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The Transport Committee has welcomed the Government’s announcement that it will follow its recommendations by revisiting its decision to snub Bradford from plans to develop rail networks in the North and Midlands.

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• Read the Department for Transport’s response (PDF)
• Read all publications related to this inquiry, including written and oral evidence

The announcement was made in the Department for Transport’s formal response to the cross-party Committee’s 2022 report on the Integrated Rail Plan (IRP).

Published in 2021, the IRP comprised northern sections of HS2 and Northern Powerhouse Rail (NPR) – proposals to electrify lines and increase capacity on routes from Liverpool to Hull and Newcastle via Manchester, Sheffield and Leeds. It also proposed upgrades for Leeds and Manchester Piccadilly stations.

In its response to the Committee’s call for robust re-assessment of all the NPR options, DfT said an updated business case for the project, expected later this year, will include “updated analysis on a range of different network options” including the impact on communities such as Bradford.

Having controversially omitted plans for a new line through, and station in, Bradford from the 2021 IRP, DfT now says: “A re-assessment of the evidence for better connecting Bradford and the case for [building] a new station will now form part of the NPR development programme and the HS2 to Leeds Study.”

The Government also reveals that the terms of reference for a long-awaited study on how best to take HS2 trains to Leeds will be published imminently: a development the Committee had called for “urgently” in its July 2022 report. DfT said the Study could take 18 months to complete. It will also include an updated benefit-cost ratio for the Eastern leg of HS2 Phase 2b, which had been shortened to terminate at East Midlands Parkway. The Committee was critical in its report of the Government taking such major decisions before undertaking this kind of analysis.

The Committee had argued that DfT hadn’t properly tested alternative options to its proposals, and left out analysis of wider economic “levelling up” impacts of different options for NPR. This meant that value for money between those options could not be compared and validated. In its response the Government says such studies will be undertaken as part of its Leeds to HS2 Study, and as it produces the new business case for NPR.

After hearing from expert witnesses during its inquiry, the Committee was concerned that projections for shorter journey times from NPR might prove overly optimistic. The Government has said that new advice on journey times will be “refined” as it undertakes further work on business cases.

The Committee was also concerned that a “fixation” on journey time reductions was overshadowing the issue of track capacity, as opting for upgrades over building new lines would limit benefits. This was not addressed directly in the Government’s response.

The Department also confirmed there is still no alternative plan to the ‘Golborne Link’, a section of HS2 that would have connected Crewe with the West Coast Mainline to Scotland. After the Government announced its intention for the Link to be dropped from HS2 legislation in June 2022, the Committee asked for a new solution to be announced by March 2023. DfT now says it will take longer to identify an alternative but gives no timescale and emphasises there is no additional funding.

MPs called on DfT to also produce a new rail freight strategy to accompany its ambitions for increasing capacity via the IRP. The Government said it “fully recognises the advantages to the economy, environment and society of shifting freight from road to rail”. Using a team within Great British Rail, DfT said it will “later this year set a long-term rail freight growth target which is intended to provide confidence in the industry well into the future”.

In response to MPs’ last recommendation, that it should produce a detailed mitigation strategy to limit disruption to local communities during construction phases, DfT referred to such work carried out by HS2 and said it “accepts the rationale of the recommendation”.

Chair comment

Transport Committee Chair Iain Stewart MP said:

“The main arguments of the Committee’s report have been vindicated as the Government has accepted that more work is needed on key elements of the Integrated Rail Plan – its cost-benefit ratios, contributions to levelling up, and projections on shortening journey times. We welcome those elements of the response, even though we regret this work was not completed before the major strategic decisions in the IRP were taken.

“We are particularly glad to see DfT taking an open-minded approach to building a new station at Bradford – sometimes dubbed the most badly connected city in the UK – and doing more analysis of a range of different network options.

“As we emphasised in our report, it is vital that the way this £96 billion investment is used is based on the most robust evidence. What we will be looking for now is a willingness for the Government to change course if that is what this renewed evidence base suggests.

“It would be remiss to not point out that the Committee called on DfT crack on with these work streams months ago. The HS2 to Leeds study is now expected to take 18 months, and we are still waiting for an alternative to the Golborne Link to emerge. By then one can only wonder if all of this will still be achievable within the £96bn spending envelope, or whether inflation and rising interest rates will continue to cut this budget down in real terms.”

Further information

• Transport Committee
• Inquiry: Integrated Rail Plan