High Speed Rail (Crewe - Manchester) Bill

Robert Largan Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 20th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Dhesi]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention and I would have expected nothing less. One thing he has helped to highlight with his question is that under a Labour Government we would have control of the finances, unlike what we are seeing with the Tory mismanagement, where there is a ballooning budget. I wanted to come on to that and his intervention is timely, because it is thanks to the usual Tory mismanagement that we are all accustomed to that this is already a watered-down offering, betraying millions and letting down communities across towns and cities in the north and midlands. The continued slashing of HS2, which was born under a Labour Government more than a decade ago, means it is becoming merely a ghost of its former self. So from this Front Bench, we simply urge the Prime Minister and his Transport Ministers to deliver on their promises and ensure that HS2 is built on time and in full.

[Robert Largan (High Peak) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman talks about betraying millions. Is the leader of his party —he voted to block HS2—betraying millions in the north?

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[Mr Dhesi]

My hon. Friend has been a firm champion on behalf of his constituents. His views are also echoed by my good friend, the Mayor of Manchester, Andy Burnham, with whom I have discussed this project. Many are exasperated by the Government’s lack of ambition for Manchester and the north, which is why Labour is very much in favour of this. We need a solution for Manchester Piccadilly station that enables a future Labour Government to pick up the pieces and to deliver that Northern Powerhouse Rail in full to Bradford and Leeds.

[Robert Largan]

The hon. Gentleman is being most generous. As much as I enjoy being lectured about the north by the hon. Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi), I know that this Government are putting £96 billion of integrated rail investment into the north and the midlands, compared with pretty much nothing from the last Labour Government.

Let me return to the point the hon. Gentleman made earlier about the leader of his party having a constituency interest. I find it remarkable that he suggests that if something were inconvenient for a small area of north London, the leader of his party would side with that ahead of the north and the midlands.

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[Andrew Gwynne]

I would caution the hon. Lady about making a silly political point, because I think Gateway House was probably built in the late 1960s. I certainly know that, for a period of time before local government reorganisation, Manchester City Council was actually a Conservative-controlled council, so she may well find that Gateway House was built under her party’s watch, if she is not too careful. [Interruption.] As my hon. Friend the Member for Blackley and Broughton (Graham Stringer), who was the leader of Manchester City Council for a very long time, says, for four years Manchester, in the 1960s, was indeed a Conservative council. That is a silly point about a building built over 40 or 50 years ago, but it needs to go.

[Robert Largan]

I think the hon. Gentleman is making an excellent speech. The point about having a lovely piazza and welcoming people into Manchester is a very good one. Would he agree with me that we also want to see long-awaited improvements at Piccadilly Gardens? We would love to see Manchester City Council pull its finger out and sort out what really lets down my home city. It is an amazing city, and if that is fixed as well, it could make the welcome to Manchester even better.

[Andrew Gwynne]

Again, I am straying far off the issue of High Speed 2, but I actually agree with the hon. Gentleman. I think the current Piccadilly Gardens do nothing to enhance the vision of Manchester, and—as a small-c conservative, I suppose—I would actually like to go back to the old sunken gardens with flowers, as we used to have in those pictures Lowry painted, but we are where we are. Absolutely, I want to see Piccadilly being the gateway to the great city of Manchester, with the kind of street scene we are now seeing around Albert Square and the town hall, which is absolutely what can be done with really good streetscaping and landscaping.

To return to HS2, as I say, business leaders in the FT do not accept the £4 billion extra cost that HS2 has put in. Look, I was a local councillor, so I know what officers do when they do not want to do something—they give you a million and one reasons why you cannot do it rather than one reason why you should—and I am sure that it is the same with civil servants and those in the Department for Transport. They will give Ministers a million and one reasons why they should not do the right thing by Manchester. We need someone to stand up to them and say, “Think again. There is a better way forwards.”

I turn to one of the unintended consequences of HS2’s construction. It would be remiss of me not to mention the closure of the Ashton-under-Lyne Metrolink line for a period of at least two years while HS2 is developed around Piccadilly. For those who are not aware, that Metrolink line is an essential piece of transport infrastructure for people right across Tameside. It connects communities from Ashton-under-Lyne through to Audenshaw in my constituency, east Manchester and right into Piccadilly, where it connects with the rest of the Metrolink network through the city centre to Eccles via MediaCityUK. It provides transport links to the 60,000-capacity Etihad stadium at Sportcity and the massive Co-op Live arena currently being built at the Etihad campus.

I find it unacceptable that the Bill plans to mothball the Ashton line and fob off residents with replacement bus services. The Ashton New Road route is already well served by double-decker buses, and people who want to use buses are using them. The beauty of the Metrolink system is that it has attracted people who would not use buses out of their cars and on to public transport, and my fear is that they will go back into their motor cars for the period when the line is mothballed.

I will give a logistical argument. Three double-decker buses are required to give the same capacity as one tram, and to replace a Metrolink service of 10 trams an hour between Ashton and Piccadilly—a tram every six minutes, which by London standards is appalling but by northern standards is remarkable—needs an awful lot of extra double-decker buses in addition to those already using that route. Some of the infrastructure in place—the tracks, the overhead lines and the island stations—may have to be taken out temporarily, at great cost to the public purse, to give extra road capacity. I will give the example of Droylsden, which the Minister will be aware of, because his family’s solicitor’s office is there. The Droylsden tram stop, in the constituency of my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner), is a pinch point because it is slap-bang in the middle of a busy road at a crossroad junction in Droylsden town centre and the vehicular part of the road is pinched down to one lane only. It queues back now. If we put all those extra buses along that route without taking out the tram stop altogether, we will have traffic chaos through Droylsden. That is why we will not be fobbed off with a replacement bus service.

