Transport Connectivity: North-west England

Sarah Russell Excerpts

Wednesday 19th March 2025 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Sarah Russell (Congleton) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Murrison.

In my constituency, we have had a large amount of housing growth in the last few years, and we expect to have much more. My constituents are not nimbys; they absolutely recognise that it is a huge problem that young people cannot afford to leave home in our area. It is also a huge problem that there is an absolute shortage of care workers in my area alongside an older population, and that we do not have sufficient nurses and teachers. We need key worker housing, but we also need the infrastructure to go with it.

Transport is primarily about roads in my local area, which consists of a series of small towns and villages that people drive between as much as they can. I live in my constituency, so I despair of the potholes in exactly the same way that my constituents do. Our roads are dark and dangerous, and far too many of our young people are dying on them completely needlessly. The A500 is a complete mess. The A34 is the major road to Manchester and lots of people commute on it, but it is single-lane, unlit and frequently flooded. It is completely dangerous; indeed, it is a disaster. I could carry on ad infinitum—I could list so many roads—but the only other one that I will mention specifically is the Middlewich bypass, which would unlock major employment opportunities. We need the Government to fund work on it.

When I talk to young people in my area or to older people who cannot drive, the major mode of transport they talk about is buses. For example, I had the pleasure of talking to Shipton explorer scouts about their experience of trying to use buses in our local area. They told me about buses being so full that the drivers simply drive past them on the way to school and will not pick them up. There are not enough services and, as I say, they simply do not stop.

If someone tries to take a bus from Alsager to Royal Stoke university hospital or Leighton hospital, for example, it will take them nearly an hour, despite the distance being only 9 miles. If someone tries to take what might be one of the most important journeys they are ever going to make, for example from Holmes Chapel to one of our local hospices, it will also take them a really long time. Similarly, there is no direct bus from Congleton, a town of 30,000 people, to Macclesfield district general hospital, which is our nearest major general hospital. Bus services are fundamental services. We want to invest in the NHS, and it is vital that we do so, but there is no point in us creating additional appointments if people simply cannot get to them.

And don’t get me started on trains in my constituency. They are unbelievably unreliable. There have been no Sunday services for literally years: Congleton’s last train from Manchester is at about 9 o’clock on a Saturday night. I reiterate: this is a town with 30,000 people. Sandbach, a town of 20,000 people, has no accessible route across the platform, so people with disabilities, with buggies or with luggage—it is a route to Manchester airport—simply cannot get there and have to go backwards to Crewe to make the journey to Manchester. It is absolutely crackers.

I could talk about that in more detail, but I really want to talk about the fact that the decisions about transport investment have historically been incredibly short-sighted. I reiterate the comment of my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Cheshire (Andrew Cooper): we would have had £66 billion more in the last decade alone if we had had the same per person investment as London. I do not want to take money away from London. I want us to have a thriving capital, but I want my constituents to be able to get there. I also want them not to have to get there—to have opportunities in my constituency and in the wider north-west in the first place, and to be able to access them.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jerome Mayhew (Broadland and Fakenham) (Con)]

It is lovely to see you in the Chair, Dr Murrison. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Leigh and Atherton (Jo Platt) for securing the debate, and congratulate all hon. Members, who have put very forceful cases for transport in the north-west. Their combined contributions have demonstrated that there are many shared problems in the region.

I do not have time to mention every hon. Member who has contributed, so I will limit myself to commenting on the contribution of the hon. Member for Leigh and Atherton, who highlighted that her constituency, like I suspect many others in the area, is a post-industrial commuter belt that is struggling to cope with the consequential increase in traffic. Because of the over-reliance on cars, the society suffers from high transport-related social exclusion. There are a number of issues, but I will try to mash them together into three headlines.

Let us start with the positive news, which is the welcome devolution of transport policy. It was implemented by Andy Burnham, the Mayor of Greater Manchester, but it was of course a Conservative policy that was brought in in 2017, so while we welcome it, we should share the plaudits. I welcome the success of the Bee network, but we have to recognise that it was expensive—there was £1 billion of Government support.

