Railways: High Speed 2

Lord Clark of Windermere Excerpts

Monday 24th March 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Kramer]

The noble Lord, Lord Deighton, has brought so much to this issue, not just his experience. The House will be aware that some years ago transport was looked at primarily in silos. It was about how to get people or freight from one place to another. It is now seen as inherently part of an economic development strategy. Local connectivity and integration with the rest of the network now have an importance that perhaps they once did not have. The noble Lord, Lord Deighton, has been very instrumental, with others, in making sure that we have those thoughts right at the forefront of the HS2 scheme.

[Lord Clark of Windermere (Lab)]

My Lords, I greatly appreciate the Statement today, but when we talk about the great cities of the north, are we including cities such as Preston or Carlisle, which almost certainly will end up with an inferior rail service to the capital in London unless we get the connectivity right, as the noble Lord, Lord Shutt, has wisely drawn our attention to? There is no sign of that at the moment. For example, in a Parliamentary Question in the past few months, I was told that there was not even a business case made for high-speed trains from Wigan, which was to be the terminal to Glasgow. I find that incredible. I am also told that the high-speed trains will not run on the high-speed line, so the tilting trains will be providing an inferior service down the conventional west coast line.

[Baroness Kramer]

I am not sure that I fully understood the noble Lord’s last point. There will be the fast, specially designed HS2 trains, but the line can also take the classic-compatibles—diesel or otherwise—that can go off to a whole variety of other connections on the west coast main line and other routes. This frees up the west coast main line, the east coast main line and the Midland main line to take a whole complexity of other services. That issue has been raised by others on the Floor today. The expectation of an enhanced service from a much greater number of cities than those absolutely directly connected to HS2 is entirely viable. We just have to make sure that it is deeply embedded in our planning.