Rail-Air Connectivity (South-East)

Henry Smith Excerpts

Tuesday 26th June 2012 Westminster Hall

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

Once again, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Williams. I am grateful to have the opportunity to raise the issue of improving rail-air connectivity for London and the south-east. As a successful trading nation, we rely on aviation, and our commerce relies on connectivity. In the brief time that I have, I want to concentrate on the importance of air-rail connectivity for the world’s busiest two-terminal, one-runway airport.

The Government’s economic strategy rightly wants to see improved links with emerging markets. UK businesses trade 20 times as much with countries where there are daily flights than with those with less frequent or no direct services. Ministers correctly want to boost growth through increasing inward investment and boosting exports. Improved international connectivity is therefore critical. Gatwick airport’s recent investment programme has made it a credible competitor to London Heathrow airport.

My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister was quite correct when he recently said that, under new ownership, Gatwick is emerging as a business airport for London, competing with Heathrow. The airport has recently invested £1.2 billion in facilities. In April, it announced proposals to invest a further £1 billion from 2014 to 2019. All of the money is going into making Gatwick a better, not a bigger, airport. Today, Heathrow, the UK’s largest and major hub airport is effectively full. Whether further capacity should be provided is a debate for another day. However, Gatwick is not full. At times of peak demand, such as in August, there are constraints, but, averaged out over the year, Gatwick currently operates at approximately 78% of capacity. There is potential for a further 11 million passengers to use Gatwick every year—a 25% increase on today’s levels, and a new runway is not needed to accommodate such numbers.

If Gatwick has airport capacity that can be used, the question becomes how do we best utilise that. There is no doubt that Gatwick faces a competitive disadvantage in taking on Heathrow to deliver this connectivity. Gatwick is not a “hub” airport. In pure economic terms, “hub” airports are more attractive to airlines than point-to-point airports. Although, under current market and capacity conditions, Gatwick could not become a “hub”, it is competing, and it is serving routes that are traditionally the preserve of Heathrow. It is at best simplistic, and at worst fundamentally inaccurate, to suggest that because Heathrow is full, there is no alternative in terms of enhancing the UK’s international connectivity to emerging markets.

Surface transport links are key to airline choice and can encourage full use of existing capacity. At present, Gatwick is engaging directly with Governments and national carriers in emerging markets, and asking them what it will take for new routes to the UK to be established. They hear time and again that airlines want to come to London, and that their choice of airports rests on available capacity, suitable facilities and, crucially, the airports’ surface connectivity to London. If we want new international air links to the emerging markets, good rail access to the airports that can provide them is critical.

The UK national infrastructure plan rightly recognises the national role that London’s airports have in increasing economic output and in enabling business to access new and larger markets. Indeed the NIP has identified Gatwick’s current £1.2 billion capital investment programme as one of the country’s top 40 infrastructure projects. It also outlines that the Government will

“improve road and rail links to the UK’s international gateways to help maximise the efficiency and competitiveness of the whole transport network.”

A £53 million upgrade of Gatwick rail station is already under-way. It will deliver much-needed additional platform capacity, concourse improvements and local track and signal infrastructure.

The focus now is on the services that run in and out of Gatwick station. Gatwick is already the home of the busiest airport railway station in the UK with more than 10 million passengers every year, and proportionally more people travel by rail to and from the airport than any other major UK airport. There is already a substantial growth in forecast demand. Along with Gatwick’s substantive growth, the number of ordinary commuters who use the same rail links is forecast to grow by 29% by 2026. The Brighton main line, which is effectively Gatwick’s main rail artery, is near capacity, and peak services on the line were already at almost 80% back in 2009.

The new Thameslink project will help the airport. Already, it is quicker to get to the City of London from Gatwick than from Heathrow. The airport should see a doubling in train frequency from 2018 through Thameslink, and someone living in, for example, Peterborough or Cambridge will be able to go directly to Gatwick by rail for the first time. It is partly due to this Government’s decision to progress the Thameslink upgrade project that we will see clear improvements in north-south links to and from the airport. However, further improvements are necessary.

A consistent implication from Ministers has been that the welcome improvements that Thameslink will bring are sufficient to deliver the improved rail connectivity and capacity that Gatwick will need in future. In my view, a far more holistic approach to improvement needs to be taken and, in particular, one that takes into account just how central high-quality express services from Gatwick to London Victoria are to the airport’s growth.

[Zac Goldsmith (Richmond Park) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. Does he agree that many of his arguments relating to Gatwick also apply to airports such as Stansted, which have masses of spare capacity and many millions of unused passenger journeys, but which, like Gatwick, suffer from very poor transport links, and that, if they were improved, they would transform an unattractive airport into a very attractive one and a potential alternative business hub?

[Henry Smith]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention. I apologise if my contribution seems a little parochial in its concentration on Gatwick, but the points relating to Gatwick are replicated for other airports, not just in London and the south-east, but around the country.

