Easter Adjournment

Kelvin Hopkins Excerpts

Thursday 10th April 2014 Commons Chamber

[Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)]

It is a great and rather unexpected pleasure to speak this afternoon, and a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh). We may have different views on a range of subjects, but I support the idea that MPs should stand by their principles, speak up for their constituents and be independent-minded, as well as being broadly in line with their own party’s philosophy. I think I am very much in line with my party’s philosophy, but I cannot speak for everybody in my party on that score. The Labour party membership card states:

“We are a democratic socialist party”

and I say, “Hear, hear” to that.

I have come here to talk about an entirely different subject: rail freight. In business questions this morning, I raised with the Leader of the House the serious issue of air pollution and diesel particulates, and their effect on health in cities, particularly in London. London is a difficult place for people with asthma, chest complaints and so on at the moment, as air pollution is causing serious health difficulties. We have to do something about diesel. A significant measure should be to shift a lot of road freight on to rail. For heavy freight, road freight produces up to 12 times more CO₂ and other emissions than the same tonne-mileage taken by rail. Even for lighter freight, there are still substantial multiple emissions. Shifting a substantial amount of road freight to rail would make a real difference, particularly in cities. If we could get the lorry through-traffic in London on to rail, we would be doing a tremendous service to the people of London and the rest of the country.

Rail Ministers big up the amount of freight on rail, but it is actually puny. Half of it is internal freight for Network Rail—ballast, rails and so on—so we are not doing well, especially in contrast with the continent of Europe, where there is heavy investment in a big freight rail network. To see a modal shift in rail freight capacity, we have to build new rail freight track with a large gauge capacity to take lorries on trains. It is only when we can carry lorries on trains that we will have the shift I want to see.

Regrettably, our Victorian forebears, fine people though they were, who built wonderful railway lines, decided to build to too small a gauge. On the continent of Europe, they chose a larger loading gauge. I am not talking about the track gauge, but the loading gauge—the size of the wagons that travel on the track. Across the continent, dedicated freight lines are being built. That will make a massive difference to the amount of freight on rail. Tunnels are being built through the Alps that are 35 and 38 miles long, and will be capable of carrying trains with lorries and double-stacked containers. These will be vast cavernous tunnels that we just do not have.

The cost of converting all our existing rail network to carry lorries on trains is prohibitive—it is just not possible. What we need is new capacity, and there is a scheme that would achieve that. I have spoken about the scheme previously in the Chamber. I am personally involved: I am a member of a team supporting the GB Freight Route. I have no pecuniary interest; I am committed to the scheme because I believe in it passionately. If we are to make progress, we have to have this scheme. It is a first-class scheme that would solve so many of the problems that new rail capacity exhibits.

The GB Freight Route would overwhelmingly use old track bed and under-utilised existing track. The line would go from the channel tunnel all the way to Glasgow, serving the west midlands, east midlands, south midlands, south Yorkshire, south Lancashire, the north-east and Scotland. It needs only 14 miles of new track, nine miles of which would be in tunnels under the Thames and elsewhere, so it would not cause any serious planning difficulties. No houses would need to be knocked down and there would be no environmental degradation. It would not cause any problems. I think there is one pig farm on the whole route, but I would hope that we could deal with one pig farm. Generous compensation to pig farmers is the way forward.

The route is very precise, having been worked out by dedicated British Rail-trained engineers with long experience. Also on our team is Ken Russell, a major road haulier from Scotland. He now runs the Barking freight terminal, which takes lorries on trains from the continent of Europe through the channel tunnel and along HS1 as far as Barking, where the lorries are lifted off. They cannot go any further, because the track cannot take lorries on trains. Continental hauliers and logistics companies who have said “We want you to go past Barking” have been told “We cannot go past Barking, because the track cannot accommodate lorries on trains.” We need to do something about that.

As I have said, the scheme is very detailed, and has been designed very precisely. Every mile of the track has been examined carefully by engineers, and we know exactly what we are doing. I have travelled along most of the track and seen it for myself. There are no planning problems, there will be no environmental degradation, and there are no houses on the route. We have already demonstrated that it works. Trains have come from Antwerp and Poland with lorries on them, and the lorries have been lifted off by Ken Russell’s firm, Russell Transport, at Barking. The terminal is owned by Axa, but is operated by Russell Transport. I must emphasise again that I have no pecuniary interest in the scheme, and never will have; I just believe in it.

Even now, freight trains are running from Poland to China. Once we have crossed the channel, not just Europe but the whole of Asia is open to us, and eventually trains will be able to run trains from Glasgow to Beijing—if we can travel from Glasgow to the channel tunnel. In order to do that, however, we must have that crucial ability to put lorries on trains at the terminals in our great economic regions, which would breathe new life into those regions as well. There would be a direct and easy route. Once a lorry had been lifted on to the train at a terminal, it could be delivered to Dortmund or Rome the next day. We have demonstrated that that would work.

