Colne to Skipton Railway Link

Julie Cooper Excerpts

Tuesday 29th October 2019 Westminster Hall

[Graham P. Jones (Hyndburn) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the proposed reinstatement of the Colne to Skipton railway link.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir George. It is interesting that the Government have sent the heavy rail Minister to respond to the debate. I hope he will make the commitments to Colne-Skipton that we all want, about long-overdue investment. It is of course my role, as Member of Parliament for Hyndburn, to champion prosperity and encourage investment in the area for the people I represent. That is why I have been so vocal on the issue. If we reinstate transport in the area—particularly the rail link—it will provide an opportunity for east Lancashire and beyond. I thank all the MPs who have come to the debate, and the council leaders and campaigners who have brought the campaign to the place where it is today—where a serious proposition is being considered. That is testimony to their hard work. I particularly want to thank Skipton East Lancashire Rail Action Partnership for the campaign that it has run over many years, which is appreciated by all in east Lancashire and west Yorkshire.

What we are talking about is 12 miles of railway, which stands between east Lancashire and west Yorkshire—a third trans-Pennine artery that connects the two, which was taken away many years ago. It would not take a great deal of money to put that rail link back. At the heart of the issue, for many constituents, is the north-south divide. There is a grievance about the fact that little money is spent in the north, and particularly in the area I am concerned with.

[Julie Cooper (Burnley) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. Does he agree that the fact that we have to fight for 12 miles of railway track seems to make a mockery of the northern powerhouse?

[Graham P. Jones]

My hon. Friend is a tireless campaigner on rail and on the matter in question. She was at the forefront of campaigning to reinstate the Manchester link, from east Lancashire—albeit it is a second-rate one; at least we have got it now. She is quite right. The Institute for Public Policy Research has said that in London, for instance, £708 is spent on transport per head of population, but the average is £289 for the entire north of England. No wonder there is a north-south divide. People in the north see Crossrail 1, which is not yet completed, and Crossrail 2 already set up. That is after past projects such as Heathrow, Thameslink, and even Westminster tube station. All of that investment has cost the Exchequer billions of pounds, and there has been little for the north. It is right that people in the north feel that the Government should commit to the small stretch of 12 miles that we are discussing.

I hear arguments all the time about whether the reinstatement of the line would be economically viable. When will we use different indices for transport investment? The deprivation figures came out two weeks ago and the sub-region in question is the poorest in the country. If an economic case is to be made, there will never be an economic case for the poorest sub-region; at best it will be marginal, so there will never be investment and the indices will continue to plummet as they have. At some point the Government must step back and say that deprivation indices are a reason to invest. That would be the case in most other countries. It would be a question, not of using an economic model about the viability of the line, but of whether we are investing in people. That is the question: are we investing in people, instead of trying to count pounds, shillings and pence and reinvest in London and the south?

[Graham P. Jones]

My hon. Friend makes two points. First, St Helens is occupied Lancashire and needs to be liberated. He is right to say that St Helens looks north towards Lancashire, but there is also a serious point to be made about the importance of connecting east Lancashire to the port of Merseyside and the support that we get from Peel Ports, which involves passing through constituencies such as St Helens North. It is also about giving people in St Helens the opportunity to look in all directions—particularly north—and to have an east-west link available through Preston and the East Lancashire line and over the Pennines. My hon. Friend is right to raise that. The north-west itself benefits from any transport infrastructure investment, wherever it is, because it allows more mobility.

Before I discuss the line itself, I want to conclude what I was saying about the Government’s broken economic model, which is just about pounds, shillings and pence, and all the investments in the south. We apply that metric to railways but not to anything else. The Government are happy to hand out grants for town centres or housing, with no expectation of any return. However, as soon as it comes to the railways, there is an expectation of an economic model with some return. The Government abandon the policy that they apply in other cases for deprived areas. I do not understand the logic of that. Surely the logic should be that if transport will bring prosperity, industry, jobs and wages, that is what we should subsidise. We should subsidise rail investment and the railways if we want to lift people out of deprivation—not titivate town centres or whatever else the Government hand out grant money to. The current system for looking at investment is broken.

[Julie Cooper]

My hon. Friend raises an important point about investing in prosperity and people. The Todmorden curve link is an example of what he has said. It took years of campaigning to get that short link, but the evidence in Burnley and east Lancashire is that completing that section of railway has brought investment and much-needed jobs to the region.

