Transport in Nottinghamshire

Ben Bradley Excerpts

Wednesday 19th October 2022 Westminster Hall

[Ben Bradley (Mansfield) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir George. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Tom Randall) on securing this important debate. I echo his words about the fourth Trent crossing; he is a keen campaigner on this issue and has been lobbying hard for several years to bring forward an idea that he has discussed with me in my role as leader of the council. The project is well beyond our local budget, but I would welcome the opportunity to work with the Government and bring forward a business case in the way my hon. Friend has described. I also welcome my hon. Friend the Minister, who, even during our short seconds of conversation before this debate, has already made me decide that she is a breath of fresh air. I hope that will continue.

As colleagues have mentioned, I am the leader of the local transport authority, so I am pleased to have the opportunity to bang on at length about these issues—I think I have about an hour left to go through them all. I want to start with the very local and raise a couple of Mansfield-specific issues with the Minister. The first is the Robin Hood line. My right hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood (Mark Spencer) and I have been banging on about this now, in our various capacities, for about 12 years. We have made a lot of progress: the project has inched forward significantly, but it has only inched. We have had a commitment for a long time, but progress is slow. It was finally announced in the integrated rail plan, most recently, as part of the connections around Nottinghamshire in Toton, which are hugely important.

There is now further potential to link the existing Robin Hood line—it is still in place; it just needs upgrading—to projects such as STEP Fusion in the north of the locality. There is the opportunity to bring in billions in investment, jobs and growth and link all that together. We can improve on the issue and take local control over through our devolution deal, but should take any opportunity to accelerate the process or bring forward what is a smaller and perhaps less widely strategically vital project for the locality and the region, but hugely important to local communities, who just want to access work and leisure opportunities that they cannot at the minute without a car. Many cannot afford a car in those areas. The issue is hugely important to us and I welcome any opportunity to accelerate the project.

The second issue is the Sainsbury’s junction, as it is known locally, on the A60 in Mansfield. Frustratingly, at one point I had actually secured the funding the fix it. We worked hard prior to the pandemic to come up with a workable plan that we thought would improve the situation resulting from the district council’s helpful decision to put about 20 different businesses, including two supermarkets, into a retail site with one entrance and exit on to a busy trunk road. People can queue for up to an hour at Christmas to get out of it.

We came up with a plan and submitted it to the Government’s pinch point fund and were promptly told that we would get the money. That was the day before the pandemic hit, and the money was promptly—and quite understandably—reprioritised to other things. But the plan is there and the money was there. If we could get the money, we would crack on and do it. The issue is hugely important to my constituents. Does the Minister know whether such pinch point-type funding opportunities are likely to be revisited?

My final point, a positive one, is about the significant upgrades to the A614—the spine road up through the north of Nottinghamshire that allows many of my constituents to get to work—that are starting this year. We are keen to deliver those and accelerate the outcomes and the growth they will unlock around those communities. People will not be surprised to hear that inflationary pressures will have an impact. Are the Government minded to give support to deal with inflationary pressures around such projects? The good news is that work will commence later this year.

My colleagues, my hon. Friends the Members for Rushcliffe (Ruth Edwards) and for Gedling, have touched on the issues I want to raise, beyond Mansfield and into the county. The first is highways maintenance. A good quality highway network is absolutely key for residents in Nottinghamshire. It is always the number one thing that comes up in county council elections and in surveys; I imagine it will be the number one issue that people raise in our budget survey later this year. Although our care services are vital, they touch only a very small proportion of our residents, whereas everybody uses the roads.

We undertook a massive review about 12 months ago. It has now finished and has resulted in 50 different actions that we will take forward, including a longer-term programme of works and improving the way we repair local roads, including residential roads, with a move to a “right first time” approach where we make the more expensive, long-term repair that delivers the quality residents expect, instead of temporary repairs, wherever we can. We are also working hard to communicate better with residents to make sure they understand what is happening on their street and why and how long it will take, in advance of it happening, which has perhaps been lacking up to now. I am pleased we have been able to do that.

We have invested an additional £12 million over the next four years, on top of the £18.5 million annual DFT funding, to start to tackle the historic backlog of repairs. In truth, there is some £150 million-worth of repairs. If the Minister can find that down the back of the sofa, I can get it all sorted. It is a challenge. Dare I say that this is what happens when 32 years out of the last 40 have been Labour-led in the county? I knew Opposition Members would enjoy that remark.

