Rail Investment

Duncan Hames Excerpts

Thursday 17th February 2011 Westminster Hall

[Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)]

I want to express to the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman) my appreciation for the work of her Committee in producing its report, and providing us with the opportunity to debate an issue that is vital not only for our railways but our economy and environment. The report identifies nine priorities for rail investment in control period 5, from 2014 to 2019. I want to address three in particular: rolling stock, to deal with capacity constraints, electrification and operational strategy, such as new signalling technology. I do not expect the Minister to make my constituents a national priority, but I make no apology for pursuing their interests, which enables me to show the wider merit of the proposals in question for the rest of the country.

Any debate about major infrastructural investment decisions needs to take a long-term strategic view, and should include all parts of the supply chain for the industry. It is a matter of concern that no such long-term strategy exists in the rail industry. We do not want to risk directing public funds to the wrong projects, or to poorly timed projects, in an unco-ordinated way, as it is costly and inefficient to stop and start again. Nor is it a good idea to subject major transport investment schemes to the vagaries of political, or even economic, cycles. A new planning framework, extending beyond the current five-year planning process of the Government and the Office of Rail Regulation, setting out a clear vision for investment, covering a period of as much as 25 years, would go a long way to combating that short-termism. Longer franchises are also a necessary component of longer-term planning. Suppliers would be able to invest with more confidence, particularly in the arena of technological innovation. The lack of a long-term strategy currently makes it difficult to research and develop the technologies that ultimately save travellers’ time and taxpayers’ money.

The Committee identified the Manchester hub as a top priority for control period 5. I would not want to detract from its observations, but a similar logic applies to Bristol and its travel-to-work area. Bristol is the biggest city outside London in the south of England and the eighth largest in the United Kingdom. From a commuter perspective, on Brunel’s railway, Bristol looks like an attractive proposition, which it is as long as people do not mind how full or late their train to work might be. Network Rail’s Great Western route utilisation strategy, which was published a month after the Transport Committee’s report, identifies Bristol’s rail capacity at peak times—and, indeed, the performance there—as key gaps that will be in need of attention and investment in control period 5. Bristol Temple Meads, in particular, is a pinch point on the network, and passenger numbers are projected to grow by 37% by 2019. That will result in passenger delays, which are already among the worst on the network, increasing by more than a third.

The route utilisation strategy isolates several key regional services that are suffering severe overcrowding and on which investment in extra carriages will reap significant benefits for capacity and connectivity. For example, five extra vehicles on the Cardiff to Portsmouth line, which passes through Bradford-on-Avon in my constituency, would make it possible to provide two extra services in every morning peak, and three each evening. Just one or two carriages from the humble 153 class, allocated to the trans-Wilts line, would also reduce the number of passengers in congested Bath, who only want to get across Wiltshire.

Further electrification of the national rail network is to be welcomed. Electric trains are cheaper, faster, greener and more reliable than their diesel counterparts. They transport a greater number of passengers, and since they are lighter and cause less infrastructural wear and tear their operating cost is roughly half that of their diesel equivalents. The Great Western main line, which clearly is not anticipating the benefits of High Speed 2, has one of the strongest cases for electrification. I welcome the Transport Secretary’s announcement before Christmas that the line from Paddington would be electrified as far as Didcot, Oxford and Newbury. I understand the need to make decisions about powering future inter-city services, which have delayed decisions about the rest of the line. However, I ask the Government to bring forward their proposals for further electrification of the line, to give the rail industry, businesses and passengers alike the certainty that they need to plan for the future.

I have two more points to make on the matter. First, I ask the Minister that electrification should not just be on the line to Bristol Parkway, but also the line through Chippenham and Bath to Bristol Temple Meads. Secondly, I suggest that it would be of benefit to extend the planned electrification of the line to Newbury as far as Westbury. Westbury is not only a more logical network staging post on the line from Reading but a useful interchange for many journeys, and it was identified by Network Rail as needing investment during the next funding period.

On operational strategy, one investment priority that provides opportunities but has not received as much attention as others is new signalling technologies. That is unfortunate, as smart signalling technologies could secure serious improvements in efficiency, environmental performance and capacity within any given infrastructure. Invensys Rail, headquartered in Chippenham in my constituency, is an internationally renowned company at the forefront of developing control and communications technology. On the potential environmental wins of smart signalling, the European rail traffic management system, which Invensys is helping to implement, could enable a 46% reduction in carbon emissions from rail transport by 2030. The system creates wireless connections between trains and control centres, which would be a step change from current infrastructure on our railways. The links can be used to measure energy use and send instructions to trains to reduce their consumption whenever possible. However, the technology would have to be embedded in both rolling stock and track-side infrastructure, which would require joined-up organisation and long-term investment.

