Dartford Crossing: Congestion

Gareth Johnson Excerpts

Wednesday 7th December 2016 Westminster Hall

[Gareth Johnson (Dartford) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered congestion at the Dartford crossing.

I am pleased to have secured this debate. I appreciate that the arguments have been made in the House on a number of occasions in the past couple of years, but until Dartford is relieved of the threat of another crossing, I will continue to lobby the Government to locate the new lower Thames crossing away from Dartford to the east of Gravesend, which is option C.

The Minister is aware that the decision is keenly awaited. We all want it to be made swiftly, primarily so we can get on with building the crossing and have some alleviation of the congestion that Dartford suffers daily. Until the decision is made, I and others will continue to harass the Secretary of State for Transport and the Roads Minister.

[Stephen Metcalfe (South Basildon and East Thurrock) (Con)]

I hope to make a contribution later, but first I want to say that I hear what my hon. Friend is saying loud and clear about a decision being made. However, surely he agrees that whatever the decision is, the Government must demonstrate that it will solve the original problem: congestion in Dartford and at the Dartford crossing.

[Gareth Johnson]

I totally agree with my hon. Friend. Option C, which Highways England prefers, would do exactly what he says. A significant proportion of the congestion—more than the 14% that is often quoted—would be moved from Dartford and, more importantly, a choice would be provided for motorists. At the moment, drivers, particularly of freight vehicles, have no choice and must use the Dartford crossing. Freight vehicles often cannot fit through the Blackwall tunnel, so must go to Dartford. If there is a problem on the approach to the Dartford crossing in Kent or Essex, freight and other vehicles cannot use the crossing, so there must be a choice and some resilience in the system, which is not there at the moment. It is clear that option C should be built, because of the choice it would give to motorists and the resilience it would provide that is currently not there.

It is in the interests not only of Dartford but of the whole country that we tackle this significant congestion problem. I submit that the approach to the Dartford crossing is the worst stretch of road in the whole United Kingdom. Not only does it have some of the worst congestion in the country, but to add insult to injury, drivers must pay to use it. They often pay to sit in traffic, which is why it is the worst stretch of road in the UK. The Department for Transport should deal with it as a priority.

No other stretch of road impacts so much on so many people. No other road has had a song released about it. You would rule me out of order, Mr Owen, if I quoted the lyrics of that song, but I am pleased to say that a cleaner version is now available on the internet should anyone want to download it. I think you get the gist of what the lyrics are likely to be. They illustrate clearly the frustration that many people experience when using the Dartford crossing.

No stretch of road in the country has such an impact on the local population as the approach to the Dartford crossing. When the M25 in my constituency is congested because of traffic on the A282 approach to the crossing, it paralyses the local town. It prevents children being picked up from school and people from getting to work and carrying out their business, and creates horrific pollution levels. It is killing people in the Dartford area.

It is worth looking at the accident figures for the A282 approach to the crossing. It is not just pollution that is having a detrimental impact on people’s health in Dartford; it is the accidents. During 2011-12, there were 79 accidents on the approach road. The following year, when the work started on the free-flow system, that number had increased to 143. In 2013-14, there were 318 accidents, double the previous number, and if that was not sufficient, from September 2014 to August 2015, it doubled again to 675. Last year, the combined figure for injury and non-injury accidents showed a reduction, which was pleasing, but still as high as 487. That is an horrific number of accidents in the area.

[Stephen Metcalfe]

I completely agree that the number of accidents my hon. Friend is describing is horrendous. What I cannot get my head around is how moving 14% of traffic—the figure may be disputed—away from the existing crossing will significantly reduce the number of accidents at that spot.

[Gareth Johnson]

It has been shown that capacity will increase by some 70% under option C. Highways England provided that figure, which illustrates clearly that option C would improve traffic and the problem of accidents at the approach. It is not just the volume of traffic that causes accidents; the poor road layout and the poor signage compounds the problem. We have seen a ninefold increase in the number of road accidents per year between 2012 and 2015, so better road signage and a better road layout are desperately needed to reduce the number of accidents at that location.

It is fair to say that we must plan ahead for the increase in traffic flow at the Dartford crossing. The tunnels were designed for 140,000 vehicles a day, but anything up to 170,000 use them daily and the laws of physics say there must be traffic issues. Traffic management must be looked at seriously, not just at the new lower Thames crossing and not just while it is being built. We must have better management of traffic flow and mitigate the problems affecting Dartford.

We should have been discussing this some 15 years ago. Road planning means planning ahead for problems that will exist in future. It is a brutal fact that nothing was done for so many years that, to all intents and purposes, we are playing catch-up and trying to deal with a problem in 10 years’ time when it is here today. We should be debating the opening of the new lower Thames crossing, but instead we are debating where it should be.

I return to a point I made to my hon. Friend the Member for South Basildon and East Thurrock (Stephen Metcalfe). There are two options on the table: option A and option C. Option C is preferred, not just by Highways England but others, because it would provide an alternative for motorists and some resilience in the network. The idea that we should just build more and more crossings at Dartford is pure madness. It flies in the face of common sense to suggest that more and more crossings in the same location, relying on the same local roads funnelling through the pinch point that Dartford has become, is a solution to the problem.

When we are looking at what has worked well and what has not worked well in the whole Thames area, it is fair to say that the west of London is more affluent than the east of London, partly because of the lack of connectivity east of London compared with that to the west of London. Chelsea and Battersea trade very well and the transportation links are very good. Richmond and Twickenham are north and south of the Thames and interlink very well. However, when we come to the border between Essex and Kent, the Thames is like a brick wall between the two counties. Those two affluent counties cannot trade with each other to their full potential because of that lack of connectivity. I argue that option C would change that fundamentally and provide the connectivity that is lacking.

[Stephen Metcalfe]

I agree very much with what my hon. Friend is saying about the lack of connectivity between Kent and Essex. That may well be a barrier to economic growth, and one argument for a new crossing is that it will stimulate such growth, but option C is a halfway house. If we were really trying to develop economic growth, we would go for something further east, perhaps linking Canvey with north Kent—an option D road solution.

[Gareth Johnson]

That is an interesting idea. I think that the cost would be astronomical, but having more crossings is essential. Perhaps it could be a plan for the future. At the moment, we do not have anything east of Tower bridge other than the Blackwall tunnel and the Dartford crossing, and vehicles relying on the Woolwich ferry to try to alleviate some of the problems is simply not a solution.

We have mentioned before the failure of commerce to take off in the area east of London. When we talk to businesses in the area, we find that they desperately want option C to happen. We can speak to the garden city builders, the local enterprise partnership, the Freight Transport Association, Eurotunnel, the road haulage industry and Lakeside and Bluewater shopping centres. We can speak to almost any organisation outside the Gravesham area and, in Essex, the Basildon and east Thurrock area, and what it wants is for option C to happen. The Thames Gateway project has been held back as a result of a lack of infrastructure. The infrastructure is not there to support the commerce that is desperately needed in that area. Therefore, in Kent at least—the situation may be different in Essex—we are hard-pushed to find a business or organisation outside the Gravesham area that does not think that the solution to the problem is option C.

Another reason for that is that option C, according to Highways England, would enable vehicles still to travel at 70 mph. If we built another crossing at Dartford—option A—vehicles would be restricted to 50 mph. That is another clear reason why option C is the preferred route for so many organisations and people.

Another reason is that, with option A, there would be six years of roadworks on Britain’s worst stretch of road, at Dartford. It would be catastrophic for our area if we had to deal with that problem. It would affect the whole region as it has never been affected before, and hold back the south-east region in a way that it has never experienced, if we had six years of roadworks preventing vehicles from travelling from Kent into Essex and in effect closing off that whole area. The consequences of those restrictions would be catastrophic for the area both financially and in terms of people’s quality of life. If we build option C, the roadworks will not affect the current crossing. They can be dealt with in isolation at that location; they do not need to impede the traffic that is using the crossing now.

My hon. Friend the Member for South Basildon and East Thurrock mentioned an option D. There could also be option E, F and so on. Some people have put forward the so-called A14 option, which is preferred by my hon. Friend the Member for Gravesham (Mr Holloway). It would be a 5-mile tunnel that simply ran parallel to the M25 in the east, coming off the M25, I believe, south of junction 2 and connecting up roughly around junction 30.

Highways England estimates that option C will cost £4.5 billion and take 10 years to build, but it is half the length of option A14, so I shudder to think what A14 would cost and how long it would take to build. The closest that we have come to a quote for that was in the answer to a parliamentary question tabled back in May. The estimate was that it would cost some £6.6 billion to build option A14. That would be prohibitively expensive. I have worked out that that tunnel would be roughly one fifth of the length of the portion of the channel tunnel that is under the sea. That gives people some idea of how long the A14 tunnel would be, and I am not aware of even any geological surveys having taken place. Frankly, a route that simply runs parallel to another and works more or less as a relief road, as opposed to a separate route, is simply not a viable project.

