Rail Links: South-west England

Kevin Foster Excerpts

Tuesday 24th October 2017 Westminster Hall

[Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Evans. I congratulate the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard) on securing the debate. As he will know, we have two things in common. I not only share his interest in trains in the south-west but I was born in Plymouth, at the now gone Freedom Fields Hospital in his constituency.

It is a pleasure to speak about this issue. There has been a lot of attention given to railways in the south-west over the last three years, following the disaster at Dawlish. That attention has been welcome, because for too long our railways have been a Cinderella service. For me, this is about not just being negative but looking at how many people are using these services, the growth we are seeing in passenger numbers and the vital part our rail network is playing in many people’s lives. All that is being achieved with older stock, with a railway that is the remnants of what was left after the Beeching era and with the famous issues at Dawlish.

I have commented a couple of times that it is bizarre to have to look at the wind forecast, weather forecast and shipping forecast to see whether certain trains will be running west of Exeter. To be clear, that is not due to the track; it is due to the design of the trains and the rolling stock. Sometimes that gets confused, and people think the reason CrossCountry cannot run is an inherent issue with the Dawlish coastal railway, but it is not. When we see a 40-year-old train ploughing through a big wave, that is because of an issue with the design a few years back, which I hope is being carefully noted by Great Western in its trials for introducing new rolling stock on to the line within the next couple of years. That will be one of the most welcome investments we have seen in some time.

Dawlish is the iconic issue. It is vital that there is a commitment to completing resilience works there, so that the railway will stand for another century. It is perfectly possible to do that. While I hear talk of a new line, which might be something to pursue as an additional route in years to come, for now, in the short term, we have to make sure that that railway line does not close. There is little point having a great plan for a decade’s time if a piece of cliff moves and we end up with no railway line for a year or two. Our region could not possibly accept that outcome. I hope the Minister will give us an update on the work that Network Rail has been doing and that his Department has been funding.

One big thing to come out of the Dawlish incident was that the region finally came up with the peninsula rail taskforce plan. One of the things that most surprised me when I got involved in campaigning three or four years back in Devon and Cornwall was that we did not have an agreed ask. In many other regions, particularly in the north, we would find a united package of asks in order of priority, whereas traditionally in the south-west, in the past, we have had too much arguing between areas, with the outcome being that it was easy for national decision makers to send investment elsewhere.

A bonus of the PRTF plan is that it gives a clear set of priorities for the whole region that each area benefits from, and each area recognises that competing with other parts of Devon and Cornwall is not a productive way of going about it. It would be very hard to argue that Dawlish and Teignmouth should be bypassed while arguing that Torquay and Paignton definitely need rail stations. We need to keep a united front.

With the upcoming Devon banks work, it makes eminent sense to see if some journey savings can be achieved. While those services do not directly benefit Torbay, some members of my constituency’s travelling public will travel to Plymouth, and generally making services speedier across the whole line benefits each one of us.

It is also vital that we keep attention on local rail schemes that may make a difference, and in particular the prospect of new stations or reconnecting parts of the network that have not had a station since the middle to late 1960s. That means particularly looking at a new station in Edginswell. I was very pleased to hear the Minister’s positive views on that project last week, and I look forward to the meeting where we can discuss that in more detail. It is as vital to have local stations that allow people to connect to the network as it is to have a nice new train heading off from Newton Abbot at speed to London. Ultimately, the key time that matters for people is the time it takes from where they are to where they want to be, and that is where the transport network has to come together. It cannot just be fast between two points if those two points do not connect to other places.

I am mindful of the guidance you gave, Mr Evans, so I will conclude. Railways in the south-west provide a great opportunity and have a great unreleased potential that, with investment, could make a real difference to not just our region but the nation’s economy as a whole. I hope the Minister will give us some real encouragement and strong views on how we can take our region and our railways forward.