Oral Answers to Questions

Rob Roberts Excerpts

Thursday 20th April 2023 Commons Chamber

[Huw Merriman]

Every week I review the figures and performance related to TransPennine Express. It has been said before that those figures are not good enough; there has been some improvement, but they are still not good enough. As the Prime Minister and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State have informed the House, the contract expires on 28 May 2023. We have made clear that all options are on the table and a decision will be announced in the House shortly.

[Rob Roberts (Delyn) (Ind)]

Recommendation 7 of Sir Peter Hendy’s Union connectivity review says that the north Wales main line should get good connectivity with HS2 and electrification. Given that the massive white elephant of HS2 no longer comes anywhere near north Wales, can the Minister confirm that at least the Government will be proceeding with the electrification of the north Wales main line and give us an idea of when that might happen?

[Mr Holden]

I know how important not only rail connectivity, but road connectivity is to people in north Wales. I urge the hon. Gentleman to work with me and partners across Government to ensure that transport connectivity is a top priority for people across north Wales.

Rail Services

Rob Roberts Excerpts

Monday 20th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

There has been an improvement over time. Last year, I made it very clear that services were completely unacceptable. Avanti introduced a new timetable in December, but it was impossible to see any improvement during the first month of its operation owing to sustained industrial action affecting either the train operating companies or Network Rail. Avanti has since improved its performance, but I accept that it is not all the way there, which is why I extended its contract by only six months. Those at Avanti are well aware that they are still on probation and have more work to do, and I shall expect to see sustained improvement on punctuality and timekeeping, on cancellations, and on the way they work with their customers. We will be holding them to account, and my hon. Friend the Rail Minister will continue his regular meetings with them to ensure that their performance continues to improve, for the benefit of the hon. Gentleman and his constituents.

[Rob Roberts (Delyn) (Ind)]

I am pleased to see that the cancellation rate has fallen to 4.2%, but one swallow does not a summer make, and this service has been letting my constituents and me down for a prolonged period of time. What will the Secretary of State be looking for during those six months, and will he be able to publish the precise metrics of what he would consider to be a success in order to allow the contract to be refreshed in future?

[Mr Harper]

I do not disagree with my hon. Friend. I said in my statement that performance had been poor, but improvements had been made. This will be a question of punctuality and timekeeping—of whether Avanti hits the required on-time performance—the number of cancellations, and how easy its customers find it to deal with the service. I will also have to judge it on the basis of what is going on in the industry. It would be much easier to judge the performance of train operating companies if their staff were not going on strike, which I why I think that if the RMT puts its deal to the members, we can resolve the industrial dispute. The issue of holding management to account would then be very clear, because it would be the only thing left on which we can focus. It is very difficult to hold management to account when the workers keep going on strike and disrupting the service for passengers.

West Coast Main Line: Services

Rob Roberts Excerpts

Thursday 15th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Virginia Crosbie]

I thank the hon. Member for that important intervention. He makes a clear point about the services that are being axed. They affect not only the people using the transport but those who are trying to work on the trains and offer a good service.

Mike Whelan, the general secretary of ASLEF, said earlier this year that Avanti

“does not employ enough drivers to deliver the services it has promised passengers it will run. In fact, the company itself has admitted that 400 trains a week are dependent on drivers working their rest days.”

Avanti says that it is working hard to address the problems by recruiting more staff. It says that by the end of December it will have 100 more drivers than in April. But Avanti staff are deeply unhappy and sceptical, as anyone who travels regularly will know.

Many Avanti staff have been working on the route for years. They moved to Avanti from Virgin when the franchise was changed. They have experience of working on the route when it was not perfect but at least functional. Earlier this month, the RMT carried out a survey of Avanti staff that showed that 92% of respondents are either not very confident or have no confidence at all in Avanti’s ability to deliver the improvements that it has been told to make to its services. More than 80% agree that their working lives have got harder since Avanti took over, there are not enough staff on the route and Avanti is mismanaging the workforce.

Avanti’s own staff rated service to passengers at just 22 on a scale of zero to 100. One respondent stated:

“the staffing issues started way before July. Jobs haven’t been backfilled for a long time”.

Another said,

“staff shortages have been an issue for months…Poor management of key contracts have made working for Avanti unpleasant and embarrassing.”

The survey details that frontline staff are on the receiving end of a high level of abuse from frustrated passengers. They say that management is chaotic, there is not enough information about services, and there are too few staff and too many last-minute shift changes. They say they feel disrespected, undervalued, demotivated, stressed and angry.

