Rail Services: Open Access Operators

Debate between Martin Vickers and Edward Leigh

Thursday 6th February 2025 Westminster Hall

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

I thank my constituency neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Immingham (Martin Vickers), for securing this important debate and for emphasising the national importance of open access. His point about Hull Trains and the opportunity it has given us is very powerful. I want to speak about our little local problem, to which he and the hon. Member for Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes (Melanie Onn) alluded.

Originally, there were two trains every day going up and down to London via Lincoln and Market Rasen, ending up in Grimsby. That was then cut to one train and we were given a solemn promise that that train would never be taken away, but decades ago it was taken away. I have been campaigning for decades to get that service up and running again. We are talking about a catchment area of a quarter of a million people with no direct train to London. I cannot think of any other country in Europe that would have such a situation for huge conurbations like Grimsby and Cleethorpes and a place like Market Rasen—which is a small station but serves a vast rural area, perhaps 20 miles in every direction, going all the way to Louth. Yet every time we have been to see Ministers with campaigns, over many years, we get fobbed off with every single excuse. I cannot count the number of times we went to see the Transport Minister in the last Government; now I am boring this Minister instead, but I will go on boring him and we will go on making this point.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Immingham said, we were first fobbed off with the view that there was no capacity on the main line. Yet the Azuma train runs perfectly well to Lincoln and it would make no difference to capacity on the main line if that train carried on to Grimsby via Market Rasen, so that point does not hold. We made some progress eventually and I thought that we finally had a commitment that this train would happen. Indeed, we had a test run in June 2023. I was there—I saw it. Everything worked perfectly smoothly. The train arrived from Grimsby, there was no problem, we had our photograph taken, everybody was very happy, but we have still had no progress.

Now we have had this bolt from the blue: it is no longer the capacity point, but apparently we cannot have this train because the platform in Market Rasen is too short and there is no bridge. That is an absurd point. I go all over the country and I see trains stop at short platforms, and they announce, “Will you please go to the first four carriages because it’s a short platform?”

Then we got the excuse that if the Azuma train stopped at Market Rasen, it would somehow cover the pedestrian crossing, which is apparently unacceptable. Is somebody going to try to go across the railway line and climb underneath the train to get to it, stopped at the platform? It is ridiculous. I am not sure that it is even possible to climb underneath a train. Are people going to sprint down the track, leaving the platform altogether, to get round the back of the train? This is all just ludicrous. There is absolutely no reason why the train could not stop there, blocking the existing pedestrian access. Perhaps once in 100 years there might be some sort of injury; in fact I doubt whether there would ever be any injury. So, why are we stopping the whole service because, apparently, the existing pedestrian access could be blocked?

It is funny—the operators never give an explanation. They say, “Oh, we now have a problem with the disabled access and it must be in a certain part of the train.” But surely there are solutions. This is a sort of not-can-do attitude, which is driving the country crazy.

Whenever we write to bodies such as Network Rail, instead of their having the attitude of, “Let’s work together, let’s make this work,” once again we get fobbed off with ridiculous excuses and they never actually explain their actions. Then they say, “We have got to build a bridge.” All right, they build a bridge. Then they have come up with a ridiculous figure of £24 million. How could it cost £24 million to build a bridge? This is only a small country station with just one footbridge. My hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Immingham campaigned for years for a bridge, did he not? And he got it for far less—£1 million, was it not?

[Martin Vickers]

My right hon. Friend will remember from the last Parliament that I campaigned for a footbridge over Suggitts Lane in Cleethorpes. Thankfully, I was supported by the then Prime Minister—Boris Johnson—who on one famous occasion at Prime Minister’s questions said:

“Suggitt’s Lane is never far from my thoughts”. —[Official Report, 23 October 2019; Vol. 666, c. 963.]

I hope that the Market Rasen situation will not be far from the Minister’s thoughts.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. This is a serious issue. There is absolutely no reason why the great conurbation of Grimsby and Cleethorpes should not have a direct train to London, and there is no reason why the good people who live in the rural areas around Market Rasen should not have a direct train.

What has actually happened—one might argue that this is not really LNER’s fault—is that since we have had the Azuma train going directly from London to Lincoln, our indirect service has got worse. There are more delays and there is a reduced service. It really is hard work to get from that part of my constituency to London.

