Great British Railways Headquarters: Crewe Bid

Debate between Kieran Mullan and Edward Timpson

Tuesday 29th March 2022 Westminster Hall

[Dr Mullan]

I agree with my hon. Friend and thank her for coming to give her support today. It is about Crewe’s 360-degree connectivity, which is unrivalled when it comes to towns and other places seeking to become the home of the new GBR HQ.

Crewe was born from the railways. The decision by the Grand Junction Railway Company in 1837 to invest in a new station, which connected the Liverpool and Manchester railways and the London and Birmingham railways, transformed the village of Crewe into the railway town it is today, and the town’s growth has been linked to the railways ever since. The station was built alongside the Crewe Locomotive Works, which went on to become the largest locomotive works in the world. The first locomotive produced at Crewe Works was rolled out on 20 October 1843. The first locomotive produced at Crewe was given the number 32 and the name Tamerlane. The outline of the engines was very different from all previous designs and became known generally as the Crewe type, which lasted for many years. By the time locomotive production came to an end in the 1990s, more than 8,000 locomotives had been built in Crewe, with the site employing more than 20,000 people at its height. From speaking to constituents, I have met countless people whose families worked in the railway industry. Often multiple generations of the same local families have done so and continue to this day, with the Crewe Works site still active.

This rich heritage is to be seen all over the town. Opened in 1888, the beautiful Queen’s Park in the heart of Crewe was a gift to the town from the London and North Western Railway Company, to mark the joint occasion of the Queen’s jubilee and the 50th anniversary of the opening of the grand junction railway. The Crewe Heritage Centre was officially opened by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh on 24 July 1987 to mark the 150th anniversary of the first train to arrive at Crewe railway station in 1837.

From steam trains to electrification and diesel programmes, Crewe’s rail connections, combined with its engineering workforce, has bound Crewe to the railway industry for generations, so it is no surprise that I can talk confidently and proudly about the amazing modern railway industry sector, built from this legacy, that now inhabits the town. Some 7% of the English railway workforce are based in Crewe, despite Crewe having just 0.1% of the population. The workforce is spread across an amazingly diverse range of businesses. Avanti, Arriva TrainCare, Train Bits and More, Jacobs, Freightliner, DB Cargo, Direct Rail Services, Alstom, Unipart Rail, Locomotive Services Ltd, Keltbray and more all operate in Crewe, and it is the headquarters for many. Alstom recently won the contract for the production of the bogies for HS2 at the original Crewe Works site. Freightliner has invested millions in a new maintenance facility for freight locomotives, while the Avanti West Coast partnership has established its nationwide talent academy in Crewe.

Crewe has retained and attracted many of the rail and rail supply chain businesses as they have innovated and evolved, meaning that it is well positioned and ready to be at the centre of rail reform and innovation throughout the 21st century and beyond. Looking to the future, the presence of the Crewe Engineering and Design UTC and the Institute of Technology at Cheshire College creates an opportunity for Crewe to be known as a centre of excellence for rail skills, capturing existing rail expertise and wider complementary skills to teach the next generation. All of this is placed at the most well-connected railway hub in the country. Crewe is a connector to major cities and towns across England and the Union, with six railway lines offering 360-degree connectivity. It is the only station on the main line that is connected to all the regional capitals, with direct connections to Edinburgh and Glasgow, and connections across Wales, allowing a GBR HQ based in Crewe to play its role in strengthening the Union.

[Edward Timpson (Eddisbury) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent and compelling case for the GBR HQ to be based in Crewe. He will appreciate that I am also aware of the deep pride and passion that the people of Crewe have for their railway heritage, and they want a future for that important part of our transport infrastructure. Does he agree that one advantage of have the GBR HQ in Crewe is that officials and the great team that will be assembled there will become very familiar with the integrated rail system in and around Crewe, including between Crewe and Chester and other parts of Cheshire, and we could have something that is fit for the 21st century, not least a new station at Beeston Castle and Tarporley?

[Dr Mullan]

I do indeed agree with my hon. Friend, and I thank him for his support for the bid to have the GBR HQ in Crewe.

More than 3 million people live within a 45-minute commute by road and rail and there are 12 major universities within an hour’s commute of Crewe. Liverpool, Manchester and Birmingham are all within an hour’s commute by rail, reducing to less than 30 minutes when HS2 arrives. There are up to 40 services between Crewe and London each day and journey times as fast as 90 minutes, reducing to 55 minutes when HS2 arrives.