Some 30,000 leaflets were delivered in my constituency in support of the A14 option. They pointed out the virtues of that idea to my constituents and asked them to contact me to support it. Well, however many leaflets were delivered—we are told that it was 30,000—I have had just one response since then. The idea cannot exactly have taken Dartford by storm. It is not seen as a viable alternative by the people of Dartford—not in my experience, anyway.

I therefore conclude by saying that we need the lower Thames crossing to be built east of Gravesend—option C—and in the meantime we need Highways England to come up with innovative ideas as to how we can mitigate the existing congestion at the Dartford crossing. I ask the Minister to listen to his own traffic experts at Highways England, who favour option C, and to almost every business that has expressed an opinion on the issue. Listen to the local enterprise partnership, the garden city builders, the Thames Gateway, Bluewater, Lakeside—the list goes on. I ask him to listen to the haulage industry, but also to the people of Dartford, who have suffered immeasurably as a consequence of the Dartford crossing. It has affected the quality of life of local residents in a way in which no other area of the country has been affected. In Dartford, we are sick to the back teeth of congestion at the Dartford crossing, and we therefore ask that a plan be put forward swiftly to deal with the existing problems, but also, and most importantly, to have the lower Thames crossing built where it gives the motorist an alternative, which is east of Gravesend—option C.

[Stephen Metcalfe (South Basildon and East Thurrock) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your leadership, Mr Owen. First, I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford (Gareth Johnson) on securing the debate, although there is a sense of déjà vu about it, given that we discussed this issue at some length only three weeks or so ago and it seems to have occupied my inbox for most of this year. However, that does not mean that this is not a very important debate and we should not rehearse the arguments time and again to see whether new explanations or opportunities arise.

I have great respect for my hon. Friend. We came into Parliament at the same time and have worked on a number of things together. However, on this issue we are fundamentally divided. We agree about the principle and about what we are trying to achieve, it is just that we have completely different ways of achieving it. I want to put it on the record straight off that this is not about pushing the problem from my constituency to his, or pushing it to that of my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Jackie Doyle-Price) from that of my hon. Friend the Member for Gravesham (Mr Holloway). It is about doing what we believe to be right.

I want to state from the outset that although I fundamentally oppose option C, that is not just because it would go through my constituency; it is because I do not believe that it would solve the problem. This is a once-in-a-lifetime, once-in-a-generation opportunity, so anything less than solving the problem where it actually is would be, in my opinion, a lost opportunity. We need to finish the M25. Anything else will be a waste or a mistake. It never got finished in the first place.

If my hon. Friend the Member for Gravesham were here—he would have been were he not out of the country—he would say that our hon. Friend the Member for Dartford should be down on his knees begging for option A14, begging for a solution at the existing crossing. I understand my hon. Friend’s opposition to that. I understand why he and our hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock are opposed to a solution where the existing crossing is. Their constituents have suffered, as my constituents have, immeasurable amounts of congestion. It is hideous, and we all know that, but if we put in a solution that does not solve the problem, they will still be suffering hideous amounts of congestion.

I want to paint a picture. It is a picture of a future where, despite my objections and all the evidence I have presented to the various Roads Ministers I have met and to the Secretary of State that option C will not work and will fail to tackle congestion at Dartford, option C—the “road to nowhere”, as it has been described—gets the go-ahead. The Secretary of State signs it off with the Minister’s advice and off goes option C into its next stage, cutting through huge swathes of countryside in Thurrock and across the fenland, which is destroyed and lost forever. Houses—some of them newly built—are demolished. A tunnel is constructed between Gravesend and Tilbury and miles of new motorway is built across the green and pleasant land that once was Thurrock.

On the first day the Minister is there, accompanied by the Secretary of State, with scissors in hand. There is ribbon cutting, fanfares, cars flowing beautifully and lorries arriving from Dover and heading off to wherever they are going, enjoying the views of the green and pleasant pasture from the motorway. That leaves the 86% who want to use the existing crossing—we can dispute whether it is 14% who want to use the new crossing, but it is around that, and that is Highways England’s figure—sailing onwards towards the existing Dartford crossing, enjoying a 14% increase in capacity on both the bridge and the tunnel. The traffic is flowing beautifully as far as the eye can see until—bang—an accident at the tunnel mouth, which is not a rare occurrence.

The written answer I received from the Department for Transport on 23 March 2016, in response to a question I tabled on 16 March asking how many times there had been delays or tailbacks caused by closure at the Dartford crossing, said:

“Typically there are in excess of 300 incidents per year resulting in partial or full closures of the Dartford Crossing. On average each incident takes approximately 27 minutes to deal with, often requiring a lane closure for safety.”

The impact of that means it can take up to

“3 to 5 hours for the road condition to return to normal.”

In response to another question that I tabled on the same day, asking how many times the Dartford crossing had actually closed in the past 12 months, I was informed that there were nine unplanned bridge closures due to either high winds, broken-down vehicles, collisions or police-led incidents, and that the west tunnel had closed five times and the east tunnel 12 times. Looking at those answers, I fail to see how a new crossing up to 15 km away from junction 2 on the Kent side, and 9 km away from junction 30 on the north side, would ease congestion at the existing crossing.

[Gareth Johnson]

My hon. Friend heard the figures that I gave on the number of accidents that we have had on the approach. Whenever that happens in the future, Highways England cannot inform freight coming from Dover that there is an alternative, because there is not one. It can only tell them about the congestion that exists. If we were to have option C, they would at least have a choice that does not exist today.

[Stephen Metcalfe]

My hon. Friend has read the next point in my speech. The fact is that vehicles would have to commit to an alternative long before any incident happened. Just look at the map—I know that I am not really allowed to use props, but there is a useful map that shows how far the existing crossing is from where drivers would have to commit to when going north to option C or coming south around the M25 to option C.

So there we are tootling around the M2, on to the A2, and unbeknown to us there is a prang, as I described, at one of the tunnel mouths. It instantly loses 50% of capacity. However, we are already past junction 1 on the A2/M2 and we do not know there has been a prang. We are already in the flow of traffic and are committed to the route that we are taking, whether we are in a car or a lorry. Instantly, traffic starts backing up at the Dartford crossing.

The same scenario applies on the north side. Indeed, when I made these points to a logistics company based very close to the crossing in Thurrock, it said that the traffic backs up at the rate of a mile a minute when the crossing closes. Even allowing for exaggeration, the point is clear: a crossing far from the existing one—where we know that it fails because of its importance around the M25—will do nothing for Dartford or Thurrock residents, for Essex or Kent residents or for anyone in the south-east of England, because vehicles will be trapped.

[Gareth Johnson]

What my hon. Friend describes is what we have now. When there is a problem at the approach to the Dartford crossing, everything is stuck. Even if only 30% of vehicles can be given adequate notice, by better signage, that they can use the alternative at option C, that will help thousands of vehicles. That cannot happen at the moment.

[Stephen Metcalfe]

I thank my hon. Friend for that point, but the point still stands. There will be vehicles trapped within what I am describing as the “congestion triangle” between junction 29 of the M25, junction 2 of the M25 and junction 1/2 of the M2/A2. Once someone is past any of those points, they do not have an alternative. Even if option C were built, they would still be heading towards the existing crossing. Although option C may still function beautifully once there has been an incident at the existing crossing, it will do nothing to address the problem. There will still be vehicles trapped in serious congestion in and around the existing crossing. No one can show me how option C would address the problems that I have just highlighted.

I know that it is not very fashionable to base decisions on evidence. We are in this post-truth era, but if Members look at my badge—everyone who would like one is welcome to one—they will see that I love evidence. Where is the evidence that option C will actually address the congestion, the poor air quality and the catastrophic impact of a failure at the bridge? When I challenged Highways England on that exact point, when I sat down with Mr Potts before he moved on, he said, “We will have to do that modelling after the decision is made.” Quite frankly, that is not good enough, and that is not the right thing to do. That is why Dartford and Thurrock should be begging for a solution at the existing crossing. It may well be option A14. I do not know; I would like to look at all those options again. I hear very clearly what my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford says about the inconvenience of the roadworks that would come from building at option A, and that does need to be addressed. However, anything that fails to sort out the problem where it actually exists is a missed opportunity.

When I sat down to write this speech and gather my thoughts, I really struggled to know where to start. Both my hon. Friend and I could write a book on this issue; we have been living this now for years. We can go back and we look at the history of the project. It started in its current form back in 2009 and has had a number of different incarnations during the past few years. We are now getting close to a decision. It may well be that the Minister and the Secretary of State stick with option C, as recommended by Highways England. However, I fear that we are answering a question that was posed many years ago, conflating too many different issues and not actually answering the original question: what do we do about congestion at Dartford?