That raises a big issue, because as well as that £1 billion, Bee is supported by considerably north of £130 million a year from central funds, by my calculations. Its parent, as it were—Transport for London—receives in excess of £1 billion a year. There is therefore a fundamental question here for the Minister. The Bus Services (No. 2) Bill is going through the House of Lords, and I have with me the consultation on Great British Railways and “A railway fit for Britain’s future”. If this is the model for the future, can the Minister shed some light on where the increased funding will come from? It is a good development—it was Conservative policy—but where it is expanded beyond the large mayoral combined authorities to other combined authorities, there will inevitably be an associated cost.

The second related issue is the potential conflict when regional policy butts up against national policy, when a strong regional mayor rightly wants control over a combined transport policy, whether that is buses, rail or road. We potentially have a directing mind under Great British Railways—intended to be one of its key benefits—coming up against Andy Burnham, for example. The consultation paper refers to that, but has no detail on how those potential conflicts will be resolved and who will be the final arbiter. Perhaps the Minister will take the opportunity to respond on that.

Many hon. Members called for the reintroduction of the northern HS2 extension, focusing not on speed, but on capacity. We have to recognise that, again, it comes back to money. The cancellation of the northern part of HS2 redirected £19.8 billion to other transport projects for the region. This is not a comprehensive list, but it gives a flavour: £2 billion for the new station at Bradford and a new connection to Manchester; £3 billion for upgraded and electrified lines from Manchester to Sheffield, Sheffield to Leeds, Sheffield to Hull and Hull to Leeds; about £4 billion of additional transport funding for the six city regions; £2.5 billion of additional funding for outside the city regions; and £3.3 billion for road improvements, albeit largely filling potholes.

[Mrs Russell]

I understand that in that announcement there was £180 million for Cheshire East council, but council leaders were told it would be weighted towards the back end of the seven years. They feel strongly that it was made-up money that was always predicated on borrowing, and that there was never any real intention to give that money to the north-west.

[Jerome Mayhew]

Their concerns were wrong. I had a minor position in the Treasury at the time, and I can assure the hon. Lady that that was genuine redirection of funds, albeit over a period, as one would expect, with the release of funds associated with the development of HS2 in the northern sector.

To conclude the list, we had £3.3 billion for road improvements and an additional £11.5 billion for Northern Powerhouse Rail from Manchester to Liverpool. The question that is easy to miss in opposition but impossible to avoid in government is this: where do the Government want money to be spent? That money could be used for those widespread improvements or be rediverted to a northern branch of a version of HS2, but it is impossible to spend the same money twice. If the Minister wants to do both, where is the money going to come from?

Finally, many hon. Members referred to the seeming disconnect between investment decisions in London and the south-east and elsewhere in the country, the north-west in particular. The hon. Member for Leigh and Atherton used a good phrase:

“Growth goes where the growth already is.”

The previous Government at least took the first step in tackling an injustice in the Green Book analysis. That was undertaken to unlock some of the levelling-up investment that the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) referred to. I am concerned that the new Government—certainly the new Treasury—are reverting to type. When the Chancellor of the Exchequer had her growth panic a few weeks ago—

Road Safety: Young Drivers

Sarah Russell Excerpts

Tuesday 28th January 2025 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Sarah Russell (Congleton) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury (Julia Buckley) for securing this debate.

In the words of my constituents Mark and Mandy Ogden, whose daughter Georgia died on 26 June 2020:

“The last thing we want is to parade our grief, but we need people to understand the devastation these road deaths cause.”

Georgia, known as Gee to her family, was 17. She had been out for the evening and was in a car with another teenage passenger, driven by a third teenage girl. They were all wearing their seatbelts. Mandy talks about the pain of four years now without hearing Gee’s voice, her cute laugh, her silliness and random outbursts of singing, her tantrums over something and nothing, her sassiness, her incredible dancing and performing. She speaks of a gaping hole at the loss of her daughter and of the loneliness and emptiness that she has left. It is indescribable. Mandy told me of the knock at the door and the immediate realisation of what had happened, and that the day that Gee was killed will haunt her for the rest of her days.