[Rob Roberts (Delyn) (Ind)]

My hon. Friend is making some very good points. Would she, for the record, agree that the staff who are there, despite feeling undervalued and demoralised, do a wonderful job in being cheerful, trying to be as upbeat as they can and delivering the best service they can in the face of such difficult conditions? The staff are doing their best in trying circumstances.

[Virginia Crosbie]

My hon. Friend makes a very important point. Personally, I am looking forward to getting on that train today. Some of these people are my friends—they light up my life—they are important and they are trying to do an important job in challenging times.

As one staff member said:

“The company has been run into the ground by Avanti…and the frontline are the ones taking the brunt of it. In my 15 years’ service I have never seen such a shambles.”

From the passenger perspective, one constituent recently wrote:

“There is no shortage of people who want to use trains; ticketholders come from all walks of life and are prepared to pay for safe, comfortable and efficient journeys by rail. These services can and have been delivered at times but, overall, the Chester to Holyhead service is…a byword for rip-off rail.”

In October, despite requests from many of us to terminate the franchise, the Government granted Avanti an extension of six months to get its house in order. Two months on, we have a new timetable that no one, including the Avanti staff, believes is realistic, a service cancellation rate that has done nothing but increase over the past year, and a history of broken promises from Avanti. It has until March 2023 to sort this sorry mess out.

Avanti’s website calls the west coast main line:

“Britain’s premier long-distance railway, linking together towns and major cities to create a vital economic artery for the UK.”

It goes on to say that it is

“on a mission to run a railway that generates prosperity and pride, right across the nation…an iconic railway the country can be proud of”.

No one would be happier than me if it achieved that mission. My journey home takes four hours on a good day, and the thought of more miserable months waiting on cold platforms or rearranging meetings because of sudden service cancellations does not fill me with a warm glow of joy. So I am coming clean and admitting that, like so many of my constituents, I have a vested interest in Avanti getting it right.

Looking at the timetables for today, I have absolutely no idea what time I will get home to Holyhead tonight—or if at all. All I can see are the words in red: “Delayed”, “Delayed”, “Cancelled”, “Not available to buy” and “Delayed”. Does my hon. Friend the Minister agree that the extension granted in October will be Avanti’s last chance, that it cannot keep blaming its failings on everything and everyone else and that, if we do not see significant improvements in service and a reliable road map to return the west coast main line to at least pre-pandemic levels by March, its franchise will be removed and the service put under the operator of last resort?

--- Later in debate ---

[Rob Roberts (Delyn) (Ind)]

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes North (Ben Everitt) in this important debate, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn (Virginia Crosbie) on securing it. Earlier this year, following months of disruption to the rail service on the west coast main line, Avanti was put on notice to improve its service. As we have heard already from a great many Members, everyone who uses Avanti—including me, as I travel between the House and my Delyn constituency—knows that, sadly, it continues to fail to provide us with the service we deserve, or even one close to that.

But, Madam Deputy Speaker, I have to offer a little note of sympathy for Avanti. Over the past few months, the man who never met a microphone he didn’t like, Mick “Grinch”, the union boss stealing Christmas from millions of people, and his militant arrogance, continues to ensure major operational issues across the network, and untold misery caused by his love of striking, which apparently is a last resort—of course it is. That is after a two-year global pandemic, which saw family gatherings come to a grinding halt to try to control the virus. This is the first year when everything should finally be back to normal and we can be with our families again at Christmas, but RMT members have decided to cause untold misery to families and businesses. They should be utterly ashamed of themselves.

We have a settled situation of devolution in Wales, which means that for more than two decades the people of north Wales, and the people of Delyn, have grown used to being overlooked and underfunded. We just get on with it, and we do our best to cope with whatever challenges we face. Like all my colleagues in north Wales, many of whom we have already heard from, I am determined to secure the opportunities of the levelling-up agenda, which was at the heart of the UK Government’s manifesto. For so many across north Wales, levelling up is so much more than the investment, jobs, and opportunities it promises, but it is being undermined and made more difficult because of issues that we have heard so much about in this debate.

