HS2: North-west of England

Christian Matheson Excerpts

Tuesday 11th October 2016 Westminster Hall

[Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered HS2 in the North West of England.

I am grateful for the opportunity to raise the question of High Speed 2 in the north-west of England, and it is a great pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Owen.

Infrastructure investment should be a good thing for the economy, and in principle I am all in favour of HS2, and HS3, HS4, and HS5. But as things stand, and until assurances are given by the Government, I remain ambivalent that HS2 will truly bring the promised benefits to all of the UK. Indeed, if rumours, press stories and anonymous briefings are to be believed, it will simply be a fast link between the major centres of London, Birmingham and Manchester that will help to expand those three big cities while further squeezing out growth in the areas outside those metropolises. Therefore, the consideration must be about not just the physical layout of the line and its track works, but the services on it, and the line design must flow from the service level required, rather than the other way around.

I sound that element of caution because, as we have seen with HS2 phase one, once the project gets passed over to the Treasury, finance often becomes the only—and a short-term—consideration. For example, the HS2 spur to Heathrow Airport is lost, with warnings of further cuts. Indeed, we are still waiting for formal confirmation that HS2 will go ahead at all, which is one reason I always called for the whole project to be built from the north to the south, to ensure that it did not simply become yet another major infrastructure programme focused solely on London and the south-east. Worse than that would be the opportunity missed if the wrong strategy for HS2 in the north-west was adopted. The Government’s own vision for HS2 in its consultation envisaged that only two trains per hour would stop at Crewe, with the majority of trains going into a tunnel just south of Crewe and bypassing the station, and therefore the region—my sub-region—completely.

In making my case, I am pleased to call in support two principal backers: Sir David Higgins, with his report “HS2 Plus”, and the board of the Cheshire and Warrington local enterprise partnership. Our LEP’s economic strategy is based very clearly on the vision of Sir David Higgins of a hub at Crewe, interlinked with local lines and distributing the growth benefits across our sub-region. Sir David’s report demonstrates that Crewe sits at the very centre of the north-west rail system, and states very clearly that Crewe should therefore become a regional transport hub, with HS2 fully integrated into plans for revitalising the northern economy as a whole. Rail lines from Crewe radiate towards Manchester and Liverpool, Stoke and Derby, and Warrington, and on to Lancashire and Scotland, Shrewsbury and mid-Wales, and many of the smaller towns in Cheshire, as well as Chester and north Wales and the Wirral. A proper regional rail hub at Crewe would allow all of those places to enjoy the benefits of the huge investment that the nation is making in the new line.

From the work undertaken by my LEP, the main conclusion is clear: a proper regional hub at Crewe could extend the benefits of HS2 to 1.5 million people across the north-west and north Wales, reducing travel time to London by an hour. Those figures come from modelling work done by Mott MacDonald, commissioned by the LEP. The firm was asked to assume that five trains per hour from London stop at Crewe, with up to four trains an hour then running from Crewe on all the lines that radiate out from there. In some cases, perhaps because there are single track sections on the line, that would not be possible, so the LEP asked Mott MacDonald to limit the number of additional trains to what the current infrastructure can accommodate.

My own local authority, Cheshire West and Chester, working with neighbouring authorities in the Mersey Dee Alliance area, which includes councils across the border in north Wales, has also identified the importance of rail infrastructure as central to the economic growth of our region. “Growth Track 360”, a report published by that alliance of businesses and political and public sector leaders, led by Samantha Dixon, the leader of Cheshire West and Chester council, has set out a programme of rail improvements that will transform the economies of Cheshire and north Wales by providing better links between places in Cheshire and the Wirral and into north Wales. By linking such improvements into the services radiating out from a proper rail hub at Crewe, we can offer even more people in Cheshire, north Wales and Merseyside the benefits of the journey time improvements that HS2 provides.

“Growth Track 360” also calls for developments at Crewe to be future-proofed, to ensure that in the long term HS2 trains have the ability to “turn left at Crewe”, as we say, towards Chester and on to north Wales. If that does not happen, 1.5 million people will be on a branch line and the full benefits of HS2 will be lost. Surely those areas also have a right to benefit from public investment in HS2? But, just as importantly, they have the right not to suffer from—to coin a phrase used on the railways—the wrong type of HS2.

I am clear that if we do not get the Higgins vision of a rail hub, investment and growth will be sucked out of and away from Cheshire and other parts of the north-west in favour of the already big cities. I do not want Cheshire’s growth to depend on crumbs from the table of Manchester. Employers in my area already tell me that they lose skilled workers to Manchester because the local rail links to Manchester and the local and regional motorway network—yes, I am talking about the M56—are insufficient. If the strategic rail network also fails to serve the entire region, the negative effects could be catastrophic and long term.

My LEP has drawn some interesting and valuable comparisons with the effect of high-speed rail connectivity in similar circumstances elsewhere. Lyon was the first city to be connected to the TGV network in France. It now handles more than 100,000 passengers a day more than when it was opened, and it has led to the creation of 40,000 new jobs in the area around the station. Lille is a city about the same size as Warrington. In the eight years after its TGV station was opened, employment in the city and the surrounding region grew by nearly 120,000. Key to that success was the creation of a strong local network of trains, trams and buses linking to the TGV network at Lille station, much like the regional rail hub Sir David Higgins proposed for Crewe. Kakegawa is a similar-sized city to Chester. It was originally bypassed by the Japanese high-speed rail network. It finally got a new station in 1988, leading directly to an almost 40% increase in industrial output in the town in just four years.

