Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Hilary Benn and Grant Shapps

Tuesday 28th February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Grant Shapps]

My hon. Friend did a terrific job, I recall, as a Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Whip briefly in the past year. She is absolutely right about carbon capture, utilisation and storage. We have the potential for 78 billion tonnes of CO₂ to be stored. The answer to her track 2 question is: very shortly.

[Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab)]

While I welcome the grants of up to £5,000 that the Government are making available for boiler replacement, as the Secretary of State will know, a heat pump will cost £8,000 to £15,000, so many of our constituents would not be able to afford it even with that grant, and 90,000 such grants do not constitute a plan to decarbonise the 23 million homes in this country that have gas boilers. When do the Government intend to come forward with such a plan?

[Grant Shapps]

I think heat pumps are rather like the solar panels we were just discussing in previous questions. When I had my solar panels installed 12 years ago, they were extremely expensive and had a very long return, although they have finally returned on that; they are now much cheaper. I think we are seeing the same process with air source heat pumps. I note that two suppliers, Octopus and British Gas, have announced £3,000 and £2,500 air source heat pumps—after the Government £5,000, I should say—which means they start to become within reach of ordinary boilers. There is clearly much more to do, but I absolutely share the right hon. Member’s enthusiasm for them.

Integrated Rail Plan: North and Midlands

Debate between Hilary Benn and Grant Shapps

Thursday 18th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Grant Shapps]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I missed that out in my foreword and I apologise—Cleethorpes should certainly get a mention. I am working with my hon. Friend the Minister of State (Chris Heaton-Harris) on a potential direct service from Cleethorpes to London. Just a week or two ago I visited the ports, and I know the importance of connectivity with those ports.

[Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab)]

The Prime Minister repeatedly promised that HS2 and Northern Powerhouse Rail would be built in full. Today that promise has been broken, and Leeds and the north have been betrayed. Can the Minister explain—this is insofar as I understand the details; I have yet to read the full report—the logic of taking HS2 from Birmingham to East Midlands Parkway, building a new high-speed line from Leeds to Sheffield, but leaving a huge great big hole in the middle, which would have Victorian railway engineers scratching their heads in disbelief, to save what The Times says is £10.3 billion? What is the purpose of doing that?

[Grant Shapps]

I think I can reassure the right hon. Gentleman. One of the purposes of Northern Powerhouse Rail, which we are delivering, is to slash journey times, for example from Leeds to Manchester, and we will deliver exactly that. We will provide a journey time of 33 minutes from Leeds to Manchester, which he will know is a very significant improvement. That is not the only thing. We will also cut the journey time from Leeds to London to one hour 53 minutes, and to Birmingham it will be an hour and a half. All those journey times will be coming down dramatically because of the steps we are taking today. We have also announced £100 million to look at the best way to run HS2 trains into Leeds, as well as to sort out the long-term problem that Leeds does not have a mass transport system—I think it is the biggest city in Europe without one. We know there have been many attempts at that over the years, but this time we intend to ensure it is followed through. There is a lot for Leeds in this package, which includes, as it happens, getting Northern Powerhouse Rail to run to Leeds, and I hope the right hon. Gentleman’s constituents will feel the benefits of that.

Britain’s Railways

Debate between Hilary Benn and Grant Shapps

Thursday 20th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab) [V]]

Following the timetable chaos, the fragmentation and three franchise failures on the east coast main line, my constituents already knew that privatisation did not work, so I welcome the Secretary of State’s acknowledgement of that today. However, we know that Transport for the North’s core funding has been cut and that transport spending per head in London is three times larger than it is in Yorkshire and the Humber, so my constituents would like to know what benefit today’s announcement will bring for HS2 phase 2b to Leeds, future investment in Leeds station and getting on with Northern Powerhouse Rail.

[Grant Shapps]

The right hon. Gentleman will not have to wait very long for the answer, which I mentioned before, about the integrated rail plan, which includes things like what will happen on 2b east to Leeds and much more on the east coast main line, as we were just discussing.

I want to pick the right hon. Gentleman up on one point. I was in the middle of nodding and agreeing with him, certainly about the timetable debacle and what that demonstrated, but it is not the case that TfN’s core funding, as he describes it, has been cut. It has the money in the bank; it has not spent it. The actual spending is in the billions of pounds, while we seem to have got stuck talking about a £3.5 million administrative fund that is already in the bank.

My point is this: we are committed to levelling up the north—all constituencies, including the right hon. Gentleman’s own—and it will not be very long before we are saying more about that through the integrated rail plan. I entirely agree with him that it is many years overdue, but it is great to have a Government who are getting on with it now.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Hilary Benn and Grant Shapps

Thursday 29th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab) [V]]

Given that the national infrastructure bank will be based in Leeds, would it not be highly symbolic to start building phase 2b of the eastern leg of HS2 from Leeds southwards? The Secretary of State was quoted recently as saying that he is looking at bringing forward the start date. Would he consider that idea?

[Grant Shapps]

I actually agree with the right hon. Gentleman; it probably would have been sensible to start the entire project from the north to the south in the first place, but having looked at this in great detail, not least through the Oakervee review, I also know that chopping and changing those plans partway through is the most expensive possible outcome and does not work out. None the less, we are committed to ensuring that the integrated rail plan answers all these questions, and his point has been clearly heard.