Commons Chamber

Wednesday 14th January 2026

(began 2 hours, 10 minutes ago)

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None Portrait Q2. What steps he is taking with Cabinet colleagues to support economic growth in Scotland. (907173)
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Alan Gemmell.
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Heidi Alexander Portrait Rt Hon Heidi Alexander MP, The Secretary of State for Transport (Swindon South, Labour)
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absolutely nothing. Parties, whether the Tories or Reform, who lack ambition and are either incapable or unwilling of doing the hard yards of delivery. This ends today, Mr. Speaker. It's been over a decade since the then conservative Chancellor pledged a transport system fit for a northern powerhouse. And what came of it? HS2 to Manchester and Leeds both promised both axed rail services that have let down commuters and a railway still reliant on diesel trains and two track Victorian infrastructure.

Levelling up the integrated Rail plan network north. Just empty slogans and even emptier pockets to pay for them. Mr. speaker, this gulf between rhetoric and reality has consequences. An unbalanced economy doesn't just affect growth. It strikes at the heart of the fairer country we want to be. Political choices over decades now mean a 40 mile commute into Manchester is a world away from a similar journey into London. Take Liverpool, which has only two fast trains an hour to Manchester.

We're a direct rail journey to Manchester Airport takes an hour and 25 minutes when it's only 28 miles away, or take Leeds, still the largest city in Western Europe without mass transit, with only a third of the population able to reach the city centre in 30 minutes. Mr. speaker, we are finally consigning this sorry political political legacy to the bonfire of history. No previous government has acted as swiftly and decisively to back northern leaders. We've made the largest ever investment into local transport.

We've given the go ahead to road and rail projects across the north, and we're allocating billions of pounds in pothole funding to local leaders across this Parliament. And today, Mr. Speaker, we're going further. After years of underinvestment in the North's rail network, I am proud to announce we will deliver Northern Powerhouse Rail. Yes, this is a generational commitment. Building on the ongoing TransPennine route upgrade. We will invest up to a further £45 billion to create a turn up and go railway along the northern growth corridor of Liverpool, Manchester, Bradford, Leeds, Sheffield as well as York.

There will be regular services onward to Newcastle and Hull, and to Chester for connections to North Wales. Make no mistake, NPR will transform how people travel. Will end the hour long waits if you miss your train. Will attract more people to a railway that will be faster, more accessible and more frequent than ever before. For northerners who have long complained about being treated as second class citizens, my message is simple. Those days are over. Yeah. Mr. speaker, this is an ambitious long term programme, but it is not HS2 reheated.

I stood in this House last year and said we'd learnt the lessons of that infrastructure project, and I meant it. Unlike the previous government's Network North plan, which was announced without so much as a phone call to the mayors, we have been working directly with them on developing these proposals and I'm proud to announce that every single one of those mayors is backing the plan today. I'm clear that NPR will not be a central government vanity project. It will be rooted in northern communities, designed, developed and delivered from the bottom up.

We'll also take the time to get this right. That starts with agreeing mature, stable designs as well as consents, all before construction. Finally, unlike HS2, this isn't about the fastest line at any cost. Northern Powerhouse Rail will be the shoulders of this nation's rail network, improving services across the North and beyond. Let me now turn to delivery. Mr. speaker, we are making £1.1 billion available to deliver NPR over the next four years. This will proceed in three phases, sequenced so passengers experience a better railway as soon as possible.

The first phase will prioritise electrification and upgrades east of the Pennines for delivery in the 2030s. That covers the Leeds, Bradford, Sheffield, Leeds and Leeds York corridors, including the stations. Alongside NPR. We'll develop the business case for the Leamside line as part of our broader plans for the North, and I want to pay tribute to the hon. Member for Washington and Gateshead South, who has been campaigning on this for over 20 years, Mr. Speaker. Phase one benefits will be clear. It means pressing forward with plans for a new station in Bradford, with funding secured to take it forward, subject to business case.

