Mail Carriage by Rail

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Monday 22nd July 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I welcome the comments from the noble Lord, Lord McLoughlin. It is important that rail freight increases, but the noble Lord is correct in referring to capacity problems on some parts of the network. There are two things to do. First, historically the freight companies have a number of paths that they do not use and never have done, which are getting in the way of running more passenger trains. Secondly, in return, the Government’s emphasis on the carriage of more freight by rail demands us to look carefully at the capacity of the railway and facilitate the paths that are needed for modern freight, particularly containers and bulk aggregates, in order that traffic can increase.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, is the Minister aware that one of the choke points if one wants to increase the amount of freight moved by rail is across the Pennines? The M62 is crowded every day with trucks carrying containers. I am told that there are no spare freight paths between the west and east coasts in the north of England. Unless extra path capacity is provided, the Government will be unable to fulfil their commitment to increase the carriage of freight by rail in the north.

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

There is certainly a constraint on the amount of railway capacity over the Pennines from east to west. The trans-Pennine route upgrade, which is currently costing £11 billion, is a significant project already in delivery that seeks to increase that capacity. I know the department’s officials have looked and are looking at what needs to be done with that upgrade in order to make sure that it is suitable for the carriage of more freight, including containers of the larger size.

Pavement Parking

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Wednesday 21st February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

I cannot disclose them at the moment, but as I said, I am very hopeful that in the not-too-distant future we will be able to come forward with suggestions.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, one of the reasons for parking on pavements is that cars have got wider. Do the Government have any plans to discriminate between 4x4s—which are wide, long and heavy, and thus also damage pavements—and smaller cars, and encourage the use of the latter in urban areas?

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

I understand the point the noble Lord makes, but we have no plans to discriminate against 4x4s or wider vehicles at the moment.

Network North

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Wednesday 14th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

I happen to have an O-level in it.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

I am glad to hear that the Minister is interested in removing lorries from roads. The major problem on the trans-Pennine links is lack of rail capacity. The M62 is jammed with trucks carrying containers between the east and west coasts. Unless there are new rail paths across the Pennines, nothing will change. Are there any plans to reinstitute the idea of a new rail line between Manchester and Leeds?

Network Rail: Ely Area Capacity Enhancement Programme

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Wednesday 5th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I am not sure that I am able to update the House on when the consultation will be done, but the Government of course remain committed to East West Rail. I will write to my noble friend.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, on a previous occasion the Minister promised improvements that would provide for the second of the two lines between Leeds and Bradford to be upgraded to a point where one could get from Leeds to Bradford in 10 to 12 minutes. I am advised that that is impossible unless there is very extensive reorganisation of the western approaches to Leeds station. I note the priority now being given to the Oxford-Cambridge line; I simply re-emphasise that, unless the various trans-Pennine links are substantially improved, we will not begin to get any sort of levelling up in the central cities of the north.

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

The Government are incredibly ambitious when it comes to investment in the north and the Midlands. As the noble Lord will know, we have the Northern Powerhouse Rail programme and we are taking forward all sorts of different schemes in the area.

Railways: Trans-Pennine Express

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd May 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

My noble friend has hit the nail on the head. It is likely that any noble Lord will get there and get back on time, unless there is a strike.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, could the Minister persuade the Prime Minister to use the railways himself a little bit more often? We know that he flies around the country rather a lot. I think if he were to do so, particularly in visiting his constituency, then services to Northallerton and Thirsk would improve very considerably.

South West Rail Resilience Programme

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Monday 22nd May 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I do not accept the latter point. We have invested £165 million to date, and of course some of that was to ensure the resilience of the seawall itself. Other elements of that funding went into cliff protection measures. This final section of cliff protection measures is highly complicated and there has been some local reluctance around the plans that Network Rail originally put forward. That is why it has had to go back to the drawing board. At this stage we do not know the scope of the works or the costs, and therefore it is impossible to speak further about the funding.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, the Minister refers to keeping within the funding envelope. Is there any connection between the Government’s determination to cut taxes before the next election and the refusal to provide additional long-term funding for long-term investment? As a Government concerned with the national interest, should they not be more concerned with long-term investment than the short-term political advantage that a tax cut might provide before the next election?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

The Government are always cognisant that we must provide value for money to the taxpayer. As I outlined in a previous answer, the amount of funding going into our railways is going up. We are very cognisant of the impact of that increased funding and the sorts of deliverables that we want to see out of it. I assure the noble Lord that the rail network enhancements pipeline, or RNEP, will include some of those enhancements and will be published soon.