Hospital Building Programme

Debate between Kieran Mullan and Edward Timpson

Wednesday 3rd November 2021 Westminster Hall

[Dr Kieran Mullan (Crewe and Nantwich) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the hospital building programme.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Sharma. I welcome the chance to discuss the Government’s £3.7 billion hospital building programme, and particularly welcome the opportunity to make the case to the Minister for my local hospital, Leighton, to be included as one of the final eight sites chosen by the Government.

Leighton Hospital was built in the 1970s, and officially opened by the Queen in 1972. I have looked back at the pictures of her visit, and it made me think about just how long Her Majesty has been serving our nation in this way—visiting, before I was even born, the hospital that serves my constituents today. At that time, Leighton Hospital represented a huge change in how healthcare was provided in the area, going on to pick up the role of several smaller hospitals spread across the patch. Its importance and role have only grown since then, serving a population that has increased significantly and now stands at more than 300,000 people.

Whether it is the hip and knee replacements it carries out, the babies it helps deliver, the thousands of cancer screening tests and treatments it undertakes, the cataracts it repairs, or the urgent GP and accident and emergency care it provides, Leighton is at the heart of our local health services. In an ordinary year, Leighton provides around a quarter of a million out-patient appointments, carries out more than 30,000 operations and more than 200,000 diagnostic imaging tests, and has more than 90,000 visits to its emergency department. Of course, none of that would be possible without its fantastic staff: Leighton employs more than 4,500 staff, and that fantastic team of cleaners, porters, cooks, receptionists, healthcare assistants, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, nurses, doctors, volunteers and many others is what turns a building into a hospital.

Those staff can be proud of their achievements in the battle against covid. Not only have they cared for covid patients, but they have also vaccinated 47,000 people under the leadership of their director of pharmacy, Karen Thomas. I had the absolute pleasure of volunteering alongside the staff during the first lockdown. I was quite uncomfortable with the media attention on me for doing this for only a short period of time, when those staff do it day in, day out without any fuss or attention.

As I have seen again and again during my time working in the NHS, its staff have an enormous amount of dedication, often going above and beyond, and are perhaps too accustomed to working in departments and environments that make doing a really good job more difficult than it should be. That is why, although we are talking about buildings today, it is important to highlight that—as others have said—we will only be able to make the most of new facilities if we are able to carry on with the success we have had so far in recruiting more staff.

[Edward Timpson (Eddisbury) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making a strong case for Leighton, and he will know that, as a former Member for his constituency, I was able to work with that hospital very closely. All four of my children were born at Leighton Hospital, which sits in my constituency, and I also spent a week working in that hospital and cannot praise its staff highly enough. I hope that this building programme will give those staff the environment they deserve in order to provide the healthcare we know they can deliver, which is world class.

[Dr Mullan]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and what he has said is typical of people who live in the area, who have also experienced their children being born at that hospital and receiving excellent care there.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Mullan]

It is great to get cross-party support to demonstrate to the Minister how important it is to all our local communities. I thank the hon. Gentleman for his support.

As I was saying, the building was not designed to last this long or to serve the size of population that it serves. My view is clear that we can be more efficient and do more in the community, but an aging population will have an ever-increasing demand for healthcare. We can delay the need for the most specialist hospital care in a population, but we can almost never remove it and stop the demand increasing overall.

How has Leighton managed this challenge over recent years? Rightly, it has benefited from major investment, as mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Eddisbury (Edward Timpson) who is working closely with me on this campaign alongside my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce). I remember his excellent work in helping to secure funding for brand new theatres and a brand new ITU.

My first campaign after becoming the candidate for Crewe and Nantwich was to reverse the decision to turn down a request for an emergency department extension, which was ultimately funded in 2019. More recently, Leighton received £15 million to build a brand-new emergency department. As the Government understand the necessity, Leighton has had funding to tackle the parts of the original building that are simply not fit for use in the short term. However, there comes a point where the costs of one-off investments, accumulated maintenance and the need to replace the original building structures become a cost that cannot be borne by the ordinary capital spending, and when a whole new building becomes the best option financially and for patient care. That is where Leighton is at.

The life span of the original building is coming to an end. I suggest to the Department of Health and Social Care and the Treasury that they view the funding committed to the hospital building programme as a unique opportunity to look at estates that are winding down towards the end of their life span and address that now.

