Midland Main Line (Electrification)

Peter Bone Excerpts

Wednesday 16th September 2015 Westminster Hall

[Harry Harpham]

I agree 100%. My hon. Friend makes an important point; the midland main line work is paused not because of the business case for the line, which everyone agrees is probably the best of the lot, but because of overspend in other areas.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing a debate on this extremely important cross-party issue. Is not one of the problems—the hon. Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts) alluded to this—the fact that because we are in the east midlands we are always forgotten about? We have one of the lowest amounts of public expenditure per head of population in the whole country, not just on rail but across all infrastructure.

[Harry Harpham]

Again I agree wholeheartedly; I could not have put it better myself. When I go about meeting business leaders, council leaders and civic leaders across the east midlands and Yorkshire, and right up into the north, that point is made constantly.

By now, we are used to hearing about Ministers’ ambition for the north and for the electrification of the rail network, but in reality, in both cases there is a lack of drive to push through the work needed if that ambition is ever to amount to anything. That is why Labour has been calling on the Government to recommence the suspended work on the midland main line and TransPennine routes. Last month, Rail Business Intelligence reported that the Government had instructed Network Rail to “unpause” the electrification of the TransPennine route. As far as I am aware, that is just a rumour, but I would be grateful if the Minister provided some clarification. If true, it would be a welcome development, but of course it raises a question for the Minister: why not the midland main line too?

By calling the suspension “a pause”, the Secretary of State is trying to downplay the potential consequences. The word implies that it will be only a brief time before everything gets going again, and that work will resume as if nothing had happened. In reality, delays in large infrastructure projects always have cost implications—just look at Crossrail. The same story is beginning to play out in this case, too. Philip Rutnam, the permanent secretary at the Department for Transport, told the Transport Committee in July that the principal issue that led to the suspension of work on the midland main line was cost. Network Rail’s initial estimate, in 2013, for the cost of electrifying the midland main line was £540 million. By December 2014, that figure was £1.3 billion. When the work was paused, £250 million had already been spent on contracts for ancillary works, such as rebuilding bridges. Some of Network Rail’s resources have already been transferred to other projects, making it harder and more expensive for the work to get going again. Further delays will only increase the bill.

There are knock-on effects, too. The doubt the suspension has thrown up has led to questions about what rolling stock will operate on the line. There are worries that, assuming electrification does go ahead, the current 1970s-vintage InterCity 125 trains will be replaced by transferred east coast class 91 locomotives, which have poor acceleration; in fact, with those trains, some long distance journeys would take longer than they do at present. So far, the Department for Transport has made no public statement about the specification of the rolling stock that will be used on the midland main line, and I hope the Minister will be able to rectify that.

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[Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. I congratulate the hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Harry Harpham) on securing this important debate.

As well as being the transport group leader for the Scottish National party in Westminster, I also represent the constituency of Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey, which is quite a distance from the midlands, but that does not mean that I do not share the hon. Gentleman’s disappointment at the Government’s U-turn. When the news broke, people were quick to share their disappointment on Twitter, with the verdict that it was much less northern powerhouse than #northernpowercut. That was people showing how they feel when, as the hon. Member for Mid Derbyshire (Pauline Latham) said, the rug is pulled from under their feet. When vows are broken, it is always with a casual disregard for the people who based choices on them. In my view, the UK Government should reinstate plans to electrify the midland main line—and, for that matter, the trans- Pennine route.

The foundation on which a prosperous economy is built is its infrastructure and transport connections. That is as true in Scotland as it is in the north of England. That is why the SNP Scottish Government have already committed to a substantial rolling programme of electrification. They are keeping to what they said they would deliver for the people—a sharp contrast to what is being discussed here. In Scotland, more than 441 miles of track has already been electrified and 2016 will see the completion of the Glasgow-Edinburgh rail link. All that is happening in spite of the fact that the capital budget for Scotland was cut by 25% by the coalition Government. Indeed, there can be no doubt that in Scotland the electrification of the railways has a firm place in the Scottish Government’s blended transport strategy, as it should in the UK Government’s strategies for the north and south. I understand that, on making the announcement about pausing the projects, the Department for Transport shared its intention to pursue bigger and better solutions to increase capacity and reduce delays on the routes.

[Mr Bone]

I am listening carefully to the hon. Gentleman, and I think he is saying that the Government should reinstate this important project, which I agree with. However, does he agree with me that his constituents in Scotland have £2,000 more per person spent on them than those in the east midlands? Would he like Scotland to give some money back, so that we can have our line upgraded?

