Stoke-Leek Line: Reopening

Maggie Throup Excerpts

Tuesday 20th July 2021 Westminster Hall

[The Lord Commissioner of Her Majesty’s Treasury (Maggie Throup)]

To begin, I would like to pass on the apologies of the Minister of State, Department for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris), who had planned to attend this debate. He is self-isolating after being pinged by the NHS Test and Trace app and asked me to stand in. I am delighted to have been asked to respond, and it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Paisley.

I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire Moorlands (Karen Bradley) on securing this debate on the proposals for reopening the Stoke-Leek line—or, as she said, the Leek-Stoke line. I thank all Members who contributed. My right hon. Friend is a committed advocate of this scheme, alongside my hon. Friends the Members for Stoke-on-Trent South (Jack Brereton), for Stoke-on-Trent North (Jonathan Gullis) and for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Jo Gideon), who have spoken passionately with one voice in today’s debate. Their collective campaigning to reinstate the Stoke-Leek line is second to none. I am sure the description that my right hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire Moorlands gave of her constituency will definitely have put it at the top of the tourist map for those who are listening to the debate. I also pay tribute to all right hon. and hon. Members who have sponsored applications to restore rail lines and stations in their own constituencies. I know just how much these schemes mean for local communities. Those Members are great advocates for the restoration of their railways.

This Government are committed to levelling up the country, and a strong, effective railway is central to that ambition. As part of that levelling-up agenda, in January 2020 the Government pledged £500 million for the Restoring Your Railways programme to deliver on our manifesto commitment to start reopening lines and stations. This investment will reconnect smaller communities, regenerate local economies and improve access to jobs, homes and education. The Beeching report led to the closure of one third of our railway network—2,363 stations and 5,000 miles of track were identified for closure. Many places that lost their railway connection have simply never recovered. For the towns and villages left isolated and forgotten by the Beeching cuts, restoring a railway line or station has the potential to revitalise the community. It breathes new life into our high streets, drives investment in businesses and housing and opens new opportunities for work and education. Ilkeston station, in my constituency, which reopened in 2017 after more than 50 years of closure, is a proven example of this positive impact.

[Karen Bradley]

I am very much enjoying what the Minister has to say. I add my congratulations on the reopening of Ilkeston station, which I remember her predecessor, the great Jessica Lee, campaigned so hard for.

[Maggie Throup]

It was a long-fought battle, like that which my right hon. and hon. Friends in the room are fighting.

More broadly, investing in transport links is essential to levelling up access to opportunities across the whole country, ensuring that our regions are better connected, local economies flourish and more than half a century of isolation is undone. By building back with a real focus on better connections and supporting left-behind communities, we are delivering our promise to level up this country, as set out last week by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister.

The Restoring Your Railways Fund has three parts, with part of the £500 million fund allocated to the ideas fund. Aimed at early-stage proposals, the ideas fund is helping communities to develop ideas to restore railway lines and stations across England and Wales. These proposals are led by the affected communities, supported by their local Member or Members of this House, giving them an opportunity to make the case for how the railway can transform their area. The Department is funding 75% of the study costs of successful proposals, up to a maximum of £50,000. Over the first two rounds of the ideas fund, 25 promising schemes across England and Wales have been awarded up to £50,000 in development funding to help them get to the strategic outline business case stage.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire Moorlands has taken advantage of this opportunity and submitted a proposal to restore rail services between Stoke and Leek—or between Leek and Stoke—to the first round of the ideas fund in spring 2020. While the bid had the potential to deliver benefits, it was not successful at that time, and the rail Minister wrote to the right hon. and hon. Members who sponsored the bid to inform them of the outcome. Feedback on the bid was provided at the same time, setting out why it had not quite made it in that round of funding and what could be done to further strengthen the proposals. I know that the rail Minister was therefore pleased that earlier this year—I think it was on 5 March, the deadline for applications for the third and final round of the fund—one of the more than 85 bids that the Department for Transport received was a revised proposal for the Stoke-Leek line.

As my right hon. Friend explained, the proposal details the many benefits that restoring the Stoke-Leek line would bring to the area—she was so graphic earlier about all the benefits—including providing residents of Leek with direct access to education and employment opportunities in Stoke-on-Trent and the opening up of Staffordshire Moorlands to the tourist trade. The assessment process for those bids is currently under way. The Department expects to announce outcomes over the summer. Decisions on bids are made by an expert panel, which the rail Minister chairs. It is informed by analysis from the Department for Transport, technical advisers and Network Rail. The standard of the applications is, as ever, very high.

In nearby Meir, in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent South, a proposal to reopen the railway station has already been successful in the ideas fund. This scheme used the funding awarded to create a strategic outline business case, which the Department will be considering soon. If delivered, the scheme would reconnect the people of Meir to the rail network for the first time since 1966, giving them access to new educational and economic opportunities, making new housing developments in certain areas viable and levelling up a region that suffers from poor productivity relative to the rest of the UK.

Advance proposals for the second part of the £500 million Restoring Your Railways Fund are being used to accelerate the development of closed lines and stations that are already being considered for restoration and have existing business cases. As a result, certain reopened railways will be connecting commuters again very soon, with regular passenger services set to be restored for the first time in almost 50 years by the end of 2021. The third strand of the Restoring Your Railways funding has been used to provide £32 million for a third round of the new stations fund, which is funding six new stations and providing development funding for a further two stations.

This country has a rich railway history, which puts it on the world stage, with its Victorian pioneers, its commitment to innovation and its engineering achievements. Thanks to record levels of funding, which will help us to build back better as we recover from the pandemic, we will also deliver the biggest modernisation programme to the railways for more than a century.

Of course, new rail lines are not the only way to reconnect our communities. Last week, the Prime Minister announced a £4.2 billion city region sustainable transport fund, which local leaders can spend on projects, such as new tram lines or bike lanes. The west midlands will receive a share of this fund, providing further opportunity for the constituents of my right hon. and hon. Friends to benefit from improved transport infrastructure.

[Jonathan Gullis]

In Staffordshire, we are just on the edge of the West Midlands Combined Authority. Mayor Street does a fantastic job of delivering public transport, but I want to make sure that any money does not come at the detriment of areas, such as Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire Moorlands, that are not part of combined authority areas.

[Maggie Throup]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. He has put that on record, and I am sure it will be listened to and noted.

Additionally, Stoke-on-Trent has been awarded £34.5 million from the Transforming Cities Fund towards improvements at Stoke-on-Trent and Longton rail stations, new cycling and walking schemes, installation of electric charge points and upgrades to the city centre bus station. The local growth deal is also investing £121 million of transport infrastructure in Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire, including constructing new highway infrastructure to improve access to business and employment sites around Stoke-on-Trent, new access to the Etruria Valley enterprise area and the new Stafford western access route, which will provide an alternative route to the town centre this year. All this investment will improve transport connections for Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire, helping residents access new opportunities.

I conclude by thanking my right hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire Moorlands for securing this debate and thanking my right hon. and hon. Friends who represent the area for all their thoughtful contributions. I can reassure the House that there is a tremendous amount of work being done in this area to reconnect smaller communities, regenerate local economies and improve access to jobs, homes and education. I will make it my personal commitment to ensure that the rail Minister is fully updated on the compelling case for the Stoke-Leek Leek-Stoke line, which I have heard loud and clear this afternoon.