Ministers looking at ‘pipeline of schemes’ to run HS2 north of Birmingham

Ministers are looking at a “realistic pipeline of schemes” to link HS2 to destinations north of Birmingham, the Transport Secretary has said.

Heidi Alexander told the Commons that Labour last year found a “ragtag collection of half-baked, unfunded spending commitments for rail schemes up and down the country” after they won the general election.

Conservative shadow transport secretary Gareth Bacon accused Labour of having triggered an “ongoing decline in reliability” across the country, as a result of a pay deal last year with the Aslef trade union.

MPs heard on Thursday that the Conservatives “panicked and mothballed” part of HS2, when the previous government scrapped plans to build a high-speed line between Birmingham and Manchester.

Ruth Cadbury, the Commons Transport Committee chairwoman, said: “The original vision for HS2 was to link London with the Midlands and the north and also to address the growing capacity challenge on the West Coast Main Line with a whole new rail line.

“The last government panicked and mothballed much of the project over cost overruns on phase one, thus incurring yet further costs. And I welcome the Secretary of State’s commitment to get a grip on the phase one cost overruns.

“But what I want to know is does the Government plan to deliver a rail solution linking phase one north of Birmingham to the rest of the country, and thus delivering the Government’s vision to drive growth for the whole country.”

Ms Alexander replied: “I’m pleased that she raises the question of the mess that we inherited from the Conservative government on HS2 and rail connectivity in the north. When we entered government in July we did find that ragtag collection of half-baked, unfunded spending commitments for rail schemes up and down the country.”

She added: “We have started the hard work of identifying a realistic pipeline of schemes that is affordable and will deliver better connectivity in partnership with local leaders.”

Liberal Democrat transport spokesman Paul Kohler urged ministers to “commit to a high-speed rail link from Birmingham to Crewe to ensure mid and north Wales can at least share in the benefits of HS2”.

He also suggested a “review” of “the Tories’ decision to class HS2 as an England and Wales project, while “depriving Wales of billions of pounds in Barnett formula funding”.

Ms Alexander said she had met with the Welsh Government’s cabinet secretary for transport Ken Skates and is working with Wales Secretary Jo Stevens “to ensure that we bring public transport improvements to Wales”.

The Government is holding land previously bought up for the full high-speed railway plan between London Euston and Manchester, and rail minister Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill said last year that “no property on the hastily cancelled phase 2a has yet been disposed of and the Government is carefully considering what to do”.

Turning to strikes, Mr Bacon said: “The Government promised to deliver more reliable rail services but over Christmas, what did we see? Chaos, cancellation and delays.

“The train drivers, having accepted the Government’s no-strings pay deal, chose to turn down overtime shifts leaving passengers stranded and left in the cold.

“The Government’s no-strings agreement was supposed to bring stability to the railways but it did the exact opposite, causing major disruption.”

The shadow transport secretary asked Ms Alexander to “admit that the pay deal that they thought would improve reliability in fact only made services worse”.

Ms Alexander said she “vehemently” disagreed, adding: “The reality is that this Government acted when the previous one refused to, to put an end to the industrial action that was blighting our railways.

“We had a two-year national rail strike that ground down everyone who travels or works on the railways, with a cost of £850 million in lost revenue.”

In a follow-up, Mr Bacon suggested “Christmas chaos won’t be a one off and will in fact be the start of ongoing decline in reliability”, because “their union paymasters will keep pushing for more”.

The Transport Secretary said: “We’ve had decades of chaos on the railways and railways that simply didn’t work for people.”