North Cotswold Line

Chris Heaton-Harris Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd January 2020 Westminster Hall

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Chris Heaton-Harris)]

I shall have to remove a number of pages from my speech, Mr Stringer. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship—I shall obviously obey your indication from the Chair and ensure that my hon. Friend the Member for West Worcestershire (Harriett Baldwin) has plenty of time to answer the debate.

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. I shall now call her the vice-president of the Cotswold Line Promotion Group—“vice-president” is a proper title, even though it is unpaid. She is certainly showing that she is unbelievable value for money, as I am sure the cost-benefit reports she detailed in her speech show for this particular scheme. I congratulate her on the point she made, and I will go into some detail in my speech. My answer will get somewhere along the line towards where she wants to be.

A lot of Members have taken part in the debate. My hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds (Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) was instrumental in earlier improvements to the line we are discussing. I am sure that more than a bench on a station will be named after him for his contribution and his work in the area. He reminded us that the ultimate goal is to have journeys between Worcester—I see that the Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Mr Walker), is in Westminster Hall this afternoon—and London coming in at under two hours, which is what everybody should expect of a modern-day railway.

My hon. Friend talked wisely about the environment and how trains are a way of reducing car journeys. Actually, I think he would be proud at how much greener our rolling stock is becoming by the day. We have a huge amount of new rolling stock—I think it is about a thousand carriages—coming on to our network this year, so there will be a much greener network at the end of the year.

[Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

The Minister will know that there is new rolling stock on the Cotswolds line itself, and my constituents have well and truly noted the difference.

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

Yes, indeed. I am pleased to hear they have noted the difference, because, at the end of the day, these are relatively expensive vehicles, so it is nice to know that they are worth what we pay for them and provide good value for money for the taxpayer.

My hon. Friend the Member for Wyre Forest (Mark Garnier) is no longer in his place; he apologised for leaving, but he had to go to another meeting. He wisely made the point that the Department for Transport needs as much stakeholder involvement in these schemes as possible. It would therefore be good if he could prod the local enterprise partnership for Greater Birmingham and Solihull to provide support, because the scheme would benefit this whole geographical area. My hon. Friend also made some points about High Speed 2, but that is not part of my brief, and it is a bit controversial, so I will duck that one completely.

There were other contributions, including interventions. Brief contributions were made by the hon. Member for Oxford East (Anneliese Dodds). It is very kind of her to come along and support her “hon. Friends” on the Government side, and there are a lot of hon. Friends on the Government side, including the Parliamentary Private Secretary for the Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Robert Courts), who has been itching to speak in the debate, but who has not been allowed to. However, it is fair to say that there is a voice close to the Department that is very positive about the benefits that can flow from this debate and indeed from the improvements to this line.

Then there is the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Reading East (Matt Rodda). We have never really tangled in debate before, so I welcome him to his position—I believe he has been elevated or, at the very least, that his brief now encompasses more things. Everything that I have heard about him leads me to believe he is an honourable and decent man who actually wants to improve our railways and has some sensible suggestions to do that. I look forward to engaging with him on this issue.

The shadow Minister obviously knows a lot about our railways, so I am sure he has seen that there is a huge amount of investment in them. As my hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds said, £48 billion will be invested in this five-year control period. That is a huge amount to improve our existing railways, quite apart from the huge schemes on the cards to build new capacity around the country.

The shadow Minister also made a point about fares. I have seen what has been going on in Germany, but I remind him that, in this country, 98p of every pound spent in fares is reinvested back into transport and specifically into the railways. So someone’s fare—any fare—is almost an investment in the railways themselves. However, there is a debate to be had about this issue. I welcome that debate, and I look forward to debating this issue with him.

The shadow Minister made a number of points about the road networks and other things that are way beyond my brief. Just as with one of the points raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Wyre Forest, I will duck those issues in today’s debate and stick to the issue we are here to discuss.

