Great British Railways HQ: Darlington Bid

Alex Cunningham Excerpts

Tuesday 7th December 2021 Westminster Hall

[Peter Gibson (Darlington) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered Darlington’s bid to become the home of Great British Rail.

Thank you, Sir Gary, and it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. I thank my Tees valley colleagues for attending to show their support, and Darlington Borough Council for its ongoing work to help to bring the headquarters of Great British Railways to Darlington.

Perhaps it was inevitable that our railways should feature heavily in my work as the Member for the great railway town of Darlington. Over the last 24 months during which I have had the privilege to serve in this place, railways have featured extensively, both here in Parliament and at home in Darlington. To quote the father of the railways, Edward Pease,

“thou must think of Darlington; remember it was Darlington sent for thee.”

Those words are as relevant today as when they were spoken two centuries ago, and they led to the route of the railway line from Shildon to Stockton incorporating Darlington. Edward was a visionary who used infrastructure as the basis for levelling up. However, for too long, those words and Darlington’s position as the birthplace of the railways have been overlooked and ignored.

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

I always enjoyed my little spats with the hon. Gentleman’s predecessor, Jenny Chapman, when we both claimed our respective towns were the real home of the railways. The first passenger line went from Stockton to Darlington. We agreed that it started in Stockton, but, she said, with Darlington money. Surely Stockton is the real birthplace of the railways. The hon. Gentleman should set aside his ambition to bring these headquarters to Darlington and work with me and the hon. Member for Stockton South (Matt Vickers) to bring them to Stockton, the real home of the railways. After all, Darlington is getting all those civil service jobs. We need to be levelled up.

[Sir Gary Streeter (in the Chair)]

A reminder that interventions should be brief.

--- Later in debate ---

[Peter Gibson]

I am once again grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention. However, my job is to champion all that is great about Darlington, and push for continued investment and new jobs. I will not dissuade him from continuing his campaign, but my job here is to champion Darlington’s cause.

[Alex Cunningham]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Peter Gibson]

I will give way one more time, and then I really must make some progress.

[Alex Cunningham]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. We are all Tees valley MPs in this Chamber this afternoon. I would like to send a message to the Minister. I am old enough to have been there in Darlington as a schoolboy when we celebrated the 150th anniversary of the Stockton to Darlington railway. I hope to still be around when we celebrate the 200th anniversary. Our message from Tees valley is that we want it in the Tees valley. We might fight among ourselves over it, but we want the headquarters of Great British Railways in the Tees valley.

[Peter Gibson]

The hon. Gentleman should know that we can work together, just as he has worked with my hon. Friend the Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers) on the campaign for a hospital in his constituency, and just as all the Tees valley MPs have worked hard to secure the Darlington economic campus. However, at this stage in the discussions about the home for Great British Railways, there is nothing wrong with a little bit of friendly competition between me, the hon. Gentleman and my hon. Friend.

My right hon. Friend the Chancellor has already been working in Darlington and was recently spotted in its redeveloped market hall. That redevelopment complements the rejuvenation of the town centre, with £23.5 million secured from the towns fund, allowing our town to reverse the disastrous changes of the past and making Darlington a thriving market town once again.

Only a few weeks ago, the Chancellor announced millions more in his autumn Budget to revolutionise transport in the Tees valley—vastly improving regional connectivity. At its centre will be the redeveloped, modern Bank Top station, which will help the thousands of civil servants, along with Ministers, to move freely up to the town from London and make journeys locally, connecting the northern economic campus with the new freeport along the Tees. This £105 million transformation will revolutionise rail capacity north of York, increasing the frequency and reliability of services. The redevelopment of Bank Top will increase capacity with three new platforms, a new station building, car park and improved public access, adding to and enhancing the splendour of our grade II* listed station. This will turn Bank Top into a regional hub that is fit to serve not only Darlington and the Tees valley but large parts of south Durham and North Yorkshire. I also warmly welcome the recent award of £50,000 for a feasibility study on the reopening of the Darlington to Weardale railway, which will further enhance connectivity and opportunity.

In addition, we are restoring our rail heritage. I pay tribute to Network Rail, Darlington Borough Council and the A1 Steam Locomotive Trust, which have worked hard locally to maintain Darlington’s Skerne bridge and to brighten up three other historic railway bridges in Darlington. With reeds and weeds already cleared from Skerne bridge and the continuation of the £60,000 project to restore three of the bridges, two having already been repainted, our town centre is already looking like the natural place to find the headquarters of a national railway, with green livery aplenty and the restoration of the town’s proud crest, replete with Locomotion No. 1 at its heart.

There is, of course, more to be done, and I will continue to push Network Rail to ensure that the restoration of North Road bridge is completed and, most importantly, that our Bank Top station has tactile paving installed, something that has been called for by the excellent Darlington Action on Disability group.

We may have lost our huge carriage works many years ago, but sleek new Azuma trains roll off the production line just a few miles up the road at Hitachi Newton Aycliffe, where many of my constituents work. The Minister will also be aware of the wonderful work of the A1 Steam Locomotive Trust, which hand-built Tornado, the new steam train licensed to operate on the mainline, and I look forward to the Prince of Wales engine, again hand-built in Darlington, joining its sister on the network very soon. With thousands of civil servants moving north, the redevelopment of Bank Top and the restoring of our railway heritage at this pivotal moment in our town’s railway story, bringing the HQ of Great British Railways to Darlington just makes sense.

