Rail Investment

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts

Thursday 17th February 2011 Westminster Hall

[Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)]

I want to express to the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman) my appreciation for the work of her Committee in producing its report, and providing us with the opportunity to debate an issue that is vital not only for our railways but our economy and environment. The report identifies nine priorities for rail investment in control period 5, from 2014 to 2019. I want to address three in particular: rolling stock, to deal with capacity constraints, electrification and operational strategy, such as new signalling technology. I do not expect the Minister to make my constituents a national priority, but I make no apology for pursuing their interests, which enables me to show the wider merit of the proposals in question for the rest of the country.

Any debate about major infrastructural investment decisions needs to take a long-term strategic view, and should include all parts of the supply chain for the industry. It is a matter of concern that no such long-term strategy exists in the rail industry. We do not want to risk directing public funds to the wrong projects, or to poorly timed projects, in an unco-ordinated way, as it is costly and inefficient to stop and start again. Nor is it a good idea to subject major transport investment schemes to the vagaries of political, or even economic, cycles. A new planning framework, extending beyond the current five-year planning process of the Government and the Office of Rail Regulation, setting out a clear vision for investment, covering a period of as much as 25 years, would go a long way to combating that short-termism. Longer franchises are also a necessary component of longer-term planning. Suppliers would be able to invest with more confidence, particularly in the arena of technological innovation. The lack of a long-term strategy currently makes it difficult to research and develop the technologies that ultimately save travellers’ time and taxpayers’ money.

The Committee identified the Manchester hub as a top priority for control period 5. I would not want to detract from its observations, but a similar logic applies to Bristol and its travel-to-work area. Bristol is the biggest city outside London in the south of England and the eighth largest in the United Kingdom. From a commuter perspective, on Brunel’s railway, Bristol looks like an attractive proposition, which it is as long as people do not mind how full or late their train to work might be. Network Rail’s Great Western route utilisation strategy, which was published a month after the Transport Committee’s report, identifies Bristol’s rail capacity at peak times—and, indeed, the performance there—as key gaps that will be in need of attention and investment in control period 5. Bristol Temple Meads, in particular, is a pinch point on the network, and passenger numbers are projected to grow by 37% by 2019. That will result in passenger delays, which are already among the worst on the network, increasing by more than a third.

The route utilisation strategy isolates several key regional services that are suffering severe overcrowding and on which investment in extra carriages will reap significant benefits for capacity and connectivity. For example, five extra vehicles on the Cardiff to Portsmouth line, which passes through Bradford-on-Avon in my constituency, would make it possible to provide two extra services in every morning peak, and three each evening. Just one or two carriages from the humble 153 class, allocated to the trans-Wilts line, would also reduce the number of passengers in congested Bath, who only want to get across Wiltshire.

Further electrification of the national rail network is to be welcomed. Electric trains are cheaper, faster, greener and more reliable than their diesel counterparts. They transport a greater number of passengers, and since they are lighter and cause less infrastructural wear and tear their operating cost is roughly half that of their diesel equivalents. The Great Western main line, which clearly is not anticipating the benefits of High Speed 2, has one of the strongest cases for electrification. I welcome the Transport Secretary’s announcement before Christmas that the line from Paddington would be electrified as far as Didcot, Oxford and Newbury. I understand the need to make decisions about powering future inter-city services, which have delayed decisions about the rest of the line. However, I ask the Government to bring forward their proposals for further electrification of the line, to give the rail industry, businesses and passengers alike the certainty that they need to plan for the future.

I have two more points to make on the matter. First, I ask the Minister that electrification should not just be on the line to Bristol Parkway, but also the line through Chippenham and Bath to Bristol Temple Meads. Secondly, I suggest that it would be of benefit to extend the planned electrification of the line to Newbury as far as Westbury. Westbury is not only a more logical network staging post on the line from Reading but a useful interchange for many journeys, and it was identified by Network Rail as needing investment during the next funding period.

On operational strategy, one investment priority that provides opportunities but has not received as much attention as others is new signalling technologies. That is unfortunate, as smart signalling technologies could secure serious improvements in efficiency, environmental performance and capacity within any given infrastructure. Invensys Rail, headquartered in Chippenham in my constituency, is an internationally renowned company at the forefront of developing control and communications technology. On the potential environmental wins of smart signalling, the European rail traffic management system, which Invensys is helping to implement, could enable a 46% reduction in carbon emissions from rail transport by 2030. The system creates wireless connections between trains and control centres, which would be a step change from current infrastructure on our railways. The links can be used to measure energy use and send instructions to trains to reduce their consumption whenever possible. However, the technology would have to be embedded in both rolling stock and track-side infrastructure, which would require joined-up organisation and long-term investment.