The changes we have introduced are starting to make a real difference to residents on the ground. We have reduced the number of temporary repairs, which everybody hates to see, by nearly 60%, while doubling the number of square metres of high-quality repairs that we have been able to do over the past 12 months. Those outcomes are great, but we have thousands of miles of road to cover, so that is a really long-term project. We are making good progress. I welcome the announcement that the pothole element of the DFT funds will continue into next year. I hope we will get a good share to be able to tackle the backlog and continue to deliver this work.

On wider transport, and particularly buses, it is often forgotten how important they are—not just the local economy in terms of jobs, industry and the supply chain, but for connecting people to health and leisure opportunities and as support for my constituents in tackling health inequalities and having better lifestyles. That is hugely important to all of us.

We had a relatively good bus network around the county pre-covid, with high levels of satisfaction. The county council was consistently rated in the top three upper-tier authorities in the country. We annually invest more than £4 million into bus service provision, supporting 80 services that, pre-covid, carried nearly 2 million people. The commercial sector would not provide those services and we have worked really hard to sustain them and to provide lots of new infrastructure.

This year, we have provided further temporary support to another 20 services to help bus recovery. That is the thin line that prevents those services from being withdrawn, because they are not commercially viable. As with many parts of the country, there are increasing challenges for bus companies and the provision of services, including inflationary costs, driver shortages and passenger confidence, which has taken a massive hit, as my hon. Friend the Member for Rushcliffe described. It is increasingly difficult for bus companies to show up on time, or even at all, and deliver a service. We get a daily constituency report of all the different bus routes that have been cancelled that day, with less than a day’s notice. That makes it incredibly difficult for people to be able to get around and get to work.

Local bus companies have undertaken big recruitment campaigns and lots of new drivers are being trained, and hopefully we will get there in time, but the viability of the routes is a huge concern. I welcome the Government’s support for the sector. We have been able to prop up some of those services because of that support. We are also trialling on-demand responsive transport, which has to be part of the future of the networks to make them sustainable, so that we are not running empty buses around fixed routes all the time. We have been able to pilot that as a result of the national bus strategy rural mobility fund. That seems to be going really well, to the point that the residents who sit just outside the pilot areas are asking when they will get access to these new services, which is really good news.

We have been indicatively allocated £30 million under the bus service improvement plan, for which I am grateful. The truth is that many fixed-route services are not likely to be viable in the future if trends continue. There are really challenging times ahead for bus services. The current combined funding will not support them all from April next year. I have asked the Government to look at greater flexibility in BSIP funding to tackle services being withdrawn in rural areas and market towns. It is really difficult to justify investing in bus lanes and other infrastructure when at the same time services are being withdrawn.

I have recently written to the Secretary of State for Transport to ask for the flexibility to spend that money on a viable bus service, rather than on bus lanes for buses that I have not got. That would be really helpful, and I hope it would be common sense. I have written a very long letter to the Secretary of State for the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, laying out a number of ways we could use local money that already exists more flexibly, rather than having to splash the cash on lots of things. We could certainly make it simpler for ourselves.

The final thing I will touch on is the macro bit—the regional bit—which is where the good stuff is happening. It speaks to what the hon. Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood) said earlier on about the commitment to get these things done, and that is the devolution deal we secured this summer. It is massively meaningful, because it gives us local control over delivery of lots of these projects. As my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling touched on earlier, the figures around investment in the region make for stark reading, both in terms of transport and wider public spending and private sector spending. Even for the year 2020-2021, if we were to have the average level of national funding that would be an additional £1 billion into our region to support those services, so it is really meaningful.

That is why I am so pleased that we have been able to secure the largest gainshare investment fund in any devolution deal anywhere in the country ever, which is brilliant. It is worth just over £1.1 billion to our area, with a further transport pot yet to be determined. In the west midlands they recently got another £1 billion on top of that to invest in their local transport, which would be absolutely fantastic. I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Grant Shapps) for signing off and making that commitment to Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and the east midlands when he was Secretary of State.

It gives us the opportunity to do all sorts of really good things, such as joined-up ticketing across the network on all types of service. Someone should be able to get from Arnold or West Bridgford to the Peak District on one ticket, across bus, train and tram with one day rate in a really simple and joined-up way in the future, and that will be hugely meaningful and impactful to local residents. It also gives us the opportunity to lay out those key routes around employment in particular, to fill the gaps on that key route network and to link up our transport systems to the sites of future jobs and investments—I mentioned STEP fusion earlier on.

