Transport for the North

Lord Tunnicliffe Excerpts

Thursday 18th January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sugg]

My Lords, we are absolutely committed to improving journeys on the trans-Pennine route, bringing in the state-of-the-art trains, longer carriages and more frequent services that the passengers would like. We want to go further and are planning to spend £3 billion to upgrade the key routes between Manchester, Leeds and York to give passengers those better, faster and more reliable journeys.

[Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, for this Question because it has caused me to look at the document. You have to get to page 86 before it says anything about money:

“TfN’s status as a pan-regional organisation, with a range of stakeholders but limited fiscal powers, means that a bespoke but credible funding and financing framework will be required. A substantial element of funding will come from central Government budgets.”


Is the Secretary of State going to buy into this plan and that substantial element of funding?

[Baroness Sugg]

My Lords, absolutely—we are waiting to see the final plan which we will then of course consider. If the initial funding settlement for TfN does not include the funding for transport projects, it will be allocated separately from central government funds.