[Graham P. Jones]

My hon. Friend is right. I do not have to hand the figures for Manchester Road station in Burnley, which is on that link. It is a circuitous route. It is not the old 30 minutes direct into Manchester; it is 60 minutes. None the less, passenger numbers at Accrington station have gone from, I think, 289,000 to 469,000— or thereabouts. I may be corrected afterwards, but it is not far off. That is a huge increase in numbers since the line was put in. The reinstatement of Colne-Skipton could only add to patronage and use of the lines, and investment in those areas.

The reinstatement would probably cost about £360 million. Let me talk about that number. The Government think that £360 million for a deprived area would probably not be money well spent. Not only would it be an investment in people, but if the railway is there for 100 years it comes to £360,000 a year. That would be the capital cost, instead of millions for titivating town centres. I might compare that with my local clinical commissioning group, which spends almost £1 billion in the east Lancashire area annually. We must get some perspective. There is serious ill health and deprivation in the area, but we are reluctant to invest in people and we try to cut margins on the railway. Economically that does not stand up. The Government’s policy of investing in other things and giving away grant money seems to me to be a case of looking in the wrong direction. We should be investing where it matters.

[Graham P. Jones]

The hon. Gentleman is quite right; all these little bits of links, as I mentioned in my response to my hon. Friend the Member for St Helens North (Conor McGinn), add value to other sub-regions; they are not just an advantage or an addition for that particular sub-region. These things really matter, and with this particular line we are talking about potentially connecting the port of Hull with the port of Liverpool for manufacturing and the shipment of goods, as well as passenger services. That has a broad connectivity that goes beyond east Lancashire, which is why there is support all the way from Merseyside to Hull for the reinstatement of this line.

Yet we are sitting here with 12 miles missing in the middle, between Skipton and Colne. I want to see that line upgraded to a twin-track railway for freight—I think it is gauge 12, although I will stand corrected if it is not—and built to modern standards. We need to put back that line, which was cut in 1970, because it will connect two big industrial heartlands and provide opportunity for both passengers and freight. The decision to cut the line back in 1970 was a terrible one, which has mirrored the deprivation indices for east Lancashire, but since then we have seen an increase in passenger numbers on Britain’s railways. In fact, they have doubled.

That is certainly what would happen here. Think of the Borders Railway: what a success it has been. The Government said it would not be a success and ScotRail said it would, and who was right? It was not the people in Westminster or the people in the Department for Transport; they were wrong. The people who were right were the people north of the border. That line has been a huge success, and there should be a lesson there to us all about listening to mandarins in Whitehall instead of investing in and listening to local people.

Most of the route between Skipton and Colne is flat and level, and can be walked in a few hours. Some bridges need to be rebuilt, and in a couple of places—particularly at Earby—major road works are needed. However, in the words of the DFT’s 2018 report presented to the Transport Minister last December, there are “no showstoppers” preventing us from putting those12 miles back.

As I said previously, the Skipton to Colne link has widespread support throughout the local community. It is important to say that it is also backed regionally and by businesses, and regularly features in the media. I think it is on the list of 13 schemes that the Government are considering for rail line reinstatement. The campaign has more than 500 individual paid-up members and 50 businesses are signed up, as well as other organisations. Key businesses include Peel Ports, Drax—which is having problems getting to the power plant there—and Skipton Building Society, among many.

The project also has the support of all the MPs in the area. I note that the hon. Member for Pendle (Andrew Stephenson) is here; he is a campaigner for the rail link and I pay credit to his campaigning, as I do to that of others—I do not think there is anybody, either candidate or MP, who is against the reinstatement. We have even had co-operation from Yorkshire, and that is remarkable. We just need some signs saying, “Welcome to Lancashire” when we reinstate the line.

[Julie Cooper]

On the point about the widespread support for this project, does my hon. Friend agree that it is hugely disappointing that the former Secretary of State for Transport, the right hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling), visited and made some very positive comments, which raised hopes in the area, only to have them dashed recently?

[Graham P. Jones]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. We have had highs and lows on this issue that we should not have had. There has been a bit of dither and it has gone on for too long; today’s debate is about asking the Minister to make a firm commitment as we are going into a general election.

Returning to look at the service more widely, if passenger services were to go on the new Skipton to Colne railway line, they would be building on an existing success story. The Airedale line, which runs from Leeds and Bradford via Shipley and Keighley to Skipton, was modernised in the 1990s. Since then it has seen strong growth, and the Airedale line train services are now very popular. Last year alone, over 1.2 million passengers used Skipton station. The Airedale line is often described by experts as the flagship railway line of the north, and we need just 12 miles to connect to that.

