Railways: East Anglia Network

Lord Davies of Oldham Excerpts

Thursday 10th October 2013 Grand Committee

[Lord Davies of Oldham (Lab)]

My Lords, I warmly congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, on securing this debate, but even more so on the trenchant way in which she made her opening remarks and set the scene. She posed a series of questions that I hope the Minister will respond to because they established a position that was greatly reinforced by subsequent contributions in the debate. I also welcome the Minister and congratulate her on her new position. I am sure that she will enjoy the role enormously, although I have to say from bitter experience that I always found these debates the most difficult to respond to, given the constraints of time. I will therefore make my points fairly brief and give the Minister the maximum opportunity to concentrate on the real issues.

I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Berkeley for ensuring that in this debate about rail we have discussed the issue of rail freight as well, because it is particularly important to the eastern region. After all, there is the obvious claim that the eastern region is a net contributor to the Treasury, and Felixstowe bears a considerable responsibility for that. That is why we should cherish that area of the developing economy and the successes of recent years, and ensure that it goes from success to success. My noble friend is also right to identify how important the issue is with regard to Sizewell.

I reinforce the point that additional investment in our rail service is necessary. Difficulties on many lines have been identified today, along with the inadequacy of the service that is provided at present. Anyone who travels in East Anglia will be all too aware of those difficulties. In a moment I shall comment on an area that has not thus far been commented on, but I have every sympathy with the points that have been made. The expectation is that rail passenger numbers will increase by more than 40%, which makes one realise the level of necessary investment that we have to make just to stand still. The trouble is that at present the trains do stand still on occasion, which is not much help to any of us. We want an improved passenger service and we want the trains to run on time.

I have to say that one despairs. In the area where I am, which I would guess in comparison to Suffolk, Norfolk, Broxbourne and the East Anglia area would be looked upon as Hertfordshire, the line up through Harlow might be considered to be somewhat blessed. After all, Stansted is a crucial dimension of the line. Any idea that having an airport as one dimension of the line improves the service on it has to be thought about again. It certainly sets a benchmark which the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, identified. He said that it is a benchmark for service to the airport, which makes very great demands upon the service. After all, it is the only airport in Britain where over 50% of its passengers arrive by public transport. We need to build upon that. While we realise just how significant the rail is, if you have a line to Stansted that is not a dedicated one—far from it—but has to give considerable priority to the Stansted Express, the implications for the other areas along the line are quite critical. Mention has been made of the significance of places such as Harlow, which is an important economic development area of the eastern region. However, Harlow finds its service affected, as do so many others, by the fact that many trains which are destined for Stansted do not stop there.

We have to recognise that where there is the possibility of additional capacity, we should exploit it. The great bottleneck, as ever for East Anglia, is access to the London terminals for so many of its operations. All the London terminals were created in the 19th century and the bottleneck problem is reflected in them all. Yet it is the case that, coming out of Liverpool Street into the area over which the Stansted line operates, there is extra capacity in the form of land that is spare and owned by the railway. Surely we could follow the pressure of local authorities and communities to bring an extra line or two into that area that would lead into Liverpool Street and thus free up Stansted. It would certainly give priority on a line which serves not just Stansted but, of course, King’s Lynn. I was on a train heading for King’s Lynn the other evening—mercifully, I was only going as far as Bishop’s Stortford—when I heard the classic apology that you get on really good trains: “We apologise for the fact that this train is running late. There is a slow train in front of us”. Wow—what a delight it was for us all to have a slow stopping train in front of a supposedly important express that was going quite a good distance. Liverpool Street to King’s Lynn is one of the longer journeys that one can make in East Anglia.

I hope that the Minister recognises that real issues have been raised in this debate. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, that if it is a question of good management, then how about looking at this test? The directly operated railway on the east coast main line—the one which is in fact being run by the department after that franchise collapsed—has returned a very significant profit. Yet there was no consideration by the Government that that should be used for the two-year period which emerged once the franchise collapsed as far as National Express is concerned. I wonder why? If the Government took the management issue and the targets referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, to heart, it might be that they could learn a lesson from them. They could then do a better job on franchises in the future than has been done in the recent past.