Sadly, there are several tributes on A roads around my constituency to other young people who have been killed in surprisingly similar circumstances. Roads in our area are dark, fast and dangerous. We cannot change the entire rural road network, certainly not in the short term, but we can change the law. Mark and Mandy are now part of Forget-me-not Families Uniting, the campaign group alluded to by previous speakers, which is calling on us to save young lives through the introduction of graduated driving licensing and through the creation of an expert panel to advise the Government on how graduated driving licensing in the UK should look.

The Department for Transport’s 2019 road safety statement noted there is evidence that graduated driving licensing schemes, where they have been introduced elsewhere, have proved very effective at improving the safety of young drivers. For example in California, where drivers aged under 18 cannot take passengers under 20 unless supervised, and in New Zealand where young and newly qualified drivers go on to a restricted licence, which means—

[Sir Desmond Swayne (in the Chair)]

Order. I call Jim Shannon.

--- Later in debate ---

[Greg Smith (Mid Buckinghamshire) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Desmond. I congratulate the hon. Member for Shrewsbury (Julia Buckley) on bringing this important debate to Westminster Hall this morning. I thank all those who have contributed with powerful speeches. My heart goes out to any family who have lost a child or relative in a road accident. Every single death is a tragedy that should spur us on to do more to prevent future deaths and injuries, and make our roads safer. I cannot imagine the pain of any family getting the knock on the door from a police officer, or however the news is broken to them, to tell them that a child has died on our roads, as in this case, or under any other circumstances.

We must always look at practical measures to improve road safety through the lens of “To drive is freedom”. To drive brings opportunity. For many—I include myself in this—to drive brings pleasure. Our challenge is: what will protect those freedoms, opportunities and pleasures in a safer way?

[Mrs Russell]

Mandy Ogden said to me:

“Often, the main argument against this change to driver licensing is that it restricts freedom, but our daughter’s freedom has been taken away forever.”

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that that, too, is an important point?

[Greg Smith]

In a few moments, I will come on to the measures that I think would protect the freedom to drive far better, as well as the safety of those who do so. There will perhaps not be agreement with every single point that hon. Members have made in the debate, but I repeat the point. Central to how I would like to look at this issue is not how we can restrict people more, but how we can make people safer in the first place by ensuring that they have the skills required to drive safely, be it in our cities and towns, on our rural roads and motorways, or indeed abroad, where often the rules can be very different. We all know the example of the German autobahns, many of which have no speed limit. It is vital to equip any British citizen going to Germany with the ability to handle a car at very great speed and be safe on those roads.

The challenge before us is how to make everybody—young people, for sure, but also old people, for whom the statistics are just as stark, as the hon. Member for Shipley (Anna Dixon) mentioned—safer and able to handle a vehicle in all conditions on our roads.

Crewe Railway Station

Sarah Russell Excerpts

Monday 20th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Connor Naismith]

My hon. Friend makes a really important point. That is why it is crucial that those of us who are impacted by HS2 and the discussion around improved future rail infrastructure work together to get the best possible alternative plan on the table and being looked at.

I will make some progress. Within my constituency, Crewe station has strong ties to engineering and advanced manufacturing firms such Bentley and Alstom in Crewe. In the surrounding regions, many businesses exist because of the opportunities that Crewe railway station provides, enabling supply chains and employment opportunities that would otherwise be out of reach and ensuring the growth of local businesses.

Crewe railway station serves as a vital node along the west coast main line, which connects London to the midlands, the north-west and Scotland. Approximately 75% of all freight trains that use the west coast main line pass through Crewe. Again, that is testament to the paramount nature of the station.

However, while I speak openly about the amazing things that Crewe station offers to transport connectivity and our economy across the country, it is clear to both residents and experts that it faces significant challenges. The catchment area around Crewe station is seeing rapid growth because of its connectivity to major economic centres in the UK.

[Mrs Sarah Russell (Congleton) (Lab)]

My constituents in Alsager, Holmes Chapel, Sandbach and the surrounding villages either drive directly to Crewe or take trains and transfer there. Does my hon. Friend agree that my constituents, like his, want more reliable journeys through an improved station and, moreover, that better transport links could bring economic growth for passengers and others?

