Manchester Piccadilly to Rose Hill Marple Trains

Debate between Chris Heaton-Harris and Jonathan Reynolds

Thursday 10th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

I will honourably take up the hon. Lady’s offer, because what is going on in Portishead is a very positive piece of news. I look forward to having conversations with her to move that forward.

We are, though, talking about Rose Hill and Hazel Grove. My hon. Friend the Member for Hazel Grove has been building a coalition to reinstate his and his constituents’ much-loved services. He has done a very good job. We know him in this place as a hard-working chairman of a Select Committee and a great parliamentarian, but now we also know that he is a hard-working, caring and great constituency MP. He has demonstrated how he is willing to work with others from other political parties to get a result for his, and their, constituents. I put on the record the work that I know has been done on these issues by the hon. Members for Stalybridge and Hyde (Jonathan Reynolds), for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne) and for Stockport (Navendu Mishra). I was pleased that we all had an opportunity to discuss this matter with the managing director of Northern trains last Friday.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Hazel Grove knows, I was concerned to hear that the Rose Hill service had been temporarily removed until December 2020. Let me be clear that Northern took this unwelcome decision itself, to maintain operational performance by increasing services overall while it managed its recovery from covid-19. Alas, prior to the pandemic Northern already had an intensive driver-training-programme backlog, but extra delays caused by the epidemic, combined with staff self-shielding at home, have meant that Northern has had to take steps to prioritise its available-and-competent driver resource to where it is most needed.

Northern made the decision to temporarily suspend services from Rose Hill because it believed that, given the availability of other train routes, stations and public transport options for Rose Hill passengers, that would have less impact for local customers than for those of other stations and routes. Northern says that it did not take the decision lightly. It anticipated and hoped that the provision of a replacement bus service and the availability of train-travel options from other stations close by would enable Rose Hill passengers to return to work and school with minimal disruption. None the less, Northern recognises that the decision, although made with the best interests of its customers network-wide in mind, caused significant concern and frustration among passengers, local-friends groups and Members of Parliament.

As we have been slowly exiting from lockdown and seeing Britons get back to work, the railway has rightly been increasing services to meet passenger demand and expectations. This Monday, on 14 September, there will be an additional service uplift for many passengers across Northern’s network. Train operators overall have been asked to restore a timetable that maximises the opportunities for passenger travel while maintaining the excellent performance levels we see at this point in time. I assure all Members that the rapid return of a good, regular, resilient timetable on the line is our priority.

Having listened to Members’ concerns, I can inform them that Northern has reviewed its timetable and outlined improvements. But I have challenged the operator to do more—immediately—for the passengers in the Rose Hill area. Moving resource around has enabled Northern to provide some glimmer of light for passengers on this line. Northern has prioritised the running of services for its customers that will be both resilient and reliable, rather than ramping up its services quickly. That is something I insist on: we need a reliable railway if we are to have a railway at all. It is focusing its efforts on the morning and evening peak times, using customer feedback to get essential workers to where they need to be. Literally moments before this debate commenced, Northern informed me that it intends to introduce two trains in the morning, Monday to Friday, for Rose Hill Marple from 14 September. They will arrive at 8.11 am and 8.36 am respectively to ensure that Northern can meet key school demand. There will also be an afternoon service to meet school demand, arriving at Rose Hill Marple at 3.14 pm and getting to Manchester Piccadilly half an hour later.

I would like to think that the coalition my hon. Friend the Member for Hazel Grove brought together—the voices of his residents and the voices of Members of Parliament, hopefully amplified by me as the Minister—has been listened to by Northern in the conversations we have all had with the operator.

[Jonathan Reynolds]

Let me say on behalf of my constituents in Hyde that that is extremely welcome news. A service that focuses on peak demand will go a huge way to meeting the need that is there, putting concerns at rest and keeping people on the railway, which is what we all want. I thank the Minister on behalf of my constituents.

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that. He has played a great part in this, as have other hon. Members who have contributed today.

The impact of coronavirus means that the safety of passengers and staff must be paramount. That means the focus right now is on reliability and increased capacity to enable safer travel, with enough space for social distancing where possible. Northern runs a highly complex network and serves an enormous section of the United Kingdom. In fact, about one in five of all United Kingdom stations is a Northern station. It shares the network with nine other train operators, so the decisions it takes, such as moving trains around to run different services, affect the journeys people make all around the country. As my hon. Friend the Member for Hazel Grove knows from our last meeting on Friday, Northern apologised for the removal of this service and committed to an internal review to learn the lessons from this issue. Northern is also reviewing options again to see how it can support affected communities until we get to the point where a full reliable service is restored.

More generally, the public sector operator will continue to work with Network Rail to make sure the railway delivers as one, with a single-minded focus on the interests of the passenger. As a part of that, the newly created cross-industry Manchester recovery task- force, co-ordinated by Network Rail, will deliver on recommendations on how best to boost capacity and performance in the short, medium and longer term.

Northern has already begun to deliver many improvements for customers, including the recruitment of more staff, a full train cleaning programme and improvements to many stations. However, there remains much more to do to provide the modern, reliable service that its passengers deserve. Northern really does hope shortly to update everybody further on its plans to transform the service, but until then it will continue to focus on getting the basics right: restoring reliability, increasing capacity and rebuilding trust in the organisation by providing services that all passengers can truly rely on.