Cycling

Jane Ellison Excerpts

Monday 2nd September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)]

I was fortunate to sit on the “Get Britain Cycling” inquiry earlier this year. There was huge interest in what we were doing. When we started the inquiry, we were the best trending name on Twitter. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) for securing this debate and to Adam Coffman, who put so much work into making it a professional, Select Committee-style inquiry.

In the short time available to me, I will focus on three areas: vision and leadership, which for me is where it starts and ends; the design issue; and the summer of cycling in my constituency. I am extremely proud of the report and believe that it stands up really well. Having read it again in writing these remarks, I think that it will age well. We launched the report in April and the Government responded last week. In the light of everything that has happened since we produced the report, I think that is more relevant now than when we launched it.

On leadership, it is no coincidence that one of the first points in the report is the need for

“vision, ambition and strong political leadership”.

As the hon. Member for Dudley North (Ian Austin) said, we recommend the appointment of a national cycling champion. I share his regret that that recommendation was not accepted in last week’s Government response. It is all too easy to regard such things as somebody else’s responsibility. The Minister need not look further than City hall, where Andrew Gilligan is the Mayor’s cycling champion, for a good example of how a cycling champion can work.

[Jane Ellison (Battersea) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend for his comments. Does he agree that leadership at a local level is important? I have seen the difference in my borough as the political leaders have started to take this issue much more seriously and to engage much more vigorously with local cycling campaigners. That really makes a difference.

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[Jane Ellison (Battersea) (Con)]

I am grateful to have the opportunity to speak in the debate and very pleased that the Backbench Business Committee could find the time for it. It follows a very successful and over-subscribed debate in Westminster Hall last year and perhaps illustrates the point that very over-subscribed debates in Westminster Hall can transfer to the main Chamber and attract even more speakers, as today’s debate has done.

I speak as an occasional cyclist daughter of a serious veteran road-racing cyclist father. I want to talk today about London in particular and some of the measures that have been adopted here.

I will first say a bit about why cycling is so important in my constituency. There was an enormous reaction last year in Battersea to The Times’ “Cities Fit for Cycling” campaign. The average age of people who live in Wandsworth is 32, so that is probably also typical of my constituency. Many people cycle to work and for pleasure, and from quite a wide demographic range, although I agree about the need to widen it, which will set up a virtuous circle. As an occasional cyclist, I know that it can be very off-putting to go into a cycling shop with an old bike and hear three young men in Lycra leaning against the counter saying, “Poor old girl”—I am never quite sure whether they are talking about me or the bike. I encourage all cycling shops to remember that they will do better if they are open for business to everybody, including those who might not be such serious cyclists.

[Mr Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Jane Ellison]

I will give way, but only once.

[Mr Turner]

One thing to consider is that in the UK there are around 25,000 bicycles but in Germany there are 360,000, and the difference is that many of those bicycles are electric, which can help even the elderly to cycle.

[Jane Ellison]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. Electric bikes have had a few honourable mentions in the debate so far, although I am not an expert.

In London, cycling is set to double over the next 10 years. However, as was pointed out earlier, cities such as London were not designed for cycling; it is a very old city. We must therefore take every opportunity offered by redevelopment to make it more suitable for cycling. We are certainly seeing some innovative thinking in my borough, as I mentioned earlier.

[Mary Macleod (Brentford and Isleworth) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Jane Ellison]

I am afraid not, as so many Members have prepared speeches and want to get in.

Wandsworth has come a long way. One of the pleasures of the summer was going to a meeting of the Wandsworth Living Streets campaign and seeing the genuine engagement between it and Councillor Russell King, the cabinet member who covers strategic transport issues. I certainly see that as a positive movement since I first came to Battersea in 2006.

