High Speed 2

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will make a statement on the planned route and delivery of High Speed Rail 2.

Before I begin, I would like to pay tribute to my hon. Friend and neighbour the Member for Bishop Auckland (Dehenna Davison) for her service in government, and to congratulate my hon. Friends the Members for Redcar (Jacob Young) and for South West Hertfordshire (Mr Mohindra) on their elevation.

Spades are already in the ground for HS2 and we remain focused on its delivery. The Minister for rail and HS2, the Minister of State, Department for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman), is in the Czech Republic today to sign a memorandum of understanding with the Czech Government and tomorrow he will be in Poland to attend TRAKO, supporting UK rail supply chain companies at a major European rail trade fair. For that reason, I am responding on behalf of the Government. Construction continues in earnest, with about 350 active construction sites, and we are getting on with delivery, with high-speed rail services between London and Birmingham Curzon Street due to commence in 2033, with the re-scoped stages following. This will specifically drive the regeneration of 1,600 acres, delivering 40,000 homes and supporting 65,000 jobs in outer London. The benefits of HS2 for Birmingham are already being realised; the area around Curzon Street station is already becoming a focal point for transformation, development and economic growth. The Government provide regular six-monthly reports on HS2 to the House, and we will continue to keep the House updated on the project.

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker, for granting the urgent question, but if the rail Minister is not available, you would think that the Secretary of State would be bothered to turn up to the House on an issue of this importance.

Here we are yet again: 13 years of gross mismanagement and chaos coming home to roost. First, the Government slashed Northern Powerhouse Rail; then they binned HS2 to Leeds; then they announced that the line would terminate at Old Oak Common for years to come; and now it looks as though they are considering cutting the north of England out in its entirety. If that is true, what are we left with? We are left with the Tories’ flagship levelling-up project that reaches neither the north of England, nor central London: the most expensive railway track in the world, which, thanks to terminating in Acton, will mean a longer journey between Birmingham and central London than the one passengers currently enjoy. What started out as a modern infrastructure plan, left by the last Labour Government, linking our largest northern cities will, after 13 years of Tory incompetence, waste and broken promises, have turned into a humiliating Conservative failure; a great rail betrayal—£45 billion and the least possible economic impact from the original plan, £45 billion and the north left with nothing. But frankly, what else would we expect from a Prime Minister who does not travel through the north of England on rail? He only ever flies over it. Today, communities and businesses do not need yet more speculation and rumour from the heart of this broken Government—they need answers.

Will the Minister urgently explain if the photograph leaked last Friday reflects his Government’s position to slash phase 2 altogether? Will he confirm the commitment his boss made in this House just a few months ago that high-speed trains will reach Manchester by 2041? Are his Government planning for trains to terminate at Old Oak Common for good, detonating the business case and overwhelming the Elizabeth line? Having run our economy, our public services and our railways into the ground, will the country not now conclude that this is proof, once and for all, that the Tories can never be trusted to run our country again?

In response to the hon. Lady’s question, the Secretary of State is on urgent ministerial business with other Government Departments.

At the Department for Transport, we were delighted to see the hon. Lady survive the recent shadow Cabinet reshuffle, albeit she appears to be shadow Secretary of State for Transport in name only, as that job now appears to be covered by the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton South East (Mr McFadden). Even the Liberal Democrats caught the hon. Lady napping this morning by putting in their urgent question request before she did.

Only yesterday, the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton South East said on “Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg”:

“I want to see what this costs and we’ll make those decisions when it comes to the manifesto.”

That came only two days after a leaked Labour party policy document said that the Opposition are committed to

“deliver Northern Powerhouse Rail and High Speed 2 in full”.

There was no mention of how they will pay for that combined £140 billion spending commitment—same old Labour. While the shadow Chancellor tries to talk up Labour’s “ironclad discipline”, the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Louise Haigh) goes around the country, promising hundreds of billions of pounds of unfunded spending on rail alone.

We cannot trust a word they say on transport spending, immigration or housing. All have unravelled over the last week, as the Labour party says one thing and does another: on immigration, an open door for Europe’s illegal immigration; on housing, backing the blockers not the builders. [Interruption.] This House will remember the report by the Institute for Fiscal Studies back in May—

Order. I granted the urgent question so we could hear the answer, so less shouting. Carry on, Minister.

