Great British Railways and Rail Services in the North

Lord Shipley Excerpts

Monday 5th December 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Goddard for tabling this debate. As he said, we need a single, national leadership for our railways. The present crisis on the rail network is unacceptable for those trying to travel, it is damaging to our economy and it needs resolution, as the noble Lord, Lord McLoughlin, said a moment ago.

It is the job of government to intervene in the case of market failure such as this, and the current dislocation cannot have come as a surprise, since too many trains depended on drivers working on their rest days—a dangerous business model. But I want to pay tribute to LNER, which also operates in the north of England—and we should note that it is of course nationalised. LNER has managed the dislocation of strikes in an impressive way. In my experience it has planned well and communicated well with passengers, and I personally have had little trouble in travelling in recent weeks, although the strikes have certainly been inconvenient. Promises have been made about driver training by some of the underperforming operators. I would like to ask the Minister whether she could tell us whether there are actually enough drivers now being trained by Avanti and TransPennine Express?

In the levelling-up White Paper, mission 3 states:

“By 2030, local public transport connectivity across the country will be significantly closer to the standards of London, with improved services, simpler fares and integrated ticketing.”


To achieve this needs the full Northern Powerhouse Rail plan, which was reconfirmed by Liz Truss when she was Prime Minister, after being downgraded by the previous Prime Minister. That plan included the reopening of the Leamside line in Durham as a freight diversionary route which would free up train paths on the east coast main line and thus route capacity. It is a very important investment opportunity, and I would welcome anything positive the Minister can say about this proposal which would bring substantial benefits to the network. The current Prime Minister has since downgraded the full Northern Powerhouse Rail plan when, I submit, it is essential if levelling up is to mean much.

The Tyne and Wear Metro system has been very important since its inception nearly 50 years ago. There is a proposal to link Washington to the Metro system to create the Washington Metro loop. This proposal was formally launched by Transport North East last month and has reached the first stage of a business case. I very much hope for government support for the next phase of the work needed for such an extension. Together, the Leamside line and the Washington Metro loop would be a significant gain for the economy of the north-east, and I hope that they can be supported.

Finally, cancelling the eastern leg of HS2—assuming that is the final decision—will have very serious implications for Yorkshire and the north-east of England because private sector investment for development will follow the new HS2 track. If the track stops, developer investment will be much more difficult to attract across much of the north of England, hence smaller but important projects at a more local level will matter to the more distant parts of England from London.