Integrated Rail Plan: North and Midlands

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Thursday 18th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Grant Shapps]

One of the big announcements today was about smart ticketing, which will make journeys much easier and more convenient for people, and will also enable fares to be capped. If someone—perhaps one of my hon. Friend’s constituents—uses the train several times a week, on more days than they originally budgeted for, and has no season ticket, this version of smart ticketing will enable a contactless system to repay the person’s credit card at the end of the week.

It is true—I want to be completely up front—that not every single town, city and village in the country will benefit from the plan, but this is not the end of it. We still have the rail network enhancements pipeline—the RNEP—which my hon. Friend the Rail Minister is working on, and, of course, many other programmes, including Restoring Your Railway, which will bring further opportunities.

I should be happy to organise a meeting between my hon. Friend and the Rail Minister—and let me, for the sake of clarification, repeat to the hon. Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts) that his request for a meeting was accepted.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

My priority for so many years has been the connectivity of the towns and cities across the north-west of England, and Yorkshire in particular. It would be wrong of me not to say that there was some good news in this morning’s statement—I believe that there are some advantages for Huddersfield—but the problem is that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts) has said, there is a hole in the middle of this plan. It is not strategic enough, it is not integrated enough, and it is not ambitious enough. There is some good stuff in it, but will the Secretary of State go back and have a rethink about the boldness and the timescale?

[Grant Shapps]

I welcome the hon. Gentleman’s tone. I know that he was never a fan of HS2 originally. He is right to say that there are many benefits for Huddersfield in this plan—for example, journey times to Birmingham Curzon Street will be cut, there will be more trains to Leeds, and services will improve. However, he is right about the importance of ensuring that this can be stitched into the wider rail network. I think that once he has had an opportunity to read the integrated rail plan, he will find answers to many of his queries, and I welcome his at least tacit support for some of these measures.