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Northern Rail Hub

I agree entirely with that point. The northern hub would do a great deal to help tackle the economic disparities between the south-east of England and the north. What is the northern hub project that we have heard so much about? The hon. Member for Colne Valley illustrated it well: it is a series of works, new track and increased platform capacity in Manchester that will remove track conflicts and relieve traffic congestion. The works will allow up to 700 more trains a day, with space for 44 million more passenger journeys a year. Completion of the works will allow two new fast trains an hour to run between Manchester Victoria and Liverpool, with, as the hon. Gentleman said, six fast trains an hour between Leeds and Manchester, as opposed to four now. Just as important for someone who represents a south Yorkshire constituency, journey times between Leeds, Sheffield and Manchester—what I have referred to in the past as the ““golden triangle”” of the north— will be reduced significantly. Leeds, Sheffield and Manchester are equidistant, economically important and interdependent, and we have to maximise the potential of those three great cities. I have argued previously that the present situation whereby it takes up to an hour and often longer to travel the 30 miles between Sheffield and Manchester is unacceptable. That represents a journey time not a great deal different from that experienced by our Victorian forebears—that is how little the north of England has moved forward in rail journey time and capacity in the past century. A completed northern hub would cut the journey time between Sheffield and Manchester and, importantly, would allow two more trains to run throughout the day. That will help to cut the daily overcrowding, which has already been mentioned, on cross-country routes. The estimated cost of those improvements, as the hon. Member for Colne Valley said, is £260 million—a large sum, but not great when placed alongside the £16 billion budget for Crossrail. It is estimated that for every £1 invested, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi) said a moment ago, there would be a return of £4 in economic benefits. Crucially, we need the whole of the package to deliver that economic benefit. I see the current congestion and problems in the network as a knot. To deal with the problems created by a knot, one does not half untie it. The whole knot has to be loosened and dealt with to get the benefit, and that is the important point. We have to unknot the network and deal with all the problems created by congestion around Manchester. There is no point in untying part of the knot; we have to deal with the whole problem to get the benefit. The Chancellor's recent autumn statement announced the Government's intention to fast-track some elements of the northern hub project. That commitment is welcome but it goes nowhere near far enough. Work on the Ordsall chord will enable trains from Manchester airport, and Liverpool to Leeds, to use the modernised Manchester Victoria station, but that only partially answers the question of congestion in and around Manchester. The announcement to electrify the north Pennine route and the electrification of other routes around the north-west is welcome, but while that will allow lighter, more efficient trains to use those routes, it will not relieve all congestion and will not help passengers from Sheffield, and those further east on the Hope Valley line, to enjoy faster, more frequent trains. That has a massive impact on the east coast and the Humber bank. The Hope Valley line is critical to all train journeys from Cleethorpes and Grimsby through to Manchester airport, as well as Sheffield. If the north of England is to close the economic gap with London and the south-east, it is my firm belief that this project has to be given the green light in its entirety for the next control period. The full range of benefits envisaged by the project, benefits that we know are desperately needed to help the north to grow, will not be realised unless we deliver every element of the project. We have called for this debate today because we have been receiving worrying signals from the Minister. I pay tribute to her, which may seem unusual for an Opposition politician, for the way she has handled the High Speed 2 debate. She has shown a firm grasp of the detail and has been staunch in her commitment to the project, and I would like to see the same for the northern hub. The point made earlier, that the northern hub is critical to complementing HS2, is the important point. On capacity in the north of England, if it is cheaper to tunnel than to dig steep embankments in the Chilterns, surely we can consider reopening the Woodhead line. It has been said to me that the tunnelling that would be required on the Woodhead line if we were to reopen it is far too expensive for the Department for Transport to consider. Let us therefore have that one back on the table while we are at it. For many years, the north has lagged behind the south-east in rail investment. Now is the time to change that. It is time to acknowledge that transport spending for the north has lagged significantly behind that made available for London and the south-east, and that action needs to be taken to correct this unfairness in funding allocations by the Department for Transport. This is the best opportunity we have had for years to correct that situation by giving the go-ahead to this project in its entirety. I pointed out at the start of my contribution that a completed northern hub helps not only Manchester but the rest of the north of England. I call on the Government to prioritise this work. It makes sense for the north and it makes sense for rebalancing the economy, so it makes sense for the UK as a whole.