North Cotswold Line

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd January 2020 Westminster Hall

[Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for West Worcestershire (Harriett Baldwin) for securing the debate, and I am grateful to the Minister for being here to answer our requests.

I have been heavily involved in the Cotswold line redoubling campaign, as it goes through my constituency—Moreton-in-Marsh and Kingham are both very busy stations along the line; the latter is just outside my constituency boundary but is used by many of my constituents—and I have worked closely with my fellow MPs, as my hon. Friend said. I am delighted to see my hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Robert Courts) in his place. Part of the ask of this feasibility study will be to get the redoubling done in his constituency. I will say more about that in a minute, but I am sure that it will benefit his constituents hugely, and all of our constituents, because it will make the whole journey time quicker. It is delightful to see him here.

We have all worked closely with the Cotswold Line Promotion Group, which has been a staunch advocate for this line for tens of years. I pay tribute, as did my hon. Friend the Member for West Worcestershire, to Lord Faulkner for heading up that group. We have had upgrades on this line, as my hon. Friend said; it was redoubled in the early 1990s, as was the line from Kemble to Swindon. That had huge benefits, because it now takes just 12 minutes to travel from Kemble to Swindon, and reduces journey times from Cheltenham to Swindon to London.

The redoubling of the Cotswold line will increase the number of services along the line for the entire journey. Timetable changes in December 2019 were a milestone, because trains on that line now deliver an hourly service throughout the day. The trains are less crowded, with more capacity and, above all, faster journey times. The new timetable has been welcomed locally, but further investment is required to take it on to the next stage—for rail services to meet the long-term needs of the region which, as my hon. Friend said, is growing both economically and in population terms.

Relative to other regions, this is still a slow journey. The journey from Worcester to London, for example, which is 120 miles, has an end-to-end speed of just 57 mph, compared with the speed from equivalent towns such as Leamington Spa, at 76 mph; Bath, at 77 mph; Swindon, at a very fast 84 mph; and Rugby, at 99 mph. This is a slow service at the moment, and much could be done to improve it.

The journey time between Paddington and Worcester Shrub Hill—120 miles—takes between 1 hour 59 minutes and an appalling 2 hours 40 minutes, which is slow when considering that frequent trains throughout the day can reach Oxford from London in just over 50 minutes. The extra bit, which is another half of the journey, takes well over an hour. It is unacceptable that people travelling beyond Oxford are expected to travel on a second-class, slower service, as the train slows down significantly from Oxford.

The redoubling of the line that I worked to secure has improved the journey time, but the faster trains have to slow down through the single-line sections. Suggestions put forward by the Cotswold Line Promotion Group and the North Cotswold Line Taskforce would mean two trains per hour travelling through Worcestershire, the Cotswolds, Oxford and to London. Option 5, as my hon. Friend said, would see further redoubling from Wolvercote to Hanborough, in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Witney, and eventually a 5-mile stretch between Evesham and Pershore, producing faster journey times of less than two hours between Worcester and London. Minister, that is the ultimate goal; a city of the size, importance and distance from London of Worcester ought to have a rail service of less than two hours.

I am sure the Minister knows—my hon. Friends certainly know—that the line currently operates on both diesel and electric modes. A long-term aim, which would be a game changer, is to fully electrify the line from Oxford to Worcester, but that is not the subject of this particular study. Making the journey faster and more environmentally efficient is most important. I am sorry to tell this tale, but it is absolutely true: I recently caught a very old train from Norwich to Sheringham, and frankly it was like travelling on a moving, polluting factory—the diesel emissions were so bad. The ultimate aim must surely be to phase out all diesel trains in this country. If we want to get rid of the internal combustion engine—petrol and diesel cars—by 2040, we must have a plan to get rid of diesel trains as well.

As my hon. Friend said, the business case for redoubling the Cotswold line is compelling, with more frequent, faster services helping to generate nearly 400,000 new passenger trips each year. An investment of £199 million would have economic benefits of £33 million gross value added per year, and would support 750 new jobs. The operating costs put forward offer efficient rolling stock utilisation, with improved use of the existing fleet and efficient redistribution to match supply with demand.