I am grateful to the Minister for meeting me last month to discuss my concerns and those of Transport for Greater Manchester, Tameside council and Manchester City Council. However, I am afraid to say that he and the Department for Transport fundamentally underestimate the extent of the damage that the suspension will cause and are stubbornly refusing to explore any alternative solutions.

In addition to massively inconveniencing residents, there are three areas where the Government’s plan to suspend the line falls short. First, we have decarbonisation and green investment. Suspending the Ashton Metrolink line will, as I said, increase congestion from buses in an already urbanised part of Greater Manchester, incentivise individuals to travel by private car rather than by zero-emission Metrolink trams, and undermine the Government’s own transport decarbonisation plan.

The second area of concern is economic. The Greater Manchester Combined Authority, alongside Tameside council, recently identified the Ashton mayoral development zone as one of its priority areas to deliver growth in the region. The combined authority has clear and bold ambitions for Ashton and surrounding areas. Tameside council has significantly invested in Ashton town centre, having delivered the new Ashton interchange, learning facilities and new council head offices. Ashton Moss, which is in my constituency, has been identified as a major strategic employment site, with a significant scale of employment and residential growth expected to accelerate the area’s economic development. Transport connectivity is essential for that development to succeed, and the suspension of the line would wholly undermine that.

The third area of concern relates to long-term planning. Transport for Greater Manchester has a simple approach to infrastructure and a mantra that I hope the Minister will take on board for HS2: build it once and build it right. The suspension would ride roughshod over that principle. The Government are planning to commit taxpayer money to temporary mitigation works instead of contributing to a permanent solution that would benefit the people of Tameside and east Manchester for generations to come.

I want to be clear that we in Greater Manchester want improved connectivity and investment in transport infrastructure. However, that must be done right and in consultation with the local authorities and Transport for Greater Manchester. Fobbing us off with paper-thin replacement bus services is not going to crack it.

There is a solution—the Minister knows this—because Transport for Greater Manchester has a plan that would allow for the development of HS2 without penalising the people of Tameside and east Manchester. TfGM has proposed the operation of a Metrolink shuttle service from Ashton to New Islington—the station before Piccadilly —during the period of construction. That would necessitate the development of a depot at Ashton Moss to accommodate the fleet as well as the addition of a crossover at the New Islington Metrolink stop. The Minister has cited a cost of £200 million for that work. That is a figure that I dispute and that TfGM and Tameside council strongly dispute. I remind him that construction of the entire Metrolink line from Piccadilly to Ashton-under-Lyne, including the moving of all the public utilities out of the road and into the pavement, the construction of the line and the stations, and the procurement of the trams to run on the line and to the stations, cost less than what he says a depot would cost.

The Minister also cited as a reason for the cost being extortionate that a high-pressure gas main would need to be relocated. That very same gas main was relocated when the Metrolink line was built and that was included in the overall cost that I just cited—and, 120 metres or so from where the depot would be built, the tramline crosses over that gas main. If it does not seem to be an issue 120 metres away, it should not be an issue for the depot.

In closing, I say to the Minister that, please, we have a solution, and that solution has a legacy benefit. If we built that depot on Ashton Moss, not only could we keep a shuttle service to Manchester going on the Metrolink line, but, in future, tram-train operations in eastern Greater Manchester could make use of that same depot, given that the railway line to Stockport via Denton and Reddish South, which I have been campaigning for, runs alongside Ashton Moss and the depot, so it could be used for generations to come.

The best outcome can be achieved only if the Government agree to implement Transport for Greater Manchester’s recommendations in full, and work collaboratively with local leaders to ensure that we get this right. I fear that we will be in petition mode, and that there will be a petition from Greater Manchester if the Government do not change tack. I hope not, because I do not want this massive infrastructure upgrade for my city region to be delayed. Let’s crack on, let’s get it right, and let’s build it right first time round.

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[Robert Largan (High Peak) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Greg Smith), who I have known for nearly 15 years. He is a great friend of mine and I know he is a fantastic champion for his constituents. He spoke passionately about how he is standing up for them and how this project has impacted them. On his wider points opposing HS2, what he said was almost entirely nonsensical and I look forward to demolishing it in a moment.

In the long run we are all dead, according to John Maynard Keynes, and that attitude has been wholeheartedly embraced by many politicians throughout the years. That is understandable, because it is all too easy and tempting to focus on short-term urgent political gains and it is always difficult to spend all our political and financial capital on long-term strategic decisions for which we will get no credit and whose benefit will not be felt for decades to come. We are seeing this short-termism hurt our country in many ways, most acutely through the failure of the Blair Government to renew our nuclear power stations, which we are really feeling now, so I think this Government deserve a lot of credit for going ahead with high-speed rail.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

There might be a contrary view that people in this place sometimes decide on these nice shiny things—for example, George Osborne and his super-duper high-speed trains—knowing full well that they will not have to be there to implement them. The Government might say that in 50 years’ time they want net zero or whatever it is, but they are not going to be there. That is what has happened in this case: it is a white elephant. Come on!

[Robert Largan]

Well, I am very glad I took that intervention. I would say that perhaps George Osborne did expect to be here, but that is beside the point.

As I was saying, I believe that the Government deserve significant credit for taking a very long-term decision that will be of huge benefit to the country, although they will not get any credit for it for a long time to come. Let us contrast that with the Leader of the Opposition, who spent his first four years in Parliament focusing on two objectives. The first was to block High Speed 2 and the billions of investment in the north of England. The second was to try to make the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) Prime Minister.

[Chris Clarkson]

Does my hon. Friend think that is proof that the only north-west the Leader of the Opposition is interested in is NW1?

