Channel Tunnel: International Rail Strategy

Debate between Lord Cryer and Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill

Monday 2nd June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend. He will remember that the original idea was to have through services from the Midlands, the north, Scotland and the west of England, and sleeper services too, but they were discontinued before many of them started operating because the business case and the economics of them were quite weak. For the moment, we think the best thing we can do is to encourage a multiplicity of destinations with reasonable speed and frequency, which will generate traffic and encourage people to travel by train, even though they might need to change in London.

[Lord Cryer (Lab)]

Is my noble friend aware that a single goods train journey can remove 70 HGV journeys from the roads, and in some cases even more? That being the case, would not expanding the rail network—and that includes high-speed rail—free up capacity on the road network, therefore making the road network significantly safer?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

The noble Lord is right that rail freight is extremely environmentally friendly; that is why this Government are spending a lot of time and effort to encourage rail freight. This includes setting a target for the new Great British Railways to increase the level of freight, but also remembering that freight needs its own space on the network for train paths. That refers back to the question from the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, about open access and is another reason to be careful about allocating all the space on the railway to competing passenger operations.