It seems very straightforward that this line should go in and connect to such a successful railway line, just 12 miles away. What it would bring to the towns of Pendle, Burnley, my own Accrington and the Hyndburn constituency, with a population in excess of a quarter of a million, would be a remarkable transformation. We would be on a new network with new opportunities. That is not an insignificant population; it is a significant population in the immediate catchment area alone. I do not include Blackburn, Ribble Valley or Preston, which are also on the line—in fact, the line goes right through to Blackpool—and would also benefit, as would areas further afield, as my hon. Friend the Member for St Helens North has said of St Helens.

The project will help not only east Lancashire, but the north-west and the north, so we must look at the wider advantages. There is a sticking-point at Earby, I admit, but as the DFT report says, I do not think this is a deal-breaker. A solution must be found that will minimise the impact on local residents, and I am mindful of that, but it is not something that cannot be overcome by engineers.

I will return briefly to mention that freight and manufacturing are a crucial issue. This is a manufacturing area; I often hear the hon. Member for Pendle say that east Lancashire is a manufacturing hub, but if it is a manufacturing hub, why do we not have a freight rail link in? Why are we not investing in this line and managing to ship goods around the world via the two ports east and west of east Lancashire? I am asking the question. Having the heavy rail Minister here, as I pointed out earlier, is important, because we must not do what is being suggested and put in light rail passenger transport. We must invest for the future, for business, for manufacturing and for prosperity—not just to transport passengers around.

I will touch on an important point at this stage. Network Rail has said to me in reply that it does not have a freight rail terminal anywhere near east Lancashire. There is an ideal site at Huncoat power station in my Hyndburn constituency, a brownfield site that is being redeveloped. I ask the Minister to comment on this: while I know these are matters for the private sector, if those 12 miles go in for heavy goods and the Government actively invest in this rail line, it is obvious that they should actively pursue a rail freight terminal for east Lancashire.

We have the road network, which at certain times is not full to capacity—a long way short of capacity, particularly in the evenings. It would serve the manufacturing base of east Lancashire if this line were put back in to the ports and beyond and we had that rail freight terminal. That is a crucial issue. If we are going to put the investment in, let us put in the other corresponding investments too.

If the project was given the go-ahead in early 2020, we could expect a new passenger service to be running as early as 2025-26. This is not a massive scheme for the DFT. It is something that we, as a nation and as a region, should be pursuing, and we should be pursuing it actively, not hesitating or holding back. This conversation has gone on for too long.

As I come to the end of my comments, I note that the proposal is backed by Transport for the North, which has provided evidence that the scheme should go ahead. It has published its report on the strategic transport plan for the next 30 years, the TfN STP, which has conclusively shown that there will be a massive and transformational boost to the deprived economy of east Lancashire, should this reinstatement go ahead. That will be achieved by bringing all of east Lancashire within one hour of central Leeds and Bradford, and improving connectivity with elsewhere. The scheme has TfN’s full support, which is worth saying, and it is part of the section of TfN’s investment programme titled: “Specific Interventions before 2027—Proposed Early Phases of Northern Powerhouse Rail and Additional TfN Priorities”. TfN is an active stakeholder, along with the Department for Transport and Network Rail, trying to help and input into the development of the scheme.

I say this with a general election possibly around the corner: we in the Labour party have committed to reinstating this link for heavy rail without hesitation. Furthermore, we have committed to electrifying this line, which is needed because the Airedale lane is electrified. I am also pretty certain that the Labour party will support private sector investment in a freight rail terminal in my constituency.

We need to move quickly, for Britain, the north and this region, but we also need to look beyond: when the east Lancs line is done, we need to start looking at the Accrington to Stubbins connection. We need to put back what was taken away and make these once-proud towns proud again. Let us put in the investment that they deserve. When the cotton industry was thriving, 25% of our economy’s foreign currency exports were derived from it and off the backs of those workers. They deserve better today, and that investment should be put in. We in the Labour party are committed to doing so as a matter of course.

