Hansard

Thank you for the opportunity to speak on the emerging plans for high-speed rail in the United Kingdom and Scotland’s response. The committee will know that, at the end of January, the Secretary of State for Transport, Patrick McLoughlin, announced the UK Government’s initial preferred route for new high-speed rail lines to Manchester and Leeds. That of course built on the earlier announcement on the route from London to Birmingham.The route is currently being developed to detailed design level to support the passage of what will be a hybrid bill to approve the scheme. I understand that the bill will be submitted to the UK Parliament by the end of this year. Indeed, the UK Government’s plan is that the phase 1 hybrid bill will receive royal assent in 2015, with construction work starting as early as 2016. The design and approvals process for phase 2 will follow closely behind that.The Secretary of State for Transport and his Cabinet colleagues stand firmly behind the proposals. There is no doubting that the UK Government has a real commitment to high-speed rail. For our part, we have voiced our support for the development of high-speed rail, but we have done so with a caveat. As our partnership group for high-speed rail, the fast track Scotland group, has clearly stated, the case for high-speed rail in the UK is significantly stronger when Scotland is fully connected to the new network. That recognises Scotland’s strong economic contribution and the strength of the Glasgow-Edinburgh city region. The convener, Maureen Watt, witnessed the strong support that there is in northern England for faster rail connections with Scotland at the faster and further high-speed rail conference in November last year.The business case also recognises the environmental benefits of Scotland’s inclusion and the ability of high-speed rail to capture domestic aviation’s leading market position. However, there are threats to realising those benefits. From 2026, new services will run from London to Glasgow on new high-speed lines where those are available, but then they will have to run on the existing network. Over existing tracks, the services will actually run more slowly than the trains that currently operate on the west coast main line. Therefore, any improvement in journey times to Scotland will be modest. The situation will improve when high-speed rail lines eventually reach Manchester and Leeds, as proposed for 2032, so journey times will be better but, north of Manchester, nothing as yet is planned to improve line capacity.Incidentally, Network Rail says that capacity will be exhausted by the mid-2020s. There will be little scope to provide additional services on the line and to meet rising passenger demand. We have always said that it does not seem sensible to spend all the money that it is proposed to spend on high-speed rail and then have to undertake a substantial upgrade to the west coast main line because of capacity problems, particularly given that billions of pounds were spent on that line just over a decade ago. It seems to us that there is a more efficient way to spend public money.The phasing of the high-speed railway’s construction is also of concern to us. In 2026, when phase 1 is completed, journey times from London to Birmingham will fall from one hour 24 minutes to only 49 minutes, which is a 42 per cent time saving. In 2032, when the Manchester to London line is completed, the journey will take one hour and eight minutes. That is an hour quicker than at present, which represents a 47 per cent saving on today’s journey times. At that point, Glasgow to London journey times will fall to three hours and 38 minutes, which is a saving of less than 20 per cent.In Scotland, we will not have overall journey time reductions of the magnitude that will be enjoyed by others until a full high-speed line connects Edinburgh to Glasgow. There is real potential for an extended period of relative economic disadvantage that would fall not just on Scotland; it would also impact on the north of England. That was identified in “Fast Track Scotland”—and the partnership group that prepared that report is made up of leading businesses and civic and transport groups. That is why we have been pressing for high-speed rail to be developed both faster and further than the current plans, and it is why we are playing our part in the plans so far.Our approach has been twofold. First, I have already agreed with the UK Government on Scotland’s leading role in planning for phase 3 of high-speed rail—north of Manchester and Leeds. We will work with the Department for Transport in developing route options for high-speed rail to Scotland. As you will be aware, Patrick McLoughlin has already spoken of his ambition of achieving London to Scotland rail services within a three-hour journey time, which was reflected in last month’s command paper. That paper reiterates the need for a study to address both journey time and capacity benefits on lines to Scotland. My officials are progressing the proposals with the DFT and we will be able to provide updates on the terms of the study, and on the timelines and outputs, once they have been agreed.Alongside that, we have already announced planning for new high-speed rail infrastructure in Scotland, which will link Edinburgh and Glasgow—crucially, planning ahead, with provision to link that line to the south and the existing west coast main line in the interim period, before new cross-border infrastructure is delivered. That would provide faster access to the cities for current cross-border services, as well as the new high-speed services that are planned for 2026.A new line of this type would not only benefit Edinburgh and Glasgow, important as those benefits would be in terms of reduced travel time and economic advantage. A new line would provide a step change in rail capacity across the central belt. Separating cross-border services from internal services would free capacity for better local and commuting services. A new line providing the majority of end-to-end Edinburgh to Glasgow journeys could relieve pressure on existing services and could allow better connectivity for communities on existing lines. It could allow for the development of new stations and better train paths and times for services between the central belt and Inverness, Aberdeen, Dundee, Perth and all the intermediate stops. Those potential benefits will be considered in our outline business case planning, which will report to me in spring 2014.I do not doubt the UK Government’s commitment to press ahead with a high-speed rail project, and we have to plan ahead to ensure the greatest and earliest benefits to Scotland from those proposals. That is why we have adopted a twin approach, with partnership planning for high-speed rail from the north of England to Scotland—I hope to go to the north of England again in the next few weeks to build that case with some of our partners there—and our wish to realise the benefits of a new line from Edinburgh to Glasgow at the earliest possible opportunity, and to spread those benefits as widely as possible across Scotland.