And it means working with local leaders on a redesigned York station master plan. Mr. speaker, I'd like to recognise the work carried out by Lord Blunkett in his Yorkshire plan for rail. It was his vision endorsed by the white Rose mayors, which informed our plans for phase one. And I'm proud that Lord Blunkett is backing our plans today. Work also starts now for the second phase west of the Pennines, with major construction planned for the 2030s. It includes a new route and predominantly new line between Liverpool and Manchester.

This will run via new stations, improving access to Manchester Airport from across the North and North Wales, and to Warrington Bank Quay, with plans to deliver thousands of new homes. I have today instructed my officials to immediately resume work on the adapted hybrid bill, so we can reach planning consent for the parts of the route in Manchester. These plans align with the prospectus of the Liverpool to Manchester Railway Board, and I'd like to thank all of them, including the chair of that board, the former rail Minister Huw Merriman, who is also backing our plans today.

Mr. Speaker. The third phase, which takes us to the 2040s, will improve connectivity across the Pennines. Over and above the TransPennine route upgrade currently underway and I see Bradford to Manchester, Leeds to Manchester and Sheffield to Manchester as key routes. We will upgrade. Mr. Speaker, if we are to secure Britain's long term growth. We must also recognise future capacity and connectivity is needed along other major routes, such as the West Coast Main Line, and ensure that this is reflected in our decision making now.

I can therefore confirm this government's long term aim to see a full new north south line from Birmingham to Manchester. That's one of the reasons why we have chosen the Liverpool to Manchester route, as put forward by local mayors, because it's the only route that properly preserves our ability to ultimately build a new line south to address longer term congestion and crowding challenges on the West Coast Main Line. Again, this won't be a revival of HS2, and no decisions have been taken on the specification or timetable.

In the meantime, we'll retain land. The government has already purchased between the West Midlands and Crewe. This will be an incremental programme of change and delivery will be taken forward after NPR has been built. Nevertheless, I believe laying out now our strategy is sensible, responsible and in the long term interests of the country. Mr. speaker, today we're announcing a second rail revolution in the very region that gave us the first. The North powered Britain's past. It can lead this country's future.

This plan is a down payment on the North's potential, part of a broader growth drive to lift the region's productivity, boost living standards and add tens of billions to the UK economy. At the heart of this lies connectivity, because only by strengthening the links between our northern cities, only by bringing the pools of talent there closer together can the region begin to rival the other major, major growth corridors in Europe. Mr. speaker, too many northerners still face the choice of either staying at home and putting aspiration on hold or moving away in search of a better future.

I say no more unfair choices, no more missed opportunities. Today we start delivering Northern Powerhouse Rail and I commend this statement to the House.
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Jerome Mayhew Portrait Jerome Mayhew MP (Broadland and Fakenham, Conservative)
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May you, Shadow Minister. Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I thank the Secretary of State for advance the Secretary of State for advance sight of her statement. Now, she started her statement by saying that people are sick to the back teeth of Westminster politicians, promising the earth and delivering absolutely nothing. And then she did exactly that, because on this side of the House, we know, Mr. Speaker, what the right hon. Lady's statement marks today. It's not a strategy for the North. It's not a genuine commitment to a £46 billion project costed back in 2019 at £46 billion as the current, as the current Prime Minister then promised.

Instead, it's a flagrant attempt to silence her party's restless northern mayors, whilst Labour Ministers who came to office with no plan to deliver on their promises, butcher the Budget. Let's get straight to the point here. She can bluster all she likes, but where Northern Powerhouse Rail is concerned today we have no construction start dates, no completion dates, no published or costed route map, no sequencing, no idea who will pay, nor by how much and no certainty at all.

Except it won't be what Labour promised ahead of the election, she says. Mr. speaker, this is a generational commitment. Well, at this rate, it's going to turn out to be a multi-generational commitment, because if the Prime Minister wanted to deliver what he actually promised in opposition, he knows he'd have another black hole of billions. Such is the uncertainty, the genuine uncertainty caused to the sector by this announcement. What we have, Mr. Speaker, is a commitment to fiddling with the paperwork without any secure investment for the actual project.