Under the leadership of the chief executive officer, James Sumner, Leighton has done an enormous amount of work for many months to develop its plans for a new hospital. The team sought expert advice on the life span of the current estate and, importantly, the cost of maintaining it and to keep the existing original buildings in use. I know the Minister will scrutinise the figures and see for himself the financial sense in the case that has been made. Independent analysis demonstrates that the ongoing refurbishment of the present failing infrastructure over the next 15 years will cost substantially more than projected new build costs.

Importantly, the plans are ambitious in ensuring better healthcare is delivered in a better environment for patients and staff. As well as providing the mentioned much-needed bed capacity to meet the projected demand later in the decade, the new facilities will deliver single rooms to improve privacy, dignity and infection control. The new layout will incorporate the latest design advice for supporting patients with conditions such as dementia.

The site as a whole will be reorganised some of the long journeys from key locations, such as the emergency department, to other parts of the hospital that have grown as a result of sporadic development to date. They will future proof the hospital with the most up-to-date digital infrastructure which is becoming increasingly important for delivering the best possible care and doing so efficiently. A new site will enable Leighton to play its part in the race to net zero with more energy efficient buildings and solar power and even, potentially, a geothermal heat source, which is a technology I am campaigning for the Government to support to get off the ground across the country.

The team at Leighton have a track record of delivering improved and innovative care to back up their pledges. For example, the trust recently received an award for its same-day emergency care programme, led by surgeons David Corless and Ali Kazem. I am sure that, with improved facilities, they will continue to find new and better ways to care for their patients.

[Edward Timpson]

My hon. Friend has been extremely generous with his time. Will he also confirm that this project, if delivered, would save more than £400 million in backlog maintenance, as well as helping to free up a lot of the community care, which at the moment is under extreme pressure because of the lack of beds available at Leighton and in the surrounding area?

[Dr Mullan]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. This is actually about saving money in the long term given the unavoidable costs at the existing site.

Of course, building the hospital will provide jobs and opportunities for local people, with apprentices at South Cheshire College and others well placed to take advantage in the parts of Crewe where employment and salaries are still not where we would want them to be. I know that the plans have the full support of my hon. Friends for Congleton and for Eddisbury. Leighton’s bid is also supported by both Cheshire West and Cheshire East, as our local authorities, and the Cheshire clinical commissioning group. There is also cross-party support with the hon. Member for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury).

The chair of our newly formed Crewe Town Board, Doug Kinsman, has been keen that the whole board support the proposal, and the rest of the board have seen how important Leighton is to Crewe, both economically and in improving the health and wellbeing of Crewe residents. Importantly, we have the support of those residents. So far, more than 1,000 people have signed our petition supporting the hospital in its efforts to make it into the final eight. The residents include Betty Church, whose daughter was born in the hospital the year it opened, 1972, and Steve Burnham, who explained that not only were three members of his family born there, but his mum worked there for 40 years.

I asked residents to tell me about their experiences and share why they were supporting the campaign. Janice Butler wrote:

“My husband, elderly mother-in-law and father-in-law have all received fantastic help and treatment here. The hospital serves a huge population now and help to improve and upgrade its facilities is desperately needed and has been for many years. Despite the huge pressures, we have experienced excellent help here.”

Susan Marsh wrote:

“I started work at Leighton in 1972 and worked there for 35 years. Since retiring I have been a patient there numerous times. It has changed in the care it delivers since my day, both numbers and treatments. With a new build it will be able to continue to grow along with the population in the area, which will be badly needed.”

I will finish with what a current staff member said about Leighton, both as somewhere to work and as somewhere their family received treatment. Sophie Morris has shared her perspective from what must have been a difficult time in her life, which makes her words even more powerful. She wrote:

“I have worked at Leighton A&E for 6 years now and over that time the demand on the hospital has increased massively. Our last few summers have been busier than most winters. Shortly after starting as a nurse in A&E, my husband became ill. We found out he had terminal throat cancer when I was 7 months pregnant. From beginning to end we had fantastic support and care from all over the hospital.

I think it says a lot about the place and the fabric that is the staff who work there, that I could carry on working in a place that holds so many raw memories. As a body of staff we work so hard to look after the people who come to us for help, now we need some help so that we can provide the care that is demanded of us. Now we need some help so that we can provide the care that is demanded of us.”

I could not have put it better myself.

I know that the Minister will hear the case for investment in many other sites. He will need to consider all the applications carefully. I will work with residents to campaign for this much-needed investment, whatever the outcome of this opportunity, but I hope that I have left him in no doubt today that the case for Leighton to be included is a strong one and there is a whole community of people who want to see it succeed.