Midland Main Line (Electrification)

Claire Perry Excerpts

Wednesday 16th September 2015 Westminster Hall

[Richard Burden (Birmingham, Northfield) (Lab)]

It is always a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. I always seem to do so in debates about infrastructure, and today is no exception. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Harry Harpham) on securing this important and timely debate, which is his first in Westminster Hall. He introduced the subject skilfully and his arguments had great force. He has been a constant champion of public transport for many years, both on Sheffield City Council and since his election to this place.

It is four months or so since the publication of the Conservative party’s general election manifesto. Let us remind ourselves of what it said:

“We will back business by…electrifying the Midland Main Line from St Pancras to Sheffield”.

That is all very good. A decision to support electrification was made some three years ago, which was welcomed by passengers, local authorities and hon. Members of all parties. The midland main line has been the Cinderella of Britain’s main lines. As hon. Members have mentioned, the campaign to electrify the route goes back to the ’70s and ’80s, when British Rail said that doing so was “a first priority”, until the Conservative Government of the day withdrew their support. There is a distinct sense of history repeating itself. Nobody can fail to appreciate the strength of feeling that still exists on the issue in all parts of the House and all parties, and I am sure that passengers up and down the route will welcome the contributions of hon. Members on both sides of the Chamber.

The case for electrifying the midland main line is compelling. A Network Rail assessment in 2009 found that the project’s benefit-cost ratio was “technically infinite”, as my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) has said. More recent figures published by the Department show that the benefit-cost ratio of the project is superior to those of other major projects that are proceeding. Network Rail has said that the project is

“critical to delivering a reliable and sustainable railway and tackling overcrowding.”

In 2012, the Government talked about an “electric spine” that would convey passengers and freight from Southampton to Sheffield, which was, again, described as a first priority in terms of rail investment.

Rail investment in the north of England, including Yorkshire, falls notoriously short compared with the funding made available to other regions. According to the Department’s own figures, rail investment per head is lower in the east midlands than in any other English region. That point has been emphasised by hon. Members from the region; I am sure that the Minister will agree that they have been giving her “aggro” about that, to quote the hon. Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick). The electrification of the midland main line would have gone some way towards addressing the inequalities.

Electrification is not the only problem, however. Some of the trains on the route date back to the 1970s. Although they have performed admirably over the years, they must be withdrawn or upgraded at significant cost by 2020 to comply with the Disability Discrimination Acts, as my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts) has pointed out. The clear aspiration was that the rolling stock would be replaced by superior electric trains, but that, too, has been thrown into doubt.

I will return to electrification in a moment, but it is important to set out that the upgrade package also contained significant speed improvements. Indeed, when the Secretary of State announced his decision to “pause” the electrification programme, he said:

“We will press on with the rebuilding to speed up and straighten the track at Market Harborough, and with the rebuilding of the Derby track layout. That will mean faster services soon, and it will enable us to make the most of the electrification and new trains that will result from future franchises.”—[Official Report, 25 June 2015; Vol. 597, c. 1073.]

That point has been made by several hon. Members. The problem is that as far as we can tell, there is still a £9 million funding gap for the Market Harborough project, and there has been no clarity from the Department about whether and how that gap will be filled. Worse still, there are worrying rumours and reports—most recently in Construction News—that the Hendy review has concluded that only a fraction of Network Rail’s control period 5 schemes are affordable. That throws into further doubt some of the things that the Government have been saying, so I hope that the Minister can provide some clarity today. It has been reported in The Sunday Times and Passenger Transport that on top of escalating costs, Network Rail’s budget may be cut further in the comprehensive spending review, threatening not only improvement projects, but essential maintenance.

That is a world away from what we were told in April, when the Chancellor said:

“Spending review will set out improvements to rail travel in East Mids including electrifying Midland Main Line from Bedford to Sheffield”.

