HS2 Cancellation and Network North

Every day that goes by costs the public purse considerably in extortionate security costs and wasteful legal processes for sites that are no longer even needed. If further clarity were needed that HS2 would not bring benefits to Staffordshire or indeed nationally, it was striking to hear from Trevor Parkin and Trevor Gould from the Stone Railway Campaign Group at the oral evidence session of the Transport Committee in Birmingham on 30 November last year. Trevor Gould said:

“I was a great advocate of the HS2 project. I fully support the idea in principle and I still think that it is important that high-speed trains are segregated from freight and slower passenger trains, but unfortunately this HS2 is not the way to do it; it does not do what it says on the tin. It does not release capacity north of Birmingham, it does not improve connectivity because of that”.

As we know, the three fast trains an hour currently serving Staffordshire—one via Stafford and two via Stoke-on-Trent—were set to be replaced by one HS2 service calling at both, which would have terminated at Macclesfield. That is a major reduction on what we currently enjoy, so it is not at all clear that there would have been extra capacity or connectivity, which is what HS2 was supposed to address. In fact, according to HS2 Ltd’s updated 2022 strategic outline business case, the only places north of Birmingham that would have received a higher number of services than they do today would have been Runcorn and Liverpool.

In the meantime, there is a pressing list of other projects that need to be delivered to ensure local services and connectivity into the hub stations are maximised. The reason for that is the major constraints at Crewe, particularly Crewe North junction, which were made worse post phase 2. HS2 had no plans to increase the number of platforms or address the constraints at Crewe North junction, which means the only possible way to run HS2 services would have been to take out what already exists, removing local and regional connectivity. I am not even convinced that HS2 intended to run any meaningful service to Stafford, Stoke-on-Trent and Macclesfield.

On 10 January, the executive chair of HS2 Ltd, Sir Jon Thompson, appeared before the Transport Committee and I asked him to clarify some striking comments that he had made to the Public Accounts Committee on 16 November. I put it to him that he had said to the PAC that if HS2 phase 2a had indeed been built,

“HS2 trains would never have gone on to the west coast main line”

at Handsacre and that “they would have joined” the west coast main line only “north of Manchester.” To that he replied: “Yes.” Of course, I pressed him on that because it would mean that the proposed services to Stafford, Stoke-on-Trent and Macclesfield were never actually going to materialise, even on completion of phase 2a. Sir Jon said that

“if 2a had been constructed, the advice to me, which I have got written down here, is that we would not have used that junction.”

That is Handsacre junction. I await further clarity in writing, but that does, at face value, confirm my worst fears about what HS2 Ltd was actually planning at Handsacre, which is a fait accompli of connections that would not have carried HS2 trains up the Potteries arc—and it would have all been too late by then to do anything about it.

Macclesfield—always a very odd choice of terminus, fine though that market town undoubtedly is—appears to have been a fig leaf to quieten Staffordshire down during the construction phase. Originally, under the hybrid Bill of 2013, it was proposed to create a full connection at Handsacre for HS2 by connecting the new track into the existing fast lines, enabling HS2 services to join on to the west coast main line. Then, in 2019—Trevor Parkin of the Stone Railway Campaign Group made this point very well at the Transport Committee on 30 November—HS2 redrew its intentions at Handsacre in order to join the slow lines of the west coast main line and not the fast lines. The options analysis for that extraordinary move has never been published, and we still do not know why that bizarre decision was taken.

With the cancellation of phase 2, it is clearly essential that we now revert to the original design for the Handsacre junction, to enable a proper connection with the fast lines to maximise capacity and allow services to run beyond. As I said, we await further clarification in writing about the reasons behind the changes, which are unlikely to be to do with cost, as people have attempted to claim. It seems unlikely that HS2 had intended any real, meaningful Stafford-Stoke-Macclesfield services to run at all.

