Northern Rail Hub

John Pugh Excerpts

Wednesday 18th January 2012 Westminster Hall

[John Pugh (Southport) (LD)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Colne Valley (Jason McCartney) on stimulating this important debate, and I pay tribute to other contributors, in particular the hon. Member for Blackley and Broughton (Graham Stringer), who has fought a long and relentless battle to get the northern hub on the political agenda. I think it can be accepted that to get Merseyside MPs such as myself and the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman) to advocate serious investment in Manchester takes something special, and it is due to a recognition that the Manchester network is a bottleneck for the whole north, affecting Leeds, Sheffield, Chester, Liverpool, Lancashire, Yorkshire and various golden triangles, squares and rectangles as yet unenumerated. The effect on the north is widespread, and my constituents in Southport are affected too; their journeys to Manchester are a nightmare, they suffer overcrowding not only on the train but at the platform in Manchester and they suffer the most appalling stock and the most appalling service.

On 20 October, at the northern rail conference, the Minister said, rather encouragingly, that we were going to get rid of the Pacers. We have heard that refrain before, and people have mentioned cascading stock down and so on, but in reality new trains are found first, foremost and almost exclusively for the south-east. The feeling in the north sometimes is that it is jam tomorrow, and I regard High Speed 2 as jam tomorrow or some way in the distance. Collectively, as northern MPs, however, we all want serious incremental change now. We want the better links with London, which would certainly be a good thing, but currently we desperately need better inter-regional connectivity.

I praise the Government and the Minister for having made a good start. To my great astonishment, we have seen the introduction of new rail in the north-west with the Todmorden curve, and £300 million has been found for electrification and £85 million for the Ordsall chord. The total Government commitment for rail is, however, actually £18 billion, and the whole northern hub project has been costed at £560 million, as Members have said, which puts things in perspective. Hon. Members have pointed out that the benefit-cost ratio exceeds comfortably the figures presented for Crossrail, which is costing about £6 billion. I speak with real bitterness because I was sentenced to two years, for crimes unknown, to serve on the hybrid Crossrail Bill. I was surprised at the many substantial objections to the scheme, which, had it been in the north, would certainly have postponed it, if not altogether eliminated it.

The Secretary of State for Transport has, however, said some encouraging things. She has spoken about investing in 2,700 new carriages throughout the network, but as I pointed out, that will only lead to a weary shrug from the man trapped on the Pacer. I went through some of my e-mails on the subject recently, and I want to refer briefly to two of them. A chap wrote to me in 2008 and said:

“Regularly there are only two carriages laid on and it is standing room before we have left the station. Breakdowns …particularly in winter are a feature attraction of the service however given the age of the trains this is unsurprising. When will there be some newer trains on this line?”

Four years later, another e-mail begins wearily:

“Yet again my journey on a Monday morning has been delayed by over an hour by the poor quality rolling stock used on the Southport to Manchester line…This is on top of the regular short formation of units, which appears to be a Northern Rail buzz phrase”—

a synonym for serious overcrowding.

I therefore welcome the progress that might be made on the northern hub, and we would all like to see more progress. I like the sound of a united or pan-northern approach, which is important, because it has not always been there in previous Parliaments and it is refreshing. Often, the objection to serious infrastructure is the lack of collective political will in an area, but cross-party, substantial and solid political will is clearly present. We do not need a Napoleonic regional mayor to step in and tell us what needs doing. Collectively, as politicians, we have come to the conclusion that this needs doing, and we would just like the Minister to get on with it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rosie Cooper (West Lancashire) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure, Mr Hood, to have the opportunity to serve under your chairmanship today. I congratulate the hon. Member for Colne Valley (Jason McCartney) on securing this important debate. It is even more important following the recent announcement to give the go-ahead to High Speed 2. That announcement is a signal of just how important investment in high-speed, efficient rail services is for the future growth of our national and regional economies. I absolutely support the northern hub as an important strategic investment and opportunity.

In that context, I want to be slightly more parochial and to plead that places and communities such as West Lancashire should not be forgotten when planning and investing in our railways. The danger for West Lancashire is that we lose out because of the dominance of the city regions and core cities that act almost as capitals. The effectiveness of such schemes lies in connectivity and the quality of the entire rail network. West Lancashire is virtually at the crossroads of the north-west. If big circles are drawn around Preston, Liverpool and Manchester, West Lancashire is the bit in the middle. My plea in this debate and the wider debate on transport infrastructure investment is not to forget West Lancashire.

Since being elected in 2005, I have campaigned constantly for improved rail infrastructure across all areas of my constituency. My great concern is that places such as West Lancashire are in real danger of falling behind with rail infrastructure. I shall give a couple of brief examples. Skelmersdale is the most populated town in my constituency, but it has no rail service at all. A major redevelopment of the town centre is about to start and is the biggest investment since it was established 50 years ago. We have a brand new state-of-the-art college, and the town has an exciting new future with many opportunities, if people can get there.

The really good news for the north-west is the Lancashire triangle rail electrification, which will be transformational for the north-west. West Lancashire has three lines serving the area, and I ask the Minister to remember that our biggest town, Skelmersdale, has no rail service at all. Delivery of the Lancashire triangle rail electrification will leave West Lancashire in a strange position, because diesel trains will still run in a small area unless more investment is put into the electrification.

If nothing is done, there will be implications on rail development in West Lancashire. For example, the Manchester line carries an increasing number of passengers, with alternate trains going to Victoria and Manchester airport. Transport for Greater Manchester appears to be suggesting that the airport service may be sacrificed in favour of running trains from West Yorkshire and east Manchester to the airport. The Kirkby to Wigan line passes through Up Holland, which would form the basis of a rail station at Skelmersdale. That line was proposed for electrification in the early 1980s, and there is clearly a need to extend the existing Merseyrail service from Liverpool to Kirkby to serve Skelmersdale. That would provide an opportunity to consider a service between Skelmersdale, Wigan and Manchester, and that should be done because it is likely that many of the employment opportunities for those who live in West Lancashire will be found in Liverpool and Manchester.

My third example is the route between Liverpool, Ormskirk and Preston. Ormskirk has a superb service to Liverpool; the line from Ormskirk to Preston has recently received an improved timetable, and Network Rail is examining the business case for an hourly service. There is, however, strong demand to extend the existing Merseyrail service beyond Ormskirk to Burscough and the famous Burscough curves. That would enable an hourly service to Preston to be delivered at low cost.

[John Pugh]

Does the hon. Lady recognise that the Government are taking a huge step in restoring the Todmorden curve? It shows that they are ready to look at such projects and provides some hope that the Burscough curves will receive serious consideration.

[Rosie Cooper]

I did not quite hear all of that, but I am hopeful that a service on the Burscough curves will eventually be established. My point is that all three routes that I have mentioned will be operating in an area that is dominated by electric services. Electric trains run only where the line is electrified, so unless the trains have an additional power source that will enable them to continue for some distance, West Lancashire runs the risk of becoming isolated.

As well as the new electric trains on the newly electrified Lancashire triangle—well, not new exactly, but second-hand from the London area—the superb Merseyrail electric network also uses third-rail electrification. If lines in my area are not electrified and with the investment to improve the national and regional rail network infrastructure, my fear is that places such as West Lancashire will be left behind, which we cannot afford for a plethora of social and economic reasons. Such a move would begin to create greater disconnection and disintegration of the rail network. The challenge for me, West Lancashire and, I hope, the Minister is to ensure that West Lancashire does not become ever more isolated as a small island of diesel trains that are not included in the great opportunities and investment that is taking place.