Manchester Piccadilly to Rose Hill Marple Trains

Debate between Jonathan Reynolds and Chris Heaton-Harris

Thursday 10th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

I will honourably take up the hon. Lady’s offer, because what is going on in Portishead is a very positive piece of news. I look forward to having conversations with her to move that forward.

We are, though, talking about Rose Hill and Hazel Grove. My hon. Friend the Member for Hazel Grove has been building a coalition to reinstate his and his constituents’ much-loved services. He has done a very good job. We know him in this place as a hard-working chairman of a Select Committee and a great parliamentarian, but now we also know that he is a hard-working, caring and great constituency MP. He has demonstrated how he is willing to work with others from other political parties to get a result for his, and their, constituents. I put on the record the work that I know has been done on these issues by the hon. Members for Stalybridge and Hyde (Jonathan Reynolds), for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne) and for Stockport (Navendu Mishra). I was pleased that we all had an opportunity to discuss this matter with the managing director of Northern trains last Friday.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Hazel Grove knows, I was concerned to hear that the Rose Hill service had been temporarily removed until December 2020. Let me be clear that Northern took this unwelcome decision itself, to maintain operational performance by increasing services overall while it managed its recovery from covid-19. Alas, prior to the pandemic Northern already had an intensive driver-training-programme backlog, but extra delays caused by the epidemic, combined with staff self-shielding at home, have meant that Northern has had to take steps to prioritise its available-and-competent driver resource to where it is most needed.

Northern made the decision to temporarily suspend services from Rose Hill because it believed that, given the availability of other train routes, stations and public transport options for Rose Hill passengers, that would have less impact for local customers than for those of other stations and routes. Northern says that it did not take the decision lightly. It anticipated and hoped that the provision of a replacement bus service and the availability of train-travel options from other stations close by would enable Rose Hill passengers to return to work and school with minimal disruption. None the less, Northern recognises that the decision, although made with the best interests of its customers network-wide in mind, caused significant concern and frustration among passengers, local-friends groups and Members of Parliament.

As we have been slowly exiting from lockdown and seeing Britons get back to work, the railway has rightly been increasing services to meet passenger demand and expectations. This Monday, on 14 September, there will be an additional service uplift for many passengers across Northern’s network. Train operators overall have been asked to restore a timetable that maximises the opportunities for passenger travel while maintaining the excellent performance levels we see at this point in time. I assure all Members that the rapid return of a good, regular, resilient timetable on the line is our priority.

Having listened to Members’ concerns, I can inform them that Northern has reviewed its timetable and outlined improvements. But I have challenged the operator to do more—immediately—for the passengers in the Rose Hill area. Moving resource around has enabled Northern to provide some glimmer of light for passengers on this line. Northern has prioritised the running of services for its customers that will be both resilient and reliable, rather than ramping up its services quickly. That is something I insist on: we need a reliable railway if we are to have a railway at all. It is focusing its efforts on the morning and evening peak times, using customer feedback to get essential workers to where they need to be. Literally moments before this debate commenced, Northern informed me that it intends to introduce two trains in the morning, Monday to Friday, for Rose Hill Marple from 14 September. They will arrive at 8.11 am and 8.36 am respectively to ensure that Northern can meet key school demand. There will also be an afternoon service to meet school demand, arriving at Rose Hill Marple at 3.14 pm and getting to Manchester Piccadilly half an hour later.

I would like to think that the coalition my hon. Friend the Member for Hazel Grove brought together—the voices of his residents and the voices of Members of Parliament, hopefully amplified by me as the Minister—has been listened to by Northern in the conversations we have all had with the operator.

[Jonathan Reynolds]

Let me say on behalf of my constituents in Hyde that that is extremely welcome news. A service that focuses on peak demand will go a huge way to meeting the need that is there, putting concerns at rest and keeping people on the railway, which is what we all want. I thank the Minister on behalf of my constituents.

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that. He has played a great part in this, as have other hon. Members who have contributed today.

The impact of coronavirus means that the safety of passengers and staff must be paramount. That means the focus right now is on reliability and increased capacity to enable safer travel, with enough space for social distancing where possible. Northern runs a highly complex network and serves an enormous section of the United Kingdom. In fact, about one in five of all United Kingdom stations is a Northern station. It shares the network with nine other train operators, so the decisions it takes, such as moving trains around to run different services, affect the journeys people make all around the country. As my hon. Friend the Member for Hazel Grove knows from our last meeting on Friday, Northern apologised for the removal of this service and committed to an internal review to learn the lessons from this issue. Northern is also reviewing options again to see how it can support affected communities until we get to the point where a full reliable service is restored.

More generally, the public sector operator will continue to work with Network Rail to make sure the railway delivers as one, with a single-minded focus on the interests of the passenger. As a part of that, the newly created cross-industry Manchester recovery task- force, co-ordinated by Network Rail, will deliver on recommendations on how best to boost capacity and performance in the short, medium and longer term.

