Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of proposals to increase the capacity of the railway line east of Leeds station by building two more tracks or in other ways.

We are committed to improving journeys on the Transpennine route between Manchester, Leeds and York, bringing in state of the art trains, longer carriages and more frequent services for passengers by 2020.

But we want to go further. We expect to spend around £3 billion to upgrade this key route as soon as possible. Improvements we are targeting include journey times of around 62 minutes between Manchester and York, as well as the ability to run more frequent and longer trains, and improvements to reliability. We are working with Network Rail and Rail North to determine the best way to achieve these major improvements for passengers, through a rolling programme of upgrades. To support this, Network Rail has now established options for infrastructure works that could deliver these improved journeys. We will now consider these before making further decisions later this year.

The Government is also supporting the development of Northern Powerhouse Rail (NPR) which aims to improve connectivity between the main cities of the North, including Leeds. We are providing Transport for the North with £60 million of funding from the Transport Development Fund to develop the business case. Furthermore, In October the Chancellor announced £300 million of funding to futureproof HS2 to accommodate future NPR junctions. One of these junctions would directly enable enhanced services between Leeds and York.