We have a £20 billion investment; we can not only build the skills pipelines and support that industry, but connect people into work from the surrounding villages and towns and ensure everybody has access to those opportunities. We can also accelerate long-awaited projects such as the Robin Hood line and the Maid Marian line.

Take the Toton site, for example, which I know the Minister knows well. It is the site of significant jobs and investment in coming years. It has been in the integrated rail plan, and there is new station investment and all sorts of commercial and housing investment going on there. We need a link road, which we put in a levelling-up fund bid for and which I hope the Government will look favourably on, but we then have the ability to install that road network and public transport network to deliver projects, such as the Maid Marian line, that connect surrounding towns and villages into Toton. We will have that in our local control for the first time; that is hugely important and meaningful, and tackles some of the concerns that the hon. Member for Nottingham South laid out earlier.

We will have responsibility for the wider area transport plan by March 2024. Being able to build a joined-up strategy across the whole area is really important, because it means that residents living in Broxtowe, Mansfield or Ashfield—who may just as well travel into Derbyshire as into Nottinghamshire for work and leisure—can have a joined-up system that actually works and connects them to the places they get to, and not be constrained by boundaries.

[Lilian Greenwood]

I agree with many of the points that the hon. Member has made, but if the region is to be successful in planning for the future and developing the transport network that we need in Nottinghamshire—and, indeed, those links across to Derbyshire and other parts of the east midlands—do we not need certainty from the Government about investment in the future? As he will know, we spent a great deal of time planning around an HS2 station at Toton, only for it to move to East Midlands Parkway. Would certainty about both timescales and locations not enable us to do a better job in the region?

[Ben Bradley]

I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. As my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling said, she knows the area incredibly well and knows the transport issues incredibly well from her own experience. She is right, of course, that certainty would be hugely helpful; she pointed to the midland main line, where we perhaps have not had that in the past. I was really pleased to see that as one of the accelerated projects in the recent Budget announcement, which I am really grateful for.

What this devolution deal gives us is certainty; we know we will have that funding over the next 30 years, and we know it will be within our local control to deliver some of these projects. We have been given overall control over the integrated rail plan, which means that those HS2 stations, what we build around them and the transport connectivity to join it all together is, for the first time, within our local gift, instead of relying on Government to do that. That is a good thing because it means we can focus on our local priorities.

I totally get what the hon. Member for Nottingham South is saying, but there are some answers in this devolution settlement that can help us achieve our priorities. As I say, we will have that integrated rail plan and the HS2 element, so there is a huge growth potential. If we can get that right, that would be meaningful for investment, jobs and opportunities in our area, so I am excited about that.

I would welcome a conversation with the rail Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster), about the options and that certainty around HS2. So far, we have gotten to Parkway, Nottingham and Derby, and then Sheffield to Leeds, but there are still some options on the table for the bit in the middle. I have a view as to what those options should be, as I know many colleagues, Midlands Connect and others will have, but the timescales to make that decision are uncertain, so I would welcome the chance to have that conversation.

To summarise, there are significant challenges on a local level where we need support to maintain networks—not least bus networks, in the short term—to improve highways and to help our communities, but I welcome the long-term opportunities that come from that devolution settlement to deliver more investment and growth, to improve our transport links and to have more local say over how it all works.

I hope the Minister will take away the requirement to ensure those two things are joined up. That would enable us to sustain and protect local services while we put together those plans and strategies over the next 18 months before our devolution deal comes into force, and ensure that those things are not lost and we do not end up with a big gap in the middle. If the Department for Transport and wider Government can help us to overcome those challenges, the future for investment and transport links in our area is bright.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Katherine Fletcher)]

It is a pleasure to serve for the first time under your chairmanship, Sir George. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Tom Randall) for securing this debate. He has demonstrated his passion for what has been his home county—man and boy? I see him nodding. It has been a thoughtful and interesting debate, and I thank everyone who has contributed.

I thank the hon. Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi) for his warm comments welcoming me. In many respects, his remarks have epitomised the debate. He highlighted the investment in London and the south-east in previous years. Perhaps, offline, he will let me know what the people of Slough and London would not have wanted to happen that would have allowed for investment in Nottingham. However, I want to stay positive.

Colleagues might not be aware, but Nottingham is close to my heart. It is where I went to university, and every Saturday I played amateur sport all over the county. As I listened to the contributions, I remembered the practicalities of trying to get from point A to point B in the county. I recognise many of the points that hon. Members have raised on behalf of their communities.

