Nottingham to Lincoln Railway Line

Karl McCartney Excerpts

Monday 27th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Karl MᶜCartney (Lincoln) (Con)]

I thank my colleague, the hon. and gallant Member for Newark (Patrick Mercer), for letting me speak in this debate. I will not take up too much time, because I am conscious that we would like to hear from the Minister and give him as much time to reply as possible.

I want to add a few details from a Lincoln perspective, as we are discussing the Lincoln-Nottingham corridor. The economic importance of that corridor was recognised when, pre-1997, under a Conservative Government, a dual carriageway was built between Newark and Lincoln, as the hon. Gentleman mentioned. That has been extended all the way to Nottingham in more recent years. It is of crucial economic importance. We have road transport infrastructure but we would like the rail infrastructure, all the way from Nottingham to Lincoln, to match it.

When I was lucky enough to have the honour and privilege of being elected Member of Parliament for Lincoln, I inherited the only city in the country that was unfortunate enough not to have a quick, fast, direct route to London. That has been improved, but we have only one service to London a day, and none at weekends. Unfortunately, we also had one of the least frequent and slowest cross-country services, and that is what we are tonight seeking to ensure that the Department for Transport addresses.

The Lincoln-Newark-Nottingham service is well below the normal standard of all comparable routes in all key respects—frequency, speed, capacity and onward connections. Lincoln has only one train per hour to its core city, Nottingham, whereas most similar places have two, three or even four to theirs; I cite core cities such as Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds as examples. Moreover, the Lincoln-Nottingham service ran every half-hour until 2002, when half the trains were withdrawn because of operational difficulties elsewhere on the rail network, following the Hatfield crash. Those difficulties have long since been overcome, but Lincoln-Nottingham is the only service reduced in 2002 not to have been restored to former standards.

The trains that were withdrawn ran every hour directly between Lincoln and Birmingham. When they were withdrawn in 2002, Lincoln and Newark not only suffered a reduction in frequency, but lost their direct service to Derby and Birmingham—a double whammy. The line is characterised by out-of-date service levels on Sundays, when there are no services from Nottingham to Lincoln before 4.30 pm, despite the significant increase in leisure and commercial activity on Sundays in recent years—a point alluded to by my hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood (Mr Spencer). That highlights just how far services on the line have fallen below people’s expectations today.

In 1912, fast Lincoln-Nottingham trains took 45 minutes; now they take around 50 minutes because of speed limits, and many trains take more than an hour because of extra stops. For the avoidance of any doubt, it should be noted that the things that make the service substandard are not the responsibility or fault of East Midlands Trains. The service frequency is specified by the Department for Transport, as is the stopping pattern that results in so few non-stop trains. The speed limits are imposed by Network Rail because of the characteristics of the infrastructure, and East Midlands Trains is obliged to obey those speed limits. In fact, it is consistently one of the most punctual train operators in England, with around 94% of trains complying with required standards, but even an excellent operator such as EMT cannot run a fast service on a line with very low speed limits, especially if it is instructed by DFT that most trains must stop at stations every few miles.

There are issues such as the at-grade crossing at Newark between the east coast line and the cross-country line, and railway electrification, which Lincoln, Newark and Nottingham would benefit from, if that was forthcoming in future years. Lincoln and Nottingham are designated housing growth points––an additional 60,000 houses are planned over the next 20 years, 18,800 of them in Lincoln. Lincoln university is one of the UK’s fastest-growing universities, with a 40% increase in students planned for the next 10 years. A science park of around 1 million square feet is being developed for spin-off and related industries. Those are all reasons why we would like an increased, better train service from Lincoln, Newark and Nottingham.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Hammond]

My hon. Friend knows that it would have been easy for me to say some soft words. What I am saying now is probably not terribly good news for him. But he and all the elected Members here have often made the case, and I urge them all again to go to their local bodies, as I have previously tried to indicate. It is incredibly important that the county councils and the economic bodies in the region declare this a strategic priority. That will underline the importance of reconsidering whether the improvements to the line are a high priority for those bodies and, therefore, for the allocation of local funding, which is available. That could then be reflected in the local growth fund.

I say to my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Stephen Phillips) that there is still a chance for that to happen, because the bids for the local growth fund are due by 31 March this year. It is still perfectly possible for local bodies to engage with Network Rail and its partners in developing a business case for the proposed enhancements and to put it forward for the local growth fund. Equally, it is still possible for those local bodies to develop a business case and put it forward as a priority for investment for the 2019 to 2024 control period. I recognise my hon. Friend’s ambition to have it earlier, but none the less that would still be possible.

My hon. Friend the Member for Lincoln reviewed his hopes, and I suspect those of Lincoln, for an increased through service between London and Lincoln. I certainly recognise the appetite for more frequent direct services between that city and London. I welcome the work on a business case undertaken by Lincolnshire county council in 2012. As he will know, I cannot commit at this stage to any additional services, mainly because the Department is currently evaluating the business case and the network impacts of running services to the locations not currently served by the east coast main line. However, I can confirm that a number of regions—Yorkshire, the north-east, the midlands and the east of England, including Lincolnshire—are in that evaluation and assessment process. Depending on the outcome of the work, the invitation to tender for the east coast main line franchise might include a requirement or an option for bidders to run services to a specific number of locations.

[Karl MᶜCartney]

It is obviously of the utmost importance that any invitation to tender includes a specification for the eventual winner of the franchise, which is what we in Lincoln want to see. On that point, with regard to cross-country services, might not a franchise extension that brings an improvement that we are seeking between the line from Lincoln and Newark to Nottingham see an improvement in the specification of services?

[Stephen Hammond]

I hear what my hon. Friend says about specification. The Department is keen to give options to bidders for initiative and innovation in the franchise. He may wish to pursue that, because he might find that it is the way to secure what he desires, rather than the Department directly specifying things.

The train service requirement will be set out in the invitation to tender, which will be published by the end of February, so it would be imprudent of me to comment on that any further. However, as I have said to my hon. Friend the Member for Newark and other hon. Members, I will be happy to brief any hon. Members on the proposals for the ITT at that stage.

I welcome the opportunity to set out the Government’s position on how enhancements to that line could still be progressed, even at this late stage, were the local authorities to get themselves in line. I welcome the opportunity to see that the line could build on the massive programme of investment that we are already seeing across the rail network. The Government remain committed to working with local authorities and local enterprise partnerships to see improvements to the line and others, should that be a priority for them. But I say to hon. Members again—I know that they will have heard me say this—that the ball is in the court for them to hit heavily at their local authorities. I hope that the local authorities will then decide to demonstrate that commitment to the investment that they are asking me to provide this evening.

Question put and agreed to.