Rail Links: South-west England

Darren Jones Excerpts

Tuesday 24th October 2017 Westminster Hall

[Darren Jones (Bristol North West) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairpersonship, Mr Evans. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard) on securing this important debate. I know at first hand what a champion he has been over many years for investing in and improving rail in the south-west. In fact, when we were both nipping at the heels of the hon. Member for South West Devon (Mr Streeter) and the hon. and learned Member for Torridge and West Devon (Mr Cox) at the 2010 general election—sadly, we lost at that time—rail investment was a key issue, and it has been over the years since.

Now, as the Member for Bristol North West, my home constituency, I have two main concerns. First, I am disappointed that electrification of the track from London to Bristol has been cancelled. We now have the absurd position that new-generation Great Western Railway trains, which can be powered by electricity, get only as far as Maidenhead before they have to turn on the diesel engines. That cannot be right, and given that the Government are starting to fall behind on their climate change commitments, I hope to see that project completed soon.

My second, and to me and my constituents most important concern, is inner-city rail, which is vital to the future success of Bristol North West. Already there are congested road networks in the north of my constituency. I am talking about the very part that runs parallel to what will eventually be tens of thousands of new homes on the Filton airfield and adjoining land, and a tripling in size of our regional shopping centre—the Mall Cribbs Causeway. Those developments are right next to some of the largest employers in the city and region: Airbus, Rolls-Royce, GKN, the Ministry of Defence and the University of the West of England. Bristol North West is already congested, and continues to fail to meet its air pollution targets. With such significant development, failure to invest in proper rail infrastructure now will bring my constituency to a standstill, especially at peak commuting times and seasonal retail times, and will not help us to meet our air pollution targets.

I welcome the commitment from Network Rail and Great Western Railway to the opening by 2020-21 of the Henbury spur, with 18-minute services from Henbury through North Filton into Bristol Temple Meads, but we need that spur to develop at the next stage into the Henbury loop, connecting the track through Avonmouth to the existing Severn Beach line, which runs along the south of my constituency, and ideally, if we are in the business of funding the projects that I am asking for, with a new station at Horfield and Lockleaze, too. That is important for residents and workers.

In the Avonmouth and Severnside enterprise area in my constituency, there are already more than 14,000 jobs, and the local enterprise partnership expects a further 6,000 to 12,000 by 2026, yet anyone who has visited the enterprise area knows full well that it is not accessible without a car. I commend the work undertaken by organisations such as SevernNet, Ambition Lawrence Weston and the Shirehampton Community Action Forum in supporting new bus routes and company-backed shuttle buses, but the services run infrequently, often hourly, and not in line with shift patterns, and funding has been cut. The future of those bus services is now in question, and the answer, as consistently raised by the excellent Friends of Suburban Bristol Railways, must be rail.

However, this is not just about workplaces but about residents. Without the Henbury loop, most of the constituents in the middle and north-west of my constituency suffer from very poor transport connectivity to the rest of Bristol. That affects families trying to do the school run and get to work on time, young people trying to get to further and higher education facilities and older people who need to get out and about around our fabulous city.

I should take this opportunity, after a long period of intense lobbying from my grandmother, Irene Jones, to make it clear that the cuts resulting in the closure of the number 18 bus route through Westbury-on-Trym and Southmead are entirely unsatisfactory and that the bus route should be restored urgently.

The Henbury loop will happen only with appropriate investment to allow the connecting track to run past the entrance to the Bristol port without disrupting lorries and freight, and for associated signalling upgrades. That requires Government backing and investment, as the Secretary of State knows only too well from the persistent and admirable lobbying of my Conservative predecessor, Charlotte Leslie. As a starter for 10, I hope that the Department can assist the West of England Combined Authority in funding an independent study of the Henbury Loop business case, as recommended by the Department to my predecessor before the election.

As a recent European green capital, with strong city-wide environmental credentials, Bristol wants people to use public transport instead of their cars, but we can get people out of their cars only when the public transport network exists where it needs to and when services run frequently and efficiently and do not cost the earth to use. As the voice of 100,000 people, young and old, from Bristol North West, I call on the Government to help us to secure support and investment for inner-city rail in Bristol before it is too late. I offer to assist the Government in any way I can to ensure that that is the case and, in a comradely spirit with other hon. Members from the south-west, I call for support for better rail networks across the region, too.