Until we can answer that question satisfactorily—whether we spend £4.5 billion on option C, or £6.5 billion on option A14—we should not commit to anything. We have to know that what we are going to do and spend billions of pounds on will actually have an impact on the lives of the people my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford and I represent. Until that can be proven, building a very handy road from Dover to the north of England, although that may have merits, would be a wrong-headed decision. My hon. Friend has made many, many points that I agree with, and we want the same outcome. We want better air quality for our constituents. We want free-flowing traffic. We do not want the number of accidents and the problems that we all see. However, if we do not address that problem now we are still going to have real problems in the future.

My hon. Friend asked why so many people have opted for option C. There was a long list of people, including those at Lakeside, but I would just challenge that. I am not challenging them saying that they would like option C, but look at where Lakeside is located, with its slip roads going the wrong way on to the A13 heading towards junction 30 on the M25. Even with the slightest incident its slip roads back up very quickly, so I am surprised by that. Very few people from the long list of those who want option C are based in Thurrock, although I accept that some are. However, when given only one option—I think we all accept that the consultation that was conducted earlier this year really presented only one option, which was option C—it is no wonder that people said that was the one they wanted. They were not really given an opportunity to comment on option A.

Finally, I reiterate that we have to solve the problem where it lies. We all deserve to see the evidence and see how this will work before any decision is made to carve through my constituency, or indeed that of my hon. Friend.

--- Later in debate ---

[Daniel Zeichner]

There are limits on how long one can procrastinate. Evidence has clearly been gathered and it is time for the Government to make a decision. They need to end the uncertainty and make a decision on this issue without further delay, because Dartford has suffered from years of under-investment in local road networks and public transport, and the Government need to commit now to immediate investment in the local road network around the location of the new crossing. Local councils need to be assured that they will not be asked to foot the bill for those much needed improvements, which is a major concern, given the levels of cuts to council budgets.

[Gareth Johnson]

I certainly agree with the hon. Gentleman that we need a decision, so that we will be able to get on with building a new crossing. Does he agree with me, though, that we needed a decision 15 years ago? The fact that that decision was not made then, and that nothing at all was done about the congestion in Dartford, has resulted in the problems that we experience today.

[Daniel Zeichner]

I see where the hon. Gentleman wishes to lead me, but I will not be tempted to go down that path. All I will say is that the Government are in place today and the Minister is in charge. It is up to him whether to make the decision but I am sure that the hon. Member for Dartford would agree that a decision would be timely, and that having one as soon as possible would be best.

I have been told that Dartford, like so many other places, needs a new traffic and transport plan, taking in road improvement, connectivity and improved public transport provision. As we speak, people who are sitting in their cars in queues at the Dartford crossing will be anxious to hear what the Minister has to say. I hope he can bring them some good news and that he does not disappoint.

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Mr John Hayes)]

What a delight it is to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Owen. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford (Gareth Johnson) on securing the debate. As the hon. Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner), who speaks for the Opposition, spoke of seasons, I thought of John Clare, who wrote:

“The winter comes; I walk alone,

I want no bird to sing;

To those who keep their hearts their own

The winter is the spring.”

Perhaps the seasons are what we perceive they are.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford said, this is not the first time we have considered these matters in recent weeks. Indeed, on 14 November we had a longish debate on the Floor of the House on exactly this subject, to which he and my hon. Friend the Member for South Basildon and East Thurrock (Stephen Metcalfe) contributed. None the less, he is right to say that repetition is no sin. Indeed, it is virtuous when it obliges Ministers to consider matters as closely as I have been invited to again today. It is right that we should consider these matters, because we take the issues very seriously.

The Dartford crossing is an important part of the arterial road network and is used extensively by private motorists and hauliers—by those carrying freight, particularly those going to Dover. There are important issues, as my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford said, of congestion and safety. The answer, quite simply, is that we need to do more; I would be the first to acknowledge that. I will talk a bit about some of the things that I have pledged to do when I have spoken about the Dartford crossing in recent weeks, and about what I have done since. Ministers have to be held to account and if they say they are going to do things, they should be expected to deliver on those pledges. I want to reassure those who, like my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford, take a strong view, including many of his constituents, that tackling congestion at Dartford should be a priority and that it is a priority for the Government and for Highways England.

I will start with some of the facts. When my hon. Friend the Member for South Basildon and East Thurrock talked of evidence, I thought of C.S. Lewis, who said that

“reason is the natural organ of truth; but imagination is the organ of meaning.”

Although the facts are important and I take them very seriously, one should never be the captive of them because, in delivering these kinds of strategic policies, one must exercise—dare I say it—one’s vision too. None the less, let us look at some of the facts with which my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford and others will be well acquainted.

The Dartford crossing has provided the only road crossing of the Thames east of London for more than 50 years. I, too, was familiar with the Blackwall tunnel when there was nothing else, because I grew up in south-east London and used that road many times. The Dartford crossing is one of the busiest roads in the country, used 55 million times a year by commuters, business travellers, haulage companies, emergency services and holidaymakers. It opened in stages—the west tunnel in 1963, the east tunnel in 1980 and the bridge in 1991—in response to the growing traffic demands of the kind the hon. Member for Cambridge described. The existing crossing is at capacity for much of the time and is one of the least reliable sections of England’s strategic road network of motorways and major trunk roads. Congestion and the closure of the existing crossing occur frequently, and I know that this creates significant disruption and pollution, which impacts on businesses and individuals locally.

In the Adjournment debate that I referred to earlier, I mentioned that options for the M25 at Dartford have been considered for a considerable time. Indeed, various methods have been used to help to ease the congestion problems at the crossing. As a response to congestion, in particular on the approach to the payment booths, a cashless payment system called Dart Charge was introduced on 30 November 2014. In fact, Mr Owen, you will remember that I was the Minister at that time, during my first visit to the Department for Transport. I emphasise the word “visit” because all ministerial appointments are visits and nothing more, are they not?

I was pleased with the Dart Charge, knowing that it would help with the flow of traffic, and it has had some impact. The hon. Member for Cambridge made that point, and I will come to the other points he raised in a moment. I do not want to overstate the impact of the Dart Charge, but I think it was the right thing to do and it has had a positive effect. Overall, the Dart Charge and the new road layout have improved journeys through the Dartford crossing and reduced journey times for drivers.

[Gareth Johnson]

Although I accept that traffic flows have improved from Essex into Kent since the toll booths have been removed, I dispute the argument that they have improved from Dartford into Essex. A lot depends on how those figures are measured. Certainly the people of Dartford have no sense whatever that improvements have come about in anything like the manner that the Minister mentions. They feel, almost universally, that congestion has got worse in Dartford since the toll booths were removed.

[Mr Hayes]

Yes, I understand that. I think that is partly because those changes were made against a background of increased demand, so the number of vehicles using the crossing actually continues to grow. In a sense, any improvement will have been mitigated, affected and, for some, concealed by the growing traffic volumes.

In factual terms—the evidence is important—volumes of traffic have grown by more than 5% in the past year. Now, that might sound relatively minor but, given the figures I used earlier, 5% growth in a single year is an extra 2.7 million crossings. It is unsurprising that people see that extra volume of traffic and say that the Dart Charge has made less difference than it actually has because, of course, it is not possible to compare the situation with what it would have been like had we not done it.

It is important to recognise, however, the proper concerns of my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford and the profound concerns of those whom he represents. In the end, the issue comes down to the fact that the crossing is operating at over-capacity—something like 117% capacity. Journey times southbound are estimated to be significantly better than before the Dart Charge was introduced, being very nearly five minutes quicker, on average, in the year to August 2016 than the year before.

Northbound, however, we recognise that there is still more to be done. A combination of increased traffic and significant roadworks at junction 30 resulted in only a relatively small improvement in journey times in comparison with journey times prior to the Dart Charge. Anyone who uses the crossing regularly will know that there is a significant difference between the northbound and southbound crossing times. My hon. Friend the Member for South Basildon and East Thurrock will certainly know that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Gareth Johnson]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for South Basildon and East Thurrock (Stephen Metcalfe), and I agree that we all want the same thing. I thank the Minister for his responses. The biggest decision of all, of course, is whether we choose option A or option C. If anyone were to suggest that all the existing London crossings should be put in the same place, we would think them mad. That is effectively what option A offers: more of the same in the same location. Option C would offer an alternative choice to motorists that is not currently available. I ask the Secretary of State for Transport and the Roads Minister to consider that option.

M25: Dartford

Gareth Johnson Excerpts

Monday 14th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Holloway]

Absolutely—100%. A few months ago, I had Mr Potts of the Highways Agency in my office, and I got quite heated with him. I got him to admit that, however many crossings he built to the east of the existing crossing, he would at some point have to come back and fix the M25 at Dartford. It is possible to fix the problems of the M25 only if they are fixed at Dartford. Let me explain why.

