Inter-City Rail Investment

Oliver Colvile Excerpts

Thursday 9th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Ian Swales]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. I certainly agree with him and will mention rail freight later in my speech. He makes a powerful point which I know he has raised in the House before.

With excellent assistance from the House of Commons Library, I have conducted research on all the journeys between the English city regions, comparing fastest rail journey times against road miles as the best indicator of the actual distance between them. Many interesting facts emerge. The fastest journey times from nearly every single city region are on the lines to London. Average speeds range from 63 mph from the south coast to well over 100 mph from many other parts of the country.

For journeys between cities outside London, however, the overall fastest miles per hour speeds are in the 20s, and many are in the 30s and 40s. Fastest journeys can involve absurd dog-legging through London—for example, Cambridge to Sheffield, Ipswich to Newcastle and Swindon to Leicester—and journeys between the 29 key city regions can involve as many as four changes. Those figures are the consequence of past investment focused on hub-and-spoke systems based on London, and of under-investment on other routes, which has helped to concentrate economic and administrative power in the capital.

The record of the previous Government was poor, with too much micro-management but only nine miles of electrification investment. Fares went up by 66%, but subsidies went up £1.7 billion as well. Journey times are slower than they were 15 years ago, and 61% of UK businesses are concerned that the UK’s transport infrastructure lags behind international competitors.

I welcome the steps that this Government are taking. A good example of the work needed is the Milton Keynes to Oxford route. At 22 mph, it is one of the slowest possible journeys, so the Government’s decision to revive the east-west route to join those two city regions is very welcome and will provide the connectivity to help release potential. However, the Milton Keynes to Cambridge route, at 24 mph, will remain one of the slowest in the country. Other examples of very slow connectivity are the routes from Leicester to Coventry, Bournemouth to Bristol, Southend to Ipswich, Sunderland to Darlington—I could go on.

It is certainly welcome that the east coast main line is at last due to get modern rolling stock. Despite being one of the most profitable lines in the country, botched franchising deals have led to a sense that it is somehow a basket case, with consequent high fares and old trains. Passengers richly deserve the investment in new rolling stock and, as a regular user, I suppose that I should declare an interest.

It is worrying that a briefing I received for today’s debate from the Rail Delivery Group, a consortium of Network Rail and the train operators, states that the east coast line

“essentially serves two main destinations…Leeds and Edinburgh”.

It makes no mention of services that terminate in Newcastle or Aberdeen, of the 750,000 people in the Tees valley served by Darlington, or of numerous other towns and cities served directly or through connections. Sadly, the geography of many of the decision makers seems to get sketchy outside the M25.

One area that I want to highlight is the wide corridor of national importance through south Yorkshire and south Lancashire. It contains four of the six biggest cities in England, as well as many significant towns and other cities, and it is home to more than a quarter of the UK’s small and medium-sized businesses. Although it is already an economic powerhouse, it could be so much better with proper inter-city rail investment. Our forefathers recognised its importance by building one of the first cross-country motorways, the M62, to link Hull and Liverpool. How is the rail service through the region? The answer is, very poor. The 120-mile journey from Hull to Liverpool takes 30 minutes longer than the 214-mile journey from Hull to London, which means that it is at exactly half the speed. The vital commercial centres of Leeds and Manchester are joined by a service that runs at only 46 mph, whereas they both already have services to London at more than 100 mph.

Slow train times lead to far more people travelling by road, which in turn has an impact on train passenger numbers. They also give the appearance of low demand: no doubt that affects perceived investment, but this is surely a classic case of “Build it and they will come”. Getting people, and of course freight, off the roads also has major environmental benefits.

I welcome the many improvement projects contained in the northern hub initiative and the associated forecast of growth in passenger numbers, but they fall short of providing the kind of radical improvements that could transform the economy of the region. We need speedy train services to link our northern cities to each other, not just linking them separately to London and the south.

[Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making a very strong point, but does he agree that the issue relates not only to the north, but to the south-west and the west country? Frankly, we have not had the kind of investment in our railways that we would like.

[Ian Swales]

I absolutely agree. I look forward to the speeches of other hon. Members who have stayed late on this Thursday to hear more about other regions. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay (Stephen Gilbert) is likely to talk about the south-west.