So, enough of excuses. We had a tremendous relationship with the Transport Minister in the last Government and we look forward to our relationship with this Minister in this Government. There is nothing party political about this matter. What we are doing—the hon. Member for Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes, my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Immingham and I—is begging the Minister to please intervene to knock some heads together to get this train going and stopping. That is all we ask.

Planning, the Green Belt and Rural Affairs

Debate between Martin Vickers and Edward Leigh

Friday 19th July 2024 Commons Chamber

[Martin Vickers (Brigg and Immingham) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Sam Rushworth) on his maiden speech. We are all much more knowledgeable about his constituency now than we were a few minutes ago, so well done for that.

I acknowledge that the planning system is in need of reform. We cannot have a process that takes months—in many cases, years—for major projects, crucial to economic growth and associated jobs, to grind through an endless system. In my constituency, most such projects are located in an area that is, and has been for many years, mainly industrial. Although we should not trample on local opinion, we have to get those projects through the system more quickly than we do at the moment.

The Gracious Speech included this:

“My Government believes that greater devolution of decision making is at the heart of a modern dynamic economy and is a key driver of economic growth and my Ministers will introduce an English Devolution Bill. Legislation will be introduced to give new powers to metro mayors and combined authorities. This will support local growth plans that bring economic benefit to communities.”—[Official Report, 17 July 2024; Vol. 752, c. 39.]

Of course we need to increase the supply of housing, but how do Ministers square devolving decision making with strengthening central direction of the planning process and tying the hands of planning authorities? The Labour manifesto said that the Government would

“make full use of intervention powers”.

That does not sound like good news for local democracy.

Experience from my constituency shows that local communities will, in most cases, accept more housing developments, but they make the justifiable complaint that recent developments in all parts of my constituency, from Humberston, through New Waltham, Waltham, Scartho, Laceby, Wootton and Barton, to name just a few, mean that the already stretched highway infrastructure and public services, such as school places, GPs and the like, are now stretched beyond what is acceptable. What assurances can Ministers give that they will ensure new build will run in parallel to the provision of infrastructure and public services?

Another aspect of the planning process that angers people is that many appeals are determined by planning inspectors who frequently overrule council decisions that have been made after careful consideration of local circumstances. In some cases, such decisions have even overturned the local plan. That is not acceptable. Local plans go through various stages of consultation, including public hearings, all of which passes by the overwhelming majority of the public, until an application is lodged that could change the whole character of the neighbourhood. Clearly, the process needs to be reviewed, as I have previously argued, including in a ten-minute rule Bill I introduced some years ago.

If devolution and local decision making is to mean anything, planning issues should be determined at a local level, wherever possible. The shadow Secretary of State mentioned that there are current Ministers who lodged objections to planning applications for developments in their own areas. That went under the radar to some extent while they were in opposition, but now there is no hiding place for them. Every Labour Member who votes for proposed planning changes to some village or some part of the town will have to justify not supporting their constituents when they are up in arms about the application.

As someone who spent their childhood and early adulthood in a council house on a Grimsby estate, I have always supported the ability of local authorities to build council houses where that is appropriate. The ones that I lived in were built in the early 1950s when a Conservative Government were in power. They were of high quality and have stood the test of time. Sadly, that is not the case for much of the social housing that is imposed on new developments. I certainly would support the Government if they had a programme to encourage and support councils in house building, but I would be interested to know how they would finance it.

One proposal that is causing considerable concern, not just in my Brigg and Immingham constituency, but in many other constituencies along the east coast of Lincolnshire and through into East Anglia, is the National Grid upgrade on the Grimsby to Walpole route. These proposals could result in a network of 50-metre-high pylons running through some of the country’s most beautiful countryside, including impacting on the Lincolnshire Wolds area of outstanding natural beauty. I secured the final Adjournment debate on this matter before the election and the then Minister said that he was minded to order a review of the scheme. I urge the Government to honour that commitment and follow through with that review.

Finally, let me return to devolution and the policy to create more combined authorities. The proposals for the Greater Lincolnshire Authority have already passed through all stages of consultation, and a statutory instrument has been prepared, but, unfortunately, the election intervened. I say to the Deputy Prime Minister that this is an opportunity for an early win in her wish to create combined authorities. If she were to put forward that SI, I think most of the Lincolnshire MPs would give her some support.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Edward Leigh)]

I call Dr Scott Arthur for his maiden speech.