Such improvements would hugely benefit my constituents who use the North Cotswold line. Moreton-in-Marsh is a growing town that has already seen considerable growth, mainly due to its actually having a station. I recently helped the Fire Service College—a national institution in my constituency—obtain a £500 million contract with the Ministry of Defence to train defence fire and rescue workers, which will help to secure an additional 100 jobs. The Fire Service College critically depends on the Cotswold line.

In addition, as my hon. Friend says, the Cotswolds is an important area of outstanding natural beauty, attracting some 38 million domestic and international tourists a year, generating £1 billion a year for the Cotswolds economy. I might add that that is not only my constituency; there are 17 constituencies in the Cotswolds. For the Cotswolds to be accessible and to retain this industry, it must have strong, sustainable, green transport links that offer an alternative to road-based traffic. For the Government to achieve their targets, as set out in the 25-year environment plan, including meeting the legally binding targets to reduce emissions of five damaging air pollutants and ending the sale of conventional petrol and diesel cars and vans by 2040, more investment is needed.

The Cotswold line improvements will link-in with the Elizabeth line, which is significant to my constituents, as well as those of my hon. Friends the Members for West Worcestershire and for Witney. At the moment, the journey to Heathrow is so difficult that I should think that well over 90% of my constituents choose to travel there by car. However, with an improved Cotswold line, meaning that they can get to Oxford and then Reading, and can then use the fast Elizabeth line from Reading straight into Heathrow, I am sure that more of them will change their mode of travel from car to rail. If we do not keep improving these railway lines and connectivity, many of our roads will simply clog up, which cannot be good for the environment.

Overall, this project delivers very high value for money—my hon. Friend the Member for West Worcestershire mentioned a benefit-cost ratio of 4:1; I believe that the actual figure is 4.46:1, so it is nearer 5:1—and will support economic and population growth, tourism, connectivity to London and other regions, access to jobs and reductions in road congestion. We are talking about enhancing rural but economically competitive areas, such as the Cotswolds, that are currently being restrained—constrained—by the transport connectivity with other areas. Other strategic options such as train lengthening, road investment, platform lengthening and other railway projects in the region would all help to achieve those objectives.

My final sentence will be to repeat to the Minister the plea made by my hon. Friend the Member for West Worcestershire. We need from this debate only half the cost of doing a feasibility study—a mere £1.5 million. Considering the other requests that will be made, that is absolute chicken feed.

[Mark Garnier (Wyre Forest) (Con)]

I did not originally intend to speak in this debate. One notable thing about this place is that quite often Members of Parliament stand up to speak because although everything has already been said, not everyone has already said it; so I will try to avoid repeating the incredibly excellent points made by my hon. Friend the Member for West Worcestershire (Harriett Baldwin)—my own MP—who initiated the debate, which is a really important one for the local economy, and by my hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds (Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown). Both have interests in this matter, because the track runs through their constituencies, and they are working extraordinarily hard to champion this scheme. However, the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for West Worcestershire about it affecting other constituencies is incredibly important. Although Wyre Forest is in the northern part of Worcestershire, it will benefit very significantly from the opportunity created by the doubling of the track.

I want to make just a couple of points. I raised in an intervention on my hon. Friend the interest of the Greater Birmingham and Solihull local enterprise partnership. I did not want to catch her unawares with that, but it struck me that the more people we get behind this scheme, the better it is in terms of making the business case for what is not actually a very big ask from the group involved. Because the Greater Birmingham and Solihull LEP also covers the northern part of Worcestershire—Wyre Forest, Redditch and Bromsgrove—it takes in two of the stations that will benefit, Droitwich Spa and Kidderminster, which will benefit from being able to feed into this line through Worcester. Therefore there is an economic interest for that LEP and I will certainly make representations to it in order that it throws its weight behind the scheme.

My other point is on the benefit to local economies. If people look at the economies along this track and to the north, going towards the Black Country, they will see that we suffer from a number of different things, one of which is lower than average regional wages, particularly in Wyre Forest; that is something I have been particularly aware of. One thing that we are trying to do in the whole of Worcestershire, through the Worcestershire LEP, is to attract more businesses into the area and therefore bring up training, productivity, wages and general wealth and wellbeing for the county. It is well known that the best way to do that is to create infrastructure links. People will not be attracted to come to a county if they cannot get their workers in and the training in and their products in and out, and rail is certainly an incredibly important part of that. And if we free up the road networks by having more people travelling by rail, that benefits the economy as well as the environment. It is incredibly important that we all throw our weight behind this scheme, for so many different reasons, and it is incredibly important that we are having this debate now.