For a start, unlike HS2, Network North recognises that the transport network is not rail alone and nor is it just about getting to and from Euston. Got right, the national transport network improvements focused on the midlands and the north, with enhancements such as junction 15 of the M6, which I hope will be completely upgraded, will facilitate much more seamless travel, faster journeys, more destinations and considerable freight gains, including reduced carbon miles and greater connectivity north-south and east-west that will benefit the midlands and the north. Even projects undertaken outside the midlands and the north will benefit those areas.

I particularly highlight the proposed rail upgrade at Ely junction, which will drive the momentum we need to see towards re-establishing a proper east-west freight route, with options to increase freight from Immingham and Felixstowe to Liverpool via the Potteries. Much of that currently takes a significantly elongated route down to the north London line, across and then up the west coast main line. That could also include reuse of the North Staffordshire line. That would facilitate the reopening of a station at Keele University, which was one of the aims of the restoring your railway bid sponsored by my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme. Its time will come, and probably sooner if the result of dropping phase 2a is to closely look at east-west links just as much as at north-south. The advantage of that would be a significantly increased capacity on the west coast main line by moving more freight on to other lines and significantly reducing journey lengths for freight. That would deliver major cost and environmental savings. Indeed, there is now an amazing opportunity to look not just at linking up our big cities with even quicker rail links than they already enjoy, but at transport connections within city regions.

That brings me nicely to the major area of my speech today, which is the use of capital release from HS2 phase 2a to fund restoring your railway projects. Restoring your railway is a very good scheme. It has been hugely popular among colleagues across the House and the communities we represent. Its flaw has been that it runs to only £500 million and that it expects some of the poorest areas of the country to stump up 25% of the funding for any projects taken to delivery. That local contribution hurdle has threatened to be insurmountable for a number of schemes, so I am completely delighted that that is no longer necessarily the case. Suddenly, it becomes possible to get 100% funding for the delivery stage of transformational projects, such as the reopening of Meir station in my constituency and the reopening of the Stoke to Leek line, which includes a station at Fenton Manor, which is also in my constituency. That is hugely welcome and we will continue to press the case for that funding in order to achieve the national objectives of levelling up: increased productivity, better connectivity, improved life chances, carbon reductions and much more.

The misery of HS2 was going to be fully funded, so it is only right that its successor projects are fully funded too. As I am always keen to say, I fully support levelling up, but we cannot simply level ourselves up after years of having so much taken away from us by Beeching and the Strategic Rail Authority. Much of our transport planning has been focused on making north Staffordshire an easy place to get to and for outsiders to travel through, but it is harder for local people to travel around. Meir in my constituency, which has the A50 running through it, has some of the worst traffic congestion. Despite 40% or more of households in Meir North being without a car, there are still major traffic issues there. Similar issues are seen in communities such as Blyth Bridge, where local roads often take the brunt of congestion, especially when anything goes wrong on the A50 or the A500. Further consideration needs to be given to addressing reliability problems on the A500 and A50 corridor, and it is positive to see that corridor listed for improvements as part of Network North.

In north Staffordshire, public transport—where it exists—is based mainly on buses that often do not go to where people need them or at a time when people want them. We have secured major investment to improve our local bus services—there is £31 million of planned bus service improvement funding—but the time has come to restore our rail services as well. We should reverse the Beeching axe, so that skills, training and employment opportunities are opened up to communities such as Meir that are deprived on multiple measures.

I am delighted that Meir station is now at the advanced project stage of RYR, and very advanced in that stage. I want shovels in the ground as soon as possible. A station will put Meir within 10 minutes’ direct train journey from the heart of the university quarter in Stoke-on-Trent, whereas the bus journey can take over an hour in traffic. I hope that, following the opening of Meir station, we might also see a doubling of passenger services on the line from Crewe, through Stoke and Derby, to Nottingham, and go from one train an hour to two.

