Great Western Railway Routes

Debate between Scott Mann and Johnny Mercer

Monday 8th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Scott Mann (North Cornwall) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Johnny Mercer). I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster) for bringing this debate about.

I would like to talk for a few moments about my experience with the Great Western railway and about how beneficial the railway has been. I was not previously a huge user of the railways, having not travelled from north Cornwall to London that much. However, I use them regularly now, because I have to travel up to London and back twice a week. For me, the best part of the week, as the right hon. Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw) mentioned earlier, is getting back on the train at Paddington. I use the sleeper train, and I would urge him to use it as well; there is nothing better than leaving London at midnight and waking up in God’s country, in the south-west, at six o’clock before going back to work on Friday morning. It is an excellent service.

I represent a constituency that is barren in terms of its railways. North Cornwall has no branch railway links. The south-west saw huge reductions under Beeching’s cuts, and North Cornwall lost stations in Bude, Launceston, Padstow and Bodmin, which served the original Great Western railway. I pay tribute to the Peninsula Rail Task Force, which has worked tirelessly in the south-west to attempt to deliver a plan for the south-west. In recent days, we have seen that plan and presented it to the Chancellor and to the Transport Secretary. I hope that later we will hear some positive announcements regarding the funding for that plan.

We have also seen in recent days how groups of MPs can join together and work for a region. Today we had the example of the securing of the local government funding settlement and the increase for rural areas, which has been hugely beneficial to residents in Cornwall, and I am grateful for that. We have a rather seamless tide of blue in the south-west, and it would be beneficial for us all to work together to try to get the best we can for our region. The Great Western Railway franchise, or First Great Western as it used to be called, has had a significant presence in Cornwall. In the past, other operators such as Virgin, CrossCountry and Wessex have come and gone, but trains operated by FirstGroup have served the Cornish people for many years. I thank my hon. Friend the Minister for her continued support for the train network in the south-west and for recently agreeing to meet us.

We noticed how resilient Cornwall and Devon can be when we saw the events in Dawlish in 2014. Those events cannot be ignored. Dawlish is a fantastic place to pass on the train—it is one of the best advertisements for the south-west. For any Members who have not ridden through Dawlish on the train, if you look over to the left-hand side, you can see a huge amount of sea and swell. That is exactly what the south-west is about—it is coastal, it is rugged—

[Johnny Mercer]

Like you.

[Scott Mann]

Thank you—likewise!

Millions of people from across the world saw the scenes of the railway hanging into the sea at Dawlish. At that time, we were reliant on the one arterial road that comes into Devon and Cornwall, and that was difficult. We saw the orange army out working—they did a huge job for us, and I am very grateful—but I feel that we should explore other opportunities and other branch lines that might well help us out. An Okehampton link on the line from Exeter to Plymouth would be viable, and it would bring benefits to tourism not just in North Cornwall but in the area represented by my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon (Peter Heaton-Jones) and in other parts of the region. I am sure that Great Western Railway would welcome the opportunity to serve more stations and facilitate the return of trains to North Devon. That would help thousands of people right across North Cornwall and North Devon, many of whom have to travel huge distances to access trains.

I might be the only speaker in the Chamber this evening who does not have a branch line running through their constituency, and I would very much like one, so I am going to make another case—for a Bodmin central branch line. There are only two standard-gauge railway stations in North Cornwall, both of which are served by the Bodmin and Wenford steam railway, which runs to Boscarne and is fantastic. However, Bodmin Parkway is located about five miles outside the town centre, which means that it is not easily accessible if there are roadworks or problems on the roads. I would therefore like a proper dedicated mainline link to be implemented between Bodmin Parkway and Bodmin General. The steam trains do a great job in the summer, but we need a 365-day-a-year link. I would welcome Great Western Railway considering putting in a link to connect Bodmin town up to Bodmin Parkway.

[Scott Mann]

I do agree. The more branch services we get, the better. Our public transport system in Cornwall and Devon is not great, and we struggle to provide sufficient bus services. As my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Moor View said, if we make these investments, that will drive jobs and drive the economy in our areas.

I thank the Minister for the investment that has already gone into the south-west, including in the points systems in Penzance, the new bimodal Hitachi trains, which will be ready for use by 2018—that is a fantastic investment and we are grateful for it—and the sleeper trains. I talked earlier about being rocked to sleep on the sleeper trains, which are a fantastic service. A gentle relaxation and a rocking to sleep is a lovely feeling, and it takes six and a half hours to get from Paddington to Bodmin Parkway, so I look forward to those sleeper trains coming online.

The bimodal trains will reach Cornwall faster, so we could do with them. It is also imperative that we look at electrification and line speed improvements. I know that is not going to happen overnight, but I would like the Minister to consider it. The sleeper train is an integral part of south-west connectivity. With the region being three to six hours away from London, night sleeping is important because it means you can have a restful night’s sleep and then get to work first thing on a Friday morning.

I thank the hon. Members for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies) and for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart), who is no longer in her place, for raising the Heathrow proposals. For me, Heathrow is not a London issue; it is a countrywide issue. Linking up areas such as the south-west means faster journey times to Heathrow and it connects us to onward travel. I am grateful to the hon. Members for pointing that out. In 20 years’ time, we could be living in a region that has direct flights from Newquay to Heathrow, and direct trains from the region to Heathrow. People from Cornwall could then fly to Heathrow in an hour, and people in east Cornwall and Devon could hop on an electric GWR service and alight at Heathrow in under three hours.

[Johnny Mercer]

I am very much enjoying my hon. Friend’s stories of rocking the sleeper to sleep, or whatever it is. Does he agree that in order to upskill our part of the world and change the character of the south-west economy, it is fundamental that we attract bigger manufacturing companies to give our young people the skilled opportunities and skilled manufacturing jobs that will keep them in the south-west?