Midland Main Line (Electrification)

Paul Blomfield Excerpts

Wednesday 16th September 2015 Westminster Hall

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to make a contribution under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Harry Harpham) on securing this debate. I am delighted to follow the hon. Member for Derby North (Amanda Solloway), my friend and colleague on the Select Committee on Business, Innovation and Skills. Her contribution and the others we have heard this morning underline the cross-party unity on and concern about this issue.

Let us cast our minds back to 2009, when Network Rail published a study of the electrification options for the UK network. It identified the midland main line as having the best business case for electrification of any route in the country, with the great western line second. The great western work is going ahead, but the work on the midland main line has been paused. Colleagues have made comments about pausing, and I always understood a pause to have a start point and an end point. Clarification about the end point would be helpful, for all the reasons that hon. Members have given—to provide certainty and confidence that the process will not simply be ended.

I understand the concern about cost escalation across the network as a whole that led the Government to decide to pause, but the line with the worst cost escalation overall is the great western line—up £700 million, from £1 billion. The cost escalation on the midland main line is comparatively low. Within the framework of the decision that was made, it therefore does not make sense to have paused the work on the midland main line.

My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough made a clear case for the benefits of electrification: the cost savings in revenue terms and the environmental benefits, such as lower CO₂ emissions and pollutants. Others have made the point about the ability to have new trains—clearly most new trains are electric—and, in the long run, the work will have to be done to ensure compatibility with HS2. However, as others have pointed out, electrification is only one part of the discussion. It is important to continue to press for electrification, but we need to look at other line improvements, and there are clearly a number of places on the midland main line where work is required.

The Bedford to Kettering line needs additional track to be laid alongside the existing track to allow more trains to run and to speed up journeys to Sheffield and other points along the route. The single track on the Kettering to Corby line needs a second track. The speed restriction south of Leicester needs to be eliminated. The work that has been mentioned at Derby needs to be done and speeds between Derby and Chesterfield need to be raised. There is also the work at Market Harborough—I have worked closely with the right hon. Member for Loughborough (Nicky Morgan) on this issue, and I know that, were she not engaged in her responsibilities as Secretary of State for Education, she would be making this point—where the track needs to be straightened for about one and half miles to raise speeds from 60 mph to 90 mph and to allow the station to be rebuilt.

The overall cost of all that work is significantly less than the cost of electrification. We have seen two thirds of the investment in the midland main line—the electrification—paused. It would be an outrage if the remaining third—the track improvements and all the related infrastructure work—was also delayed. I am looking to the Minister this morning to provide unambiguous confirmation that the funding will be available to proceed on all those points.

On the Market Harborough campaign, we reached the point before the general election where £24 million had been allocated by Network Rail, with a further £13 million allocated from the local growth fund, through a unique coming-together of the three local enterprise partnerships: Sheffield City Region, D2N2—Derby, Derbyshire, Nottingham and Nottinghamshire—and Leicester and Leicestershire. However, there was a small gap in the remaining funding, which we were assured before the general election would be resolved. That assurance is what a number of us, on both sides of the Chamber, are looking for this morning.

When the Secretary of State made his statement on pausing back on 25 June, he told the right hon. and learned Member for Harborough (Sir Edward Garnier):

“We will press on with the rebuilding to speed up and straighten the track at Market Harborough…That will mean faster services soon”.—[Official Report, 25 June 2015; Vol. 597, c. 1073.]

We need to know when “soon” is. The Secretary of State also reaffirmed that commitment in an answer to me on the same date. Given that this issue has been well aired, I am assuming with some confidence that it will not be too difficult for the Minister to give a cast-iron guarantee this morning that that work will happen and that the money is available or to provide a date.

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[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Claire Perry)]

It is always a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. I have many questions to answer, and I will do my best to answer them. If I do not answer Members’ questions, I will be extremely happy to write with any specifics.

I will start by restoring what I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) was an important, factual and consensual debate that raised some extremely important questions about this vital infrastructure. I congratulate the hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Harry Harpham) on securing this debate, and I am delighted that it is his first debate—I still remember mine. He has big shoes and four paws to fill, and I hope he will personally pass my best wishes to his predecessor, with whom I worked and for whom I have the greatest respect.

It is great to see such a strong cross-party turnout for, and to hear such excellent contributions to, today’s important debate. I will address a couple of issues that came up. The first is the importance of investment in railways to drive economic growth on a local, regional and national basis, as the hon. Gentleman said in his opening speech.

I am delighted—I suspect this has something to do with some of his jobs in a former life—with the hon. Gentleman’s reference to freight, which is often not considered when we talk about improvements to the railways and which is vital to the economic prosperity of such regions that export and manufacture. Indeed, I have visited several upgrade projects across the region, such as the Great Northern Great Eastern line, that have been specifically designed and delivered to improve freight paths for manufacturers in the region. Investment in transport across the UK is vital if the economy is to grow. I am happy to give what should be not a cast-iron guarantee but a stainless-steel guarantee that £38 billion of investment will be spent on British railways over the next few years, which is the biggest spend in generations—since Brunel’s time.

My hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough asked how many miles of track the last Labour Government electrified in 13 years, and the answer is nine. The shadow Minister, with whom I work frequently, is embarrassed to talk about that because we have finally woken up, on a cross-party basis, to the vital role of rail infrastructure investment in driving economic growth and better journeys for people using the railway.