Meir is not alone in needing rail connectivity to Stoke town and the university quarter—connectivity not provided by bus—so I am delighted to see that restoring your railway has taken the Stoke-to-Leek line project forward to the feasibility stage, our strategic outline business case having been accepted. This line was closed to passenger traffic in 1956, except for a few football specials, and to freight in 1989, and has never served some of the biggest post-war estates in Stoke-on-Trent. Even when it ran, in the 1950s, there was no station for inter-war estates such as Abbey Hulton, which has many of the same challenges as Meir. Fenton Manor in my constituency will reopen under the Stoke-to-Leek line proposals. That opens up a major centre for leisure, employment and secondary education—St Peter’s Academy —to more of our city’s residents, while reconnecting residents of Fenton to the rail network.

Sadly, my right hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire Moorlands is unable to be with us today, but she very ably chaired the Stoke-to-Leek line project. It would be remiss of me not to plug the benefits of visiting her beautiful constituency, which more of our constituents will be able to do with ease once the Stoke-to-Leek line is rebuilt. It can easily take longer to get from Leek to Stoke-on-Trent station by road—especially by bus—than it takes to get from Stoke-on-Trent to London by train. Again, that makes the point that getting to and from London and big cities such as Manchester slightly faster is not as pressing a priority for people in Staffordshire as getting around and across our county and its sub-regions more easily and quickly.

To make that work, we really need Stoke-on-Trent City Council and Network Rail finally to deliver the funded and promised packages of the transforming cities fund. The city’s MPs have had to watch with horror as delay upon delay has been announced in delivering the package, although we busted a gut to secure the funding, as the city council repeatedly seeks to redefine schemes that should already have been delivered. I am particularly concerned about the promised improvements to Longton station and the environments of public realm around Times Square, with its iconic railway bridge. Covid has too long been an excuse for the delays to these projects. Longton needs a properly accessible station with lifts. The Victorian ticket hall could also be restored. The station needs to look and act like a station, rather than being just a backwater of the town.

The Department has shown great patience, and I am grateful for that. I hope it will consider all the options available to get the transforming cities fund package over the line and delivered in Stoke-on-Trent. I note that paragraph 69 of the Network North document makes an explicit commitment to improving the accessibility of our train stations, with £350 million more having been provided for 100 stations. Funding released from HS2 can easily rescue aspects of TCF from further downgrading and delay. Further improvements are needed at Stoke station to increase its capacity, in terms of both platform and concourse space.

The cancellation of phase 2 means that it is more likely that high-speed services will run through Stoke to Manchester, so it is essential that Stoke station be properly equipped to accommodate those additional services. That is alongside the Stoke-to-Leek services, the upgrade to two trains per hour that we need on the Crewe to Derby line, and the potential for additional freight. A lot of mothballed railway infrastructure in north Staffordshire needs to be brought back into play, including not only the Stoke-to-Leek line, which is still a statutory railway that is owned by Network Rail, but a number of other parts of the network.

On the Crewe-to-Derby line, we also need a redoubling of the track between Crewe and Alsager, which would help to release significant capacity and allow for increased services through that part of the network. I would like to see track re-laid around the back of Stoke station and new platforms to the west of the station, which is currently a car park but was formerly full of freight lines that ran around the back of the station to the goods yard. The goods yard is now a major levelling-up project; it is time for the station and its capacity to be levelled up as well.

Given the tens of billions in funding released from HS2, there will now be many hands in the air for projects across the country, either those already included in the “Network North” document or projects elsewhere. I have already mentioned junction 15, which was part of the road investment strategy 3 pipeline, the A500 and A50 corridor, Meir station, and the Stoke-to-Leek line. There are also existing RNEP—rail network enhancements pipeline—projects that would be useful. I hope that the Minister can say whether the Department intends to reallocate HS2 money to any of those projects, or add in HS2-ready works that we need on parts of the west coast main line to upgrade it to take phase 1 services.