As a civil engineer’s daughter and a northern MP, I appreciate in both a practical and intellectual capacity what a positive impact good transport links have, and the need for certainty and investment to make them happen. The Department is committed to using transport to drive economic growth across the country. We are also determined to play our part in making transport greener—for example, through the electrification of rail lines. I am proud that this Government are investing in transport for people, including those in Nottinghamshire and the broader east midlands. Today’s debate highlights how crucial the interconnections are between transport modes. Responsibility for much transport connectivity in the area rests with Nottinghamshire County Council, working closely with the bus partnerships. There is a significant role for national operators such as Network Rail and National Highways, as well as regional transport. I was delighted to hear the emphasis that my hon. Friend and leader of Nottingham City Council, the hon. Member for Mansfield (Ben Bradley), placed on the devolution deal.

[Ben Bradley]

I just want to clarify that I am leader of Nottinghamshire County Council. I would not want to be associated with some of the challenging issues in the city.

[Katherine Fletcher]

I apologise profusely to the leader of Nottinghamshire County Council—of course, Robin Hood Energy is not something that he would have put in place. Perhaps some of that funding might helpfully have been used to improve transport, but that is a conversation for another day.

There is lots to be positive about in Nottinghamshire. The devolution deal that has been agreed with some of the authorities in the east midlands is great; the commitment of local leaders, not least my hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield, in agreeing that deal and working together to deliver it is really important. There is an exciting public consultation this year, in advance of formal proposals to Government. When implemented, that deal will see a new combined authority formed, with an elected Mayor and significantly greater transport freedoms, as has been highlighted. For example, the Mayor will have the power to decide whether to introduce bus franchising, or integrated ticketing across public transport areas to join up the multiple local authorities in the region. As a northern MP, joining up the dots in regional transport is, and will continue to be, a passion of mine.

We will also provide funding to the combined authority, so that it can create a new local transport plan that integrates transport in Nottinghamshire with transport in the surrounding authorities, and can target transport funding at the areas that need it most. Once the Mayor and the combined authority are in place, the deal will include a Government fund of £38 million a year over 30 years to be invested by the combined authority, so that it can drive growth and deliver its priorities. That will provide the region with the certainty regarding investment and the power that many Members have mentioned. That east midlands investment fund will be monitored to make sure it is driving economic growth and levelling up, but given the energy and ideas that have already been displayed in the Chamber, I am confident that it will do that.

I turn to issues raised in the debate, starting with the roads projects, as I am the roads Minister. Improving road connectivity, enhancing safety and reducing congestion are important priorities, which is why we are already investing in the roads around Nottinghamshire. We are boosting economic growth; we want to reduce delays and incidents by improving the A46 Newark bypass. National Highways will soon launch a public consultation on its latest plans, and I would be grateful for the input of anybody watching this debate and of Members present.

Another example of progress being made is the A614/A6097 corridor scheme—try saying that after a couple of beers—on the major road network. It was identified in the Chancellor’s recent economic growth plan as a scheme that the Government want to accelerate as fast as possible, because we recognise its importance. Those improvements are designed to deal with increasing traffic volumes, to relieve congestion, and to improve safety for all road users. That work will bring about important employment and, potentially, housing opportunities. Department for Transport officials will discuss with Nottinghamshire County Council how progress with the scheme’s business case might benefit from acceleration, potentially through planning reform, regulator reform and other improvements. I look forward to engaging with my hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield on that issue. The Government are investing over £24 million in that scheme, with approximately £4 million more coming from the county council and private developers. It is a real example of quick delivery; we need to get on with it.

A number of Members also mentioned the fourth Trent crossing—as someone who has got stuck in Nottingham when traffic grinds to a halt, I recognise the points they made. My hon. Friends the Members for Gedling, for Mansfield and for Rushcliffe (Ruth Edwards) all highlighted that issue and mentioned wanting to pull a business case together in order to go ahead with the investment and ease congestion. I am happy to take that away. The proposal is in its embryonic days, but perhaps I can write to Members with the routes and the opportunities there are to build an investment case locally and get that on to the DFT’s slate. I will follow that up with official help.

The Government recognise how important the issue of potholes is, not least for cyclists pursuing active travel. I am a cyclist myself, and when you go over a pothole, it can be painful—never mind the economic and practical damage that potholes do to cars. We have been investing £950 million per year, which has been committed for three years. Crucially, that is outside London and the mayoral combined authorities. The Department is committed to allocating this funding to local highways authorities so that they can spend it most effectively on maintaining and improving their respective networks, based on local knowledge and circumstances. Since 2015, the Government have allocated over about £110 million to Nottinghamshire County Council for local road maintenance. To answer the question from my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling directly, Nottinghamshire County Council will in the future receive over £18.6 million from a new fund to enable it to consider work on bridges, cycleways and lighting columns, as well as fixing potholes.

