Railways: High Speed Rail

Lord Shipley Excerpts

Monday 28th January 2013 Lords Chamber

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, I am grateful for the support of the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner of Worcester. I have no difficulty at all in paying tribute to the work of the noble Lord, Lord Adonis. This project is going to cover the life of certainly several Parliaments and maybe even several Governments.

The noble Lord talked about speed on the conventional system. One of the problems if we do not do HS2 is that we will have to do upgrade projects on the west coast main line that might look attractive in terms of a business case but, actually, one will eventually run out of capacity on that line, having spent billions of pounds on those projects. The noble Lord is right. I am not sure of the technical points on how we will reduce the journey times from Scotland to London to three hours, but I will happily write to him on that.

[Lord Shipley]

My Lords, I welcome the announcement very strongly. I have two questions for the Minister. The first relates to the date on which the second phase of the high-speed track north of Manchester and Leeds will join the east and west coast main lines near York and at Wigan respectively. Will the Minister assure the House that this will be done at the very same time as the link to Manchester and Leeds is opened? Otherwise, there might be a flight of investment capital from developers who wonder whether points north of Manchester and Leeds will actually be brought within the high-speed framework. The solution to that problem is for a guarantee to be given that it will be done in 2033, when Manchester and Leeds open. Secondly, I simply ask for confirmation that there will be no reduction in the plans for upgrading the east coast main line in the next 20 years, pending completion of the second phase of HS2.

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, my noble friend asked me some important questions about opening events occurring at the same time. Unfortunately, I cannot give the assurance that the noble Lord wants; the date is too far away. However, I will take the point on board. My noble friend also asked me about the upgrading of the east coast main line. It is important to keep that line working properly, but of course we are talking about something quite a long way ahead. I therefore cannot give my noble friend any specific assurances, other than the key one that the HS2 project will not divert resources from the conventional railway system.