Walsall-Rugeley Line (Electrification)

Debate between Aidan Burley and Valerie Vaz

Thursday 14th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Burley]

Excellent.

Given the history of this scheme, it is astonishing that this small 15-mile section of track has not already been electrified. The scheme originally had a high-profile inclusion in the former Railtrack network management statement in 1999, including a detailed pre-feasibility study showing it was deliverable. It was again identified in Network Rail’s electrification strategy 2009, and in its west midlands route utilisation strategy in 2011, as a scheme that should be fully considered in more detail as part of the west midlands and Chilterns route utilisation strategy.

Although Centro and other local stakeholders feel that the west midlands and Chilterns route utilisation strategy process did not consider the case for electrifying the route as effectively as it could have, recent work by Network Rail demonstrates that the electrification scheme has a positive business case and a benefit-cost ratio of 1:2, even without the inclusion of the wider strategic benefits that will arise from creating an alternative electrified rail connection between the west midlands and the west coast main line, which links the region to the north-west and Scotland.

The Minister may not be aware that recent work undertaken by KPMG for Centro has also identified significant further regional economic benefits from the electrification of this route, which, again, are not included in Network Rail’s business case. KPMG’s analysis indicated that electrification would generate an additional £113 million of gross value added benefit per annum and support the creation of 1,370 additional jobs, as has been mentioned. That is why Centro and others locally are so passionate about seeing the Government confirm the Walsall to Rugeley electrification as a high priority scheme for 2014 to 2019 in the Secretary of State’s forthcoming high-level output statement on rail investment. That is also why both Centro and the West Midlands Regional Rail Forum have now identified the scheme as the No.1 electrification priority for the whole of the west midlands region.

[Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this debate. It may seem to be a bit geeky and for train-spotters, but this subject is very important for our constituents. I am pleased that Walsall is not being ignored, because it usually is. Will he say whether any of this is part of the High Speed 2 bid? Will we be able to have a bit of slippage in that bid in order to see this scheme come to fruition?

[Mr Burley]

I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention, and I will come on to deal with HS2 and the way it connects up a little later in my speech, when I believe I will address her question. I also thank her for signing the letter to the Secretary of State, which I should also mention, from just about all the MPs along the line in support of the scheme; as has been said, this is a cross-party effort, as we all want to see this happen.

Although Centro and other regional stakeholders strongly support the electrification of the Walsall to Rugeley route, the train operator, London Midland, also believes that electrification would deliver ongoing operational cost savings, improved journey times and reduced crowding. Electrification work will make it easier to create a larger loading gauge, allowing the increasingly common W10 containers to be transported. In the longer term, electrification could allow services such as the Birmingham to Liverpool service to run via Walsall, significantly improving Walsall’s connectivity to Stafford and the north-west, and giving new commercial opportunities to serve a town that is now larger than Wolverhampton, as I learned yesterday.

The Minister will be aware that the electrification strategy as part of the network route utilisation strategy identified the following gaps as driving whether a route should be considered for electrification:

“Type A—Electrification to enable efficient operation of passenger services…Type B—Electrification to enable efficient operation of freight services…Type C— Electrification to increase the availability of diversionary routes…Type D—Electrification to enable new patterns of service to operate”.

The Minister can take comfort that the Walsall to Rugeley line electrification would cover all those gap types.

The Minister will also be aware that Network Rail has identified a number of criteria to be considered when looking at whether to develop a project for CP5. Again, we in the west midlands strongly believe that all these criteria, as set down by Network Rail, are met. Tonight, I just want to highlight three key criteria, the first of which is affordability. Railtrack commissioned Atkins in 1999 to undertake a pre-feasibility study into the electrification of the route, and, with the exception of clearance issues in the Walsall station area, the route appears to be straightforward to electrify. It must be remembered that the line was earmarked for electrification in the 1960s as part of the west coast electrification scheme, and that all the bridges and other structures were rebuilt with electrification clearances. Atkins assessed the cost of electrification as approximately £32.6 million, plus an extra £6 million to achieve W10 gauge clearance. However, it is worth noting that the recent work by Centro reduces that to just £30 million, or £1 million per mile of track—15 miles in each direction.

The second criterion I want to draw to the Minister’s attention is value for money. There should be a financially positive benefit-cost ratio of more than two. We believe that the multiple benefits that the route drives have already resulted in a positive BCR of 1:2. That will be further enhanced by the KPMG work, which will push it over two. Network Rail’s business case assessment is narrowly defined and has been superseded by the Centro-commissioned KPMG work that takes into account the wider benefits such as job creation and economic development. As has been mentioned, it would mean more than 1,300 new jobs and a gross value added of £113 million, which are not reflected in Network Rail’s more tightly defined business case, which still gives a positive BCR. We therefore urge the Minister to take that into account as part of her decision process for named schemes in CP5 as part of the HLOS next month. This is a capital scheme that will trigger economic development and job creation across the west midlands.

