Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Stephenson Excerpts

Thursday 4th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab)]

2. What recent assessment he has made of the potential effect of his policies on rail investment in the north of England on the Government’s levelling up agenda.

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

Investing £29 billion in transport across the north since 2010 has had a hugely positive impact on levelling up.

[Imran Hussain]

Building Northern Powerhouse Rail in full with a stop in Bradford city centre will help to transform Bradford’s economy and draw much-needed jobs and investment into the district, yet the Government are now believed to be scrapping the plans for NPR. Will the Minister give me some certainty today and either commit to the plan, or admit that the reality is that the Government have no intention of delivering real, transformative change to the economy and lives of people in West Yorkshire?

[Andrew Stephenson]

The hon. Gentleman will know that I know Bradford well, as I represent a constituency just down the road, on the sunny side of the hills. The Government are committed to supporting the aspirations of local leaders across West Yorkshire. We recognise that Bradford is an important economic centre in the north, with a growing and young population. We continue to look at the evidence for building a new station in Bradford, and decisions, as he knows, will be outlined in the integrated rail plan in due course.

[Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)]

My thoughts and prayers are with all those affected by the Salisbury train collision and I wish those who have sadly been injured a speedy recovery. We must, in the near future, get to the bottom of how such an incident could ever have occurred.

After the Budget, northern leaders were left even more bemused than before about Government plans for the north. There was no mention of Northern Powerhouse Rail and nothing more on HS2’s eastern leg or the midlands rail hub. There is still no rolling programme of electrification and no sign of the mythical integrated rail plan, which Ministers have kept referring me to for over a year. What a complete lack of ambition for the north. How did this happen? Was it because the Secretary of State could not convince the Chancellor to invest in our country’s railways, or was it because the Chancellor thought that giving tax cuts to already wealthy bankers was far more important?

[Andrew Stephenson]

Let us not pretend that we are not getting on with the job of investing in the north of England. We have invested £29 billion in northern transport since 2010, and in the Budget that the hon. Gentleman referred to, we announced over £1 billion for Greater Manchester, over £830 million for West Yorkshire and £570 million for South Yorkshire. I am delighted to say that the integrated rail plan is not just coming soon—it is now coming very soon.

[Paul Howell (Sedgefield) (Con)]

When it comes to investment in the north, I welcome the recent investments in the feasibility work for Ferryhill station and the Weardale line. Of course, I am disappointed with what happened regarding the knock-back for the Leamside line, but I ask the Minister to work with us and the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) to look at funding streams and at potentially getting that into the integrated rail plan. Will he also assure the people of Ferryhill that knocking back the Leamside line does not in any way impact the Ferryhill project?

[Andrew Stephenson]

My hon. Friend continues to make a powerful case for his constituency and investment in local transport schemes. As he knows, I have family ties with Ferryhill—my father was born there—and I am very keen to support local people’s aspirations. I know that he has been lobbying the Secretary of State, the Rail Minister—my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris)—and myself on this issue. We will continue to work with him to see what we can do to support local aspirations.

[James Sunderland (Bracknell) (Con)]

3. What steps his Department is taking to help make international travel (a) easier and (b) less expensive during the covid-19 pandemic.

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[Liam Byrne (Birmingham, Hodge Hill) (Lab)]

15. What steps he is taking to support investment in the East Birmingham tram line.

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

Thanks to our hard-working Mayor, Andy Street, diggers are in the ground for the very first part of the East Birmingham tram line, to Digbeth from the city centre. We just awarded, in the spending review, over £1 billion to the West Midlands for transformative projects such as this, and I am sure the right hon. Gentleman will give all his support to our Mayor in the delivery of this important levelling-up priority.

[Liam Byrne]

Last week’s Budget was a step forward, but if we strip out the re-announced money, we see that it was actually £1 billion less than the Mayor asked for. That shortfall jeopardises our potential to build the 8-mile tram line through east Birmingham, so will the Minister meet me and other Members from east Birmingham so that we can explain to him the cross-party ambition to build the line? We cannot connect what are the poorest communities in the country with the wealth created by High Speed 2 without the tram line, and we cannot level up what is, in effect, the fifth-biggest city in Britain without it.

[Andrew Stephenson]

The Minister responsible for trams, my hon. Friend Baroness Vere, would be happy to meet the right hon. Gentleman to discuss that and other local priorities. He will be aware that the £1 billion announced in the spending review is only one part of the transport investment that is going into the region. I hope that more good news will be announced for the West Midlands as part of the upcoming integrated rail plan.

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

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[Judith Cummins (Bradford South) (Lab)]

T4. One of the largest city-to-city journeys to work in the country is between Bradford and Leeds, and those journeys are mostly by car. At scale, Northern Powerhouse Rail would support a 400% increase in rail travel and take 64,000 car trips a day off the roads. With COP under way, do this Government have a strategy to ensure that our covid recovery is by rail, rather than by road, and will that include—because it should—Northern Powerhouse Rail in full, with a city centre stop in Bradford?

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

The hon. Lady tempts me to speculate on the contents of the integrated rail plan. As I said in response to the hon. Member for Bradford East (Imran Hussain), she will have to wait and see. However, the Government recognise the importance of Bradford, and particularly the connectivity of Bradford to Leeds—two incredibly important northern cities. I hope that we will publish the integrated rail plan very soon.

[Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)]

T9. The Birmingham cross-city line is, I am told, the second busiest rail line in the whole United Kingdom. A continuation of it is the route from Lichfield to Burton via the National Memorial Arboretum. At present, that line is only used for freight traffic. Will my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State visit—without a harness—so that he can have a look at the rail line for himself and see what a valuable addition it would be to the rail network?