When the RNEP was first introduced in 2018, the Rail Industry Association welcomed it as an open and transparent way of sharing the forward pipeline of potential works. It was updated in October 2019, in what was intended to be the first annual update, but there have been no updates published since, despite repeated requests. It may be another casualty of covid, but the time is right to revisit the RNEP and publish an updated list that takes account of the changed focus following the cancellation of HS2 phase 2 and other, more recent publications. That will help to prioritise schemes that will have the greatest impact on connectivity, levelling up and productivity. I am confident that Meir and the Stoke-to-Leek proposals will be important additions.

A new station to serve Trentham or Barlaston, which I have been campaigning for, would also be welcome. I am actively engaging with Network Rail and the West Midlands Rail Executive on how they could deliver that. It would restore the rail connectivity that was lost with the suspension and demise of Wedgwood and Barlaston in 2004, and to the Beeching axe, which closed Trentham station in the 1960s. I have been on site with Network Rail at the former location of Trentham station, and I look forward to seeing Network Rail’s plans for how restored rail connectivity at either Trentham or Barlaston could best serve communities between Stoke and Stone.

Our transport problems in Stoke-on-Trent and north Staffordshire cannot be solved by buses alone. We have tried that. Cross-city journeys that were once reliably fast on our local train network are now painfully slow on multiple buses that are extremely unreliable because of severe road congestion. It is not that buses have no place—they absolutely do—but they solve different transport problems. They are not always the most viable alternative to the car, or the most effective at cutting road congestion, but that does not stop them being a valued part of the public transport mix.

I welcome the extension of the £2 fare until the end of this year; that will help get people back on buses. Passenger numbers were in steep decline even before covid, and costs were certainly a factor. I hope that the bus service improvement plan for Stoke-on-Trent, which provides all-day bus travel for £3.50, will galvanise that effect. However, if cross-city bus services are to be restored, much rests on delivering a seamless bus-rail transport interchange at Stoke station, which was promised under TCF. Even then, they will not cover the cross-city journeys that could easily be completed with a restored Potteries rail network. Ultimately, we need an Oyster-style system that will allow passengers to travel by both local bus and rail across the Potteries. That might eventually also apply to a tram network—something we are keen to see delivered in north Staffordshire. To work up those proposals to the required level of detail and engineering feasibility, some of the released HS2 moneys might need to be set aside for development funds. That worked in the case of the restoring your railway fund, where the initial hurdle is to prove that a transport problem exists, and that a public transport solution needs to be explored—although I repeat that a 25% local funding requirement is a major barrier to achieving that.

I want to mention briefly the improvements that might be needed on the west coast main line to make the network HS2-ready. In addition to Handsacre reverting to the original design, we must see action to address the issues at Colwich and create a properly grade-separated junction there. Consideration should also be given to what could be done to achieve four tracks at Shugborough. At Shugborough tunnel, there is a section where there are only two tracks. If that were addressed, there could then be four tracks all the way to Crewe. As with Stoke station, we need to look again at how best to optimise Crewe station. I have already mentioned the need to redouble the Crewe-Alsager section of the Crewe-Derby line, and the opportunity to reuse old sidings at Longport to relieve congestion on that line.

We also need to look at the capacity constraints at Crewe that HS2 Ltd failed to address, not least by drawing on Network Rail’s 2016 report, “Crewe Hub: improving capacity and connectivity for our customers”. That report noted that services have to cross over and share tracks at the Crewe North and South junctions, which cannot fit any more crossing train movements. There is an opportunity with the cancellation of phase 2 to focus on Crewe station to help address some of those constraints.

In particular, we should seriously consider delivering the bi-facing island platform on the Manchester independent lines to the west of Crewe station. That was envisaged in the hybrid Bill but subsequently scrapped by HS2 Ltd. I hope the Minister will revisit that, because using those independent lines with a bi-facing island platform will solve a lot of the conflicting movements and congestion issues at Crewe, especially for the Cardiff-Manchester train, and open up possibilities for more frequent local services and new services, and for restoring lines to Crewe. There can also be freight gains, and we need to remember that our transport network is not just for passengers but for goods and logistics.