I shall ask just one question. There is obviously the rather peculiar debate going on at the moment about the £105 billion that is being put into HS2. That is not without controversy, and I do not particularly want to make a controversial speech, but I remember that when I was on the Treasury Committee a few years ago, we did an investigation into the value of spending what was then £52 billion, if I remember rightly—I think it was actually lower than that, but let us say that it was £52 billion—on HS2. Were we actually going to get value for money out of it? There was a very strong argument for it, and Andy Street, the Mayor of Birmingham, is arguing very vehemently in favour of that part of HS2 going up to Birmingham—I would agree with him on that.

However, the interesting question now is this. If we were to start the argument from the other end and say that we had £105 billion to spend on the rail network, would we build HS2 or would we spend that money on exactly this type of project and, indeed, other projects whereby we could extend reach down to places such as the far west or to East Anglia and other parts of the country that will not benefit from HS2? I think it is worth using this debate to highlight that point. Although HS2 is a very exciting project, it is not necessarily what we would have spent £105 billion on if we had started with the offer of the money. We may well have started by spending it on this type of project in order to get more—

[Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way, but I think we should not forget that the schemes that we are talking about here are in addition to HS2. This Government are spending £48 billion on the railways on precisely these sorts of schemes. Even if we release the money for HS2, money is still available for these sorts of schemes.

[Mark Garnier]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I am not suggesting that we should scrap HS2 to pay for this scheme. He is absolutely right: we need to do an awful lot of different things. I was just trying to give a slightly different viewpoint on the whole HS2 argument. Actually, I think interregional connectivity is the most important point.

I will not take up any more of the House’s time; as I said, this is a really important debate. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for West Worcestershire for initiating the debate. The scheme is really important. It will make a big difference to a lot of constituencies that are not on the track but will benefit. My hon. Friend and everyone who represents a constituency along the track can 100% rely on my support for the scheme and my support in trying to get the Greater Birmingham and Solihull LEP to come in behind it as well.

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[Matt Rodda]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for mentioning Crossrail, because it is important that we think about the integration between London stopping services and the wider countryside beyond London and beyond major towns and cities.

The taskforce made a convincing case for track doubling on parts of the line, as we have heard. Currently, the single-track line on parts of the route does have an impact on the quality of services. What is proposed would come at a cost, but, as we have heard, with a very high benefit to cost ratio. It is worth noting—certainly we have noted—the very high benefit to cost ratio, at 4.46:1. That is unusually high, so the hon. Lady and other colleagues have made a very good point on that, and I hope the Minister considers the relative strength of the case.

The enhancements would also allow an increase in the speed and frequency of services along the line, as we have heard. The taskforce’s business case pointed out that the benefits would be felt by not only passengers, but the local economy. I think it quantified that at about £33 million annually for the economy and the area, and there would also be the creation of about 750 new jobs, which is quite a substantial benefit. We need to consider what this scheme means in real terms to the area, as well as to the wider network and the country as a whole.

It is obviously now up to the Department to look at the scheme—I urge it to do so seriously—and to decide whether to include it in its pipeline of enhancements and to commence the development stage, which, as we have heard from hon. Members, is the next step. Moving the scheme on to that phase will require an additional £3 million initially.

This scheme exemplifies how investments in public transport can bring massive benefit to communities across the country, but that should not be the preserve of just some areas. There should be a system-wide examination of the benefits of this type of scheme for all the UK. Investment in rail should stretch across all nations and regions of the UK. We hope, as hon. Members have described, that that will support other local economies, in counties, groups of towns and cities around Britain, and deal with the problem of rising inequality.

[Graham Stringer in the Chair]

Increased investment in rail is required to tackle air pollution and the climate crisis, as the hon. Member for The Cotswolds (Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) mentioned. According to the Government’s climate change advisory body, the Committee on Climate Change, the Government are not on track to meet their emissions targets, which themselves are insufficiently ambitious to meet the objectives we all have set ourselves.

