Oral Answers to Questions

Mary Creagh Excerpts

Thursday 8th May 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr McLoughlin]

I hear the representations my right hon. Friend makes to me now, and has made to me on many occasions privately, about the desire for new rolling stock on that line. It will be something I will want to consider when we look at the franchising agreements we will put forward.

[Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab)]

The £5 billion project to electrify the Great Western main line has been hit by flooding, bats on bridges and lengthy road closures which have crippled businesses in Gloucestershire and Wiltshire. What guarantees can the Secretary of State offer the House that the electrification work will be completed by 2017 when those new intercity express trains will be ready to run?

[Mr McLoughlin]

The points the hon. Lady makes about forward orders and the fact that that new rolling stock is due to come on board by 2017 with the electrification of that line are very important. I have every confidence that Network Rail will rise to the challenge to deliver what it has set out to deliver in the rail investment strategy. Quite often attacks are made on Network Rail, but I think we can all stand back and think of the remarkable way in which it managed to re-establish the line through Dawlish and the work it did working almost 24/7.

[Mary Creagh]

I thank the Secretary of State for that reply, but it was his Department’s mismanagement of the Thameslink rolling stock contract that meant it took two full years to close the deal with Siemens. That project will finish three years late in 2018 and our colleagues on the Public Accounts Committee said last October:

“We are sceptical that the programme will be delivered by 2018 given the delays in awarding the contract for new trains”.

On Thameslink we could have new track but no trains, and on the Great Western line we could have new trains but no track to run them on. Does the Secretary of State agree with me that this is no way to run a railway?

[Mr McLoughlin]

I simply say to the hon. Lady that this Government have announced the biggest investment programme in the railway industry that we have seen in this country and I am very proud of that. Of course there will always be problems. I think the Thameslink programme was actually Thameslink 2000 so it has overrun—that is certainly true—but at the end of the day we are going to get a far, far better commuter service for all the people in the areas served by that line.