In last year’s debate I talked about the need to champion engineering solutions, something we have always been good at in Britain. Again, my council is working with Transport for London to bring forward plans for Dutch-style roundabouts, one of which is planned for my constituency. Elsewhere in London we are seeing other plans for engineering solutions, such as bike boxes and signal control junctions with advanced stop lines. ASLs help motorists and cyclists by providing an area for cyclists to wait in front of traffic when the lights are red, making them more easily visible to motorists and giving them the space to move off when the lights turn green. We are also seeing plans to introduce Dutch-style segregated sections of cycle superhighway to increase safety—we have heard a lot about Holland in this debate and paid tribute to its great cycling efforts—which will see one of the longest continuous segregated sections through the heart of London and on to Canary Wharf and Barking. It will be very interesting to see how that develops and whether it could be replicated in other cities.

The Mayor of London is looking to spend significant sums of money on cycling. The need for leadership has been mentioned, and Members on both sides have been generous in paying tribute to him for his leadership on cycling. London’s cycling budget will double to almost £400 million over the next three years, roughly two and a half times what was previously planned. He is investing almost £1 billion in London cycling over the next 10 years as part of the “Vision for Cycling” published in March. That will mean spending £145 million a year on cycling by 2015, which equates to roughly £18 per head, which is similar to the amount spent in Germany and almost on a par with the debate’s favourite country: the Netherlands. It is good to see both Dutch-style engineering coming to London’s roads and Dutch levels of spending per head on cycling.

With regard to enforcement, one of the debates we are having locally is whether 20 mph zones can be enforced. We are at least seeing TfL, the Met police and the City of London police stepping up the enforcement of safety zones for cyclists and clamping down on people who jump red lights. I hope that we will return to this topic and have regular cycling debates. I hope that in a future debate we can look at some of the other issues that affect cycling, such as planning and residential developments with safe cycle storage, which is a problem in flats. In particular, there are high levels of cycle theft. I have constituents who have lost five, six, seven or even eight bikes in a few short years. I hope we can visit those topics in future.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

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[Norman Baker]

I certainly welcome that, and I welcome the constructive response we have seen already from the Freight Transport Association, for example. That comment is very welcome and I am sure that my colleague, the hon. Member for Wimbledon, is aware of that and can take it on board and move forward appropriately.

As I said, any one death on the road is one too many. Figures for London show that between 2008 and 2012, 53% of all pedal cycle fatalities were a consequence of direct conflict with HGVs, so there is a serious issue that we are very much aware of, as I think is the Mayor. We are taking steps to deal with it through a number of changes. It is also important to note that cycling in London has increased by 173% since 2000, and figures for cycling deaths and injuries have to be borne in mind in relation to the big increase in cycling that has taken place.

[Jane Ellison]

On the point about HGV safety, tomorrow morning I am visiting the regeneration site at Battersea power station, where the developers, owners and constructors are running a specific day of cycle awareness training with HGV drivers and cyclists. Does the Minister welcome such moves where developers take responsibility for HGVs moving in and out of their sites? Perhaps that is a way forward.

[Norman Baker]

That is exactly the right response, and I hope that it will become common practice across industry and across the country.

I want to respond to some of the comments made by Members. In the previous cycling debate, the hon. Member for Dudley North (Ian Austin) called for the Prime Minister to lead and take action. The hon. Gentleman was very nice to me today but lamented the fact that I was, he implied, dealing with this without support. That is not the case. There is support from all my colleagues in the Department for Transport and from different Departments across Government, and the Prime Minister himself made a statement in August. That clearly indicates the importance that the Government as a whole attaches to the matter. If any colleagues across Government were not taking it seriously, I am sure that the Prime Minister’s appearance in August will ensure that they take it more seriously than they did previously.

