Rail Services (Portsmouth Harbour)

Robert Goodwill Excerpts

Tuesday 11th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Mr Robert Goodwill)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport (Caroline Dinenage) on securing this debate. I will do my best to address the points that she raised so eloquently. I apologise for being a poor substitute for the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Claire Perry), who has responsibility for rail. She is currently speaking in Westminster Hall, and even she cannot be in two places at the same time.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport knows, the Portsmouth-to-London line is an essential artery that connects communities across Hampshire, Surrey and south-west London. As she said in her speech, it is not only up north that we need to deliver new jobs and prosperity on the back of infrastructure. She mentioned the problems following the cuts to defence jobs in her part of the world.

The railways are a success story of recent times. Passenger numbers have doubled across the country over the past 15 years to the same levels as 1929, but on a network that is half the length. South West Trains operates about 1,700 services a day and about 222 million passenger journeys were made on South West Trains last year. London Waterloo is the UK’s busiest railway station and Clapham Junction station, which is operated by Stagecoach South Western Trains, is the busiest interchange, with somewhere in the region of 23 million interchanges each year.

My hon. Friend is right to raise the issues of journey times and capacity on the route between Portsmouth and London. She mentioned the journey to Doncaster. I will be journeying to York this evening. That journey takes 1 hour and 50 minutes, which is not much longer than the journey down to Portsmouth. Indeed, if one includes the Gosport ferry, that journey takes much longer, even though it is over a much shorter distance.

There are issues of great concern for many passengers who use train services on the route from Portsmouth to London. Many travel for work, but people also travel for leisure, as Portsmouth offers many attractions for the visitor. That is not to mention the important connections to the Isle of Wight and to my hon. Friend’s constituency by the Gosport ferry, for which South West Trains will offer through fares from January. The provision of reliable rail services on the line is therefore enormously important for economic activity and growth along the route.

Nearly 7 million passenger journeys were made to and from Portsmouth stations during 2012-13. Investment has been made and continues to be made to improve the facilities at those stations through schemes such as the national stations improvement programme. Portsmouth stations are served by a number of train operators—South West Trains, Southern and First Great Western—meaning that Portsmouth is connected to much of the south of England and Wales. However, I agree that the speed of those journeys is somewhat slower than on other routes that connect our cities, with the 74-mile journey between Portsmouth and London Waterloo taking about 90 minutes. My hon. Friend will be aware that there are legitimate reasons for that, which must be borne in mind.

The Portsmouth main line is a two-track route between Portsmouth and Guildford, connecting the south coast to London. The route is powered by a 3rd rail DC supply, with a maximum line speed considerably lower than the 125 mph seen on East Coast or Great Western main lines, for example. The line speed south of Guildford falls below 90 mph to 85 mph or less—indeed, to only 40 mph in some locations—on many parts of the route, which is caused by gradients and curves in the line profile. Coupled with the relatively high number of stations at which the train calls along the route, that makes it difficult to increase the line speed of those services.

There are few places where faster trains can overtake slower ones. In the section between Guildford and Havant, the only location where overtaking is possible is at Haslemere. That is not to say that no thought has been given to improving those vital services. Although previous investigations into improving journey times have shown a high cost for minimal benefit, service frequency has been increased where possible. That has been of greater benefit to the large populations using the train service from stations along that route.

There is no quick fix, and I will not suggest there is. The Portsmouth mainline is full to capacity and South West Trains is already operating most peak services at maximum formation. There are constraints on infrastructure and rolling stock, and as we have heard, passengers face difficulties. I am not saying, however, that improvements are not possible, and with the right conditions, journey times can be improved and extra main line capacity added. It is vital that the necessary planning for such investment takes place, and that consideration is given to the needs of the railway as a whole, giving us options for how to meet the demand that is forecast to continue growing over the next 30 years.

The long-term planning process is designed to facilitate the strategic planning of the industry, taking into account the views of the rail industry, funders, specifiers and customers. Network Rail is publishing draft route studies for stakeholder consultation. The draft route study for Wessex is due to be published for consultation later this month. It will set out ideas and proposals for investment over the course of Network Rail control period 6, which runs from 2019 to 2024, and beyond.

Local authorities, including Portsmouth city council, have already had the opportunity to feed into that draft study. It is very much a collaborative process, and I am keen to see it continue. The route studies will be published on the Network Rail website, together with further information about the long-term planning process. I strongly encourage my hon. Friends and their constituents to embrace the opportunity to help us shape the future of that railway, in the collaborative spirit to which I alluded. It is incredibly important for those who use that part of the network to have a say in its future.

[Mr Mike Hancock]

Will the Minister give an assurance that he will put pressure on train operators to work with the public to bring about improvements? It is one thing to have a consultation, but if nothing is delivered from that, it is a waste of time.