As my right hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd West (Mr Jones) said, the west coast main line is a critical piece of UK infrastructure. It is essential cross-border infrastructure linking England to north Wales and Scotland, as identified in Sir Peter Hendy’s connectivity review. The north Wales coast line runs from Holyhead via Chester to Crewe, where it joins the west coast main line and connects directly to London. It is also vital in connecting us to the island of Ireland, and in connecting Northern Ireland with the rest of the United Kingdom through the port of Holyhead, which is the UK’s second busiest roll-on roll-off port, and vital for the infrastructure of north Wales.

When the trains between Holyhead and Euston do run, which is relatively unusual in itself, there are daily frustrations, which we have heard about many times. These are things that aggravate me and other passengers: the shop is not stocked, the card machine does not work, the wi-fi does not work, the carriages are overcrowded, and people have to sit on the floor—tattoos or no tattoos, sitting on the floor is never good. Recently, people have at times been unable to book train tickets in advance, because they show as fully booked even when they are not. Many colleagues have rightly asked whether Avanti could run a bath, let alone a rail service—although I would never resort to that type of rhetoric.

Just one train per hour goes from London to Manchester, instead of three per hour, as it was before. There is one train a day from London to Chester, instead of an hourly service, and a shuttle service from Crewe to Holyhead instead of what used to be nine direct trains a day from Holyhead to London. It is astonishing.

I regularly meet and speak to Avanti’s regional management. It has been reassuring to hear that they are committed to improving services and that they admit that a lot of their promises have simply not been delivered. That has led to job losses, including in some of the most senior positions, but it is now time to deliver. A new timetable is out, with a massive amount of new services on it. That is very welcome, but trains running to the old timetable were constantly delayed, cancelled or unreliable, so I am baffled as to how Avanti will offer the extended service it has promised when the pared-back offering was so shambolic in the first place. Time will tell. I am certain that Avanti is watching this debate very closely, so I say again: it is time to deliver.

I have stayed out of these debates in the past. In the face of a lot of criticism from colleagues about the service, I have stayed pretty positive, because pressures on the train operating companies have been significant. I try to stay as reasonable as possible and be as patient as I can with them, but I am afraid that I have come to the limit of my patience. If things do not improve now, swiftly, I will be first in line to tell the Minister that the franchise should not be renewed any further, because it simply does not deliver.

Avanti West Coast Contract Renewal

Rob Roberts Excerpts

Tuesday 25th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Foster]

Again, it is worth noting that, in the case of Avanti—I shall talk specifically about Avanti as it is the subject of today’s urgent question—agreement on rest-day working with the trade unions had been in place for some period of time, and that it suddenly ceased in those volunteering to undertake it. This is not a case of there not being an agreement. For example, if people started volunteering for rest-day working tomorrow, they could pick it up and do it again. That said, is it sensible to be having large parts of a key train line relying on rest-day working? The obvious answer is no, which is why we want to look at wider modernisation—we may have some difference of opinion on that, but it is a key point—and on how additional drivers are being trained so that the December recovery plan for Avanti does not rely on driver rest-day working.

[Rob Roberts (Delyn) (Ind)]

One of the biggest problems on the north Wales coast line is that when Avanti stopped its services, my constituents had to put up with Welsh Labour’s Transport for Wales service instead, which is just as unreliable. It is so overcrowded that it looks a bit like the tube at rush hour. With a little bit of sympathy for Avanti’s situation, I have been trying to schedule my own train travel recently, and it is just as difficult to get a train because of strike action going on as because of the problems with getting tickets. Does the Minister agree that the hardest part for the public is uncertainty and cancellations? Would it not be better for Avanti to run fewer services well, especially down the north Wales coast line, rather than making promises that it just cannot keep?

[Kevin Foster]

The hon. Member is right to suggest that this idea of a publicly owned transport service being some sort of panacea of great customer service is rather false. It is interesting to hear the examples that he highlights of the service offered by the Welsh Government, which his own constituents get to experience. On the balance between reliability and the number of services being run, the reduced timetable was put in place partly to ensure that services would run. That said, the service is clearly not at the level that we would wish. That is why more than 100 drivers will have been trained between April and November, which is when we look to bring back the main timetable. Ultimately, it is for Avanti to deliver the services that it is contracted to provide.

Greenfield Station

Rob Roberts Excerpts

Friday 28th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Rob Roberts (Delyn) (Ind)]

It is my pleasure to be able to bring this week’s parliamentary business to a close with today’s Adjournment debate. I thought I would break with convention by leaving aside beer, cake and police reports, and focus on an issue that actually impacts my constituents day to day. Who knows, maybe it will catch on—fingers crossed; we live in hope. Rather than springing it on the Minister at the end, I give him advance warning that I shall ask for a constituency visit, as well as funding to move the project forward. That will give him something to think on while I dilate on the issue.