There are several different types of traffic that all meet in the congested area between Dartford and Thurrock. First, there is what we could call national long-range traffic. Secondly, there is the regional traffic off the A14 in Essex and off the A2 in Kent. Thirdly, there is the local traffic—people going to hospital appointments or collecting children from school on either side at the exits in Dartford. The problem is that those three different categories—fast, long-range traffic to someone doing the school run—collide at Dartford and, into the mix, we also have to throw heavy goods vehicles and dangerous goods vehicles, as well as a huge amount of freight that comes in from the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Dover (Charlie Elphicke).

If we want to fix the problem at Dartford, therefore, we have to find some way of separating those three different types of traffic. As I have said, there were originally a number of options, including option A at Dartford, but none of them, including the current option C, meant new roads to connect one bit of the M25 to another.

[Gareth Johnson (Dartford) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. Can he tell us why he believes that Highways England, the local enterprise partnership, the freight and haulage industry, Ebbsfleet Development Corporation, both county councils, Lakeside, Bluewater, the port authorities, the chambers of commerce —and the list goes on—are all wrong and he is right on this issue?

[Mr Holloway]

I thank my hon. Friend for that. I am about to provide an even longer list of people who are in favour of option C, so I shall answer his question then.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Holloway]

I am really enjoying agreeing with everyone so far this evening. As I have said, for many years no one really thought that option B, C, D or E would be chosen. I remember one of my friends, who was the roads Minister at the time, saying, “Don’t worry; it will be option A, another bridge at Dartford.” I have every sympathy with my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford, and I understand his concerns, but we never thought that options that did not do something to ameliorate the M25 would ever be selected. Even the Highways England guy accepts that at some point you will have to go back and fix the problems of the M25, because the M25 is still going down that route today, as it did 30 years ago and as it will in 30 years’ time.

[Gareth Johnson]

My hon. Friend is being very generous in giving way. Does he not accept that the solution is not to funnel more and more traffic through the narrow corridor that is the approach to the Dartford crossing at Dartford? Should we not have more resilience, as we have across the rest of the Thames, and site crossings at various different locations? My hon. Friend seems to be advocating the funnelling of more traffic into the Dartford area, whereas the solution, surely, is to take traffic away and site the crossing east of Gravesend.

[Mr Holloway]

I think that the solution lies in any number of measures, but there certainly needs to be further capacity. I agree that we cannot try to squeeze more and more stuff into that collision of long-range national, regional and local traffic. I think that we need to seriously revisit the idea of taking Dartford and Thurrock out of the equation. I have spoken to tunnelling experts who say that that is eminently doable. We need—and it is perfectly feasible—a long tunnel that would start south of the A2 and pop out north of the A14, and vice versa, to swallow up the traffic. The effect of such a tunnel would really depend on numbers, and numbers are a moving target. As I shall explain a little later, Highways England is extremely good at making numbers fit whatever its argument is at the time. However, let us say for argument’s sake that 40%— it could be more, but Highways England would say that it was very much less—of the traffic that goes through your constituency, or hangs around for hours in your constituency, killing your constituents—

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Holloway]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. He and I have been, not always successfully, driving around southern England trying to persuade people that what we need is a long tunnel rather than this road to nowhere. The other day I again had a couple of people from Highways England in my house and we were talking about this. I mentioned that 40% of traffic is long-range traffic, and the guy from Highways England told me that the figure was 12%. Can anybody listening out there in the country or here in the House who has driven on the M25 seriously think that only 12% of the traffic is through-traffic and that the rest joins at, let us say, Dartford or Thurrock and then goes on? It is clearly nonsense, and I do not know quite what is going on with Highways England.

[Gareth Johnson]

I hope we have some time for this discussion. My hon. Friend talks about Highways England’s modelling. Is he aware that it has modelled the possibility of having option C built and has discovered that it would increase overall capacity by some 70%? It has also modelled the so-called A14 option, which is the tunnel my hon. Friend alludes to, and has discovered not only that will it be prohibitively expensive, but that it will take very little traffic away from the Dartford crossing?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Holloway]

Absolutely. One thing that I have noted in my time here is that we are told that certain things must happen or cannot happen. Back in about 2007, when we again had appalling traffic at Dartford, I remember writing on behalf of constituents to say that it was crazy that people have to pay money at the toll and asking why we could not have a free-flow system. We were told back then—I presume by the same people—that there was absolutely no way that we could have free flow because of some safety thing, but that suddenly disappeared. Quangos change their numbers and what they say depending on where the argument is going. We have seen that in some of the disastrous military ventures over the past decade. Officials do sometimes get it wrong. Ministers are prudent to listen to the experts in their Department, but that does not mean that they are always right or that they are always looking after the interests of ordinary people who, in this case, have to use the road for years.

I completely get where my hon. Friends the Members for South Basildon and East Thurrock and for Dartford are coming from, because when the question of a new crossing at Dartford came up, they would rightly have been horrified, equating it with more traffic. But if I were one of them right now, I would be on my knees begging the roads Minister to look at something that could separate the traffic out at Dartford, and I would be begging the Chancellor and the Secretary of State for Transport, and writing to the Prime Minister.

[Gareth Johnson]

rose—

[Mr Holloway]

I will give way in a moment. I fear that something has happened with the political classes in these places. It has almost become a sort of truism: it is quite hard to go anywhere now. I do not know whether I am allowed to ask a question to someone who is about to intervene on me, but I will throw this out there: I would have thought that, if this were possible, my hon. Friend would love to see a long tunnel that could save his constituents.

[Gareth Johnson]

Yes, I would, but that tunnel would be east of Gravesend. I ask my hon. Friend to consider carefully the fact that any road system we put in place at the approach to the existing Dartford crossing—option A, the alternative advocated by him—would result in at least six years of roadworks and would kill the Thames Gateway area. It would kill the house building and enterprise that exists in that place and would be devastating for local communities, who are already suffering from pollution, which is going through the roof. I ask him to consider some of those issues and to understand that the option C route provides an alternative to all those downsides and can help seriously to improve the current traffic congestion from which we suffer.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Natascha Engel)]

Order. May I say to the hon. Member for Dartford (Gareth Johnson) that I am allowing interventions to be very long on the understanding that people will not make speeches, but these interventions are turning into mini-speeches themselves? If people kept their interventions a little more brief, I would be grateful.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Holloway]

I thank my hon. Friend for that, and that point has been made by Bob Lane, who has been chairing the opposition to the proposal in my constituency. Understandably, early on, when someone raised the prospect of yet another crossing at Dartford, local residents were concerned that it would lead to more traffic, but they were not aware of the tunnel option. Indeed, I think that there are a few other options that would be considerably less intrusive than what they originally had in mind, which was another great big bridge, squeezing a few more lanes through.

Everyone in this country suffers because of the huge economic disbenefits of millions of hours lost to the economy because of traffic. This is an unquantified figure that is not in Highways England’s cost-benefit analysis. The cost-benefit analysis is traditionally used to assess the value for money of something, so it represents the ratio of benefits to cost. If the benefits of a proposal are smaller than the cost, that is, if the benefit-cost ratio is less than one—I am sorry to do this, but it is important—it would represent bad value for money. Generally, the higher the BCR, the better the value for money.

During the 2013 Department for Transport consultation on options for a new Thames crossing, it is telling that reducing congestion was only one of the five key criteria. A comparison of cost and value for money was carried out and BCRs were produced for option A and option C. In 2013, option A’s indicative BCR was between 1.0 and 1.8 and option C’s BCR was between 1.2 and 1.3. We then come to 2016 and Highways England’s consultation and the BCR for location A had gone from 1.5 to 0.9—that is, bad value—and for location C, it had gone to between 2.3 and 1.7, a complete turnaround. I say it again: they fit the numbers to suit the argument, in my view. That takes absolutely no account of the economic disbenefits of people sitting in that traffic for another couple of generations.

I am sorry to be slightly evangelical, but for the good of millions of people, over many years of misery, I ask anyone hearing this debate to tell their friends and not to say that they were not warned. We only fix the M25 at Dartford by fixing the M25 at Dartford. We have an historic opportunity to fix it for all those people living in the south-east of England, all those people driving through and, in particular, for the people of Dartford for whom, if I were in the shoes of my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford, I would be on my knees.

[Gareth Johnson]

Does my hon. Friend agree that in many ways this is a conversation and a debate that we should have been having 15 years ago? Frankly, it is outrageous that nothing has taken place since the bridge was built to tackle the increasing congestion and projected increase in traffic flows at the Dartford crossing. We are therefore playing catch-up after the failure of what has gone before.