So, in the debate and more generally, we now await the Government’s proposals for HS2 phase two. I am grateful for the Transport Minister’s attendance today and even more grateful that it is he and not one of his colleagues from the Treasury who will respond. Clearly, one of the big concerns of HS2 is cost, and we cannot write blank cheques, but if we can consider HS2 as an investment that will benefit the whole country, hopefully we can arrive at a solution that spreads its wealth across the whole country too. Central to that is the Higgins hub at Crewe with its five or six trains an hour, and through services connecting HS2 to all the major towns and cities in the north-west and on to Birmingham and London.

In conclusion, we have a choice: we can take Harry Beck’s plan of the London underground, draw a short line above Chesham and Amersham showing Birmingham and Manchester, and consider HS2 to be just another part of London’s transport network, or we can recognise that a truly national project should have truly national benefits. I suggest to the Minister that now would be a great time for the Government to confirm that their intention is the latter.

[Albert Owen (in the Chair)]

I have just sought clarification about the wind-ups. The Labour and Scottish National parties have five minutes each, not 10, to wind up, and the Minister has 10 minutes to respond to the debate.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Andrew Jones)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Owen. I congratulate the hon. Member for City of Chester (Christian Matheson) on securing this debate on HS2 connectivity in the north-west. He represents a beautiful city—one of the many places in the north-west that really stands to benefit from HS2. It has been great to hear the appetite for the scheme from across the Chamber.

HS2 will become the backbone of our national rail network. It will be a key part of building a transport system and economy that works for all. It will increase rail capacity and improve connectivity, and people will not need to travel on HS2 to benefit from it. By providing new fast lines for inter-city services, HS2 will free up space on our existing railway network for new commuter, regional and freight services. We are already starting to see the benefits of the scheme in the form of jobs and skills, which are being created now.

HS2 is working with businesses across the UK, including many small and medium-sized firms, to ensure that they are well prepared to bid for contracts and reap its benefits. Construction alone will generate about 25,000 jobs and 2,000 apprenticeships. A supplier roadshow has travelled the UK, highlighting the range of commercial opportunities that the construction schemes will present, encouraging companies from all over the UK to consider tendering for some of the work. I attended the last one, which was up in Aberdeen, which highlighted to the engineering businesses in the area who have perhaps developed great skills through the oil sector that HS2 presents opportunities for them.

HS2 is not just about serving a few destinations—that phrase was heard across the House. It is not just that; HS2 services will also run on to the existing network, serving destinations in the north-west and indeed those going as far as Scotland. Interchange with conventional rail will also be key in allowing places far beyond the network to benefit. Last year we decided to take the HS2 route via Crewe and to open the route to Crewe in 2027. The journey time between Crewe and London will be just 55 minutes—that is 35 minutes faster than today. Passengers interchanging at Crewe, for example from Chester or north Wales, will also be able to take advantage.

Sir David Higgins recognised the opportunity that Crewe presents for the region. He recommended a north-west hub at Crewe to integrate regional and high-speed rail. It is a sensible idea; Crewe already is a hub. It has rail services to London, Birmingham, Shrewsbury, south Wales, Stoke, Derby, Manchester, Liverpool, Scotland and, of course, north Wales and Chester. It is also well connected to major A roads and the M6.

The Government are developing options for Crewe and we expect to provide an update on the scheme later this year as part of our planned announcement on phase 2b. I will talk a little bit more about the timing later. The hon. Member for City of Chester has clearly put across the local ambition for high-frequency HS2 services at Crewe and for the increased frequency of conventional services between Crewe and Chester. I understand that local ambition. I have made the case for my own constituency as well, as indeed have many hon. Members. We are already investing in connectivity in the region, and we only have to look at the working taking place at the Halton curve to see that. We are looking at what HS2 connectivity could be provided at Crewe to benefit the whole region.

I have to say that it is too early to lock down the service proposition at this stage. We need to understand what is possible and what benefits could be delivered, but options need to be left open so that services meet the demands and priorities of the 2020s and beyond. I also have to say that we have to think about affordability. We have incredibly ambitious rail investment programmes and there are priorities for investment across the network.

[Christian Matheson]

Does the Minister accept that the opportunities for the 2020s and beyond will actually be created by getting the service level for HS2 right?

[Andrew Jones]

I have absolutely no doubt that when we consider those services we are all thinking ahead. I entirely buy the argument that transport investment is a driver of economic growth and, indeed, social progress—whichever mode of transport we are talking about. The Government are not buying trains because we like trains; we are buying them because they facilitate economic growth. That is the same with buses and social progress.

Taking HS2 to Crewe will play an important part in turning the town around. It is already a hub and it is also a town that is in need of investment, but HS2 is not a silver bullet in itself. We need to ensure that HS2 drives regeneration, not only in the places that it serves directly but far more widely. For the economic growth benefits of HS2 to be realised and to spread, local partners have an important role to play.

It is fantastic to see the north-west making such excellent progress in its plans for the region. The northern gateway partnership is already developing its growth strategy. That work, which is aiming to deliver around 100,000 homes and 120,000 jobs, will ensure the regeneration benefits of HS2 are felt right across the region. I have met with the combined authority, Transport for Greater Manchester, on a number of occasions, and I have done the same with the west midlands. It has been fantastic to see the ambition that those areas have for regeneration, recognising that, when HS2 arrives, it will present them with significant opportunities.