Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, with reference to the Answer of 31 March 2014, Official Report, column 408W, on High Speed 2 Railway Line, what the evidential basis is for the practical limit to the expansion of capacity on the West Coast Mainline being lower than predicted growth for that line.

Evidence set out in the Strategic Case for HS2 (www.gov.uk/government/publications/hs2-strategic-case) demonstrates that parts of the West Coast Main Line are effectively full in terms of the number of trains; many of which are already full to overflowing at certain times of day and demand is expected to grow.

Rail demand has grown by 54% over the last decade, which is the equivalent of annual growth rate of 4.4%. Chapter 3 of the Strategic case sets out that even with more modest growth of 2.5%, all of the additional peak seats provided by enhancing the line will be used up during the 2020s.

The Department has considered a wide range of alternatives including upgrades to the existing West Coast Main Line. The most recent report, commissioned from Atkins can be found here (www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/253456/hs2-strategic-alternatives.pdf). This provides evidence that expanding capacity on the West Coast Main line would not be a robust long term solution to the capacity, connectivity and reliability challenges on the line. Not only would it not provide sufficient additional capacity to meet long term demand, but it would not offer a robust solution to the problem of poor service performance and would significantly disrupt services for many years during construction work.