High Speed 2

Debate between Richard Holden and Louise Haigh

Monday 18th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[Louise Haigh (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will make a statement on the planned route and delivery of High Speed Rail 2.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Mr Richard Holden)]

Before I begin, I would like to pay tribute to my hon. Friend and neighbour the Member for Bishop Auckland (Dehenna Davison) for her service in government, and to congratulate my hon. Friends the Members for Redcar (Jacob Young) and for South West Hertfordshire (Mr Mohindra) on their elevation.

Spades are already in the ground for HS2 and we remain focused on its delivery. The Minister for rail and HS2, the Minister of State, Department for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman), is in the Czech Republic today to sign a memorandum of understanding with the Czech Government and tomorrow he will be in Poland to attend TRAKO, supporting UK rail supply chain companies at a major European rail trade fair. For that reason, I am responding on behalf of the Government. Construction continues in earnest, with about 350 active construction sites, and we are getting on with delivery, with high-speed rail services between London and Birmingham Curzon Street due to commence in 2033, with the re-scoped stages following. This will specifically drive the regeneration of 1,600 acres, delivering 40,000 homes and supporting 65,000 jobs in outer London. The benefits of HS2 for Birmingham are already being realised; the area around Curzon Street station is already becoming a focal point for transformation, development and economic growth. The Government provide regular six-monthly reports on HS2 to the House, and we will continue to keep the House updated on the project.

[Louise Haigh]

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker, for granting the urgent question, but if the rail Minister is not available, you would think that the Secretary of State would be bothered to turn up to the House on an issue of this importance.

Here we are yet again: 13 years of gross mismanagement and chaos coming home to roost. First, the Government slashed Northern Powerhouse Rail; then they binned HS2 to Leeds; then they announced that the line would terminate at Old Oak Common for years to come; and now it looks as though they are considering cutting the north of England out in its entirety. If that is true, what are we left with? We are left with the Tories’ flagship levelling-up project that reaches neither the north of England, nor central London: the most expensive railway track in the world, which, thanks to terminating in Acton, will mean a longer journey between Birmingham and central London than the one passengers currently enjoy. What started out as a modern infrastructure plan, left by the last Labour Government, linking our largest northern cities will, after 13 years of Tory incompetence, waste and broken promises, have turned into a humiliating Conservative failure; a great rail betrayal—£45 billion and the least possible economic impact from the original plan, £45 billion and the north left with nothing. But frankly, what else would we expect from a Prime Minister who does not travel through the north of England on rail? He only ever flies over it. Today, communities and businesses do not need yet more speculation and rumour from the heart of this broken Government—they need answers.

Will the Minister urgently explain if the photograph leaked last Friday reflects his Government’s position to slash phase 2 altogether? Will he confirm the commitment his boss made in this House just a few months ago that high-speed trains will reach Manchester by 2014? Are his Government planning for trains to terminate at Old Oak Common for good, detonating the business case and overwhelming the Elizabeth line? Having run our economy, our public services and our railways into the ground, will the country not now conclude that this is proof, once and for all, that the Tories can never be trusted to run our country again?

[Mr Holden]

In response to the hon. Lady’s question, the Secretary of State is on urgent ministerial business with other Government Departments.

At the Department for Transport, we were delighted to see the hon. Lady survive the recent shadow Cabinet reshuffle, albeit she appears to be shadow Secretary of State for Transport in name only, as that job now appears to be covered by the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton South East (Mr McFadden). Even the Liberal Democrats caught the hon. Lady napping this morning by putting in their urgent question request before she did.

Only yesterday, the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton South East said on “Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg”:

“I want to see what this costs and we’ll make those decisions when it comes to the manifesto.”

That came only two days after a leaked Labour party policy document said that the Opposition are committed to

“deliver Northern Powerhouse Rail and High Speed 2 in full”.

