Great Western Main Line

Steve Double Excerpts

Tuesday 9th January 2024 Westminster Hall

[Steve Double (St Austell and Newquay) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Vaz. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham) on securing the debate.

It is difficult to overstate the importance of the Great Western main line to Cornwall. It is one of our absolutely critical transport links to the rest of the country, and I regularly travel to and fro London on it. Overall, the service is very good, although I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) about some of the problems over the last month or so. Many constituents have been in touch with me about that, and I have experienced the unreliability myself. However, we have seen significant investment in the railway in Cornwall in recent years, particularly the upgrade to a modern signalling system, which has enabled us to increase capacity on the train line. That has resulted in the new half-hourly trains between Plymouth and Penzance, which have been really welcomed and greatly used. Passenger numbers have grown as a result.

GWR also operates the Night Riviera Sleeper that, again, is really important to the Cornish economy, enabling people to travel overnight for work and for business. I know there have been questions over its future recently, and I put on the record just how important that service is to Cornwall; we really must do everything we can to maintain it.

We have seen some great investment, but there is still more to do. The one thing constituents often raise with me is that they would like to see better and more reliable mobile and wi-fi signals on the train to enable them to work. If we could do more to improve the reliability of the wi-fi signal particularly, that would be very welcome.

In the time I have left, I want to refer to the significant and exciting Mid Cornwall Metro project, which I have been working on since 2018. It will connect the middle part of Cornwall: from Newquay, through Par, St Austell, Truro and down into Falmouth. It will use the capacity on the existing main line, but will also utilise the two branch lines between Newquay and Falmouth to connect four of the biggest towns in Cornwall. Around a third of the Cornish population will be connected, offering direct trains from Newquay right through to Falmouth. About 50% of the economic activity of Cornwall will be able to utilise this line.

It is a really exciting opportunity that will see investment into Newquay itself: a second platform will be built that will open up more investment to improve that part of the town, and that will be really welcome. One of the things most exciting to me is the linking up of many of the smaller villages through what we in Mid Cornwall call the clay country—the china clay villages—with the four biggest towns in Mid Cornwall, and the opportunities that will bring for education, training and work, particularly to young people who do not have a car. I can imagine a young person living in the village of Roche being able to get to Falmouth to go to university, or an apprenticeship at the docks there, or being able to get to Truro for a job. This will open up such opportunity for young people, and that is what excites me about this project.

I know we are close to being able to announce the final funding agreement, and I ask the Minister to do all he can to make sure that the announcement comes forward as quickly as possible, because I know that GWR and Network Rail are desperate to start work. They want to start work next month so that we can deliver this project by 2025. I ask him to do all he can just to get that final push, so we are able to make that announcement. I know he came down to Cornwall last year, but perhaps he would like to come to see work begin on this new project. I genuinely believe it is a really exciting opportunity to improve the rail connectivity through Cornwall, and all the benefits that will bring.

Finally, I want to place on record my thanks to the Minister, the Department for Transport, Network Rail, GWR and Cornwall Council—we have all worked incredibly well together. It has been difficult at times, but the amount of work and collaboration that has gone on to get us to this point has been a real example of working together for the good of Cornwall. Thank you to everyone who has been involved, and I look forward to that positive announcement as soon as possible.