High Speed Rail (West Midlands–Crewe) Bill

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 9th September 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, I put my name down for this debate, but withdrew it when I feared that I would have to leave before it ended. I am happy to take less time than intended, and so hope that I may be allowed to speak in the gap, in order to give a West Yorkshire—and, in particular, a Bradford—perspective on the way in which phases 2a and 2b fit in with the northern network, which we need for modernisation.

The transformation of the northern economy is what we are talking about once we start moving HS2 north of Birmingham. The eastern leg is as important as the western leg, linking Birmingham with Manchester and Liverpool, and then the second leg, linking those cities with Sheffield and linking Sheffield to Leeds. That then forms a triangle in which the new lines that Transport for the North are talking about, between Liverpool and Manchester and between Manchester and Leeds, also provide the fast links between the northern cities as far as Newcastle and Hull, which we also desperately need.

This is a matter of capacity. I was talking to someone from Transport for the North last week, who told me that we can get freight by rail between the Humber and the Mersey, provided that we do not mind the freight trains going via Daventry, because we lack the capacity and the tunnel space across the Pennines. That is part of the case for a new line, and for modernising the existing lines across the Pennines. I speak particularly from a Bradford perspective in saying that the transformative effects of a Manchester to Leeds line which went through Bradford city centre would be transformative for the whole area. The current value-for-money analysis does not begin to take that into effect. We need all of these lines, and this means a higher level of public investment in infrastructure for the north of England, after decades in which rail investment has been in the south of England.

I speak as someone who has travelled between Leeds and Manchester, and between the north and the south, for more than 50 years. I have seen how little impact any new investment has made there. We need phase 2a, phase 2b and HS3, and we need the Government to move on them all as fast as possible. This is how we begin to transform the economy of the north of England, by linking Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield, Newcastle and Hull so that it is easy to move between them, and so that the potential dynamic of these cities can be developed together. Successive Governments—including Labour Governments—have failed to deal with this over the last 30 or 40 years. Now is the time to have faith. Therefore, I strongly support this Bill.