Old Oak Common Station

Debate between Lilian Greenwood and David Reed

Tuesday 17th December 2024 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Lilian Greenwood)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Max Wilkinson) on securing this debate on the impact of Old Oak Common on rail services to Wales and the west of England. I thank all hon. Members for their contributions.

This Government understand the important role the rail network plays in providing connectivity to support economic development, housing and employment growth, as well as access to jobs, public services and leisure. That is why we have made fixing Britain's railways one of our top transport priorities. We have been clear that rail services have been failing passengers for too long. Cancellations are at a 10-year high and punctuality is inconsistent across the network, so I will take no lectures from the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Broadland and Fakenham (Jerome Mayhew).

We need to improve services for passengers and deliver better value for money for the taxpayer. We have taken immediate action, such as bringing an end to the long-running pay dispute with train drivers, and Ministers continue to meet managing directors of train operators and their Network Rail counterparts to address poor performance and demand immediate action to raise standards. If the shadow Minister’s Government were in power, we would still see drivers out on strike. Just last week, the Minister for Rail met again with Great Western Railway and Network Rail to ensure that they are progressing their plans to restore reliability on the route.

I will respond to the questions from the hon. Member for Cheltenham in a little while. First, I will address the subject of the debate. Old Oak Common station is a crucial enabler for the Government's growth mission. It will be not just a connection to HS2 for Birmingham and the north, but a destination in its own right, providing access to work and housing development alongside better connections to other services, including the Elizabeth line through central London, and to Heathrow airport. However, I recognise hon. Members’ concerns about the impact of the station and the construction works on rail services from Wales and the west.

[David Reed (Exmouth and Exeter East) (Con)]

The key theme set out by hon. Members from across Wales and the south-west is that we are all being kept in the dark. What will the Minister do to engage with MPs from across the region and tell us what plans for mitigation are being put in place in our constituencies for the planned works at Old Oak Common?

[Lilian Greenwood]

I thank the hon. Member for that intervention, and I will use the rest of my speech to do just that. My colleague the Minister for Rail has already had a meeting with a large number of MPs to discuss these issues, and he will continue to engage on precisely those points.

As you will appreciate, Mr Efford, a project of the scale and significance of Old Oak Common cannot be delivered without some disruption to existing services. Our challenge to HS2 Ltd is to keep the disruption to a minimum and to support Network Rail and train operators to keep passengers moving. The next phase of work takes place this Christmas, with changes made to Great Western Railway services from 27 to 29 December. The rail industry has been working hard to prepare for the work and has invested £30 million to mitigate its impact and keep passengers moving.

I will set out some of the things that that money has paid for. While some of the interventions are close to London, they are designed specifically to allow Great Western Railway passenger services during Old Oak Common works, such as electrification of the Poplars railway, which connects the Great Western main line and the west London line. That allows services to access their maintenance depot and for more Great Western Railway trains to terminate at Ealing Broadway. Investment has been made in Ealing Broadway and Reading stations so that they can provide better information to connecting passengers; in facilities at Euston to allow for the terminating Great Western Railway long-distance services, including the Penzance sleeper services; in alternative stabling for the Hitachi trains that serve Great Western Railway; and in other, similar provisions that are designed to help Great Western Railway services to continue operating during the period of disruption.

During these days, some inter-city services will divert to London Euston and some will terminate at Reading or Ealing Broadway. Extensive mitigations have been progressed behind the scenes so that trains continue to be maintained and can provide services again after the works. Passenger communications are happening now to enable people to make choices about how and when they travel. I recognise the importance of providing timely passenger information to enable people to do that. The next significant blockade had been due to take place in December 2026, but this is now being re-planned to a later date by HS2 Ltd. Further detail on the future works plan will be shared as soon as it is available in the spring.

Old Oak Common station is being built to enable all Great Western main line and relief line services to call at the station. This is important for future-proofing, but while all trains will be able to call, the future timetable will be under development for many years, so it is still too early to say with any certainty which trains will call there or from when, but I will come back to that in a moment. We know that many passengers from Wales and the west of England value the faster journeys into London, and will have other options, not via HS2, to travel north. The Rail Minister and I have heard from many colleagues about the concerns of their constituents, and officials are working with the industry to assess the options for calling patterns at Old Oak Common.