Transport: North-east

Andrew Jones Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd November 2016 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Andrew Jones)]

May I congratulate the hon. Member for Houghton and Sunderland South (Bridget Phillipson) on securing the debate? It has been quite clear from the remarks by hon. Members across the House just how important transport infrastructure and investment is to them and to all their constituents. I entirely buy the case that has been made that it supports growth and business and helps people to get to work, to shops and to services.

We do not have too long left in the debate, so I will scamper through as much as I can, and I will potentially have to follow some of it up afterwards.

[John Stevenson (Carlisle) (Con)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Andrew Jones]

My hon. Friend has a brilliant sense of irony. Yes, I will.

[John Stevenson]

I appreciate the Minister giving way. I apologise for my late arrival, Sir Edward, which was in part due to the machinations of the Scottish Affairs Committee.

[John Stevenson]

I appreciate that the debate is very much about the north-east and the transport there, but connectivity between regions and cities is vital. We have heard good news about the A66. Will there be good news about the A69?

[Andrew Jones]

That was very good timing, from a comedy perspective. I will talk about roads if I get a moment a little bit later.

We are very keen to continue the work on rebalancing the economy. The northern powerhouse is a significant part of Government thinking and has driven much investment over the past few years. We have created Transport for the North, which is a key part of the concept of the northern powerhouse—it is about taking control of one’s destiny. Transport for the North is driving forward transport plans and will support economic growth across the whole of the north. There will be a £13 billion set of investments in Yorkshire and the Humber, the north-west and the north-east during the course of this Parliament alone.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

Does Transport for the North’s remit actually go any further than the corridor that Minister referred to? I have certainly not seen a great deal of impact or any ideas for the rest of the north, which, if the Minister looks at a map, goes a bit further north than Leeds.

[Andrew Jones]

Transport for the North’s remit is the north: it is north-east, Yorkshire and the Humber and the north-west. That point needs to be made to it and I will happily make it.

Let me get back to the world of buses. I, too, am a passionate supporter of buses. I know that Nexus and the North East combined authority have been working hard to improve local transport in the north-east, and I applaud their work. The Pop card has been a great success and allows for a seamless, inter-modal shift between bus services, the metro and the Shields ferry. However, we have to go much further.

The hon. Member for Houghton and Sunderland South highlighted her disappointment that the traffic commissioner rejected the bid from NECA for the quality contract scheme. It is because of the desire for local areas to have more influence on the provision of their bus services that we have developed the Bus Services Bill. When drafting the Bill, we had clear objectives in mind: to increase bus passenger numbers and improve services. The Bill will have a range of tools to enable that, including new and enhanced partnership arrangements—although that might not be appropriate in all areas—and the provision for local authorities to have franchising powers. Franchising will enable authorities to specify the services that passengers want and to deliver an integrated network.

Our intention is that mayoral combined authorities will have automatic access, with other areas having access if granted with the Secretary of State’s consent. However, we are neutral about the methods that are chosen on a local basis. I do not mind what local authorities choose to do, as long as they achieve their objective, which is to put more passengers on the seats of buses.

The metro is clearly a fantastic asset for Tyne and Wear. I remember its arrival—the home where I was brought up is just to the south of there—and it was fantastic. That is why we are supporting it with a £317 million capital grant to reinvigorate the system and ensure that it continues to provide an efficient public transport system. We are also supporting the day-to-day operational costs of the system with a revenue grant of £203 million.

We have talked a bit in the debate about the business case. Nexus is working up a business case for further investment in the metro system up until 2030. Hon. Members asked whether the Department was open to that. My Department is actually working with Nexus to develop that business case, so yes, we are extremely open to it. I cannot give an indication of the timing of when that will be decided upon; we have to receive the case first. I am also aware that NECA has looked at a wide range of options for extensions, some of which would directly benefit the constituency of the hon. Member for Houghton and Sunderland South. I also very much like the idea of Hitachi providing the metro’s new rolling stock. “From the north-east, for the north-east” is a very attractive message.

Rail has been mentioned, so I should highlight the fact that Network Rail will be spending £40 billion between 2014 and 2019, in addition to the High Speed 2 investments. The key benefits that we will see locally will be in the new franchises: Northern and TransPennine Express. By 2019 we will see brand new TPE trains in service, two new TPE trains an hour between Newcastle and Manchester, an hourly TPE service between Newcastle and Edinburgh and additional services from Sunderland to Middlesbrough and Newcastle.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

I am grateful for that information, but if those services do not stop at Chester-le-Street, they are not actually going to improve things for my constituents at all.

[Andrew Jones]

Clearly trains have to stop if people are going to get on them. That argument does not seem to me a difficult one, but it is one that has to be built in to the franchise arrangements. I will happily take that back. The hon. Gentleman also asked about the Ashington, Blyth and Tyne line. The North East local enterprise partnership has asked us to consider a bid for development funding for the reintroduction of passenger services on that line, which seems to me to be very positive.

There has been some caution regarding HS2, which seems to me to be entirely unreasonable. HS2 will free up capacity on our network, inject capacity to allow more services to be provided and deliver benefits of £103 billion to the UK economy, around one third of which we expect to be in the north of England. Some 70% of the jobs that will be supported by HS2 are expected to be outside of London, so HS2 is an important part of our network.

We have not talked much about roads. Not only will we have a motorway running to the north-east for the first time ever, as highlighted by my hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle (John Stevenson), but there are also schemes to the west of Newcastle. With regard to today’s announcements, I can confirm that we have done five strategic studies in the Department for Transport as part of the road investment strategy. As part of those, the A66 will be dualled and there will be work on the north-west quadrant of the M60. That is part of the road investment strategy from 2020 to 2025, so the idea that the north-west is getting everything and the north-east is ignored is not true. There was a further announcement, which has not necessarily been picked up yet: that the Tees Valley east-west connections are also being approved to take the business case forward to the next stage. That is effectively a Darlington north-western bypass. That was a further positive announcement today.

My hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mrs Trevelyan) talked about people being doom-mongers and wondering whether anything would happen in people’s lifetimes. I was asked by a colleague whether HS2 would happen in anyone’s lifetime and I suggested that, as we were starting to do the build in the spring, it would be quite a good idea to hang on—we do not want a by-election. I agree entirely on the merits of the Borders line. It is one of the most beautiful parts of our United Kingdom, and it is a big success. I will be very happy to see it extended. That sounds like a good idea, but I have not seen anything further on it.

This is my last point. I hope that this quick canter through the various announcements that have been made has highlighted the fact that significant investment is taking place in road and rail. We have seen air capacity increased. We have changes taking place to buses—

[Sir Edward Leigh (in the Chair)]

Order. The Minister should please give the hon. Member for Houghton and Sunderland South (Bridget Phillipson) 30 seconds to wind up.

[Andrew Jones]

I heartily support all that is happening and the Government’s strong commitment to the north-east.