I am happy to confirm that £38 billion is being spent. Successive Governments have not spent the right amount or invested enough in the railways. If we roll back the clock more than 10 years to 2003-04, when the last deals for the northern and TransPennine Express franchises were being negotiated, was there any conversation about replacing the clapped-out Pacers? There was none. The TPE and northern routes, which provide some services to the constituency of the hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough, will transform passenger services in the north of England. It cannot come too soon.

I will quickly cover a couple of other things. The first is the Sheffield city region, of which the hon. Gentleman is a great supporter. The city is working across parties, across business and across political boundaries, and it is working closely with Transport for the North, an organisation that my Government have funded to the tune of £30 million and is designed to pull such decisions about the right form of transport investment as close as possible to the region’s people and wealth creators. It is not enough for officials at Network Rail or in my Department to sit and plan what improvements should take place; those improvements have to deliver the maximum benefit for people and businesses using the railways.

Sheffield has been a strong supporter of the proposals to enhance east-west connectivity and to maximise the potential and benefit of High Speed 2, and I am delighted that we still have cross-party consensus on the importance of the HS2 route, despite the voting record of the new Leader of the Opposition—that is a cheap shot, but I could not resist. I am delighted that the Labour party is completely committed to going ahead with HS2.

The deal for Sheffield gives more control over local transport schemes. It enables Sheffield to work directly with Network Rail to support the delivery of the Sheffield to Rotherham tram-train project, and it improves the vital co-ordination between Sheffield, Network Rail and Highways England to ensure that investment is pulled through by local economic priorities. I thank Members who have championed the Sheffield devolution deal.

My second point is on the TPE and northern franchises. I will not be drawn on several things, including the debate on where “the north” starts and the prediction of football results, although I am disappointed that there was no mention of the Leicester Foxes, of whom I have been a lifelong supporter. But I can assure Members that the current franchise negotiations for the northern and TPE routes will be transformational for passengers in the north.

Train capacity into major cities will increase by 30%. There will be brand-new trains, not the Pacers and not reworked tube rolling stock. Existing trains will be fully modernised. There will be £30 million of northern station investment funds. I could go on. The franchise negotiations will transform travel in the north and change passenger experiences from among the worst to some of the best in the country.

As I have been asked many questions about the midland main line, I want to discuss it in detail. I emphasise that a pause is a pause. For me—I think my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire (Pauline Latham) said this—when an organisation such as Network Rail has been given an unprecedented burden, because it has never been asked to do this much investment in the railway before, and there is evidence that some of the work is starting to go wrong and that promises will not be delivered on, one can either carry on and then not deliver or say, “We must get this right.”

We have to deliver these improvements. We understand the economic case for delivering them. We have to find someone, who in this case was Sir Peter Hendy—a railway man to his fingertips—who can take the organisation to a point where it can offer cast-iron guarantees about delivery dates. Network Rail is tasked with delivering the improvements. We are relying on Hendy and his team to come back and set out exactly what that delivery programme looks like. He will shortly deliver a plan that will outline the delivery of the upgrades and set out specific clarity around the electrification projects.

Many hon. Members have asked me what all this means for projects that are already happening. If one travels from Corby to Kettering, one can see that the four-track work is going ahead. It is being delivered and tens of millions of pounds are being spent on the track-doubling project. We are removing the long-standing bottleneck at Derby station to speed up both Midland Mainline and CrossCountry services. We are improving the line speed south of Leicester station, between Derby and Chesterfield and at Market Harborough. Station-lengthening work is going on right across the network to enable longer trains to run, and we are adding capacity between Bedford and Kettering.

I want to mention freight, because the hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough shares my interest in it. The promised freight gauge clearance schemes, which are vital to allow more freight on these lines, are going ahead, so additional freight services will be run.

[Paul Blomfield]

Before the Minister moves on—I appreciate that she is trying to answer all the questions —I want to be absolutely clear on Market Harborough, which she mentioned in passing and skipped over. Is it guaranteed that the full funding—the money topped up from that provided through the local growth fund and identified by Network Rail—will be available for the full necessary works at Market Harborough?

[Claire Perry]

The hon. Gentleman refers to the £9 million shortfall. I need to investigate that further and will write to him. I believe that efforts are being made by several organisations to fill that important funding gap.

The hon. Gentleman has prompted me to answer his important rolling stock question regarding electrification and the cascade, on which he is absolutely right to focus. It will be the case that when preparation work starts for the new franchise, which will be let in 2018, all the questions around rolling stock specification and the requirement for new trains will be put into it. When we invited tenders for the TPE franchise, we gave bidders an option and set out what we knew about improvement works.

By the way, there is this idea that we are somehow not investing in the north, but has the hon. Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Richard Burden) travelled on the new electric trains that run between Manchester and Liverpool and Liverpool and Wigan? Electrification has come to that part of the UK for the first time. I hope that he will join me in celebrating the fact that those cities now have new electric trains, which were delivered by this Government, as promised. We are 100% committed to ensuring that the £38 billion unprecedented investment in the railways happens right across the UK, not including HS2, which, as my hon. Friends pointed out, is vital to speed up journey times to and from the north and to pull wealth out of the south-east. We will also continue—[Interruption.] Did the hon. Gentleman want to celebrate and welcome that electrification?