[Robert Largan]

I could not have put it better myself. When I flagged this point earlier, Opposition Members said it is a constituency interest, which is very revealing. A Member of Parliament’s list of priorities is supposed to be country, constituency, party and then self. It is slightly worrying that, when the interests of the country come up against the interests of a narrow corner of north London, the leader of the Labour party opts for self, party, constituency and then country last, which is very revealing about his priorities.

HS2 is an important infrastructure project, so I take great pleasure in busting some of the myths we have heard this evening. A series of myths about high-speed rail have been perpetuated over the last decade by a combination of muddled thinking and well-financed interest groups, and I will take them one by one.

As we have heard tonight, this is all about time. Who needs an extra 30 minutes off rail journeys down to London? First, this has never been primarily about journey times and speed; this has always been about capacity.

[Greg Smith]

My hon. Friend and I never fell out when we took opposite sides in the Brexit referendum, and we will not fall out over this. He says HS2 has always been about capacity, so why did it have to be built as a high-speed line so dead straight that it had to go through the middle of ancient woodland and the Calvert Jubilee nature reserve? If it were about capacity, the line could have been slower from the outset and could therefore have gone around ancient woodland and nature reserves.

[Robert Largan]

If we are going to spend billions of pounds on a new railway line, we want to make it a fast line. If we were to give in to my hon. Friend’s demands and scrap HS2 tomorrow, we would quickly run up against gridlock on the west coast main line, which is almost at complete capacity already.

[Katherine Fletcher]

The internet is a wonderful thing, and I have just looked at trains from Wellingborough into central London and at trains from Preston into central Manchester, a not dissimilar distance. Should my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) be in his wonderful constituency, he could get three trains before the trains close even on a day of disruption.

[Katherine Fletcher]

I have just checked. And from Preston to Manchester, a similar distance, there is one train because the capacity is not there. Although my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Greg Smith) made a wonderful speech, people need to understand what it feels like to be a rail user in the south-east of England. Does my hon. Friend the Member for High Peak (Robert Largan) agree that capacity is the key point?

[Robert Largan]

Yes, capacity is the key point.

[Mr Bone]

As my hon. Friend the Member for South Ribble (Katherine Fletcher) obviously knows more about Wellingborough than I do, she might mention that the cattle trucks they are now using, as we cannot spend proper money because it is being wasted on HS2, are of great detriment to my constituents. By the way, a person cannot get on at Wellingborough and go north. It is a total waste, totally wrong. If there was any argument not to pass this nonsense tonight, she should come to Wellingborough and then she would be on my side. Does my hon. Friend the Member for High Peak (Robert Largan) agree?

[Robert Largan]

It gives me great pleasure to facilitate that tête-à-tête between my hon. Friends the Members for South Ribble (Katherine Fletcher) and for Wellingborough (Mr Bone).

One of the most frequent tropes used by opponents of HS2 is, “We don’t need to invest in rail because we have high-speed broadband. Everyone will be working from home and having remote meetings, so it is not a problem at all.” How would we deliver freight via Zoom? It is not possible to deliver millions of tonnes of freight a year over the internet, and those who argue otherwise are completely missing the point. We desperately need to move away from road haulage and on to rail freight, which is one of the big benefits of HS2. It opens up capacity not only for passengers but for rail freight, too. I am very proud to represent a large number of quarries, and I chair the all-party group on mining and quarrying. One big challenge is getting all the aggregate out of our quarries and on to site. At the moment, a huge volume of that is done by road, by HGVs, which causes huge problems across the Peak district. Being able to increase that capacity is a big benefit of high-speed rail.

I next come on to address the point about cost, which has always been mentioned. People say that the cost of high-speed rail is “astronomical” and “completely ridiculous”, and that this is “a white elephant”. Let us consider the opponents of HS2’s worst-case-scenario cost figures—I think they are massively inflated, but let us take them at their word. How much would that actually cost when we spread it out over the lifetime of the project, which is decades? Even on the worst-case scenario, we are looking at about £5 billion a year, which is half of what we spend on overseas aid every year. When we are talking about a huge investment to upgrade the most important railway line in the country, spending 0.25% of our GDP a year over several decades does not seem to be a disproportionate amount of money.

Another of my favourite myths is, “HS2 is bad for the environment.” I recall that in the last one of these debates the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) referred to HS2 as “environmental annihilation”. I am not sure whether she has ever been to Kent, where HS1 exists; it is still the garden of England. One wonders whether some of the opponents of HS2 have ever seen a railway line. We are not talking about eight-lane superhighways; we are talking about a relatively narrow footprint and about beautiful pieces of infrastructure. I would happily take all those people to places such as New Mills and Chapel Milton, where stunning viaducts criss-cross a national park, no less, and are beloved parts of the landscape.

Next, people say, “It’s a false choice. We should be investing in local lines, not spending billions on this big infrastructure project.” That is just a completely false narrative. A big part of opening up this capacity is that it helps existing commuter lines, with High Peak being the perfect example of that. Commuters on the Buxton line heading into Manchester from places such as Whaley Bridge, New Mills, Chapel-en-le-Frith and Buxton are on a really poor service. Why is that? It is because it has to go through the Stockport-Piccadilly corridor, which is one of the most congested lines anywhere in the country. There is not enough space on that line to get a more frequent or more reliable service into Manchester. HS2 opens up the Stockport corridor and will allow for a more reliable and more frequent service for my constituents.

We are also doing all the investment in the local lines too. The £137 million upgrade of the Hope Valley line in my constituency is under construction already; the HS2 Minister recently came with me to see the construction progress. That is also going to have a huge positive impact on commuters in my constituency and, again, it is going to open up freight capacity to help get goods out of the quarries in the Peak District and through into market.