[Mr Holloway]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend. People in my constituency have spoken about him—people from Gravesham speaking about the Member for Dartford—and have said what an amazing fight he has put up over the years for his people, as has, more recently, my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock. I am not disputing that at all. He is to be commended for that. However, we now have a chance, possibly, and we should be looking into it. I remember speaking to him about the M25 a few months ago, trying to persuade him of this. I think there is a chance.

We should be getting Ministers to talk seriously to Highways England and the tunnelling firms. If we flunk this final chance in favour of a ludicrous scheme that has morphed from solving the misery at Dartford to include road capacity, economic regeneration and all sorts of other things, we will, even by Highways England’s own account, have to come back to fix the M25 at some point in the future. For 30 years or whatever the period is, people will have to sit in traffic if this bizarre decision goes through. I pray that in 15 years’ time people do not look back on us and think that we were the guilty men and women.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Hayes]

As my hon. Friend also knows, I am, by and large, in favour of faith, but I am not sure, when one is dealing with road traffic analysis, that things can be quite a matter of faith. I think it does, as I said, need to be empirical, and I will certainly make that point.

The gentleman my hon. Friend referred to has corresponded with me in just the last couple of days, when he was admiring my work as Minister, I am delighted to be able to report to the House. I will certainly discuss with him his views on these matters when I have the chance to do so.

Let me move to my next point. My hon. Friend spoke about the split between local and national traffic. He is right to say that the solutions for each may well have to take a rather different form. Now, I can tell that there is something of a—I will not put this too strongly—creative tension between the perspectives of my hon. Friends the Members for Dartford (Gareth Johnson) and for Gravesham. I do not want to draw too much close attention to those differences, but both of my hon. Friends have their point, and both make it well on behalf of their constituents. I understand those arguments, and it is because we are wrestling with them, and trying to get this right, that we are not fixed in our view of what solution would be best. Clearly, we have been through a consultation, we have looked at options for a crossing further east, as my hon. Friend the Member for Gravesham, and indeed the whole House, is well aware, and we are still deliberating on those matters. However, I would not want to give the impression that we are not prepared to listen. We certainly are prepared to continue to listen to the overtures that are made in this House and elsewhere.

[Gareth Johnson]

rose—

[Mr Hayes]

Because I am prepared to listen, I need to give way to my hon. Friend.

[Gareth Johnson]

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. Although I appreciate and accept that the Department for Transport has an open mind, does he agree that it would be unusual in the extreme for a whole body of experts in Highways England to say collectively to the Department for Transport, “Option C offers the best value for money and is the best route to minimise the amount of traffic in the area and deal with the traffic congestion,” and for the Department simply to ignore that advice?

[Mr Hayes]

If my hon. Friend were a harder and crueller man than he is, he might have pointed out what could be described as a contradiction in what I have said. I said that I was not going to be governed by experts and that I would take the decisions, but shortly afterwards I said that those decisions must be entirely evidential—that they must be empirical. It is true that that empiricism will, in part, come from those experts, but that is not a contradiction for this reason: part of the evidence that we collect will be on-the-ground evidence from the users of the road. My hon. Friend the Member for Gravesham expressed his concern that those who made the decisions might be oblivious to road users’ interests, but I assure him that they are not. It is entirely possible to square that evidential approach with an approach that is responsive to the real, on-the-ground experience of people who use the crossing and the roads that are linked to it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Hayes]

That is certainly true. It is also true that Highways England needs to do more in the way in which it communicates with Members of Parliament. I have told it so and, to its credit, it has taken that on board. My hon. Friend will know that it is now holding a series of meetings with colleagues from across the country to discuss local and regional concerns. That is a direct result of the emphasis that I placed, when I returned to the Department, on the need for Highways England to provide hon. and right hon. Members with accurate information of the kind that has been requested tonight.

I want to move on, because it is not right that I detain the House unduly, although I want to respond as fully as possible to my hon. Friend the Member for Gravesham and others. The existing crossing is at capacity for much of the time, as I have said, and it is one of the least reliable sections of England’s strategic road network of motorways and major trunk roads. Closures and congestion occur frequently and have a big impact on business and communities regionally, locally and elsewhere in the UK.

I emphasise that we can, however, do more with the existing crossing. Reference has been made to the Dart Charge, and hon. Members will know that the introduction of Dart Charge necessitated some changes to the way in which the crossing is managed. Even with free-flow charging, as I have said, there is a congestion problem. We can take a close look at what more can be done. The road signage on the northbound crossing approach is being reviewed, and we are looking at the movements of different types of vehicles as they approach the crossing to see what improvements can be made. Work continues with local authorities on both sides of the crossing to improve traffic flows between the local and strategic road networks. That includes a joint approach from Highways England and Kent County Council on a number of improvement measures for the junctions used by traffic approaching the crossing from Dartford.

Highways England will continue, on my instruction, to monitor the conditions at the crossing and to understand the various factors contributing to its performance. I want to make sure that, notwithstanding the wider debate about a second crossing, we are using the existing system as effectively and efficiently as we can. I note that point, which has been made by various hon. Members, and I think we can probably do more. We are certainly looking at the matter closely, and I will bring further information to the House when we have done so.

[Gareth Johnson]

I am heartened that the Minister appreciates that wherever the new lower Thames crossing is situated, a lot of work will need to be carried out to mitigate the existing problems at the Dartford crossing. Does he agree that Highways England needs to take a radical approach? It needs to look at the possibility of partially closing junctions and at the better management of box junctions, as does the Department for Transport. Highways England needs to look at this whole matter in a radical way so that we can ensure that, during the approximately 10 years it will take to build the lower Thames crossing, my constituents are not held to ransom by the traffic congestion that we suffer daily.

[Mr Hayes]

I never like to use the word “radical” except pejoratively, but my hon. Friend is right that we need to be imaginative and lateral in our thinking. The appropriate application of imagination that he describes is necessary for making best use of the existing capacity, as well as when looking at changes that are needed.

To that end, it is worth saying something about the M25 more widely. My hon. Friend the Member for Gravesham mentioned the M25, if I may put it in these terms, in the round. He is right to say that looking just at the crossing without considering the wider road network would be an error of judgment. We will look at it more widely, and in my meeting with him I want to explore the issue of the M25 in full to ensure that while the steps we take may be many miles from the crossing, they will have an effect on it. He is right to draw the House’s attention to the M25 per se.

My hon. Friend was also right to talk about continuing dialogue with the community. I have spoken about the exchanges between Highways England and hon. Members, but it is important that the community—through Members and other representative bodies such as local councils—is taken fully into account. I will ensure that that happens in parallel with the work that Highways England does with colleagues.

Highways England has a challenging task, and it is easy for us to be very critical of it. I am quite tough, frankly, with those who work with and for me, but I think that we should adopt a tough and appreciative tone. We recognise that Highways England will be trying its best to get this right, and we need to work with it to ensure the best possible outcome for road users. I will be demanding, but at the same time I want to be appreciative of its efforts.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Hayes]

I will not go into great detail about—

[Gareth Johnson]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Hayes]

I do not want unnecessarily to suggest that there is antagonism in the Chamber, but given that I have already given way generously to one side of the argument, in an exercise in balance I ought to give way to the other.

[Gareth Johnson]

In a final intervention, may I be so bold as to give the Minister a brief history lesson? When in the 1600s it was decided that London bridge was too congested, the town planners of the day decided that they would not put another crossing right next to the existing one, but would give some resilience to London. The same situation happened again and again, so we have crossings at various locations in London. That is exactly what we need to do for the future. We must ensure that we have a separate crossing location east of Gravesend.

[Mr Hayes]

I wonder whether the House has heard enough about the origins of London bridge and whether my hon. Friend might apply for an Adjournment debate on just that subject. I would be delighted to respond to that debate if I were given the opportunity to do so. We could then explore the veracity of his suggestion about the arguments that were advanced then, and why they were advanced. I have a limited knowledge of the history of that time in London and of that bridge, so I assume that everything he has said until now has been entirely accurate.

This matter has been brought before the House a number of times. It is of great concern to the Government. We went about the business, as Members will know, of consulting on the crossing of the Thames that my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford strongly supports, and more than 47,000 people took part in that consultation. I said earlier that we are analysing the results, and we will say more in due course. But I emphasise again that this debate has served a useful purpose in drawing the House’s attention to the balance between the pressing imperatives at Dartford, which I fully appreciate and in no way make light of, and the wider need to ensure that there is adequate capacity to deal with demand to cross the River Thames, which my hon. Friend has articulated so effectively.

The assumption sometimes affects politicians—sometimes, indeed, emasculates them—that we are merely creatures of circumstance. That is not true. In the words of Benjamin Disraeli:

“Circumstances are the creatures of men. We are free agents, and man is more powerful than matter.”

