Rail Investment and Integrated Rail Plan

Jonathan Edwards Excerpts

Wednesday 8th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Grant Shapps]

It is absolutely extraordinary: the hon. Lady’s constituents in Nottingham were not going to be served by the HS2 line that was going to be built, so they were not going to get the additional journey times or the improvements, and now they will. I suggest that it is important not to mislead her constituents—[Interruption.] inadvertently, I should say, perhaps through not having read the details of the IRP—with regard to the many advantages that they will now get. As I was about to say, the journey time from Birmingham to Nottingham will be cut from an hour and a quarter to just 26 minutes through the new plan, so it is far better for her constituents. We will reduce rail journey time between London and Derby from almost an hour and a half to just under an hour, and in Leeds we are going to invest £100 million to look at how we can best take the HS2 trains through to the city, as well as to start work on a west Yorkshire mass transit system, which is something successive Governments have failed to do.

I must say I am slightly surprised by the disappointment of the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley. I would urge all those who listened to her speech today to study the actual details of the plan, because it is producing benefits not only for the midlands and the north years ahead of what was planned, but for her own Sheffield constituency. She will want to hear the benefits for her Sheffield constituency. I know from her previous work that she was diligent and worked very hard campaigning to get that electrification done, so let us give her constituents some of the facts about what this new plan brings. The midland main line will be electrified to Sheffield, which is something she has been calling for—she has been calling for it—and the upgrade of the Hope Valley line between Manchester and Sheffield will be completed. HS2 trains will reach Sheffield and—get this—the journey from Sheffield to London will be half an hour quicker.

I have a suggestion for how the hon. Lady can use the extra half an hour she will have gained. I think she could spend half an hour speaking to her party leader and convincing him of the case for HS2. She might have her work cut out, though. This, after all, is the man who called for HS2 to be cancelled, and he even voted against his own party’s instructions—defying a three-line Whip—to try to stop the thing she says she is now campaigning for. I have no doubt about her own convictions on the need for HS2 and Northern Powerhouse Rail, and she has been consistent in calling for the electrification of the midland main line, but I do wonder if she knows her own leader’s views on that project. Recently, he called the electrification of the midland main line “complete nonsense”. As usual, we are looking at a Labour party riddled with divisions and too busy arguing with itself—and that is just the Leader of the Opposition. Meanwhile, we are getting on with delivering, as promised, better, faster and more reliable trains, and they are going to get there sooner as well.

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (Ind)]

As the Secretary of State knows, for some bizarre reason HS2 was deemed to be an England and Wales project, resulting in no Barnett consequentials for Wales. All the projects he has announced in his speech today are clearly England-only projects, so can he confirm that they will result in full Barnett consequentials for Wales?

[Grant Shapps]

The plan actually provides significant benefits to north Wales. Studies have been done about the tens of millions of pounds of additional benefit that HS2 will bring to north Wales in particular, and of course there is the Union connectivity review, recently launched by Sir Peter Hendy, which brings yet more benefit as well.