Integrated Rail Plan: Northern Powerhouse Area

Lord Horam Excerpts

Thursday 16th December 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Horam (Con)]

My Lords, my first trans-Pennine rail journey took place when I was seven. I was living in Preston and my parents decided to send me to school in Wakefield so for the next 10 years I spent rail journeys shuttling backwards and forwards over the Pennines between Lancashire and Yorkshire. Subsequently I became the Member of Parliament for Gateshead West and got to know the east coast line. After that I was a Transport Minister in James Callaghan’s Government and got to know the whole network. More recently, this last year, I was shuttling around the Manchester conurbation on trains going to the party conference and visiting my relatives, family and friends in that area. So, I come at this from that particular committed northern point of view.

The Minister will be glad to know that I therefore strongly and warmly welcome the plan. It seems to be extremely sensible. Of course, the response was subject to the usual political grandstanding, which I fully understand—people have to make their names and the local mayors have to say what they can. But if one wants an objective view, the Institute of Civil Engineers had it just about right when it said it was

“a step in the right direction”.

I was concerned, as many have been, that the huge cost of HS2 would gradually erode the necessary funds from all across the east-west connections and the local connections which the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, spoke so eloquently about. It seems that possibility has now lessened with this recalibration of the whole programme. I was surprised by what he said about the crucial east-west line between Liverpool, Warrington, Manchester, Huddersfield, Leeds and York, because that is clearly inked in as an improvement. Bradford, which was neglected by HS2 itself, has an improvement in that the line between Leeds and Bradford is electrified and the time comes down to 12 minutes; we could hardly improve on that. All this has led to a much better scope for what we want in the east-west improvements.

The integration has been improved. It always seemed like the HS2 original plan was like a fork stuck up the middle of England without much connection with the rest of the network. All of that has been improved to the advancement of towns such as Derby and Nottingham. Finally, the whole thing has been brought forward in time. The original HS2 document planned no real improvements until 2040. Now we are promised at least 10 years earlier than that—I might live to see some of this myself for heaven’s sake—so that is a vast improvement.

The broad statement of the Institute of Civil Engineers about this being a move in the right direction is correct. But it also says that in the next 12 months there should be a detailed analysis and working out of what should happen. I hope that the Minister will commit the Government to doing that. It is essential that we now get a move on.