It is now for good men and women to consider these things fully and in the round, on the basis of the evidence that I described earlier, and to come to appropriate judgments. That is the job of Government. These things are not easy, for government is not easy, but we are determined to do what is right. To that end, I say again that my hon. Friend the Member for Gravesham has done the House a service in drawing its attention once more to these important matters.

Question put and agreed to.

Southeastern Train Services

Gareth Johnson Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd March 2016 Westminster Hall

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the reliability of Southeastern train services.

It is a pleasure to be here under your chairmanship, Mr Evans, and I welcome the Minister. We had hoped to meet her to discuss the Southeastern situation before this debate, but we are here now and perhaps it is better to discuss it in public, so that people know what is said.

The situation that we have found ourselves in since Christmas is not entirely the fault of Southeastern—Network Rail is responsible for more than 70% of the failures—but quite frankly my constituents do not care who is to blame. They want their trains to turn up on time, as stated on the timetable, and to take them where they need to go. Since Christmas, the situation has deteriorated significantly. Trains are constantly being delayed, cancelled or diverted, and the landslide took services out for about a week.

My constituents and those of other hon. Members are bombarding us with complaints and angry messages. I will give a few examples. One constituent complained about the

“appalling level of service provided by Southeastern on the evening of Friday 19...Trains reduced from 8 and 12 carriages to only four”.

Another wrote:

“Terrible service on the Sidcup line…Constant complaints to Southeastern but no improvements despite repeated promises”.

One constituent said that when the first Bexleyheath service of the day was cancelled, he found that he could not use his season ticket to get the bus and tube from North Greenwich, because it was not recognised by Southeastern as a “reasonable alternative route”. Someone else complained about the

“appalling and deteriorating levels of service on the Sidcup line”,

which also serves part of my constituency. She regularly uses the delay-repay compensation scheme, which she found to be “clunky and time consuming”. I will come to that later, but I have received constant complaints about difficulties in claiming compensation for lateness or cancellations. Another person complained about constant delays after Christmas in a commute to London Bridge:

“Been commuting for 40 years and never complained before. Worst it has ever been.”

It just goes on and on, and I am sure other hon. Members could give similar examples.

To give my own experience during this chaos, on one occasion I managed to get a train in the direction of Eltham as far as Lewisham, from where there was supposed to be a replacement bus service. It was impossible to find the bus stop for the replacement service; the signage was appalling. I approached a group of staff, who were clearly beleaguered, and asked them when the bus service was likely to arrive, but they had no idea. I asked, “Where does it stop?” and they waved in the general direction of the outside of the station. I felt sorry for them, but they were not providing a good service, although that has to be because they had not been provided with the information by the rail company.

On another occasion—it was the same scenario—I went outside the station to get a bus and found a blind man wandering around the building works. I do not know if anyone else has had the pleasure of trying to find a way through the roadworks outside Lewisham station, but it is difficult for someone who is not blind. Yet I found that man just wandering around. I grabbed him by the arm and asked, “Where do you want to go?” He wanted to go in the same direction as me, but how is it that he was not given assistance? Why were the staff not on the lookout for people who clearly needed such assistance? He wanted to get to Bexleyheath; he could have been put on the replacement bus service, but was given no help whatever.

On another occasion, going home late in the evening on a Bexleyheath train, we got to Lewisham only to be told that the train was no longer for Bexleyheath, but for Sidcup. People on the train just got up and blocked the doors. They were so fed up with what was going on that they stood with their feet in the doors and said, “We’re not putting up with this anymore.” When they saw me—I had got off the train and was wandering across to see if a train was ever going to be going in the general direction of Eltham—they said, “We’re protesting: we’re fed up with this.” I do not know what the end of that scenario was, but it demonstrates the scale of the frustration that people are feeling about the standard of the service.

[Gareth Johnson (Dartford) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this debate. The Labour party may be divided over its leadership, and the Conservative party over Europe, but what unites us all is Southeastern. It is fair to say that its service has deteriorated of late. Does he agree that Southeastern seems to have all but given up on getting its franchise renewed?

[Clive Efford]

That is a worry and something the Minister should consider. If that is the case, the Government should take the franchise away now, because if Southeastern is going to look at its bottom line rather than the quality of the service, passengers will continue to suffer. That was a prime example of giving way to someone and them coming up with a better line in their intervention than I have in my speech, so I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on pulling all that together.

People in south-eastern London have suffered for decades. We had the disastrous privatisation that gave us the Connex franchise. We then had a period of relative stability, when the franchise was taken back in-house—in effect, nationalised—but that was followed by the ridiculous decision under the Labour Government to reprivatise it. I opposed that at the time, but we are where we are.

Passengers who use London Bridge station understand that the Thameslink scheme is bound to cause disruption. They have accepted that, despite the chaos at Christmas 2014. At the time, the Minister accepted that there had been an unacceptable deterioration in the service and she took action—I commend her for that—but this year’s performance has deteriorated to an all-time low. Passengers had accepted that train patterns would be substantially altered and that regular journeys had to change, because trains that people were used to catching might no longer be going to Cannon Street or Charing Cross, but the level of disruption they are suffering now is nothing to do with that. On the lines between Dartford and London Bridge, the service has failed, although when we had discussions before the Thameslink works started, we were told that the situation was under control. As I said, my constituents do not care who is to blame; they want to know that the tickets they purchase will get them to where they want to go.

I am grateful to the Library for an excellent paper it has produced to provide Members with information for this debate. It sets out how the public performance measure is calculated. The PPM shows the percentage of trains that arrive at their terminating station on time and combines figures for punctuality and reliability into a single performance measure. It is the industry standard for measuring performance, but it does not distinguish between extreme lateness and a brief delay. Southeastern’s PPM has fallen from 91.3% 12 months ago to 83.2% now. The average for all operators is 89.3%, so we are way below that. Another measure is right-time performance, which uses the percentage of trains arriving at their terminating station early or within 59 seconds of schedule. Southeastern’s right-time performance has fallen from 65.2% 12 months ago to 53.5% now. The average for all operators is 64.8%. Again, it is well below average.

The cancellation and significant lateness measure is for when a train is cancelled at origin or en route—this was my experience on the train that was going to Bexleyheath but then went to Sidcup—and when the originating station is changed or the train is diverted. A train is significantly late if it arrives at its terminating station 30 minutes or more late. On that measure, 2.4% of Southeastern trains were cancelled or significantly late 12 months ago, but the figure is now 4.3%—it has nearly doubled—while the average for all operators is 3%.

On every single measure we see poor performance from Southeastern. In autumn 2015, Passenger Focus showed that Southeastern’s passenger satisfaction was 75%, down from a high of 84% in 2013. In autumn 2015, the Chiltern franchise had the highest satisfaction rate, at 91%. The bottom three ranked operators were Thameslink, Southern—they are franchised as Thameslink, Southern and Great Northern—and Southeastern, which share the common factor of going into London Bridge. That must account for some of the dissatisfaction that people have with the service.

Last week, Which? published its annual passenger satisfaction survey. Southeastern was placed joint last, with an overall score of 46%; last year it was at 45%. Which? considers the impression of passengers over the previous year of the service provided. The difference between that and the Passenger Focus survey is that Passenger Focus considers the last journey that passengers made. That can be open to all sorts of factors, which can distort the figure. I would say that the Which? methodology far more accurately reflects the passenger experience than that of Passenger Focus, which is now Transport Focus. Those figures demonstrate just how consistently poor the service has been.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tom Tugendhat]

I agree entirely and thank my hon. Friend for his comments. I have spoken to the Rail Minister about it, and am delighted that she is in her place, because I know she is addressing those very points. I know I am not speaking against her but in support of her as she fights for all our constituents.

[Gareth Johnson]

On that point about compensation, does my hon. Friend agree that the “delay repay” scheme should kick in far earlier than the 30 minutes that the hon. Member for Eltham (Clive Efford) alluded to? Perhaps compensation for passengers who are delayed should commence after 15 minutes.

[Tom Tugendhat]

My hon. Friend is right; we need to get responsiveness into the system, and the way to do so, I am afraid, is through the pocketbook, as we all know.

I was canvassing in Old Bexley and Sidcup this weekend for the Conservative party’s wonderful mayoral candidate, my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith). I know that he will be working hard on this issue and ensuring that the trains respond significantly better to his constituents, although perhaps not mine. In his seat as well, the pressure on the trains is great, so I hope he will forgive me as I take his name in vain and press for a better service in Old Bexley and Sidcup.

I have been calling for more rail carriages on the Maidstone East line in my own area. The carriages introduce at least an element—I know that is not all of it—of resilience and flexibility into the system. That is why I raised only this week with Southeastern the question of what more it can do. It said, “Well, we could have a few more drivers on stand-by.” I asked why it was not doing that, and it said, “It’s not about the money.” I ask Southeastern again here today: why is it not doing that? If this is not about money, and if more carriages and more drivers allow for a bit of resilience and flexibility, surely that is the right thing to do for people across our county.