Yes, I would like us to go even further. I would love to see us upgrade the Glossop line as well, as there are interesting proposals to go for a double track beyond Broadbottom to Glossop and to improve signalling on the way into Manchester Piccadilly, which could open up even more improvements on one of the fastest growing and busiest commuter lines anywhere in the country. That would be fantastic too.

Having gone through a number of the myths in relatively quick fashion, let us have a look at what we are talking about tonight, which is this Crewe to Manchester Piccadilly leg. It is really important that we get this right. A number of Opposition Members have talked about Manchester Piccadilly station, and I agree that it is essential that we get this right. Huge sums of money will be involved and this is an opportunity to dramatically improve one of the key stations not just for Manchester or for people in High Peak who commute in there, but for people across the entire north of England. This needs fixing and it is important that we explore all the options, including an underground line.

[Mike Amesbury]

It is good to hear that we have some consensus on that issue. As the hon. Member powerfully said, it is not a trade-off between a national project and local services and facilities. My constituents in the Northwich part of my constituency would love to have the promised two trains an hour, but because of the lack of capacity in and around Manchester it just cannot happen. That is where Ministers need to focus a little more energy and to invest to ensure that this project lasts for generations.

[Robert Largan]

I know Northwich very well—in fact, I used to work there—and HS2 will open up huge opportunities for the hon. Gentleman’s constituents.

I am pleased that, after my discussions with the HS2 Minister, the instructions to the Select Committee on the Bill allow it to look into all options at Piccadilly. That is really important. The Committee also needs to look into all options at Manchester airport. A few people have already talked about making certain that we get that right, with the proper Metrolink, rail and bus links. There is lots of work to be done in the Bill’s next stage.

Let me conclude by saying that high-speed rail and the Government’s wider £96 billion investment in rail in the north of England is good not just for the environment, the economy, jobs and the High Peak; it is good for the whole of the north of England and for the whole country. Let us get on and build it.

Rail Strikes

Robert Largan Excerpts

Wednesday 15th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Robert Largan (High Peak) (Con)]

I declare an interest of sorts: I am the son of a trade union rep. I am very proud of the work he did in standing up for the people he worked with to secure them better conditions and safety in the workplace. He always said to me that if trade unions did not exist, we would have to invent them. They play a very important role in our society, and I am certainly not someone who comes to this place as a natural union basher. I will say this, though: I think the RMT has got this strike badly wrong in both timing and tactics.

On timing, it will have a huge impact on a huge number of people across the country, particularly as it falls in the middle of exams and after the horrendous two years young people have had. This will make things even worse. It will have an impact on businesses not just in terms of the huge number of lost hours of work, but for those reliant on footfall from passengers, including Twig at Glossop station where I get my Monday morning coffee every week and Edwards Wine Bar in Hadfield where I often enjoy a drink on my way back from meetings. It will also have a huge impact on workers who cannot get to work, including doctors and nurses. And let us not forget the self-employed, who will not be able to earn money because they cannot work due to the strikes.

The strike is also bad in terms of tactics. It is a self-defeating tactic by the RMT. We are at a very critical moment for public transport and the rail sector. It has had a very difficult two years due to covid, with plummeting passenger numbers and record levels of subsidy just to try to keep the service above water. We are now in a position where we face the need to modernise and deal with the drop in revenue. The strike will only harm that work towards modernisation and sustainability. In the long run, I fear that that will have a huge impact on the industry and the workers the RMT professes to represent.

[Sir Greg Knight]

As a number of train operating companies are urging the public not to seek to travel at all by rail during the week of the strikes, is there not an overwhelming case for requiring road congestion charging and similar schemes to be suspended until the rail network is back to normal?

[Robert Largan]

I sincerely hope that that is a proposal the Government and Mayors look at very closely in their areas.

We are currently dealing with very reduced rail services as a result of staff shortages. The three lines I represent are currently running on very reduced timetables, which are causing massive amounts of problems. The problems we see with this industrial dispute will only make that worse. We have seen this go on for months. There has been a large number of cancelled trains, particularly on the Glossop line. We have seen a lot of work to rule and disputes over rosters, which in fact led to a High Court injunction from Northern to ASLEF only a couple of weeks ago. We are already seeing some problems due to industrial disputes and they desperately need resolving.

I really think the RMT has got its tactics and timing very badly wrong. I hope it can reconsider. I sincerely hope we are able to avoid what I believe would be very damaging and self-defeating strikes.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

Transport

Robert Largan Excerpts

Thursday 19th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Sam Tarry]

The Government said we should be ambitious and local transport authorities therefore said the investment should be £9 billion. My view is that investment grows the economy and creates jobs. HS2 could have guaranteed jobs for hundreds of thousands of rail workers for decades to come. Not investing now is clearly short-sighted.

[Robert Largan (High Peak) (Con)]

I had the pleasure of serving on the Transport Committee with the hon. Gentleman. The leader of his party, the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer), voted to block HS2. Was he letting down the north?

[Sam Tarry]

We stood at the past two elections on a very clear manifesto, which the current leader of the Labour party backed. Our current strategy, which the leader of the Labour party backs, states very clearly that we back it. It is not us who have proposed that HS2 should be cut; it is the Government who have implemented that cut to the eastern leg.

The hon. Gentleman does not have to take my word for it. Tory councils have joined the backlash against what the Prime Minister has done over his pathetic bus funding plan. Conservative Don Mackenzie of North Yorkshire County Council said:

“We knew the Bus Back Better budget had been severely curtailed, but I expected to get some money, not nothing at all, so I’m very disappointed.”

In Shropshire, the Conservative cabinet member for transport said she was “devastated”, adding:

“We are at a complete loss as to why we have been completely overlooked.”