The Department has long advocated that highways authorities should go risk-based on their asset management plans and is committed to helping to support the production of those where possible for highways assets, including road resurfacing, because well-maintained roads are important for the safety and security of all road users. I recognise that Nottinghamshire County Council has worked hard in recent months and years to develop and deliver its highways improvement plan, and I hope it will reap significant benefits.

My hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield mentioned a number of specific schemes, not least the junction with access into the retail park. He will forgive me if I do not use my debut to riff on Government policy on specific schemes. I am happy to write to him with a little more detail.

Buses are a huge passion of mine. They are often the easiest and quickest piece of public transport to put in place. As set out in the national bus strategy, we are determined that everyone everywhere should, in time, have access to a great bus service. That is why £3 billion has already been committed in this Parliament to drive improvements, which is the largest investment in buses in a generation, highlighting their importance. More than £1 billion of that fund is going directly to local transport authorities such as Nottinghamshire County Council to support the delivery of their bus service improvement plans.

I am pleased that my hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield highlighted the substantial funding that the BSIPs across both Nottinghamshire County Council and Nottingham City Council received—a combined £30 million. I note his request for flexibility in the BSIP funding and, rather than answering from the Dispatch Box here, I will pass that on to Baroness Vere, who is the Minister responsible. I would comment that these were high-quality bus service improvement bids and that the £18.7 million and the £11.4 million allocated are a recognition of the quality of the work that has gone into them. The initial funding will support bus priority measures on key routes, such as the A60 in Mansfield and the route between West Bridgford and the city. That is important and will provide for better connections and integration, as well as bus stops—we should not forget the humble bus stop. It is all important.

The Government also recognise that the bus sector continues to face significant challenges. The pandemic had a massive effect on bus patronage across the country, and although it is now stabilising and steadily increasing, it still remains below pre-covid levels. The Government have therefore provided £2 billion of funding to bus operators and local transport authorities to mitigate the impact of the pandemic and to continue supporting services. My hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield highlighted the idea of a gap, and we are committing significant funding to prevent one.

This funding was due to end in October but, because of the challenges facing the sector and because many households are struggling with the rising cost of living, the Government have announced a further £130 million, six-month extension to the bus recovery grant to continue to support services until March 2023. That will help millions of people who rely on bus services, as highlighted so articulately by my hon. Friend the Member for Rushcliffe. Nottinghamshire County Council is allocating around £690,000 of that support between April 2022 and December 2022 alone, with further funding until March 2023 to be confirmed in due course.

We are also very aware that the needs of passengers in urban and rural areas differ, as highlighted by colleagues, and that traditional local bus routes may not be financially sustainable in rural settings. That was put beautifully during the debate: are fixed, empty buses beneficial for everybody?

I am delighted that my hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield referenced the rural mobility fund, worth £20 million, which we created to trial more demand-responsive services and allow people to have a different way of accessing the public transport they need. Nottinghamshire County Council was awarded nearly £1.5 million from the fund to launch its Nottsbus On Demand service, which started operating in August in the villages around Retford, Ollerton and Newark. It also provides an evening service to Mansfield and is due to be extended to the rural areas west of Rushcliffe in the coming months.

I note that my hon. Friend the Member for Rushcliffe invited me to a meeting. I am extremely happy to pass that on to Baroness Vere, as the Bus Minister, but I am happy to meet my hon. Friend in a private capacity to buy her a coffee for being nice to me at the start of the debate.

[Ben Bradley]

Would the Minister also pass on our thanks? I was talking to my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Tom Randall) about Gedling buses, and the funding that has been provided by the Government for the next six months through to April has genuinely saved routes in all our constituencies that would otherwise have been unviable. Various services, including Stagecoach and Trentbarton, announced the closure of many services prior to that funding, as they were unable to support them. As much as there is uncertainty into the future, that intervention has saved those routes in many of our communities.

[Katherine Fletcher]

I would be very happy to pass that on.

