Jim Shannon – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Shannon on 2015-12-15.

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what comparative assessment he has made of the potential economic benefit to the north of England of faster rail links between north and south and better connectivity within the north of England.

Andrew Jones

The Department and Transport for North (TfN) are currently developing options for delivering the transformational rail connectivity in the north of England set out in the Northern Transport Strategy, and aim to have an understanding of the relative scale of costs and benefits of these options in autumn 2016.

As outlined in the recent HS2 Economic Case published in November 2015, the benefits of the full HS2 Y-Network are estimated to be £72.8bn (2011 prices, PV). This analysis calculated that the benefit cost ratio (BCR) of HS2 is 2.2 for the full Y-network, including wider economic impacts. Therefore, over £2 worth of benefits are expected for every £1 spent which represents high value for money.