East Anglia Rail Franchise

Peter Aldous Excerpts

Wednesday 16th December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Jo Churchill]

I could not agree more. There needs to be that connected thought—that is the important thing—to allow works at the Ely North junction, for example, where there is a real need. That has been the demand by my colleagues in Cambridgeshire, but this issue also affects users in Norfolk and Suffolk. The work has already slipped from period 5 to period 6.

Freeing up capacity is an urgent need across our dynamic growing area, so it was with disappointment that I, my right hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk (Matthew Hancock) and my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich noted that the tender did not highlight a more frequent service between Ipswich and Peterborough or Ipswich and Cambridge. Indeed my right hon. Friend had a meeting with rail users only last week to press that point home.

These critical centres need a more frequent service, as does the science corridor between Norwich and Cambridge, for which my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Norfolk (George Freeman), who has emailed me because he cannot be here today, has campaigned. That would doubtless give huge economic benefit to the life sciences industry as well as to other businesses.

[Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. She is giving us a great history going around the various branch lines in East Anglia. Does she agree that if investment is made in the east Suffolk line in terms of through-trains to Liverpool Street, faster service and investment in stations, that can play a significant role in bringing economic growth to east Suffolk?

[Jo Churchill]

I could not agree more. The beauty of delivering this tender well is that it can bring benefits across Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire and Essex and benefit all our constituents, who, frankly, do not care whose constituency they are travelling through; they just care about getting where they want to go on time and in a way that is easy to access.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jo Churchill]

I am terribly sorry, Madam Deputy Speaker; you are absolutely right. It is my enthusiasm on securing the debate and having the chance to ask the Minister to listen to my arguments. I hope that, when the bids hit her desk tomorrow, she will take this opportunity to give us what we really want for the next nine years.

[Peter Aldous]

Does my hon. Friend agree that we need to avoid a repetition of the situation that arose in Lowestoft last Saturday, when people could not even get on the trains? It was a day of high demand, with people going to a premier league football match between Norwich and Everton, and also going shopping in Norwich, but they could not even get on the trains.

[Jo Churchill]

Absolutely. That point would probably also be supported by my right hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk, who has called for special trains to Newmarket on race days. We have a centre of excellence for the racing industry in Newmarket, but it cannot optimise what it could do for the country because we cannot get people there smartly enough.

My constituents do not want to stand on trains; they want to sit. They also want to be connected to wi-fi, and maybe have a cup of coffee, but at the moment they can get neither of those services between leaving home and arriving at their main line station. They want to be able to park at their stations and shelter from the elements until the train arrives. Otherwise, they will opt to use different forms of transport. We are not talking about a third world country here.

--- Later in debate ---

[Claire Perry]

My hon. Friend makes a good point, and controlling the franchise levers is the first step in the process. We expect bidders to exceed what we have asked for in the franchise, because we are saying “This is the minimum that we expect”. We will, of course, award the franchise to the bidder that is able to exceed those minimums, including with possible additional services. When the bids come in tomorrow I have no idea what they will contain, but we are confidently expecting those specifications to be exceeded.

As I have said, I am confident that the winning bidder for this franchise will deliver huge, tangible, transformational improvements that are commensurate with the economic weight of the region. We will see route improvements, and we have set out what we expect as a minimum. However, this is not set in stone; this is a starting point. When the franchise starts up next October, there will be every opportunity to change routes, add additional service patterns or new stations—that has happened across the country—improve timetables, and deliver better scheduled services, or even special services such as to Newmarket on race days.

I urge Members to continue to work together, pulling in the excellent provision of help and information from the local enterprise partnership and local businesses, and to help us make the business case for the improvements to infrastructure that the Government will make. We must also work with the operators to encourage them to change their patterns.

We have heard from several hon. Members tonight, and my right hon. Friend the Member for Saffron Walden (Sir Alan Haselhurst), who is an assiduous campaigner on this issue, re-emphasised the absolute importance of new rolling stock in this franchise. Crucially, he also mentioned the linkage of rail services to airports. I am lucky not to have airports in my portfolio, or indeed HS2, but the linkage of rail services to airports is vital. He will be pleased to know that already an early morning service has been introduced from Liverpool Street to Stansted, because it turned out that more than 500 people a night were sleeping at the airport because they could not get there early enough. That has now changed, and a new service is running.

[Peter Aldous]

The Minister is setting out her case well. As well as linkage to airports, in such a rural area we also need linkage to public transport and buses.

[Claire Perry]

My hon. Friend makes a good point about integrating the transport system so that it works for people who might take a bus or drive a car, and who need a car parking space before they get on the train. We must assume that transport plays that role.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Sir Simon Burns) made a wonderful speech and referenced the importance of freight, which is a particular boon and issue on these lines. I am very sympathetic to the issue of freight disrupting passenger traffic. We need more freight paths. Freight is strategically important to productivity and air quality. The more freight we can get off the road and on to trains the better. My Department will be undertaking a strategic freight review. I am very pleased that in the spending review we preserved the majority of funding for freight.