the modes of transport that we have been talking about today—bus, road and rail. We have not talked about aviation connections, but many residents of Lancashire will be using the growth that we are seeing and the improved access into Manchester airport. We have a strong record, as we work with partners to transform transport in the north of England.

17:03

[Seema Kennedy]

I thank the Minister, the shadow Minister and hon. Members on both sides of the House for their excellent contributions today, particularly those from the wider real Lancashire area. We in the red rose county are proud of our industrial heritage. However, we do not want to stay in the past; we want to forge ahead and be part of a strong northern renaissance. Good transport infrastructure is key to that, and I am grateful that we have had an opportunity to debate road, rail, potholes and buses so fully—[Interruption.] And trams, of course—I had forgotten about trams. I did not touch on aviation but, for most of our residents, it is their daily commute that will be key to their success in the future.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered transport infrastructure in Lancashire.

17:29

Sitting adjourned.