Govia Thameslink

Lord Clark of Windermere Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sugg]

My Lords, my noble friend never fails to disappoint me by raising HS2 in rail questions. The Government remain firmly committed to HS2. One of the reasons for the introduction of the new timetable was to ensure that we have more capacity, since passenger demand has doubled in recent years. HS2 will help deliver that much-needed capacity.

[Lord Clark of Windermere (Lab)]

My Lords, yesterday the Secretary of State tried to reassure the people of the north that the trans-Pennine electrification schemes would go ahead. Does that apply to all the electrification schemes in the north, such as the Lakes Line, which was refused recently? On the subject of the Lakes Line, will the Government look seriously at the way in which Northern Rail stopped running trains on a whole railway line, with no trains at all for four weeks, and is now only running half the trains? The Government seem to be endorsing this as a great success.

[Baroness Sugg]

My Lords, I certainly would not call that a great success. I am pleased that it started the restoration of the service yesterday, albeit a lesser service, helped by replacement buses. Trans-Pennine is our biggest planned investment project on the existing railway and is due to start next spring. It will be a rolling programme of enhancements, including both major civil engineering and electrification. On the Lakes Line in particular, we want to deliver additional direct services between Windermere and Manchester. These will first be delivered using a bi-mode train, adapted from a former electric-only train. Subject to the business case, there will also be brand new trains on the route with more seats and better on-board facilities. I know that Northern is exploring the possibility of introducing an alternatively fuelled train on the route.