It is a sad and sorry tale that so many Conservative councils across the country are being let down by their own Government.

The sad truth is that, for too long the Tory party has overlooked buses. Some 5,000 services have been lost since they came to power—a staggering quarter of all bus routes in the entire United Kingdom. Far from a bus transformation, many will continue to see a managed decline. The underfunding by the Government has become so severe that a recent report by the former UN special rapporteur Professor Philip Alston highlighted a broken and fragmented system, with skyrocketing fares, plummeting service standards and disappearing routes depriving bus users of an essential public service. The report even went as far as to say that we are failing in our fundamental human rights obligations by allowing this essential service to deteriorate so severely.

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[Robert Largan (High Peak) (Con)]

I want to talk about a few different issues. The first, which a lot of other Members have touched on, is reduced rail timetables as a result of covid. That is still significantly affecting communities across much of High Peak, particularly in places such as Glossop, New Mills, Buxton and Whaley Bridge, where we are seeing significant reductions in timetables that Northern has said are still due to covid staff shortages. The latest timetable reduction it has announced will continue all the way until at least December, which is very disappointing. The situation is especially difficult in the Glossop, Hadfield and Dinting area, where there are also major roadworks going on for 20 weeks on the main road out of town. The fact that those things are both happening at once is causing a lot of problems locally. There is a real need to get the full timetable back. Over 2,000 local commuters have so far signed my petition calling for Northern to restore it, so I hope we can get it back as soon as possible.

The second issue is the transport Bill that is coming forward and the Great British Railways reforms to try to sort out the fragmented franchising problems and get a better passenger experience across the country. I whole- heartedly welcome that.

In a similar vein, I also welcome the fact that Andy Burnham, the Mayor of Greater Manchester, is finally starting to pursue bus franchising, five years after being given the powers by the Government. That is a very positive move and I support him in that. Given that Derbyshire County Council has just been given a significant sum of money by the Government to do bus improvement on our side of the border, it is important for those cross bus routes between Greater Manchester and Derbyshire that we get that right and work together properly so that we can see improvements, in particular restoring the 236 bus and the X57 buses, which have been lost, and trying to get a much-needed direct bus service through to Tameside Hospital from Glossop.

Next, I will talk about what is at the heart of transport, which is the desperate need to get transport right to fix the productivity gap in our economy. The Government rightly spend an awful lot of money and have put a lot of time, focus and effort into skills, and that is spot on, but in much the same way that record sums of funding into the NHS will never be enough until we fix the social care system, huge sums of money into skills will never be enough until we get connectivity and transport right. Much of the work I have been trying to do is about trying to bring employers together, whether that is the High Peak jobs and apprenticeships fair or the High Peak apprenticeship exchange, which I have been setting up. A huge issue that comes back from so many employers is that they cannot recruit, simply because people cannot get to those locations—they cannot get to college or where they want to work on time for 9 am.

All the money and effort going into apprenticeships and skills will not be enough unless we make the connectivity work, too. That is particularly important for addressing regional inequalities. Quite a few Members have mentioned Crossrail and the Elizabeth line opening, which is fantastic—it is a brilliant scheme—but we really need to see that in other parts of the country. The shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Ilford South (Sam Tarry), who represents a London-based constituency and is not in his place, referred with slight distaste on his lips to having once ridden a bus in Manchester. For those Members who do not have the pleasure of representing somewhere in the north and midlands, the disparity between transport is absolutely enormous, and that is key to fixing the productivity gap. So many people are arriving late to work, or stressed and exhausted or are having to leave early as getting to work is so difficult, because the transport links are so poor. Fixing that is essential. How do we do that? It is about that focus on infrastructure and improving our transport.

The Government have done a lot of good things. Our bit of the Northern Powerhouse Rail project—the upgrade of the Manchester to Sheffield route with the Hope Valley line, where construction is already under way—will make a huge difference to passengers in such places as New Mills, Chinley, Edale, Hope and Bamford, but we also need to connect that up with bus services and active travel, which is why I am so pleased that just this month we have approved £120,000 of funding for the “Travelling Light” project for Hope Valley Climate Action, which I have been supporting. That will really help join things up, too.

At the same time, we need to get it right when it comes to road. Buses go on the road network, and if we are moving towards electric vehicles and low-emission vehicles, we have to get our road network right. We have the money committed and the contract signed for the Mottram bypass, which has been promised for more than 50 years. We need to get on and build it, and then build the second phase of that bypass around Tintwistle, too. Hopefully we can get that; I am very optimistic.

It is all well and good talking about improving rail, but whole swathes of rural areas have no access to rail. I have two examples I want to flag quickly. One is Chinley, where there is no step-free access. We have an “Access for All” bid that has just gone in, and I would love to see Transport Ministers come to the village and see just how important that is, because there is currently no step-free access in either direction. The second—I regularly get accused of being like Cato the Elder for mentioning this in almost every speech I make—is the desperate need to build Gamesley station. It is one of the most deprived areas anywhere in the country. It has very low car ownership. It was promised a station back in 1968 when it was built, and it was never put in. That station is badly needed to regenerate one of the most deprived areas. It would completely transform life chances for the residents there.

There are lots of positive things that the Government are doing, but there needs to be a much greater focus on delivering transport infrastructure, improving rail services and integrating it all together so that the smaller villages and areas that do not have their own stations can also access it.

Rail Investment and Integrated Rail Plan

Robert Largan Excerpts

Wednesday 8th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Robert Largan (High Peak) (Con)]

First, I associate myself with the excellent speeches of my hon. Friends the Members for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Andrew Jones) and for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard), two experienced former rail Ministers who set out why they welcome the integrated rail plan while perhaps hoping that it had gone further in some areas. I completely agree with every word of both of their speeches.