Transport, as was rightly mentioned, is the most emitting and worst-performing sector of the economy. It is an obvious target for us. There is a potential benefit economically and environmentally, and the hon. Gentleman made that point eloquently. Despite improving technology, transport emissions are rising. There is a serious risk of over-emphasising road transport—with the road schemes in the pipeline currently highlighted by the Government—rather than rail, which is a low-emitting sector.

If the Government are serious about cutting emissions, they must put their money where their mouth is. Unfortunately, Government policy in the last decade has taken us in the wrong direction. Regulated rail fares have risen by over 40% since 2010—more than 2.5 times the rate of increase in median wages. At the same time, overcrowding has increased, and reliability has declined. Rail travel is becoming unaffordable for many people, who are priced off the railway. Those who do travel by rail have to spend more of their income in real terms.

The policies Labour presented at the general election would address many of these issues. That complements my point about investment in particular parts of the country. Bringing the railway back into public ownership would improve services and deal with the timetabling chaos suffered by communities in the north of England last year. We would also have cut regulated rail fares by 33% from January 2020 and delivered a simple London-style ticketing system, which I am sure residents in the north Cotswolds would much appreciate as they travel in and out of the south-east or across their region.

Other countries are already tackling these issues. In Germany, where the railway is under public ownership, the Government recently made a substantial cut in rail fares, specifically as a climate protection measure. That complements expanding rail provision in under-served parts of the country. I would like the Minister to consider that approach. I hope he will take note of my points today in the same way I am sure he will take note of the specific regional issues in the north Cotswolds.

I hope the Minister will consider other policies where I believe we have the wrong balance between rail and other modes of transport. For example, the Government have repeatedly frozen fuel duty for private vehicles and, effectively, air passenger duty, at the same time as allowing rail fares to rise and cutting subsidies for buses. As the hon. Member for The Cotswolds hinted, there is a wider issue of connectivity to other public transport services, both into London and within shires, including better bus services. What steps will the Minister take to reduce the cost of rail travel, and reconsider the balance between rail and other modes of transport?

[Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

The hon. Gentleman is making an important point about connectivity. We worked hard in Moreton-in-Marsh to try to get the local bus service to coincide with the arrival and departure of trains. We are also working hard on getting trains to coincide with bicycle hire, so that people can arrive at Moreton-in-Marsh from London, hire a bicycle with their family, have a day out in the beautiful Cotswolds and then take the train home again.

[Matt Rodda]

The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point about connectivity to bicycle hire. Cycling can be supported by sensible policies that promote it and link it to rail travel and bus use. As I am standing in as shadow Minister for local transport, I refer him to the recent Labour manifesto on those matters. At least as a fellow cyclist, it is worth considering the need for greater investment in cycling.

I understand the Minister is interested in reversing some of the Beeching cuts. There is some merit in exploring that, but it must be matched by funding. Conservative Members and my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford East have articulated the need for funding. I urge the Minister to look at the broader funding envelope for the Department and the relative weighting of spending on rail as opposed to road. He may want to shed some light on various aspects of that, particularly his plans to reopen branch lines in addition to dualing existing railway lines.

If the Government are serious about boosting rail connectivity, the Minister must look at the pot of money the Government have available for road enhancements, which is taken from hypothecated money from vehicle excise duty. There is an argument for spending some of that on public transport. We have already suggested that a proportion of it be spent on subsidising bus use, which has recently declined, but there might also be a good case for some of that funding to be hypothecated for rail, considering the obvious points that have been made, as rail can often provide an excellent alternative for rural residents who wish to make long journeys and avoid our congested motorway network. Sadly, at the moment, we are not following the right approach, and we need to look at that balance again.

I commend Conservative Members for highlighting the needs within the north Cotswold area. They have made an excellent point about their railway line. I urge the Minister to consider the weighting of Government spending. I hope he will address such points and the wider package of support for branch lines and other smaller rail routes. I urge him to reconsider, to make a commitment to boost investment in the railway significantly and to cut fares to make rail travel more attractive.

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[Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

The Minister will know that there is new rolling stock on the Cotswolds line itself, and my constituents have well and truly noted the difference.

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

Yes, indeed. I am pleased to hear they have noted the difference, because, at the end of the day, these are relatively expensive vehicles, so it is nice to know that they are worth what we pay for them and provide good value for money for the taxpayer.