This is a county-wide problem. Tonbridge is the heart of the Kent rail network and, as Members will know, is the most important rail exchange in the county. Indeed, it has running through it one of the longest pieces of straight track in the United Kingdom. It was built in days when the Victorians did not value the land around the beautiful weald of Kent or the extraordinary richness of our communities. However, that is not true today. Our communities are the most blessed and the most beautiful in our country, and those train lines now provide the opportunity for some of the finest people in our entire kingdom to get to work and to generate the income that pays for the schools, hospitals and, indeed, armed forces across our country. It is therefore essential that we look at these rail networks not as a luxury—they are not that—or as some way of getting people home or to work on time, with 15 minutes here or there being just a problem, but as a fundamental part of the British economy.

It is essential we get this right, and the only way to do that is by holding the people who run the rails and the trains to account. This is not a question of public ownership or private ownership. It is not an ideological question for us to discuss; I think one Member of the House of Lords recently described the Opposition as “croissant eating”. No—this is a very important question about how we deliver results for our people. I am adamant that we forget the ideology and focus on what matters: delivery, delivery, delivery.

Dartford Crossing: Congestion

Gareth Johnson Excerpts

Wednesday 13th January 2016 Westminster Hall

[Gareth Johnson (Dartford) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered congestion at the Dartford Crossing.

It is, as always, a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Alan. I am pleased to secure this debate on an issue that has dominated road transport in the south-east and beyond: the congestion so often found at the Dartford crossing. Local people have in their thousands signed a petition relating to the issue, and that has prompted a response from the Government. I do not believe, however, that it is right to wait for the number of signatories to reach the 100,000 trigger point for a debate in the House, so I am pleased to have secured a debate today.

The tunnels have caused problems in the area for pretty much all my life. It is fair to say that there was a period of respite when the bridge was built, but that was back in 1991, and the problems have grown ever since. In Dartford, we believed that there would be further respite when the tollbooths were finally removed but, alas, that has not been the case. Today we have congestion like I have never known before.

Quite simply, the approach to the Dartford crossing is Britain’s worst stretch of road. I challenge the Roads Minister to name one stretch of road in the UK that is worse than the Dartford crossing approach. It will be interesting to see whether he can come up with a single road in the whole United Kingdom that can compare. The congestion has a huge impact on local residents. Children cannot be picked up from school and people cannot get to work or home from work. People say to me that often it is like being a prisoner in their own home. Businesses are also affected, particularly those on Crossways Boulevard. If the congestion continues, it will ultimately cost Dartford hundreds of jobs.

We have a growing economy. London and the south-east are envied around the world for their wealth creation. The south-east provides not just thousands but millions of new jobs. It is very much the financial engine of the country, but the whole area is held back by Britain’s worst stretch of road. It is pointless to have a financial engine if the tyres are punctured. As the Prime Minister said in response to my hon. Friend the Member for Sittingbourne and Sheppey (Gordon Henderson), we cannot secure inward investment for Kent unless we have a modern road system. That applies as much to the A249, which my hon. Friend asked about in Prime Minister’s questions, as it does to the Dartford crossing.

The congestion is not only a transport issue; it also leads to pollution. The pollution created at the Dartford crossing is nothing short of a national disgrace. It is both noise pollution and air pollution. According to Public Health England, a staggering 6.7% of the deaths in Dartford are at least partly attributable to long-term exposure to human-caused particle air pollution. In other words, more people die from air pollution in Dartford than anywhere else in Kent or Essex. The figure is the second highest in the whole south-east, behind only Slough, which is of course home to Heathrow airport. The worst area in the east of the country is Thurrock, and we know where the Dartford crossing links up to. Why should the people of Dartford be subjected to such high levels of pollution? Why should the health of people in Dartford be put at risk by the road scheme?

The congestion at the Dartford crossing will be properly dealt with only when we have another crossing in the lower Thames area. In my opinion, that crossing should be located away from Dartford and east of Gravesend if it is to provide a proper alternative for the motorist. I shudder to think of the problems that will be caused if another crossing was to be built at Dartford.

[Stephen Metcalfe (South Basildon and East Thurrock) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate and echo some of his comments, particularly on air pollution in Thurrock. I am privileged to represent parts of that area. He talks about an additional crossing east of the existing crossing. Does he agree that both options A and C answer a question that was posed 10 years ago? We should broaden the debate and potentially look further east, and west into London, to resolve the issues.

[Gareth Johnson]

My hon. Friend makes an important point, and I pay tribute to his campaigning on behalf of his constituents on transport links in Basildon and Thurrock. As I understand it, the Mayor of London continues to assess the alternatives to the Blackwall tunnel, and that work is ongoing.

With the Dartford crossing, I argue that options D, E and F have been assessed previously and have been properly looked at. We are left with options A and C. My hon. Friend the Member for Gravesham (Mr Holloway) is a vociferous opponent of any crossing east of Gravesend. I disagree with that stance; I believe that there needs to be that alternative for the motorist, but we need a decision. We need something to be built as soon as possible, because the current situation is completely untenable.

[Gordon Henderson (Sittingbourne and Sheppey) (Con)]

Would my hon. Friend accept that any crossing east of the Dartford crossing would have to take account of the existing problems on the M2 and the A2?

[Gareth Johnson]

My hon. Friend makes an important point, and I would add the M20. It has been years—I cannot remember it happening in my lifetime—since we have seen any major improvements on the M20, A20, M2 or A2. It is high time that we had some road improvements in the county of Kent. We have increasing levels of traffic coming from the port at Dover through to the east of England and round to ports such as Harwich. Kent is being used as a thoroughfare. There are too many pinch points and too many roads that simply cannot cope with the amount of traffic that we have. A garden city is being built in my constituency. We have population growth throughout the county, which in many ways is welcome, but we must have the infrastructure to match that, and a crucial part of that infrastructure is investment in our road network, because the local roads simply cannot cope with the demands of the levels of traffic.

On whether there should be a crossing at Gravesham or Dartford, my argument is that another crossing at Dartford would give us years of roadworks. As a consequence, we would have more traffic squeezed into what is already a pinch point. It would be nothing short of a disaster for the town.

[Mr Adam Holloway (Gravesham) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend for securing the debate. It strikes me that we need to fix the appalling problem at Dartford—I was not aware of the awful statistics he mentioned on respiratory illnesses—but is not the answer, therefore, to fix the problem at Dartford, rather than unnecessarily create a whole range of problems for 20,000 people to the east of Gravesend?

[Gareth Johnson]

My hon. Friend the Member for Gravesham and I disagree on this. Understandably, he wants a crossing, but not in his constituency, and I fully understand the reasons why. My argument is that if we had another crossing east of Gravesend, we would see far less of the stationary traffic that creates the most pollution. It is estimated that 30% of the traffic currently using the Dartford crossing would move east of Gravesham, where there would be another crossing, giving not only relief to Dartford but an alternative for the motorist. If we insist on having just one crossing point at Dartford, no matter how wide we make it, it puts so much pressure on the roads in the area that they will not be able to cope. One single problem on the M25 at Dartford can cause mayhem in the area. We need an alternative. Unless we have that alternative, there will always be problems at Dartford.

[Mr Holloway]

Does my hon. Friend not agree that the reason for the northbound back-up is that we have a tunnel bore? According to Highways Agency staff, the problem is caused by dangerous goods vehicles backing up. It takes seven minutes to reverse one. Should he not concentrate on fixing the problems at Dartford, rather than creating problems for people living elsewhere?

[Gareth Johnson]

HGVs that are too high and need to turn round do cause problems with delays in that area—

[Mr Holloway]

It is the problem.

[Gareth Johnson]

It is not the only problem.

[Mr Holloway]

It is the main one.

[Gareth Johnson]

The existing tunnels were designed for roughly 140,000 vehicles a day, and anything up to 170,000 vehicles currently use them. Inevitably, according to the laws of physics, there will be congestion at certain times going through the existing Dartford tunnel. So we have two options. We either build a crossing further away from Dartford to give motorists an alternative, or we put another crossing next to the existing one, putting an increasing amount of pressure on local roads that cannot cope at the moment. If we put more traffic there, even after the roadworks are finished we will have even more problems.

[Mr Holloway]

That is the point. If my hon. Friend wants to protect his constituents from respiratory problems, he has to have a way of stopping those great build-ups at Dartford. Of course the multi-billion-pound answer is to build another crossing, but another bridge at Dartford going northbound will help his constituents much more quickly.

--- Later in debate ---

[Gareth Johnson]

Even if we had 100 crossings at Dartford, we would still rely on a small geographical area that would inevitably be a pinch point. The only solution is to have another crossing east of Gravesham. I struggle to think of organisations outside of Gravesham that believe Dartford is the best location for another crossing. The organisations I have spoken to—outside of Gravesham—agree that there should be a crossing elsewhere and an alternative for the motorist. That is the way forward and it is the only way in which we will see real relief from the problems we have today.