One area of the IRP that I really welcome is the continued commitment to the £137 million upgrade to the Hope Valley line running between Manchester and Sheffield. That is important for several reasons. First, the line is one of the worst performing in the country in terms of reliability and punctuality, so this extra capacity to improve reliability and frequency and help freight get out of the quarries and into market is a really positive step, along with, finally, the retirement of the Pacers and their replacement by the new class 195 trains, and the much-needed reforms to rail franchising. That £137 million investment in our railways, combined with the £228 million new Mottram bypass and Glossop spur road, which is due to start construction in 2023, represents the biggest investment in transport infrastructure in the High Peak in my lifetime at least.

On top of that, it is important to ensure that local passengers on the stopping stations on the Hope Valley line, such as Hope, Edale, Bamford, New Mills and Chinley, also benefit from this, and that we link up the bus services from those stations to destinations. That is why the Hope Valley explorer bus pilot is such a positive step forward. I also welcome the commitment to look at electrification of the line.

I also want to talk about HS2, which benefits the High Peak directly. I am very pleased that the western leg and extension is going ahead. That will free up capacity on the Stockport corridor of the west coast main line through to Manchester Piccadilly, a big bonus for those travelling there from places including Buxton, Whaley Bridge, Chapel-en-le-Frith and New Mills.

However, we do need to go further. That is why I continue to campaign for a railway station for Gamesley, one of the most deprived places in the country. It has one of the lowest car ownership rates but atrocious transport links, including a bus service that ends at 5 o’clock in the evening. That desperately needs sorting out. We also need to replace the loss of the 236 bus, which means that at the moment people in Glossop have no connection and no direct bus route through to Tameside Hospital and Ashton College. I really hope that gets fixed too.

Overall, there are lots of really positive things in the integrated rail plan for us to welcome. I would like to see it go further in other places, but the key now is that we get on and deliver it, and that we get spades in the ground as soon as possible. I look forward to the start of the construction of the upgrade to the Hope Valley line within the next few months.

Integrated Rail Plan: North and Midlands

Robert Largan Excerpts

Thursday 18th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Robert Largan (High Peak) (Con)]

I welcome the £96 billion, which represents the largest investment in northern railways since Victoria sat on the throne.

High Peak sits between the two great cities of Manchester and Sheffield, which are just 30 miles apart but have some of the worst transport links anywhere in the country. I therefore welcome the Government’s commitment to tackle the issue with, first, the Mottram bypass and Glossop spur road, and secondly, the upgrade to the Hope Valley line, which I am pleased to see is included in the integrated rail plan. Will the Secretary of State agree to work with me and meet me so that we can ensure that not only Manchester and Sheffield but passengers from places such as New Mills, Chinley, Edale, Hope and Bamford benefit from that upgrade?

[Grant Shapps]

My hon. Friend has been a doughty campaigner for his constituents and, as he says, work on the Hope Valley line is under way, as confirmed in the programme announced today. I am sure that it will bring the wider benefits that my hon. Friend’s constituents so desperately want.

HS2

Robert Largan Excerpts

Monday 13th September 2021 Westminster Hall

[Robert Largan (High Peak) (Con)]

HS2 is probably the most poorly explained and poorly understood policy in our national discourse. Over the past decade, a series of myths have been perpetuated about it, by a combination of muddled thinking and the efforts of well-funded self-interest groups. I therefore welcome this opportunity to address some of those myths head-on.

First, despite its name, HS2 has never been simply about shaving 30 minutes off journey times down to London. It has always been about tackling the capacity challenge on the country’s most important strategic railway, the west coast main line. If we were to cancel HS2 and do nothing, within a few years this most vital artery of our entire national railway network would quite simply grind to a halt, causing huge damage to our economy, especially in the north and midlands.

I have seen many people claim that the internet and remote working will take care of this problem all by itself, ignoring the fact that—excluding the period of the pandemic—rail passenger figures have gone up in every single year since the internet was invented. They also ignore the issue of rail freight. I am all for harnessing technology, but with the best will in the world we cannot deliver millions of tonnes of goods via Zoom. We are already seeing the consequences of being overly reliant on road haulage, with the problems being caused by the shortage of continental HGV drivers. A failure to invest in our rail freight capacity would only make this situation worse.

Secondly, let us examine the cost of HS2 and let us give the anti-HS2 lobby the benefit of the doubt, taking their absolute worst-case scenarios on both costings and completion date at face value. Doing that, we would be looking at spending just over £5 billion a year; to provide some context, that is about half of what we spend on overseas aid. It is a lot of money, but investing around 0.25% of our GDP every year for a limited period to fix the most important railway network in our country is hardly disproportionate.

Thirdly, perhaps the most common argument against HS2 is that we should prioritise fixing existing commuter rail services instead, which is an argument that buys into a completely false-choice narrative. After all, London was not forced to choose between Crossrail and Thameslink; the north and the midlands should not be forced to make a choice, either. This argument also completely misses the point of HS2, which is to free up capacity on existing commuter lines and enable other transport improvements, such as Northern Powerhouse Rail. When the Transport Committee visited Birmingham, we heard very compelling evidence from Andy Street that HS2 also allows improvements such as the midlands rail hub.

My constituency is a good example of this situation. I have two railway lines, which have very limited capacity, that run through one of the busiest corridors in the country—Stockport to Manchester. HS2 would free up that capacity and allow for significant improvement in rail services for places such as Buxton, New Mills, Chinley and Whaley Bridge.

