Great Western Railway Routes

Fiona Mactaggart Excerpts

Monday 8th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Foster]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right that park and ride can play a huge part in giving rural communities in particular access to rail services via parkway-style stations. Looking at north-west Devon and north Cornwall, it might be an interesting project in years to come to provide parkway stations near the A30 as it comes into Devon, using the spur that heads towards Okehampton. That could provide a service to the area without competing with the Great Western main line in south Devon.

We must ask what investment can deliver. It is estimated that even a relatively modest improvement of 15 minutes in journey times between the south-west peninsula and London would deliver £300 million in increased productivity. However, this debate is not just about economics; it is about communities along the line and their needs for travel and growth.

I will not look to play our region off against another. Just as investment in Crossrail and new rail capacity in other parts of the UK will deliver for those communities over the next 10 to 15 years, delivering on the issues we are discussing can deliver for ours. It is worth bearing in mind the fact that investment in the Great Western railway supports other key projects across the UK. For example, the expansion of Heathrow as the UK’s hub will be supported by the western rail access. I hope the Minister sees the urgency of that.

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

Does the hon. Gentleman share my profound disappointment over the delays in the western rail access to Heathrow, which the Hendy review announced would be put back a further two years? This access will bring the biggest inward investment to the UK, as well as helping travellers from all over the west of England—

[Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab)]

And Wales.

[Fiona Mactaggart]

Indeed, and Wales. It will help those travellers to get to Heathrow—our premier hub airport. Will the hon. Gentleman press the Minister to ensure that, as a result of this debate, someone in her Department puts their foot on the accelerator of western rail access to Heathrow?

--- Later in debate ---

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

I am sorry that I had to miss parts of the debate, but I was rehearsing with the Parliament choir. I was trying very hard to be in two places at once and, as usual, failed.

I really welcome this debate. I know, because I have heard reports about the speeches that have already been made, that the focus of the debate has not included the commuter service provided on the Great Western railway. I urge the Minister to respond to the issues relating to the passengers who commute on those routes. If we look at passengers in excess of capacity on a typical autumn week day by operator, we will see that Great Western Railway exceeds all other companies, not because of the long-distance services that we have heard about, but because of the chronically overcrowded commuting services provided on the railway. On an average day, there are something like 1,000 people in excess of capacity in the three most overcrowded trains on the rail line, and 30% of the 10 most overcrowded trains are on the Great Western main line. There is a serious problem. Too often, I have been in one of those trains, with my nose pressed into the armpit of someone whose name I do not know. I find that offensive. We have standards for carrying animals on lorries, but we do not have standards for carrying humans on trains. The Great Western commuter rail service is, on many occasions, quite disgusting for passengers, and we have to do more than adapt a few carriages that were used to feed people—we have given that up—by putting in a few more seats. We need to do more to provide sufficient stock for the commuter service to serve the people who depend on it.

The Thames valley is the most productive region of our country. It makes more profit per worker than any other part of Britain. We need to make sure that those people can get about. My constituency—I often say this in the House, and I am sure Members are bored of hearing it—has more European headquarters of multinational companies than Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland put together, because Slough is really easy to get to. It is really easy to get from Slough to Heathrow, to London, to the west country, or up the A40 to Birmingham, or along the M3 and around the M25. It is a well-connected town, which is why we are successful in drawing investment into Britain. I am not competing with other towns in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland particularly; Slough tends to compete with cities in Europe.

When I talk to companies about the issues that impact on their profitability, they say that they want to be confident that Heathrow has a secure future and they want to reach it more easily. The best way to do so is by rail. I persuaded the previous head of the Berkshire local enterprise partnership to do some research, over 10 years ago, on what companies in the Thames valley spent on taxis to Heathrow. The figure was £10 million a year. If that money was spent not on taxis going to Heathrow on the excessively congested M4 but on a train service to Heathrow, those companies would have a more reliable journey that did not depend on what was happening around junction 5, 6 or 7. They would not face overcrowding on the M4. We are going to get smart motorways, but with hard-shoulder running, if there is an accident, it takes longer to get round it. At the moment, they have serious problems using that route properly.

I have a feeling about how the Department for Transport works. It can do only one thing at a time. It looks down a little tunnel, saying, “This is my project.” Its project at the moment on my bit of the railway is creating a train park for the Heathrow express, which I would rather not have. The Minister has been helpful on some of these issues, but the failure to put a foot on the accelerator of western rail access to Heathrow is truly foolish, given the impact not just on this bit of railway but on the national economy. If the project had as much energy behind it as other rail projects it would attract significant inward investment. We are failing to attract that investment and are failing to create the jobs that would inevitably follow better connectivity for Heathrow because no one is pushing this forward.

I was concerned that we would not get the project done by 2018, which was the first chimera of western rail access to Heathrow, but then it was pushed back to 2020. Now it looks as though it might be done by 2023 or 2024. I suspect that the project will probably not be completed until we have the additional runway, but we need it before then.

I urge the Minister to set someone—one of her nice tunnel-vision civil servants—to focus their tunnel vision on Western rail access to Heathrow. I promise that companies in this country are desperate for it and they will back it. Perhaps she needs a bit of private investment. I had a meeting some years ago with officials in her Department and one of them said, “We’re spending blah million”—I cannot remember how many—“per month on the airport.” I looked around at the company representatives who had come with me, whose companies were spending that much per month on their own development.

The time has come to ensure Western rail access to Heathrow. It does not need complicated consultations because most of it is on the existing rail line and the rest of it is in a tunnel, so there is nothing to delay the project. This Minister, whom I admire, would forever be in my glory books if she would make sure that somebody put the accelerator under this project. At present, her Department is failing and letting down the Thames valley and the whole of the south-eastern economy as a consequence.

[Several hon. Members rose—]