A47

Keith Simpson Excerpts

Wednesday 14th May 2014 Westminster Hall

[Mr Keith Simpson (Broadland) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies—I have not come under your gavel before now. It is also nice to see the Minister in his place after his kippers in the Tea Room this morning; I am sure that his little grey cells are all fired up.

I welcome all my colleagues who are here this morning. Between us, our constituencies span just about the whole A47. We have apologies from my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Mr Jackson), who has an outside engagement and so cannot attend, but fully supports us, and from my hon. Friends the Members for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss), for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb) and for Great Yarmouth (Brandon Lewis), who may yet appear in a silent role later on. We have pretty well a full team.

Apart from anything else, my reason for calling for the debate is that parts of the A47 run through my present constituency, although boundary changes robbed me of the western part, which is now in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Norfolk (George Freeman). The stretch from the east of Norwich almost up to Great Yarmouth is important, but I have learned from harsh experience that we must address the upgrading of the A47 along its whole length. Given our hope of gaining money in the autumn statement—and we are in competition with five other worthy schemes—we should approach the issue from a strategic point of view, although we should of course recognise that we all have constituency-specific issues.

The A47 runs for some 115 miles, from Peterborough through Norfolk to Great Yarmouth. The extra consideration is now the A12 to Lowestoft; my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous) is here to represent those interests. Over my 17 years as a Member of Parliament, I have seen many schemes relating to the A47 drop off the list of priorities, either because other schemes have come further up the list or because Governments have run out of money. Usually, there has then been a patchwork approach to mending the A47, addressing narrow local problems. Worthy as that is, it is not the solution for the year 2014-15.

I welcome the Government’s investment in the UK’s national roads network and the decision to complete the dualling of the A11. That early decision by the coalition is one we applauded at the time and was at least helped along by the fact that Norfolk and Suffolk MPs hunted as a pack. We knew we had the chance of getting one big delivery, and the Government have delivered it. We hope that the last section will be opened and will make a considerable difference. If, as occasionally happens, there is ever a major accident on the east-west A47 in Norfolk and on the A11, Norfolk literally grinds to a halt. We need to bear that in mind.

The A47 Alliance has been crucial in putting forward a credible case for dualling the A47. The alliance is grateful for all positive announcements already made regarding the A47, including that it will be one of just six routes to benefit from the Highways Agency feasibility study programme. We are in the last six. In this debate, I will merely set the big picture, and colleagues will come in with specific points; I hope the debate as a whole will help move things forward and push the A47 further up the priorities list.

Typical of the work undertaken by the A47 Alliance is its study “A47 Strategic Route: Gateway to Growth”, which has contributions from all councils along the route and, most significantly, from the New Anglia local enterprise partnership. The study is not just the usual wish list that we frequently get from these kinds of organisations; as far as we can tell, it is a well argued business case and has been recognised as such by the Department for Transport. Indeed, the Minister’s predecessor, the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon (Stephen Hammond), said that he would suggest to other people making bids for routes that they should study how the A47 case has been produced. This is not simply a matter of sentiment, then—there is a strong business case.

As part of the campaign, we have held a number of debates in Parliament—I have had debates on the A47 in the past, as has my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Norfolk. Collectively, we have met my hon. Friend the Roads Minister and his predecessor, my hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon, to present our case. My hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon came to Norfolk last year, and I drove him along part of the A47 so that he could get a feel for the traffic and the problems we face in my area. He then progressed westwards towards Peterborough to see the situation further along the road. The present Minister has also agreed to visit the area to see the challenges for himself, which I think may be happening next month.

I realise that the A47 is competing with other schemes for part of the Government’s long-term capital funding. Along with colleagues, I will again put forward positive arguments for the A47 being considered for top funding in this year’s autumn statement. That is the timeline and the opportunity that we have over the next few months.

The A47 is a national trunk road of strategic importance to Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, and should also be of importance to the east midlands and the whole UK. Colleagues will agree that lack of capacity has had a real drag on current business opportunities, with delays and missed opportunities, especially for new investment in the area.

Without a commitment to investment in the A47, other Government priorities for our part of East Anglia will not be met. The Great Yarmouth and Lowestoft enterprise zone will depend largely on the proper development of the A47. The planned growth of greater Norwich and projected housing growth will mean that what is already a difficult situation in the road structure around Norwich will become even worse, and the situation is similar for King’s Lynn, Wisbech and Peterborough. Poor, unreliable east-west transport links will deter investment. At a time when we are also trying to cope with unemployment by attracting new businesses, we have a very strong case indeed to make for the strategic importance of the A47.

