Rail Links: South-west England

Paul Maynard Excerpts

Tuesday 24th October 2017 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Paul Maynard)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Evans. I congratulate the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard) not just on securing this debate but on his first debate in Westminster Hall—the first of many, I am sure.

I thank hon. Members who have come along and participated on the generally good-natured, good-spirited and constructive tone that they have all adopted. It has been a helpful debate. I will do my utmost to cover all the points raised, but as hon. Members can see, I have a carpet of notes before me that have been passed my way. If I do not cover everything, a simple email to my office might suffice to get more of an answer. However, I will do my best to cover everything in the time available before the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport responds.

We are clearly seeing a great deal of change at the moment on rail in the south-west: brand-new trains, upgraded infrastructure, more capacity, faster journeys, greater resilience and greater reliability. That, after all, is what I believe passengers want. It is part of our record investment of more than £40 billion in the railways between 2014 and 2019, which will continue beyond that date to 2024, as set out in the statement of funds available that we announced just last week. We now expect to spend £48 billion on the railways between 2019 and 2024. It has allowed us to continue our extensive programme of renewals and deliver the enhancements deferred from the current period, to which the hon. Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) referred. More than £5 billion is being invested in the wider modernisation of the Great Western route.

Amid all the numbers that we have released in recent weeks, I entirely understand that the frequent response is, “But what about project X in my particular local area?” We have not issued a great wodge of documentation that details the status of every single project, for the specific reason to which the right hon. Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw) alluded: we need to ensure that we do not disappoint people. When we announce a project, we need to understand its cost, scope and delivery, and have confidence that we can deliver it in the agreed timescale. That was a key finding that underpinned the reprogramming of control period 5, and led to the report by Dame Colette Bowe that was welcomed by the Labour Front Bench and the Government.

The Bowe report sets out another way to approach investment in the railway, by ensuring that we understand what we are putting our money into and make commitments only when we are confident that we understand them. That is a really important step forward. Over the remainder of the year, as part of our rail upgrade plan, we will make further announcements about how the insights from Dame Colette Bowe will inform the projects we take forward, and about where they sit among our priorities. We aim to take forward as many projects as possible, but we must ensure that we are confident in what we promise.

We have heard a lot about the peninsula rail taskforce, which remains a personal priority of mine; I thank my hon. Friend the Member for South West Devon (Mr Streeter) in particular for his kind comments. I stand by what I said at the launch: it is a most impressive piece of work, which I constantly cite to people around the country as a model for this sort of project. I do not want to be churlish, because I understand his desire for an official Government response, but I do not believe in gesture politics. A mere box-ticking exercise in which I issued a rigid ministerial statement entitled “Response to peninsula rail taskforce” would be less valuable than actual progress on the taskforce’s many recommendations. Some of that progress will occur as part of the rail upgrade plan, which will identify where different projects sit in the development process, but some of it will be delivered through franchise change, which operates to a slightly different timetable. I note that Great Western Railway is consulting locally on a scale never seen before in any franchise in the country. CrossCountry’s franchise is also coming up for renewal; it, too, is braving the south-west—even Torbay, I believe—and undertaking a consultation to understand what is most needed there.

I hear the frustrations of my hon. Friend the Member for South West Devon about trains not functioning at Dawlish in bad weather. My focus is on ensuring that we deliver the taskforce’s very worthwhile recommendations. When he sees the rail upgrade plan, I hope he will see the philosophy behind my seeming reticence today, but I am more than happy to continue discussions with all south-west Members in the all-party group about how to keep up momentum.

There may be an impression that we have done nothing since the launch of the taskforce. Far from it, we have done an awful lot, and I want to keep up that momentum. We are re-signalling the main line from Totnes to Penzance, providing faster journeys and potentially paving the way for the introduction of a half-hourly service on the Cornish main line. We are investing in 29 brand-new bi-mode AT300 trains for the route from Paddington to Plymouth and Penzance. We are completely overhauling the popular Night Riviera sleeper trains in Cornwall and expanding the Long Rock train maintenance site to help to maintain them.

We are continually investing to provide more solutions to deliver a more resilient railway in the south-west, and the taskforce’s blueprint remains a very important part of our work. It continues to work with Network Rail on its “Speed to the West” plans. Many hon. Members have mentioned the potential for selective electrification in the Devon banks. All that worthwhile work is ongoing; we need to do all we can to support it and get it to the next stage of development, which I look forward to.

There are several things that Network Rail can do to reduce journey times to Plymouth and the south-west more widely, which is the ambition of the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport. It can try to understand how the benefits of the new trains can be maximised; it can look at the causes of dips in speed across the route; it can ascertain what quick wins can be delivered to achieve incremental marginal gains to demonstrate journey time improvement; and it can consider the discrete electrification proposals with its research and development department.

We can make significant improvements to journey times on this line, partly through new timetabling, which will be consulted on and introduced in the coming months. At the moment, there is a wide spectrum of journey times to Plymouth—between three hours and three and a half hours—but we may be able to begin to reduce that through better timetabling, so there is more good news to come.

Many hon. Members have mentioned the new IEP trains. There were initial hiccups—the train that has the politicians in it is always the one that breaks down on day one—but such is life. That investment will see much-improved reliability, increased capacity, reduced journey times and improved emission rates. The hon. Member for York Central might be forgiven for not noticing the statistics released today that show a 5.5% reduction in carbon dioxide emissions per passenger kilometre since last year. I welcome that and its continuation in years to come.

The AT300 bi-mode trains will not only improve connectivity with London, but significantly enhance it within the region. Many hon. Members mentioned local rail services that they would like to be improved. The hon. Member for Bristol North West (Darren Jones) referred to the Henbury spur and loop. Exeter is booming and has many ambitious plans for local transport. The network is growing. Hon. Members also mentioned the two separate competitions for the new stations fund, in which Portway Parkway and Reading Green Park were successful but, sadly, Edginswell and Marsh Barton were not. I am keen to work with all the local promoters of unsuccessful station proposals to help them to do better in the next competition and maximise their chances of winning. I am always happy to work with anyone who wishes to work with me.

I stress the importance that the Government attach to ensuring reliability. The situation at Dawlish is important and we are addressing it—we have already put money in. The rail upgrade plan will help us to understand how to ensure that Network Rail’s current work leads to meaningful work in the next two control periods. I thank hon. Members for participating in the debate. No region should ever feel that it is left out of the transport picture. The taskforce report is a fine piece of work, and I look forward to working with hon. Members on all sides to make it a reality.

[Luke Pollard]

I thank the Minister for his reply. I am grateful to hon. Members on both sides of the House for expressing their passionate and sincere belief that we need a better deal for rail in the far south-west. It is clear from all the schemes that they mentioned that there is a good case for investment. Although I understand why the Minister was not able to give assurances, I imagine that we will all look carefully at the autumn Budget for the £600,000 and the £30 million. Will the Minister write to hon. Members about the global system for mobile trial?

[Paul Maynard]

indicated assent.

[Luke Pollard]

That is great. All members of the all-party group have a strong sense that the south-west deserves its fair share of funding. I anticipate that hon. Members on both sides of the House are gearing up to an intensified, relentless campaign. I am sure the Minister will be back to discuss this further in the future.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered improving rail links in south-west England.