There have been a number of suggestions that we should have a cycling champion. The hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick) talked about that. I am very sorry that he is no longer on the Front Bench, by the way. He has been a very good Minister in his time, and a shadow Minister as well—not just the Member for Poplar but a popular Minister. He asked whether I am the national champion for cycling. I hope that I am a national champion for cycling, but so are my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport, my other colleagues in the Department for Transport, and the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister. We want to make sure that this is owned across Government by all Departments. The danger of having one person identified in the role is that others do not feel the need to participate in the same way. I am not particularly keen to use the word “tsar”, by the way. The history of tsars at the end of imperial Russia is not a happy one, and we can probably do without it.

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston) for drawing attention to the health benefits of cycling. We used the World Health Organisation economic assessment tool in assessing the cycle city and national park bids and the grants we subsequently gave. She mentioned 20-mph speed limits. I hope that she will welcome, as others have, the fact that this Government have made it easier for local councils to introduce 20-mph limits, which I campaigned on for a decade before they finally became reality under this Government. She asked about enforcement, which several other Members properly raised. The hon. Member for Wimbledon and I had a meeting with Suzette Davenport, who is a lead member on this for the Association of Chief Police Officers. She has agreed to rewrite the guidance for ACPO on the enforcement of 20-mph limits, and I hope that that will appear before long.

I have to say that there were a couple of churlish comments. The hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central (Chi Onwurah) complained about the Government’s approach. I should point out that she has had £10 million in two local sustainable transport tranches, £5.7 million through a cycle city ambition grant, and £1.24 million for cycle safety funding. That is £17 million for Newcastle and she was the most ungrateful Member here today. The second most ungrateful Member was the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas), who said that the Government were doing nothing and forgot to mention that the scheme at Brighton station that she identified—the cycle rail fund—and the cycle lanes on Old Shoreham road and Lewes road are paid for from the Government’s funding.

I am delighted that this has been such a good debate and that so many people have turned up to contribute. I confirm that the Government takes this matter very seriously, and we will make further progress. In the spirit of coalition unity, let me say that I have something in common with Norman Tebbit—we both want people to get on their bikes.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jane Ellison Excerpts

Thursday 19th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Lynne Featherstone]

I have not changed one bit my view that we should push that through. Our consultation proposed a ban on age discrimination in health and social care, and that there should be no exceptions to that, unlike other issues. It is an important lever, and the delay has come about because we want to make sure we get it right. We have consulted on the exceptions, and we are taking our time on them to ensure that we get it right. We will come forward as soon as we have made a decision, and I am sure that that will be soon.

[Jane Ellison (Battersea) (Con)]

Will the Minister welcome the statistic in the most recent employment figures showing the growing number of women over 50 entering the labour market? They are clearly overcoming age discrimination.

[Lynne Featherstone]

It was good to read that female employment for over-50s has increased by nearly 200,000 in the past 12 months. I understand that most of those jobs are due to business start-ups, which the Government are keen to encourage.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jane Ellison Excerpts

Thursday 23rd February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

The right hon. Lady raises a very particular case, but the issue is about the welfare—[Interruption.] Perhaps Opposition Members could wait for me to finish my sentence before they try to interrupt. The right hon. Lady has raised a particular case, but the issue is about welfare reform and the particular welfare reforms that this Government are putting through. I know that the Opposition find it difficult to decide where they position themselves on welfare reform, but it is necessary for us to reform the welfare system. Crucially, what we will do—and it will be of benefit to women—is introduce the universal credit, which will make work pay. I applaud people who want to get into the workplace in order to provide for themselves and their families, so it is important to ensure that the benefit system makes work pay. That is why we are introducing universal credit and making it easier under it for people to work fewer than 16 hours and still have access to child care support.

[Jane Ellison (Battersea) (Con)]

2. What steps the Government are taking to identify and safeguard girls at risk of being taken out of the UK to undergo female genital mutilation.

[The Minister for Equalities (Lynne Featherstone)]

I thank and commend my hon. Friend for her work on this subject, and congratulate her on her effective leadership of the all-party parliamentary group on female genital mutilation. The Government’s approach to ending female genital mutilation is set out in our “Call to End Violence Against Women and Girls”. We have published guidance for all front-line professions; we are raising awareness among children; and we are supporting front-line practitioners.