[Connor Naismith]

My hon. Friend is quite correct, and do not let anybody tell hon. Members that I secured the debate on narrow constituency interests. The fact that Crewe is such a central hub for connectivity means that better connections from Crewe station mean better connections for people living in Sandbach, Holmes Chapel, Alsager and others, since they are largely travelling via Crewe for major journeys. [Interruption.] Indeed, Newcastle-under-Lyme as well.

The challenges in terms of Crewe station are significant. We see growth in population due to the station’s links to those major economic centres. Its platforms are too few and too narrow to cope with projected future demand. On top of that, the entrances have limited space, and there are often leaks in the roofs, which do not cover entire platforms. Indeed, we saw an example of that on social media just before Christmas when one of the roofs caved in and there was water pouring through the ceiling, which the staff had to collect in buckets. Crewe rightly boasts of its position as a rail hub, but the condition of the station is ill befitting as a front door to a town with such a rich rail heritage.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Lilian Greenwood)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Connor Naismith) on securing this debate. I thank him for continuing to raise the importance of Crewe as a railway station. He never needs to apologise for his advocacy. He is right that Crewe is and will remain a vital component of the rail network. After all, it was the opening of the railway station in 1837 that led Crewe to develop from a small settlement to the proud railway town that it is today.

My hon. Friend is clearly not alone today in recognising the importance of Crewe railway station. I welcome contributions from a range of hon. Members, including my hon. Friends the Members for Mid Cheshire (Andrew Cooper), for Congleton (Mrs Russell), for Stoke-on-Trent South (Dr Gardner), for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Adam Jogee) and for North Warwickshire and Bedworth (Rachel Taylor) and the hon. Member for Chester South and Eddisbury (Aphra Brandreth)—not forgetting, of course, the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon).

As my hon. Friend set out, and as other Members have confirmed, Crewe station is now a crucial transport hub, providing 360° connectivity where four regional lines converge with the west coast main line, providing long-distance links to London and Scotland and the great cities of the midlands and the north, as well as more local and regional links.

[Mrs Russell]

I want to take a moment to raise the issues around Sandbach station. There is no accessibility at the station, which serves approximately 20,000 people. The only route to Manchester for Sandbach residents is to take a train to Crewe, where they can change accessibly —assuming that everything is working—and then take a train back to Manchester. Does the Minister agree that this needs addressing?

[Lilian Greenwood]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to advocate for more accessible journeys on the rail network, because we want everyone to be able to travel on our railways. I am sure that my officials will have heard those comments, and I will convey them to my noble Friend Lord Hendy, the Rail Minister, as I am sure he will want to look at that.

Crewe’s location is strategically important to the railway, thanks to the connectivity that it provides for passenger, freight and engineering services. No other UK station is served by more individual train operators. With more than 470 services on a typical weekday, there are just 30 minutes between the last train of the evening and the first of the following morning. It is not surprising to hear that since its opening it has formed a critical part of the UK’s transport infrastructure and will no doubt continue to do so for future generations.

Transport is an essential part of the Government’s mission to rebuild Britain. For that reason, we committed to improving rail connectivity across the midlands and the north while working with devolved leaders, as we set out in our manifesto. The previous Government’s decision to cancel phase 2 of HS2 was met with huge disappointment by leaders and communities in Crewe and, frankly, a lot more widely. As my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme highlighted, the previous Government’s appalling mismanagement of HS2 has undermined trust in our ability to build new railways and perhaps in rail more broadly. For the constituents of my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich, it meant the end of a decade of efforts to plan the benefits that the new high-speed railway would have brought to the town. Now, with the difficult position that this Government have inherited, our immediate focus is on the safe delivery of HS2 between Birmingham and London at the lowest reasonable cost.

However, while we have been clear that we cannot reverse the previous Government’s decision to cancel phase 2 of HS2, we recognise concerns about rail capacity and connectivity between Birmingham and Manchester. We are considering a range of potential solutions that will have to be carefully balanced with the very difficult fiscal context in which we are operating. That could include optimising services, delivering smaller-scale infrastructure interventions or the proposals set out by the Mayor of Greater Manchester and the Mayor of the West Midlands for a new railway line between Birmingham and Manchester.