Train services could terminate early amid HS2 station construction
Truro and Falmouth MP Jayne Kirkham put the question to the transport secretary, asking if the construction will mean 'slower and more disruptive journeys'
It's thought train services to London from Cornwall, Wales and the South West could terminate at Ealing or Reading - as work gets underway on the new HS2 station in the capital.
Truro and Falmouth MP Jayne Kirkham put the question to the transport secretary, asking if the construction at Old Oak Common will mean 'slower and more disruptive journeys'.
Louise Haigh said efforts will be made to minimise the impact on passengers.
She also added that the Government wanted to reduce problems for passengers travelling on the Great Western Main Line to London Paddington, as services will be delayed or cancelled because of work to build the new station.
It's as Jayne Kirkham was asking what the Government's plans were to help passengers.
Ms Kirkham said: "Our railway in the South West is too slow, too fragile and too expensive. Does the Transport Secretary agree with me and colleagues in Cornwall, the South West and Wales, that this new HS2 station will mean slower and more disruptive journeys?"
Ms Haigh said: "Efforts will be made to minimise the impact on passengers, including trains terminating at either Ealing Broadway or Reading, but we will of course work with her to monitor and minimise disruption for her residents."
She had earlier said: "Nowhere is the Tory legacy of transport failure more obvious than in the legacy we have been left on HS2. Costs allowed to run completely out of control, communities ignored, and misery for passengers baked into the plans. My department is working with the rail industry to minimise disruption during the construction of Old Oak Common station, including for a £30 million investment in mitigations that will allow services to continue to operate during the disruption."
Earlier this week, we learned that HS2 is likely to reach Euston, with the Transport Secretary saying it "would never have made sense" for that not to happen.
The Cabinet minister said an announcement on the project will be made "soon", and could happen around the time of the Budget on October 30.
In October last year, then-prime minister Rishi Sunak announced that extending HS2 from Old Oak Common, in the suburbs of west London, to Euston, near the centre of the capital, was reliant on private investment.
This was aimed at saving £6.5 billion of taxpayers' money.
Major HS2 construction work at a site alongside the existing station has been halted since the previous March due to funding doubts.
The Commons' Public Accounts Committee issued a report in February stating it was "highly sceptical" that the Department for Transport would be able to attract private investment on "the scale and speed required" to make extending HS2 to Euston "a success".