[Jane Ellison]

I thank the Minister for her response and for her support for the all-party group. Will she urge officials, particularly those working on the UK’s borders, to play their full part in enforcing the Female Genital Mutilation Act 2003?

Cycling

Jane Ellison Excerpts

Thursday 23rd February 2012 Westminster Hall

[Jane Ellison (Battersea) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) on securing this debate. I also congratulate The Times on its campaign. This debate is happening in Back-Bench time. It is an illustration of how Back-Bench time has enabled the House to be topical. Perhaps that flexibility was not there before. One reason why the Backbench Business Committee awarded time today was because the hon. Member for Cambridge made the case that it would be topical to hold this debate at a time when our constituents are so engaged with the issue. I will also say, for the record, that debates that have been this well subscribed in Westminster Hall have on occasion bid successfully for more time.

[Mr John Leech (Manchester, Withington) (LD)]

The hon. Lady may not be aware that I presented a ten-minute rule Bill on Tuesday, which incorporates many aspects of The Times cycling campaign. If the Minister could persuade the Leader of the House to find time for a Second Reading of my Bill, we would be able to further debate the merits of this campaign and bring it into legislation.

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[Jane Ellison]

I am sure the Minister heard that plea. I echo the words of my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston) by saying let us celebrate the joy of cycling. My father is a veteran road racer. In his youth, he was a stage winner of the Tour of Britain on more than one occasion. He still goes out with his friends who are in their 60s, 70s and, I think, 80s, and does hundreds of miles a month around the Yorkshire dales. They are collectively a great testimony to the joys of cycling and to its great health benefits. I am not remotely in his class, but my bike is an invaluable way of getting around my constituency, particularly at weekends between engagements. I have sometimes taken cycle superhighway 8. I am lucky, because it runs from Wandsworth to Westminster.

I want to focus on one specific area, which is the role of our highway engineers in making junctions and cycling safer. Many people have highlighted particular junctions and problems in their constituencies. Some particularly bad junctions in London where terrible accidents and fatalities have occurred have been mentioned. The Mayor of London has asked Transport for London to review hundreds of key junctions. I hope that that review will generate fresh ideas and fresh thinking, and that hon. Members around the country can ask their local highway engineers to look at the ideas and take them up. People have alluded to the lessons to be learnt from continental Europe and the excellent engineering and integration solutions that we see there, but there is also innovation going on in Britain. Transport for London engineers have been working on particular junctions and roundabouts. I met them recently at a problem one in my patch. They are also working with cycling groups and others to look at specific junctions that have been highlighted in this debate.

I put on record a word about the early-start initiative, which is a proposed new design that will be introduced first at the Bow roundabout, and to which other hon. Members have alluded. It will have two lines of signals. Cyclists will have an early start on the traffic. They will come up to a signal ahead of the vehicular traffic and get a head start. They will have their own lights to get away so that they are potentially 12 metres ahead of other traffic, before it even sets off. There is interesting thinking and good innovation there. It is hoped that it will be in place in time for the Olympics, but certainly later this year. The idea is for cyclists to get to the front of the queue without having to filter through general traffic. There will be a generous space for them to wait. Cyclists will have their own space in front of the traffic and get ahead of it early. Hopefully, because of that early start, the potential for conflict on difficult left turns off the roundabout will be reduced.

I hope the Minister will monitor the success of the scheme, because it clearly has potential application around the country at other roundabouts that suffer some of the same problems. With that call to look at what our engineers can do for us, and echoing the words of the many hon. Members who have talked about the joys of cycling, I again congratulate the hon. Member for Cambridge on securing this debate and The Times on its campaign. I thank the many constituents who contacted us with their interesting stories and asked us to take part in this debate. I think this is the beginning of a big conversation rather than a one-off debate. I am delighted to have taken part in it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jane Ellison Excerpts

Thursday 15th September 2011 Commons Chamber

The Minister for Women and Equalities was asked—

[Jane Ellison (Battersea) (Con)]

1. What assessment she has made of the likelihood that new guidelines on prosecution of cases of female genital mutilation will increase the prospects of securing a conviction.