Having said that, there was a point about cycling, which is in my brief, even if it is not part of this debate. I just wanted to back up the point my hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds made about how we can connect cycling to the railways so much more than we do currently. Last week, I was privileged to go to the Cycle Rail Awards. Yes, there is such an event; it is a proper, red-carpet event—nothing but the best for the Rail Minister. It was really encouraging to see all the cycling schemes now being delivered up and down our railways, increasing capacity so that people can cycle to the railway and park their bicycle. There are also schemes whereby people can rent cycles. People can come out of a city and rent a cycle to enjoy the countryside, before returning the bike at the end of the day—please. There is a lot of investment in this area as well, so it was good to hear it being highlighted in the debate.

However, I guess I should actually talk about the meat of this debate. My hon. Friend the Member for West Worcestershire presented a typically eloquent and persuasive argument for investment in the railway line between Oxford and Worcester. Although the debate is about the transformation of the North Cotswold line, it would be remiss of me not to begin by remarking on the renaissance the route has experienced over the last 10 years—my hon. Friend alluded to it in her speech, and it is quite spectacular.

At one stage in the 1970s, there was just one through train to London from Worcester each day, which meant the line lived up to its nickname of “Old, Worse and Worse”. From that low point, the route and the services on it have all seen slow—quite slow—but steady improvement. Now, thanks to the sterling efforts of the Cotswold Line Promotion Group and the North Cotswold Line Taskforce, it is going from strength to strength.

The real catalyst for the revival of the route was the Government’s investment in 2012, which reinstated sections of double-track railway that had previously been cut back—my hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds was vociferous in campaigning for that to happen. The increase in capacity was made to improve performance on the route. However, it also enabled Great Western Railway to gradually introduce progressive enhancement of train services.

Fast forward to 2019 and we have seen more investment from the Government in the North Cotswold route and across the whole Great Western Railway network. We are investing over £5 billion to deliver better services and new trains, with thousands more seats, improving over 100 million rail journeys each year and stimulating—as all my hon. Friends have alluded to—economic growth from London through the Thames valley to the Cotswolds, as well as to the west country and south Wales. Our investment has provided 4,900 extra seats into London in the peak hour, which is a 40% increase in capacity.

[Matt Rodda]

I am extremely grateful to the Minister for giving way on that point. Can he update us on the wider plans across the Great Western Railway region for reusing old infrastructure that was, sadly, taken out of operation in the Beeching era, because it seems that a number of lines will be affected? My hon. Friend the Member for Oxford East (Anneliese Dodds) highlighted the Cowley branch line. I believe there are a number of other branch lines, and other sections of track, that are currently single track that might be worth reopening, and we should consider them.

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

I am sorry—I did not answer the point the hon. Gentleman made about Beeching in his speech. We have a £500 million fund. We are now setting out the rules for it. Obviously, Members would expect us to want to get the best value for money out of the schemes that are being brought forward thick and fast to reopen lines or to strengthen lines, so that instead of a line just having freight services it could also have passenger services, which would require the provision of carriages and so on.

Actually, there is way more demand for investment than the initial £500 million that we, as a political party, put in our manifesto and thought would be required. We will be able to pick some amazingly excellent and viable schemes, which are deliverable in short order, to reopen Beeching lines, and obviously there will be a geographical spread across the whole country. I very much hope to announce more details on that in the near future, but I hope that, for now, that answer will suffice for the hon. Gentleman.

The modernisation of the Great Western Railway enabled last month’s introduction of a new timetable, which most hon. Members here today would have noticed. It was a big timetable change for the Great Western Railway. I was not the Rail Minister in May 2018, but I was a Whip at the time, and we had debate after debate about the May 2018 timetable changes. There were so many words used to describe them in the Chamber, but they all meant that the changes had been pretty much disastrous in some parts of the country, where things absolutely did not work.

