Train Services: Extreme Weather

Steve Darling Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd November 2026 Westminster Hall

[Steve Darling (Torbay) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Jardine. I congratulate the hon. Member for Cannock Chase (Josh Newbury) on landing this really important debate.

Climate change is the real enemy we are facing, whether in the form of extreme heat or storms. Twelve years ago, the storm at Dawlish ripped away the sea wall, leaving it looking almost like a railway line somewhere in South America after a big storm. It resulted in eight weeks of closure down to the south-west of England—eight weeks that massively impacted us. One estimate suggested that the economic impact was around £1.2 billion. I remember getting on trains at Paddington that were usually busy but felt more like the Mary Celeste. It was incredible.

There were five parts to the puzzle of sorting the rail line out, as part of the south-west resilience programme. The fifth and final part remains outstanding, which is extremely worrying. Most of us enjoyed the really good summer we just had—some of us endured it—but the other side of the coin is much wetter winters, which could massively impact the cliffs at Dawlish. The cliffs are the enemy now, rather than the sea, as they could collapse. Work on that is unfunded, and we desperately need the funding. I hope the Minister will reflect on that in his comments.

Further up the line from Dawlish is Powderham, often a place for events. The challenge there concerns the Environment Agency’s choice of a managed retreat from Dawlish Warren, such that the warren, which currently acts as a protector to the estuary, could break and open up the railway line at Powderham to attack by storms and the sea. We need investment to protect that rail line, after we have achieved the success at Dawlish that we are hoping for from the Minister.

I want to reflect on where we are with the heat. In Devon and Cornwall, we have really poor-quality local rolling stock, which is almost life-expired. The perverse thing is that although they are new to us, the trains are third or fourth hand-me-downs from elsewhere in the country. The class 175s were handed down from south Wales, and they have not quite been got running, so even the hand-me-downs do not work. In the north of England, there has been investment in quality rail solutions for the trans-Pennine railways—partly electrification and partly battery. We should have a similarly futuristic rail service for Devon and Cornwall, which would not only be a lot more sustainable in our changing world, but would ensure that we tackle climate change by taking the carbon out of travel on our railway.

A specific challenge facing trains in the south-west is the lack of moisture in the soil, which means that they have to travel particularly slowly. We need to be alive to that issue, as well as to buckling rails. I speak to hoteliers such as the owner of the Berburry hotel, which is quite close to Torquay rail station. She gets international visitors, whose experience on the continent, sadly, is often of a much better-quality rail service. After decades of under-investment, we really need that investment.

I look forward to the Minister’s reflections on the fifth and final piece of the Dawlish puzzle, on how we protect Powderham in the light of the threat I highlighted, and on investment in quality rolling stock for Devon and Cornwall, so that we can face the future with confidence.

--- Later in debate ---

[Simon Lightwood]

My hon. Friend raises a really interesting question. I do not know the answer, but I will make sure I speak to the Rail Minister and see what answers we can get for my hon. Friend.

This summer brought the challenges we are discussing into sharp focus. The UK experienced five widespread heatwaves between May and August. In June, the Met Office issued a rare red extreme heat warning. During the most severe conditions, on 24 and 25 June, passengers were advised to make only essential journeys in affected areas, including the west midlands. Services continued to run, but safety required reduced speeds and amended timetables. That meant longer journeys and a greater risk of delays, cancellations and late changes.

My hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase is right to highlight the experience in his constituency. This summer, heat reduced Chase line services, while intense rainfall flooded the railway between Hednesford and Rugeley and forced trains to terminate at Hednesford. Further storms disrupted services in October. These events reinforce the need for better preparations, including drainage, targeted investment in resilience and strong local partnership working. Network Rail has produced a weather resilience and climate change adaptation plan for each of our regions, and those plans indicate where investment may be needed during hot weather and how issues can be addressed.

The first duty of the railway is, of course, to keep passengers and staff safe. Speed restrictions, targeted inspections and temporary closures can be really frustrating, but they are needed to ensure a safe railway. The task is to make those decisions earlier and more precisely, communicate them clearly and restore the service as quickly as conditions allow.