[The Minister for Equalities (Lynne Featherstone)]

Before answering that question, I would like to offer the apologies of my right hon. Friend the Minister for Women and Equalities to you, Mr Speaker, and to the House for being unable to attend questions today; she is in the United States on ministerial business relating to counter-terrorism. The Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, my hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Maria Miller), who has responsibility for disabled people, and I will endeavour to field questions from the House.

The Government are committed to eradicating female genital mutilation. The Crown Prosecution Service’s legal guidance, which was launched last week, is an important step in preventing this horrendous practice. We hope that it will raise awareness of the issue and help prosecutors bring perpetrators to justice.

[Jane Ellison]

I thank the Minister for that reply. The section of the new guidelines on reluctant victims focuses very much on the difficulties of obtaining evidence and gaining victim co-operation, but for years great expertise has been brought to bear in prosecuting child sexual abuse. Could not this expertise be brought to bear in the area of FGM?

[Lynne Featherstone]

I thank my hon. Friend for that helpful suggestion. It is a really important point, because I am sure that much could be learned from the real progress that has been made in investigating and prosecuting child sexual abuse cases. Where appropriate, prosecutors should make links with experts in other areas in order to build a stronger case.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jane Ellison Excerpts

Thursday 5th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Lynne Featherstone]

Yes, I agree that “equal rights” means “equal rights”, not “similar rights” or “nearly but not quite as good” rights. Having listened to stakeholders, it is clear that there is a genuine desire among many of them to move forward to equality between marriage and civil partnerships. Over the summer we shall start a discussion with all those with an interest in the matter on how legislation can develop.

[Jane Ellison (Battersea) (Con)]

5. What plans she has for future support for women wishing to start new businesses.

[The Secretary of State for the Home Department and Minister for Women and Equalities (Mrs Theresa May)]

The Government are committed to increasing the number of women and men setting up businesses. If women set up businesses at the same rate as men in the UK, we would have 150,000 new business start-ups each year. We are encouraging the establishment of small businesses through excellent initiatives such as the new enterprise allowance, which will provide mentors and financial support to help the unemployed to become self-employed.

[Jane Ellison]

A constituent of mine has told me that she has built up a successful small business, working round her caring responsibilities over a number of years, but that she found the step to taking on an employee very daunting, given the complexity of regulation and legislation involved. Is there more that we can do to help people in that situation?

[Mrs May]

My hon. Friend makes a valuable point about the benefits and flexibility for women of establishing a business or being self-employed. She also makes an important point about getting rid of red tape and bureaucracy, which are barriers to people who are either growing their businesses or setting them up in the first place. That is why the Government have launched the red tape website, which enables people to challenge regulations. The Equality Act 2010 appears on the website. It is not the Government’s intention to abolish the Equality Act. We are putting it in place, but we want to hear from businesses how we can do regulation better to ensure that they can improve their businesses and employ more people.

Sustainable Transport

Jane Ellison Excerpts

Wednesday 19th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Norman Baker]

It is up to local councils to decide which bids they submit and what is included in those bids. The pattern of bus services varies considerably across the country, and I believe that I am right in saying that North Yorkshire has been subject to some cuts which have not been undertaken elsewhere, which suggests that the council has made that decision itself. We have also recently amended the Department’s guidance on concessionary fares to reflect the importance of rural routes and long-distance routes in rural areas, and that should help bus companies as well.

