HS2: North of England and Scotland

Debate between Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon and Lord Shipley

Thursday 23rd February 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shipley]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to ensure that HS2 will maximise links between cities in the north of England and with Scotland.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Transport (Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon) (Con)]

My Lords, HS2 will have a transformational effect on journey times between cities in the north of England and with Scotland. To build on the opportunities HS2 provides, northern powerhouse rail is being planned to spread connectivity across the north of England. In addition, the Department for Transport is working closely with Transport Scotland to study all options with strong business cases to further improve capacity, reliability, resilience and journey times between Scotland and northern England.

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his reply and acknowledge the good work being done by various organisations, not least Transport for the North. But I should like to address a specific issue about HS2 and the eastern leg, which as currently planned fails to link Newcastle with Leeds. In addition, Newcastle is the terminus for the HS2 rolling stock on the eastern leg and, as it is the terminus, all passengers on it will have to change trains to travel further north towards Scotland. Would it not be better to have HS2 on the eastern leg linking our cities properly in an integrated fashion that links rail with our cities?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

The noble Lord raises an important point about connectivity. In my initial Answer I referred to the important work that was being done by northern powerhouse rail. In that regard, let me assure him that a single strategy is being worked out with northern powerhouse rail, the DfT, Network Rail and HS2 to produce a single strategy—not shortly, but by the end of 2017. That will include all major cities in the north, including Liverpool, Manchester, Hull, Newcastle, Leeds and Sheffield to ensure greater connectivity in that regard.

Railways: East Coast Main Line

Debate between Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon and Lord Shipley

Thursday 8th December 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

We have a range of specialist interests and, somewhat expectedly, the noble Lord rightly raises the important issue of freight. The strategic freight network has spent about £4 million particularly on the southern section of the east coast main line, but he is quite right that the HS2 line, once it is up and running, will free up extra capacity for both passenger services and, importantly, for freight services as well.

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, the east coast main line has fewer diversionary routes than other main lines, and is mostly worked by electric trains, which cannot be diverted. Failure of the overhead line equipment is a regular cause of delays, so will the Minister tell the House what plans there are to modernise this?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

The noble Lord raises the important issue of electrification, but the new rolling stock will have the adaptability to ensure that challenges are met in that respect and can be headed off in the right way.

Davies Commission Report

Debate between Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon and Lord Shipley

Wednesday 1st July 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

I reassure the noble Lord that, when he gets a chance to read the commission’s report, he will find that it has addressed all the concerns that he has highlighted, and it will be a significant part of the Government’s decision. With regard to the statement made in 2010 by my right honourable friend the Prime Minister, as I said earlier, the proposal that was in front of him at that time, including some of the concerns that the noble Lord has just highlighted, merited what the Prime Minister said. However, we are quite clear: the commission has now produced its report; it is well balanced and has looked at many factors that the proposition in front of us in 2010 did not consider; and the Government will come back with their view in the autumn.

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

Has the Minister noted the recommendation of the commission that:

“The Government should alter its guidance to allow the introduction of Public Service Obligations on an airport-to-airport basis, and use them to support a widespread network of domestic routes at the expanded airport”?

Given that if the third runway gets the go-ahead, it could be a number of years before it is actually in place, what is to stop the Government altering their guidance to bring it in line with a number of other European Union countries to enable further,

“Public Service Obligations on an airport-to-airport basis”,

being delivered?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

The Government consider their public service obligations very seriously, as I am sure the noble Lord knows. It is not that we have not interjected in recent times. For example, the route has been protected from Gatwick to Newquay, as have routes up to Dundee. Where the criteria are met, the Government have exercised their option and met their obligations. We are keen to ensure that public service obligations are, if you like, the backstop, to ensure that any concerns over particular domestic routes are retained.

Housing: Private Rented Sector

Debate between Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon and Lord Shipley

Tuesday 14th October 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

Issues around the spare room subsidy are well documented. The important principle behind that particular policy which should not be forgotten was to ensure that more rooms and more housing could be made available to those who needed it. While that policy has caused some concern in certain areas, currently we are demonstrably seeing that the rooms that are being freed up are being utilised. We are seeing more rooms being made available to address the acute need and demand for housing.

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, the Minister referred to the success of Build to Rent, in that it will have built some 10,000 homes by 2015. Do the Government have any plans to extend Build to Rent? Have they given any thought to the creation of a housing investment bank, which could lend money and create more housing units in the private rented sector, thus giving greater foundations to those who are renting by enabling them to stay in their homes at rents that they can afford?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

My noble friend raises an important point about expanding the rented sector. He is correct that our £1 billion Build to Rent fund will provide development phase finance to large-scale private rented sector developments, building up to 10,000 new homes. Eight round 1 projects are now in contract, worth £124 million and delivering more than 1,600 new homes for private rent. He also asked about other schemes and I have heard the suggestion that he put forward. The Government are currently supporting the housing guarantee schemes, which are now open for business and supporting up to £10 million-worth of investment in large-scale private rented projects and in additional affordable housing. For example, the delivery partner in our private rented housing debt guarantees has received a lot of strong interest. A £500 million European Investment Bank loan facility for affordable housing debt guarantees, which was announced on 7 January this year, has attracted eight borrowers. So there are a variety of schemes that the Government are supporting and promoting to ensure that we address this very important need.

Landlord and Tenant Acts

Debate between Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon and Lord Shipley

Tuesday 29th July 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

The important thing in this area is that a balance is struck between leaseholders’ rights about their homes, and existing legislation provides protection in this respect, including protection from freeholders about proceedings to forfeit the lease due to alleged breaches. The Government continue to welcome suggestions on how residential leasehold can be improved. Indeed, we held a round table last year and I am delighted to inform the House my honourable friend Brandon Lewis and I, together, I hope, with my noble friend Lord Faulks, will host a leasehold round table in the autumn of this year.

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

May I widen the issue a little? A recent report by Professor Michael Ball of Henley Business School at the University of Reading suggested that too much resource goes into regulating good landlords and too little in tackling bad landlords. Might the Minister look at this issue and, in particular, see if the balance between the two is right?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

My noble friend makes a very valid point. There are landlords who are good and others who, unfortunately, are not. Good practice needs to be shared. If there are individual cases that need to be followed up and good practice that needs to be shared, I would of course welcome input from my noble friend in that regard.

Housing: Social Housing

Debate between Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon and Lord Shipley

Thursday 7th February 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

That is a matter that the Secretary of State for the DCLG and the Chancellor will be discussing in the next budget round.

[Lord Shipley]

Does the Minister agree that there is an urgent need to build more new social housing and that one way that could be done is for the housing borrowing cap of local authorities to be removed and to be substituted by the prudential borrowing code, which enables the self-financing of social housing? That could be backed up by the Local Government Act 2003 so that Ministers have a power to cap any individual local authority that broke the rules. Given the importance of housing and the growth agenda, will the Minister look at that proposal?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

The housing issue, along with other proposals, will be looked at, but I want to make it clear that the Government are investing more in social housing. We are investing over £4.5 billion in the spending review period to deliver up to 170,000 affordable homes in England. This investment, importantly, as I mentioned to the noble Lord, Lord Martin, is about working together across the board in the housing sector, bringing different parties together. This £4.5 billion will leverage an extra £15 billion from the private sector investment, making a total of £19.5 billion investment in social housing up to 2015.