As I have already set out, we have secured Darlington’s future prosperity and growth through the movement of civil servants north, the creation of a new freeport on the River Tees and the investment in our town centre. However, as my hon. Friend the Minister will know, Darlington’s railway connections are under threat once again from London North Eastern Railway. Our greatest worry is that, even though we recently saw off the proposed changes to next year’s timetable on the east coast main line, the proposals are back, and I am worried that they will lead to a further act of betrayal of Darlington, robbing us of vital connectivity.

We know that there will be a growth in the number of journeys made from Darlington’s Bank Top station. Indeed, estimates show that within a decade an additional 340,000 passengers will be using the station every year, yet proposals for May 2022 risk leaving the town poorly connected, with regular services to London and Edinburgh slashed. Locating the Great British Railways HQ in Darlington would undoubtedly soothe the worries of my constituents as we bounce back from the damage done in the past, and it would further restore our town’s pride in its historical connections with the railways.

I need not repeat the myriad Government Departments coming to our proud town. The reasons are manifold: our proud history, local talent, connectivity, levelling-up opportunities and reversing the brain drain from the north-east. There are, of course, many other notable towns bidding for the HQ—Crewe, York, Derby and, as we have already heard, Stockton—but ours is the only bid backed by the people of Darlington, whose forebears created and built the railways, and I am proud to work closely with Darlington Borough Council to unite the town behind the bid. I trust I have conveyed to the Minister the desire and the need to put the HQ of Great British Railways in Darlington. We have the heritage, the history, the connectivity, the ingenuity and the people. I will conclude by imploring the Minister to choose Darlington as we build on a legacy of the past, secure our present railway and deliver for the future.

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Gary. I am not sure I have served under your chairmanship before. You might recall that I am a football referee in my spare time, and it feels as though we have had a bit of a derby between Stockton and Darlington this afternoon. Before I respond to the various points made by hon. Members, I want to thank my hon. Friend the Member for Darlington (Peter Gibson) for securing this debate and putting across his points so forcefully and politely, and also for allowing his colleagues from across the Chamber to contribute. He is a very good parliamentarian and conducted this debate excellently.

Only a couple of weeks ago I was in this Chamber debating the merits of York as a potential headquarters. It is genuinely heartening to see right hon. and hon. Members doing outstanding work up and down the country, preparing bids for their cities and celebrating the rich railway heritage of this country, no matter where it may be. It is equally heartening to see all the Tees valley MPs working together—and a bit apart, but mainly together—to put forward the case for the Tees valley, and I thank the hon. Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) for his contributions. He has announced that he might be leaving this place at the next election, which would be a tremendous loss, but the way he has conducted himself in this debate shows that he is doing the best for Tees valley, and should be commended for it.

We are all aware of the important role that Darlington and County Durham played in the formation of the railways, with that county deserving the name of “the cradle of the railways”. It was the home of the world’s first public railway to run steam locomotives, as we have heard: the famous Stockton and Darlington Railway—I am quite sure that is the right way around, but I am very careful about what I am saying now—which opened in 1825. As my hon. Friend the Member for Darlington said, when designing the route for that railway George Stephenson at one point suggested that it bypass Darlington altogether. That was when Edward Pease, a local Darlington manufacturer and main promoter of the railway, replied,

“George, thou must think of Darlington; remember it was Darlington that sent for thee”,

securing its position in the rich railway heritage of this country.

Today, Darlington houses the Head of Steam railway museum in the historic North Road station building, which opened in 1842. That museum is home to several locomotives, including the replica of Locomotion No. 1, which appropriately was the train that connected the two great towns that have been the subject of a minor debate here today. I am sure it went from both Stockton to Darlington and Darlington to Stockton with equal gusto.

A place as steeped in the history of this country’s railways and, indeed, the world’s railways as Darlington and County Durham will always have an important role to play. As evidenced by my mailbox, there are a few other places across the country that have played an important part in our proud railway heritage, and which right hon. and hon. Members are proud to represent. I look forward to the next debate in this Chamber in which I get to learn about the railway history of another place, but it has been a delight to hear celebrated all that is good about Darlington’s rail past, rail present and, as my hon. Friend said, rail future.

I do not want to bore Members with a repeat of the speech I gave in the York debate—although I am very good at doing choruses and am available for karaoke at Christmas parties if they are allowed. However, I think it is important that we remind ourselves of the Government’s aim, which is a world-class railway that works seamlessly as part of a wider transport network, delivering opportunities across the nations and regions of Great Britain. In the Williams-Shapps plan for rail, published in May this year, we set out the path towards a truly passenger-focused railway underpinned by new contracts that prioritise punctual and reliable services, the rapid delivery of a ticketing revolution with new flexible and convenient tickets, and long-term proposals to build a modern, greener, and accessible network.

[Alex Cunningham]

There is a bypass around Darlington at the moment, all the way to Stockton, which the Minister may like to bear in mind. He might have enjoyed the small spat between the Tees valley MPs as we bid for the headquarters, but I wanted to tease him a little and ask him how he is going to ensure that Great British Railways is in fact British, particularly given that much of our railway sector is run by foreign companies, the latest example being that Chiltern Railways is now run by a company owned by German state railways.

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

I say to the hon. Gentleman that those private operators are great innovators in our rail market. Rail privatisation has doubled the number of passengers being carried on our railways over the course of the past decade or so. That is something to be celebrated, because it took place at a time when the view that we need to decarbonise our transport network—which all parties now share—was not quite so widely held. Innovation that has been brought in by private operators should be celebrated, no matter where in the world they come from.