[Jane Ellison (Battersea) (Con)]

I welcome the Minister’s statement. London’s future depends very much on sustainable low-carbon travel. Back on the subject of bikes, although I realise that is a devolved matter, there is much to be learned from the Mayor of London’s popular cycle hire scheme, and I hope that the Minister is working with that team to make sure those lessons can be passed on to other towns and cities that might want to go down a similar path.

Rail Investment

Jane Ellison Excerpts

Thursday 25th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Jane Ellison (Battersea) (Con)]

I very much welcome the Secretary of State’s statement, and the fact that stations were not overlooked. Clapham Junction in my constituency is one of the two busiest interchanges in the country. To make the railways really work, we need great modern interchanges. Although Clapham Junction never made it in any of the three previous control periods, will he join me in hoping that it will be closely considered by Network Rail for the next control period?

[Mr Hammond]

Network Rail is considering the section of line from Clapham Junction into Waterloo, and I will discuss its plans with it over the coming months and years. My hon. Friend might like to know that I have been told this morning that when the work at Farringdon is completed, Farringdon will overtake Clapham Junction in terms of train movements.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jane Ellison Excerpts

Thursday 22nd July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Villiers]

The CAA is working hard to repatriate the people affected by the Goldtrail failure, which has caused significant anxiety and disruption to people’s holiday plans. Our officials are working hard with the CAA to ensure that that repatriation effort goes well. We are also urging the CAA to ensure that lessons are learned from XL and the long time it took to process claims. The CAA urges all those who are ATOL protected to submit the relevant documentation so that refunds can be processed as quickly as possible. In the longer term, we need a bigger reform of the way in which the system works.

[Jane Ellison (Battersea) (Con)]

To refer my right hon. Friend to earlier answers on rail franchising—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. We cannot go into that. We are dealing with a specific question about cancellation of passenger flights, on which I thought the hon. Lady wanted to contribute. Never mind—we will move on.

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[Mrs Villiers]

I think that that question has been dealt with already. If mutuals and co-operatives can satisfy the requirements of the franchising process, they will be permitted to bid.

[Jane Ellison (Battersea) (Con)]

I think this is the appropriate moment to ask my question, Mr Speaker. In her discussions with rail franchises and franchisees, will my right hon. Friend ask them whether they will consider bringing longer trains through stations whose platforms have not been lengthened when they have available rolling stock? That is common on the continent, but we do not do it here, and it would greatly help at overcrowded stations such as Wandsworth Town station in my constituency.

[Mrs Villiers]

I am well aware of my hon. Friend’s strong campaigns for rail services in her constituency, and our visit to Clapham Junction railway station was particularly informative. She makes a good point about the more flexible use of capacity, and the train operators and Network Rail would certainly do well to take it on board. I suggest she raises it further with them.

Rail Services (South London Line)

Jane Ellison Excerpts

Wednesday 14th July 2010 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Norman Baker)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey) on securing this debate and on providing an opportunity for hon. Members to discuss rail services in her constituency and further afield. I have always admired the hon. Lady, who is an independent person. Independence of mind is an attribute that we could do with more of in the House of Commons.

The planned changes to south London line services are a matter of concern to several Members, and officials have informed me that the Department for Transport has received significant correspondence on the matter over the past few months. I am pleased that my right hon. Friend the Minister of State, Department for Transport, will meet the hon. Lady in the coming days to discuss the issue in greater detail. Obviously, I will ensure that my right hon. Friend has access to the exchanges in this Adjournment debate.

It is probably worth starting my response by setting out the background to the proposed changes to the south London line, with some details about the existing service. The current service, provided by rail operator Southern, operates every 30 minutes in each direction between London Bridge and Victoria via Denmark Hill and Peckham Rye, including stops at Wandsworth Road and Clapham High Street. Two-car trains run for most of the day, with four-car trains provided for the morning peak. That is the only service for Wandsworth Road and Clapham High Street stations, all other stations on the route being served by other train services. I take the hon. Lady’s point about the withdrawal of services to London Bridge and Victoria, and note her dramatic phrase, “a double betrayal”.

