Transport (Tees Valley)

Andy McDonald Excerpts

Tuesday 10th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)]

I sought this debate on transport in Tees Valley to voice my concerns about how the discussion is developing on the need for greater investment in our transport infrastructure, and on the need for rebalancing our economy both in geographical terms and in terms of a greater focus on our manufacturing industries.

By way of introduction, Tees Valley may be more than 200 miles away from Westminster, but that is no excuse for the concerns of our region being as far away from the considerations of Downing street and Whitehall as they are at present. Last year, I asked the Prime Minister about the huge disparity in spending on transport infrastructure between the north-east and the south-east, and how the needs of the Tees Valley were neglected. In his response, he talked about the Tyne and Wear metro, the Tyne crossing and the A1 between Newcastle and Gateshead, but said not a single word about Tees Valley. I hope this evening to fix the location of Tees Valley better in the Government’s collective memory.

Much attention has been paid recently, and quite rightly, to the One North initiative of our great northern core cities of Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, Sheffield and Newcastle, and to the transport for the north announcement made just a few weeks ago, which involves the same players, while the Chancellor has talked of an HS3 rail link between Manchester and Leeds, all of which has been set against the backdrop of the northern powerhouse.

All that is to be welcomed, but in this debate I want to explore the current limitations placed on such discussions, and ask whether these matters should be the sole prevail of the self-named core cities. I want to dispel the myth perpetuated by some that the north ceases at the M62. There is a great deal more to the north than that, and I submit that if we are truly to talk of a northern powerhouse and the interconnectivity of our economic engine rooms, it is essential to consider all of the north. In doing so, it is imperative that the role of Tees Valley should be properly considered.

I will concentrate in the main on rail infrastructure. It is telling that modern Middlesbrough came into being as a direct result of the creation of the railways and the founding of the Stockton and Darlington Railway Company to serve as the river access point for receiving coal from the Durham coalfields on the banks of the River Tees for onward shipping. Middlesbrough was subsequently propelled into the industrial revolution by becoming the site of the explosive iron and steel industry. It was described by Gladstone as the “Infant Hercules”, and it soon became the fastest-growing town in European history. Despite that railway heritage, Middlesbrough, which is now at the heart of a conurbation of some 660,000 people, is the largest conurbation in the UK without a direct service to the capital.

There are far too many aspects of the economic powerhouse of Tees Valley for me to cover in the time available, but the sub-regional transport needs must be seen in the context of the Tees Valley’s industrial and commercial might.

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate, which is crucial to Teesside and the wider Tees area. I appreciate that he is concentrating on rail, but the Tees Valley local enterprise partnership reminded us today that we have no major road network and are forced to rely on secondary roads such as the A19 and the A66, which impacts on our ability to attract jobs. Does he agree that, as well as direct rail routes to London with electrification on the lines, we need 21st-century roads, including another Tees crossing, if we are to serve Teesside properly?

[Andy McDonald]

I wholeheartedly agree with my hon. Friend, who is absolutely right. One glance at a road atlas will show the complete absence of blue roads—motorways. We need one or two of them in our region.

The industrial might of the Tees Valley is a key component of the north-east of England’s manufacturing prowess. London apart, our region is the only one in the UK that consistently makes a positive contribution to our balance of payments. We lead the way in advanced manufacturing and export-led growth.

Tees Valley’s integrated chemical complex at Wilton, Billingham and Seal Sands is the biggest in the UK and second-largest in Europe. It sits alongside the steel industry—two vital foundation industries side by side. The Tees Valley economy contributes significantly to the north. It contributes some £11.5 billion of gross value added to the national economy every year. We have a thriving digital and creative industries cluster, which grew faster than that in any other LEP area in 2014. We have a 280,000-strong highly skilled work force, and a small businesses base of more than 14,500 firms.

We also have the UK’s third largest port, Teesport, which provides an international gateway, distributing products across the country and abroad. As a contemporary sign of its vitality and importance, PD Ports has just signed a seven-year contract with Sahaviriya Steel Industries for the continued shipping of its steel products.

Our leading colleges, our universities and national knowledge centres are at the forefront of skills development and innovation. Tees Valley also has an international airport, albeit one that is crying out for investment and redevelopment—we look to Peel airports to better develop the airport services—and we have direct road and rail routes to key locations across the north.

There is a consensus on the importance of reducing the UK’s trade deficit and rebalancing the economy. If that is to be achieved, it is important that Tees Valley and its mighty industries play their full role. Exciting developments in the energy-intensive industries hold great potential for our region and our country. Strictly subject to the science being right and there being verifiable safeguards, hydraulic fracturing and coal gasification have enormous potential for our future energy and industrial requirements. There is not time this evening to go into the detail, but subject to those safeguards, the future could be truly exciting. The major beneficiaries from the syngas so derived are the energy-intensive industries, and none more so than those on Teesside.