Finally, I am interested to hear the Minister’s thoughts on those deprived communities and how he can stop their fall down the deprivation ladder. My hon. Friend the Member for Burnley (Julie Cooper) is here. Burnley is the eighth most deprived town in the country, Blackburn is ninth and my constituency of Hyndburn is 16th. The hon. Member for Pendle is here, and he can perhaps say where Pendle is on the ladder; I think it is about 20th or 22nd. Those four constituencies, which would benefit from the proposed line, are among the poorest.

This is about investing in people. When we use metrics in considering whether to put those 12 miles of track back in, we should look at life expectancy, which is 10 years lower there than everywhere else, and we should look at the £1 billion cost to the CCG of not investing in people and leaving deprived communities to fail. Given that the railway will last for 100 years, we should not look at the small amount of £360 million and say that there is no economic return, and effectively—as happened on Merseyside—throw these people under a bus. I am interested to hear the Minister’s reply.

[Andrew Jones (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (Con)]

It is always a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir George. As a former Transport Minister, I wish to make a few comments.

The biggest challenge facing our rail network is dealing with the growth that we are experiencing. Capacity is the biggest question. We have more services on our network now than at any point in British history, with 140,000 services per week, and we have more passengers on our network than ever before, with 1.8 billion passenger journeys per year. That is more than 1 billion more passengers carried on our railways every year since privatisation. A huge transformation has happened in our rail network.

That has been achieved without compromising safety—we have a fantastic safety record, which is obviously at the heart of the rail industry. The challenge is putting more capacity into our network to meet the demand, having turned this industry around from a declining to a succeeding sector. That will be met in a variety of ways. The first, which attracts most attention, is obviously the construction of new lines, including HS2 more than anything else. That is a controversial project for some, but I am a big supporter of it. We will also see capacity delivered via bigger and longer trains. The new rolling stock is transformative—just look at the new Azumas serving the east coast main line. We will also deliver capacity by opening new lines and reopening lines. That is at the heart of this project: reopening an important line that will connect Yorkshire and Lancashire.

I support this project. It is quite straightforward: it covers only 12 miles, there is existing trackbed, and it will connect people and jobs. The Minister will consider a variety of good reasons as he takes his work forward, but let me highlight some. First, the area already has congested roads, particularly in Colne—in fact, the M65 seems to end in Boundary Mill’s car park. The rest of Colne can also be quite congested. Improving public transport in the area would be one way to improve the quality of life in Colne.

[Julie Cooper]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that, if we are to take the Government’s commitments on the environment seriously, at the heart of it should be a commitment to enhancing public transport?

[Andrew Jones]

There is absolutely no doubt that transport is a significant contributor to the carbon in our atmosphere, which is why the Government are taking action. I agree with the hon. Lady’s basic principle, but to say that the Government are not doing anything would be wrong, because there has been record investment in public transport and in our rail network, with the control period 6 budget of £48 billion being the biggest in British history. But yes, the environmental impact of improving rail connections for the people whom this line would serve would be a real enhancement and is one reason why this is a good project.

The economic case was made by the hon. Member for Hyndburn (Graham P. Jones), and it has been made consistently by the two Members at each end of the proposed line, neither of whom can speak because they are Ministers—one of them is here. The Minister for Africa, my hon. Friend the Member for Pendle (Andrew Stephenson), is a long-standing champion of the scheme, for all the reasons we have explored in the debate. Improving his area is his top priority. At the other end of the line, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, my right hon. Friend the Member for Skipton and Ripon (Julian Smith), is also unable to speak, but I know that he is in support. However, it is not only the areas at both ends that the line would serve; transport connections would improve for communities much more widely. That would certainly be true of Burnley and the Aire valley, which would be clear beneficiaries, as would the Hyndburn area.

The trans-Pennine line is critical for the north of England’s economy, but it is congested. The Government are responding with a £2.9 billion trans-Pennine rail upgrade, but to really transform the northern economies we need to add capacity in lots of different ways. The trans-Pennine rail upgrade, Northern Powerhouse Rail and the Skipton to Colne line all have a role to play, which is why I am pleased that the Government are taking this project forward through its development phase.

As a former Transport Minister, I have met campaigners and businesses who have been strong in their support for the project. We should pay tribute to their tenacity in keeping going, because it is not always easy to get transport projects off the starting blocks in the United Kingdom, and tenacity is a key ingredient in doing so. I met haulage businesses and people seeking to move significant amounts of freight from one part of the country to another, as well as people who simply recognise that some parts of the north have more vacancies and some parts have people who need work, and that transport is required to connect the two.