Over the past few years, Gatwick has lost direct links to Oxford, Birmingham, Manchester, Watford and Kent and, importantly, due to decisions taken by the previous Government, the Gatwick Express is now under threat. On-board ticketing has been discontinued, and 25-year-old carriages have replaced new ones.

[Iain Stewart (Milton Keynes South) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. He has highlighted the important point that the rolling stock that is now used on the Gatwick Express is inadequate for airport passengers because there is insufficient luggage space, and wheelchair access is difficult. The irony is that that stock has replaced purpose-built stock, which has been cascaded elsewhere on the network. I urge my hon. Friend to impress on the Government that when we argue for the Gatwick Express to be a dedicated franchise or part of a broader franchise, there should be flexibility to have appropriate rolling stock to make it an attractive airport link.

[Henry Smith]

My hon. Friend raises an erudite point. It is incredible that purpose-built rolling stock for the Gatwick express is now elsewhere on the network and that, as he rightly points out, unsuitable carriages are used. The matter is even worse because the Gatwick Express starts many of its journeys in Brighton, and by the time those carriages have reached Gatwick station, particularly at peak times, they are already full, and arriving air passengers cannot get a seat on what is supposed to be a dedicated service to London. Additionally, Network Rail is proposing a further stop for the Gatwick Express at Clapham Junction, which would be a retrograde step. It would threaten Gatwick's ability to compete with Heathrow, and because of that, reduce its potential for growth.

Passengers are noticing the trend. Already, the Gatwick Express ranks below its equivalents at Heathrow and Stansted, and is at the bottom of comparative league tables for other services, behind airports such as Heathrow, Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur and Stockholm. Gatwick is not effectively connected to locations to the east and west of the airport either, with no direct rail service to and from Kent. Trains have to go via London, meaning that the 2 million passengers from Kent who use the airport every year cannot reach it directly.

The new Southern-Thameslink franchise must deliver improvements to the Gatwick Express. In December 2009, the Government announced that they were inviting tenders for new franchises for the south-east region from 2015. The new service will integrate those currently operated by First Capital Connect and Southern, including the Gatwick Express. From 2015, nearly all rail links in and out of Gatwick will be operated by one company, with the exception of a direct link to Reading. We currently have the unique opportunity to address many of the issues.

Preserving the Gatwick Express is a priority. It should be recreated as an all-day, dedicated service between Gatwick and London, to support Gatwick’s role as a key economic driver for London, the south-east and the UK economy as a whole. To guarantee its success, bidders for the franchise should be required to outline a vision of how both the quality of the journey and the range of direct routes to and from Gatwick can be improved. In addition to the invitation to tender for the new franchise including direct express rail services to London from the airport, there must also be a clear requirement for fit-for-purpose rolling stock that caters for the needs of air passengers—so ably pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes South (Iain Stewart)—as it is clear from Gatwick’s research that the current stock is not. Gatwick is particularly concerned about the installation of ticket gates at the airport railway station and the removal of on-board ticketing adversely affecting passenger experiences.

In the long term, the requirements in the recent rail Command Paper need to be implemented. The paper states that during the next regulatory cycle Network Rail and the broader rail industry should look at how best to improve surface access to major airports. Network Rail should, as part of its development of the south-east’s rail network, take advantage of the new capacity that the Thameslink programme will provide from 2018, to reorganise the way in which lines running though Gatwick are used. Gatwick’s plans for long-term infrastructure improvements deliver a win-win solution for commuters and air passengers alike. The line that supports Gatwick’s direct rail links into London is important for both air passengers and local commuters, and the airport is not suggesting that the needs of the airport outweigh those of the everyday user.

I note that the Office of Rail Regulation has projected that, independently of air travel, passenger numbers on the main line running in and out of Gatwick could grow by 29% by 2026. The office believes that Gatwick airport’s technical proposal would allow for the needs of both sets of users. This is not an either/or choice for the Government, but a solution for all.

The plans that Gatwick has published support the growth of the airport and help to ensure a better experience for the ordinary commuter using the same rail links. They provide adequate capacity for the projected growth of both sets of users, and help to deliver the connectivity that the national economy needs. In essence, they meet the needs of most user groups, and the interests that Ministers should consider.

There would be substantial benefit to the Treasury, too, because air-rail users pay a premium. Gatwick Express users reduce Government subsidies by £27 million every year, lessening the burden on the taxpayer. More users would mean less taxpayer money being spent on the network, and keeping the service as a non-stop one would allow a further £6 million to be saved by reducing journey times.

Direct rail links to Gatwick would help to improve the environment for inward investment in the south-east, because 51% of potential investors cite international transport links as an important factor in deciding where to locate. Easy rail access to airports means better links to key export markets. In the short term, Gatwick’s proposals would greatly assist the airport in marketing itself internationally to airlines operating from emerging markets, because a high-quality, dedicated rail link is key in their decision-making process. In that way, improved rail links would help efforts better to manage the capacity shortages that airports in the south-east face, and which have the potential to hamper our economy.