Although perhaps not part of a strategic picture, we also have to take into account the problems that local communities along the route face in gaining access to and crossing the A47. I will give one example. East of Norwich, at Lingwood in my constituency, there is a nasty crossing. In the summer, the problems are exacerbated by tourists and in the sugar beet season, dozens of lorries attempt to come across—indeed, the lady in the white house on the corner used to store a full stretcher kit so that it could be put to immediate use before ambulances arrived. I am sure colleagues have other examples.

Such situations increase the chance of accidents. Since Christmas, sadly, there have been a number of serious accidents in Norfolk—I am sure the same is true in other areas—that literally blocked the A47. I have never claimed that the only problem is the lack of dualling. As the police will say, drivers frequently make errors or take chances, but that is partly due to the fact that the A47 is a stop-start road that is single then dualled, so people take risks at the last moment.

Investment will help stimulate economic growth, meet the transport access needs of new homes and possibly reduce accidents. A strategic link between the east midlands, Yarmouth and Lowestoft will also provide greater access to Europe. We in East Anglia look out towards Europe, and Europe has influenced our development. We have very close links indeed. I fear that if we are unable to develop the A47 in the next few years, some European countries that want economic links with our region will look elsewhere.

I assure the Minister that we intend to continue to lobby his Department and, most importantly, the Treasury as we develop our fact-based case. We will continue to feed any new information into the A47 feasibility study. I know that my colleagues will want to take up specific issues to support my case for the strategic importance of the A47.

I conclude by asking the Minister to outline the timetable for the key milestones put forward for the study. I remind him that they are as follows. Completion of stage 1 of the study—evidence gathering and problem prioritisation—was due at the end of March 2014 and I trust that that was met. Completion of stage 2—identifying the range of infrastructure proposals that could address the problems along the corridor—is due at the end of July 2014. Is that on track? Completion of stage 3—work to assess affordability, value for money and deliverability of prioritised infrastructure proposals—is due in autumn 2014. Will the study conclude in time for the autumn statement? Does the Minister have any idea of when we will know the six schemes that are up for the money and when we might have some indication of whether he has reached a conclusion, recognising the fact that the Chancellor will make the announcement in the autumn statement?

The Minister and his predecessor have listened carefully to what we have said and have taken our case seriously. I hope that the Minister will see, from the range of support from colleagues throughout the eastern counties, that we believe the strategic importance of the A47 merits putting us at the top and that we should receive the money in the autumn statement.

Rail (East Anglia)

Keith Simpson Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd July 2012 Westminster Hall

[Dr Coffey]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and reinforces the point that investment in our rail infrastructure could mean that our region, rather than other parts of the country, can be a huge multiplier. The idea that people want to travel up to Lowestoft by car to have a look at investment is ridiculous. Along the east Suffolk line, sitting in a one-carriage train, perhaps after making the connection at Ipswich, is not always the most attractive way to arrive for an investors’ meeting.

For a quicker service on the great eastern main line, we need to speed up the trains. One way to do that is to focus on level crossings. I will refer to this again when I come on to the issue of branch lines, but we need to ensure that there are stretches where trains are unhindered. We also need to open up capacity at Liverpool Street station. Certain things have to happen before any of that can take place. Crossrail will have to be completed, which we hope will happen by 2018. We have to continue the work at Bow Junction to ensure that those lines can be used and that we get those slots. Peak services along the great eastern main line are already at full capacity. Although freight currently runs on the line, it does not do so during peak times. Extra capacity, therefore, is critical.

I do not pretend to be a rail specialist. I do not know the difference between four-tracking, the clever loops that Network Rail is now thinking about, or the extra bit of track that is needed in that stretch near Chelmsford. What I do know, however, is that there are clever brains working on solutions that will mean that we can open up vital capacity. By doing so, we can increase reliability and speed.

[Mr Keith Simpson (Broadland) (Con)]

What a vision of loveliness my hon. Friend is, and I congratulate her on securing this important debate. To cut to the chase, many MPs and many of our constituents believe that, in the past, neither Network Rail nor the franchisees have taken East Anglia seriously. We have the impression that previous franchisees have asset stripped. We have been dumped on with out-of-date rolling stock, and capacity has never been properly considered. The key question is this: is she confident that Network Rail and the new franchisees will take this seriously? If they do not, one could be forgiven for thinking that perhaps the Government do not have a priority.

[Dr Coffey]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. We have to be serious and we need to ensure that the Government are serious, so that when the new tender is put out for 2014, the very exacting standards that we are demanding, exemplified by the prospectus, are delivered. Nothing less than that will be good enough. My hon. Friend mentioned rolling stock, and I agree with him. I will come on to the issue of traveller experience later. Yesterday, some hon. Members were on the same train as me travelling to London Liverpool Street. I am convinced that they are the same trains I used to travel on as a student between Liverpool and London, back in the early ’90s. To simply recycle stock when, on average, our carriages are 25 years old, makes me wonder how old some of our stock actually is.