Yet the right hon. Lady expects this House to believe that this is some sort of investment in the North. She and her Ministers must be delighted that the mayor of Greater Manchester overplayed his hand at the Labour Party conference last year. So today he feels constrained to profess loyalty to the Prime Minister, perhaps wonderment at his generosity. That's in public. We all know what he's doing in private. Does the right hon. Lady take this House and her own backbenchers and the voting public for fools? Whether she does or not, the Prime Minister certainly does.

He wrote. He wrote in the Yorkshire Post, with some gall that this amendment, and I quote, is a serious plan backed by billions of pounds of investment. When we know from this statement that it is not. Can the right hon. Lady confirm how a £45 billion cap on a scheme that was costed way more expensive than that back in 2019, can possibly deliver projects which are already estimated to be so much more than that value? What guarantees exist that schemes will be completed in full, and when this House will be finally given the detail that it deserves? Because perhaps she ought to remind the Prime Minister what he told the Yorkshire Post back in 2019, promising to deliver Northern Powerhouse in full today's announcement.

Nothing offers nothing better than dither, delay and a further decade away from spades in the ground. How can she and the Prime Minister pretend that this is the delivery of Northern Powerhouse Rail, when it is anything but that? By her own admission, by their own admission, no Budget has been set out. The cap in funding gives no confidence that funding, which will have to be raised from the private sector or through local taxes, is in place. So can she tell the House which local taxes will have to rise and by how much to fill the gap created by her own £45 billion cap? I know she, like me, cares deeply about ensuring Parliament is told the whole truth, but perhaps on this occasion it is the Prime Minister himself who should be lauded today.

When he said time and again that the cuts and downgrades this government has foreshadowed today represent nothing more than, and I quote, a betrayal of the North. So I ask the Secretary of State, isn't it the case that this is a strategy from a desperate government to make a cut, appear in investment, and attempt to save face with the British public, to spend months and months hiding their mealy mouthed plans, only to reveal them with bluster and misplaced confidence, is a sad indictment of a sorry government to come to this House today without dates, budgets and a plan for how to raise shortfalls after the cap is frankly pitiful.

To spin this as a plan for the future is a disgrace, and one of which she should be ashamed. She cannot escape the facts that her party came to power with no plan on how to deliver on their promises and their complete ineptitude at managing the public finances, means they are now having to U-turn even on those promises. If the Metro mayors and backbenchers had any backbone, then, rather than jostling for position under the next Labour leader today, they'd be acknowledging the truth in what I've said and calling out this betrayal.
12:56
Heidi Alexander Portrait Rt Hon Heidi Alexander MP, The Secretary of State for Transport (Swindon South, Labour)
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Secretary of State. Mr. speaker, >> Secretary of State. Mr. speaker, I can't believe what I've heard, to be honest. I mean, I know he's standing in for the shadow standing in for the shadow Transport secretary today, but really, I hoped he would have done a little bit better than that. He talks about he talks about no Budget being set out. We have set out £1.1 billion to be spent over the next four years, far more than his government ever spent on Northern Powerhouse Rail.

In the 14 years they had an opportunity to make improvements to the rail network in the north of England. If that's the way they approach basic maths, when we're spending over £1 billion, I can see why the public booted them out of office at the last election. Mr. speaker, we are working in collaboration with local mayors and we have agreed with local mayors that where they see opportunity to boost economic growth beyond the core scope of the Northern Powerhouse Rail proposals, we will work with them to agree local contributions.

So the full benefits of this investment can be realised. Mr. speaker, more generally, though, I think this was a classic case of the hon. Gentleman writing the questions without listening to the announcement. Yeah, we are delivering Northern Powerhouse Rail in full. We have set out our plans in full, we are funding NPR in full and we will deliver it. He mentions the previous government and their aspirations. Let me remind the House of what that actually amounted to. The plan that got the location of Manchester wrong on a map.

The plan that promised new tram lines that had already been built. The plan that diverted funding away from the north to fix potholes in the south. That plan was not worth the paper it was written on. And so we'll take no lessons on this from the party opposite. But if he won't listen to me, maybe he'll listen to the people who run our great city regions in the North, the mayors of West Yorkshire, South Yorkshire and North Yorkshire said we welcome the government's once in a generation commitment to improving transport across the North.