Let us not pretend that that has nothing to do with the choices that the Government have made, and nothing to do with the fact that different choices are announced before and after an election when marginal seats are at stake. Ministers have adopted a policy of implausible deniability on the matter, but let us recap some of the facts. We first raised concerns about cost overruns on the great western main line in in May 2014, just weeks into the new investment period. Last October, the then shadow Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Mary Creagh), asked the Transport Secretary to say

“which electrification projects will be delayed or cancelled”—[Official Report, 23 October 2014; Vol. 586, c. 1030.]

as a consequence of cost overruns. The Secretary of State was apparently so concerned about those matters that he ordered an “urgent” review of Network Rail’s projects, which he received in September. He has refused to publish it, so we can only speculate on its contents. The Transport Committee warned in January:

“We are concerned that key rail enhancement projects…have been announced by Ministers without Network Rail having a clear estimate of what the projects will cost, leading to uncertainty about whether the projects will be delivered on time, or at all.”

The Committee stated:

“Electrification of lines in the North West, the North trans-Pennine line, and the Midland Main Line, should not be put at risk due to the projected overspend on the Great Western Main Line.”

Crucially, we now know, thanks to documents obtained by Labour under the Freedom of Information Act, that in March, Network Rail’s board agreed to

“decisions required jointly with the DfT re enhancement deferrals from June”.

Unnamed sources in the Department initially denied to the BBC that there was any knowledge of these discussions before the election. However, Network Rail’s chief executive subsequently confirmed:

“In mid-March 2015, Network Rail informed DfT that decisions may need to be made in the coming months about the deferral of certain schemes.”

Are we now asked to believe that Ministers really had no knowledge? I have previously described the midland main line as something of a Cinderella route, and to believe what the Government have been saying about the route is a bit like believing in fairy stories, which always seem to end with a silver carriage turning into a pumpkin.

Voters heard promises to deliver the electrification of the midland main line in the best of faith. The only people who did not know that the investment programme was collapsing, apparently, were Ministers in the Department for Transport. Will the Minister address that today? It is a straightforward question, but her Department has refused to answer it until now. When Network Rail told the Department in March that decisions may be required on the deferral of major rail projects, were Ministers in the Department informed?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Claire Perry)]

I am happy to put to rest once and for all the conspiracy theory that the hon. Gentleman knows better than to perpetrate. My boss, the Secretary of State for Transport, has stated unequivocally on multiple occasions that the first time he received advice that either of these projects should be paused was on 15 June 2015.

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[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Claire Perry)]

It is always a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. I have many questions to answer, and I will do my best to answer them. If I do not answer Members’ questions, I will be extremely happy to write with any specifics.

I will start by restoring what I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) was an important, factual and consensual debate that raised some extremely important questions about this vital infrastructure. I congratulate the hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Harry Harpham) on securing this debate, and I am delighted that it is his first debate—I still remember mine. He has big shoes and four paws to fill, and I hope he will personally pass my best wishes to his predecessor, with whom I worked and for whom I have the greatest respect.

It is great to see such a strong cross-party turnout for, and to hear such excellent contributions to, today’s important debate. I will address a couple of issues that came up. The first is the importance of investment in railways to drive economic growth on a local, regional and national basis, as the hon. Gentleman said in his opening speech.

I am delighted—I suspect this has something to do with some of his jobs in a former life—with the hon. Gentleman’s reference to freight, which is often not considered when we talk about improvements to the railways and which is vital to the economic prosperity of such regions that export and manufacture. Indeed, I have visited several upgrade projects across the region, such as the Great Northern Great Eastern line, that have been specifically designed and delivered to improve freight paths for manufacturers in the region. Investment in transport across the UK is vital if the economy is to grow. I am happy to give what should be not a cast-iron guarantee but a stainless-steel guarantee that £38 billion of investment will be spent on British railways over the next few years, which is the biggest spend in generations—since Brunel’s time.

My hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough asked how many miles of track the last Labour Government electrified in 13 years, and the answer is nine. The shadow Minister, with whom I work frequently, is embarrassed to talk about that because we have finally woken up, on a cross-party basis, to the vital role of rail infrastructure investment in driving economic growth and better journeys for people using the railway.

I am happy to confirm that £38 billion is being spent. Successive Governments have not spent the right amount or invested enough in the railways. If we roll back the clock more than 10 years to 2003-04, when the last deals for the northern and TransPennine Express franchises were being negotiated, was there any conversation about replacing the clapped-out Pacers? There was none. The TPE and northern routes, which provide some services to the constituency of the hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough, will transform passenger services in the north of England. It cannot come too soon.