My hon. Friend the Member for Wyre Forest (Mark Garnier) is no longer in his place; he apologised for leaving, but he had to go to another meeting. He wisely made the point that the Department for Transport needs as much stakeholder involvement in these schemes as possible. It would therefore be good if he could prod the local enterprise partnership for Greater Birmingham and Solihull to provide support, because the scheme would benefit this whole geographical area. My hon. Friend also made some points about High Speed 2, but that is not part of my brief, and it is a bit controversial, so I will duck that one completely.

There were other contributions, including interventions. Brief contributions were made by the hon. Member for Oxford East (Anneliese Dodds). It is very kind of her to come along and support her “hon. Friends” on the Government side, and there are a lot of hon. Friends on the Government side, including the Parliamentary Private Secretary for the Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Robert Courts), who has been itching to speak in the debate, but who has not been allowed to. However, it is fair to say that there is a voice close to the Department that is very positive about the benefits that can flow from this debate and indeed from the improvements to this line.

Then there is the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Reading East (Matt Rodda). We have never really tangled in debate before, so I welcome him to his position—I believe he has been elevated or, at the very least, that his brief now encompasses more things. Everything that I have heard about him leads me to believe he is an honourable and decent man who actually wants to improve our railways and has some sensible suggestions to do that. I look forward to engaging with him on this issue.

The shadow Minister obviously knows a lot about our railways, so I am sure he has seen that there is a huge amount of investment in them. As my hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds said, £48 billion will be invested in this five-year control period. That is a huge amount to improve our existing railways, quite apart from the huge schemes on the cards to build new capacity around the country.

The shadow Minister also made a point about fares. I have seen what has been going on in Germany, but I remind him that, in this country, 98p of every pound spent in fares is reinvested back into transport and specifically into the railways. So someone’s fare—any fare—is almost an investment in the railways themselves. However, there is a debate to be had about this issue. I welcome that debate, and I look forward to debating this issue with him.

The shadow Minister made a number of points about the road networks and other things that are way beyond my brief. Just as with one of the points raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Wyre Forest, I will duck those issues in today’s debate and stick to the issue we are here to discuss.

Having said that, there was a point about cycling, which is in my brief, even if it is not part of this debate. I just wanted to back up the point my hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds made about how we can connect cycling to the railways so much more than we do currently. Last week, I was privileged to go to the Cycle Rail Awards. Yes, there is such an event; it is a proper, red-carpet event—nothing but the best for the Rail Minister. It was really encouraging to see all the cycling schemes now being delivered up and down our railways, increasing capacity so that people can cycle to the railway and park their bicycle. There are also schemes whereby people can rent cycles. People can come out of a city and rent a cycle to enjoy the countryside, before returning the bike at the end of the day—please. There is a lot of investment in this area as well, so it was good to hear it being highlighted in the debate.

However, I guess I should actually talk about the meat of this debate. My hon. Friend the Member for West Worcestershire presented a typically eloquent and persuasive argument for investment in the railway line between Oxford and Worcester. Although the debate is about the transformation of the North Cotswold line, it would be remiss of me not to begin by remarking on the renaissance the route has experienced over the last 10 years—my hon. Friend alluded to it in her speech, and it is quite spectacular.

At one stage in the 1970s, there was just one through train to London from Worcester each day, which meant the line lived up to its nickname of “Old, Worse and Worse”. From that low point, the route and the services on it have all seen slow—quite slow—but steady improvement. Now, thanks to the sterling efforts of the Cotswold Line Promotion Group and the North Cotswold Line Taskforce, it is going from strength to strength.

The real catalyst for the revival of the route was the Government’s investment in 2012, which reinstated sections of double-track railway that had previously been cut back—my hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds was vociferous in campaigning for that to happen. The increase in capacity was made to improve performance on the route. However, it also enabled Great Western Railway to gradually introduce progressive enhancement of train services.

Fast forward to 2019 and we have seen more investment from the Government in the North Cotswold route and across the whole Great Western Railway network. We are investing over £5 billion to deliver better services and new trains, with thousands more seats, improving over 100 million rail journeys each year and stimulating—as all my hon. Friends have alluded to—economic growth from London through the Thames valley to the Cotswolds, as well as to the west country and south Wales. Our investment has provided 4,900 extra seats into London in the peak hour, which is a 40% increase in capacity.