The industry has drawn practical lessons from summer 2026, including preparing earlier, focusing on the greatest risks, planning for prolonged heat, and making decisions sooner. Operationally, that means acting as one railway, using restrictions in a targeted way, building recovery into the response and adapting quickly as evidence changes. The Railways Bill will establish Great British Railways, which will integrate operations and infrastructure in regional routes to ensure that they act as one railway. In the meantime, the rail industry has established a climate change programme co-chaired by Network Rail and Department for Transport Operator Limited to provide strategic direction, align the industry and monitor delivery.

Preparation is not confined to summer, nor are climate risks confined to heat and the consequential moisture and soil deficit in many areas. The developing El Niño is expected to increase the chances of wetter, stormy conditions across the UK this autumn and in early winter, with stronger winds and increased risks of heavy rainfall and flooding. Colder spells are also possible. The railway is therefore preparing for a range of conditions using drones, specialist treatment trains and autumn forecasts, while managing vulnerable trees, planning contingency timetables, monitoring conditions in real time and deploying winter equipment to keep passengers moving safely.

As well as operational preparedness, we need to look to the future. Summers such as the one we experienced this year will become increasingly common. As was said, extreme weather has become the weather. The changing climate means that resilience cannot simply be something that we consider after extreme weather strikes. It needs to be built into the everyday decisions we make about how the transport system is maintained, operated and funded. That is why the Department for Transport launched its climate adaptation strategy for transport in December 2025, setting out our vision for a transport system that is safe, reliable and resilient to a changing climate.

Importantly, the strategy is about turning that ambition into practical change, supporting the transport system to prepare for the impacts of climate change by setting the strategic direction, strengthening the evidence base and embedding adaptation into planning and decision making. That approach is already being put into practice on the railway. Network Rail is pioneering work on adaptation planning through its adaptation pathways so that investment can be prioritised and staged as risks change.

Publicly owned train operators have for the first time also developed weather resilience and climate adaptation plans looking at climate risks across the railway, not only in respect of infrastructure, but to staff and customer welfare too. For example, working air con is equally important. Just yesterday, the Department for Transport published the first transport resilience strategy to provide strategic direction to improve the resilience of the transport sector and ensure that resilience principles are embedded in decision making and planning. The hon. Members for Strangford (Jim Shannon) and for East Londonderry (Mr Campbell) will be pleased to know that as part of that work, we are setting up a four nations transport resilience group.

Looking ahead, Great British Railways will address resilience across track and train as one system, while the long-term rail strategy will highlight climate resilience and adaptation as a clear priority, building on the £2.9 billion being invested between 2024 and 2029. That has been invested in activity but also technology to improve resilience to extreme weather and climate change.

[Steve Darling]

A few months ago, Network Rail met me and other south-west MPs who are here today and told us that it is occasionally acceptable to close the Dawlish rail line. Does the Minister believe that it is acceptable?

[Simon Lightwood]

I will come on to talk specifically about the issues that the hon. Gentleman raised. All endeavours are being made and a great deal of funding has gone in to make that track as resilient as possible. I do not think that anybody wants to suspend services through that area, but unfortunately there will be instances where that may have to be done. The investment that has put in has made it more resilient; we saw that during the latest storms, when the line was reopened the day after its closure.

My hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth (Jayne Kirkham) and the hon. Member for Torbay talked about south-west rail resilience. I think that more than £165 million has been invested through the south-west rail resilience programme, including a new seawall, a rockfall shelter at Parson’s tunnel to Teignmouth and major cliff stabilisation work. As I just said, the value of that investment was demonstrated during the storms at the start of this year. This year also saw Cornwall’s worst ever rainfall totals, but the new seawall performed as designed, helping to protect the infrastructure from major damage and allowing the line to reopen the very next day.

Phase 5 of the resilience programme was not funded as part of the 2025 spending review. We are continuing to fund investigative work on that section of the route. Network Rail is currently undertaking a drainage trial to remove water from the cliffs, as well as further ground investigation. That will give National Rail the more detailed data that it needs for longer term solutions. All the monitoring equipment that is installed in those areas of the cliff between Parson’s tunnel and Teignmouth will help to provide a quick response when triggered. My hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Joe Morris) also mentioned Northern; it is procuring, I think, 450 new trains due in 2031. I appreciate that feels like a long time away but it is also looking at shorter term options to improve capacity.

