Rail Investment and Integrated Rail Plan

Chris Loder Excerpts

Wednesday 8th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Newlands]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I have not been to his part of the country yet, but I am sure that I will make plans to shortly. I have no doubt about what he says, and I am entirely unsurprised by it. I am sure—or at least I hope—that the Secretary of State was listening to what he said.

[Chris Loder (West Dorset) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Gavin Newlands]

I apologise to my Transport Committee colleague, but I promised to try to keep my contribution under 10 minutes because of the number of Members who want to contribute. [Interruption.] It is a devolved matter.

It is the usual pattern for Downing Street. Don’t like something? Ignore or marginalise it. Transport for the North speaking up for a real rail network, and against the Government’s plans? Neuter it out of any real existence. Afraid that the Welsh Government might use Barnett consequentials from HS2 spending in a way that shows up the paucity of ambition on the other side of the border? Just do not give them any. Worried that the Scottish Government will come to some different conclusions about what is needed for real connectivity across these isles? Just ignore them when they look for real engagement. And, dare I say it, do not like the rules about Christmas parties during a pandemic? Organise that secret Santa anyway.

To be crystal clear, the Minister, in his summing up, must confirm that Scotland and Wales will receive full Barnett consequentials from the English rail plan and confirm the level of consequentials and the timing, because the transfer of the funds simply cannot be punted down the track. Everyone on these isles would benefit from improved connectivity internally and externally, but instead of working collaboratively with the devolved Administrations, Mayors and combined authorities in England, once again Whitehall knows best, and Whitehall, as ever, knows London best.

[Chris Loder]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Gavin Newlands]

I will give way once to the hon. Gentleman because he is persistent.

[Chris Loder]

I very much appreciate the hon. Gentleman giving way and it is always a pleasure to serve with him on the Transport Committee. In the interests of collaboration, which he just mentioned, would he care to share with the House why, during the Union connectivity review, the Scottish Government refused engagement on this issue from the United Kingdom Government to achieve that very point?

[Gavin Newlands]

As I have outlined, that is not true. We asked for engagement on a number of issues and those advances were rebuffed by the UK Government. [Interruption.] It is a simple fact.

In the last financial year, the east midlands saw spending on transport of £477 per person. London received £1,476 per head. Even allowing for the fairly extraordinary circumstances of the pandemic, if we go back another year, we see a similar picture: £377 per person versus £856 in London. On every metric going back decades, we find a similar picture, with every single region of England not just outstripped by London, but overpowered by multiples of 200%, 300% and even 400%.

This system is holding back every part of these isles while making sure that London gets the lion’s share year after year, decade after decade. For all the Government’s talk of levelling up, there is no sign, and nor has there been since time immemorial, of making the kind of investment in the rest of England that is deemed necessary in Greater London. Even assuming that every single inch of track and electrification laid out in the integrated rail plan actually happens—about which, given the precedents of cancellation that have been referred to in this debate, we are right to be sceptical—it will do little or nothing to close the gap between the north of England and London.

There is a fundamental flaw in not just how the UK is governed, but how policy is decided, that allows this kind of warped disparity to go not only unchecked, but positively encouraged by successive Administrations and Transport Secretaries. Again, places such as the north of England, the south-west and the midlands bear the brunt of that dysfunctional system.

Lest anyone thinks that it is just SNP Members calling out the Government for their failures, let me correct that record. The chair of Transport for the North called the integrated rail plan “woefully inadequate”. The former technical director of HS2 said:

“You can’t have prosperity without being well connected.”

The chair of the North East Joint Transport Committee said that the plan is

“a hammer-blow for the North East and…the very opposite of levelling up”.

And the chief executive of the Rail Industry Association asked:

“How certain can the railway industry be that the”—

plan—

“will actually be delivered, given what’s happened to the previous plan?”

Once again, the north of England is being let down by a Government whose action, if not their rhetoric, stops at the M25.

We in Scotland are well used to being let down over connectivity. Nearly three decades ago, we were promised direct rail links to Europe through the channel tunnel. Just as with HS2 to the north-east of England, those promises were buried as soon as it became politically expedient. Even the proposed sleeper trains were punted off to Canada, and what a mistake that looks now. Europe is seeing a rapid renaissance in cross-border sleeper trains. Today, anyone looking to avoid flying to Europe will be boarding in central London, not Manchester, Birmingham, Edinburgh or Glasgow.

Around the same time—[Interruption.] That is a bizarre contribution; I will take an intervention, but I would advise against it if that is what it would be. Around the same time, the old Strathclyde Regional Council brought forward plans for a new and modern light rail network for Glasgow. They were kiboshed as the UK Government were more interested in their dogmatic rush to privatise British Rail. Residents of Leeds should look into the history of the UK’s commitment to urban light rail in Scotland, given the promises now being made to them as a fig leaf to cover the HS2 cancellation. It was the UK Government who spent months and who knows how many fag packets drawing up madcap schemes for bridges over munitions dumps instead of working to improve our infrastructure in the real world. Knowing that, it was rich to hear the Scottish Secretary laud his Government’s Union connectivity review the other week. It is only since the dead hand of Westminster was removed from transport policy in Scotland that real progress on rail modernisation and a decarbonised future has been made.

It is the Scottish Parliament and Scottish Governments —in fairness, from three political parties on these Opposition Benches—who have upgraded, reopened, and decarbonised the four rail lines running between Scotland’s two biggest cities over the past two decades, and launched many other electrification projects, including Paisley Canal, which boosted demand by up to 35% at some stations. The length of track electrified in Scotland has gone up by nearly 50% since devolution under both SNP Governments and Labour-Lib Dem Administrations. In contrast, in England and Wales the increase is more like 14%.

It is the Scottish Government who have overseen the reopening of the Airdrie-Bathgate line, the current work on the Levenmouth rail link and, of course, the Borders Railway, with demand far outstripping predicted passenger numbers. We have got on with reversing Beeching without the need for exaggerated rhetoric, overpromising and underdelivering. It is also the Scottish Government who are taking our rail services back into public ownership, where they belong, from next year.

Scotland’s economic prosperity depends on not just our own domestic connectivity, but that of our neighbours. We want and need a prosperous and well connected north of England. Collectively, Scotland and the three northernmost regions of England have a population of 21 million. That is bigger than all but five EU member states, but nearly 16 million of those people are being let down by a UK Government and a Department for Transport who are stuck in a 19th-century mindset, where Whitehall is the centre of power and woe betide those who challenge its authority, as Transport for the North is now finding out.

To conclude, the north of England deserves better. The birthplace of the first steam railway, the first inter-city railway and the first purpose-built main line electric railway; the cradle of an industrial revolution where the railways and commerce went hand in hand—it is being let down, as it has been for decades, by a Westminster Government who lack vision, lack ideals, and above all lack commitment.

The new industrial revolution will be much different from that of the 19th century. It is about decarbonising our economy and society to meet the challenges of the 21st century. Scotland’s rail network will play its part by decarbonising all passenger services by 2035.