Finally, I want to mention Northern Powerhouse Rail, which is obviously impacted by the decision on phase 2, given that it was proposed that it would share some of the track. However, I have recently seen alternative proposals for upgrading to a different, shorter route, which could offer a much more viable solution to NPR. I will share those proposals with the Minister, and I hope that he will give them serious consideration, as they could mean delivering NPR sooner, with greater benefits, and at a third of the cost of what is being proposed.

In conclusion, the cancellation of HS2 phase 2a promises to release resources that can make Staffordshire a place of great transport gain, instead of a place of great transport pain, which is what HS2 was likely to make it. For the many people who have had their properties compulsorily purchased, the pain has already been incurred, and that pain needs to be drawn to a final close, and properly compensated and addressed. At the end of the day, HS2 phase 2a just did not add up, or rather its costs kept mounting, but its benefits kept diminishing. We have an opportunity to focus on local benefits that will add up to a more coherent, productive and well-connected transport system across road and rail, for the benefit of more than just those elite travellers moving between our biggest cities. Meir station and the Stoke-Leek line must be among the local schemes that are delivered. I look forward to the Minister’s reply.

We should be positive about public transport as a solution. HS2 and phase 2 should have been sold as a great improvement to our rail infrastructure, rather than an expensive inconvenience. Each train unlocked by HS2’s extra capacity could have removed over 120 lorries from the roads. Britain’s highways are already among the most congested in Europe. The decision to scrap the northern leg of HS2 will lead to up to half a million more lorry journeys up and down the country, and a lot more congestion in our towns and cities.

Tens of thousands of jobs and a great economic opportunity have been lost. Why should anybody invest in the UK when the Government do not provide long-term investment opportunities? The Institution of Civil Engineers was clear that delaying HS2 would mean that construction firms shifted their focus to other countries. Our global trade is also affected, and the British Chambers of Commerce emphasised that we need more capacity for that reason. One in four sea containers arriving or departing from a port is carried by rail. Our global partners need to be able to trust that we can move at speed and with capacity. Now businesses have been left with a gap in their strategic plans, and where is the plan to establish Great British Railways? Why is the transport Bill delayed?

The whole HS2 debacle has exposed the lack of an industrial strategy. The Government should consider giving a statutory underpinning to the publication of a national infrastructure strategy every five years. We need certainty, and the scrapping of the northern leg of HS2 just shows that when we dither and delay about long-term strategic plans, all we have is loss and absolutely no gain.

My hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent South mentioned the north Staffordshire railway link. Improving east-west connectivity is absolutely vital for moving freight transport off the busy west coast main line, to ensure it goes to places it needs to and gets more freight on rail and off our roads. It would be wrong not to mention our roads; I am delighted to see that, as a result of the cancellation of HS2, Staffordshire has benefited by an extra £4.4 million.

Let us be clear: the people of Kinver, Codsall, Wombourne, Great Wyrley, Brewood and every place across south Staffordshire want to see the potholes eradicated. That extra £4.4 million will go a long way towards blitzing some of those problems. I appreciate that it is not in his portfolio, but I ask the Minister to go back to the Secretary of State for Transport and say that we want more money to deal with those potholes right across Staffordshire. This cancellation can make a real impact, delivering better services in every community across Staffordshire, but let us make sure that that money is well spent.

The Government promised, with great fanfare, to pursue the electrification of the north Wales main line, yet the current £1 billion pledge is, at the very least, 50% below what is now estimated to be needed. The figure is based on a business case made nearly 10 years ago; costs now are likely to be north of £1.5 billion.

I ask Opposition Front Benchers whether they are content with Welsh rail being permanently underfunded in this way. If they form the next Government, will they commit to fixing this broken funding mechanism? Do they accept the principle that HS2 is an England-only project, and that Wales is owed full consequential funding? The Welsh Labour Government already do, and there is cross-party agreement on this in the Senedd. Will Opposition Front Benchers here be at odds with their colleagues in Wales?

