Asked by: Luke Graham (Conservative - Ochil and South Perthshire)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps his Department is taking to prepare for the merger of the Scottish Division of British Transport Police with Police Scotland.
Answered by Lord Johnson of Marylebone
The two Governments have established an official level Joint Programme Board (JPB) to oversee arrangements for delivering the transfer of the British Transport Police’s functions in Scotland. Membership of the Board includes representatives from both Governments, the two Police Authorities and the two Police Forces.
The UK Government’s ambition is to see a smooth transition to the new arrangements for policing the railways, with the focus on ensuring the continued effective policing of the railways once responsibilities are split between the British Transport Police and Police Scotland, including appropriate coordination arrangements.
Whilst significant progress has been made on a number of aspects of integration, including preparing the secondary legislation which will transfer those BTP officers and staff currently responsible for policing the railways in Scotland to Police Scotland, a number of significant operational issues remain to be resolved. For this reason the Scottish Government announced in February that the planned 1 April 2019 transfer date would not be achieved. A detailed re-planning exercise is now underway to ensure robust delivery plans are in place for all of the key elements of the programme and to establish a new delivery date.
Asked by: Luke Graham (Conservative - Ochil and South Perthshire)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that Scotland benefits fully from the High Speed Two project.
Answered by Nusrat Ghani
Scotland stands to benefit substantially from HS2. When Phase One opens in 2026, services will run directly between London and Glasgow, bringing the journey time below 4 hours. When the full HS2 network opens in 2033, journeys between London and Glasgow and Edinburgh will be 3 hr 40 min. The Department for Transport estimates HS2 will deliver around £5bn of benefits to the Scottish economy.
Asked by: Luke Graham (Conservative - Ochil and South Perthshire)
Question to the Department for Transport:
What assessment he has made of the potential benefits of High Speed Two for the Midlands and the north.
Answered by Nusrat Ghani
HS2 will help transform the UK economy, directly creating 25,000 new jobs - 70 percent of which will be outside of London. It will directly link 8 of the UK’s 10 largest cities and provide a step change in the country’s railway capacity. The Government regularly assesses the benefits of HS2 through the economic and strategic business cases.
Asked by: Luke Graham (Conservative - Ochil and South Perthshire)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether he has received an application to the Access for All programme for funding for platform nine at Stirling station; and if he will meet the hon. Member for Ochil and South Perthshire the effect of lack of accessibility at that station on residents of Ochil and South Perthshire constituency.
Answered by Paul Maynard
Stirling station was included in the original Access for All programme but no solution to provide access to every platform could be found. The funding was therefore reallocated to other stations in Scotland. We are seeking new money to extend Access for All beyond 2019. If this is successful we will be asking the industry for new station nominations next year.