Oral Answers to Questions

Judith Cummins Excerpts

Thursday 4th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Trudy Harrison]

As Scarborough and Whitby is the proud home of Alexander Dennis coaches, I know that my right hon. Friend will welcome the firm acceleration that is supporting thousands of zero-emission buses, thanks to a further £355 million of funding announced in the spending review last week. With £71 million extra for our zero-emission bus regional areas scheme, we are bussing back better with a cleaner, greener kind of horsepower.

[Judith Cummins (Bradford South) (Lab)]

T4. One of the largest city-to-city journeys to work in the country is between Bradford and Leeds, and those journeys are mostly by car. At scale, Northern Powerhouse Rail would support a 400% increase in rail travel and take 64,000 car trips a day off the roads. With COP under way, do this Government have a strategy to ensure that our covid recovery is by rail, rather than by road, and will that include—because it should—Northern Powerhouse Rail in full, with a city centre stop in Bradford?

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Andrew Stephenson)]

The hon. Lady tempts me to speculate on the contents of the integrated rail plan. As I said in response to the hon. Member for Bradford East (Imran Hussain), she will have to wait and see. However, the Government recognise the importance of Bradford, and particularly the connectivity of Bradford to Leeds—two incredibly important northern cities. I hope that we will publish the integrated rail plan very soon.