The billions owed to Wales could be invested to reverse some of the savage cuts made to bus services, which of course also result from Westminster austerity. Over the past 15 years, rural bus services in Wales and England dropped by 52%. In my county of Gwynedd, bus service frequency has dropped dramatically, with change in service frequency measured in trips per hours between 2010 and 2023 dropping by 50.5%. The Confederation of Passenger Transport has estimated that a further 15% to 25% of all bus routes in Wales will be at risk of cuts or significant amendment over the coming year.

It is clear that the UK Government’s boastful rhetoric on transport funding is at odds with people’s real life experiences in our communities. The Government must match their rhetoric with action and commit to full funding from HS2 to Wales.

I turn to the wider consequences of the cancellation of HS2. It is important that where farming land has been purchased, we seek for that land to go back into farming, recognising aspects of food security. I also welcome the fact that the £2 bus fare has been kept until the end of this year, without the anticipated rise. That is a good investment in local public transport. I am conscious that there has been significant investment through the major road network on the A12, for which Suffolk County Council has been granted funds that will help with the traffic and congestion problems that arise in the area. Those problems are anticipated to increase as a result of the construction of Sizewell C, which is now under way after the development consent order was triggered on Monday; I was pleased to be in Sizewell for the recognition of that.

There are other elements of the A14 that really need looking at. I encourage the Minister, as part of this wider investment, to ask the roads Minister—the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, the hon. Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman)—to look at this carefully. I know that there was a hugely successful project in Cambridge: it was brilliant and was done on time, and it might even have been done under budget. However, that should not be the end of the story for one of the most important parts of the major road network in terms of economic productivity.

My right hon. Friend the Member for South Staffordshire (Sir Gavin Williamson) talked about potholes. It is critical that the funds for potholes are ringfenced. There have been some shocking situations with potholes in my own constituency in Suffolk. I met the leader of Suffolk County Council last Friday to discuss some of them, and this Friday I am meeting the council’s cabinet member with responsibility for roads. There are issues with the thoroughfare in Woodbridge, aspects of Aldeburgh and parts of the main A12, and many other places are struggling, too.

I know that the weather has been a challenge and that there have been other issues. Suffolk County Council appointed a new contractor, which started in October; it is not doing the job that it should be doing. I am pleased that the council has recognised that: the contractor is being hauled in front of the council leader. It is important that we keep that scrutiny and that the Government continue to ensure that taxpayers’ money is delivered for the benefit of taxpayers, quickly, promptly and effectively.

However, recent communication from the Department for Transport has caused me alarm and made me think that in fact the money for those projects may not be given to my area in the way that we were led to believe, if it is given at all. That would be wholly unfair and profoundly wrong, given the blight that we have suffered and continue to suffer.

Today I seek reassurance from the Minister present, who knows Aylesbury well, that he will do everything in his power to make sure that the two original projects in Aylesbury outlined on that list of 80 projects for Network North will indeed be delivered in their entirety in the Aylesbury constituency. Ultimately, the simple fact of the matter is that the longer we delay unlocking those funds for what are essential projects that will one day have to be delivered, the more the costs will escalate and the bigger the final bill will be. That would benefit absolutely no one. My town is absolutely gridlocked because of this white elephant of a project. We desperately need our share of the money that is being saved by the decision to cancel phase 2A of HS2. The people of Aylesbury deserve absolutely nothing less.

I would just say that we are not opposed to infrastructure at all in Buckinghamshire. Indeed, many people locally support the Aylesbury link of East West Rail. That is the railway that we want in Buckinghamshire, but it always seems to be just out of our grasp. I remind the Minister that we are very keen to see it getting the go-ahead; I seek any undertaking on that that he might be able to give me. We want railways that are right for our communities, right for our society and right for our economy.