Northern has already begun to deliver many improvements for customers, including the recruitment of more staff, a full train cleaning programme and improvements to many stations. However, there remains much more to do to provide the modern, reliable service that its passengers deserve. Northern really does hope shortly to update everybody further on its plans to transform the service, but until then it will continue to focus on getting the basics right: restoring reliability, increasing capacity and rebuilding trust in the organisation by providing services that all passengers can truly rely on.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jonathan Reynolds and Chris Heaton-Harris

Thursday 24th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

Yes, we are working with cycling groups up and down the country to do exactly that.

[Jonathan Reynolds (Stalybridge and Hyde) (Lab/Co-op)]

TransPennine rail services between Leeds and Manchester through Stalybridge and Mossley are clearly vital to this country. The previous Government changed their mind quite a lot on improvements, including on full electrification. What is this Secretary of State’s policy on TransPennine rail upgrades, and will he meet me to hear some sensible suggestions on the way forward?

Energy BILL [ Lords ] (Fifth sitting)

Debate between Jonathan Reynolds and Chris Heaton-Harris

Tuesday 2nd February 2016 Public Bill Committees

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

There are communities out there now that are directly affected by amplitude modulation from wind turbines. I can cite Cotton farm in South Cambridgeshire. That constituency is on the border between two local authorities, both of which have passed motions in the council chamber and written to the Government asking for stronger guidance on these points.

Noise is monitored on a regular basis by a set-up in the community to scientific standards. When an onshore scheme is mooted, noise readings are taken using the same equipment, verified by a third party. Because we can predict when amplitude modulation is likely to occur—it depends on atmospheric conditions, meteorological patterns and wind speed—and can see all those factors happening in front of us, we can predict where the noise will fall. The developer can therefore be asked to shut the turbines down so that they do not cause harm, as has happened in Cotton farm a couple of times. I can absolutely see myself campaigning with other communities up and down the country to ensure that the amplitude modulation from turbines that are already up does not cause undue concern in local communities.

Initially, 10 or 15 years ago, the equipment required to set these up was very expensive. Now, it can be done for about £3,000. Most communities, and certainly a number of developers, could afford that, which would possibly take this problem away. I am trying to make the point to the hon. Member for Norwich South that there are, as my nan would say, many ways of skinning a cat.

The Government have been particularly slow to implement these provisions. I would like them to go further. I am pretty sure I could get together a decent-sized political caucus to do that. If we seriously intend to argue against part of the Bill falling under the auspices of the Salisbury doctrine, and if we are going down the line of dancing on the head of a pin over these issues, the consequences further down the line for this industry will be a lot worse than if we accepted that the Government had a clear manifesto pledge that they are effecting today.

[Jonathan Reynolds]

It is a pleasure, Mr Bailey, to be on the Committee. I had not intended to make a speech about the group of amendments but, as ever, Government Members’ contributions have led me to get to my feet. Many of their arguments have not been robust enough; many of the positions advanced have, quite frankly, been flawed and deserve further attention.

My starting point is that anyone considering the needs of our energy system right now has to admit that the most pressing priority is to ensure that our credentials for investability are maintained and strengthened. Our energy system requires billions and billions of pounds of investment, partly because so much of our generating capacity is going off line in the next few years, at the end of its natural life; partly because the capacity market has not worked as well as was hoped in incentivising new gas; partly because Hinkley C is in as much trouble as it was always going to be—we do not know whether it will ever be there when we need it—and also because we need to take coal out of the system, as a clear priority shared by all political parties. The need, therefore, to ensure that our energy structure is an attractive jurisdiction in which to invest must absolutely be maintained.

Much of the argument that has been advanced has been about the changes to onshore wind being clearly signposted in the Tory manifesto—indeed, demanded by the windy caucus, which is a wonderful new term to add to our political discourse. I do not dispute that; ideological opposition to onshore wind has been a part of the modern Conservative party for some time. I do not disagree with the legitimacy of the move any more than I disagree with the legitimacy of all the other bad things the Conservative Government are doing to the UK, but my point is that there is surely a duty on the Government to ensure that the decision is taken in such a way as not to damage the UK’s overall credentials as a jurisdiction in which to invest.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

I do not want to be pedantic and I hope that the hon. Gentleman takes this point in the way in which it is meant. On Second Reading, we did not have Storm Henry passing through and wind was therefore producing just about 1% of our energy. At any one time, the figure flexes between 0% and, I believe, up to 18%, but it always needs gas turbines churning in the background as a back-up.

[Jonathan Reynolds]

We are straying a bit beyond the narrow remit of the Bill, but the point is an important one. On Second Reading—the hon. Gentleman and I were there—the overall figure was 5%, not 1%. It was 1% at the specific moment that the hon. Gentleman spoke—I will give him that—but in that 24-hour period it was running at about a quarter of the energy produced by our entire nuclear fleet, which is not a small contribution.

I recommend that all hon. Members take the time to go to National Grid’s control centre to see the multitude of different generating assets that can be turned on, or brought off the system, as required to keep the system in balance. That is not done as a short-term response to the current level of wind. National Grid’s weather planning system tells it exactly what it will need on certain days, and it is tremendously effective. I do not agree with the simplistic point that every megawatt of wind energy will have to have a corresponding megawatt of traditional gas generating capacity to back it up. Frankly, the people who are skilled at running our entire network do not tell me that that is the case, and I am willing to believe them given how successful they are at running the overall system.