To take advantage of such technology, we must develop a more strategic view of the rail supply chain. It is a good time to begin that process. The McNulty value-for-money study is nearly complete, and the Transport Secretary is establishing a high-level group to examine the railways’ future further.

Firms such as Invensys have an important role to play in advising policy makers on the potential of new technology. They are not just a shop window from which we pluck impressive bits of kit. Their technology has been developed in response to the needs of rail systems around the world. As a result, they have accumulated expertise that can make a valuable contribution to discussion of the future of the UK network. I was pleased that the Minister accepted my recent invitation to visit Chippenham in order to see for herself the innovations spearheaded by Invensys. I look forward to welcoming her to Wiltshire in due course.

Among the investment priorities identified by the Transport Committee’s report are several examples of low-hanging fruit—good value, small-scale projects that would not involve the major infrastructure developments of high-speed rail or the complexity of fixing regional bottlenecks. In that respect, the report echoed Eddington’s finding that smaller-scale transport interventions are often the most cost-effective solutions and acknowledged that many small but growing communities around the country could reap substantial benefits from better access to the rail network. I wholeheartedly agree, as my constituency has two good examples, the towns of Melksham and Corsham.

I have made several appeals in Parliament on behalf of the campaign for an improved service on the trans-Wilts line, which runs from Swindon to Salisbury via Chippenham, Melksham and Trowbridge. Members can find out more about it on the website transwilts.org.uk, organised by the community rail partnership. Melksham is the fourth largest town in Wiltshire by population, yet its rail service is derisory, consisting of just two trains a day at times that are, frankly, useless for residents hoping to commute by train.

The trans-Wilts line was well used until the current Great Western franchise began in 2006, when the previous Government dropped the requirement to provide a decent service on the route. As I pointed out to the Secretary of State in November when he announced 650 carriages for the network, just one extra carriage allocated to the line could provide more services at economically meaningful times of the day, connecting the county’s population centres and alleviating pressure on commuter lines in the Bristol area. Demand for the service is strong, and it is supported by the local business community, Wiltshire council and other local Members of Parliament, co-ordinated by an excellent campaign group, the Trans-Wilts Community Rail Partnership. In recent weeks, 1,500 people and 150 businesses have completed a survey on the website about how they would use a better service on the line.

In my correspondence with the Minister, I have received some encouraging signs from the Department about the trans-Wilts campaign. Once more, I ask her to examine closely what benefits could accrue from such locally driven initiatives. Colleagues will forgive me, I am sure, for going to such lengths to make the case for my constituents. They might want to consider what I will call the Melksham challenge. Can they identify a settlement larger than Melksham—it has more than 20,000 people—with an open station that has a passenger rail service as poor as our two services a day each way? I believe that it is an exceptional case.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

I am sorry to disappoint the hon. Gentleman, but the town of Denton, which I have the privilege to represent, has a population of 32,000, an open station and one train a week, in one direction only.

[Duncan Hames]

I stand corrected. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will appreciate the opportunity that I have given him to make the case on behalf of his constituents. I would argue that neither Denton nor Melksham deserves to be left any longer in such a plight.

I know that other Members want to speak, so I will conclude. I have tried to use examples local to my constituents to illustrate a few national discussion points about the future direction of rail investment. Each region, area and sector of the industry—indeed, each Government—has had its own priorities for the future, but we are discussing substantial investment commitments that will far outlast this Parliament, the political careers of many of us and the current economic cycle. Rail planning has too often been characterised by short-termism and a lack of strategic vision. The coalition Government’s stated belief is that

“a modern transport infrastructure is essential for a dynamic and entrepreneurial economy”

and that

“we need to make the transport sector greener and more sustainable.”