I am afraid that I must gently challenge the hon. Member for Hyndburn, who said that the Government are not seeking to invest in the north. If we look at the data published by the Infrastructure and Projects Authority and covering the three-year period that we are right in the middle of, we see that the data from the national infrastructure and construction pipeline shows that the northern region has higher per capita transport spending than the midlands or the south—it is £248 per person for the north and £236 per person for the midlands and the south.

We can combine that with the fact that the biggest project currently underway on the railways other than HS2 is the transport and rail upgrade, and we can look at the fact that rolling stock in the north is being renewed for the first time in a generation. In only a few weeks’ time, the Minister will be able to say something that no Rail Minister has been able to say for a generation, which is that trains in the north are of a higher calibre than they have probably ever been, and they will be better than in any other part of our country.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

My word—I know when I am put in my place, Sir George. However, I was just making the point that my hon. Friend is one of the most mild-mannered men in this place, and he would never deliberately do anything to upset anybody.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Hyndburn (Graham P. Jones) on securing this debate on the Colne to Skipton line. He made many a point about how my Department often gets its investment decisions wrong, so I thank him for making the case against nationalisation so well.

I thank the hon. Member for Burnley (Julie Cooper) for her contribution, and I thank the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), who is no longer in his place. I also thank the hon. Member for St Helens North (Conor McGinn)—or occupied Lancashire, as I believe it is now called—and the Skipton and East Lancashire Rail Action Partnership for all the work that it has done in the area.

My hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough is a former Rail Minister. In fact, he is my immediate predecessor. I know that when I remark on his comments I am, as someone said to me just before the debate, standing on the shoulders of a giant, so I am wary and I listened to his comments assiduously. I note his ongoing strong support for the project. He is absolutely right to highlight the new and refurbished rolling stock that continues to enter the northern rail market—a demonstration of the Government’s commitment to deliver on their promises to the north of our country. He also served under the former Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling), who, as was noted by the hon. Member for Hyndburn, visited twice to see what could be done with the project in February 2018 and January 2019. I am well aware of his long-standing and continuing support for the campaign and project.

Before I get into the main part of my speech, I should mention, as the hon. Member for Keighley (John Grogan) noted that I do all the time, my right hon. Friend the Member for Skipton and Ripon (Julian Smith) and also my hon. Friend the Member for Pendle (Andrew Stephenson), who is sitting to my right. The two of them attended a symbolic ribbon cutting of the project in 2014. The hon. Member for Keighley mentioned the early-day motion tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Pendle, which many people signed. I know the shadow Chancellor signed it, but I believe he was in a position at that time of signing just about every early-day motion. His support for the project was none the less welcome. My hon. Friend the Member for Pendle mentioned the project in his maiden speech, as well as in other speeches. In research for this debate I read his contributions from the Westminster Hall debate that he secured on 26 April 2017. It is good that we have strong cross-party backing for the project.

I gently remind the hon. Member for Burnley that after years of campaigning for the Todmorden curve under a previous Labour Government, it was a Conservative-led Government who invested the cash to facilitate travel between her constituency and Manchester when the link opened in 2015.

[Julie Cooper]

The Todmorden curve railway link would never have been made had it not been for the Labour-led Burnley Council.

[Graham P. Jones]

And Hyndburn Council.

[Julie Cooper]

And Hyndburn Council. I beg your pardon.

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

I remind the hon. Lady that the MP at the time, who also campaigned, was from a different party, but that is not the point.

I share the interest of the hon. Member for Hyndburn in ensuring that the corridor between east Lancashire and Yorkshire, in which the former rail line is located, has the transport infrastructure that it needs to flourish and grow. I agree that the potential role of a reopened Skipton-Colne line needs to be considered carefully. It is the case, as he kind of made clear, that the Government are investing in transport in east Lancashire and the north more widely. As he knows, the Government are committed to creating a northern powerhouse to rebalance our economy.

Investing in and fuelling the northern economy provides a great opportunity for the north to be at the forefront of the UK’s economic success for decades to come. I am a midlands MP. I welcome investment in the north because it drives investment in the midlands, too. A national benefit would flow from that. I want to gently correct, as my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough did, the incorrect IPPR study of investment in the regions. As he correctly pointed out, the investment is £236 for the midlands, £236 for the south and £248 for the north. However, it does not matter because the investment continues to grow, with projects coming forth that really will drive economic growth. Our continuing commitment to transforming rail connectivity across the north is evidenced both by the Prime Minister’s recent announcement on Northern Powerhouse Rail and the continued development of and investment in the trans-Pennine route upgrade programme.

