High Speed Rail (West Midlands - Crewe) Bill

Christian Matheson Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons & Allocation of time motion: House of Commons & Carry-over motion: House of Commons & Money resolution: House of Commons & 2nd reading & Allocation of time motion & Carry-over motion & Money resolution
Tuesday 30th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sir Patrick McLoughlin]

I think that HS1 was operating before Labour came into government.

[Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)]

rose—

[Sir Patrick McLoughlin]

If the hon. Gentleman will allow me, I will make some progress.

It is right to say that we have seen a renaissance on our railways since privatisation, and that renaissance continued under the last Labour Government. Indeed, in their 13 years in government, they did not seek to change the franchising at all. They felt that that was the best way to operate the railways. We had the private sector and the public sector involved, and we saw our railways improve tremendously. If we get to a situation—I hope we do not—of the railways going back to a fully nationalised body, what happened in the ’60s and ’70s will happen again. Rail was always at the back of the queue for investment. Hospitals and education took priority; the railways were left without any priority whatsoever. There is no doubt in my mind that privatisation has led to the rejuvenation of the rail industry, and so much so that passenger numbers have increased from something like 700 million to some 1.6 billion, which speaks for itself.

I am pleased that the Bill has been introduced. David Higgins recommended that we should try to bring the investment and benefits of HS2 more quickly to the north. Should this Bill get its Second Reading today, it is worth remembering that we will see high-speed services to Crewe by 2027. In infrastructure terms, and given the necessary planning, that is not that far away, so I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State on bringing the Bill forward.

I know that the Government are well aware of this, but I want to talk about the importance of continuing to develop skills in engineering. The National College for High Speed Rail, which is based in Doncaster and Birmingham, will enable people to get the engineering skills that are so important. All that follows on from the remarkable Crossrail project, which will start to open to the public later this year. We saw such skills in the television programmes covering its development across London.

This important Bill is about capacity. There are those who say that the Department for Transport and its Secretaries of State have changed their mind and that they talk about capacity more than speed, but the very first HS2 document that was published referred to capacity, too. The west coast main line is one of the busiest lines in Europe, if not the busiest. We need a massive injection of infrastructure, and this Bill is the answer

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[Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)]

What a pleasure it is to follow the hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr Seely). If he will forgive me, I might disagree with him on one point. In my view—the figures are overwhelming—the investment in infrastructure in London and the south-east, although it perhaps does not extend entirely down to his patch, is around nine or 10 times as much as that in my area in the north-west and the north of England. Plenty of people will look at the HS2 expenditure and say it is about time that the north-west of England got some expenditure.

In principle, I am very much in favour of HS2—and HS3, HS4 and HS5. Infrastructure spending is good for the economy; it generates growth, it drives growth and connectivity, and it is a good thing for the whole country. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Laura Smith), however, I share the concern that what we might get is, to coin a railway phrase, the wrong type of HS2, on the basis that all we will have is a fast line linking London, Birmingham and Manchester, and no benefits will accrue to the surrounding areas. In terms of growth in this country, the cities are already overheating, whereas towns and counties—

[Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

rose—

[Christian Matheson]

I give way to my good friend.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

Does the hon. Gentleman therefore welcome the £300 million that has been set aside to connect HS2 with HS3—also known as Northern Powerhouse Rail—which will stretch from the west coast of the north to the east coast?

[Christian Matheson]

I will welcome it when it is built and when we actually have something going. HS3, or Northern Powerhouse Rail, is a slogan rather than a railway, and I look forward to its being a railway rather than a slogan. There is a real danger that the benefits that accrue will not do so for the whole country. This is a national project and the benefits that derive from it should be national, too.

In particular, I want to discuss the Crewe hub, which I was pleased to hear the Secretary of State refer to several times. We get lots of positive, warm words—if that praise is not too derogatory—about the importance that Ministers at the Department for Transport attach to the Crewe hub. However, time and again, after two years of pressing, we still have had no firm details about what format it will take or how it will integrate into the rest of the network.

