Transport Infrastructure: North of England

Question

15:08:00

Asked by

To ask His Majesty’s Government, following the announcement that Doncaster Sheffield Airport may reopen in 2026, what steps they are taking to support transport infrastructure across cities in the north of England.

We are absolutely committed to improving transport infrastructure across the north of England. The Chancellor announced in the Autumn Statement on 30 October a range of funding to support transport, including funding for the development of the West Yorkshire mass transit, renewal of the Supertram in Sheffield and the trans-Pennine route upgrade. This includes an uplift to national city region sustainable transport settlement funding in 2025-26 of £200 million for mayoral combined authorities.

I thank the Minister for that Answer. I applaud the progress that City of Doncaster Council and the South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority have made to reopen Doncaster Sheffield Airport after its closure in 2022 and I was encouraged by the Chancellor’s reference to Sheffield’s excellent Supertram in her recent Budget Statement, but what steps will the Government take to promote the fuller, greener integration of regional aviation, tram, bus and rail networks?

Primarily, that sort of integration at a mayoral combined authority level is the job of the mayoral combined authority. The Government supporting those mayoral combined authorities to have the right transport plans, which include integration across the various modes, is absolutely the right thing to do. That is the reason for the funding and the uplift in the funding.

My Lords, I support the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Sheffield in his Question. I ask the Department for Transport to give every support to ensure that the city region, which is the only metropolitan urban area in the country not to have an airport, has the benefits of the productivity and growth that flow from it. Perhaps the Minister could also encourage the developers not to call it “Robin Hood Airport”, which it was previously, on the grounds that when people got off, the arrows that they saw seemed to lead them to the Friar Tuck cafeteria and the Maid Marian facilities.

I am amazed to think that the name of a cafeteria in a regional airport might be something to do with the department. More seriously, the South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority Board, which is chaired by the mayor, will make a decision later this month on providing City of Doncaster Council with £3 million as part of Doncaster’s existing £138 million gain share from the South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority allocation. That is the Government supporting the reinstatement of this airport. We will do everything possible to help the airport get back into business and contribute to the economic growth of the region.

My Lords, TransPennine Express is owned by the Government, and Network Rail is owned by the Government. After three years, businesses and individuals are fed up with excuses and meaningless explanations, so when will the direct train service between Sheffield and its major international airport, Manchester, be reinstated?

The direct service was curtailed as part of a very complex and necessary scheme to restore railway reliability in Manchester. The department and I know that there is huge aspiration for a direct connection between Sheffield and Manchester Airport, but the configuration of the railway in Manchester means it is very difficult to deliver it. One of the reasons for the region being keen on Doncaster Airport is to see flights from the region without necessarily going to Manchester.

My Lords, as president of the British Chambers of Commerce, I have spent many happy days in Doncaster and can attest to how delighted local businesses are at the reopening of the airport. How are the Government thinking of addressing the very substantial digital infrastructure gaps across the north of England? Cumbria and Northumberland face some of the most terrifying black not-spots, which is something we hear from businesses increasingly. If we are to grow the economy, we need to grow the digital infrastructure as well.

I have no doubt that digital infrastructure across the whole of England is very necessary. I do not have any information on that to hand, but I will write to the noble Baroness with as much information as I can muster about it.

My Lords, everyone acknowledges that regional airports throughout the country are struggling. How do the Government think that putting up air passenger duty is going to help them?

Air passenger duty has not changed for a considerable length of time, and my recollection is that the increase is no more than inflation would have been. In the total cost of air fares, it is a relatively small amount.

My Lords, following the excellent questions from the right reverend Prelate and my noble friend Lord Blunkett, will the Minister join me in congratulating Mayor Ros Jones on the part that she has played in the reopening of the airport? Will he support her request to the department and the Civil Aviation Authority to allow the necessary airspace once an operator for Doncaster Sheffield Airport is announced?

I will of course join in the congratulations to the mayor, Ros Jones. The reopening of the airport is clearly important, locally and regionally. I am able to say that the department will support, as much as it can, the reinstatement of the airspace and the air traffic control needed to make the airport operational.

My Lords, why do the Government not recognise that the links between the cities of Newcastle upon Tyne and Edinburgh require an upgraded and safe A1, and that effective rail transport to northern cities from Newcastle depends on investment in the capacity of the east coast main line?

When the Government were elected, they were faced with an unachievable list of infrastructure promises from the previous Government. Various schemes have not been able to be taken forward simply because there is not the money to achieve them—of which the A1 is one. The east coast main line has had a considerable amount of investment. The struggle recently, because of the fragmentation of the railway, has been to achieve a railway timetable to take advantage of the £4 billion that has been spent on it. I hope that we have got there, but of course that is one of the reasons for rail reform: we should not be investing £4 billion in a railway only to find that we cannot construct a timetable to take advantage of the investment.

My Lords, is not the runway at Sheffield Airport rather short and suitable for only the smallest aeroplanes?

I am afraid I do not have information about the length of the runway. I am sure that the proposition to reopen the airport takes into account its existing configuration, and I am sure that the public bodies concerned with it are confident that the airport, whatever length of runway it has, can support the local economy with the appropriate air services.

My Lords, Manchester Airport is planning for an expansion of 150% in passenger numbers. Stansted wants to increase from 28 million passengers to 43 million. Leeds Bradford Airport has been looking for a 75% increase in passenger numbers. Yet, in July, the Committee on Climate Change told the Government that they must: “Stop airport expansion without a UK-wide capacity-management framework”. Is this not just more public money going into what have to be white elephants in terms of both demand and, crucially, our need to cut our climate emissions, particularly in terms of the promise that Sir Keir Starmer just made at COP 29?

In relation to regional airports, there is a pressing demand from business to improve economic growth in those cities and regions by better and more convenient connectivity. The extent to which that means more flights is a separate question, but the support given to an airport such as Doncaster in order to make business better and create economic growth in that region is entirely consistent with the Government’s objectives.

My Lords, I see that plans for a third runway at Heathrow have come to the surface again. Does the Minister accept that allowing that plan to develop and to catch the headlines again will inevitably undermine the viability and investment opportunities for airports in the north of England in general?

My understanding of the recent suggestions about growth at Heathrow is that they are currently focused not on a third runway but on an expansion of the airport in order to cope with more passengers on the existing runways. There is a debate about the extent to which flights from Heathrow compete with regional airports, but Heathrow is of course an international hub, so many of the flights that it might aspire to handle will never go to regional airports. There are criteria that will have to be fulfilled for an expansion of Heathrow, but we do not necessarily see that that will compete with the regional airports such as Doncaster that we have been discussing today.