HS2 Ltd continue to support the promotion of the High Speed Rail (Crewe-Manchester) Bill which will be adapted to deliver only the section of route necessary for Northern Powerhouse Rail. No decisions have been taken on the long-term delivery strategy on contracting choices for the Northern Powerhouse Rail programme at this stage.

Our long-term ambition is to improve capacity and connectivity between Birmingham and Manchester with a new rail line. This will not be a reinstatement of HS2 and no decisions have been taken on the exact specification, route or the approach to implementing or contracting the project.

We will learn lessons from the implementation of HS2 to take the time necessary to undertake the development work to underpin these decisions.

This report https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/hs2-phase-2b-select-committee-crewe-to-manchester-understanding-the-ground-risk-across-the-cheshire-plain was commissioned and published as a comprehensive report into the ground risk north of Crewe across the Cheshire plain.

The Government does not expect to publish any further information.

Aspects of the proposal have been analysed for their technical feasibility and how they would support passengers on HS2 in the long term. The Department is working with industry on potential interventions to further improve journeys for Northwest passengers when high-speed services operate on the West Coast Mainline.

In addition, the Northern Growth Strategy announcement of January 2026 set out the Government’s intention to ultimately deliver a full North-South new line between Birmingham and Manchester. This will enable the Government to safeguard future growth for the long term by ensuring the West Coast Main Line corridor offers sufficient capacity and good connectivity.

The government is taking forward the High Speed Rail (Crewe – Manchester) Bill to deliver the Northern Powerhouse Rail route into Manchester via Manchester Airport. We have not reversed the previous government’s decision to cancel HS2 Phase 2 and will adapt the bill to deliver only the section of route necessary for Northern Powerhouse Rail.

The Government engaged closely with Mayors across the North of England during the development of the Northern Growth Strategy. Compact agreements with each Mayoral Combined Authority show the support for the Programme and the approach and are available online within the Rail Network Correspondence section of the Government's website.

We will continue to work in close collaboration with Mayors and partners across the North throughout the development and delivery of Northern Powerhouse Rail.

The route of the original Phase 2b scheme can be found in the Online Government Collection titled: HS2 Phase 2b: Crewe to Manchester and the West Midlands to Leeds.

The government will adapt the High Speed Rail (Crewe-Manchester) Bill to deliver only the section of route necessary for Northern Powerhouse Rail. Following the Instruction Motion passed in the House of Commons in May 2024, the Bill will be truncated at a point in the vicinity of the Parish of Millington and Rostherne. The Government will set out further details when the Hybrid Bill Select Committee recommences.

My noble friend touches on a subject very dear to my heart. I find it quite extraordinary how we are prepared somehow to tolerate the excessive numbers of deaths and serious injuries on our roads. He makes an interesting proposition and I will endeavour to look into it on his behalf.

The guidance was published in draft in March 2024 but never brought into force. The Government is considering next steps and more information will be made available in due course.

As is longstanding policy, local authorities are best placed to decide what traffic management schemes are appropriate, including low-traffic neighbourhoods, but they should always be developed through engagement with local communities.

HS2 Ltd has extended the deferral of works between Birmingham and Handsacre, in place since spring 2023, to focus efforts on the cost-efficient delivery of the opening stage of HS2 between Old Oak Common and Birmingham Curzon Street. The scope of secondary works on the tunnels include construction activity relating to tunnel vent shafts, headhouses and walkways.

The government is taking forward the High Speed Rail (Crewe – Manchester) Bill to deliver the Northern Powerhouse Rail route into Manchester via Manchester Airport. We have not reversed the previous government’s decision to cancel HS2 Phase 2 and will adapt the bill to deliver only the section of route necessary for Northern Powerhouse Rail.

In light of lessons from HS2, we are carefully developing detailed plans for delivery. However, from our work to date, we expect major construction works for the Liverpool to Manchester section of the route to commence in the mid-2030s and continue into the 2040s.

Of course, the irony of my noble friend’s journey to Fowey last week is that it was the private sector train company that failed to supply the sandwiches to him. It is a serious point and his complaint has been well aired, because he wrote to me, he wrote to the managing director of the train company, I think he wrote to the Secretary of State and he has now raised in the House of Lords that the trolley did not have any sandwiches on it. It is a valid point that the customer offer which is made to people should be reliable, and a five-hour journey without anything to eat is not much fun. I hope he got a drink though.

The Railways Bill is framed to give Great British Railways the authority, for the first time in over 30 years, to control access to the railway and make sure that it is fairly distributed

and serves the nation’s economic and social purposes. That is in Clause 60. Clause 63 talks about GBR operating passenger services. The reason that the freight target is specified in the Bill is so that GBR will have the obligation to leave both freight paths that are used in the timetable for freight trains and those paths that are not used but will be needed for the expansion of freight services and are needed at short notice to be used by freight operators.

The Maritime Decarbonisation Strategy (MDS), published in 2025, sets out how we will decarbonise UK maritime transport, including through the inclusion of domestic maritime sector in the UK Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) from July this year.

The draft Statutory Instrument on the expansion of the ETS to maritime has now been laid and approved across the UK Parliaments, providing certainty ahead of the expansion in July. Further guidance is available from the Environment Agency.

Given the long lifespan of shipping vessels, action needs to be taken now to meet the goals of the MDS, helping the sector move towards a lower carbon future and contribute to UK net zero obligations.

In recognition of this change, the Government will give maritime operators until the end of the first two scheme years to familiarise themselves with the UK ETS and its digital systems before they must surrender allowances for those years.