I could not agree more, and I do not think that any Member here would depart substantially from that view. It is certainly consistent with the Transport Committee report that forms the basis for this debate. Our challenge is to take a long-term strategic view, interact with all players in the rail supply chain, engage with the businesses and communities that use the railways and align our objectives for rail planning with wider economic and environmental aims.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

I am pleased to contribute to this important debate. I congratulate the Transport Committee on its report and my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman) on securing this debate. I am pleased to have had the opportunity to listen to the views and concerns of right hon. and hon. Members. There has been good, thoughtful and powerful debate from all parts of the Chamber. The Select Committee report posed a number of questions about the future of the rail industry that are relevant to our deliberations today. The report might be a year old, but it is very much a case of back to the future. Many of the challenges outlined in the report are still to be answered satisfactorily or properly addressed by the Government.

The report looked at a wide range of issues facing the rail industry. There are perhaps too many to cover adequately in the time that we have left. A key issue is how we deal with severe overcrowding on services and how we realign rail investment more equally across the whole country. The report considered ways in which we could increase electrification on the network and examined rail investments that could be shared with all parts of the country.

As you are no doubt aware, Mr Owen, Labour is currently undertaking a policy review. As part of that, the transport team is looking at the ways in which we can deliver improvements in our railways. With nothing ruled in or out at this stage and with all ideas on the table for further discussion and examination, these ongoing discussions will form the basis of Labour party policy on transport for the next general election. A number of the ideas that have been raised today will be considered seriously.

[Mrs Villiers]

Does the hon. Gentleman’s party still support high-speed rail or not?

[Andrew Gwynne]

The Minister pre-empts what I will come to later in my contribution, but we are in favour of faster trains and better connectivity, and high-speed rail will certainly form part of our policy review.

Returning to the Transport Committee’s report, there are a few issues that it addressed that I would like to revisit briefly. As the report clearly identified, it is likely that there will be serious capacity issues all over the rail network in the years to come, and the Labour party remains committed to addressing both overcrowding and capacity issues on the network. However, where a Government makes future investment in the rail network is clearly important and tough decisions have to be made about the future priorities of the network.

As the report also clearly identified, investment decisions will have a huge impact on regional growth, and those decisions can help to perpetuate a vicious cycle of increasing disparity of wealth between regions. They will be all the more important in light of the abolition of the regional development agencies, which was referred to by both my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside and the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard). I myself represent a constituency in the north-west of England, so it is frustrating for me to see how rail congestion is having a real economic impact in areas such as Manchester and in the wider north-west, with knock-on effects on jobs and prosperity for my constituents and others.

The report rightly identified the northern hub as the key to improving rail services across the north of England. As we have already heard, it is an ambition of the northern hub project to increase train services in the north, including to cities such as Newcastle, Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds and Sheffield, by 40% during the next 20 years. That means 700 more trains a day, making it possible for 3.5 million more passengers to travel by train every year. The estimated wider economic impact of the project is also significant, with the creation of 23,000 new jobs and a return of £4 for every £1 that is spent. Of course, it has been frustrating for the northern hub project that there are no firm commitments about when work on that worthwhile and economically beneficial project will start. I want to take this opportunity to ask the Minister if she envisages that the project will be in the next Network Rail control period.

The report also examined the benefits of electrification, both for the environment and for improving the efficiency of our rail network. As we know, a number of regional schemes were announced by the previous Labour Government, and many of them were reconfirmed by the current Government through the comprehensive spending review. As yet, we are still awaiting a final decision on whether or not the Great Western main line electrification will extend all the way to Wales. People in Wales will feel pretty upset if that decision is delayed unduly, especially when the Conservative party manifesto itself said:

“We support…the electrification of the Great Western line to South Wales.”

I am not sure whether there were any Welsh MPs in the room during the coalition negotiations, because that commitment was subsequently downgraded to a general statement of support for

“further electrification of the rail network.”

It is crucial that the economic benefits of electrification extend to south Wales, and by that I mean that electrification should extend not only to Cardiff but Swansea.

Similarly, we wait with bated breath to see whether the newly electrified lines in the north-west, when they are eventually upgraded, will actually have electrified trains running on them from day one. Rightly there is a concern that, with delays to Thameslink, the carriage cascade to the north-west will be delayed. After all the internal investment to electrify the north-west part of the network, it would be a travesty if the old, overcrowded and slower diesel units continue to be used on the newly electrified lines.

I would warmly welcome any updates on these issues that the Minister can give us today. Can she let me know when there will be a decision on electrification to Wales? Likewise, can she outline the time scales that are in place for the replacement of Thameslink rolling stock and for cascading trains to the Great Western main line and the north-west?

