Great Western Railway: Infrastructure

Baroness Brown of Cambridge Excerpts

Wednesday 21st January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

The noble Lord knows more about Chipping Sodbury now because I arranged for the route director for the western route to talk to him. He is right that it was opened in 1902. Great Western Railway built the cutting and the tunnel straight through an aquifer and it has been flooding ever since. The good news is that remedial work over the past five years has significantly reduced the delays created by flooding in that location. However, there are many other examples of flooding due to climate change, including, as he knows, one recently in Neath, which has never flooded before.

[Baroness Brown of Cambridge (CB)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as chair of the Adaptation Sub-Committee of the Committee on Climate Change. My sub-committee’s recent advice to the Government was that we need to prepare for 2 degrees of warming by 2050. That implies that, in many areas, typical weather will be rather like the extreme weather we see today, and extreme weather will be much more extreme than that, with maximum temperatures potentially towards the mid-40s. Can the Minister assure the House that the HS2 line to Birmingham and the recently announced Northern Rail developments will be ready for this weather?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

The truth is that the whole railway network has to be adapted to weather that was once exceptional and is now common- place. The budget for Network Rail, as the current infrastructure owner, was at least quadrupled compared with 2019 to 2024, precisely to cope with that. I am sure that the new lines, such as HS2 and the Liverpool to Manchester line, will be built with that mind, but our greater preoccupation at the moment is our existing railway and its reliability.

Airport Expansion

Baroness Brown of Cambridge Excerpts

Tuesday 25th February 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

The Government recognise the importance of regional airports. I do not have in front of me what the Government are doing about the expansion of Cardiff Airport, but I will willingly write to my noble friend and tell him exactly what we know about Cardiff’s expansion and the Government’s role in helping it.

[Baroness Brown of Cambridge (CB)]

My Lords, when we did the Airports Commission review, the UK’s 2050 target was only an 80% emissions reduction, yet the third runway at Heathrow still required reduced growth at regional airports to keep within our carbon budgets. Has this analysis been redone and are the conclusions the same? Should we not wait for the seventh carbon budget, which is being published tomorrow?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I stand by the earlier figures I mentioned on achieving aviation net zero by 2050. The noble Baroness is right that the seventh report will be published tomorrow. The proposals from Heathrow, or any other promoter’s proposals, for a third runway have not yet been received. They will have to be followed by an application for a development consent order, which will have to be properly processed. It is not incompatible with the forthcoming publication for the Chancellor to express her enthusiasm for a third runway and the economic growth that it will produce.