Rail Services: Maidenhead, Twyford and Branch Lines

Chris Heaton-Harris Excerpts

Wednesday 5th February 2020 Westminster Hall

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Chris Heaton-Harris)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship for the first time, Sir David. I promise to be very, very good and stick to time. I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) for securing this debate on rail services for Maidenhead and Twyford and linking branch lines. It has been an informative debate, and I will address as many of the issues that she raised as I can, as well as those raised by other hon. Members.

Forgive me for being slightly nervous answering my former Prime Minister in a debate in this fashion. A lot of the things I will talk about—the positive nature of our investment plans for our railways; the focus on passengers that we are demanding from our railways—stem from initiatives brought forward from a former regime. I hope my right hon. Friend will forgive me if I tell her things she already knows, but they are useful for the public record. She is right to mention her constituents’ issues with fast trains since the timetable change. I was not aware of the process that she outlined behind the scenes directly with Network Rail and the refused application—I will come back to that.

To give an overall picture, let me reassure my right hon. Friend that the Government are investing in record levels of rail funding to deliver the biggest rail modernisation programme for over a century—something that she set off. She mentioned that we are spending £48 billion between 2019 and 2024 to improve rail services for passengers and freight customers, while maintaining very high levels of safety and improving reliability. We are investing over £5 billion in the Great Western route, including £2.8 billion on electrification to deliver better services, new trains and thousands more seats. That programme has provided 4,900 extra seats into London in the peak, and a 40% increase into Paddington in the morning peak. The modernisation of the Great Western main line is improving over 100 million rail journeys each year, stimulating economic activity and growth, as she rightly outlined, from London through her constituency and further on into the Thames valley, the Cotswolds, the west country and south Wales. I am aware of the importance of her words.

A few words on Great Western Railway’s general performance and improvements are probably needed here. We are seeing the benefits of investment. GWR’s punctuality over the last year has been much better than in previous years. Since it had the recent issues, it has put a comprehensive performance improvement plan in place, and performance has improved substantially over recent months. The measure of punctuality as a moving annual average was 89.4% in period 10, which ended on 4 January 2020, compared with 83.1% in the previous year’s period. Most four-weekly periods since December 2018 have improved. That performance has been achieved with a timetable change on the Great Western route in December 2019, which was the biggest since the 1970s. The enhanced timetable introduced in December last year reduced most journey times on intercity routes and added additional local services in the south-west. We have improved passenger compensation; GWR introduced delay repay arrangements on 1 April last year.

My right hon. Friend is right to outline a number of issues. Some of the delays that she highlighted were caused by fatalities on the railway. When I inherited this job I did not quite comprehend that across the network, one person dies every 31 hours. We are working ever so hard across Government and the industry itself: we have trained more than 20,000 people, with the help of Samaritans, to try to intervene at an earlier stage. Hundreds of lives have been saved by people who have had that training at stations. It is a shocking statistic, and it causes unbelievable problems for grieving families, drivers who have been affected and the whole system. We are truly working on that. She is right to say that nowhere near all the delays are caused by that, but it is a significant issue.

Passenger satisfaction with GWR in the spring 2019 rail passenger survey was 87%—the highest ever for the franchise. The national score was 83%. There are a few improvements going on at Maidenhead station, as my right hon. Friend knows, most of which are due to be completed by the middle of 2021. They are being carried out by Network Rail and are due to be completed by the time the Elizabeth line opens. They include improvements to the ticket hall, a new lift to platform one, extended platforms for longer trains, new platform canopies to accommodate overhead line equipment, new signs, help points and customer information screens and CCTV. There is a comprehensive improvement plan for the station. Her constituents may well have items on their shopping list of station improvements that I have not mentioned. In the Department’s rail network enhancement pipeline we are only at the beginning of control period 6, as it is called in the industry, so further enhancements can come from that.

We are making improvements to the Maidenhead to Marlow branch line. GWR is undertaking a study, with local enterprise partnership support, of options for rail infrastructure at Bourne End. A key aim is to enable a half-hourly through service between Marlow and Maidenhead, in line with the frequency of other Thames valley branches. If initial studies show that scheme to be potentially successful, it will need to be progressed through our pipeline process. That is the usual process for enhancements that will end up with Government investment.

My right hon. Friend rightly highlighted concerns about the balance between Great Western Railway and TfL Rail services at Maidenhead and Twyford. The current balance was developed with Crossrail in mind. With the delay to the tunnel, it has been necessary to accommodate the services in an increasingly busy Paddington station, which has caused some issues. In managing the overall timetable, compromises have been necessary to achieve a balance between acceptable performance and what passengers at each station would like to see.

In December 2019, TfL Rail took over the running of stopping services between Paddington and Reading. That is another crucial step forward in the delivery of the Elizabeth line, which will transform rail transport across and into central London. When the Elizabeth line fully opens in 2022, it will increase rail capacity in London by a massive 10% and carry up to 200 million passengers a year, with passengers at Maidenhead—I know my right hon. Friend was not sure how keen her constituents would be about this—able to get a train directly to Canary Wharf in 55 minutes and to Tottenham Court Road in 40 minutes.

[Mrs May]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

I will happily give way to the hon. Gentleman, but I give way first to my right hon. Friend.

[Mrs May]

I am grateful to the Minister for recognising the point I made about the balance between Crossrail and Great Western, but the point is that there needs to be a choice for constituents at Maidenhead so those who want a fast service can still get a decent fast service—and a good number of them. The danger is that it sounds as if the industry—I hope the Department is not thinking this—is pushing my constituents towards Crossrail services, and Crossrail services alone. I want to ensure that they have a choice and that there are still fast services. I also want semi-fast services on Crossrail.

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

I completely hear what my right hon. Friend says, and I hope that I will get to address that point properly in a moment.

[Mr Dhesi]

On increasing choice, and further to my earlier intervention, I hope the Minister will give us some good news about the western rail link to Heathrow.

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

Time is quite tight. I would like to address in more detail what my right hon. Friend has said, but may I just say that if I do not cover all the issues she raised, I will write to her with a much fuller answer?

In answer to the hon. Gentleman, I am told—he kindly told me beforehand that he would raise that issue, so I was able to check with my officials—that Network Rail’s application for a development consent order is expected in summer 2020. That will be the next major milestone for that project, which we are keen to progress.

I have just a minute left, so let me conclude by saying that I will write to my right hon. Friend with more detail about some of the issues she raised. The Government are investing billions of pounds in the rail industry. As I mentioned, when the Elizabeth line fully opens in 2022, it will significantly increase rail capacity in London and probably increase demand from Maidenhead too, with the changes in service it brings. However, I will happily go back to my Department and contact Network Rail about GWR’s application for the reinstatement of fast trains, which I did not know about. As always, my right hon. Friend represents her constituents with passion and vigour, and I promise not to drop this ball on her behalf.

Question put and agreed to.