Rail Services: Portsmouth and the South-West

Michael Tomlinson Excerpts

Wednesday 21st October 2015 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Flick Drummond (Portsmouth South) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered rail services to Portsmouth and the South West.

It is such a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger.

We constantly hear about the northern powerhouse, but we hear little about the southern powerhouse. We hear how the Government are putting money into cities, businesses and infrastructure in the north, but where is the investment in the south? The south is an area of 3.6 million people that contributes 15% of the UK’s output, but when will we start hearing about investment in the southern powerhouse?

I represent Portsmouth, which is often referred to as a northern city in the south because of its background in heavy engineering, building and maintaining our Royal Navy. The immediate post-war decades took a heavy toll on our traditional industrial base, but the city has been transforming itself over the past 20 years—the Royal Navy is more technically advanced than ever before, we have diversified beyond defence and we have a brilliant entrepreneurial community, as well as new cutting-edge technological companies. However, we still have to fight hard for investment. Portsmouth suffers from the assumption in some quarters that all parts of the south and the south-east are prosperous and well provided with infrastructure. In fact, I represent a city with neighbourhoods that are among the very poorest in the country.

I secured this debate because of the poor rail service in Portsmouth, but anything that helps Portsmouth will help other cities on the Solent, the Isle of Wight, Hampshire, further west and points between that area and London. The train service from London to Portsmouth Harbour takes as long as it did in Victorian times: one hour and 40 minutes to travel just 70 miles. It is quicker for me to drive door-to-door to Westminster than it is for me to take the train. Compare that with Manchester, which is 217 miles from London and takes just a little over two hours on the train, as we all found out when we went to the Conservative party conference. Birmingham takes 85 minutes for a 125-mile journey, and it will take just 50 minutes when High Speed 2 has been completed.

The train between Portsmouth and Southampton, a journey of 20 miles, takes 65 minutes. Compare that with Nottingham to Derby, a journey of 15 miles, which takes just 23 minutes. Newcastle to Sunderland, 17 miles, takes just 18 minutes. The Solent local enterprise partnership, our local authorities and businesses do great work in trying to maximise the potential of the area around Portsmouth and Southampton, which is one of the most widely spread conurbations in the country, but the Solent has been left behind and will continue to be so unless we introduce new rail infrastructure.

[Michael Tomlinson (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (Con)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for securing this debate. As she says, this issue affects not only Hampshire and Portsmouth but our stations in Dorset. From London, it takes two hours and eight minutes to get to Poole, and two hours and 21 minutes to get to Wareham—the Minister has seen that station. Increased capacity and speeds would help to encourage people to use the railway, rather than the roads, thereby reducing congestion on roads such as the A351 in my constituency.

[Mrs Drummond]

My hon. Friend is right. As I continue, I hope that he will see some solutions. I am pleased that other places are behind me on this subject, because we must work together to show the Government why this is so important.

We often hear the area spoken of as the M27 corridor, but we need more than a motorway to make it a successful and competitive place to live and work in the 21st century. We need a sustainable transport policy that includes public transport and support for cycling provision, as well as making space for more cars. Other Members from along the route will highlight other areas affected by this debate, so I will concentrate on the Solent region, particularly Portsmouth.

Why are rail services important? The Chancellor is keen to increase productivity across the country, as he says in “Fixing the Foundations: Creating a more prosperous nation,” published in July 2015. He acknowledges that improving infrastructure is one of the many steps that he can take to improve the economy’s productivity. The Solent local enterprise partnership extends from Havant in the east to Southampton in the west and includes Winchester, Eastleigh and Fareham. Local productivity in the area, as measured by output per job, lags behind the south-east average by 15%. Portsmouth has some of the country’s most deprived areas, with wages falling well below those of other cities in the south-east. We must improve connectivity if we are to improve productivity.

By improving the train service, we would help employers by providing a wider choice of potential employees and, conversely, we would help employees have a greater choice of potential employers. We would help businesses broaden their markets and their supplier base. We would provide greater access to social infrastructure such as universities and city centres. All of that would increase the region’s productivity and help to improve the UK’s overall productivity.

Congestion on the main motorway connecting the area, the M27, is legendary. It can take anything from 30 minutes to two hours to travel by road between Portsmouth and Southampton. Traffic into Fareham and Gosport moves very slowly during rush hour. Some £250 million-worth of investment is going into upgrading the M27 to smart motorway status. Data from the Department for Transport tell us that traffic in one direction on the M27 between junctions 8 and 9 has increased from 99,000 vehicles a day to more than 112,000 vehicles a day. Even with improvements, the road will always struggle to cope.

The Atkins study “Economic Costs of Congestion in the Regions” states that congestion in the Hampshire region costs £400 million per annum and a further £100 million for Portsmouth and another £100 million for Southampton. That is eroding our productivity potential, and, if not addressed, will equal a loss in gross value added of 1.3% by 2025. The south Hampshire strategy document shows that total road trips are expected to increase by 11% in the period 2010 to 2026, which will increase time spent in queues by 53%. Business costs will increase, including the direct costs of drive time and fuel, but there will also be the indirect costs of logistics scheduling and general competitiveness and other costs such as increased pollution.

If there is no worsening of congestion within the Solent LEP area, we expect that the number of jobs will climb by 44,000 from 435,000 in 2006 to nearly 480,000 in 2026. If there is no infrastructure investment, we expect an increase of just 36,000 new jobs, a loss of 8,000 jobs. Figures from the last census show a flow of workers into Portsmouth of more than 40,000 a day, with 20,000 people leaving the city to work elsewhere. More jobs have been created since then, and the labour market figures every month show that the number of jobs is going up and up.

We need sustainable transport solutions to cater for those workers, but we need to ensure that we create the conditions that foster more high-skill, high-pay jobs, which requires investment. We have to build 75,000 houses in the Solent region over the next 10 years, so the congestion and infrastructure problems will just get worse. If we improve the rail service, we will be able to take traffic off the roads. We can improve the rail service by improving the speed and frequency of the service.

I believe there is a solution that will help not only Portsmouth and Southampton but the south-west towards Weymouth, as my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Michael Tomlinson) has mentioned, by helping to alleviate the crowding on trains on all lines going from the area to London Waterloo. There are three routes from Portsmouth to London, but I will focus on just two of those routes, both operated by South West Trains at present. One route goes via Havant, Haslemere, Petersfield and Guildford to Woking and Waterloo, and the other goes via Eastleigh, Winchester and Basingstoke to Woking and Waterloo. Both routes suffer from overcrowding and capacity constraints. The rail system is unable to cope with existing demand.

Network Rail published the excellent “Wessex Route Study” in August 2015, and it describes the problem and proposes solutions. The report says that the system is experiencing demand that is 20% greater than it can cope with and that, within the planning period, the demand is expected to grow still further by another 20%. Network Rail’s solution is summarised as follows: junction improvements and platform capacity at Basingstoke; and, again, junction improvements and platform capacity at Woking. Those two projects will cost £175 million each.