High Speed Rail (Crewe - Manchester) Bill

Debate between Graham Stringer and Andrew Stephenson

2nd reading
Monday 20th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Stephenson]

My hon. Friend and I have met several times on this issue. I am keen to meet him again and continue to work with him to address the challenge of respecting the challenges local residents face while delivering this transformational project.

It is worth me focusing on Manchester Piccadilly underground station, as the hon. Members for Manchester, Withington (Jeff Smith), for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne) and for Blackley and Broughton (Graham Stringer), and my hon. Friends the Members for Heywood and Middleton (Chris Clarkson) and for High Peak (Robert Largan) all mentioned this one issue. There has been extensive engagement with stakeholders on the underground station. Following three years of engagement between HS2 Ltd and Greater Manchester stakeholders, the Secretary of State proposed a four-platform overground station in January 2013. That was followed by a formal consultation in January 2013 and in 2016 a further design refinement consultation on proposed changes around Piccadilly was also announced. As the same time as the 2016 consultation, the Government provided funding for Greater Manchester to create a growth strategy for the Piccadilly area. Between 2017 and 2018, the Government again worked extensively with Greater Manchester partners to refine the options.

The Government have always been clear that there needed to be a strong business case to justify the extra spending on an underground station, because we always believed that it would be the more expensive option. The Bechtel report, commissioned by Manchester City Council, was one example of making the case for an underground station. The Government, however, felt that there was no new information in the 2019 Bechtel report, with nothing to change the Government’s fundamental conclusion that a surface station design can cope with the full capacity of the HS2 line and that the underground station option remained hugely more expensive to deliver. In June 2020, I commissioned HS2 to investigate further options on the underground alternative.

[Graham Stringer]

I am grateful that the Minister has listened attentively and is answering some of the points, although not to my satisfaction. Will he do two things? Will he meet a delegation of the Greater Manchester MPs who have spoken in this debate to discuss the matter further? Secondly, I think he dismisses the Bechtel report too quickly. Will he agree, after a discussion, to commission a report that looks at the cost of the opportunities lost by not having an underground station?

Transport for the North

Debate between Graham Stringer and Andrew Stephenson

Wednesday 24th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Stephenson]

The right hon. Gentleman again makes a compelling case for the Leamside line. Many colleagues across the House, and many of the regional stakeholders in the north-east that I talk to, continue to make that case. It is not funded as part of the integrated rail plan. However, the Department for Transport is keen to continue working with local stakeholders to see how it could be delivered. I remind him, though, that within the £96 billion there is £3.5 billion for improvements to the east coast main line, which will significantly reduce journey times from the north-east of England down south.

[Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)]

However much the Minister blusters, he cannot get away from the fact that this is an £18 billion cut to the capital programme and a centralisation of the investment decision. The basis that the Minister and the Secretary of State gave for the change in the project and the cut was that it would take until the 2040s to achieve the expenditure of that extra £18 billion. Why, under the Government’s control, will they build and invest at a slower rate than the Victorians did using pickaxes and shovels?

[Andrew Stephenson]

The hon. Gentleman is going to see over the coming years an acceleration of investment in the midlands and the north and a rebalancing of some of our investment programmes. Northern Powerhouse Rail will deliver two brand-new lines, from Warrington to Manchester and from Manchester to Marsden. In addition, we have a transformational upgrade of the trans-Pennine route far beyond anything committed to that route by any previous Government.