We have a large number of unstaffed stations. Abellio is the current franchisee. It has a very short franchise, and has made some real improvements. We now have print-at-home and mobile phone ticketing. That might not suit every single passenger, with the demographic of our constituents, but it is a huge step forward. Instead of paying the full price, customers can now print at home or get a neighbour to do it for them. That is a big improvement, and I give credit for that to Abellio.

Rural Bus Services

Keith Simpson Excerpts

Tuesday 11th October 2011 Westminster Hall

[Brandon Lewis]

I thank my hon. Friend, who has first-hand experience of that development. Like him, I represent an area that is heavily used by tourists; in fact, it is the second most popular seaside tourist resort in the country. The system means that areas used by tourists can be further adversely affected. That is partly the result of the complicated arrangement in place for funding bus systems. One of the best things the Government have done—I pay credit to them for what they have done so far—is to simplify the system. Some organisations claim that at one point under the previous Government there were 22 different forms of funding for the bus system. We have got that down to three or four, and it would be a great success if the Government simplified things further over the next couple of years and introduced one funding system that was transparent and understandable to everybody and that sat with one Department.

Another new scheme serves rural Northamptonshire with a fleet of new low-floor minibuses. It allows passengers to book a seat by telephone or text or on the internet so that elderly or frail people can be picked up from home, while others are collected at village bus stops at a set time. That is Northamptonshire county council’s excellent response to the need to save millions by reforming subsidised services. It is much better and more cost-effective, and it reacts much more to the needs of the user than a large, heavily subsidised bus going round villages when it is often empty or close to empty.

[Mr Keith Simpson (Broadland) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on initiating the debate. He has just touched on a point we should all be aware of. We are in a coalition Government, and there are cuts taking place, which we support. In my experience as a Norfolk MP, however, the crucial thing about the local bus service, rather like the local post office, is that people use it or lose it. I am not here to defend the bus companies, but there is all too often public pressure to maintain a service, but when it is maintained, nobody uses it. We need to look at how these services are publicised and ensure that the public are made aware that it is not in the interests of either the Government or individual bus companies to maintain the kind of services that my hon. Friend mentioned. Such services merely go round and round the rural areas and are lucky if they get two or three people using them.

[Brandon Lewis]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. I fully support what he says. It is important to find a way of ensuring that local authorities can be more flexible in how they work with the bus operators and other forms of community transport, so that they can allow for more cost-effective usage and be more responsive to local needs.

A11 (Dualling)

Keith Simpson Excerpts

Tuesday 27th July 2010 Westminster Hall

[Mr Keith Simpson (Broadland) (Con)]

Mr Williams, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship.

I warmly congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk (Matthew Hancock) and my other hon. Friends who are here in Westminster Hall today. We “old lags” from pre-2010—the “Alten Kämpfer”, as our German cousins would call us—stand in awe of their enthusiasm and the fact that they really want to hunt as a pack on behalf of East Anglia.

Norfolk has two main trunk roads, the A11 and the A47, neither of which is completely dualled. I have fought long and hard for the A47 to be dualled because, as my hon. Friend the Member for Great Yarmouth (Brandon Lewis) has said, it goes through part of my constituency. In terms of priorities, however, I think that everybody in Norfolk—whether they are business people, local councillors or Members of Parliament—has recognised that the No. 1 priority is the completion of the dualling of this nine-mile stretch of the A11. That is the message that I would give to our hon. Friend the Minister—that this dualling work is the key to unlocking a lot of the economic development that we require in the northern part of East Anglia.

I hope that I can compare and contrast the reaction of the coalition Government with the briefing that I went to in 1997 with the newly elected MPs at that time. It was a briefing from Baroness Hayman, the Speaker in the House of Lords, who was then a junior Transport Minister. We were told then that roads were really not on the agenda; nobody was really interested in roads at that time. However, the great outcry and bellowing from the then Members for Norwich, North and Norwich, South—Dr Ian Gibson and Charles Clarke respectively—and others proved that even then we recognised that roads were absolutely crucial.

If the Barton Mills stretch of the A11 is blocked, perhaps by roadworks or an accident, and if the A47 is blocked at the same time—I think that it happened once that both roads were blocked at the same time—there is no doubt that Norfolk will be totally gridlocked. As I say, that gridlock has actually happened. It is ludicrous that that should happen to one of the largest counties in the country and it obviously has a knock-on effect for our friends and colleagues in Suffolk.

