East Coast Main Line Investment

Alex Sobel Excerpts

Wednesday 17th October 2018 Westminster Hall

[Martin Vickers]

I am very disappointed to hear that. I put three alternatives that the Minister could consider in my notes, and one of them was to extend one or two of those new services to Lincoln through to Grimsby and Cleethorpes. Given what the hon. Lady is saying, it might not be possible.

The Minister will be aware that an open-access operator has shown an interest and has previously been in negotiations with the Office of Road and Rail about direct services. That is yet again on hold. I understand that a review is taking place on access charges for open-access operators. I can understand the logic of that, but it creates further delay. Earlier this year, Grand Central was intending to put an application in to run four direct services from King’s Cross through to Cleethorpes via Doncaster and Scunthorpe, but that is now on hold.

[Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)]

Although the hon. Gentleman is outlining some of the difficulties he has in getting direct services to his constituency, I am pleased that the new publicly run LNER has just announced that it will extend direct services to Harrogate, which would increase the number of trains stopping in my constituency from one a day to six a day. That clearly shows that publicly run rail can deliver.

[Martin Vickers]

I was not intending to embark on a pro or anti-nationalisation debate, but I remind the hon. Gentleman that since privatisation—I cannot remember, and the Minister can probably give the exact figure—hundreds of millions of pounds from the private sector has been invested in the rail network. The simple reality is that if we nationalise the rail network, which I sincerely hope we do not, British Rail or whatever we choose to call it would be very low down on the list of demands on the Treasury. Do we want money for the health service, schools and 1,001 other things? The simple fact is that there would be a spiralling down, just as there was in the 1970s and 1980s.

To conclude, I urge the Minister to meet me to discuss further how we can get over the immediate problems and look forward to a direct service along the east coast main line serving my constituency and the neighbouring constituency of Grimsby. I ask him not to say, as many other Ministers have over the past few years, “When we get HS2, there will be more capacity on the east coast main line, so you will be able to get a service through to Cleethorpes.” I am afraid that that timescale is simply not acceptable, even if it is 2033 or thereabouts when HS2 comes along. If a week is a long time in politics, 15 years must be generations. I urge the Minister to look again at the economic arguments for the regeneration of an area that has just been granted a unique town deal status by the Government. We need improved road and rail networks. I am fully supportive of improvements to the east coast main line, but only if they can in addition provide direct services to Cleethorpes.