Transport (CSR)

Debate between Martin Horwood and Baroness Bray of Coln

Thursday 25th November 2010 Westminster Hall

[Angie Bray (Ealing Central and Acton) (Con)]

I am delighted to contribute to the debate under your chairmanship, Mr Gray, and I offer my congratulations to the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman) on securing this important debate.

I am going to echo many of the remarks already made by colleagues. Given the economic situation that the coalition Government inherited, we might have expected a transport settlement that was significantly grimmer than turned out to be the case. I congratulate the Department for Transport on doing so well in difficult times. We can all be relieved, to say the least.

I speak as a London MP, and I will unashamedly limit my remarks to London. Hon. Members will be glad to know that I also intend to keep my remarks brief. In my view, London has done rather well out of the transport settlement: Crossrail, tube upgrades, Thameslink and extra rolling stock are all good announcements for London. I know that hon. Members from other regions often view London as being rather greedy in its funding needs. However, I must point out that London is our capital city, and it will be one of the great driving forces behind getting back to economic growth. I cannot resist the danger of irritating hon. Members even further by directing their attention to an interesting article in The Economist that points out that investment in capital projects such as those in transport in London and the south-east tends to get a much better return than investment in other regions. Investment in transport projects around London is always money well spent.

[Martin Horwood]

I would like to point out that I was not accusing London of being greedy. I welcome investment in many London projects, particularly Crossrail, which will enable people to get into London, through it and out the other side quite quickly.

[Angie Bray]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that additional helpful remark. Crossrail has always been a huge issue for my constituency and it sits at the heart of our plans for regenerating Ealing and Acton town centres. We hoped so much to get the news that the project would definitely go ahead, and there was a huge sigh of relief around my constituency once that announcement was made in the comprehensive spending review. We hope that Crossrail will bring greater numbers of visitors to both town centres. It will be our task to find ways of persuading people off the Crossrail trains and into those town centres, where we hope that they will spend considerably more money. I understand that there may be some time slippage in the Crossrail project, but I suspect that that may also be due to tunnelling problems that have been encountered. Nevertheless, it is great to know that the project is going to go ahead in its entirety.

I have a plea for the Minister. Ealing Broadway station is one of the busiest transport hubs in west London. It is also one of the most hazardous, with steep stairs, no disabled access to the platforms and a small ticket hall that becomes crowded to an incredibly dangerous degree. Can work be expedited at that station, if at all possible? I hate to say this, but it is an accident waiting to happen.

The problem has been that people living in Ealing have been told for so many years that they cannot have any improvements because Crossrail is just round the corner. As we all know, however, Crossrail has been just round the corner for decades. Now that it really does seem to be on the home straight—in sight—please can there be no more delay for Ealing Broadway station? We have been waiting somewhat impatiently for the option designs for the stations, but I am now hoping to have a meeting with representatives of Crossrail in the next couple of weeks, so that we can see those more detailed options.

The London tube upgrades are another essential investment that will now go ahead. All of us experience the London underground at some stage as we spend time here in the capital city, and I think that all of us would say that the London underground broadly delivers a reasonable service, albeit that we sometimes feel like we are being herded into cattle trucks, particularly at certain times of the day. The problem is that there are continual and frequent problems on all the lines at one stage or another.

The signal box at Edgware Road is a good example. I am reliably told that it dates back to the 1920s. It sits across some incredibly busy and important lines. When we consider that so many passengers are under the control of a signal box that goes back that far, we recognise the importance of getting the London underground up to date if London is to retain its position as one of the world’s premier cities, and as we move back towards economic growth.

I was delighted to hear that the Thameslink programme had been given the green light, so to speak. That will be great news for taking pressure off many of the other services going through London and into and out of London. I was particularly pleased to hear today the announcement of extra rolling stock. West London services are very congested for quite a lot of the time, particularly during peak hours. A recent survey conducted by a local transport group showed that a very large percentage of passengers going in and out of central London from all the stations across Ealing have been finding not only that the trains are impossibly crowded, but that quite often they cannot get on them at all. First Great Western has been putting in bids for extra rolling stock for some time. I hope that as the extra rolling stock is rolled out, the Minister will have a particularly keen ear for the bids from First Great Western for extra help on some of those west London services.

Obviously, the less popular flipside of the coin is the fare increases. There is no doubt about this. No one likes having to pay more for a journey that at best is only ever the same, but quite often seems to be getting worse as the carriages get more crowded or there are delays or other problems. Clearly, however, a balance must be struck between the interests of taxpayers and of passengers. That is always the problem.

The hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside says that she fears that higher fares will encourage more people off public transport and back on to the roads. I accept that that may well be something to be concerned about, but surely it is equally true that only if we can provide new, modern, improved public transport will we encourage more people to use public transport. That is where the difficult balance lies. It always has to be a balance, and that balance has to be set, of course, in the context of what the public purse can afford.