Great Western Main Line

Baroness May of Maidenhead Excerpts

Tuesday 9th January 2024 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Theresa May (Maidenhead) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham) on securing this debate. As it states in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, I am a member of the GWR stakeholder advisory board. I represent the Thames Valley on that board.

I want to pick up the point that my hon. Friend made about the advantages we saw from privatisation of the railways. In my experience of dealing with companies covering services to my constituency—to Maidenhead, to Twyford, and the branch lines to Wargrave, Furze Platt and Cookham—there have been significant improvements when the companies are private and we have been able to work with them to improve railway services. The companies—predominantly GWR, recently—understand the importance of providing for the needs of customers. That is why I echo my hon. Friend’s comment that it is important that the Government examine the current situation, because there is a strange dichotomy between the cost risk taken by the Department for Transport and the revenue risk taken by the Treasury. The two need to be brought together if decent decisions are going to be made about the services that will be provided to customers.

Sadly, despite my overall experience of working with GWR, I have to say that in the last month, the experience of my constituents has not been good. I want to read out the problems that they have experienced. On 7 and 8 December, there was damage to overhead electrical wires, with delays and cancellations between London Paddington and Reading. On 9 December, industrial action resulted in delays and cancellations. On 10 December, damage to the overhead electric wires between Slough and London Paddington caused delays and cancellations. On 11 December, a points failure in the Slough area resulted in delays and cancellations. On 13 December, defective track between London Paddington and Reading meant trains having to run at reduced speed on some lines. On 14 December, due to a fault with the signalling system between Paddington and Heathrow and between Heathrow terminal 5 and Reading, some lines were blocked. On 15 December, due to a fault with the signalling system between London Paddington and Reading, all lines were blocked. The lines were closed on 24, 25, 26 and 27 December because of work at Old Oak Common. On 28 December, emergency services were dealing with an incident between London Paddington and Reading, and all lines were blocked.

On 2 January, an object was caught on the overhead electric wires. On 4 January, travel was disrupted when the police took control of the line and closed it because of an incident. On 5 January, there were disruptions from flooding. On 7 January, damage to the overhead electric wires between Paddington and Reading meant that some lines were blocked. On 8 January, urgent repairs to the track between Reading and London Paddington meant trains having to run at reduced speed. On 9 January—today—there was a speed restriction between Reading and London Paddington. Frankly, from the point of view of my constituents, this is not good enough.

What hon. Members and the Minister will have seen from this is that the vast majority of those incidents were about Network Rail and its response to problems with overhead wires and on the track. Just before Christmas, I held a meeting with GWR and Network Rail. Everybody understands the issues, but the question—and what I will look for from the Minister—is whether we can ensure that we will get sufficient support from Network Rail to resolve these problems such that my constituents can continue to have the service they expect and deserve.

The hon. Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi) mentioned the economic importance of Slough. Maidenhead is also an economically important place and is important to GWR in terms of the footfall from Maidenhead. My constituents need to know that they can rely on the train service. Sadly, with the way that Network Rail is behaving at the moment and how it has been dealing with the track and overhead lines, we are not seeing the service that they need.

I hope the Minister will be able to give me some confidence and comfort. We want to get people out of their cars and on to the railways. Sadly, if they see disruptions and cancellations, they will go back into their cars. That is not good for the planet—it is not good for any of us—so, Minister, over to you.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Morgan (Portsmouth South) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Ms Vaz. I thank the hon. Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham) for opening this important debate. As he said, the Great Western main line, engineered by Brunel nearly 200 years ago, continues to play a vital role in linking towns and communities, spurring economic growth and connecting our country.

This has been a good-spirited debate, with speeches and interventions of note on both sides of the House. My hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi) never misses an opportunity to speak up for his constituents and rail passengers, and I thank him for his tireless work in trying to improve connectivity between the south-west and Heathrow airport. A number of hon. and right hon. Members have raised a number of issues with regard to the cancellation of services and the delays affecting their constituents, and I thank them for that. It is clear that a key theme of the debate is giving passengers confidence in the reliability of services.

Of course, this is a very timely debate, given the disruption that we have seen on the line of late. It was caused most recently by a broken rail crossing and damaged overhead electric cables between Reading and Paddington. Perhaps more worryingly, there were four incidents of damaged rail found on the Great Western line within just eight days in November. There has been a flurry of incidents that raise concerns about whether enough is being done to ensure that our rail infrastructure is fit not only for the future but for the present.

To add to those concerns, last summer a Network Rail presentation leaked to The Independent revealed that current funding would not let Network Rail operate, maintain and renew its tracks, bridges and earthworks infrastructure. That leaked presentation said that there will be fewer repairs over the next five years and that there could be more obstructions that cause delays and accidents due to an inability to clear them. At a time of record cancellations and delays, as well as rising fares, that is the last thing that passengers deserve to hear.

Across the country in the 12 months up to September 2023, just two in three trains were arriving at their station stops on time. Those poor performance figures are no different from those of the Great Western main line: just 61.7% stops at Great Western railway stations arrived on time. I believe that that lack of reliability is driving people away from the railways at a time when we should be encouraging their use.

[Mrs Theresa May (Maidenhead) (Con)]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Stephen Morgan]

I am conscious of time, so I will carry on.

A couple of months ago, I sat in on a focus group made up of young men living near Exeter who were being asked about their use of public transport. It was disappointing but sadly not surprising to hear that they rarely use rail services, as they view them as being too unreliable and too expensive. They said that they were surprised when their train arrived on time, and that longer journeys were impossible to plan because they could not account for the expected length of delays.

As we look to the future, it is vital that the Great Western main line continues to evolve and improve. Key to that is making it fit for the net zero Britain of the future, but sadly successive Conservative Governments since 2010 have failed to deliver on that. According to the Government’s own figures, the 2013 cost estimate for the electrification of the 221 miles of the Great Western main line between Heathrow Junction station and Cardiff was £1.7 billion. The work, which was due to be completed in 2017, was part-finished in 2020 at a cost of £2.8 billion—a whopping £1.1 billion over budget—at a much reduced scope, with the removal of the 45 miles between Cardiff and Swansea, the 30 miles between Chippenham and Bristol Temple Meads via Bath, and the five miles between Bristol Parkway and Bristol Temple Meads.