In addition, the A11 is criss-crossed by a number of secondary roads. At times, it is almost impossible for people to get across those secondary roads and I believe that that also has a knock-on effect on the local economy.

It seems that Norfolk and Suffolk suffer from a double negative. First, we have an inadequate road link between Norwich and London. At this point, I must gently tease my hon. Friend the Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss) and say that Boadicea was, of course, heading towards Colchester and not towards Cambridge; I think that Boadicea’s old satellite navigation equipment might have been slightly out when she was heading south to our friends in Colchester for a quiet word in their ear and burning down their capital. While I am at it, I also gently point out to my hon. Friend that in Roman times it was Venta Icenorum, which was outside Norwich, that was the capital of East Anglia. Having Thetford as the capital was a later, rather vulgar occurrence under the Anglo-Saxons. [Laughter.] However, Mr Williams, I will pass that by.

As I was saying, the crucial point is that we not only have that inadequate road link but, as my hon. Friends have already pointed out, we have for years had a very inadequate rail link, first run by Anglia and now by National Express. We have all been working to improve that link and I hope that the Minister will pass on to his colleagues who are responsible for the rail network the fact that, when the franchise comes up for renewal, we intend gripping in no uncertain terms, and we will want to interview the various companies that might be thinking of putting in a bid for that franchise.

My hon. Friends have outlined the impact on business and economic development of dualling this stretch of road. My experience of 13 years as a Member of Parliament, in a constituency that is north of Norwich, is that there is no doubt that one of the factors—I emphasise that it is only one of the factors, although I think that it is an absolutely crucial one—in getting investment into Norfolk, either from the rest of the United Kingdom or from overseas, is the perception that our infrastructure, including the important road and rail network, is of poor quality. Even in the age of being able to order goods through the internet, when it comes to companies that ultimately rely on shifting quite heavy duty goods by road and rail, I think that Norfolk and Suffolk frequently lose out if those companies are looking for new places to go to. Therefore, it is absolutely crucial that we re-establish that infrastructure.

The northern part of our region has always been a poor relation. Parts of Suffolk, Norfolk and Cambridgeshire are poor as measured by every index of social deprivation that one can think of. My own constituency only has small pockets of social deprivation, but in particular I am thinking of friends and colleagues in Lowestoft, Great Yarmouth, King’s Lynn and Norwich, where there are major areas of social deprivation. Therefore, getting in new business is crucial.

We should also bear it in mind that we have about 2 million to 3 million tourists coming to Norfolk and Suffolk each year to visit our beautiful counties and one of the horror stories that they invariably leave with is that of being stuck on the A11. We want to encourage tourism, so roads are crucial.

We should also bear in mind, as hon. Members have pointed out, the importance of the right kind of capital expenditure. I know that the Minister is aware of it; my hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk has flagged it up. I also pray in aid the support of a colleague who is unable to speak in this debate, although her fragrant presence is before me; I refer to my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich North (Miss Smith), who, as a Whip, may be seen but, sadly, never heard, or at least heard only in private. My hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk (Mr Bacon) also sends his apologies, as he is on duty at the Public Accounts Committee. Both my hon. Friends have said that there are two types of capital expenditure. The first, once made, may cost more and more. Such expenditure is important, as it includes schools, prisons, hospitals and so on. The second, apart from the occasional need to repair potholes, produces economic growth after the initial capital investment is made. Roads are one of the most important elements of such growth. I commend my hon. Friends for making that point.

[Matthew Hancock]

Does my hon. Friend agree with the Minister’s boss, the Secretary of State for Transport, that there are powerful economic benefits to removing the bottleneck?

[Mr Simpson]

Yes, absolutely. I am sure that colleagues from other parts of the country will make similar points, but I believe that our point about the A11, which is backed up by the quote from the Secretary of State, is a powerful one.

On the politics of the issue, I have every sympathy for the Minister. His civil servants will have produced a good brief saying, “I commend all the people who have spoken, sympathise with them and feel their pain, but I point out that we are in the middle of a comprehensive spending review and I can therefore make no commitments whatever; kisses to all.” I am not being patronising; he is in a difficult position, as are all Ministers in all Departments.

Our most important message to the Minister is that the MPs of Norfolk and Suffolk are absolutely united in the opinion that the A11 should be given priority. We have been to see the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, and some colleagues have met the Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport to discuss broadband, so we understand the economic constraints, but when the Minister considers priorities during the next few months, we urge him to look carefully at what we have argued for. We believe that, in two to three years, the investment required will produce more tax revenue for the Government and will benefit all our constituents.