[Stephen Metcalfe]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way and being so generous with his time. Does he accept that the danger with his approach of championing a crossing east of the current crossing is that we will still experience air pollution at the existing crossing and create a new area of air pollution to the east potentially coming into my constituency? Because both options A and C land in Thurrock, we will end up with pollution both in the west and the east of the borough. Would it not be better to move some of this to a wider extent and not concentrate it in south Essex?

[Gareth Johnson]

My argument is that if all the traffic uses one area, it inevitably leads to traffic hold-ups and increased pollution. The best way of dealing with pollution in an area is to relieve the congestion. The only way to properly relieve congestion in north Kent is to have another crossing away from Dartford—east of Gravesend —that gives motorists an alternative and ensures there is less chance than we have now of the horrific jams that we so regularly see in that area.

[Kelly Tolhurst (Rochester and Strood) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend for securing the debate today. My constituents complain continuously about the tunnel and congestion. They also think the charges are a tax on local businesses in the south-east. Does my hon. Friend agree that, whatever option is put forward, we need a real strategic view and a project that suits north Kent’s development over the next 20 years and meets our needs? We are an important part of the UK and any project must be suitable for the future—not just for now—and not simply solve a problem in the short term.

[Gareth Johnson]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right. That is why option C ensures that the vehicles using the M20 are able to access the Thames. We must take into account the growth in population in the area. I pay tribute to the work that the hon. Lady has put in for her constituency. I know that the problems with the Dartford crossing affect her constituents, a number of whom have contacted me. I pay tribute to the work that she has put in on their behalf to help alleviate some of the problems that they have had, particularly using the Dart Charge system.

I need to make progress; I am aware that the Minister will have limited time to respond. I will focus on the small part of Dartford where a lot of the problems are caused—the roundabouts at junction 1A and the Bluestar roundabout at junction 1B. These need a major overhaul and greater enforcement of the vehicles that block traffic on the roundabouts. Highways England correctly points out that that is an issue for Kent County Council. We therefore look to those organisations together to tackle the issues.

I recently held a round-table summit for all authorities with responsibility for the crossing. Both Kent County Council and Highways England know that the current situation is untenable, and that they need to find a solution. Congestion is also caused at the slip road from Bob Dunn Way, which causes huge problems for the people who live on an estate called The Bridge, which is adjacent to that road. If Kent County Council is unresponsive to requests made by Highways England, it should make that publicly known. Kent County Council must work with Highways England to find a solution to the problems that we currently face.

The new road layout was put in place to facilitate the free-flow system that saw the back of the tollbooths. I still maintain that it was right to remove the tollbooths, but the road layout simply has not worked. The Dart Charge system is riddled with administrative errors and incompetency. Hardly a day goes by—I am sure this is the case for my colleagues in Kent and in Essex—when I am not approached by a motorist who has been wrongly or unfairly given a penalty notice. I do not want any tolls on the crossings in the area, but where they exist motorists have a right to have confidence in the tolling system. The London congestion charge rarely makes a mistake, but the same cannot be said about Sanef, the company that runs the Dart Charge system. Will the Minister look again at withholding payments to Sanef until it can rectify the mistakes it frequently makes?

I anticipate that the Minister will claim, on behalf of Highways England, that journey times have improved since the new road system was put in place. I do not dispute that traffic flow has improved from Essex into Kent. However, it is hard to find anyone in Kent who thinks that journey times the other way round have improved. Highways England claims that journey times northbound have improved by five minutes. However, that calculation is obtained purely by measuring traffic flows for just 1.5 miles before the tunnel entrance, compared with 6.5 miles approaching Kent from Essex. Why the difference between the two? It seems that the figures have been taken to obtain the most favourable outcomes. I hope that this is not simply a case of cherry-picking. Why not measure from the same distance northbound and southbound? Parliamentary answers today show that such figures are not available.

In conclusion, Highways England has accepted that it needs to do more, and I agree. The approach to the Dartford crossing is a hellish, unpredictable nightmare for motorists. The crossing strangles the town of Dartford and causes misery and anger. It damages both the economy and the health of the local area and must be improved as a priority. The road layout needs a major overhaul. Britain’s worst stretch of road needs to be given priority by both Highways England and the Department for Transport. It is essential that everybody who has been stuck in jams at the crossing hears that action will be taken to improve the situation in advance of a new crossing being built.

[Sir Alan Meale (in the Chair)]

Before you start, Minister, I apologise for the short time you have to respond. I thought it was important that the local Members had a chance to participate in the debate and get their message across.

London Black Cabs

Gareth Johnson Excerpts

Tuesday 15th September 2015 Westminster Hall

[Zac Goldsmith]

I agree with the right hon. Gentleman, and I will come on to the steps we need to take as a minimum to maintain the two-tier system and encourage innovation.

I will finish my point about the lack of free market for black cabs. I mentioned some of the specifications and the hoops the black cab drivers have to jump through, but that is not the only factor. We all know about the knowledge, a gruelling exercise that takes on average 50 months—between two and five years—to study. It has a failure rate of 80% and is done entirely at the driver’s expense. Black cabs also have to be wheelchair accessible. London is the only major city in the world that requires that. Given that around 1.2 million Londoners have some form of disability, that requirement is a good thing, but it adds enormously to costs.

Some have suggested that we simply remove the regulations and let the drivers fight it out, but on the whole the regulations have worked for London, and removing them effectively means losing the black cab altogether. There was a very good debate on the Floor of the House not long ago on this very issue. In what I thought was a magnificent speech, my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne (Mr Walker) said:

“London cannot have it both ways. It can try, but it will end in tears.”—[Official Report, 15 July 2015; Vol. 598, c. 1054.]

He is right. My starting point is that London would be poorer without black cabs and we should ensure that they have a future.

The question is how we do that. Partly it is a question of helping black cabs to compete, which means looking at unnecessary regulations: turning circle technology, for example, is probably not necessary and adds an enormous cost to the car. I know that TfL is keen to build more taxi ranks. I believe that a third of all taxi journeys in London start at the taxi rank and there is a strong case to be made for rolling ranks out all over London, not least to help deal with congestion. We should also help black cabs to switch to contactless payment systems. That is what consumers expect—83% of passengers polled recently want to be able to pay by card—but only half of London’s cabs currently take card payments. There is a case for subsidising that process. If we measure the cost of that subsidy against the costs imposed on black cabs through regulation, it would be a fairly small piece of the equation.

[Gareth Johnson (Dartford) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate on an issue that I know he cares about passionately. Many black cab drivers live in my constituency of Dartford. If London were to lose its black cabs, that would be a tragedy that had an impact way beyond the capital, into the home counties, where so many black cab drivers live. They tell me that they want equality of arms, so that the right and necessary checks carried out on them are also carried on other drivers.

[Zac Goldsmith]

I agree with my hon. Friend, and will be coming to that point.

Before I move on to the steps we need to take on regulation, we should acknowledge that black cabs are already adapting and changing fast. From 2018, all new black cabs will be zero-emission capable, helped by £8,000 grants from the Mayor. The cost to drivers will be no greater than that of buying conventional cars, but the cost of managing the cars will be much lower because they will be independent of fuel and will be able to fuel their cars electrically. That change has been very much welcomed by the drivers I have spoken to. Incidentally, the first motor cabs, which arrived in 1897, were electric, so we are seeing a neat ecological full circle—we are experiencing the circle of life right here in London with our black cabs. Many drivers are also using new booking apps, some of which are very innovative. For example, some help passengers to share journeys; others enable serious discounts over longer distances.

I do not believe that on their own those changes will be enough, however. We need to find a way to maintain the two-tier system distinguishing between cabs and taxis that has worked well in London for over 50 years.

Oral Answers to Questions

Gareth Johnson Excerpts

Thursday 11th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr McLoughlin]

We will say more about buses later in the Session, and I hope that that will answer some of the hon. Gentleman’s questions, but it is also true that buses need a good road network as well.

[Gareth Johnson (Dartford) (Con)]

21. The Secretary of State will be aware of the congestion at the Dartford crossing. It has been eased by the free-flow system put in place, but the administration of that system under the Dart charge scheme is woefully inadequate and has caused misery for my constituents. Will he, as a matter of priority, please address this issue and end this frustration for my local residents?

[Mr McLoughlin]

I certainly understand the frustration felt by my hon. Friend’s constituents. Indeed, the roads Minister has organised a meeting on this subject. This is a major change, however, and many people are saying that they are going through the tunnel and over the bridge a lot quicker. There have, therefore, been improvements, including in journey times, but the frustrations that his constituents face are not acceptable, and we will take them up with the company.