As the new Rail Minister, therefore, having such a big timetable change was a bit of a worry. However, it is fair to say that it has gone particularly well and delivered significant benefits to all rail users, reducing typical journey times between Hereford and London by 10 minutes, and the fastest journey times by seven minutes. The new trains have talked about have transformed the travelling experience for North Cotswold line users. A number of stations have benefited from extended platforms to make the best use of the longer trains.

The train operator has also invested in the route. New waiting shelters were opened last year at Moreton-in-Marsh and Kingham, and a combined ticket office and waiting area was opened at Hanborough. Car parking has also been expanded at several stations, reflecting the increasing popularity of the train service. On top of that we are trying to do things to encourage people to cycle to stations. The next key milestone will be the opening of the new station at Worcestershire Parkway. As Rail Minister, I am rather more excited about that than I should be, given the slight delay in proceedings. I am pleased that work is well advanced.

[Harriett Baldwin]

I reiterate my invitation to my hon. Friend to come and do us the honour of opening that station. It is an exciting moment for the county. I believe it will be the first new station we have had in the county for a century.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

I would absolutely love to have that honour. I hope my hon. Friend has the capacity to invite me and that I am not going to turn up and be shoved off a platform because someone else is meant to be opening the station. If I am available, I would love to come. The issue has been a point of interest for me in the Department in the past few months as we have got to this point, but I am pleased that work is now well advanced.

The Government are committed to finding new and innovative ways to attract different forms of investment into the railways. Worcestershire Parkway will be a good example of how such investment can add value to our railway network.

[Anneliese Dodds]

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way and for his positive words. I underline the connection between this line and another major project, which is the change to Oxford station. He will know that is a challenging project and that some of the discussion has been around where the buses will go in Oxford and whether it is necessary to have a multi-storey car park. I do not think that is necessary; I think we should privilege the buses. Having that link to Hanborough could help, if we used that as an additional parkway on top of the new Oxford Parkway station, which has been very successful. Will he bear that in mind when he talks about these issues?

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

The hon. Lady makes a good point for her constituents. What she has just described is a point of controversy in the city. Hanborough serves as a vital link not only to Oxford, but to Witney and other towns and villages across the piece. Her point is well made.

Worcestershire Parkway will enable thousands of new journeys on the two key rail corridors that it serves: Birmingham to Cardiff, and the line we are talking about today. I very much look forward to coming down and seeing it open, in operation and serving passengers who are seeing the benefits it delivers.

It is fair to say that the North Cotswold line has already been transformed from what it was a little over a decade ago. Members of Parliament and other supporters along the route can take great pride in their actions and what they have achieved, but time does not stand still and the world moves on, especially in the Cotswolds. We must look forward and effectively plan for the next investment and the next generation and for how they can grab the great opportunities that the Government will be providing and enabling. I therefore welcome and commend the work of the North Cotswold Line Taskforce in taking the lead on how to bring about further enhancements. Where others may have sat back and reflected on their success, the taskforce has galvanised stakeholders to push for more—in this case, £1.5 million more as a starter. I recognise that it wishes to see faster and more frequent services. I very much hope we can work together to move things forwards.

I assure my hon. Friend the Member for West Worcestershire and all Members here today that the Department will analyse in great detail the proposals set out in the taskforce’s strategic outline business case. We only received it 10 days ago, and it would be remiss of me to promise money without going through due process within my Department, but I guarantee we will go through that process as quickly as we can. The request for funding to develop the case further will be properly analysed and considered. There is a lot of information to digest in what we have been given, but I pledge that Department officials will set the way forward with the taskforce by the end of next month, so that we can move forward at a pace that allows us to do the work properly.

To conclude, I thank all Members for their contributions to an important debate. This is a fantastic success story, and I hope it continues to be so in the future.

High Speed 1: Rolling Stock

Chris Heaton-Harris Excerpts

Tuesday 21st January 2020 Westminster Hall

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Chris Heaton-Harris)]

It is a pleasure, as always, Mr Hollobone, to serve under the chairmanship of my near neighbour. I hope that you will look kindly on me if I make any errors and inform me later, rather than during the debate.

