Regional Transport Inequality

Dave Robertson Excerpts

Thursday 11th September 2025 Commons Chamber

[Dave Robertson (Lichfield) (Lab)]

I am pleased to follow my hon. Friend the Member for East Thanet (Ms Billington), who talked about the impact of covid on transport. Many of my constituents across Lichfield, Burntwood and the villages rely on the cross-city line to get to Birmingham for work, for social activities—to visit the theatre or go for a night out—and for many other reasons. Unfortunately, during the pandemic the service on the line was cut from four trains an hour to just two. That was understandable at the time, given the circumstances, but years have passed and those trains are still not back.

The cross-city line is the busiest commuter train line in the country outside of London. In the year before covid, a million journeys started at Lichfield City, going towards Birmingham New Street. Lichfield is a city of 35,000 people and a million journeys began at that train station. It is a busy line—it is important infrastructure. This debate is about regional transport inequality; the idea that on a line that busy that served anywhere in the south-east or London the service would be halved and nothing done about it for years is absolutely laughable. But because it is in the west midlands, the services have not come back.

The villain in this piece is just how busy New Street is. It is over capacity; we cannot get any more trains in or out. That is why I am so glad to have campaigned to get the midland rail hub project funded and to have co-ordinated dozens of Back-Bench MPs to support the campaign. That will improve the capacity at New Street, meaning that we can get our trains back on the city line. It also means that 50 stations across a number of regions will get to see improvements in their services. That is a fantastic example of this Government investing in the projects that we need to close some of the transport inequality gaps, and I thank the Minister for that.

As I have a minute left, and given that those improvements are coming, let me say this. I have a line from Lichfield to Burton that passes by the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire. It would make a brilliant place for a passenger service, so that everybody from around the country can get to the National Memorial Arboretum to enjoy the fantastic facility that it is and take part in remembrance all year round, not just in November.