The House will remember the report by the IFS in May, when its director said that it was hard to see how the Labour party could bring forward any further policy without tax rises, and that Labour’s plans would increase inflation and drive up interest rates. But this Government, under this Prime Minister, have made it a priority to halve inflation by the end of the year. That is why I am proud that buses have introduced a £2 fare to help hard-working families with the cost of living, which the Labour party has not done during the 25 years it has been in charge in Wales.

This Government are getting on with delivering on rail. We have delivered 1,200 miles of electrification over the last 13 years, compared to a pathetic 63 miles under the 13 years of the last Labour Government.

There is more to public transport than trains. Over the last 10 months, I have been around the country supporting new road schemes funded by this Government, from the A303 to the Preston western distributor road. Some £500 million has been invested to protect bus services across the country, while we have delivered on our commitment for 4,000 zero-emission buses. Last week, I announced new funding for HGV truck stops; meanwhile, Labour has expanded ULEZ in London and banned road building in Wales, as well as putting a 20-mile-an-hour speed limit right across that place. [Interruption.] I am proud that this Government are—

Order. The Minister could have made a statement. I did not have to grant the urgent question, so please bring statements forward—I will always support you.

I am proud that this Government are unashamedly on the side of the taxpayer, checking the impact on the motorist, HGV drivers and bus passengers of every single policy that is put forward. Ministers will continue to keep the House updated regularly on HS2, as we have done today.

I call the Chair of the Transport Committee.

While one should always take with a pinch of salt newspaper speculation in advance of budgets as to what may or may not be in them, may I put on record that if what has been reported is true, it would be an enormous false economy? Whether people support or oppose HS2 in principle, starting at Old Oak Common and finishing at Birmingham would not realise the full benefits of the line and communities will have been enormously impacted for no great benefit. Old Oak Common does not have the capacity to handle all the services and just a couple of weeks ago Network Rail, in its West Coast South strategic advice, noted that even with HS2 to Manchester, the west coast mainline will not have the capacity in the decades to come. Will my hon. Friend take the message to the Treasury to either do it properly or not to do it at all?

I thank the Chair of the Transport Committee for his comments. I shall certainly take that message away with me.

I call the SNP spokesperson.

I hope the Minister has had time to calm down and perhaps take a breath after that astonishing performance. In attacking Labour on costs, he seems to be admitting what we all know, which is that phase 2 is an utter shambles—financially, operationally and politically. First, it was the north-east and Yorkshire that were let down by this Government on HS2. Now it seems to be the turn of the north-west, let alone Scotland and Wales. In a similar timeframe to that of HS2, Spain has managed to install 624 km of high speed rail for a fraction of the cost. This includes tunnels and bridges through far rougher terrain than that which HS2 passes through. Since June 2018, 233 kilometres of this track has come into operational use. What we have is a gold-plated commuter line of just 100 miles between two cities on the south of this island costing nearly £50 billion, while the rest of the country is expected to fight for scraps from the table. When Philip Hammond was Transport Secretary he gave commitments on HS2 infrastructure reaching Scotland, but that infrastructure is barely getting to the midlands. Can the Minister tell me in which decade HS2 infrastructure will actually get anywhere near Scotland? How does any further cancellation, postponement or watering down of HS2 commitments fit with the so-called levelling-up strategy and when will Wales receive its rightful share of Barnett consequentials?

I thank the Member for his question. As he will know, this Government have delivered more than 1,200 miles of electrification—over 20 times the amount delivered in the 13 years of the last Labour Government. I would also say to him that, just last week, I met my third Scottish Transport Minister in 10 months and they did not mention HS2 at all.

I call the Chair of the High Speed Rail Bill Committee.

It should not surprise people that building a high-speed railway line on a very small island through large, populated areas with lots of infrastructure was always going to be complex and expensive—that should be a surprise to nobody. If these decisions are taking place, may I ask my hon. Friend to remind his colleagues in the Treasury that HS2 also delivers important connectivity infrastructure for Northern Powerhouse Rail, connecting Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, and, perhaps the greatest city of the north, Hull. I urge him to remind his colleagues who may be looking at this of that important fact.

I thank my hon. Friend and other colleagues for the work that they did on the Select Committee. I will, of course, take that message back to Treasury colleagues.

Will the Minister give an unambiguous answer to this question: is this Government still committed to building HS2 to Manchester from Euston? People in the north need to know whether they are being abandoned, because it looks like that to me from press reports, which have not been made up by journalists. Is it not the case that the Minister is fronting a Government who will not dare tell the electorate that they are abandoning the north?