East Anglia Rail Franchise

James Cartlidge Excerpts

Wednesday 16th December 2015 Commons Chamber

[James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St Edmunds (Jo Churchill) on calling for this debate at such a timely moment. I associate myself with the comments of all my right hon. and hon. Friends about the importance of this franchise to the future of our regional economy.

I want to focus on one specific and increasingly infamous incident on our railway line in East Anglia in recent weeks. In fact, it is so infamous it has now earned its own title—leafgate. It was the recent closure of two branch lines in Suffolk for 13 days as a result of leaves on the line. The key thing is that they were closed not because of leaves on those lines but because of leaves on other lines in Suffolk, meaning that there were not enough diesel engines to go around. The lines from Sudbury to Marks Tey and from Felixstowe to Ipswich were closed because they were the easiest to close. Try telling that to passengers spending thousands of pounds a year on their season tickets!

We were given very good excuses by Abellio Greater Anglia for this debacle, and I am sure that it had very good reasons. It said that there was unprecedented leaf fall creating unprecedentedly strong leaf mulch, which meant that our relatively old diesel trains could not cope and were taken out of service. The whole problem came down to the fact that when they had to go to the depots, the only places with a wheel lathe that could fix them were in Derby and Ilford, not in East Anglia.

This has been a very disappointing and depressing episode, particularly for my constituents in Sudbury. Sudbury is the largest town in my constituency and it has the only railway station in my constituency. While I accept the importance of the main line—my constituents use Colchester, Manningtree and Ipswich in large numbers—Sudbury has our only station. Sudbury is a very proud town. We have had a difficult year. We had a massive fire this summer, the biggest for decades, which destroyed some of the most ancient buildings in the heart of our town. The residents are a pretty stoic bunch, but when they were told that they would have no rail service for two weeks because of leaves on a different line, it was pretty humiliating for them. I have to say that it was pretty humiliating for me to have to deal with ever-angrier constituents.

We recognised that the one positive was the rare window of leverage because of what is happening tomorrow with the franchise. That gave us a rare opportunity to get stuck in. I wrote a letter to the Minister, who has been as helpful as she can be in what is clearly one of the hardest jobs in the Government. The letter was signed by all hon. Members with stations on the two branch lines. My hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin) has Chappel and Wakes Colne. My hon. Friend the Member for Braintree (James Cleverly) has Bures, which is the station that I use.

In the letter, we asked for two things in particular: whether the franchise could be amended or a letter sent to the bidders to ask them to ensure that when they bid they have a robust contingency to ensure that we do not have another leafgate next year. After all, I remind my hon. Friend the Minister that this franchise goes live in October, when leaves do have a habit of falling off the trees—it is not unprecedented. We have been promised root and branch reform on our branch line—[Hon. Members: “Oh!”]—and we look forward to it. [Interruption.] That was a terrible line; my right hon. Friend the Minister for Small Business, Industry and Enterprise is absolutely right—very poor service.

I was delighted to receive a written answer yesterday from my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State saying that Network Rail and Abellio Greater Anglia

“have secured the services of John Curley, a respected railway industry professional, to hold an independent review of the factors and circumstances that conspired to affect services so badly. We expect this review to identify the root cause of failures and highlight lessons that need to be learned for the future. We expect corrective action to be taken wherever practicable to avoid recurrence in the future.

I can confirm that the results of the review will be made available to the winning bidder of the current East Anglia franchise competition.”

I welcome that. Will Mr Curley be able to meet local Members of Parliament and visit our constituencies? Although there is not much cash, I am happy to walk the line with him, if need be.

The key point is that branch lines are often overlooked. The main line service is important and I support all the measures for which my hon. Friends the Members for Ipswich (Ben Gummer) and for Norwich North (Chloe Smith) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel) have been pressing. But we must not forget our branch lines. Many thousands of passengers rely on them.

The town of Sudbury is proud of our railway line, which avoided the Beeching axe—it just about got through. We still just about have a train, but for two weeks we had to have a bus. We do not want a bus; we want a train and a decent rail service. That is what we expect in Suffolk and across East Anglia, and this is the key moment. We expect great things from the franchise, so we hope that tomorrow we will turn a new page—a new leaf.