East West Rail Route Consultation: North East Bedfordshire

Chris Heaton-Harris Excerpts

Monday 28th June 2021 Commons Chamber

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

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for North East Bedfordshire (Richard Fuller) on securing this debate on the East West Rail route consultation and the role played by the proposed railway within his constituency. I welcome his support for East West Rail as a concept, at the very least. I know that that is shared by the vast majority of his constituents, because, as he knows, he has instigated meetings where I have met people from a number of parishes and parish council leaders in his constituency and found that the concept of the railway is very much welcomed. However, they do have legitimate questions to ask and I hope I can answer some today. I have listened carefully to his representations about the impact of East West Rail on his constituency and his concerns about this being a fair consultation, and I will try to answer many of them now.

As my hon. Friend will know, a new railway line between Bedford and Cambridge is required to deliver the full East West Rail scheme between Oxford and Cambridge. In that vein, the East West Rail Company held a consultation, as he said, on route options A to E—we like nattily described route options in the rail industry—which was open from 28 January to 11 March 2019. The outcome of that consultation saw the selection by East West Rail of route E as the preferred route option, announced, as my hon. Friend will remember, in January 2020.

The conclusions in respect of route E were reached using a number of assessment factors, such as faster journey times, lower fares and faster road journeys as a result of road users diverting to rail. The higher transport user benefits arise due to route E serving the most households, both within the catchment area around Bedford Midland station and in the growing population in Cambourne.

My hon. Friend mentioned the other recent non-statutory consultation, which included five route alignment options for the Bedford-Cambridge section of East West Rail, as well as the concepts for train service provision and stations between Bletchley and Bedford. The East West Railway Company is currently analysing the responses, and a preferred route alignment option based on the consultation feedback, the application of the assessment factors and ongoing design work will be announced in due course.

My hon. Friend will be aware that both consultations were non-statutory and so were not a legal requirement for the project to continue. Indeed, they were examples of East West Rail trying to ensure that it was listening to the voices of people along the proposed routes. The East West Railway Company genuinely does want to hear from the people affected and use their views to shape the design of the railway. I hope my hon. Friend understands that the new chairman of the East West Railway Company is determined to listen to the views of the people along the route.

There are no fixed rules about the duration of a non-statutory consultation, but the East West Railway Company decided to run the consultation for a period of 10 weeks to provide opportunities for virtual question and answer sessions—given the lack of in-person meetings because of the pandemic—and to try to ensure that people had enough time to respond in a meaningful way.

My Department is content that both consultations met open and fair consultation standards. A range of promotional activity took place for both consultations, including, as my hon. Friend said, the sending of postcards to more than 120,000 households and businesses in the consultation zone for the first consultation, increasing to 270,000 for the recent consultation, to ensure that the virtual nature of the consultation did not mean that people missed out on the chance to take part. Advertisements were placed in key local publications and social media and local print were utilised.

Public consultation has been and continues to be a crucial part of the development of the East West Rail project, which is why the East West Railway Company has made great efforts to speak to as many local people as possible from an early stage. While I am the Minister responsible, the company will continue in that spirit as the project is progressed. Indeed, in my time as the sponsor Minister for the project I have tried to sit in on as many meetings as I can so that I can see exactly what is going on and how people’s views are being reflected.

[Richard Fuller]

The Minister is absolutely right—he really has been on the front foot in engaging with people, as well as with me directly—but does he recognise that there is a difference between speaking to and listening? One concern that my constituents have is that in respect of some of the options that could really affect things, the conversation has been closed down and their concerns are not being listened to.

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

I completely get what my hon. Friend says, which is why I have tried my best and, I think, have succeeded in making sure that East West Rail actually listens to people along the route. I hope my hon. Friend will see that reflected in what comes out of the recent consultation as we move forward.

[Mohammad Yasin]

I thank the Minister for giving way; he is very kind. I will make two points briefly. One is that I have been told there is no chance of rerunning the consultation. Is there any realistic chance of rerunning it, because some people believe it was not run properly? Secondly, will he support the four-track option, rather than the six-track option? The four-track option will avoid the demolition of houses in my constituency.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his points. If he would not mind, I would like him to take a little question from me. I believe he supports East West Rail as well, so it is a question of making sure that his constituents and those of my hon. Friend the Member for North East Bedfordshire are listened to properly, so that those who will be affected by the construction of this new railway, or elements of it, feel that their voices have been listened to, their concerns have been acted upon and everything has been done that can possibly be done to address the concerns.

I hear the point that the hon. Member for Bedford makes about four-tracking. I am no engineer, and I will not promise something that I cannot deliver. Nor will I promise something when I do not know where it is in the planning stages of East West Rail. I will happily go away and talk to East West Rail about it, because I know it is something that it will be considering as an option moving forward.

