Railways: High Speed 2

Lord Shutt of Greetland Excerpts

Monday 24th March 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Kramer]

I am delighted to say that the department is somewhat ahead of the game. I have already commissioned a report and consultants have been retained; we expect a preliminary response on how to take the benefits of high-speed rail to Scotland. We will get our interim response in July, and that will be a very important document in being able to identify the future. Of course, HS2—even the “Y” that is currently planned—will help to bring journey times to Glasgow and Edinburgh down to less than three hours.

[Lord Shutt of Greetland (LD)]

My Lords, I welcome this report; I am in favour of HS2. However, I am rather more in favour of the “plus”. In this report, one word which bellows out is “connectivity”. In the foreword it says that there is,

“poor connectivity in the North”.

It wants us to be,

“more ambitious … about producing a coherent transport plan for the North”.

On page 9, the report states:

“In contrast, connectivity in the North is poor”.

I agree.

I do not want to detract from what has been said about getting to Crewe earlier, and the connectivity in the north-west. However, I want to speak about the other leg, from Birmingham up into Yorkshire, and the possibilities beyond that. The original proposals in January 2013 propose a terminal station in Leeds—what I describe as a “hammerhead terminus”—where the only connectivity is a long walk. That might suit Leeds but it is useless for connectivity for anywhere else, such as Huddersfield, Halifax, Bradford, Keighley, Skipton, Ilkley, going back round to Wakefield, or further connectivity to York, the north-east and Scotland.

Does the Minister agree that connectivity will be achieved if, in Leeds, we get a new station parallel to the Leeds City station of today, not a station that is a hammerhead terminus, which would mean that people would have to leg it such a long way, and the detraction that that would bring?