It should be noted that Clapham North underground station is located some 300 yards from Clapham High Street station, and provides services to the west end, the City and Morden as well as connections to the rest of the underground network. However, I am not ignoring the points the hon. Lady rightly made about overcrowding. As an occasional commuter on the Northern line, I am well aware of the problems. It is also worth noting—I shall come back to this later—that the Northern line will benefit from enhanced capacity over the next couple of years as a result of the planned upgrade that forms part of Transport for London’s investment programme.

The latest information on demand levels at these stages, which is provided by Southern, indicates that Clapham High Street is the start or end point of some 850 journeys per weekday, around a quarter of which have Victoria as their origin or destination. By comparison, Wandsworth Road is used for some 630 journeys per day, with two thirds starting or ending at Victoria.

As the hon. Lady knows, several of the planned service changes in her area of south London are required because of the start of the main works at London Bridge associated with the Thameslink upgrade programme. She will be aware that work on the Thameslink programme has already commenced across London: Blackfriars and Farringdon stations are already being rebuilt, platforms outside London are being lengthened and preparatory works at Borough market have begun. When completed, the Thameslink programme will enhance the frequency and capacity of train services throughout the centre of London, improving connectivity north to south and creating new journey opportunities while helping to relieve the Northern line north of London Bridge.

However, while works are carried out at London Bridge, the capacity of the station—the number of trains it can accommodate—will be reduced. We all recognise that any reduction in the number of services that can go into London Bridge is not ideal, but rebuilding and enhancing a busy operational railway is not possible without some disruption.

The original plan, as consulted on by Network Rail as part of the south London route utilisation strategy document, was to divert the south London line service away from London Bridge and to create a new stopping service from Victoria to Bellingham, as the hon. Lady and the hon. Member for Lewisham East (Heidi Alexander) recognise. Bellingham is south of Catford and is a convenient location where trains can terminate. The new service would have reduced the number of train movements into London Bridge while maintaining key connections to and from London Victoria from Wandsworth Road and Clapham High Street as well as from Peckham Rye and Denmark Hill. I note Members’ support for that option. It was the Department’s intention to implement a Victoria to Bellingham service in place of the existing Victoria to London Bridge service while works at London Bridge were carried out, but the service changes made by TfL—I shall come to those in a second—mean that the alternative service strategy will not now be implemented.

I turn to the East London line extension phase 2 to Clapham Junction and why the proposed Victoria to Bellingham service will not now go ahead. The south London route utilisation strategy developed by Network Rail highlighted the potential benefits that the extension of the East London line would bring to the area of south London represented by the hon. Member for Vauxhall. However, in 2008, TfL and the Mayor concluded that the £75 million scheme was not affordable within the constraints of the TfL budget. Recognising the value of the extension project, the Department offered to provide an additional £15 million as grant to TfL and to support a £19 million funding application to the Office of Rail Regulation for Network Rail works to implement the project, so I think that the Department has been helpful.

As part of the funding proposal, TfL requested the withdrawal of the planned replacement south London line service to Bellingham. The money raised from that was to be diverted to the capital costs of the East London line extension—the saving is the equivalent of £24 million over 10 years. Under the devolved arrangements for London, the Mayor and TfL were, and are, fully at liberty to request such changes, given the powers granted to them over DFT-specified train services. Under the arrangements, TfL can propose, and pay for, services additional to the Department’s base franchise specification. Alternatively, it is entitled to propose reductions in service levels and keep any savings made. The latter approach is what TfL proposed in respect of the Victoria to Bellingham service.

It would have been apparent that the proposed service changes would have meant that Wandsworth Road and Clapham High Street would lose all direct services to London Victoria, with passengers instead being required to travel via a change of train at Clapham Junction. However, train frequency at both locations would double from two to four trains per hour in each direction, with a far wider range of services available from Clapham Junction, including to Waterloo, stations on the west London line and the wider Southern and South West Trains networks, although I appreciate they may not be destinations that all the hon. Lady’s constituents want to reach.