The Transport Committee report also identified the importance of having new rolling stock on the network. Clearly, the delaying and reprofiling of some major schemes that had been announced by Labour is disappointing, especially as train fares were hiked up last month, but new carriages remain some years away for some commuters.

It is a similar story regarding the delivery of replacement stock for the outdated inter-city fleet. Clearly, the Government have delayed their decision on the inter-city express programme, with all the knock-on effects for cascading rolling stock. It is time that the Government ended the delays and allowed that project to proceed.

[Mrs Villiers]

I will not take any lectures from the hon. Gentleman—a Labour MP—about the IEP, given that his Government made little progress on it and spent £26 million on merely trying to procure the new trains.

[Andrew Gwynne]

I would welcome an update from the Minister about where that infrastructure project has got to and when we can expect to see new inter-city trains.

After rail fares increased last month by RPI plus 1%, as we have already heard, it is disappointing for commuters that the Secretary of State keeps claiming that fare increases across the CSR period will be only 10%. Is not the truth that RPI plus 3% will deliver a cumulative increase of more than 30% on the inflation forecasts by the Office for Budget Responsibility?

The Minister’s Department confirmed to me—it seems that it has also confirmed this to my hon. Friend the Member for Luton South (Gavin Shuker) in an answer to a written question—that it expects the effect of those rises to be rail passengers opting for other forms of transport. There is a concern, which the Minister used to share, that higher fares will price people off trains. That concern exists despite what the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood) has said. In turn, pricing people off trains will reduce people’s access to work and force them back on to the roads, generating more congestion, increasing carbon emissions and setting back our goal of achieving a sustainable transport system.

Briefly, I want to talk about high-speed rail, which was also mentioned in the Transport Committee’s report. As I have said in response to an intervention by the Minister, the Labour transport review will look at all areas of policy in detail, including high-speed rail. Clearly it is right that we should look in detail at the best way of delivering faster journey times between our core cities while increasing capacity.

The connectivity gains of high-speed rail arise not only from faster trains but from the new route alignments that comprise the proposed Y-shaped network of lines from London to Birmingham and—eventually—north to Manchester, Leeds and beyond. However, I have a real concern about the Government’s commitment to taking the planned high-speed line to the north. They have decided not to use the forthcoming high-speed legislation to secure the legal powers that would be needed to take the line beyond Birmingham, as Labour had planned to do. We will support the Government in taking the line beyond Birmingham, if that is what they choose to do. Perhaps the Minister can provide us with assurances that the Government will look again at seeking powers to extend the route beyond Birmingham.

It is also worth briefly mentioning freight on the rail network, which was an issue referred to both in the Transport Committee’s report and by my hon. Friend the Member for Luton North (Kelvin Hopkins). Freight operations play a big part in the economy, and we should look at ways of ensuring that freight capacity can continue to play a role in the rail network. Will the Minister outline how she sees rail freight being prioritised, especially with an eye on possible structural changes to Network Rail in the coming years? Indeed, is rail freight still a Government priority?

That brings me on to the McNulty review on value for money, which will have a real bearing on the future functioning of the rail network. I welcome that review of the rail industry, which was started by Labour when we were in government. When Sir Roy McNulty publishes his final report in April, we will consider any sensible proposals that would take costs out of the industry without reducing the quality of services for passengers. Does the Minister agree that, as the cost to the Government of running the railways comes down, the cost to the public of travelling by train should come down as well? Such a reduction would go some way towards helping hard-pressed commuters up and down the country, who are facing record fare rises of more than 30% in the next few years. The initial findings of the McNulty review have suggested that savings of £1 billion can be found without cutting services. Will the Minister now commit to sharing the benefits of those savings with passengers and to rethinking some of the fare rises that are due in future years?

In conclusion, as the Transport Committee report shows, the Government need a long-term vision for rail, and we need to deliver projects to build on our ambition to have a world-class rail service in this country. Where we agree with the Government, we will support them. The previous Labour Government left the rail network in a far better condition than the one in which we found it. Rail passenger numbers increased by 40% during the last decade, punctuality and quality of service also improved steadily in that time and consumer satisfaction with services increased. However, I recognise that there is still a huge amount to do, and this Transport Committee report is a good starting point for that future work.