Ivanhoe Line: Restoration
Debate between Amanda Hack and Jacob Collier(1 week, 2 days ago)
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Amanda Hack
I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. I do not know a huge amount about his line, but that certainly seems to be good value for money, and it adds to the point about towns that need infrastructure. What does that infrastructure do? It gives those people opportunity.
On that point, I ask the Minister what work has been done to assess the impact on growth and investment in large towns like mine, and those of my colleagues, that are not connected to the rail network. North West Leicestershire, alongside other parts of the east midlands, is outside the East Midlands combined authority and does not benefit from the city region allocation, which, for Derby, Derbyshire, Nottingham and Nottinghamshire, is £2 billion. Although part of the Ivanhoe travels through the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for South Derbyshire (Samantha Niblett), it ends in Burton, which is also outside the combined authority, yet the Ivanhoe line would give my constituents the opportunity to get to Derby via Burton and vice versa.
The money allocated to Leicestershire is limited to public transport and some long overdue road improvements. If Leicester and Leicestershire were allocated city region funding at the same rate as the combined authority, we would have £1 billion to invest in Leicester and Leicestershire. We cannot just accept that the mayoralty alone gets the increase, when we know that the east midlands lags behind in terms of funding.
Research has shown that, had the east midlands received the same funding as the UK average between 2019 and 2024, we would have had about £10 billion extra for transport. Will the Minister highlight how areas such as Leicester and Leicestershire, within the most poorly funded region for transport investment, will be supported to ensure that services can be provided?
Now I want to talk about the value of the train line for our communities—the exciting and most important bit. MPs can get really competitive when it comes to who has the prettiest constituency, but mine is at the heart of the national forest, and it really does not get much better than that. The National Forest Company transformed the post-industrial landscape into a thriving success story of environmentally led regeneration in the midlands. Reopening the Ivanhoe line has the potential to create a beautiful train line travelling through the greenery of the national forest. The National Forest Company reached out to me before the debate and shared its recent research. It found:
“The second highest contributor to CO2 emissions within the National Forest is resident travel, with car travel accounting for 14% of the residents’ consumption-based footprint—higher than the National Average”.
Jacob Collier (Burton and Uttoxeter) (Lab)
My hon. Friend stressed the importance of rail freight. The Railways Bill, currently in Committee, will introduce a target to increase rail freight. Does she share the concerns relayed to me about the potential for this line to be closed to freight? Does she agree that we should be getting lorries and haulage off our roads and on to rail freight, as we are doing with Great British Railways?
A50/A500 Corridor
Debate between Amanda Hack and Jacob Collier(3 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Jacob Collier
I absolutely agree. My hon. Friend has been a great champion for improvements alongside me. Congestion around Uttoxeter, Blythe Bridge and Sudbury undermines productivity and growth and turns commutes into nightmares. Queues stretch for miles at peak hours, average speeds fall below 20 mph and local roads bear the pressure of diverted traffic. My constituents experience that on a daily basis.
Amanda Hack (North West Leicestershire) (Lab)
I thank my hon. Friend for securing this important Adjournment debate. I was recently contacted by a constituent who regularly travels between Castle Donington and Littleover. They say that every evening last year, the A50 was either closed or restricted, or the access slip roads were closed. Does my hon. Friend agree that everything possible needs to be done to improve this part of the vital network for the east midlands as well as his constituency?
Jacob Collier
My hon. Friend has made the case that this investment would benefit not just the people of Staffordshire, but the people of east Staffordshire and the wider midlands.
I hope that the Government will commit to the A50/A500 being part of the next road investment strategy in March 2026. The Treasury has already set aside £24 billion of capital funding for that programme, and my purpose this evening is clear: to ensure that the A50/A500 is placed within that document, and that the Department for Transport commits to funding the next stage of upgrades through RIS3.
Midlands Connect, which has led the technical work on this route, has produced powerful evidence of what those upgrades could achieve. Its latest assessment shows that by 2031, improvements along the A50 could create more than 2,000 jobs across Staffordshire and generate £116 million for the local economy.