Extract from oral answer (Lords) on Railways: East Coast Main Line - July 15
Friday, 16 July 2021 07:47
Lord Rosser (Lab) [V]: As part of these proposed timetable changes,
which LNER says “involve a series of trade-offs,” services on the
Transpennine Express between Newcastle and Manchester will be
reduced from twice an hour to once an hour, and an increase in the
frequency of services between Teesside, Sunderland and Newcastle
will be postponed. Given that Northern Powerhouse Rail has still
not been confirmed, is this not further evidence that the
Government are backing off from...Request free trial
(Lab) [V]: As part of these proposed timetable changes,
which LNER says
“involve a series of trade-offs,”
services on the Transpennine Express between Newcastle
and Manchester will be reduced from twice an hour to once an hour,
and an increase in the frequency of services between Teesside,
Sunderland and Newcastle will be postponed. Given that Northern
Powerhouse Rail has still not been confirmed, is this not further
evidence that the Government are backing off from increasing direct
interconnectivity of northern cities? Is it not unfortunate that,
in the trade-offs, local and regional services would lose out to
increase services to London and the south-east?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for
Transport ()
(Con) [V]: I am not entirely sure that the evidence supports the
noble Lord’s last comment, but I accept that there are difficult
trade-offs. Railway capacity is not expandable immediately, so one
always has to work with the capacity available. We have spent £4
billion on upgrading the infrastructure and the rolling stock. We
must make sure that we use that capacity to best effect. As I have
already said, there would be a significant increase in revenues
from these proposals...
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