[Jane Ellison (Battersea) (Con)]

I apologise in case I have to leave before the end of the Minister’s remarks, because I have to ask a question in the main Chamber at 11.30 am.

Slightly fewer of my constituents are affected than those of the hon. Member for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey), but I want to pick up on the point about Clapham Junction, because one problem is that it is not an effective interchange, despite being pretty much the busiest one in the country. I should like the Minister to recognise that the strategic long-term upgrade of Clapham Junction—I do not just mean the £20 million announced in March 2010 before the election—to reflect its status as the busiest interchange in the country is essential to making a lot more services attractive to a great many more people, irrespective of the direction from which they are coming into that station.

[Norman Baker]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her comments.

I stress that we, as a Government, are committed to devolution. We are talking about an earlier example of devolution to TfL and the Mayor, so whatever the Department for Transport thinks we live within the existing legal framework. Therefore, the Department may have fewer powers in this regard than in respect of other rail matters elsewhere in the country.

TfL made a judgment that the East London line service to Clapham Junction provided better overall benefits than the south London line to Bellingham. Clearly, Members present do not share that judgment. It is entirely appropriate that TFL, which is London’s transport planning body, should make this judgment and assess the trade-offs between the different service proposals. Ministers in the previous Administration accepted the guidance provided by the Mayor on that being the best use of the limited available resources. If the Mayor and TfL make such decisions—the coalition agreement states that the Government believe that decisions should be taken at a more local level—it is important that they stand behind the consequences of such decisions when they are made, including the impacts on passengers at stations such as Wandsworth Road and Clapham High Street.

The decision not to implement the proposed London Victoria to Bellingham service was requested by TfL and the Mayor to help fund the East London line service. Implementing both the Bellingham service and the East London line would have been ideal, but both services were not affordable and TfL and the Mayor judged that the East London line extension provided more benefits than the diverted south London line. A judgment call was made by TfL in light of the financial constraints it faced. As is the case with such funding agreements, a number of conditions were attached to the funding given by the Department. TfL was fully aware of those conditions before it signed the funding offer.

Importantly, the Department was conscious of the need to keep stakeholders informed of any changes and included a requirement for TfL to inform key stakeholders about the route of the proposed changes. The Department also included a clause stopping East London line services operating into London Victoria. If TfL decided to operate into Victoria we would need to renegotiate, and perhaps reduce, the £24 million funding offer. This may seem an odd condition, but it was put in place because other train operators would have had a claim on the Department for loss of revenue if TfL operated services into London Victoria.

The hon. Member for Vauxhall mentioned her concerns about London TravelWatch. She is aware that following the proposed changes, and significant negative public reaction, TfL and London TravelWatch undertook a further exercise to investigate what mitigation measures could be implemented to resolve some of the problems that stakeholders identified. That study recently reported and the Mayor of London wrote to the Secretary of State regarding its conclusions.

The study suggested stopping some peak-time mainline services at Peckham Rye and Denmark Hill and implementing a new off-peak Victoria to Bromley South stopping service, which would call at Wandsworth Road and Clapham High Street. However, in all its study work, TfL has not addressed the hon. Lady’s key concern regarding peak period train services from Wandsworth Road and Clapham High Street to London Victoria. The study was, of course, led by TfL with London TravelWatch and they will need to answer the question about why such services cannot be accommodated, but I understand that a key constraint is the length of platforms at stations, and the costs of extending them, which limits the services that they believe can call at those stations at peak times.

Of course, we in the Department will study the conclusions of the study carefully, but I should make it clear that the Department is unlikely to be willing to fund the mitigation measures that the Mayor is proposing, given that the issues arose because the Mayor sought the withdrawal of the proposed Bellingham service.