HS2 Update

Debate between Lord Grayling and Chris Williamson

Monday 17th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I met my hon. Friend the new Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Jack Brereton) today to talk about the need to make sure that there is an HS2 service for Stoke-on-Trent, and I have given him that commitment. [Interruption.] Labour Members may chunter, but I remind them that my hon. Friend has been the transport spokesman for the ruling group on Stoke-on-Trent City Council, so he is eminently well qualified to make this case, and is already doing a first-rate job as representative of the Stoke-on-Trent South constituency. I have been pleased to give him a commitment about the services for Stoke. I am also pleased to give the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell) a commitment that the whole point about HS2 is that it frees up capacity for these extra freight services and extra local passenger services. That is one of the reasons we are doing it.

[Chris Williamson (Derby North) (Lab)]

I am grateful to the Secretary of State for confirming in his response to my hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Toby Perkins) that the midland main line will be electrified, but we have been waiting for as long as I can remember for that to happen, and led up the garden path on numerous occasions. Will he therefore, for the record, give us a date when the midland main line south of Sheffield through into London will be electrified?

[Chris Grayling]

We are talking about the ability to run an electric train from London, up HS2, around the route into Sheffield Midland, and back up to Leeds. I have given a very clear commitment that that will be the case. As I have said in this House before, the next stage of electrification of the midland main line is currently under way. I have also said that my big priority is to deliver for the people on that line the service improvements they want as quickly as possible, and that is what I am seeking to do.