Global Britain: Traffic

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Monday 15th May 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I absolutely encourage the noble Lord to speak to his friend and colleague who currently holds the mayoralty for London. It is up to him to think about how that balance is achieved. I agree that there are challenges with regard to economic activity for those people who need to use the roads, and that is why the balance of transport is so important—and I believe that more can be done.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, I entirely welcome what the Minister has said about the high quality of public transport in Greater London. A similar quality for the north of England—an Elizabeth line between Manchester and Leeds, for example—would transform the economy of the north. Is that among the Government’s priorities for a long-term strategy for levelling up in the country?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

That is slightly beyond the scope of the Question. Obviously, the Government are committed to the integrated rail plan for the north, and the noble Lord will know that we are investing £5.7 billion under the CRSTS for sustainable transport schemes in many of our major cities.

Integrated Rail Plan: Northern Powerhouse Area

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Thursday 16th December 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, this is neither integrated nor really a plan. I wish to correct the noble Lord, Lord Horam; the Institution of Civil Engineers actually said that this was

“at best … a step in the right direction.”

Northern Powerhouse Rail has now shrunk to a new line between Warrington and Marsden—a village west of Huddersfield—without any clarity as to whether that will involve doubling the Standedge tunnel to remove the bottleneck in the middle. Are the Government confident that they can reopen the two very old single-line tunnels on either side of the current double Standedge tunnel for fast and electrified trains? If they cannot, a new tunnel will be needed somewhere, which makes the case for it being somewhere different, rather than simply doubling the Standedge tunnel. That is the case for a second fast trans-Pennine link, which the Government have just denied.

This is a question of capacity. I have heard several times about the sheer difficulty of finding additional freight paths across the Pennines. The idea that freight between Liverpool and Hull must go on the M62 because there is not enough space on our railway network for container trains is absurd—but that is where we are. Tunnels and capacity are essential.

After all, the concept of a “northern powerhouse” rested on bringing together Leeds, Manchester, Liverpool and Sheffield, with links to Hull and Newcastle, and their surrounding cities and towns, into a metropolitan network comparable to that from which Greater London already benefits. I fear the slogan has now outlived its credibility and therefore ought to be abandoned. The concept included reopening or upgrading a number of local feeder lines, which are also important to economic regeneration, but the core of the concept was fast lines to bring together the major cities across the north.

Bradford is one of those major cities. I declare an interest; I live in the Bradford metropolitan region and benefit from one of the very few electrified local lines in the north, so at least I can get from Saltaire to London and back via Leeds. However, getting from Saltaire to Sheffield or Manchester is a very long, slow and difficult process, because the lines do not go through the tunnels or south from Bradford to Huddersfield and Sheffield. We need to link in Bradford, Halifax and the northern Pennine towns to this metropolitan network. Without a second link, or at the very least a substantial rebuilding of the Calder Valley line, which flooded badly two years ago, we condemn Bradford as a city, and Halifax and the Pennine towns, to long-term decline.

The Minister for Rail, as MP for Pendle, ought at least to know this; Pendle is one of the most economically deprived areas in Britain, which is partly because its transport links are so poor. I am shocked that the Department for Transport has declined to provide even a small sum to look at the feasibility of opening the Skipton-Colne link—a third link across the Pennines —because it does not think that it is justifiable.

As has already been said, it takes an enormously long time to travel from Leeds to Liverpool, and it is very complicated to travel from Bradford to Sheffield. Bradford to Manchester is a long and slow journey on a crowded two-carriage or three-carriage diesel train. However, the costs of two miles of extra tunnelling in south London to link the expensive new property developments around Battersea power station are justified, apparently because the foreign owners of those new properties have contributed to the Conservative Party. I hope that is not correct, but that is what Private Eye suggests to me.

