Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether the junction between Phase 2b of HS2 and Northern Powerhouse Rail will be removed from the adapted Northern Powerhouse Rail scheme; and how much funding has been allocated to the construction of that junction.

The government is seeking to adapt the High Speed Rail (Crewe-Manchester) Bill to deliver Northern Powerhouse Rail (NPR) only, removing scope south of the Parish of Millington and Rostherne, which was included only for HS2. A motion to formalise the point of truncation will be brought to the House and a supplementary environmental statement will be produced.

As set out in the Network North Command paper, up to £12 billion in 2023 prices has been retained to deliver NPR scope between Manchester and the Parish of Millington and work on the NPR scheme between Liverpool and Millington, and Manchester Piccadilly and West Yorkshire is currently at strategic scheme development stage. This work is being carried out in line with WMS of 25 March, which set out that Northern Powerhouse Rail will develop a route that is in favour of serving Warrington Bank Quay and Manchester Airport and will use the previously proposed route Millington and Manchester. A formal consultation on the remainder of the preferred route is expected to take place following this work.