I must mention the Teesside Collective, a pioneering infrastructure project comprised of a cluster of leading industrial players—BOC, Lotte Chemical UK, SSI and GrowHow—which offers a compelling opportunity for the UK to progress its industrial and environmental interests at the same time. Work is already under way for the development of a business case for deploying industrial carbon capture and storage in the Teesside cluster. It will be completed later this year. Tees Valley is in the right place at the right time to become the industrial carbon capture storage leader in Europe. It is therefore essential that the Government provide the necessary support that such key foundation industries need, which in turn will allow our manufacturing industries to compete on a global stage. Good rail and road infrastructure for freight and passengers is essential to all of that.

On 17 January, the Secretary of State for Transport attended the launch in Leeds of Transport in the North, a body of regional leaders tasked with drawing up and delivering a comprehensive programme of strategic investment to transform the north’s infrastructure, and helping to maximise growth. I argue that, if that particular body is to properly speak on the transport needs of the north, it is wholly inappropriate if Tees Valley does not sit alongside the five cities on the board.

[James Wharton (Stockton South) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing what is a very important debate. I think across the House we can all agree that it is in the interests of the areas we represent to talk up Teesside and the great things happening there: steelmaking is back, train-making is coming and investment is coming in. This is a very important cross-party point: Tees Valley LEP needs to be represented, as those other bodies are, to give our area the strong voice it needs. I want to voice my support and to make it very clear that this is something that unites MPs from different parties, and council leaders and groups, in support. We need to ensure our voice is strong and heard.

[Andy McDonald]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. I think we are speaking with one voice for Tees Valley and I am grateful to him for his support.

Quite simply, the Tees Valley transport infrastructure, opposite the existing and future needs of businesses and communities, is lacking in key areas, and those deficits need to be addressed if we are to capitalise on the terrific potential of our region. Undoubtedly, Tees Valley is not configured like the self-styled core cities, but it has its own unique configuration and status that warrants a seat at the table. The Minister will be aware of the excellent inclusive outcomes that have been achieved in the governance arrangements for Rail North, and I hope he will agree with me that it would be entirely sensible to take that sort of inclusive approach in terms of the board of Transport for the North. I urge the Minister to take the necessary steps to ensure that Tees Valley has a seat.

It is regrettable that the state cannot currently compete alongside private companies for rail franchises, but putting that argument to one side for another day I am nevertheless pleased that on the awarding of the new franchise the business case has been won for the reintroduction of a direct Middlesbrough to London rail service, so I need not repeat it. Clearly, the economic growth that this will deliver is unarguable. The disappointment is that the service will come into being only in five years’ time in 2020. I wish to place on record my thanks to the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, the hon. Member for Devizes (Claire Perry) for meeting me to discuss this matter last week. I would like to think that she was persuaded by the veracity of the case for accelerating the start of the service. I hope that Virgin East Coast can find ways and seize whatever opportunities present to bring forward the start date of the service.

Turning to a matter that concerns Network Rail, just over a year ago the main entrance to Middlesbrough station was closed because of structural difficulties with the Victorian cloister buildings that sit underneath the station main car park. This means there is now no vehicular or indeed pedestrian access to the station from the main southerly aspect, because of the inherent dangers. A year on, plans are now being progressed to board up the frontage, install signage and prepare alternative parking arrangements while architects and engineers go about preparing plans for reconstruction and development. All well and good, but this is all simply far too slow. The people of Middlesbrough deserve better than this. They pay their taxes, unlike some HSBC super wealthy customers. I can only look on with envy at the £895 million redevelopment of Reading station. It looks fantastic and is entirely fit for purpose in the modern railway age. Back in Middlesbrough, however, progress is painfully slow. The town’s people are incredibly patient—they’ve had practice. Indeed, while Dresden, Frankfurt and Berlin were all rebuilt in the aftermath of the second world war, Middlesbrough railway station’s beautiful glass and steel-domed roof was destroyed by the bombs dropped by the Luftwaffe in 1942 and we are still waiting for it to be put back. I urge the Minister in turn to press home the need with Network Rail for much greater urgency and I plead for better communication. It surely cannot be too much to ask for there to be a dedicated website to explain directly to the public what the problem is, what they are doing about it and how long it will all take to put right.