[Richard Fuller]

I am encouraged that the Minister wishes to enlist me in support for East West Rail—that is on the concept—but he knows what motivates me, which is: do the numbers add up and does the thing add up logically? I have two fundamental concerns that he has not addressed, and perhaps he will. Why is it right to go into a consultation with a clear set of numbers that go one, two, three, four, five, close the consultation and then present—“Ta-dah!”—we have changed all the numbers around, and now we are going to go with the option that originally went in as being the highest cost and now comes out as being the best option? That does not look right and is not right, and the Minister knows that if things are built on shaky foundations like that, trust is eroded at every further step. Will he therefore please look at that issue again and help East West Rail to try to close the trust deficit on that particular issue?

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

I will always do everything I possibly can to help my hon. Friend, his constituents and East West Rail to close that deficit gap on trust, as he says. I believe that there is a route through—not a physical route, but we should be using best practice to consult people on projects that will affect them at some point in time. I am also determined to deliver this project at pace and on budget, because there have been huge problems in the past with big rail infrastructure projects that have run over time and people’s lives have been blighted for much, much longer than they ever should have been because of the incapacity to deliver said rail project on time. That is not going to happen with East West Rail, and I will do whatever I can to allay the concerns of my hon. Friend’s constituents. I will happily talk to him separately again about how he believes I can assist in doing that. I am really happy to assist.

Public consultation has been and continues to be a crucial part of the development of this project, which is why the company has made all those efforts to speak to so many people. My hon. Friend and the hon. Member for Bedford were rightly concerned about the impact the project will have on constituents’ homes. It is entirely understood that the proposals will affect people’s homes and businesses, and farms in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for North East Bedfordshire. The East West Railway Company aims to minimise the negative impacts on people’s land and property and mitigate any unavoidable impacts. The East West Railway Company’s recent consultation included proposals for an initial compensation scheme for those affected.

My hon. Friend asked whether I could jog the elbow of the East West Railway Company, so that they can have a meeting on the true cost. He is a good businessman, a good politician and a good representative of his constituents, but he also knows that it is taxpayers’ money funding this project. I know he wants to get the best value he can possibly get, as do I, so I will not just nudge the elbow of the East West Railway Company; I will ensure that meeting happens in short order and that all the documents he requires are made available to him beforehand, so that he can do the preparation work he would like to do to do his job properly.

I completely get the point that my hon. Friend made about the environmental concerns. I am not one to go to No. 10 to ask for something—that is a tad above my pay grade—but I continue to listen to him on the question he is essentially asking: is there evidence that quality environmental assessments have been made on East West Rail? An appraisal was undertaken to assess the comparative environmental sustainability of the route options as part of the process for determining a preferred route option, as described in the preferred route option report. That assessment concluded that the routes by Cambourne—routes, B and E—were broadly comparable and had the

“fewest problematic areas with potential direct impacts on irreplaceable or sensitive features and the lowest likely mitigation effort.”

East West Railway Company will continue to assess the potential environmental effects as part of the route alignment development work. An environmental impact assessment will be undertaken and an environmental statement submitted when East West Railway Company submits its development consent order application to the Planning Inspectorate. It will therefore be going by the letter and in the spirit of the rules and the law.

My hon. Friend asked me about Bedford Borough Council’s representations and the Bedford Mayor’s secret plan. I have no idea whether the Bedford Mayor has a secret plan, but I truly believe he would not have had undue influence over any of the plans for East West Rail. I have asked the question previously, but I will happily go away and ask East West Rail whether it can bring anything to me so that we can either finally put to one side and dismiss what my hon. Friend says, or, if there is something in it, have it out in the open so that everyone can see it. It would then probably be a matter for local politics. However, I do not believe that would be the case, because I do not believe there is anything to see.

My hon. Friend asked about the significance of local authority contributions to the consultation process. I come back again and again to the point that we want everybody and anybody interested and affected by the proposed route alignment and the development of the railway to be involved in its design so that we get the process completely right. I believe there would have been significant conversations between the local authorities along the route and the East West Railway Company; less so, to be honest, with my Department, because that is not necessarily our brief. As he knows, his constituents will have many further opportunities to raise issues for consideration, including in a statutory consultation. In the meantime, anyone who wishes to make representations should contact the East West Railway Company to have their voices heard.

With that, I hope that I have answered a number of my hon. Friend’s points. I am determined that we and East West Rail are as open and transparent as possible with my hon. Friend, with other Members of Parliament in interested areas and with people potentially affected along the individual routes. I hope to have demonstrated by action, not just word, that I truly believe that East West Rail needs to do that. I will continue to turn up at meetings with his parish councillors and others to ensure that that is the case. There will be further opportunities to influence the decisions that will have an effect—hopefully a very positive one—on the lives of his constituents going forward.

Question put and agreed to.