There was no mention of how they will pay for that combined £140 billion spending commitment—same old Labour. While the shadow Chancellor tries to talk up Labour’s “ironclad discipline”, the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Louise Haigh) goes around the country, promising hundreds of billions of pounds of unfunded spending on rail alone.

We cannot trust a word they say on transport spending, immigration or housing. All have unravelled over the last week, as the Labour party says one thing and does another: on immigration, an open door for Europe’s illegal immigration; on housing, backing the blockers not the builders. [Interruption.] This House will remember the report by the Institute for Fiscal Studies back in May—

Buses: Funding

Debate between Richard Holden and Louise Haigh

Wednesday 17th May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Louise Haigh (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I thank the Minister for advance sight of his statement.

Our bus services are in crisis. Bus users across the country listening to the statement today—waiting for a bus that never turns up and robbed of a service they depend on—will be wondering, frankly, whether the Minister is oblivious or in denial, and whether he understands the scale of the Government’s failure, even on their own terms. His party made promises that voters were entitled to think would be kept.

Two years ago, in the middle of the pandemic and when its effects were well known, the Conservatives launched their bus back better strategy. With great fanfare, they pledged a great bus service for everyone, everywhere. They promised it would be one of the great acts of levelling up. They pledged buses so frequent that people would not need a timetable. They said the Government would

“not only stop the decline”—

in bus services, but

“reverse it”.—[Official Report, 15 March 2021; Vol. 691, c. 50.]

Those promises made long after the effects of Covid were clear, and what has happened since? Last year, services fell by the second fastest level on record. Today, there are fewer buses on the road than at any time on record. Of the 4,000 zero-emission buses the Minister’s party promised, just six are on the road. Can that really be what the Prime Minister means by “delivery, delivery, delivery”? For bus passengers across the country, it sounds like “failure, failure, failure.” They are counting the cost of a party that simply has not kept its word and of 13 years of Conservative failure. In that time, 7,000 bus services have been axed. Those services were indispensable for connecting people to jobs, opportunities, friends and family. These lost connections have held back our economic growth, worsened our community life, and deepened our productivity problem. The Government promised transformation, but they have delivered a spiral of managed decline. Today’s announcement does nothing to stop that.

The funding announced to “support services” until 2025 is actually a significant cut—23% less than previous rounds of recovery funding and far short of what the operators have said is needed simply to maintain services. The consequence—whether or not the Minister will admit it—will be hundreds more services on the scrap heap. Even on the Government’s own terms, that is yet another extraordinary failure.

The Minister cannot hide from the reality with which so many people are living day to day. A woman in Hampshire told me she has to leave home three hours early for her hospital appointments to ensure she is there on time. There are students in Stoke who do not go into their town centre any more, because the bus back finishes at 7 pm. There are kids in Burnley who no longer have a school bus. What does the Minister have to say to them? Does he think their situation is acceptable after 13 years of Conservative Government? What hope does he have to offer them? This announcement shows that he is content simply to tinker around the edges of the broken bus system, to leave intact a system that gives local people no say whatsoever over the services they depend on, and to leave this country as one of the only in the developed world that hands operators unchecked power to slash routes and raise fares, with the people those decisions affect cut out altogether.

For years, communities have demanded that we fix the situation, and Labour will. Our plans will put communities firmly back in control of the public transport they depend upon. We will give every community the power to take control over routes, fares and services, and we will lower the unnecessary legislative hurdles that the Tories have put in their way. We will back the evidence showing that areas with local control and public ownership deliver greater efficiency, increased passengers and better services. Bold reform is needed, and 13 years into this Conservative Government, bus services are locked in a spiral of decline that communities are powerless to stop.

Today’s announcement shows that the Conservatives’ answer to this failing status quo is more of the same. After more than a decade of broken promises, the public will once again rightly conclude that the Conservatives cannot fix the problem, because the Conservatives are the problem.