To take advantage of such technology, we must develop a more strategic view of the rail supply chain. It is a good time to begin that process. The McNulty value-for-money study is nearly complete, and the Transport Secretary is establishing a high-level group to examine the railways’ future further.

Firms such as Invensys have an important role to play in advising policy makers on the potential of new technology. They are not just a shop window from which we pluck impressive bits of kit. Their technology has been developed in response to the needs of rail systems around the world. As a result, they have accumulated expertise that can make a valuable contribution to discussion of the future of the UK network. I was pleased that the Minister accepted my recent invitation to visit Chippenham in order to see for herself the innovations spearheaded by Invensys. I look forward to welcoming her to Wiltshire in due course.

Among the investment priorities identified by the Transport Committee’s report are several examples of low-hanging fruit—good value, small-scale projects that would not involve the major infrastructure developments of high-speed rail or the complexity of fixing regional bottlenecks. In that respect, the report echoed Eddington’s finding that smaller-scale transport interventions are often the most cost-effective solutions and acknowledged that many small but growing communities around the country could reap substantial benefits from better access to the rail network. I wholeheartedly agree, as my constituency has two good examples, the towns of Melksham and Corsham.

I have made several appeals in Parliament on behalf of the campaign for an improved service on the trans-Wilts line, which runs from Swindon to Salisbury via Chippenham, Melksham and Trowbridge. Members can find out more about it on the website transwilts.org.uk, organised by the community rail partnership. Melksham is the fourth largest town in Wiltshire by population, yet its rail service is derisory, consisting of just two trains a day at times that are, frankly, useless for residents hoping to commute by train.

The trans-Wilts line was well used until the current Great Western franchise began in 2006, when the previous Government dropped the requirement to provide a decent service on the route. As I pointed out to the Secretary of State in November when he announced 650 carriages for the network, just one extra carriage allocated to the line could provide more services at economically meaningful times of the day, connecting the county’s population centres and alleviating pressure on commuter lines in the Bristol area. Demand for the service is strong, and it is supported by the local business community, Wiltshire council and other local Members of Parliament, co-ordinated by an excellent campaign group, the Trans-Wilts Community Rail Partnership. In recent weeks, 1,500 people and 150 businesses have completed a survey on the website about how they would use a better service on the line.

In my correspondence with the Minister, I have received some encouraging signs from the Department about the trans-Wilts campaign. Once more, I ask her to examine closely what benefits could accrue from such locally driven initiatives. Colleagues will forgive me, I am sure, for going to such lengths to make the case for my constituents. They might want to consider what I will call the Melksham challenge. Can they identify a settlement larger than Melksham—it has more than 20,000 people—with an open station that has a passenger rail service as poor as our two services a day each way? I believe that it is an exceptional case.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

I am sorry to disappoint the hon. Gentleman, but the town of Denton, which I have the privilege to represent, has a population of 32,000, an open station and one train a week, in one direction only.

[Duncan Hames]

I stand corrected. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will appreciate the opportunity that I have given him to make the case on behalf of his constituents. I would argue that neither Denton nor Melksham deserves to be left any longer in such a plight.

I know that other Members want to speak, so I will conclude. I have tried to use examples local to my constituents to illustrate a few national discussion points about the future direction of rail investment. Each region, area and sector of the industry—indeed, each Government—has had its own priorities for the future, but we are discussing substantial investment commitments that will far outlast this Parliament, the political careers of many of us and the current economic cycle. Rail planning has too often been characterised by short-termism and a lack of strategic vision. The coalition Government’s stated belief is that

“a modern transport infrastructure is essential for a dynamic and entrepreneurial economy”

and that

“we need to make the transport sector greener and more sustainable.”

I could not agree more, and I do not think that any Member here would depart substantially from that view. It is certainly consistent with the Transport Committee report that forms the basis for this debate. Our challenge is to take a long-term strategic view, interact with all players in the rail supply chain, engage with the businesses and communities that use the railways and align our objectives for rail planning with wider economic and environmental aims.