I assure my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase and hon. Members throughout the House that this Government recognise both the immediate disruption experienced by passengers and the longer term challenge facing our railway. In a single season, Cannock Chase has seen the effect of heat, intense rainfall and storms. We will continue to work with Network Rail, train operators and local partners to learn from those events, improve drainage and operational preparedness, target investment where risk is greatest, and give passengers clearer information. Extreme weather cannot be prevented but its consequences can be better anticipated, managed and reduced. That is how we will secure a safer, more reliable and more resilient railway for Cannock Chase and for communities across the country.

Local Government Reorganisation

Steve Darling Excerpts

Thursday 29th October 2026 Commons Chamber

[Jim McMahon]

We have confirmed multiple times that the 500,000 population size was a guiding figure, and we were very mindful during the course of reorganisation that some councils went above that, with Gloucestershire being one example—I think the population was in the mid-600,000s. Other councils did not believe that was the way forward for their local population, for different reasons; sometimes it was because of a spread of different identities between a coastal community, an urban city or a rural shire surrounding it. In those councils, the view was, that the council should better represent the identity of the area, rather than being a single unit. That figure was always a guide.

There is not a window in this process for new proposals, but there will be a “minded to” process. When we confirm our preferred option, if there are proposals for tweaks that would make it better, we will be open to receiving them during that process.

[Steve Darling (Torbay) (LD)]

On 7 September, the Secretary of State made a commitment that Devon MPs would be able to hold a meeting with the appropriate Minister to discuss local government reorganisation in Devon. Sadly, that meeting has not occurred to date. What timescale can the Minister give for such a meeting occurring?

[Jim McMahon]

We said that the meeting would take place after the review, as we wanted the review to take its course. It has obviously now concluded, and I have made a statement today. We have a list of about 40 to 50 MPs who have requested meetings in debates and in writing, so we will have a Monday evening surgery every two weeks from 7 pm to 9 pm. We will make sure that MPs are given a slot at the earliest possible opportunity.

Tourism: Overnight Visitor Levy

Steve Darling Excerpts

Tuesday 15th September 2026 Commons Chamber

[Jim McMahon]

This is definitely the benefit of a wider ministerial brief: I do not just get to go to bus councils; I also get invited to seaside towns, which is good news.

On the pressure issues, I do not think anybody underestimates just how difficult it is for those in hospitality and leisure at the moment—these are not good times—but surely the way to grow is to invest in that experience so that more people want to come to our towns, our cities and our seaside communities. We believe that growing that base and creating demand through collectively improving such experiences will create a more sustainable visitor experience.

[Steve Darling (Torbay) (LD)]

Tourists visiting Torbay already pay double the rate of VAT compared with those visiting Italy, France or Spain. The reality is that a cost of living crisis is just the wrong time to implement a tourism tax. Can the Minister please share what investigations he has made of the impact of the tourism tax, but also assure us that Airbnb operators will also pay their fair share?

Local Government Reorganisation

Steve Darling Excerpts

Monday 7th September 2026 Commons Chamber

[Angela Rayner]

My hon. Friend has been an absolute champion for the people of Portsmouth since being elected to Parliament, and I do not think any of us will try to take that identity away from the people of Portsmouth—I am sure that she will be pushing that. She is absolutely right to talk about devolution; we need to grasp the nettle on local government reform so that we can put areas in a strong place for devolution. We will be working with her in the coming weeks to ensure that that happens.

[Steve Darling (Torbay) (LD)]

The current proposals for Devon were the brainchild of Exeter and Plymouth and were endorsed by the Conservative leader of Torbay council, and they resulted in a rural rump for Devon. Will the Secretary of State assure us that the rural rump of Devon will not rear its ugly head again?

[Angela Rayner]

Like I said, I have paused that decision today, and we will be reviewing it. I am sure that the Local Government Minister will be happy to meet with Devon Members to discuss the challenges that they face.