[Mr Holden]

It was delightful to hear the shadow Secretary of State’s prepared attack lines, because I do not think she actually listened to the statement. We are exceeding the bus back better commitment by £500 million. I note that the hon. Lady did not mention the fact that Sheffield city region is getting £3.15 million today—[Interruption.] If the hon. Lady would let me speak, rather than shout at me from a sedentary position, she might actually learn something. Stoke, which she mentioned, has already had £31.6 million in BSIP funding. Hampshire, which she also mentioned, is also getting £3.6 million today.

The hon. Lady talked about her plan for the devolution of powers, but we have already done that. She does not seem to be paying any attention to what is happening in her own area of South Yorkshire, which has received £570 million. Greater Manchester is receiving over £1 billion over five years. That was never delivered by Labour in government, but delivered by this Conservative party right across the country. There are sustainable transport schemes and city region sustainable transport settlements—all delivered with money from this Government—[Interruption.] She shouts that this is about Labour Mayors, but we have done deals with Conservative Mayors and Labour Mayors. I do not care about party politics; I want to deliver for bus users right across this country.

That is different from the ideological approach taken by the hon. Lady, who seems to think that if everything was under total state control, everything would be better. We know from the past that that is not true. We want to deliver for people up and down the country. That is why we are extending the £2 bus fare, delivering for people on the lowest incomes right across the country. I know that the hon. Lady is in the pocket of the train drivers’ unions, but I suggest that she stand up for working people right across the country, the majority of whom use bus services.

Today, we are delivering £500 million of extra support and for an extra two years, not only for the cost of living, but for bus services right across the country. I think the hon. Lady would do well to follow our example and think of the long term, rather than ideological and political attacks.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Richard Holden and Louise Haigh

Thursday 20th April 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Let us go to the shadow Secretary of State.

[Louise Haigh (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Sometimes you just have to admire the brass neck of the Conservative party. As Chancellor, the Prime Minister personally slashed the pothole budget by £400 million, which is enough to fill 8 million potholes. Lined up side by side, that giant Tory pothole would stretch from here to John O’Groats and back again. Will the Minister accept that after 13 years, the British public see that our roads, like the Tories’ excuses, are full of holes?

[Mr Holden]

The hon. Lady heard me have a go at the Lib Dems, because Tory councils have filled twice as many potholes. You will be surprised to learn, Mr Speaker, that Conservative councils have filled three times as many potholes as Labour councils, and with an extra £5 billion going in over the next five years, and an extra £200 million this year, I hope the hon. Lady will welcome the Government’s investment in potholes.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Richard Holden and Louise Haigh

Thursday 19th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Louise Haigh (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab)]

In March 2021, in the middle of the pandemic, the previous Secretary of State promised buses so frequent that people would not need a timetable and said that the Government would

“not only stop the decline”—

in bus services, but—

“reverse it”. —[Official Report, 15 March 2021; Vol. 691, c. 50.]

Since then, have bus services increased or decreased?

[Mr Holden]

The pandemic had a major impact on many bus services across the country. As the hon. Lady will well know, that included a huge fall in the number of concessionary fare users and, as people were having to work from home or were not able to go into the office, in the number of paid fare users. We have put in more than £2 billion in support for the bus network since the start of the pandemic in order to support services.

[Louise Haigh]

I repeat that that promise was made in the middle of the pandemic. Only once before on record, also under a Conservative Government, have bus numbers fallen by as much as they did last year. So instead of continuing to defend this broken bus system, will the Minister extend franchising powers nationwide, remove the hurdles that operators use to block reform and finally put power and control over routes and fares into the hands of the communities who depend on them?

[Mr Holden]

The hon. Lady will be aware that the BSIPs and the devolution deals allow franchising powers to go forward, and Labour Mayors, if they want them, can apply for them. If she wants all of this across the country, she should speak to some of her Labour colleagues in order to do that. Some are doing franchising, but a lot are taking the other alternatives and working in close partnerships. As for the new buses across the country, perhaps she could welcome the extra money going into the north-east today—the 52 extra electric buses in the north-east depot. Perhaps she could welcome the news of that extra funding today.