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[Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to speak in this debate on a subject about which I feel very strongly and in which I have a great interest. I congratulate the hon. Member for Redcar (Ian Swales) on securing the debate and on what he said during his speech, which contained a good deal of common sense. In fact, it reflected the conclusions of the Eddington report of some years ago, the focus of which was on improving the network as it was, rather than on more adventurous schemes.

Railways are clearly the major mode of land travel for the long-term future. Anyone who tries to drive by car to and from London these days has a problem, despite some improvements in motorway traffic. It is the railways that will provide the transport of the future. Passenger numbers are increasing massively in spite of privatisation and higher fares because rail travel is the only practicable way to get to and from work. I speak as a 45-year rail commuter on Thameslink and its predecessors from Luton. I see every day the problems on the other side of London—on the same line that the hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Simon Kirby) mentioned. Fortunately, I live far enough out to get a seat most days, but by the time we get to St Albans passengers have to stand. Indeed, yesterday, there simply was not enough space on the train and many passengers were left on the platform, having to wait for later trains—it was that crowded.

There are severe difficulties on those commuter routes, but we are talking today about inter-city rail. Forty years ago, I was responsible for transport policy at the TUC. In those days, railways were seen to be in decline and people lauded the car as the future. Even then, I passionately believed that railways were the future and that we had to preserve what we had. Fortunately, we hung on to just enough to make it credible, and we still have the great Victorian-built lines providing city centre to city centre travel, which is so valuable. The convenience of being able to get on a train in a city centre and be taken directly to another city centre is an enormous advantage.

I urge the Minister to support specific investments, some of which are already moving forward—rather too slowly and very late, but they will, I hope, get there eventually. It is vital to continue the electrification of all major routes, so that we have electrified major routes across the country.

[Oliver Colvile]

The hon. Gentleman makes a serious point about electrification. Tim Smit runs the Eden project. In the last five or six years he was asked what one thing would make a great difference to the south-west. He told the then deputy leader of the Conservative party that electrification down to Plymouth would do an enormous amount of good for the west country.

[Kelvin Hopkins]

I entirely agree, and I was intending to mention the point later in my speech.

We need to extend direct electrified services not merely to cities on the major routes. I support electrification to Hull, so that direct electrified services can run from King’s Cross to Hull without the need to change trains. I see in his place the hon. Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers), who represents an area on the other side of the Humber. Electrified services to Grimsby and Cleethorpes would be a good thing, too. My hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Alison Seabeck) mentioned the south-west, and it is clear that that area needs improvements.

--- Later in debate ---

[Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)]

May I start by wishing you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and the staff in the Speaker’s office, a rather belated happy new year? I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Redcar (Ian Swales) on securing the debate and the Backbench Business Committee on having the common sense to try to ensure that we have a debate on rail, because we have not had one for some time. I have been pressing for such a debate for the past three years, particularly in relation to the south-west, but have failed miserably—my hon. Friend is obviously much more charming that I am.

Transport in general in my neck of the woods is an incredibly emotive issue. I hope over the next few moments to speak with one voice with the hon. Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Alison Seabeck), because we have been working very closely over the past three years to try to improve the transport infrastructure. Frankly, without her help we would not have got as far we have.

Plymouth is the 27th largest urban conurbation in the country and the 12th largest city. That its transport infrastructure is so bad is a bit of a disgrace. I recognise that that issue has affected not only the coalition Government, because they inherited many problems, but we need to work as hard as we can to improve the transport infrastructure into the south-west, especially down to my constituency.

Plymouth has a global reputation for marine science engineering research. That includes not only one of the most famous naval dockyards in the country, but the seventh largest university, which has a brilliant reputation for marine engineering research.

I have known my hon. Friend the Minister for more than 30 years, so he and I know each other very well, and no doubt if I say something very wrong he will take me to one side afterwards and put my cap on straight. However, I am going to use this opportunity to remind him, as I always remind other Ministers, that Plymouth is not Portsmouth. We are not 20 minutes away from Bristol, and we need to make sure that a large amount of attention is paid to our part of the world. Plymouth is an economic motor for what happens in west Devon, and also down into Cornwall. I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay (Stephen Gilbert) will want to express a view on that.

