HS2: North of England and Scotland

Lord Clark of Windermere Excerpts

Thursday 23rd February 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

The noble Lord raises an important point about connectivity. In my initial Answer I referred to the important work that was being done by northern powerhouse rail. In that regard, let me assure him that a single strategy is being worked out with northern powerhouse rail, the DfT, Network Rail and HS2 to produce a single strategy—not shortly, but by the end of 2017. That will include all major cities in the north, including Liverpool, Manchester, Hull, Newcastle, Leeds and Sheffield to ensure greater connectivity in that regard.

[Lord Clark of Windermere (Lab)]

On what basis is the Minister saying that services from Scotland and the real north of England—shall we say Carlisle?—will actually be speedier? Is it not true that the HS2 rolling stock cannot run on conventional rails, and that the service after HS2 north of Manchester and Leeds to London will actually be slower than it is now?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

On faster services from London to Scotland—and that includes to the cities of Glasgow and Edinburgh—once the second phase of HS2 is complete, we are talking of journey times of three hours and 40 minutes. The noble Lord is right to raise the issue of infrastructure, particularly in terms of the tracks themselves running in the northern part to Scotland. We are working with northern powerhouse rail, to which I alluded earlier, and indeed Transport Scotland to see what further work can be done to reduce journey times. The aspiration, of course, is to reduce the journey time to below three hours.