Transport in the North

Hilary Benn Excerpts

Monday 6th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered transport in the North.

It is very nice to see a fellow Yorkshire MP in the Chair for this debate, Madam Deputy Speaker. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting time to debate this important issue. I thank the many hon. Members who sponsored the application, in particular my co-sponsors, the hon. Members for Shipley (Philip Davies) and for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy).

Over the past four months, the Transport Secretary has made a number of significant announcements on transport in northern England. On 20 July, he released a written ministerial statement cancelling a range of rail electrification projects, including Oxenholme to Windermere, and the whole line north of Kettering to Sheffield and Nottingham. The privately financed plans to electrify the Hull to Selby line had already been scrapped in November 2016, despite Transport for the North describing the scheme as:

“intrinsic to the story of transformation and provide necessary conditions to support the radical step-change required to deliver the Northern Powerhouse and strategic transport improvements to underpin this.”

The Department for Transport claims that bimodal diesel electric trains will realise

“the same significant improvements to journeys”

as electrification. On 21 July, the Transport Secretary, speaking to the press, cast doubt on the electrification of the trans-Pennine route and again talked about bimodal trains. Finally, on 22 August, he wrote in The Yorkshire Post boasting that there was to be a record £13 billion of investment in northern transport over the next Parliament, but that to secure further gains it was up to northern leaders, backed by Transport for the North, to realise the gains themselves.

[Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate, along with other hon. Members. She describes recent Government announcements. Do they not make our constituents ever more conscious of the significant disparity between investment in transport in the North, and in London and the south-east? Does she agree that if we really are to have the kind of transport infrastructure we require for our future economic development, we need both the money and the powers to take decisions for ourselves?

[Diana Johnson]

As ever, my right hon. Friend puts his finger right on it: we need the money and the powers.

Alongside many hon. Members on both sides of the House, I sought this debate to have the opportunity to hold the Secretary of State to account for the announcements he made over the summer. It is good to see a Transport Minister on the Treasury Bench, but I am disappointed that, on this very important issue for the country, the Secretary of State is not here to listen to and respond to the debate when it is his actions over the summer and in previous months that have prompted the debate.

I want to make the case for a much bolder and more ambitious transport strategy for northern England. Despite what has been claimed, Britain is becoming more, not less, regionally divided. The inequality between our regions’ economies is the largest of any country in Europe. The productivity gap between north and south is also widening.