I will quickly cover a couple of other things. The first is the Sheffield city region, of which the hon. Gentleman is a great supporter. The city is working across parties, across business and across political boundaries, and it is working closely with Transport for the North, an organisation that my Government have funded to the tune of £30 million and is designed to pull such decisions about the right form of transport investment as close as possible to the region’s people and wealth creators. It is not enough for officials at Network Rail or in my Department to sit and plan what improvements should take place; those improvements have to deliver the maximum benefit for people and businesses using the railways.

Sheffield has been a strong supporter of the proposals to enhance east-west connectivity and to maximise the potential and benefit of High Speed 2, and I am delighted that we still have cross-party consensus on the importance of the HS2 route, despite the voting record of the new Leader of the Opposition—that is a cheap shot, but I could not resist. I am delighted that the Labour party is completely committed to going ahead with HS2.

The deal for Sheffield gives more control over local transport schemes. It enables Sheffield to work directly with Network Rail to support the delivery of the Sheffield to Rotherham tram-train project, and it improves the vital co-ordination between Sheffield, Network Rail and Highways England to ensure that investment is pulled through by local economic priorities. I thank Members who have championed the Sheffield devolution deal.

My second point is on the TPE and northern franchises. I will not be drawn on several things, including the debate on where “the north” starts and the prediction of football results, although I am disappointed that there was no mention of the Leicester Foxes, of whom I have been a lifelong supporter. But I can assure Members that the current franchise negotiations for the northern and TPE routes will be transformational for passengers in the north.

Train capacity into major cities will increase by 30%. There will be brand-new trains, not the Pacers and not reworked tube rolling stock. Existing trains will be fully modernised. There will be £30 million of northern station investment funds. I could go on. The franchise negotiations will transform travel in the north and change passenger experiences from among the worst to some of the best in the country.

As I have been asked many questions about the midland main line, I want to discuss it in detail. I emphasise that a pause is a pause. For me—I think my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire (Pauline Latham) said this—when an organisation such as Network Rail has been given an unprecedented burden, because it has never been asked to do this much investment in the railway before, and there is evidence that some of the work is starting to go wrong and that promises will not be delivered on, one can either carry on and then not deliver or say, “We must get this right.”

We have to deliver these improvements. We understand the economic case for delivering them. We have to find someone, who in this case was Sir Peter Hendy—a railway man to his fingertips—who can take the organisation to a point where it can offer cast-iron guarantees about delivery dates. Network Rail is tasked with delivering the improvements. We are relying on Hendy and his team to come back and set out exactly what that delivery programme looks like. He will shortly deliver a plan that will outline the delivery of the upgrades and set out specific clarity around the electrification projects.

Many hon. Members have asked me what all this means for projects that are already happening. If one travels from Corby to Kettering, one can see that the four-track work is going ahead. It is being delivered and tens of millions of pounds are being spent on the track-doubling project. We are removing the long-standing bottleneck at Derby station to speed up both Midland Mainline and CrossCountry services. We are improving the line speed south of Leicester station, between Derby and Chesterfield and at Market Harborough. Station-lengthening work is going on right across the network to enable longer trains to run, and we are adding capacity between Bedford and Kettering.

I want to mention freight, because the hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough shares my interest in it. The promised freight gauge clearance schemes, which are vital to allow more freight on these lines, are going ahead, so additional freight services will be run.

[Paul Blomfield]

Before the Minister moves on—I appreciate that she is trying to answer all the questions —I want to be absolutely clear on Market Harborough, which she mentioned in passing and skipped over. Is it guaranteed that the full funding—the money topped up from that provided through the local growth fund and identified by Network Rail—will be available for the full necessary works at Market Harborough?

[Claire Perry]

The hon. Gentleman refers to the £9 million shortfall. I need to investigate that further and will write to him. I believe that efforts are being made by several organisations to fill that important funding gap.

The hon. Gentleman has prompted me to answer his important rolling stock question regarding electrification and the cascade, on which he is absolutely right to focus. It will be the case that when preparation work starts for the new franchise, which will be let in 2018, all the questions around rolling stock specification and the requirement for new trains will be put into it. When we invited tenders for the TPE franchise, we gave bidders an option and set out what we knew about improvement works.