As the Prime Minister reminded us when he visited Rotherham a few weeks ago, the north gave the world the railway. He said:

“And yet two centuries later, in this birthplace of the railways, we can do so much better.”

When he was in Yorkshire the previous week he reaffirmed his commitment to Northern Powerhouse Rail and slightly challenged people by saying that he eagerly awaited the emergence of the plans. He also noted that there has been significant Government investment, with 2,000 additional services now operating every week, £500 million on new trains and £100 million on refurbishment of the rest of the fleet, including wi-fi and power sockets as well as the electrification of the railways in the north-west. A huge amount has gone in.

Before I turn to the Colne-Skipton line, I want to highlight the significant transport investment already under way in Lancashire and across the north to support the northern powerhouse programme. Through the growth deal process, the Government have provided the Lancashire local enterprise partnership with £8 million to support the Hyndburn Burnley/Pendle growth corridor investment, designed to maximise the benefits provided by the M65 in that corridor. Our third growth deal with the Lancashire LEP provides further funding for the M65 corridor—junctions 4 to 6—which will bring further benefit to east Lancashire and the constituents of the hon. Member for Hyndburn. It was my hon. Friend the Member for Pendle who pushed for a study of the work. He is a very busy Member of Parliament.

I am sure the hon. Member for Hyndburn is aware of the proposals for the Colne to Foulridge—or A56 villages—bypass. When consulting on its east Lancashire highways and transport master plan in the autumn of 2013, Lancashire County Council set out six possible options for the scheme. It identified two that would potentially impact on the reinstatement of the railway at a future date. I understand that Lancashire County Council has not actively developed the options any further, pending the outcome of a centrally funded Highways England study that is under way.

More widely in east Lancashire we have, through the LEP, funded improvements to the Blackburn to Bolton rail corridor, and have enabled a more frequent service to operate between Blackburn and Manchester Victoria. That is not the first improvement that we have delivered on the rail network between east Lancashire and Greater Manchester. Thanks to our regional growth fund, under the coalition we reinstated the Todmorden curve, which the hon. Member for Burnley mentioned in her intervention. As part of the Great North Rail project, we have invested in improvements across the region. That is bringing major improvements to the northern rail network, one of the largest rail networks in the country, creating better journeys for passengers, supporting trade and creating, as the hon. Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) would like, a stronger economy.

Through the Northern and TransPennine Express franchises and investment in modern trains, we are delivering a host of better, more comfortable, more frequent, faster and more direct journeys. All the Pacer trains, which were possibly once loved but have absolutely outstayed their welcome, will be replaced by a mix of brand-new trains and trains refurbished and upgraded to an as-new standard. Investment in the northern rail network includes improvements to the Calder Valley line between Manchester, Rochdale and Bradford and Leeds—the other key current rail link in the central trans-Pennine corridor—and includes line speed improvements and improved signalling, resulting in increased resilience, more capacity and improved journey times. That is good progress, but we need to go further.

For the Hyndburn constituency, our investment has meant more frequent, hourly Sunday services to Colne from May 2018 and additional funding for the East Lancashire community rail partnership. As part of Northern’s £500 million investment, passengers in the constituency of the hon. Member for Hyndburn will benefit from new trains on the York to Blackpool service via Accrington later this year.

Finally, the Department announced in March 2019 that Highways England would work with Transport for the North on a study looking at options for improving road links between the M65 and North and West Yorkshire. The output of that study will inform consideration of the case for future investment. Those are all important building blocks of the northern powerhouse.

The line from Colne to Skipton was closed in 1970. The Skipton East Lancashire Rail Action Partnership, which is possibly one of the best action groups I have come across in my short time as Rail Minister, and certainly one of the most effective—I think I had a letter from the group two days after I was announced as Minister—was established in spring 2001 to protect the former railway track bed from development so that it could, in due course, be reinstated. As I have detailed, and as my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough said, former Rail Ministers have met the partnership many times, and I join them in paying tribute to its work over the past 18 years to raise the profile of the case for reinstating the 12-mile link between east Lancashire and Yorkshire.

