Midland Main Line (Electrification)

Debate between Harry Harpham and Clive Betts

Wednesday 16th September 2015 Westminster Hall

[Harry Harpham (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered electrification of the Midland Main Line.

There is no doubting the critical need for the country to keep its rail network up to date. Over the past 20 years, passenger numbers have doubled. Between 1997 and 2010, the number of inter-city trains went up from 580 per day to 1,228 per day. Current growth in use stands at 4%, and total movement of freight by rail is rising by 2.5% per year. With demand growing as it is, it is entirely understandable that there is cross-party consensus on the need for bold and ambitious upgrade works.

On the midland main line specifically, Leicester, Nottingham and Derby are all experiencing passenger growth at rates above the national average, and demand for rail in the east midlands as a whole is expected to rise by 16% by 2019. Coupled with that is the chronic lack of investment in the line over the past two decades when compared with other routes.

From anyone’s perspective, electrification is the next logical step for the rail network. Compared with a traditional service, an electrified line is more cost efficient, greener, thanks to reduced carbon emissions, and served by better rolling stock. There are also benefits in terms of reliability, connectivity, capacity and economic growth.

To take the midland main line as a specific example, electrifying the line from Bedford to Sheffield could cut carbon emissions by 13,000 tonnes per year. The project would also provide the higher W10 gauge clearance along the whole route, making it more accessible for freight, so there would be a further indirect environmental benefit, as the growing demand for freight could be met, taking more lorries off the roads. To give a rough idea of that benefit, on a traditional service a gallon of diesel will carry 1 tonne of freight 246 miles by rail as opposed to 88 miles by road; on an electrified line, of course, the environmental benefits would be even greater.

As for the economic benefits, it has been estimated that by cutting the costs of rolling stock, energy, track access and maintenance, electrification will cut rail industry costs by over £60 million per year, reducing the cost of the railway to the taxpayer. The midland main line serves one of the fastest growing areas of England, and a report prepared for east midlands councils and the South Yorkshire Passenger Transport Executive by the consultancy firm Arup estimated that electrification would generate £450 million-worth of wider economic benefits. If the Government want to get serious about growing our economic potential outside the south-east and giving the northern powerhouse brand some substance, as a starting point they will have to commit to funding the midland main line project, as well as the TransPennine route upgrade.

Lack of investment in infrastructure has been one of the key restraints on growth outside London. In 2013-14 expenditure per head on transport capital was £166 in the north, whereas in London it was £332. Treasury figures published earlier in the year show that planned infrastructure expenditure on transport in real terms from 2015-16 is £2,604 per head in London, but only £391 per head in Yorkshire and the Humber, and just £346 per head in the east midlands. The lack of transport investment means that cities and towns in the north cannot link up into a single economy. Instead, we are still operating as single units and are not able to build up the economic scale and weight that would allow us to play to our strengths and complete globally.

The midland main line might feature only as a footnote in most discussions of the northern powerhouse, if it features at all—and I certainly do not want to get into a debate about what counts as “the north”, which might keep us all here a lot longer than we would like—but it is a vital link in the chain that will help with the Government’s stated objective of rebalancing the north-south divide. Without it, Sheffield and Nottingham will be left as the only core cities without a direct electrified connection to London.

In fact, the midland main line has the best business case of any major electrification scheme, including the Great Western main line. The Department for Transport’s own figures show a benefit-cost ratio of between 4.7:1 and 7.2:1 for the midland main line,

“dependent on train length and train type”,

compared with a ratio of 2.36:1 for the Great Western main line.

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend think there is a slight irony in the fact that, as he says quite rightly, the midland main line has a better business case than the Great Western main line—and arguably than some of the works on the west coast main line over the years—but electrification of the line has been paused as a direct result of the overspend on the Great Western main line?

[Harry Harpham]

I agree 100%. My hon. Friend makes an important point; the midland main line work is paused not because of the business case for the line, which everyone agrees is probably the best of the lot, but because of overspend in other areas.

[Harry Harpham]

Again I agree wholeheartedly; I could not have put it better myself. When I go about meeting business leaders, council leaders and civic leaders across the east midlands and Yorkshire, and right up into the north, that point is made constantly.

By now, we are used to hearing about Ministers’ ambition for the north and for the electrification of the rail network, but in reality, in both cases there is a lack of drive to push through the work needed if that ambition is ever to amount to anything. That is why Labour has been calling on the Government to recommence the suspended work on the midland main line and TransPennine routes. Last month, Rail Business Intelligence reported that the Government had instructed Network Rail to “unpause” the electrification of the TransPennine route. As far as I am aware, that is just a rumour, but I would be grateful if the Minister provided some clarification. If true, it would be a welcome development, but of course it raises a question for the Minister: why not the midland main line too?