[Mr Goodwill]

Absolutely. When refranchising takes place, not only financial considerations, but other non-financial considerations such as those suggested by my hon. Friend, will be made. Towards the end of my remarks I will mention the rolling stock that is being used and the discomfort that some passengers may feel.

I understand that plans for more capacity in years to come are of little comfort to passengers who are experiencing delays and crowding today. That is why we have continued to invest in today’s railway to increase capacity where possible within existing constraints. I am pleased that the Government have pledged more than £38 billion of support for the rail industry up to 2019, improving the capacity and quality of a network that is experiencing vast growth in demand. My hon. Friend will be happy to hear that that includes significant investment on the South West Trains network.

In early September this year my colleague, the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Devizes, who has just joined us in the Chamber, joined with South West Trains to announce the latest capacity enhancement to be contracted. Some 150 new vehicles are being manufactured by Siemens to be put into passenger use on South West Trains by the start of 2018.

[Caroline Dinenage]

We are grateful that South West Trains is putting that investment into its rolling stock, but unfortunately not a single one of those carriages will be in use on the route down to Portsmouth. Will the Minister comment on that point?

[Mr Goodwill]

As we see rolling stock introduced, it will cascade down, so that benefits will be felt not only by those using the new rolling stock. When Stagecoach South Western Trains introduces these new trains, existing fleets will be cascaded which will see a further four evening peak services strengthened on the Portsmouth main line to maximum formation, addressing some of the under-capacity issues. This is part of plans to provide capacity for an extra 24,000 peak-time passengers each day. This is in addition to the 108 additional carriages that are already starting to arrive and are being put into passenger service, to increase capacity each day by 23,000 in the peaks. A similar cascade is also adding capacity to a number of peak services from Portsmouth.

Over the same period, Network Rail will carry out some major enhancement and renewal works in and around the Waterloo area at a cost of several hundred million pounds. Signalling is an important part of our rail infrastructure. It is often forgotten, but it can be low-hanging fruit in efforts to gain additional capacity. The signalling system that covers much of the suburban network needs to be renewed and, as part of that project, a new turn-back facility will be created at Hounslow so that an additional four services can operate in the peak.

By 2017, Network Rail will have carried out works to bring the remaining four platforms at the former Waterloo international terminal back into full operational use—from its current theatrical use, which we have heard about—for scheduled domestic services, restoring a vital piece of the south-western route infrastructure for railway use. Having those extra platforms available is also essential in the plans that have been developed to then extend platforms 1 to 4 at Waterloo, which serve the main suburban routes, so that they can accommodate 10-car length trains. This removes the last constraint that has hampered plans to increase main suburban capacity from a maximum eight-car operation for many years.

All of this takes time and considerable effort in planning to minimise the impact on passengers as these major engineering schemes are implemented. There will undoubtedly be significant levels of disruption at times, but high quality communication about what this means to passengers and their daily journey will be key.

My hon. Friend mentioned the infamous 450 carriages and their 3 plus 2 seating configuration, which can make the journey elbow to elbow for some people. As people get bigger, that will be an even greater problem. As my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth South (Mr Hancock) said, some people with back pain cannot use those trains.

I have heard the passionate calls from hon. Members about the rolling stock on the Portsmouth to London line. The class 450s that were put in place by Stagecoach South Western Trains on that route following the 2006 franchise competition have increased the amount of seating capacity available. Operational constraints of the route ruled out any additional services, so this was South West Trains’ solution to the requirement to accommodate demand within those constraints.

The train operator takes the decision on where to deploy the rolling stock across the franchise network to address capacity issues as efficiently as possible. Stagecoach South Western Trains has chosen to deploy a mixture of class 444s—the white ones—and 450s on services between Portsmouth and London. The 10-car formation class 444 provides 598 seats, whereas a 12-car maximum formation class 450 provides 738 seats. The additional seats provided by the class 450s provide vital capacity for passengers closer to London.

My hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Mr Turner) could not be here for this debate as he is chairing a debate in Westminster Hall, but he wanted to raise the issue of passengers who cross the Solent after their train journey. All too often, the trains depart a couple of minutes before the ferries, which means a wait of half an hour, or even an hour in the evenings. I am aware of the problems, and we support the idea of a taskforce to look at the transport issues on the island. I encourage my hon. Friend to work with the Isle of Wight council to establish that taskforce. My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary has written recently to the leader of the council to invite them to meet.

The solutions that we have contracted will address the capacity issues on the Windsor and main suburban routes, but we know that capacity issues remain on the main line. We are doing what we can in the short term to add more capacity where this is possible. However, we know that more is needed, as has been made clear during this evening’s debate. We expect the industry to continue to work in the same collaborative way to address and implement a significant solution for the main line in control period 6, and the planning process for that is under way.

Question put and agreed to.