Railways: East Coast Main Line

Lord Beecham Excerpts

Tuesday 13th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sugg]

My Lords, we are in discussions with Stagecoach to ensure that the needs of passengers and taxpayers will be met in the short term while laying the foundations for the introduction of the east coast partnership in 2020. We expect to provide additional services between Lincoln and Harrogate, Bradford and London from May next year.

[Lord Beecham (Lab)]

My Lords, as a reluctant passenger on Virgin trains I refer to my interests—doing so, in this case, is almost as slow as the train service. Will the Minister look at the laughably misnamed TransPennine Express and the service it purports to offer between the north-east and the north-west. Will she also look at the need to radically improve the rail connection between the north-east and the north-west and not simply rely on some future date when maybe a new national train line will surface?

[Baroness Sugg]

My Lords, I will certainly look at that in more detail. We are working closely with Transport for the North to understand the priorities of the north and where best to invest. We are committed to improving journeys on the trans-Pennine route. We are bringing in state-of-the-art trains, longer carriages and more frequent services to give passengers the services they want. We are going further. We plan to spend around £3 billion to upgrade the key route between Manchester, Leeds and York to give passengers faster and more reliable journeys.