Rail Connections to London: Rural Towns

Amanda Hack Excerpts

Monday 23rd March 2026 Commons Chamber

[Amanda Hack (North West Leicestershire) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury (Julia Buckley) for securing this incredibly important debate. I will never miss an opportunity to talk about how isolated my community is in terms of public transport.

The ability to get to London by train would be transformational for North West Leicestershire, but as my two main towns of Coalville and Ashby-de-la-Zouch, based in a semirural constituency, have not had passenger rail since the Beeching cuts closed the Ivanhoe line, getting a train anywhere would be a massive step forward. I would welcome the Minister setting out what assessment the Department for Transport has made of the economic benefits of connecting rural towns like mine to the rail network and on to London.

[Lee Pitcher (Doncaster East and the Isle of Axholme) (Lab)]

In my constituency, four rural stations are served by just one train that comes every two hours. I have been fighting to get a train every hour for those stations and their communities. That train goes to Doncaster, which is a great gateway to London. Does my hon. Friend agree that while it is great having that hub in Doncaster, if we cannot get people to it, we cannot get them out to the rest of the country? We need to think about that in all our procedures and processes going forward.

[Amanda Hack]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It is really problematic if nobody is able to get to these hubs.

[John Whitby (Derbyshire Dales) (Lab)]

Towns across Derbyshire Dales such as Bakewell lack any connection to the rail network, leaving the 13 million people who travel to the Peak district mainly reliant on cars. Reinstating the peaks and dales line would be more environmentally friendly, help young people to get to work and education, and make it easier for millions of tourists to travel to the national park by creating a direct link to Manchester, Derby and then onward to London. Given those major benefits, will my hon. Friend join me in urging the Minister to look closely at the forthcoming feasibility study on the reinstatement of the peaks and dales line?

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[Amanda Hack]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. I think the Minister will be incredibly busy after this debate. The tourism connection my hon. Friend identifies is so important. My constituency is home to the heart of the national forest—I think it is an absolute travesty that people have to travel by car to get there. That is something we have to look at.

Coalville is the largest town in the country not connected to the rail network. For someone in Coalville wanting to catch a train to London using public transport, the most suitable route is via Leicester. The longest part of their journey would be from their home in Coalville to the station in Leicester—it is quicker to get from Leicester to London. It takes three hours to get from Ashby-de-la-Zouch to London by public transport; more than half of that time would be spent getting from Ashby to Loughborough to catch the train.

Since the Ivanhoe line closed in the ’60s, it is fair to say that my constituents have been left at a clear disadvantage by the ridiculous and inefficient journeys they now have to make.

[Sarah Dyke (Glastonbury and Somerton) (LD)]

My constituency contains the longest stretch of rail without a station anywhere in the country. In fact, there are only eight stations in Somerset. Langport and Somerton fall right in the middle of that isolated area, despite the Paddington to Taunton line running straight through the towns. A new station could boost access to London and drive economic growth. Does the hon. Member agree that there is a huge opportunity to drive growth in rural areas by boosting access to the railway in underserved rural communities?

[Amanda Hack]

I absolutely agree. Economic growth and getting people to where they need to go are the most important parts of this debate.

[Rachel Taylor (North Warwickshire and Bedworth) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend will be aware that I used to own a retail shop in the town of Ashby-de-la-Zouch in her constituency. Quite often, constituents of mine in Atherstone ask if they can have a direct bus service to get to Ashby-de-la-Zouch. Will she join me in campaigning for that direct bus service, which would enable her constituents to catch the train at Atherstone station, where they could get to London in an hour and 20 minutes?

[Amanda Hack]

I thank my hon. Friend, whose constituency almost neighbours mine, for her intervention. I absolutely agree; buses and trains make up the bulk of my constituency casework, as people are struggling to get to where they need to go. I would happily campaign alongside my hon. Friend on that issue.

[Chris Vince (Harlow) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend is being really generous in taking interventions. Every time I have seen an opportunity to make my point, someone else has jumped in. I thank her for giving me the opportunity to talk about Roydon in my constituency, which does have a train line. One of my concerns with Roydon is that the train is often cancelled at peak times, sometimes at short notice. That means that people have to wait around on platforms for long periods of time, which is particularly concerning if they are on their own—a young lady waiting alone, for example. I recognise the points that have been made about the importance of having a connected system and about some of the big towns that need a station. Does she agree that we need a reliable train network where cancellations do not happen, particularly at short notice?

[Amanda Hack]

I have every sympathy with the point that my hon. Friend is making. My train has been cancelled for six decades, which shows the impact in my constituency.

There is a real issue with connectivity. I would welcome the Minister setting out what assessment has been made of the economic benefits of previous lines in the restoring your railway project since the updates to the Green Book, particularly in the light of the recently opened Northumberland line service, which has smashed its projections on putting more passengers on to the network by 40%.

[James Naish (Rushcliffe) (Lab)]

I am sorry for intervening on my hon. Friend, but as my constituency neighbour, I am sure she will understand why I do so. Many of her constituents use East Midlands Parkway station in my constituency to get down to London, and we are fortunate to have that direct line, but it is not electrified, which means that it is not the quickest line and it creates pollution. The procurement of the next phase of the midland main line electrification was delayed by the 2024 general election and then the spending review, despite it being worth £400 million in socioeconomic benefits. Will she support me and other colleagues here this evening—I know that another Member will be raising this point later—in urging that that decision be looked at?

[Amanda Hack]

Electrification of that line is long overdue, and it is something that I worked on as a county councillor before I came to this place. It really will be important to the east midlands.

My constituents tell me that if they are getting into their car to drive to the nearest station, they may as well just keep driving, and that is what happens. It is therefore unsurprising that roughly 80% of east midlands commuters drive and that the average number of rail journeys per resident is just seven per year, which is half the rate of the west midlands and a third of that of the east of England. I would welcome the Minister’s views not only on the economic impacts of connecting rural towns to London but on the added advantage of connecting rural towns to each other, which was a point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury.

At my Ivanhoe line debate in Westminster Hall at the start of the year, the Minister told me to keep holding the Department’s feet to the fire, and I will continue to do that.