Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, pursuant to the Answer of 1 July 2015 to Question 4424, when his Department was first informed of the decision to delay the electrification of the Manchester to Leeds rail line.

As the my rt.hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Transport (Patrick McLoughlin) explained to the House in a statement on 25 June 2015, Official Report, Column 1067-1070, the electrification of the Transpennine route east of Stalybridge will be paused in order to ensure the programme overall delivers the maximum benefits and value to passengers. He reported to the Transport Committee in March 2015 that Transpennine electrification would be delayed to the 2020s and subsequently confirmed that the programme has been paused. It is right that my rt. hon. Friend has asked Network Rail to undertake a re-plan, and our Departments are in regular dialogue about such matters.

Already, 32 miles of track from Liverpool to Manchester has been electrified, with the first electric service running earlier this year, replacing 2-car diesel trains with 4-car electric trains. The new Northern and Transpennine franchises starting next year will increase overall capacity by 36% by the end of 2019 and provide an extra 200 services each weekday, irrespective of when electrification east of Stalybridge is completed.

I am therefore confident that the area will still benefit enormously from the investments being made.

The Northern Powerhouse is not purely a transport vision; it is an ambition to turn around decades of underperformance in the North, with commitments to science and technology, digital and innovation, culture and tourism, across the region, alongside devolving power to the major cities to give the North a powerful new voice.