Oral Answers to Questions

Jonathan Ashworth Excerpts

Thursday 23rd February 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Mrs Theresa Villiers)]

I know that my hon. Friend is a strong campaigner for improvements to the rail lines that serve her constituency. This is something that we are looking at carefully. We have asked Network Rail to do important work on deciding how we might improve the frequency of the services in the way that she wishes to see, and whether the infrastructure needed to deliver that is within the budgets that have already been allocated to Network Rail. We will also look at what we might be able to do in the next control period, as part of our high-level output specification—HLOS—statement, which we will publish in the summer.

[Jonathan Ashworth (Leicester South) (Lab)]

Will the Minister update the House on the Department’s attitude the electrification of the midland main line? There is widespread concern that, because of HS2 and other pressures, the electrification will not go ahead for quite some time. It would, however, provide a huge boost to the east midlands economy and to cities such as Leicester.

[Mrs Villiers]

Leicester and the communities around it have been running a very good campaign on this issue. The Government have made it clear that we see the progressive electrification of the rail network as an important part of our transport and environmental policy. The electrification of the midland main line has been prioritised by the industry in its initial industry plan, which will form an important part of the decisions that we have to make on what will be funded in the next railway control period. We will give further details in our HLOS statement in July.