To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the report by the New Economic Foundation A Rail Network for Everyone: probing HS2 and its alternatives, published on 20 March, in particular its conclusions that (1) HS2 will make the north–south divide worse by concentrating wealth in London, and (2) the budget for HS2 should be invested in the existing railway network instead.
Answered on
2 April 2019
HS2 has the potential to be a transformative infrastructure project that will help to rebalance our economy. The report misrepresents evidence that by no means suggests that HS2 would exacerbate a North-South divide. The project has cross-party Parliamentary support and significant support from political leaders in the North and Midlands, in particular, who can see the benefits this project can have in terms of job creation, providing new apprenticeships and opportunities for large and small businesses, unlocking commercial space and regeneration and facilitating new housing.
The project is already leading to significant investment in Birmingham and we expect it to deliver similar growth in towns and cities across the North. HS2 not only represents an investment in the economies of the North and Midlands, it will also add additional capacity where our rail network needs it most and the trains will call at 25 stations across the UK, as far as Edinburgh and Glasgow, which will improve people’s connections between towns and cities the breath of the UK.
To present the investment in our rail network as an either / or between modernising the existing network and investing in new infrastructure is both misleading and inaccurate. In Control Period 6 the government is planning to invest £48bn on our rail network, this is in addition to HS2 and the emerging plans Transport for the North has developed for Northern Powerhouse Rail. While upgrading existing lines is essential, doing that alone would not provide the long-term capacity that is so vitally needed – HS2 will deliver capacity roughly equivalent to two new dual three-lane motorways - would lead to more disruption for passengers on the existing networks, and more importantly it would not offer the range of economic benefits that City Regions and LEPs have set out in their HS2 Growth Strategies.