The hon. Member for Hyndburn will be glad to hear that the Skipton-Colne scheme is clearly referenced as a scheme in the “determine” phase of the rail enhancements pipeline published earlier this month. As my officials outlined at last week’s meeting, hosted in Westminster by the hon. Gentleman, the focus of that phase is on establishing the case for progressing the scheme. That means identifying the improved outcomes sought for passengers, freight and the wider economy, and considering a wide range of potential interventions that could deliver those benefits.

The Government assess the case for progressing schemes through a five-case business case that takes fully into account the wider strategic and social case for investment, in addition to economic, financial, commercial and managerial aspects. We remain committed to enhancing rail connectivity across the north. The ongoing work on Skipton-Colne makes a very important contribution to that, particularly on the important issue of the provision of capacity and capability for trans-Pennine freight.

The first stage of feasibility work carried out last year confirmed the engineering feasibility of reinstating a rail link between Colne and Skipton to modern railway standards. It also confirmed the strategic case for a rail link between east Lancashire, which has local authority districts that the hon. Gentleman himself described as the most economically deprived in England, and the Leeds city region, as well as for improved rail connectivity for freight between Mersey and east coast ports and inland terminals.

The hon. Gentleman will recall that during a visit to Colne earlier this year, my right hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell, the former Secretary of State for Transport, announced that he had asked for further feasibility work to be carried out, in order to challenge the cost of the scheme and to establish whether there would be sufficient freight demand, before making a decision on whether a reinstatement scheme should progress to the next stage of the rail enhancements pipeline.

I thank the hon. Member for Keighley for highlighting the towns fund, which will hopefully help towns and communities across his constituency and the north in general. He raised a couple of questions about the feasibility study. I am happy to share the December 2018 strategic outline business case with the partnership, so that it can understand the sorts of issues that we rightly have to tackle as a Government to ensure that the criteria that we have set are fulfilled, and that we can deliver projects that offer value for money and deliver the required economic outputs. Perhaps that can be the hon. Gentleman’s Christmas present. It is not quite the Christmas present that he asked for, but it is part of the way to it.

There are lots of important considerations, because there are challenges for the project. I am sure that the project can answer those challenges, but it is important to highlight them so that they are open and public, and so that people can work together to overcome them, as I believe has been the case up until this point. The first consideration was the initial finding that the economic case for reinstatement was quite poor without provision for, and extensive use of, the route for intermodal trans-Pennine container freight traffic attracted from road. We need to ensure that that can be delivered.

Before the feasibility study, there was insufficient evidence that the route would attract a sufficient volume of intermodal container traffic. There is evidence that other trans-Pennine routes, with necessary enhancement of capacity and gauge, could offer shorter journey times, and thus more efficient utilisation of rail assets—both staff and rolling stock. I am aware of the extensive work being done, and that has already been completed, by SELRAP, right hon. and hon. Members, and local businesses, as demonstrated by some of today’s speeches, to estimate what level of local freight could be expected. That work is very helpful indeed.

We must always address concerns about the high estimated capital cost of the scheme—questioned by the hon. Member for Hyndburn—which is relevant to both the economic case and the general affordability of the scheme. The first stage of the further work carried out by my Department’s technical advisers is nearing completion. It has been carried out in close collaboration with Transport for the North, Network Rail and the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport, with very helpful in-depth discussions with a number of freight customers. That work, which is continuing, suggests, first, that a high proportion of potential trans-Pennine intermodal container traffic could be carried on a low-floor wagon that requires a loading gauge that is smaller than the W12 gauge provided on a number of other trunk routes, and only marginally larger than the minimum current clearance on trans-Pennine routes.

Secondly, routing freight via Skipton-Colne is not only slower than other potential routes but engages a capacity bottleneck—as was mentioned in passing—on the eastern side of the Pennines, crossing the eastern approach to Leeds station. That is absolutely not insurmountable, but it does need to be addressed as we move forward.

Thirdly, we have confirmation that future demand for the key flows in question—Liverpool-Drax biomass and intermodal containers—is really sensitive to the end-to-end journey times that can be achieved, due to the impact on resource utilisation, so we need to work with those companies to ensure that there is a business case that works for us all.

Network Rail’s order of magnitude cost estimates are not inappropriately high, given the current state of the project’s development. However, further discussions are in progress with Transport Scotland, as the hon. Member for Hyndburn highlighted, regarding the Borders railway, as it appears that its out-turn costs were, per mile, much lower than Network Rail’s early estimates for the Skipton-Colne link. We are therefore trying to learn from what has gone on elsewhere, because we want to drive value for money.