Airport Expansion: East Anglia

Mark Prisk Excerpts

Tuesday 12th January 2016 Westminster Hall

[Sir Alan Haselhurst]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I think there is something called “the golden triangle,” and I certainly do not reject the idea of the east-west connections in any way, but we do not have the money to do everything. I concentrate on this line as a priority, simply because, at the moment, it is the main link between the city and the airport and it has had so much neglect over these past years.

[Mr Mark Prisk (Hertford and Stortford) (Con)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend not only on securing the debate, but on his remarkable leadership over many years in fighting this corner for his constituents, and indeed, for mine, given that we are from neighbouring constituencies. A lot of people are concerned about access, which he has mentioned. The airport is very important for the wider economy, but for many of my constituents, being unable to get into London because of the inadequacy of the rail connections is the core issue.

[Sir Alan Haselhurst]

I agree with that, without ignoring the points that other colleagues have made. It cannot just be seen in terms of north and south—there are other considerations—but my hon. Friend is absolutely right. He and I, in neighbouring constituencies, probably suffer the weight of the complaints from quite a lot of rail passengers.

There is also the A120 which, I was told 38 years ago, was to be a critical route across to the M11 for traffic coming from the east-coast ports. The section between Braintree and Marks Tey is still not in place, which is an absolute scandal. We then have the other minor scandal of junction 8 on the M11 motorway. My hon. Friend’s predecessor, Bowen Wells, and I appeared bravely at the public inquiry into the motorway services area. After it was decided that the airport access should be from junction 8, it was then decided that we should have the motorway services area access at another quadrant of it. The result was chaos, and yet, Bowen Wells and I were told in the inquiry—of course, we really knew nothing and were not experts—that they had got it absolutely measured. It has been a disaster. There is consideration even now that perhaps the only way of overcoming the inherent difficulties of that junction will be to shift the motorway services area. It is not beyond the realms of possibility that that might have to happen. There are also the demands from my right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) for a junction 7A to ease the pressures from people getting to the airport.

I want to feed these points into the bigger picture of airport provision. Stansted undoubtedly has the spare capacity to soak up a lot of the pressures that are going to arise until the decision on the Davies commission has been made and, perhaps more importantly, implemented. Without a decent railway, however, Stansted will struggle to address that demand. The bigger airlines expect a high standard of connectivity and quality rolling stock to go with it, and as local MPs, our concern has to be, as much as anything else, for our long-suffering commuters, who are having to pay more to travel in not very good conditions. There is problem after problem, and they extend across the region to the Great Eastern line—not least already this week.

Even Davies concedes that the quickest increase in runway capacity can be achieved at Gatwick. It has multiple rail access. That is currently being upgraded, which is fine for them, but it is galling that there still has been no upgrading on the West Anglia line. Stansted has absolutely nothing to compare in rail access with either Gatwick or Heathrow, yet to fulfil the role of that airport in our region, four-tracking of the West Anglia line is the minimum needed now. Four-tracking between Tottenham Hale and Broxbourne is needed, not in 2025 or 2030, but now, just to sustain the existing level of demand, let alone what is in prospect from north to south of the line. Four-tracking is also the vital precursor to the Crossrail 2 project, which would naturally follow on from that.

The Anglian region needs to be plugged in better to Greater London, not just to Liverpool Street, but to Stratford and to places that Crossrail 2 will reach. I say to the Government that, if only to buy time on their airport strategy, they need to sort out the West Anglia line.