The mayor of the Liverpool City Region said after more than a decade of dither, delay and broken promises, this is the start of a new era with a genuinely strategic approach and a government finally backing Northern Powerhouse Rail in full. The mayor of Greater Manchester said finally, we have a government with an ambitious vision for the North and a firm commitment to Northern Powerhouse Rail. And let me quote one more person NPR is a project I've long championed, so it is excellent to see the government backing it in full.

Not the words of a Labour mayor, not the words of a Labour Minister, but the words of former conservative rail Minister Hugh Merriman. Mr. speaker, our plans are backed by the mayors, they're backed by business leaders, they're backed by their own former rail Minister. That tells you everything you need to know about who is delivering for the North and who never did.
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Tim Farron Portrait Tim Farron MP (Westmorland and Lonsdale, Liberal Democrat)
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Tim Farron Liberal Democrats. >> Tim Farron Liberal Democrats. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have read the statement. >> And indeed listened to her carefully, and I'm very grateful carefully, and I'm very grateful for early sight of it. We are massive supporters of Northern Powerhouse Rail on these benches, but we actually have all we have really concrete in this statement is just over £1 billion, so we can spend the next four years planning to maybe come up with another plan. So the failure of the previous conservative government to deliver infrastructure projects like this and HS2 was utterly depressing and embarrassing.

But I hope she will understand the scepticism of many of us in the North, not just on these benches, who fear this government is being worryingly pedestrian, too lacking in the determination to deliver vital projects like these high speed rail for the North delivered at snail's pace if we are lucky. So my questions are would I be right to surmise from her announcement that while we will see upgrades in the 2030s, which is a long time away, still we won't actually see trains running on the new track much before 2045.

What confidence can she give us that we won't see even more slippage in that timetable? What guarantees can she give us that we that we won't now see a repeat of the conservatives approach of stop, start, stop start, stop, start, cancel. And finally, of course. Could I remind the Minister that the North of England does not stop at the M62? And while we are proud of our cities of Leeds and Manchester and Liverpool, the biggest visited destination in the north of England is actually Cumbria.

Yet there is not a single mention of either Cumbria or Lancashire in this statement. Nothing. Nothing on the vital upgrades, nothing on the vital upgrades needed for the West Coast Main Line north of Warrington, especially in the light of the recent derailment at Shap. And there is, and we still continue to wait for the government to invest in the all important lakes line to Windermere, where a simple passing loop at Burnley side would double the line's capacity at a fraction of the cost of Northern Powerhouse Rail, directly connecting Manchester Airport to the heart of the English Lake District.

Might the Minister agree to meet with me to discuss these vital projects to help prove this government's concern for the North includes the actual North.
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Heidi Alexander Portrait Rt Hon Heidi Alexander MP, The Secretary of State for Transport (Swindon South, Labour)
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Mr. speaker, I can assure the >> Mr. speaker, I can assure the hon. Gentleman that we are getting on with this and we will see these on with this and we will see these improvements delivered. I don't share his cynicism that we will spend the next four years simply coming up with a plan. The £1.1 billion that has been allocated is for land acquisitions. It's for early preparatory works on the Yorkshire schemes. We will see delivery in the 2030s and passengers seeing benefits as some of those schemes.

But what I won't do is make the same mistakes as the last government. When it came to HS2 who let contracts before the scope of schemes had been finalised. Essentially a free meal ticket for building contractors. We will take the time to do this properly. Spend taxpayer money wisely. Of course, I want to see the delivery of rail infrastructure speeded up, but I also want to make sure that every single penny of money that this government spends is well spent.

He asks about whether I can reassure him about the stop start nature of plans being drawn up and then delivered. We have taken our time to come up with a credible, sequenced, prioritised programme of improvements in stark contrast to the previous government, and I can assure him that this is a plan for the whole of the north of England. And I'd also gently remind him, when it comes to Cumbria and our government's commitment, over £13 million investment from the Department for Transport in Carlisle station, Cumberland, with an £18 million more to year bus funding deal.

Borders rail viability study £10 million. So he should remember that we are investing across the north of England in improving public transport for the travelling public.
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