I will turn now to rail, which was the subject of much of the debate and which is another important component of the public transport system. My Department has been working on some exciting projects in Nottinghamshire. East Midlands Railway will be introducing the new bi-mode trains to the midland main line by late 2024, so passengers can expect a smoother, quieter and more reliable journey than those on diesel trains. The further electrification of that route, which was raised by a number of Members, is also under development. As announced in the recent integrated rail plan, it is planned to be completed by around 2030. That will directly address the points raised by the hon. Members for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood) and for Slough.

The hon. Member for Slough raised the HS2 proposals and commitments. The integrated rail plan is what is going to get delivered—that is the plan moving forward, and I think it is the appropriate one. With regard to East Midlands Railway, my hon. Friend the Member for Rushcliffe raised the importance of the Poacher line, and my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling mentioned the current service on East Midlands Railway. I am happy to reassure Members that East Midlands Railway services are being kept under review. The Department and EMR have the opportunity to improve the frequency of services, should the evidence base be there, and that is being kept under review. We want to have enough clean, reliable and punctual trains running where they are needed most. The integrated rail plan is a step towards making sure that that practical, on-the-ground delivery is there, and masthead projects.

I would also point out that work has begun on developing a new high-speed rail line to the east midlands. Unlike previous plans, this will enable HS2 trains to serve both East Midlands Parkway and the city centre of Nottingham directly, which is an improvement on the original proposals. It will also cut journey times and provide more seats for passengers.

During my time in Nottingham, I worked in Toton and cycled to and from the city centre, so I recognise the need for improved connections and the opportunity for regeneration and investment in the area, and I have had a close look at the map of the plans. I recognise that local leaders had plans for economic development around the previously proposed station at Toton, and that has been improved on in the integrated rail plan. The Government are committed to accelerating the transport improvements in Toton.

As for the request from my hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield for a meeting with the Rail Minister, I am happy to pass that on. Rail is not in my portfolio, but I will make sure my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster) is aware of the request.

[Ben Bradley]

I want to take the opportunity to thank the Government, because they have been really helpful. As my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling said, we are probably one of the places in the country that is happiest with the integrated rail plan, which delivers the connectivity that he talked about and includes an ongoing commitment to Toton. Our development corporation has since been given a huge amount of capacity funding to redo its plan on the basis of the integrated rail plan, and that work is progressing at pace. I want to put on the record my thanks for that investment, because the Government really are backing Nottinghamshire and the region with those long-term plans.

[Katherine Fletcher]

My hon. Friend is approximately five lines ahead of me in my remarks. I thank him for his contribution.

The mixture of options for local and regional rail services and the scope for capacity on high-speed services will attract significant private sector investment. With 50:50 match funding with the taxpayer, what my hon. Friend highlights sounds extremely exciting.

In addition to considering station options, we have committed resources to the study, as my hon. Friend highlights, to exploit the linkages with any other investment in Nottinghamshire, including proposals for reopening the Maid Marian line. We are continuing to develop the study and scope, and we are working closely with local railway stations. My hon. Friend the Member for Gedling kindly invited me to visit Nottingham railway stations, but in all honesty I should probably pass that invitation on to the Rail Minister, although I may be there shortly, in which case I will have a quick look myself.

My hon. Friend mentioned the levelling-up fund bids and tempts me to talk about an ongoing departmental process. I recognise his passion and commitment, but the bids are currently under evaluation and I cannot comment on them. I can assure him that Ministers’ evaluation of the shortlist stage is criteria-based and absolutely bias-blind. His passion is clear to see, and I am happy to pass on that enthusiasm, but I am not able to comment.

The East Midlands freeport is the most exciting project when talking about economic growth and thinking about regions holistically. When it is completed, it will be a national hub for global trade and investment and will promote regeneration and job creation. It is uniquely placed to capitalise and innovate on the region’s commercial and industrial strengths. Once operational, those three sites may be the best-connected freeport in the UK. It is exciting to see this all starting to come together in a regional debate.

I am pleased to have had the opportunity to debate the successes and aspirations of the transport sector in Nottinghamshire, of which there are clearly many. I hope I have answered hon. Members’ questions, but given that this is my first time out, if there are any that I have missed or further points that I have not fully addressed, I will be happy to review the debate and write to hon. Members afterwards.

It is clear that Nottinghamshire is a place with many excellent champions, including Ministers who could not attend the debate and the Members who have come and contributed so well, and organisations doing dedicated work, such as Nottinghamshire County Council, Transport for the East Midlands and East Midlands Connect. I leave this debate optimistic about the future of transport in the county, and I look forward to working with hon. Members further to improve connectivity for local people.