What this looks like is “If it’s in the north, it costs too much”. The potential impact of economic transformation is left out of the calculation. If it is in London, it is essential to maintaining the region’s prosperity. I hope that is not the case the Government will continue to make.

Integrated Rail Plan: North and Midlands

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Monday 22nd November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I hope that we are able to prove the noble Lord, Lord Snape, wrong in that regard. Obviously, we have done a significant amount of work on this and we believe it can be done. In terms of the fact that we have previously been advocating for a different style of network, I do not see that is a particular issue. Sometimes when the facts change, you have to change what you are proposing. The issue here is: do we have endless amounts of money? No, we do not. Can we deliver very good improvements to service for just under half the amount of money? I think we can. The other thing is that we can use the money we are not spending for other vital investments, so it is not such that that money is suddenly disappearing.

The noble Lord talked about capacity, and this is a really important point: the capacity constraints on the west coast main line are far greater than on the east coast main line. We will be able to get capacity improvements on the east coast mainline. It is far more important that we improve capacity on the west coast main line, which is why we have developed the plans that we have.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, Bradford does not come out very well, or have any joy, from this. I was very unhappy with the way in which the Minister answered questions on Thursday; I thought she was condescending to the House, which was inappropriate. I am glad that she is now engaging with the reasoned arguments others are making.

There are a number of inaccuracies in this paper. It refers to “introducing” an electrified line from Leeds to Bradford—but I travel on an electrified line from Leeds to the north of Bradford most weekends. It also refers to “electrifying” the Leeds to York section. I happened to travel on that on Monday of last week and the gantries for the electric wires are already up—so I suspect that the investment for that has already been made and it is not new money. So I puzzle over the accuracy of some of what is being said.

I ask, however, about capacity across the Pennines, because clearly the biggest cost of the new line from Leeds to Manchester via Bradford would have been the tunnel through the Pennines. The capacity across the Pennines is extremely tight and, unless one doubles the Standedge tunnel, you are going to have a choke point on upgrading the line between Leeds and Manchester via Huddersfield. Do the Government intend to double the Standedge tunnel, or would they consider that?

A cost-benefit analysis of the Calder Valley and north-east Lancashire—the latter being one of the poorest areas in England—would show that a more northerly line between Leeds and Manchester would spread benefits economically in a way which upgrading the current line simply will not do.

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

Well, I am very happy to write to the noble Lord on the detail of his question, as I am not well versed on the tunnels et cetera in the area to which he referred. I apologise if he felt that I was condescending to the House on Thursday. It is, of course, always very funny to be asked lots of questions based on the media rather than the actual documents, which had not been published at that time—and of course the questions were about upgrading, and I could not answer them. Maybe the noble Baroness had read the documents, but I had not, so I could not answer.

Bradford will benefit from electrification of the line to Leeds, and improved journey times will mean that you can get from Bradford to Leeds in 12 minutes—that is quite some distance in 12 minutes. I wish I could get that far in London. So it will benefit, and I think that we will look at various other projects as well. Part of the whole issue we are looking is the core pipeline work, which is set out in the Integrated Rail Plan, but we will look at any other scheme and service that will offer further improvements. This is exactly what the National Infrastructure Commission suggested that we do. This is the Integrated Rail Plan, and this is the core pipeline of work and, if noble Lords have suggestions for other schemes that would be affordable, would further improve our ability to improve services, and would be deliverable, I would really appreciate it if noble Lords would forward them to us.

P&O Ferries

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Tuesday 5th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Speaker (Lord Fowler)]

I call the noble Lord, Lord Loomba. Lord Loomba? No? I call the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD) [V]]

My Lords, the Government have said that taking back control is an important dimension to everything they believe in and that levelling up is their next major priority. I am sure that the Minister is aware that, in Yorkshire, tourism and food exports are fundamental to the economy and that over half its food exports go to the European continent. Is she really sure that we should leave decisions such as this to a company in the Gulf and that public interest does not require the Government to fulfil their commitment to levelling up the north by keeping links such as this going?