Louise Ellman
Main Page: Louise Ellman (Independent - Liverpool, Riverside)Department Debates - View all Louise Ellman's debates with the Department for Transport
(8 years, 5 months ago)
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Mr McLoughlin
The plans that I have announced and the maps that have been published today will enable my hon. Friend and his constituents to examine exactly where the proposed route will go. That was part of the announcement made in a written ministerial answer this morning. I appreciate that there will be disruption in certain parts of his constituency, but he will know from his experience with phase 1 that beneficial changes can be made if a case is argued and the engineering is possible, as indeed has happened in and around Lichfield.
Mrs Louise Ellman (Liverpool, Riverside) (Lab/Co-op)
I welcome the announcement that the benefits of High Speed 2 will come to the north sooner than previously planned. However, I emphasise a point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt) that Stoke-on-Trent and indeed other areas not directly on the line should benefit through improved connectivity, and it is very important to arrange things so that that indeed happens. Is the 37% cut to the Secretary of State’s departmental budget announced last week compatible with delivering this important project on time?
Mr McLoughlin
The hon. Lady, through her work as Chairman of the Transport Committee, has always been supportive of the overall objective of greater train capacity, and she has made the case for a more direct service to Liverpool, which is part of what I will be considering when I address the full route towards the end of next year. I have to say that my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Edward Timpson), who has joined me on the Front Bench, has also made the case as to why he believes that the announcement I have made today is the right decision. However, it is not just my decision. It is based on the overall structure reports produced by Sir David Higgins, the chairman of HS2. It is important how this feeds in to the rest of the question about national infrastructure, on which we have asked the National Infrastructure Commission to advise us, as far as the future of HS3 or indeed Crossrail 2 is concerned.
The hon. Lady asked whether this will be deliverable within the departmental spending changes announced last week, and the answer is yes.