Building Homes and Renewing Communities

Steve Darling Excerpts

Thursday 3rd September 2026 Commons Chamber

[Angela Rayner]

I commend my hon. Friend for her work in representing those in Stafford, and I appreciate that there is a lot going on at the moment. I really want her to be involved in the high streets strategy that we are bringing forward, and I will make sure that my Department is in contact with her so that she is fully engaged, and her local area can play a full role in shaping the future and is heavily involved in the process.

[Steve Darling (Torbay) (LD)]

The Secretary of State is quite right to highlight the link between mental health illness and street homelessness. Sadly, over the 30 years I have served the people of Torbay, I have seen it quadruple, and it feels to me that street homeless people are just the tip of the iceberg in relation to the homelessness we see in our communities. Will she give me some assurance that in a community such mine in Torbay, where social rented housing is at only 7% compared with the national average of 18%, will be targeted with additional support for additional affordable and social rented housing?

[Angela Rayner]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising this issue. He is a champion in knowing and recognising the challenges that his local area faces. We announced £442 million of support for tackling rough sleeping this winter, and that is based on a formula that recognises the challenges that local areas face. I will get my Department to contact him so that he can understand the effect of that, and he can shape what comes forward in his area. He is absolutely right to recognise that the programme has to have settled accommodation as well as intensive wraparound support to help people leave rough sleeping behind. We have to learn the lessons of what happened in Greater Manchester and how it was able to achieve great outcomes for people. As I mentioned in my statement, when I have met people whose lives have been transformed by it, I can understand why the Prime Minister says he wants us to make sure this happens nationally.

Local Government Reorganisation

Steve Darling Excerpts

Thursday 16th July 2026 Commons Chamber

[Steve Reed]

I have visited Exeter and know what a great champion my hon. Friend is for his constituents, who live in what is surely one of the most beautiful cities in the country. It has such growth potential, and this proposal will benefit the people living there. The proposal that we have accepted for Devon will allow Exeter to achieve its true potential, as part of a Devon that can also achieve its wider potential. We cannot allow the south-west to continue to be one of the poorest regions of the country. People living there deserve the same opportunities as people who live in wealthier parts of the country.

[Steve Darling (Torbay) (LD)]

This could be worse for Torbay unitary authority. However, it is a catastrophic carve-up for Devon, led by Exeter and Plymouth—both Labour councils—and driven forward by a Labour Minister, which will result in a rural rump in Devon. Can the Minister please advise us on his belief as to the financial viability of this rural rump of Devon?

[Steve Reed]

Financial viability was one of the key criteria against which we assessed all the proposals, and we selected the most viable options in all cases where that was before us. We would certainly not have accepted proposals that were not financially viable. I believe that the hon. Gentleman’s constituents will benefit from the proposals because of the inward investment that will be brought into Devon, the jobs it will attract and the money that will be put into local people’s pockets. I know that he and I share a determination to correct the economic imbalances that hold back people who are living in Devon. They deserve more access to opportunity. Thanks to these proposals, that is what they will get.

Local Government Reorganisation

Steve Darling Excerpts

Monday 13th July 2026 Commons Chamber

[Alison McGovern]

I suggest to my hon. Friend that once I have actually made the announcement, perhaps we can have a chat about those things. As somebody who has had mayoral devolution in my area for more than a decade now, and who represents the great town of Birkenhead—recently shortlisted for town of culture—I have a lot of thoughts about this issue, which I will happily share with him.

[Steve Darling (Torbay) (LD)]

Torbay council is the most deprived local authority in the south-west of England. I would welcome the Minister’s assurances that rearranging the deckchairs with this local reorganisation will not detract from regeneration, which is a core driver for that local authority. The new Prime Minister is set to move No. 10 a further two hours away from the west of England. How will he be supporting the south-west?

[Alison McGovern]

I am not sure that all the hon. Gentleman’s questions were central to the subject of this statement, but he makes an important point, which is: what is the objective here? The objective is to grow our economy, so that we can deal with deprivation, particularly in seaside and coastal places, and have better quality public services to support people. That is the objective, and that is what I think we will achieve.

Proposed Visitor Levy

Steve Darling Excerpts

Wednesday 25th March 2026 Westminster Hall

[Damian Hinds]

That is one of a number of worries I have about this proposal; I am grateful to the hon. Member for putting it in such a rational and straightforward way.

