West Anglia Taskforce Report

Mark Prisk Excerpts

Tuesday 8th November 2016 Westminster Hall

[Sir Alan Haselhurst (Saffron Walden) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the West Anglia Taskforce report.

It is a pleasure and a unique honour for me to address you in the Chair, Mr Davies. I hope that I will not give you cause for intervening on me any more than I did on you when our roles were reversed.

I am conscious that on this particular subject I could be done for repetition. Already in his relatively short time as rail Minister, the Minister has had to hear me on this subject and similar points on several occasions. The message that is coming forth, which has been put by individual Members over the years and is now reinforced by the report, needs to be heard. If repetition is necessary, repetition will occur.

The West Anglia Taskforce was launched by the former Chancellor and the former Transport Secretary in 2015, but with the intervention of the general election, it did not get down to work until halfway through last year. The terms of reference were to look at opportunities to improve connections to Stansted and Cambridge from Liverpool Street station and to encourage opportunities for economic growth along the route, including the expansion of services in the Lea valley. I was asked to chair the taskforce and was supported by a very distinguished group of people, who freely gave of their time and brought their great experience to bear on the subject. We quickly found that, both geographically and politically, we were as one on what needed to be done.

We concentrated particularly on the need for four-tracking the railway between Coppermill junction, just south of Tottenham Hale station, to Broxbourne junction, just north of Broxbourne mainline station. We resisted all the various embellishments and extras that were pressed upon us, such as the four-tracking going further north, extensions of lines or new stations in various places. We took a very limited view, because they would simply add on to the cost.

South of Tottenham Hale remains a problem on the railway because from there it is a two-track railway through Clapton station and three other inner London stations, to Bethnal Green. Services to those two stations frequently hold up other trains seeking to move as fast as journeys allow to the more northerly outer London stations. By recommending the four-tracking of the railway, we believe that nothing would be spoiled. Other things could be done later, but four-tracking the railway impedes no other embellishment.

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

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on this excellent report, which has cross-party support, as I hope the Minister knows. My right hon. Friend is right to focus on four-tracking. In his view, are the short-term improvements the report recommends supportive of the long-term goal? That is what many of my constituents will want to know.