Some 38% of people who work in our city work in the public sector, so there is a strong wish to get primary investment into the place in order to build on that. We need to make sure that the city deal that I hope is about to come to fruition is a success, because that will mean that in return for some money being paid to clear up and decontaminate the dockyard, 10,000 new jobs could be created at the marine energy park, for which I have been campaigning.

Plymouth’s is a low-skills and low-wage economy. In that sense, it is very similar to Portsmouth and places such as Gravesend and Chatham, where unfortunately there has been too much dependency on the public sector, which has always wanted to make sure that it gets all the bright boys and girls to go and work for it, especially in places such as the dockyard. If we are to rebalance our economy, we need to make sure that we not only have a better skills base but try to increase private sector wages.

We desperately need better transport links. The really big issue for Plymouth and the west country is that every time it rains, everybody holds their breath, because we do not know whether there will be enough resilience to allow us to continue to travel from Plymouth up to London following any damage caused by the storms that take place. I urge my hon. Friend to consider an alternative line going north through Tavistock, because that would be very helpful should, at any stage, the Dawlish route fall to pieces. Last year, landslips caused very big problems on the line. Unfortunately, we have also lost our airport. I am afraid that there is therefore a sense in Plymouth that we are somewhat isolated from the rest of the country. Others have been campaigning to try to get Newquay involved. There is great concern about this, and 37,000 people in Plymouth signed a petition to keep the airport open.

Other than the trains, we are dependent on our roads as the only way to get in and out of the peninsula and into Plymouth. I thank my hon. Friend for his work in ensuring that there will be a case study on the dualling of the A303, which will be incredibly important. During the past two or three weeks when I have been going to and from Plymouth, I have somewhat aquaplaned my way down the M4, M5 and bits of the A38, and I have found that incredibly worrying. Dualling the A303 will be just one activity whereby we end up with good transport links, and I am therefore grateful that my hon. Friend has been able to press for it. We also need real political leadership. I am delighted that Labour Members, as well as the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats, have been campaigning hard to make sure that we have the necessary level of investment and continuing to press the Government to take note of that.

There are several little things that I would like to ask for. I have already called for electrification of our line, and I thank the Government for sorting out the junctions at Reading, because that will certainly help, but there are several other things as well. First, we need more three-hour train journeys between Plymouth and London, as well as better links to Manchester and other parts of the country, including the north, the north-east and the north-west. Secondly, we need to get trains into Plymouth from London before 11.17 am, as is currently the case. If I were a business man seeking to do some work, I would want to make sure that I arrived in Plymouth at 9 am, rather than 11.15. That is incredibly important.

Thirdly, I am delighted that progress is being made on getting free wi-fi on our railway line. We also need to make sure that people who catch a train can be certain that not only will they sit on it for three rather than seven hours—which is what I am campaigning for—but that it will actually go through. It is incredibly important for there to be resilience in the network.

Another small point is that the Environment Agency proposed at one stage that, if there was going to be bad flooding, it would cut off the line at Exeter, which would have created real problems for those of us further west. I hope the Government will address that important issue.

We also need to make sure that the travelling public in Plymouth are given certainty. Given that 90% of the Devon and Cornwall MPs are members of the coalition parties, this is a real opportunity for the Government to demonstrate that we are serious about delivering better infrastructure in the south-west.

I want to set my hon. Friend the Minister a very small challenge. In 2020, Plymouth will commemorate the Mayflower. The founding fathers left Plymouth to find America; I think it was called the American colonies in those days. This is important because we will potentially get a flood of tourists from America. I and others have been pressing for the G8 to be held in Plymouth. It would be brilliant if we could get the President of America to visit the homeland of civilised activity in America. I am fully aware that President Obama will not be in office then, but his successor will be very important.

I ask my hon. Friend the Minister to give me a commitment. First, would he be willing to meet me and the other Plymouth Members of Parliament to discuss how we can deliver a more resilient and better train service? Secondly, if we deliver a proper transport infrastructure by 2020—I wish to carry on being here for much longer than that—there will be real hope and my hon. Friend will have demonstrated true political leadership.