I was coming on to say that international inbound tourism scores even more highly because, counterintuitively, tourism into this country is an export. In classical Keynesian economics—if I may appeal to the Government side of the House in that way—it is an injection into the circular flow of the economy. It is not spend that is displaced from some other activity; it is a net increase in economic activity in our country, which means that it is a net creator of jobs.

For the Exchequer, tourism is particularly attractive because tourists are on average very low users of public services. However, while they are here, they spend money not just on their travel and accommodation, but on their food and beverages, their purchases and activities, and on all those things they are paying tax and contributing to the Exchequer.

[Steve Darling (Torbay) (LD)]

It is important to reflect that in the United Kingdom tourists face a VAT rate of 20% on their spend, whereas in Germany it is only 7% and in Spain, France and Italy it is 10%. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the Labour Government need to reverse their job-killing national insurance contribution hikes, which have had a massive impact on our hospitality industry up and down the country, including in my constituency?

[Damian Hinds]

I do agree; the hon. Member makes some very good points about national insurance contributions, which I will go on to talk about further. He also makes some very good points about looking at the set of taxes as a whole—we cannot just look at a bed tax or a tourism tax without thinking about all the other taxes. However, if I may, I promise him that I will come on to those matters later.

Inbound tourism is something that we are rather good at as a country. How could we not be, when we have great cities such as London, Manchester, Edinburgh, York, Bath and Brighton, as well as the lakes, the Peaks, the moors, the dales and the beautiful South Downs, part of which I have the privilege of representing? There is also our literary heritage, not least Alton and the village of Chawton in East Hampshire, the home of Jane Austen. Britain is also the birthplace of more sports than most of us could name if we were prompted to do so in 60 seconds. There is also the draw of screen “on location” sites, as we have recently seen in the “Starring Great Britain” campaign, west end theatre, live music and much more.

There is also the small matter of the English language—and believe it or not, even the weather actually acts in our favour. The fact that so much more of our inbound tourist infrastructure is indoor means that our tourist season is much longer, and we have considerably less seasonality in our tourist numbers, than many of our competitor nations.

All those things help to explain our success. We are the seventh or eighth biggest country in the world by tourist arrivals, but we are even higher—third in the world, in fact—for tourist receipts. Of course, that is particularly driven by London, which is a very high-value market, but overall, tourism is our third largest services sector by export earnings, and comparable to goods sectors such as automotive and pharmaceutical.

We do inbound tourism well, then; but tourism is also a competitive market and the reality is that we are not doing as well as we used to. We are doing well, but worse. Over the last 30 years, the UK’s market share of world tourism has tumbled. It has come down by something like half.

Productivity and Economic Growth: East Midlands

Steve Darling Excerpts

Tuesday 17th March 2026 Westminster Hall

[Steve Darling (Torbay) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Huq. I congratulate the hon. Member for Rushcliffe (James Naish) on his incredibly powerful speech and other colleagues from across the east midlands and nearby on the love they have shown for this part of the United Kingdom. We could almost say that we are under the moon of love—in fact, that reminds me that nobody has mentioned a great cultural export from Leicester: Showaddywaddy. I have fond memories of them from my childhood in the 1970s.

It is important that we reflect on where we have come from economically and the challenges that we face. The Tories crashed the economy—colleagues have covered that well—and the fact that we are having to pay so much interest on debt holds back our economy. The Liz Truss crash put some of the challenges that we face on steroids. The lack of investment over many years has affected the whole country, including the east midlands. The challenges we face in the south-west of England, as a part of the country that feels left behind, are not dissimilar from those that the east midlands faces. I represent the most deprived constituency that has a Liberal Democrat MP.

I would like to reflect on some of the positives. In my patch, we have an outstanding fishing industry, alongside the hospitality, electronics and photonics industries. That chimes with what colleagues have said about the manufacturing tour de force in the east midlands: whether it is Siemens, Rolls-Royce or Toyota, there are large companies powering the east midlands economy, and there are SMEs doing the same.