Barely a day goes by when I do not hear the term “levelling up”, which has been the central plank of the Government’s communication efforts over the last couple of years, since the general election. Although “levelling up” is still something of a nebulous phrase that has not been particularly clearly defined, it seems relatively clear that it does represent a fundamental shift towards assisting regions and communities that have been left behind. There are, of course, many ways in which that can be achieved, but in the case of my Delyn constituency, I have long maintained that the thing we need most of all is excellent transport links.

Delyn is one of those constituency names that has people scratching their heads, wondering “Where’s that?” Some residents do not even realise that their particular part of Flintshire in north-east Wales has that name. To our east, we have Deeside and the light industry of its industrial parks, as well as a major manufacturer in Airbus. Even further east is Chester, with connections to Liverpool and Manchester. Those areas offer significant job opportunities. To the west, we have the stunning north Wales coast, which brings not only a joyful experience, but a further opportunity for jobs in the thriving north Wales tourism sector, despite the Welsh Labour Government’s best efforts to cripple tourism and hospitality over the past 12 months.

My constituency includes a 15-mile stretch of that coastline, from Oakenholt in the east to Gronant in the west, and along that coastal path we find some of the most deprived areas of Delyn. Broadly in the middle of that stretch we find the town of Holywell and its adjoining village of Greenfield. Much of Holywell and Greenfield is in the top 20% of the most deprived areas of Wales, with some parts in the top 10%. With those pockets of deprivation, comes the obvious difficulty of not being able to afford the rising cost of running a vehicle to get to work, even if suitable work can be found locally. Addressing the fundamental causes of that deprivation is key, the most pressing of which is clearly improving the transport network.

As part of the 2019 general election campaign, the vast majority of the doors on which I knocked in Holywell and Greenfield were consistent and strident in their request that a new train station be established to serve their region. Earlier this week, I asked constituents for their feedback on social media and I have picked out a small selection, but in truth they are all extremely similar. Pam Lloyd said:

“With the bus service from Greenfield to Chester or Rhyl taking forever to get there—one hour 20 minutes on a good day—a train to the same destinations would take less than 30 mins and be more reliable and comfortable.”

Margie Roberts said:

“The roads are so busy, it’s only common sense to have an alternative to using the car; and the bus service is far too slow.”

Probably the most obvious call for help came from Natalie Edwards, who said:

“As I only have access to a car at weekends, I am reliant on public transport if I need to go anywhere other than my home town during the week. The bus journeys - even a short hop to the coast - take far too long to make them comfortable for people like me with chronic illness and hidden disabilities. Subsequently, if I can’t walk to where I need to go, which isn’t far as I have arthritis in my spine, I am defeated before I even start. This limits job opportunities as I live in a small town.”

There were so many more testimonies we would need a lot more than a half hour Adjournment debate to go through everyone’s stories and thoughts on the matter, but suffice to say I received dozens of comments over the past few days since I told people that this debate was happening. Every single one of them was positive and supportive of the project.

There was a station on the North Wales coast line called Holywell Junction, but it was closed as part of the Beeching reforms in 1966. Re-establishing the station, along with improved bus services from Greenfield up into the main Holywell public transport hub, would be absolutely transformative for the town. It would enable people to get to an increased number of better paid job opportunities. Studies have shown that only 8% of available jobs in the region lie within half an hour’s public transport travel time of Holywell, but more than 160,000 vacancies come into view within a 90-minute journey. Sadly, a 90-minute journey from Holywell on the bus would take you only as far as Chester in one direction and Llandudno in the other. The equivalent journey on the train would take a quarter of the time. Anything that can be done to cut public transport journey times should make those jobs much more accessible in an affordable way and should be an absolute priority to help the residents of these deprived areas to get themselves on to a more solid footing in life.

It would not just get people out to jobs, however. Holywell in and of itself has some fantastic reasons to visit: the town name—holy well—is something of a giveaway, as it is the location of St Winifride’s Well, which is the oldest continually visited pilgrimage site in Britain; and the beautiful Greenfield valley. Both are well worth the trip. A station would bring more tourism into the town, which would further improve the economic outlook. Indeed, the county council’s local development plan identified the area of Holywell as a tourist hub for the county. In addition to the well site and Greenfield valley, both of which see around 40,000 visitors per year, hundreds of thousands of people use the Flintshire section of the Wales coastal path, which runs adjacent to the tracks.