I was pleased to hear my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough (Andy McDonald), the shadow Secretary of State, talking about the need for HS2 to be integrated into the rest of the network. The hon. Member for Lichfield (Michael Fabricant) might have misunderstood, but that was very much my understanding, and that is exactly where the Crewe hub would come in. With the greatest respect to my good friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Laura Smith), Crewe does not have a large enough population to justify an HS2 station, but the lines and connectivity radiating from it as a central hub in that part of the north-west and the north midlands would provide the services and the weight of gravity to make the Crewe hub essential to HS2.

[Michael Fabricant]

What the hon. Gentleman says about Crewe is absolutely right, but does he understand my disappointment that there will be two separate stations in Birmingham and two separate stations in London, instead of it being integrated there as well? While the north is important, so are the midlands and the south.

[Christian Matheson]

I do understand the hon. Gentleman’s disappointment. Actually, I share some of it, and if he bears with me I will come on to that in a moment.

The lines that would radiate from Crewe would include the existing west coast main line, which my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North (Helen Jones) talked about, so Warrington, Wigan and south Lancashire would benefit, as would my constituency and hopefully, the north Wales line. Again, I say to Ministers that for the real benefits to accrue, the Chester and north Wales line would need to be electrified; I have not given up on that, even if they have.

The Crewe hub would mesh nicely with the Growth Track 360 proposals that leaders in Cheshire West and Chester and across the border in north Wales have put together to really try to mesh our railway offerings. I know that Ministers have seen those. My hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State was extremely helpful when I talked to him about my concerns. He took them to HS2 Ltd, which was asked about the benefits that somebody from Chester might gain. This is where I come back to the hon. Member for Lichfield. Apparently, under the current HS2 proposals, those benefits would include HS2 freeing up capacity on the west coast main line, so that more trains would be able to go through, between Chester and Lichfield, on that line. He talked about the potential, over time, for the west coast main line to wither on the vine, and I share that concern. Those of us who are not in London, Birmingham or Manchester may not get the full benefits, because we will be asked to take the benefits of the west coast main line instead. Much as those are benefits, that is not the high-speed line on offer.

I detect a certain disconnect—I ask Ministers to look carefully at this—between HS2 Ltd and its proposals and the plans from Network Rail and the Department for Transport for the development of the railways. HS2 Ltd has been tasked with building the HS2 line and some amorphous idea of a Crewe hub, but we are still not sure what or exactly where it is in Crewe or of the layout of Crewe station. The plans do not fit in with the broader sub-regional plans for the growth of the railways. All HS2 Ltd seems concerned with is the delivery of the new high-speed line. I urge Ministers to look carefully at ensuring that the proposals for HS2 and others, such as Growth Track 360, mesh together in the connected way that my hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State talked about; otherwise we will not accrue the full benefits.

I welcome the Minister to her place, and I make this plea to her: I ask that she think carefully about how the Crewe hub can be given a reality that benefits not just the big cities but north Shropshire, south Lancashire, all of Cheshire, all the railway lines radiating from Crewe, and particularly—as far as I am concerned—the Chester and north Wales line. It has to mesh together. At some point, we have to stop kicking this particular can down the road and come out with firm and deliverable proposals for a Crewe hub that will share the benefits of HS2 that will not otherwise accrue.

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[Andrew Jones]

My hon. Friend makes an insightful point. We had decades of decline when the rail industry was in public hands. The turnaround post-privatisation has been dramatic. Opposition Members take that for granted and suggest that nationalisation is a way forward, but they have forgotten the complete change we saw, with the focus on customers and growth, and how that has delivered and been a key part of the UK’s economic growth.

[Christian Matheson]

Will the hon. Gentleman not concede that that turnaround has taken place on the back of several hundred million pounds of public money being given to the train operators every year?

[Andrew Jones]

Well, the hon. Gentleman suggests that even more public money should go in, so I am not sure where his argument takes him, apart from round in a circle. We are seeing long-overdue public investment in the rail industry.