We have a great deal of support. The supermarkets, for example, have said that if the line is built, they will offer 10,000 lorry loads a week in the first instance, and much more after that. We have the support of hauliers such as Eddie Stobart, the Malcolm Group and our own firm, Russell Transport. We also have the support of Eurotunnel, whose deputy chief executive has met us on a number of occasions. He is a good friend. There is a huge amount of capacity in the channel tunnel, which is, of course, very under-utilised. There will never be enough passengers to fill its capacity, so that capacity must be filled by freight. Hundreds of trains can go through the channel tunnel every week, and scores can go through it each day. They can run quite quickly one behind the other, provided that there is nothing on the track to restrict them.

We have met rail constructors who have boasted that they can build the line more cheaply than even we have suggested, although our figure is very low. Our figure for the whole scheme, which is based on the out-turn figures for the cost of HS1, is £6 billion. Just £6 billion for a massive addition to the rail network! That is about a third of what we are spending on Crossrail. The reason it is so cheap is that we have no planning problems. We are using under-utilised old track routes and unused track bed.

Moreover, there will be no conflict with HS2, if it goes ahead. Whatever we think of HS2—and I happen to think that the money would be better spent on a number of other railway schemes—the fact remains that there will be no conflict. There is a six-mile stretch in the midlands where the two lines would have to run side by side, but providing four tracks rather than two for those six miles would not be a problem. I shall say no more about HS2, because I do not want to open up that great can of worms at this particular moment.

We have political support from all sorts of interesting people. One of those who are actively supporting us is my noble Friend Lord Prescott. We are currently looking into the possibility of a link between Merseyside and Humberside, so that there can be roll-on/roll-off traffic from Ireland to Merseyside and across the Pennines to Humberside—and from there to the continent of Europe if necessary. Of course, certain conditions would have to be met. We must think about how we can engineer the track from Sheffield. Our terminal there would be at Tinsley, which is a big rail freight depot that will be well known to those who are familiar with the area, and which has plenty of capacity.

The scheme has some crucial elements of which the Government will have to be aware if we can get them behind it. The only hold-up so far has been caused by the Department for Transport. Everyone else seems to be in favour of the scheme; even the Mayor of London has given us the nod. The problem has constantly been with the Department for Transport, although not with Transport Ministers, some of whom have been very supportive. Not only a previous Labour Minister but Ministers in the present Government are privately sympathetic to the scheme. One has visited the track with our engineers. Given that the scheme is so obviously what, in modern parlance, is described as a no-brainer, I do not understand why the Department does not jump at the idea.

We estimate that the scheme could take 5 million lorry journeys off the road each year, It would take all the north-south freight traffic on the west coast, east coast and midlands main lines, and free up those lines for passenger traffic. The idea that passengers should be taken off the north-south lines and on to HS2 in order to free them up for freight is constantly being thrown at us, but the problem is that the trains cannot transport lorries. Until that can be done, there will be no serious modal shift. I suspect that in future we will travel by train more and more as global warming takes hold and it becomes more and more difficult to travel by road. Railways are indeed the transport mode of the future. The west coast, east coast and midlands main lines should be used to the maximum for passenger traffic, and the freight should be shifted to our dedicated—or freight-priority—line.

I know that the Deputy Leader of the House, who is present, has experience of transport matters. He may be aware of the Barking-Gospel Oak line in London, which is currently being used for very limited passenger traffic. There is talk of upgrading it and making it a bit more useful, and that will be part of the scheme. Getting through London is the difficult part. An upgrade of that line so that it can link Barking with north-west London is crucial. I hope that when the Government proceed with the upgrade that they have promised, that upgrade will include enabling the line to take lorries and not just full-sized but double-stacked full-sized containers. We are talking big stuff here.

That is the first of two vital components. The second is the four-mile Woodhead tunnel, which goes through the Pennines and has not been used for decades. My hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith) knows it very well, because it is in her constituency. It is a beautiful tunnel, which was built on a very large scale. A single track down the centre would be required to provide sufficient height, but that would not be a problem for a four-mile section of track. If we are to enable traffic to go from Merseyside across the Pennines and further north to Scotland, we will need the Woodhead tunnel. There has been talk of its being handed to the electricity grid so that cables can be put through it. I do not know whether that is happening yet, but it would be an utter waste. If it has not yet happened, I suggest that the old parallel tunnels next door to the Woodhead tunnel should be repaired, and the cables should be put through those. The repairs would require a small amount of money. Even if the cables have already been put through the Woodhead tunnel, I think that they should be relocated to the smaller tunnels, so that the big tunnel can be freed up for the line.

My right hon. Friend Lord Prescott is very keen on the cross-Pennine route, taking traffic off the M62, and this would be the way forward. Having Humberside and Merseyside linked for Irish traffic in particular would be a tremendous addition. Every major economic region of the country would have a terminal nearby, even the south-west, although that would be the last, and of course coming along the M4 and on to our scheme at the north-west London terminal would not be difficult. We do propose, however, a link from Birmingham down to the south-west and a terminal in the south-west in a later part of the scheme.

I have outlined, and made the case for, the scheme. I want the Government to take it seriously and I hope very much that they will be persuaded, perhaps after I have made the case on a few more occasions.