With so many Labour MPs here, I am afraid to tread on toes, but I will anyway. The national insurance hike has, sadly, had an impact on our economic growth and has led to uncertainty, speculation and delays to budgets. We desperately needed a firm hand on the tiller after the Tories, and it has not been there. I hope for the sake of the economy that we will see one soon. The Employment Rights Act 2025 is not a massive issue for companies like Toyota or Rolls-Royce, which have the capacity, but for SMEs and microbusinesses it is more of a challenge. I implore the Minister to reflect on that.

[Jonathan Davies]

The hon. Member mentions the national insurance hike. I am disappointed about that, but would he be content to see public services—education, healthcare and public transport—continue to fail people? We needed that investment to get the country back on its feet.

[Steve Darling]

Sadly, the investment that I had hoped to see in my hospital in Torbay has been kicked into the long grass. We still have hundreds of sewage leaks across the hospital, 85% of which is not fit for purpose. However, let me go back to discussing the east midlands, which is what we are really here to do.

As I was saying, SMEs will be challenged the most. I implore the Minister to consider that, as the Employment Rights Act is rolled out. Even HR reps acknowledge that this is important. Introducing it at the same time as the national insurance hike has resulted, effectively, in a double hit to the economy.

[Amanda Hack]

One of the things that is problematic about the hon. Gentleman’s line of questioning is that one in 10 people in Leicestershire are on an NHS waiting list. In order to increase economic productivity, we need to make sure that people of working age are well enough to work. Does he agree that investment in health is also key to economic productivity?

[Steve Darling]

Yes. Let me reflect on the three areas that we need to be driving in particular. The first is our green energy approach, which the Government have made significant steps on. I am disappointed that the previous Government had a policy that did not prioritise the new schemes. A number of zombie schemes were sticking in the system. We need only look at the shock to our economy.

[Jo White (Bassetlaw) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman talks about green carbon-neutral schemes coming forward. I welcome yesterday’s announcement of a construction partner for the STEP Fusion plant at West Burton in Nottinghamshire: the consortium known as ILIOS, which is led by a joint venture between Kier and Nuvia, supported by AECOM, A_AL Architects, and Turner & Townsend. This will see the creation of thousands of jobs right across the region. We should welcome that initiative by our Government.

[Steve Darling]

I am delighted to welcome that, but we need to drive harder. We need only look at the massive impact on our economy of the incredibly foolish war that has been launched by Donald Trump. Uncoupling ourselves from the oil and gas industry will be a good way of protecting ourselves from such impacts in the future.

The second area I will reflect on is our young people. The fact that 16.1% of young people are unemployed is a real challenge. In my constituency of Torbay, there is a description of a “bay mentality”. A barrister came to speak at the school of one of my sons. He talked about using one’s connections ruthlessly. In a working-class setting, that is not so easy. People do not have such connections. My challenge to the Minister is, beyond the scheme announced by the Government yesterday, how are we looking at opportunities for working-class youngsters in particular to gain enrichment and experience, to get them to a better place?

Finally, given how many progressive Labour Members are present, I am shocked that so far we have not talked about rejoining the customs union. I look forward to the Minister sharing a date for when she is planning to complete the negotiations to rejoin the customs union, which will grow our economy significantly.

Local Government Finance

Steve Darling Excerpts

Wednesday 11th February 2026 Commons Chamber

[Gideon Amos]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Conservative Members ask, from a sedentary position, who runs the council, but I use the phrase “inherited time bomb” advisedly. The well-respected Conservative former leader of Somerset county council, Dave Fothergill, was one of the first in the country to identify this issue. He told “Panorama” back in 2019 that adult social care was a time bomb that was ticking. That time bomb has now gone off around the country, and council tax payers are having to bail out the broken social care system.

[Steve Darling (Torbay) (LD)]

For Torbay council, on which I still serve, incredible assumptions are being made about the levels of council tax being collected. That results in a deficit of £13 million in years 2 and 3 for a small unitary authority. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Labour party has been learning from the Conservatives, and is planning to balance the books of councils on the backs of local tax payers?

[Gideon Amos]

I certainly agree with my hon. Friend, who champions Torbay on a regular basis in the Chamber. Councils are suffering reductions in their funding settlements across the country, which is one of the reasons we cannot support the amount of support they are getting from central Government.