It is also a pleasure to respond to my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Damian Green). I congratulate him on securing this debate on rolling stock on High Speed 1, and all Members who have contributed by intervening this morning: my hon. Friends the Members for Dartford (Gareth Johnson), for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch) and for Gravesham (Adam Holloway), and my right hon. Friend the Member for North Thanet (Sir Roger Gale).

My right hon. Friend the Member for Ashford was right to say that in my time as a Minister I have been interested in the affairs of Kent—or, depending which side of the Medway we are on, Kentish affairs. I appreciate how he has phrased his words today, his tone, and how he has gone about the debate. It was kind of him to do that.

The Southeastern high-speed franchise has cut journey times dramatically for passengers travelling into London from all destinations in Kent. For example, Ashford to London has seen a reduction of 43 minutes, from the bad old days of 81 minutes to a regular journey time of 38 minutes. Over the past decade, more than 100 million passenger journeys have been made on Southeastern’s high-speed service. As my right hon. Friend highlighted, the popularity of Southeastern’s high-speed service has led to significant growth in passenger numbers, with a compound annual growth rate of more than 11%, more than double that on the rest of the Southeastern network. It is a very successful railway.

My right hon. Friend rightly stated that the national rail passenger survey results from spring 2019 showed that overall satisfaction with the journey for the Southeastern high-speed service was 92% satisfied or good, placing it in the top 10% of all UK train routes; and 82% of passengers were satisfied with the level of crowding on their service, placing it in the top 14% of all UK train routes. In addition, Southeastern’s customer satisfaction survey from the end of December 2019 indicated positive overall passenger satisfaction with the high-speed service, which received a score of 91%. If only the other franchises and train operating companies operated with such levels of satisfaction, my job as Rail Minister would be a lot easier.

There was also a 96% positive response to the question, “Did you get a seat on the train?” My right hon. Friend the Member for Ashford is talking not only about what is going on now but about the future, but that is a remarkably good statistic. However, we are not sitting on our laurels in any way.

Southeastern has quite a lot of capacity. In the morning peak, Southeastern provides 9,772 seats into London, with passenger demand that is higher than that, at 10,888. Already, as my hon. Friends the Members for Dartford and for Chatham and Aylesford indicated, people are standing on their journeys—the statistics prove that to us without any shadow of a doubt. In the evening peak, Southeastern provides 9,423 seats out of London, with a passenger demand of 10,354. Overall, capacity of about 13,000 is provided on HS1 services during peak hours.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Ashford talked about rolling stock. Southeastern regularly reviews whether reallocating stock to different trains would be appropriate to ensure that capacity is catered for. For example, last December Southeastern transferred an Ebbsfleet stop from an overcrowded six-car service to a 12-car service with spare capacity to continue to make the best effect of the assets. However, as my right hon. Friend indicated, only the class 395 and Eurostar trains can run on that route, because High Speed 1 trains need to run at 140 mph, with the technical issues and excitements that he detailed, so it is not possible to use trains from other routes on this one.

Regrettably but inevitably on a rail network, delays occur. However, performance on the Southeastern network on the whole has been positive. This year, around 90% of Southeastern services have arrived at their final destination within five minutes of the published timetable. More specifically, about 87% of peak and off-peak HS1 services have arrived within five minutes of their destination time. Those are relatively good statistics for the rail industry.

Eurostar carries about 11 million passengers a year on services between London and Paris, Lille, Brussels, Rotterdam and Amsterdam, with seasonable services to the Alps in the south of France. Some services call at Ebbsfleet International and Ashford International on the HS1 line. At peak times of year, the number of daily Eurostar services operating in and out of London St Pancras via the HS1 line can exceed 55. We know that it is becoming quite a busy railway.