Exemptions will apply to ferry services to Scotland’s islands and certain peninsular communities. These are based on the unique and pressing challenges faced by these communities due to exceptional reliance on ferries for essential goods, healthcare, education, and employment, as well as additional legal duties under the Islands (Scotland) Act 2018. We have assessed that these criteria are not met for other UK islands.

The Government will monitor the impacts of the scheme and has committed to review the effectiveness of the scheme, including the exemptions, in 2028.

As set out in the Maritime Decarbonisation Strategy, emissions pricing is an effective policy lever to reduce emissions. The Government set out its intention to include domestic maritime emissions in the UK Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) in 2022 and confirmed expansion by 2026 in the Government response to the consultation in 2023. This was followed by a further consultation in November 2024 detailing the Government's proposed policy approach.

The Government have confirmed that we will be expanding the UK Emissions Trading Scheme (UK ETS) to domestic maritime from July 2026. The draft Statutory Instrument on the expansion of the ETS to maritime has now been laid and approved across the UK Parliaments, providing certainty ahead of the expansion in July. Further guidance is available from the Environment Agency.

The final policy design of the ETS has been based on the best available evidence and responses to these consultations, with the aims of incentivising investment in decarbonisation and avoiding competitive disadvantages for UK shipping operators.

There will be no double-charging of emissions when ETS is expanded to domestic maritime in July 2026, as the UK ETS will apply to voyages beginning and ending in the UK, and to emissions at berth within the UK. These emissions are not in scope of the EU ETS.

In May 2025, the UK and the European Union (EU) agreed to enter into negotiations on an agreement linking the UK ETS and the EU ETS. Linking ETS’s is about making life easier for operators and aims to minimise the administrative burdens and unlock greater access to a larger market, supporting economic growth and decarbonisation. Continuing negotiations will determine the details and extent of alignment.

Including emissions at berth in the UK ETS targets a major source of maritime pollution. In 2019, vessels over 5,000 GT produced 1.9 MtCO₂e at berth in UK ports, around 58% of domestic maritime emissions, so bringing these emissions into scope drives operators to cut them now. This also aligns with the EU ETS approach, therefore providing operators a predictable and consistent framework.

Following the launch of the Maritime Decarbonisation Strategy in March 2025, the Government has extensively engaged with shipping operators, ports, and the wider maritime sector. This includes engagement on shore power availability, grid capacity constraints and alternative fuels. We ran a call for evidence on Net Zero Ports that gathered evidence on current and future grid capacity at ports, as well as drivers of that future energy demand, and will continue working with industry to understand their needs.

This Government has worked with the National Energy System Operator and Ofgem to implement bold new reforms to the grid connections process. We are committed to ensuring ports future energy needs are taken into account as part of reforms and future planning of the network, and to working with industry to understand wider challenges such as energy costs.

UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) and Defra have funded a £14.8 million Resilient Coastal Communities and Seas Programme which will fund projects to enhance our knowledge of how to strengthen the resilience, health and wellbeing of UK coastal communities.

UKRI has also invested in the coastal economy, for example through the ECOflow and ECOWind programmes, supporting the rollout of clean energy in offshore wind, and an £11 million programme to build resilience to climate change in coastal communities and support their economic development.

More widely, Defra is working with the sector to help establish support it in the establishment of Marine Science UK (MSUK). MSUK acts as a collective voice for marine science across UK universities and research organisations, to champion the ocean and to communicate robust and coherent marine science evidence to government, industry and the wider community.

The government has a strong track record of supporting marine science, including through the £10 million ‘Biological influence on future ocean storage of carbon’ (BIO-Carbon) programme, funded by UK Research and Innovation’s (UKRI) Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), which aims to better understand the role of ocean life in climate sequestration. NERC also supports and partners with the National Oceanography Centre and other marine delivery partners to underpin the UK’s marine science capabilities.

More widely, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) supports the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science, supporting global efforts to tackle the challenges of climate change, biodiversity loss and food security. DEFRA also works to foster international ocean science co-operation on ocean sustainability issues, and is working closely with our fishing and seafood sectors to ensure they are profitable and sustainable. In addition, the investment provided by the £360 million Fishing and Coastal Growth Fund, which will support the next generation of fishermen and coastal communities over the next 12 years.

My Lords, my department’s climate adaptation strategy for transport embraces detailed work on the railway infrastructure by Network Rail. That organisation has produced weather resilience and climate change adaptation plans by railway region, looking out not only over the five-year control period to 2029 but further into the 2030s. Those plans identify priority sites for maintenance,

renewal and enhancement. Beyond 2029, work programmes will be firmed up and funded in future control periods.

As an engineer, my noble friend will know that Brunel built the railway around the south Devon coast in 1846 and that it has been under attack by the tides and weather ever since. The most serious closure was of nearly 60 days in 2014, and that was remedied by a large-scale investment project that spent £165 million. That resulted in a railway that was sufficiently resilient to remain closed for only 36 hours earlier this year, despite terrible weather.

The citizens of Devon and Cornwall can be quite comfortable that the future resilience of the railway is being looked after. The alternative route, which stopped operation some 60 years ago, in fact closed temporarily for a much longer period due to the heaviest rainfall ever recorded in the south-west. It would not be a sufficiently resilient route, even if it could be afforded to be rebuilt.

There are no plans for temporary or time-limited exemptions from the UK ETS for English island ferry services.

Any potential impacts of the scheme on ferry services to English islands will be considered in a review of the effectiveness of the maritime regime in 2028.