Finally, and most erroneously, a myth has developed that HS2 will be bad for the environment. If people are serious about tackling climate change and decarbonising the economy, I cannot see how they can credibly oppose HS2, a project specifically designed to reduce our reliance on domestic flights and to get cars and HGVs off our roads, shifting people and freight from a high-carbon form of transport to a low-carbon one.

In conclusion, therefore, completing HS2 is good for jobs, good for the economy, good for public transport and good for tackling climate change. It is vital that we keep HS2 on track.

[David Mundell (in the Chair)]

Finally, I call Alexander Stafford. Please can keep your contribution to two minutes.

Oral Answers to Questions

Robert Largan Excerpts

Thursday 29th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[David Johnston (Wantage) (Con)]

What steps his Department is taking to improve transport connections in rural areas.

[Robert Largan (High Peak) (Con)]

What steps his Department is taking to improve transport connections in rural areas.

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Andrew Stephenson)]

Through schemes such as the Beeching reversal fund and the national bus strategy, we are determined to ensure that rural areas have the transport links they need to grow and prosper.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrew Stephenson]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for his continued advocacy on behalf of his constituency, as I know this is an issue that he has raised repeatedly with Ministers. The Department has received the bid for development funding. Decisions will be made by our expert panel following an initial review carried out by the Department for Transport and Network Rail. We expect to announce outcomes in the summer.

[Robert Largan [V]]

After five years, Andy Burnham is finally getting on with franchising bus services in Greater Manchester, and this is a step that I broadly welcome. However, there are many towns, like Glossop, Hadfield and New Mills, that are just outside Greater Manchester and rely heavily on cross-border bus services. Does the Minister agree that the Mayor of Greater Manchester and Derbyshire County Council need to work closely together to ensure that my constituents are not forgotten in any changes to bus services, and that we should take this opportunity to improve local bus routes, including delivering a badly needed direct bus from Glossop and Hadfield to Tameside General Hospital?

[Mr Speaker]

I am sure the same will apply to Lancashire.

Oral Answers to Questions

Robert Largan Excerpts

Thursday 17th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Maclean]

Absolutely. My hon. Friend is completely right that improving our road network is an essential part of our levelling-up network. That is why the Prime Minister has brought forward £100 million of funding for 29 shovel-ready projects. She will be pleased to know that £4.5 million of funding was awarded to North Lincolnshire unitary authority for such work on the A15.

[Robert Largan (High Peak) (Con)]

What steps his Department is taking to improve rail services in the north of England.

[The Secretary of State for Transport (Grant Shapps)]

I recently announced a £600 million package for the rail network across the north, including £589 million to upgrade and electrify the trans-Pennine route, which is part of a multibillion-pound programme for High Speed North.

[Robert Largan]

On Sunday, the new 195 trains finally started running on the Hope Valley line, which runs between Manchester and Sheffield and serves New Mills, Chinley, Edale, Hope and Bamford in my constituency. While that is welcome news and something I have long campaigned for, services are still not frequent enough or reliable enough. To solve that, we need to increase capacity. May I urge the Secretary of State to invest more in this often-overlooked part of the northern powerhouse and finally upgrade the Hope Valley line?

[Grant Shapps]

My hon. Friend is right to campaign for that. I am a great fan of the Hope Valley line. I cannot make an announcement about it today, but as he is aware, Ministers are investigating the possibilities to enhance capacity, and I do not think he will have to wait too long.

Railway Station: Gamesley

Robert Largan Excerpts

Wednesday 15th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Robert Largan (High Peak) (Con)]

About 2,000 years ago, the Romans built a fort near Gamesley in my constituency; some say that that was the last time central Government put major investment into the area. When residents first moved into their homes on the newly built housing estate at Gamesley, they were told, “Yes, the transport links are poor, but don’t worry: a new railway station will be built shortly so that you can easily get to Manchester or Glossop town centre.” That was in 1968. The world has changed in many ways over the past 50 years, but Gamesley still does not have a station.

Before I was elected, the last time that an MP had even mentioned Gamesley station in Parliament was in 1968. Since December, I have been working hard to get Gamesley back on the agenda. I am grateful to the rail Minister for meeting me several times already to discuss the proposals and for the way the Government have been prepared to listen. The fact that we are having this debate shows how far we have come. The truth is that over the past 50 years, Governments of all parties have failed properly to invest in transport infrastructure outside London and the south-east, and especially in places such as Gamesley.

Gamesley is a great place to live and people are rightly proud to live there. It is a tight-knit community where people really look out for each other. That has never been more clear than during the lockdown, when organisations such as G52 have done amazing work supporting the most vulnerable. But Gamesley is also one of the most deprived communities in the whole country —on some measures, it is in the top 1% most deprived. A huge part of the reason for that is that local transport links are simply not good enough.

The Local Trust has carried out really important research into what it calls “left behind” communities and has identified Gamesley as one of the areas most in need of support. According to the Local Trust, 46% of households in Gamesley do not have a car, compared with the national average of 26%. It takes an estimated 53 minutes for people in Gamesley to travel to the nearest hospital by public transport—that is 36% longer than the national average.

Local bus services are also in a poor state: the 341 bus from Glossop to Gamesley stops running at five o’clock, which is not much help for anyone who finishes work later than that. Many of my constituents end up having to pay for a taxi to get back home to Gamesley after their shift ends. Local bus services are now set to get even worse: Stagecoach has just announced its intention to scrap the 236 bus between Glossop and Ashton, which will leave people in nearby Brookfield and Woolley Bridge without any direct service.

Travel is not the only barrier facing people in Gamesley. The national average broadband speed is 45.1 megabits per second; Gamesley’s is just 28 megabits per second. Low digital connectivity is just another reminder of how places such as Gamesley have been left behind, denied the essential infrastructure that they need to unleash their full potential. The lack of infrastructure and public transport connections to places such as Glossop and Manchester has had a significant and negative impact on the lives of local people. It has led to fewer job opportunities and a real impact on people’s quality of life.