By the way, there is this idea that we are somehow not investing in the north, but has the hon. Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Richard Burden) travelled on the new electric trains that run between Manchester and Liverpool and Liverpool and Wigan? Electrification has come to that part of the UK for the first time. I hope that he will join me in celebrating the fact that those cities now have new electric trains, which were delivered by this Government, as promised. We are 100% committed to ensuring that the £38 billion unprecedented investment in the railways happens right across the UK, not including HS2, which, as my hon. Friends pointed out, is vital to speed up journey times to and from the north and to pull wealth out of the south-east. We will also continue—[Interruption.] Did the hon. Gentleman want to celebrate and welcome that electrification?

[Richard Burden]

There have been reports—I mentioned the one in Construction News—that say that the Hendy review has already concluded that only a fraction of the control period 5 projects are financially sustainable. Does the Minister have those reports as well? If so, how does she square them with what she has just said?

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[Claire Perry]

If I had heeded all the reports, I would have been letting the East Coast franchise to a French company instead of a fine Scottish and English company that is delivering unprecedented improvements for passengers on the east coast main line. I want to see the facts. I do not want to speculate, which can damage business confidence. We must be absolutely clear about what has been delivered, and I will wait for Peter Hendy’s report and my Department’s response. I am always happy to work on a cross-party basis with Members who pay so much attention to these vital improvements. As we go forward with the investment programme, that will help us to understand where the most important connections need to be made.

I want to mention today’s franchise announcement, about which I have already spoken in public. Although this direct award has less than two and a half years to run, we have negotiated some pretty significant improvements for passengers. I hope that hon. Members will agree that East Midlands Trains is a good operator. Its punctuality record is good. It has won multiple awards and ranks pretty highly in terms of passenger satisfaction, so we have allowed it to continue operating the service. From today, there will be 22 extra services between Nottingham and Newark Castle. As my hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick) mentioned, 24 new services were already delivered earlier this year. Timetable improvements will mean faster journey times and more services between Lincoln and Nottingham. Crucially, there will also be a pause—a freeze—on fares, so anytime fares on the route will not go up at all in the next two years. That is a company commitment.

[Tom Pursglove]

In light of what the Minister has just said, has consideration been given to increasing the number of services, both northbound and southbound, from Corby? There is currently a real appetite for that, and it would be welcome for the reasons of growth that I suggested earlier.

[Claire Perry]

I thank my hon. Friend for pointing out the crucial link between a growing local economy and transport. I encourage him, and all Members here, to submit such proposals to the franchising consultation and planning process, which will be starting in the next few months. It is vital that we get these important routes right.

The freeze on fares—we will be paying the same in 2017 as we do now—is in addition to the Government’s cap on any rail fare increase above inflation for the next five years, which is a substantial commitment to ensuring that rail fares are appropriately priced for the travelling public. In addition, 15 more automatic ticket machines are being installed, along with better accessibility information and better customer information. There is an improved compensation scheme to ensure that if there are delays, such as those earlier this week mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire, passengers can quickly and easily get the compensation to which they are entitled in cash or bank transfer, not railway vouchers. We made that change earlier this year. Improved wi-fi across the service has already been delivered to ensure that people can work effectively on the train.

I talked about some of the schemes that are going ahead. They are tangible and can be seen as one travels along the line. I have discussed today’s announcement, which will deliver some substantial improvements for passengers, despite the direct award only having a short time to run. I reassure Members across the House about the seriousness and determination with which the Government and my Department take the improvements. We have to deliver on what we promise. That is the purpose of the Hendy re-plan, which means that we will have a deliverable and affordable set of improvements. I invite all Members to work together to develop the proposals as we go into the new franchise. When we get the Hendy re-plan and confirmation of the work, I ask Members to work with me and constituents to ensure that people are fully aware of what is going on.

In conclusion, I never interpret enthusiastic, honest and fact-filled debates and submissions from hon. Members or broader groups as “aggro”. I am happy to keep working and to be as open, honest and transparent as I can. I thank hon. Members and people right across the country for realising that a rail renaissance is taking place in Britain. It is vital that we get it right and that we deliver right across this great country.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered electrification of the Midland Main Line.