Rail Investment and Integrated Rail Plan

Debate between Grant Shapps and Toby Perkins

Wednesday 8th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Secretary of State for Transport (Grant Shapps)]

Before I begin, I first welcome the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Louise Haigh) to her place and congratulate her. She will be the third shadow Transport Secretary I have faced across this Dispatch Box, and I wish her all the luck of the previous two.

We were elected as a reforming Government. We have undertaken the biggest ever review of the industry and published the Williams-Shapps plan, creating a new public body in Great British Railways, with an overwhelming aim to deliver trains on time for passengers. We began by reversing the Beeching cuts, restoring lines to communities that were cut off from the railway in the 1960s and 1970s. We have set out our integrated rail plan, a £96 billion programme to reshape our railways in the north and the midlands. It is the largest single rail investment ever made by any UK Government.

[Mr Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State described this as a reforming Government, but what they are reforming is their manifesto after they have been elected on it. People in Chesterfield and across north Derbyshire were promised HS2, which would increase capacity. Instead, what we have got are slower services and years and years of delays while the reforms happen.

[Grant Shapps]

Our manifesto talks about the Oakervee review. The hon. Gentleman’s constituency of Chesterfield will be served by a new line to the east midlands completing the electrification of the midland main line, which I will come on to shortly.

Our reforming vision marks a new era of investment and growth. The integrated rail plan starts to provide benefits to passengers and communities quickly, rather than leaving it for two decades as previously planned. We will boost eight of the 10 busiest rail corridors across the north and the midlands. We will speed up journeys, increase capacity and run more frequent services, and we will do all that much earlier than previously planned.

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[Grant Shapps]

I am challenged that that is not what he said, but I have the quote. He said that the original plan would

“deliver maximum disruption and minimal benefit.”

In fact, he was campaigning against HS2 going north of Birmingham until Northern Powerhouse Rail was built.

Many towns and villages that would not have benefited originally will now benefit from this approach. Labour Members need to explain to people in places such as Kettering, Leicester, Loughborough, Doncaster, Grantham, Newark, Retford, Dewsbury, Huddersfield and Wakefield why they want to take away from them the services that our integrated rail plan will deliver.

Mayor Burnham had more to say on the subject. Just last year he claimed that the 2040s were far too long to wait for high-speed rail in the north. Perhaps that is why he was prepared to sacrifice HS2 north of Birmingham to focus exclusively on Northern Powerhouse Rail.

[Mr Perkins]

Will the Secretary of State give way?

[Grant Shapps]

I want to get to the end and let others come in.

This Government are not going for either/or, as the Mayor of Manchester tried to persuade us to; we are going to deliver both—high-speed trains up to Leeds while building a brand-new high-speed line east-west between Liverpool, Manchester and West Yorkshire, with a total of 110 miles of new high-speed line and 180 miles of newly electrified line, all of it in the midlands and the north.

International Travel

Debate between Grant Shapps and Toby Perkins

Tuesday 29th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

The threat to the travel and tourism industry is very real. Just this week, I met constituents who normally work on aircraft but now have either been furloughed or in some cases made redundant several months ago and they are extremely concerned about the ongoing future of the industry. So it is regrettable that the Transport Secretary should seek to misrepresent the position of my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham West and Royton (Jim McMahon) in terms of recognising an increase in the number of nations on the green list, seeking clarification of the system and calling for international co-operation on vaccine passports, which can give real certainty to the industry and confidence to holidaymakers, so that we can try to save some of these crucial jobs in our industry.

[Grant Shapps]

On the contrary, I have been listening carefully to what the hon. Member for Oldham West has had to say from the Front Bench. A few days ago, he was challenged about how many countries should go on to the green list and he said, “Well, from our point of view it has got to be about the science.” He said that he cannot give an exact number and that we have to take the expert advice—what on earth does he think we have been doing all these months?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Grant Shapps and Toby Perkins

Thursday 30th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

T3. The recently leaked Network Rail paper, which showed that the alternative to HS2 was 29 years of weekend closures and interminable delays, should be all that we need to know why we must get on with HS2. Will the Government not only commit to it but get control of the MPs who are constantly undermining this country’s most important infrastructure project?

[Grant Shapps]

Unlike the hon. Gentleman, I do not think that MPs who represent their constituents, whichever side of the debate they are on, are somehow undermining democracy—quite the opposite, in fact. This is the biggest infrastructure decision that this country has ever made and the biggest in Europe. It is quite right that it is properly and carefully considered, using not only that Network Rail evidence but everything else. The good news is that he will not have to wait too long.