<Railway Services: South-West>

Anna Sabine Excerpts

Tuesday 14th January 2025 Westminster Hall

[Martin Wrigley]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right: we need more services on all these lines to support our constituents.

However, everything I have outlined will be interrupted by the creation of the HS2 link to Old Oak Common. High-speed rail is a welcome improvement to our nation’s infrastructure, but the implementation of that project has been handled poorly in the past. It has ignored the largest benefit—connections within the northern powerhouse—and the focus on delivering faster rail between London and Birmingham has delivered unwanted side effects. The decision to terminate the HS2 services at Old Oak Common, three miles west of Paddington, was quickly overturned by the incoming Government. Their announcement of a resumption of the project to tunnel to Euston is to be welcomed, but the 14-platform station at Old Oak Common—eight platforms on the surface and six for HS2 underground—will impact south-west rail services for another six or seven years as it is constructed.

[Anna Sabine (Frome and East Somerset) (LD)]

My constituents in Frome and East Somerset are still shocked to learn about the implications of Old Oak Common. Does my hon. Friend agree that the consultation on that huge change, which will have a major impact on the south-west, was insufficient, and that we still need to have some kind of impact survey or study of the potential impact on tourism and business and the other effects of the works at Old Oak Common?

[Martin Wrigley]

I agree entirely that the impact of Old Oak Common is immense, and will not be just during the construction phase.

The six or seven years of delays and cancellations at weekends and Christmases have been covered in this Chamber before, so I will not repeat the list of weeks and weeks of diversions to Euston and significantly reduced services.

I have already started to receive complaints from my constituents about the inability of Euston station to cope with the volume of passengers when the trains cannot complete their journeys to Paddington. But the piece of the plan that adds insult to injury for the millions of passengers from the south-west, is the idea that every Great Western Railway train will stop at Old Oak Common, even after construction is completed. It has been somewhat unclear—some misleading averages have been quoted—but having met with GWR and Network Rail, I understand that stopping at Old Oak Common will add some five to 15 minutes to every single journey. Adding 15 minutes on to the fast train—of around two hours—from Exeter to London is significant, and even more so on the quicker trains from Cheltenham or Bristol.

Travel to Birmingham is already available via Bristol. Looking at journey times, it will usually be faster to go to Birmingham via Bristol, unless users are further east than Swindon or Westbury. Stopping at Old Oak Common will bring little or no benefit to the majority of the long-distance rail users of the west, south-west and Wales.

Can the Minister confirm that fast trains from the south-west should be able to go through Old Oak Common without stopping?