By calling the suspension “a pause”, the Secretary of State is trying to downplay the potential consequences. The word implies that it will be only a brief time before everything gets going again, and that work will resume as if nothing had happened. In reality, delays in large infrastructure projects always have cost implications—just look at Crossrail. The same story is beginning to play out in this case, too. Philip Rutnam, the permanent secretary at the Department for Transport, told the Transport Committee in July that the principal issue that led to the suspension of work on the midland main line was cost. Network Rail’s initial estimate, in 2013, for the cost of electrifying the midland main line was £540 million. By December 2014, that figure was £1.3 billion. When the work was paused, £250 million had already been spent on contracts for ancillary works, such as rebuilding bridges. Some of Network Rail’s resources have already been transferred to other projects, making it harder and more expensive for the work to get going again. Further delays will only increase the bill.

There are knock-on effects, too. The doubt the suspension has thrown up has led to questions about what rolling stock will operate on the line. There are worries that, assuming electrification does go ahead, the current 1970s-vintage InterCity 125 trains will be replaced by transferred east coast class 91 locomotives, which have poor acceleration; in fact, with those trains, some long distance journeys would take longer than they do at present. So far, the Department for Transport has made no public statement about the specification of the rolling stock that will be used on the midland main line, and I hope the Minister will be able to rectify that.

[Mr Betts]

I apologise, because I will have to leave before the end of the debate, as I have explained to the Chair. On timing, is it not crucial that the high-speed trains on the midland main line are replaced by 2020 because of issues over disability? Equally, Stagecoach’s franchise has just been extended to 2018, but there will have to be certainty about whether electrification goes ahead, because, as my hon. Friend says, that will affect the future rolling stock for the new franchise.

[Harry Harpham]

Once again, my hon. Friend is absolutely right.

The recent invitations to tender for the Northern and TransPennine Express franchises have been framed to ensure that they cater for Sheffield’s economic growth requirements. However, it will be possible to meet those needs only with additional diesel-powered rolling stock made available from recently electrified routes.

The ongoing uncertainty over the future of the midland main line work is putting other projects in jeopardy. Those projects go beyond just the midland main line electrification. Some involve improvement works, which are to be delivered alongside electrification. Some £200 million has been set aside for improvements such as the remodelling of Derby station, the straightening of the curve through Market Harborough station and the four-tracking of the line from Bedford to Kettering and Corby. The Secretary of State has suggested that those works could go ahead independently of electrification, but the Department has failed to clarify whether they are still to happen.

There is one final side effect of the suspension. Skills providers have been gearing up to provide apprenticeships associated with the upgrade work, but those are now in doubt too. When the Select Committee asked the Secretary of State about that, he said that, although he was not able to give a precise number for those affected, he felt it was a key point, and he hoped to be in a better position to answer the next time he appeared before the Committee. I do not wish to usurp the Committee’s role, but is the Minister aware of any progress that has been made in quantifying the impact?

I do not wish to rake over the next point, but it is worth repeating that the Secretary of State had plenty of warning that the electrification projects were likely to run into substantial difficulties. As early as June last year, Network Rail told the South Yorkshire Passenger Transport Executive that there would be difficulties in getting the midland main line work done to the relevant timescale. Last year, as a matter of urgency, the Secretary of State commissioned a report on the state of Network Rail’s electrification programme, which he received in September. The Department has refused to publish the report, so we can only assume that it contained warnings of future problems.

In November, Network Rail began to compile a list of the projects at risk. In January, the Select Committee gave an explicit warning about projects being announced without a clear idea of where the funding would come from. It is vital that the Government get a grip on the situation. The Secretary of State has said he is waiting for Sir Peter Hendy’s review, but while he waits for it to give him a solution, the problem is getting worse. He needs to provide a clear commitment to restart work on the midland main line as soon as possible, and that should be backed by a clear timetable under which the project will resume. Otherwise, the uncertainty will mount, and, for all the talk of ambition, the very real fear will remain that the pause will turn into a cancellation.

We need only look at the Hendy review’s terms of reference to see that that is not scaremongering. The review states that

“work that cannot be afforded, or is not deliverable, between 2014 and 2019 is profiled for delivery beyond 2019”—

and then, the key phrase—

“pending availability of funding”.

Taken by itself, that might be dismissed as back covering, but taken with the Department’s recent letter to Network Rail, preparing it for further Treasury-mandated budget cuts of potentially £1.5 billion, it suggests that the ground is being quietly prepared for cancellation. Assuming the rumours about work on TransPennine restarting are true, I am left wondering whether that project has been saved to provide talk about the northern powerhouse with some credibility, while the midland main line is to be ditched as too costly.