On 13 June last year, a direct award was signed with Southeastern to extend its franchise for five rail periods to 10 November, with an optional extension of another five periods, which has been exercised. The franchise is now due to expire on 1 April 2020, to ensure continuity of services for passengers following the cancellation of the Southeastern franchise competition.

My right hon. Friend alluded to uncertainty about the franchise’s future. My Department’s objectives for the franchise in the near term include enhancing capacity and continuing to build on the recent improvements in operational performance and reliability. My Department is focused on determining how that can be achieved now that the competition for the franchise has been cancelled. An important consideration for my officials is to align that work with the emerging recommendations of the Williams rail review, due for publication in the next couple of months.

I highlight that because it is quite an important factor to answer one of my right hon. Friend’s questions: what could be done to sort out the problem of overcrowding and to bring in new rolling stock? It is highly likely that the Williams review will decide that franchising is not the way forward for our rail industry, and another model will be introduced quite swiftly. Within the new contracts, an ask could be framed on what rolling stock needs to operate along those routes. I gently suggest to my right hon. Friend that this debate is extremely timely because the thought processes are already happening. The whirring heard in the background is the brains of officials and others in the Department for Transport ticking over how best to include in the ask for companies that might operate those lines in future what rolling stock might be required to improve that service. Now is the best point in which to intervene to get the answer he requires.

[Adam Holloway]

On the point about the future, vis-à-vis HS2, if we had different technology—not obsolete rail technology but new technology such hyperloop— we would be able to avoid some of the problems of HS1, because pods are far more scalable than great big trains.

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

I guess my hon. Friend is slightly unlucky to have the Rail Minister in front of him; had the Minister of State for the future of transport responded to this debate, my hon. Friend would get a good 15 minutes about the wonderful new technologies becoming available on our rail network. My job is to try to ensure that the existing rail network works for the people who use it. I understand his enthusiasm for what could come this way, but I want to improve things for passengers on our railways now and, in this debate, to talk about what we can do to improve the journeys of passengers who use HS1 in the next few years, as improvements will be required.

The Williams review, which will be published very soon, will not just be parked by Government as in the normal process of reviews—we have had a few rail reviews that have reported like that in the past—but will come out in the form of a White Paper. There will be proper consultation. The Select Committee on Transport and Members will obviously take their views, and we will have a Bill in this Session—as mentioned in the Queen’s Speech—that will take the review into legislation. There will be a relatively short-term pitch for my hon. Friend to get involved in.

[Damian Green]

I am heartened by the Minister’s words. He said that, traditionally, reports have often been shelved. Even more traditionally, they have been an excuse for delay because people say, “We have to look at the big picture; therefore, we cannot take individual decisions.” I gently emphasise again that the decision on rolling stock for HS1 needs to be taken in the coming months if we are to avoid the problems that we know will hit in the middle part of this decade. I urge him again that the early decision-making process will be vital post the White Paper publication.

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

The White Paper will come out shortly. It had a good mention in the Queen’s Speech—it will be legislation and it will be the framework by which the problem he outlined for the future can be solved, because it is intended to put the railway on a long-term, sustainable footing, where the passenger is put first. It is important that the next Southeastern franchise award reflects that and fits into whatever the Williams review might suggest. I am completely aware of my right hon. Friend’s point. Any options will fit directly into the Williams review’s conclusions.

Let me conclude by thanking everyone who took part in this debate, and my right hon. Friend for securing this debate on an important part of the railway in our country. We discussed a range of issues on High Speed 1. The popularity of Southeastern’s high-speed service has led to significant growth in passenger numbers, with a compound annual growth rate of over 11%. It is a very successful, normally very good and reliable railway. Options considered for the future of the Southeastern franchise will be developed and informed in a matter that puts passengers at the heart of the process. I guarantee to my right hon. Friend that we understand the time that it takes to get new rolling stock on our network. His words will have been taken to heart.

Question put and agreed to.