Turning to Darlington railway station, which is the sub-region’s east coast mainline hub, there are significant encumbrances, but their resolution will facilitate significant developmental opportunities. I am confident that my hon. Friend the Member for Darlington (Jenny Chapman) will not mind me trespassing, but the entrapment of the local west-east line out of Darlington station, between the north and southbound lines of the east coast, causes immense difficulties in terms of managing the competing traffic demands. It is also a source of congestion and delay for the east coast service itself. The accepted solution is to move the local line from its current configuration and relocate it free of the mainline crossover. Not only will that improve both local and long-haul services, it will free up a major commercial developmental opportunity within the station itself.

All that was brought into stark reality for me just two weeks ago, when changing trains from the King’s Cross Darlington train for the Darlington-Middlesbrough train. The local train was a Pacer train—perhaps one of the worst in the fleet with the metal-framed bus seats. There was a problem with the points, and there were no trains in or out of Darlington for more than an hour. On a bitterly cold evening, the choice facing passengers was to step out on the freezing platform or to wait in their seats and suffer the dreadful poisonous diesel fumes coming into the carriages. That these are our travelling conditions some 200 years after George Stephenson created the first passenger railway in the very town of Darlington simply beggars belief.

My plea to the Minister is that we get rid of these cattle trucks as quickly as possible and replace them with some decent forms of transportation. David Higgins, the CEO of HS2, has himself said that if the good people of the south of England were asked to tolerate such appalling rolling stock, there would be riots. The time for change is long past. I know that the Secretary of State has been pressed on this, but they need to go, and to go quickly.

With more than 70% of major local businesses internationally owned, we remain globally competitive by offering effective transport links and resilient infrastructure. Undoubtedly, rail connectivity needs to be improved, and electrification across the north of England is crucial to this objective. While the TransPennine and Northern franchises have yet to be awarded, it is absolutely essential for the vitality of Tees Valley, the entire northern region and the UK as a whole that good and direct links be preserved and developed right across the north to include direct services from Middlesbrough to Leeds, Manchester and Liverpool.

The argument for electrification has long since been won. I shall not recite the environmental and economic justifications, but the benefits to Tees Valley would be enormous. Much is said about the interconnectivity of our core cities, and rightly so. We have to address that issue, but the same principle applies to interconnectivity within regions such as the north-east and sub-regions such as Tees Valley. It currently takes up to one hour and 36 minutes to travel between Middlesbrough on the Tees and Newcastle on the Tyne—a distance of 40 miles by road between the two major conurbations; and it takes 53 minutes to travel from Saltburn to Darlington by way of a bone-shaking Pacer that has no part in modern-day transport in one of the richest countries on the planet. Mo Farah would give it a good run for its money! I know that the electrification taskforce will report imminently, but I trust that the Minister will agree that the case has been more than made that electrification from the east coast main line from Northallerton through to Teesport is a top priority.

The concept of the Tees Valley metro has been on the stocks for some considerable time, but only electrification of the existing sub-regional network could make it feasible. A light rail or tram system would be trans- formational for Tees Valley.

The way in which bus services are currently delivered is encapsulated in the stories I hear when I speak to Avanta, which is charged with delivering the Work programme. It tells me that far too often it can source entry level work at places such as Teesport and elsewhere across Tees Valley, only for it to prove impossible for the client physically to travel to such places of work at the times the businesses need them and/or to get home again. Quite frankly, we do not have a public transport system worthy of the name.

My constituents in places such as Berwick Hills tell me of the lack of buses to get to the hospital. It is essential that when powers are devolved to combined authorities they include the re-regulation of buses, in the way that benefits London, and mandatory comprehensive transport coverage for accessing health services and other key destinations. A truly integrated transport system must be one where bus, road and rail services coalesce around the needs of our businesses and communities.

[Tom Blenkinsop (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point about the bus service through Park End. This follows the recent news of the closure of the medical clinic in Park End, which also served his constituents in Berwick Hills. Not only are primary health care services being cut, but access to secondary health care services is being reduced as a result of the bus service terminations.

[Andy McDonald]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. People need to get to hospital when they are ill or visiting relatives, and they need to get to work at the time their businesses need them and then get home again.

Almost finally, roads warrant an entire debate of their own, but as my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) said, Tees Valley is crying out for an additional road crossing over the Tees. Several plans have been prepared over the years, and I would urge the Minister to have his officials consider them.

In conclusion, Tees Valley has a proud history of major contribution to the economic vitality of this country, and not only does it continue to make that contribution, but the capacity for even greater achievement is immense. However, that vast potential can only be realised if the Government understand and respond in appropriate terms. In addition, I ask that the core cities realise that the northern powerhouse story is not just about creating a London of the north, but about building interconnected communities and economies that provide inclusive prosperity for all.