For businesses, enabling fast connections to the Deeside industrial parks and beyond would mean companies currently based outside of the region would have the opportunity to expand into local industrial zones in Greenfield, Bagillt and Mostyn. The train station would work in conjunction with the upcoming levelling-up fund bid for the constituency, which is focused on job creation and regeneration of those zones and will in turn make the area much more attractive for new and existing companies to grow into.

Another of the interesting demographic situations in my constituency is that we have a much higher than average over-65 population. The average UK constituency has 18.6% of residents over 65; Delyn has 23.5%. While five percentage points might not sound like a lot, when we are talking about 70,000 people, that is an extra 3,500 over-65s compared with the average constituency and, as we are all aware, that demographic is more likely to rely on public transport to get around.

We have a large number of children at one end and a large number of people above retirement age at the other, but in the middle we have a drop in numbers and have a much lower percentage than the average constituency of people in what others have called the “economically active” years. Making it easier for people to stay in the area by ensuring that work opportunities are more accessible in the wider region would do a huge amount to stop the working-age exodus and ensure that those skilled workers that we have in abundance in Delyn are able to get to jobs further afield without having to move out of the area.

Getting the bus from Holywell to Chester currently takes around 90 minutes—when they are on time, which is rare. Bearing in mind that the journey is just 17 miles, that is an average speed of 11 mph. Getting a train from Holywell to Chester would take around 20 minutes, a quarter of the time. Older constituents would be able to take advantage of massively reduced travel times in the other direction, up to the coast. A significant number of studies have shown how important outdoor coastal and countryside areas can be in maintaining our physical and mental wellbeing, particularly as we get older.

Other developments in the region would be complemented by a new Greenfield station, making the entire network more viable and user-friendly. They include the upcoming and long-promised development of Chester station, changes on the Wrexham to Bidston line, and an integrated transport plan that will hopefully come to fruition in the north Wales metro scheme, although with the latter it appears that Welsh Government are focusing all their resources on the south Wales metro rather than developing the north. I am keen to work with the Welsh Government to develop that project, which could really benefit the people of Delyn, but sadly so far there has been no engagement and no significant funding allocated to it.

In terms of the environmental issues, currently 80% of workers in Delyn use private cars to get to work, compared with just 63% nationally. Only 0.8% of Delyn’s workers use the train for commuting, compared with 5.2% nationally. Increasing the proportion of people using trains in that way, as well as for their leisure activities, would make a huge difference to the carbon footprint of Holywell and north Wales generally, particularly when combined with the recommendations in Sir Peter Hendy’s Union connectivity review to electrify the north Wales coast line. I hope the Government will move forward with that recommendation as soon as possible, as it will go some way towards helping to achieve the target of net zero by 2030.

At this point I pay tribute to some of the members of Holywell Town Council, particularly Councillor Barry Scragg and Community Engagement Officer Martin Fearnley, who have been the main drivers of this project for the past five years or so. They have done some excellent work, including a local community questionnaire that elicited more than 700 responses from residents and businesses. The town council’s working group on the station project has produced an extremely comprehensive report, a copy of which I will happily provide to the Minister, which succinctly lays out the case for a new station. Its figures show that the catchment area for a station in Greenfield would be around 20,000 to 25,000 people, significantly more than existing stations along the line in Prestatyn, Flint, Penmaenmawr and Abergele, all of which are already shown to be sustainable.

The town council report has since been backed up by a formal transport study from planning specialists Mott MacDonald, commissioned by Flintshire County Council. Its report clearly states:

“Combined with incremental rail revenue, the total cost of the scheme is negative with revenue more than offsetting investment and operating costs”.

That is without taking into account all of the wider socioeconomic benefits I have already mentioned. The study recommends moving to a strategic outline business case and the initial steps of the processes announced last year for Project Speed, as speed is certainly of the essence in providing vital transport links to this left-behind town.

There is no reason for the work to take years. Much of the old station infrastructure is still there, and the access is good. Land for car parking is readily available and the tracks are obviously still in place—and in use. Although transport is in many ways a devolved competence for the Welsh Government to deal with, transport infrastructure, under which this type of project would come, is a reserved matter for the UK Government.