The third criterion for Network Rail that I want to draw to the Minister’s attention is the extent to which economic growth is driven. As I hope we are showing tonight, the service improvements arising from the scheme would drive significant economic growth in the Walsall and Cannock areas, which are badly affected by the economic downturn. The freed-up capacity elsewhere on the network would also support wider economic growth in the west midlands. There would also be the ability to redeploy diesel capacity on the busy Snow Hill network, which would help the economy of Birmingham city centre to develop further. Without the electrification the current service on the line could worsen, leading to economic growth constraint.

I believe the scheme meets all the key criteria for electrification set down by Network Rail and that is why all our local stakeholders believe that Walsall to Rugeley electrification strongly meets Network Rail’s criteria for CP5 named schemes for 2014 to 2019. As a result of all this, on 18 May I sent a letter to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport signed by 20 key stakeholders, including the chairs of the Greater Birmingham and Solihull, Black Country and Staffordshire, and Stoke local enterprise partnerships, the leaders of all the metropolitan, county and district local authorities on the route, private sector business leaders, the chamber of commerce and six MPs with constituencies along the route, some of whom are in their places tonight, all giving their unequivocal support for Walsall to Rugeley Chase line electrification. As can be seen from the number of MPs from both sides of the House who signed the letter to the Secretary of State and who are here tonight, this scheme has the support of the region.

The scheme has the strong support of my hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield (Michael Fabricant), who has already written to the Minister about this matter but cannot take part in this debate because he is a Whip, even though he is sitting in front of me on the Treasury Bench tonight. It also has the strong support of my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy), who has publicly given his firm support, saying:

“Electrification of this line is a vital, not simply for local and regional transport, but for the national network as it provides alternative routes for electric only trains.”

It also has the support my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Mr Howarth), who was the former Member for Cannock and Burntwood and is now the Under-Secretary of State for Defence, He cannot speak in the debate as he is a Defence Minister, but he wanted me to inform the house that when he was the Member for Cannock and Burntwood in 1983 to 1992, he tried to get the line to be upgraded, saying then:

“It would provide an invaluable alternative for occasions when the West Coast mainline between Rugeley and Birmingham International is out of action for repairs.”

It is even supported by the Government Chief Whip, himself a user of the Chase line in his former life as a councillor on Cannock Chase district council and as a coal miner in my own constituency. It also has the cross-party support of all the MPs along the route, including the hon. Members for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz) and for Walsall North (Mr Winnick) and my hon. Friends the Members for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr Shepherd), for South Staffordshire (Gavin Williamson), for Stafford and for Lichfield.

I know that the Minister, quite rightly, will not be persuaded simply by pleas from MPs. I am aware that such schemes require more than just special pleading; they require cold hard facts and benefit-cost ratios, and that is what I have tried to convey to the Minister tonight. As I have said, recent work by Network Rail this year has already established that this £30 million scheme has a positive business case with a BCR of 1:2 and the further research by KPMG commissioned by Centro shows that that can easily increase to more than two when the wider economic benefits are taken into account. An investment of £30 million will give the west midlands a regional gross value added benefit of £113 million and the regional employment impact will create nearly 1,400 jobs. That seems like a good return to me and one that meets the Network Rail investment criteria.

I am conscious that this bid would be in competition with other bids for electrification and must therefore be competitive. Before this debate, I listened to a recent Adjournment debate secured by my hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough (Nicky Morgan) to ask for electrification of the midland main line at a capital cost of a rather whopping £530 million, with more than 50 bridges needing to be rebuilt. The Minister, who is also replying to this debate, said then that

“we will need to strike a balance”

between different types of project and that what gets funding depends on a

“fair assessment of competing priorities elsewhere on the rail network.”—[Official Report, 16 April 2012; Vol. 543, c. 148-49.]

Given that this project would cost only £30 million and would need only two bridges to be slightly modified, I hope the Minister can recognise it as an easy win—a piece of low-hanging fruit that she can grasp. It is one of those different types of project that should be considered on its own merits next to the big boys.

In conclusion, if ever there were a time for this scheme to be delivered by the “greenest Government ever”, it is now. It has been in the planning stage since the early 1960s—20 years before I was born—and it has been pursued by former MPs for Cannock Chase of both political colours as well as by local councils and regional authorities. The local enterprise partnerships see it as essential to the commercial interests along the routes. They also think it essential to connecting the benefits of HS2 to the area and driving job creation and economic growth. KPMG’s analysis has demonstrated that this electrification and consequent passenger service improvements would dramatically improve accessibility to labour and goods markets, stimulating economic growth and job creation and increasing productivity for the west midlands as a whole.

The electrification of this 15-mile strategic missing link in the electrified rail network of the west midlands would create an alternative route to the north-west for passenger and freight services, relieving the existing congested Birmingham to Stafford main line, so this is not just a local rail scheme. It would offer regional and national benefits, but it is essential, if those benefits are to be realised, that these outputs form a key part of the Government’s July announcement on the high-level output specification. I therefore ask the Minister to reflect positively on the strong business case for this project. When she does, I hope she will reach the same conclusion as we have—that the electrification of the Walsall to Rugeley Chase line should be included as a named scheme for CP5 as part of the high-level output specification due to be published by her Department next month.