Building Gamesley station will help to transform the life chances of local people. The case for a station is very strong. Transport for Greater Manchester and Derbyshire County Council are currently working jointly on a strategic outline business case, and they have already said: “Gamesley station has a good strategic case and excellent local support.” I can certainly attest to the strong local support. A huge number of local people have signed my long-standing petition in support of the station. As it stands today, more than 30% of the entire population of Gamesley have now signed my petition; by any yardstick that shows pretty strong support.

The strategic case is clear: the cost is relatively low, sidings already exist and trains already pause before going over Dinting viaduct, so a new station would have only a minimal impact on the current timetable of around one or two extra minutes’ journey time. That would be a small price to pay for the huge benefits that the station would bring to the people of Gamesley.

[Mark Fletcher (Bolsover) (Con)]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend, who is making an exceptional argument for the need for a railway station at Gamesley in his constituency. Pinxton in the Bolsover constituency is in a similar situation: a train track runs through it but it does not currently have a station. Passenger services to Pinxton could have a transformative effect; does my hon. Friend support such a proposal?

[Robert Largan]

My hon. Friend and county neighbour is an excellent champion for the people of Bolsover and I absolutely agree with him.

Gamesley station will not just benefit the people of Gamesley. The nearest station to Gamesley is Dinting. Demand at Dinting has grown significantly in recent years as more and more houses are built in the Glossop area, which has led to growing parking pressures at Dinting. Building the new station will help reduce those pressures, shorten commuting times for many people who drive to Dinting and, crucially, get more cars off the road. That would help address the notoriously bad traffic problems in the Glossop area.

Traffic is not a new problem. The need for the Mottram bypass has been talked about for over half a century, and traffic is now worse than ever. For many in the region, Glossop has become synonymous with traffic jams, so I am pleased the Government recognise that and that the Prime Minister recently backed building the bypass. It would not just be a gamechanger for people in places such as Glossop, Hadfield and Charlesworth, but would help address a major bottleneck in the national strategic road network between Manchester and Sheffield. We also need to address the traffic problems at Tintwistle, and I am pleased that the Government continue to study proposals for the trans-Pennine tunnel, which would reduce journey times in the region by around 30 minutes.

To solve the problem in the long term, however, we need not just to build the Mottram bypass, but to get more cars off the road, and Gamesley station would be a key part of that. People in High Peak are serious about tackling climate change, and Gamesley station would play a part in reducing carbon emissions and getting the local economy to net zero carbon. An awful lot of rat running goes through Gamesley and Charlesworth to Broadbottom station, and Gamesley station would remove the need for that. If done right, there is also an opportunity to link the new station to the Trans Pennine Trail, and the station can be linked by footpath to Simmondley.

I said at the start of my speech that Governments of all parties have failed to invest in our transport infrastructure for decades, but we now have a Government who have promised to build, build, build. The political will is clearly there, but we need more than just political will. We need to change our whole approach for infrastructure, and that means sorting out the Treasury Green Book rules and traditional WebTAG approach.

[Chris Loder (West Dorset) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this Adjournment debate. I agree with what he says about the Green Book, which the Government and the Treasury use in determining the economic value of infrastructure enhancements, particularly for rail. While the coronavirus has been devastating across the country, does he agree that there are many opportunities in terms of infrastructure, levelling up and ensuring that the models to which he refers can be recalibrated to help station projects such as Gamesley?

[Robert Largan]

My hon. Friend is an expert in rail matters and infrastructure projects and a real asset to this House. He is absolutely right that the current approaches just do not properly assess the true value of infrastructure projects. They fail to take fully into account the wider economic and social benefits of levelling up, and that has helped contribute towards the bias in spending on infrastructure projects towards London and the south-east.

When Transport for Greater Manchester and Derbyshire County Council complete the business case later this month, I hope the Government assess the proposals based on the wider benefits, rather than just narrowly focusing on outdated Treasury cost-benefit ratios. The cost of Gamesley station is modest—perhaps we could call it a rounding error in the Crossrail budget. We can also help to reduce the cost of infrastructure projects by getting the nuts and bolts of delivery right, focusing on things such as our infrastructure industries. The Chancellor’s great announcement about training schemes was welcome, and we should be thinking about focusing that on to the industries we need to deliver infrastructure investments.

[Chris Loder]

Does my hon. Friend also agree that leaving the European Union gives us an enormous opportunity to shed some of the shackles, rules and regulations that we have had to contend with for decades and that have massively increased the costs of building train stations such as Gamesley?

[Robert Largan]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. There are huge opportunities ahead for places such as Gamesley.

By building Gamesley station, the Government can offer a helping hand and send a clear message to the people of Gamesley that they are not forgotten. It is time to deliver on the promise made 52 years ago and build Gamesley station.

Oral Answers to Questions

Robert Largan Excerpts

Thursday 12th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

We are going to change the franchise model—the Williams review is absolutely going to change how our franchise model operates—but my hon. Friend will have to wait a bit longer to see how that is going to happen. We have strong views on the direction of travel and look forward to informing the House shortly.

[Robert Largan (High Peak) (Con)]

It is important to have affordable rail fares so that residents can access our railways, but many of my constituents do not have any access to trains at all because they do not have a local train station. The people of Gamesley were promised a railway station more than 50 years ago, but it has still not been delivered. Will the Minister meet me to discuss the bid for Gamesley train station?

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

My hon. Friend wisely highlights a proposal that will be considered among the bids for the Restoring Your Railway fund. I would be delighted to meet him to talk about it.