I will close with a request to the Minister that is twofold and, hopefully, simple to deliver. First, will he find the time to join me on a visit to Holywell to look at the site and hear about the plans from town councillors and local residents? Secondly, will he commit to providing the funding necessary for the development of a strategic business case and the follow-on initial stages of that process to confirm what the feasibility study has already been very clear about? The need for a station to serve Holywell and Greenfield is vital, would be transformative for some of the most deprived parts of my constituency and would truly facilitate the levelling up of these communities. Importantly, it would also confirm to the people of Delyn that, despite the Welsh Government overseeing many aspects of it, the UK Government have not forgotten them or abandoned them and are committed to their success and prosperity as much as that of any other region of the United Kingdom.

Oral Answers to Questions

Rob Roberts Excerpts

Thursday 11th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Robert Courts]

I simply have to disagree with the hon. Member. The first global travel taskforce reported in November, as promised. We had the robust release of the test to release scheme in December in time for the Christmas market. Now it is right that we take stock, look at the whole aviation sector, consult carefully and have a new GTT. We will, as we have said, report to the Prime Minister and publish the reports on 12 April, and 17 May is the earliest date on which international travel can resume. We are working with and meeting and consulting the sector on a weekly and daily basis. It is a major ongoing piece of work very much at pace.

[Rob Roberts (Delyn) (Con)]

What discussions he has had with Cabinet colleagues on the Union connectivity review.

[The Secretary of State for Transport (Grant Shapps)]

Yesterday, I welcomed the Union connectivity review interim report. It marks an important moment in looking at how transport can bring people together across our United Kingdom.

[Rob Roberts]

Transport infrastructure is one of the most vital areas of development needed in my constituency. I was delighted to see that improvements in connectivity to the north Wales coastline and the A55 featured strongly in yesterday’s interim report. Can my right hon. Friend confirm when he expects the review to publish its final report, and that there will be funding available to implement its recommendations, even though some cases were not mentioned specifically in the Budget?

[Grant Shapps]

The interim report did, of course, mention the A55, which my hon. Friend has campaigned hard for. I have released £20 million to carry on further work and studies on some of these routes and the final report will be released in the summer.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

Let us go to Christian Matheson—[Interruption.] We will come back to him.

[Rob Roberts (Delyn) (Con)]

With the impending cutting-out of petrol and diesel cars from production in the near future, will my right hon. Friend indicate what discussions he has had with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy to ensure that cars can be more affordable on a mass production basis?

[Grant Shapps]

The £2.8 billion referred to earlier is designed to do exactly that—for example, investment in a megafactory or a gigafactory to produce those batteries, which is one of the largest components of bringing down the price so that cars are affordable. It is also worth considering that we already have more rapid chargers per 100 miles driven than any country in the EU.

Oral Answers to Questions

Rob Roberts Excerpts

Thursday 3rd December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Robert Courts]

I am glad to confirm that the Government are committed to international efforts to reduce pollution from ships, including through the London-based International Maritime Organisation. I am pleased to be able to inform my hon. Friend that from 1 January 2021, the channel and North sea, including the East Sussex coast, will be designated a nitrogen oxide emissions control area under international law. I thank her for her continued outstanding advocacy for clean air in her constituency and across the UK.

[Rob Roberts (Delyn) (Con)]

What steps his Department is taking to improve rail connections in the north of England.

[Sara Britcliffe (Hyndburn) (Con)]

What steps his Department is taking to improve rail connections in the north of England.

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Andrew Stephenson)]

Last week was the dawn of a new era for transport in the north of England. Loved by some, but hated by most, it was the end of the line for the much-hated Pacer trains—the final call as this rusty and knackered rolling stock is consigned to history, allowing passengers to enjoy a brand-new fleet of trains, creating a more reliable network across the north.

[Rob Roberts]

I thank the Minister for his answer. The north-west of England is massively important to north-east Wales in terms of cross-border trade and employment. I am as keen as anyone to see improvements to rail infrastructure in the north. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is vital we keep up the strong links through improvements at the main connecting stations of Chester and Crewe and, crucially, electrification of the north Wales coast line?

[Andrew Stephenson]

My hon. Friend makes a very important point. Earlier this year, we approved funding for the progression of a line speed enhancement scheme for the north Wales coast line. In addition to ongoing work to develop the Crewe hub, my officials are working closely with Cheshire West and Chester Council on developing the business case for improvements at Chester station.