Cumbrian peer Lord Liddle has branded the Cumbrian Coast railway a “disgrace” and is demanding that new fast services to Scotland stop at Carlisle.

The Labour peer, a former adviser to Tony Blair, was speaking in the Lords’ second reading debate on HS2 Bill to build a dedicated a high-speed rail link from London to Birmingham.

The long-term plan is to extend the line to Manchester and Leeds.

HS2 trains would then travel over existing tracks to Glasgow, but Lord Liddle said he was “appalled” that economic modelling of the benefits of high-speed rail showed these trains running non-stop north of Preston.

He said: “I know that this is only a planning assumption, not a timetable. But it would be absurd for the fastest trains not to make a stop in the far north-west at Carlisle.

“What an insult to England’s great border city. If I am still around in 2027, I will lead a demonstration of good Carlisle citizens to block the path of the first high speed train that isn’t timetabled to stop at Carlisle.

“To allow this to happen would be symbolic of the narrow vision and the tight purse of the people who govern us.”

The peer, a county councillor for Wigton, also criticised lack of investment in the line from Carlisle to Lancaster via Barrow.

He said: “The Cumbrian Coast line is a disgrace when it should be a tremendous attraction and a way of linking west Cumbria and Sellafield to Carlisle, with regular fast connections to London.

“It should be a tourist route with the highest potential.”

Lord Liddle doubted whether HS2 would ever be completed if the Treasury “took fright” at the cost.

But he argued that investment in rail was essential if the Government’s Northern Powerhouse initiative was to achieve anything. There was, he said, a need for a change of strategy to deliver “much larger public investment than we have seen in the past two decades”.

He added: “We have a generation of new entrepreneurs in Cumbria, but often their clients and businesses are located outside the county. They need rapid connections if they are going to base their activities up north.”