[Drew Hendry]

As on previous occasions, the hon. Gentleman will realise that I do not agree with him. I would be happy to have a separate debate to go through, line by line, why I do not agree, but I do not believe we have time for that today.

The north does not need a solution pushed out for the next political cycle, but instead a proper, continuing strategy. The Government hide behind the idea that they will sort things out for “the long term”—I heard the phrase used yesterday in this very Chamber. Well, the people are pretty fed up with being considered as commodities, to be told that they will be dealt with when the more important stuff is done. They were made promises and they want them carried out. They want a solution that satisfies current infrastructure needs and issues, as well as meeting the longer-term challenges and opportunities for the region.

We must have sympathy for those using current services. They would have put up with the teething problems of new services, but they are being asked, day in, day out, to cope with a diminishing service. It is not acceptable that thousands of passengers travelling on the routes in question spend the entire journey standing. Passenger numbers have already doubled since 1997, as the hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough said, and they are set to rise even further. The problem is not going away. Furthermore, the electrification of the routes is vital for improving transport connectivity. It is and will remain an integral part of the growing economy in the region.

Yesterday I had the great pleasure of chairing a meeting of the Westminster transport forum. When I asked one of the speakers, from the ports sector, what the biggest challenge to his industry was, he answered without hesitation that it was the railways. The investment that his company is making in northern ports will not be profitable or sustainable if there is not much improvement in railway infrastructure. The two must go hand in hand. The pause is not what was promised. There is concern and scepticism, rightly, about jam tomorrow; in fact, without greater rail investment, jams on the roads tomorrow are more likely.

We all remember the Chancellor’s visit to Manchester armed with a big commitment to rebalance the economy. Investment in the north was a top priority prior to the election; afterwards, there was no longer any money in the pot. That is simply not acceptable. It is understandable when people call what is happening yet another chapter in the story of the north losing out to the south. Surely the UK Government do not wish to perpetuate that feeling by failing in their promises yet again. More than 80% of transport infrastructure spending happens in the south, and people notice that it is not big ticket projects such as Crossrail that lose out. Without a serious shift in spending to give the north the investment it needs, the growth needed for competitiveness will simply not happen. The current poorly integrated and underfunded transport network is detrimental to business, commuters and freight movement and will certainly not deliver a prosperous economy.

In conclusion, without a swift assurance of Government’s commitment to the northern economy through the reinstatement of this project, there will be little credibility left to the northern powerhouse agenda. The Government should honour the promises that they made about electrification.

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[Mr Bone]

A number of other MPs would have liked to be here—I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone) is among them—but there are three East Midlands Trains events today. I believe that we will see all those Members at some time today.

[Robert Jenrick]

I thank my hon. Friend for that remark. The east midlands consistently loses out across a whole range of areas, which include funding for our schools, our police service, our fire authorities, our local councils and, indeed, rail investment and our LEPs. Part of the blame for that must rest on us as Members of Parliament, because we need to be better at putting forward a consistent and intelligent approach. I look forward to the Government’s taking the east midlands more seriously in the years to come.

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[Richard Burden]

The Minister has been very clear. She will have to answer my next set of questions, and I hope she will when she sums up. Were her officials therefore not telling her what they were being told by Network Rail, or was the chief executive of Network Rail telling porkies?

Looking ahead, it is not clear what remains of the Government’s much-heralded “biggest programme of rail investment since the Victorians.” It now looks as if the much-heralded northern powerhouse has had the power turned off, the midlands engine has been left to rust and the electric spine has been broken. There is enormous anger in the north of England about the northern powerhouse, of which the midland main line project is a part.

[Mr Bone]

I was not going to intervene, but I thought this debate had been constructive and useful on both sides of the Chamber. The shadow Minister’s political rant is out of place. I could easily ask, “How many miles of railway did Labour build in 13 years?” This is not the place for that debate.

[Richard Burden]

I have made it clear that there is cross-party anger about the delays to this project, and I think that anger is genuine from Government Members. I imagine that they are as concerned as Opposition Members about why something that was promised as recently as April has since been removed and about the discrepancies that appear to exist about what happened.

[Mr Bone]

Thirteen years.

[Richard Burden]

If the hon. Gentleman wants to talk about the record of the last Labour Government, I am happy to do so. There is not a lot of time.