Oral Answers to Questions

Theresa Villiers Excerpts

Thursday 5th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)]

3. What his most recent estimate is of the cost of the Crossrail project.

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Mrs Theresa Villiers)]

Crossrail is at a relatively early stage of construction and the cost will be finalised over time. However, at this stage, we expect that the project will cost no more than £14.5 billion.

[Lyn Brown]

I understand that the Government have cut £1 billion from the Crossrail project, which will mean that its opening will be delayed until 2018, and that only part of the route will be open. Will the Minister confirm for me today when the whole of the planned route will be open and which bits will not be open in 2018? When will I be able to travel from Stratford to Heathrow?

[Mrs Villiers]

There will be a phased opening of services from 2018. We have lengthened the delivery time following an engineering-led review, which did a great job in reducing the cost of the project while still enabling the full benefits to be delivered according to the original scope. We shall make an announcement in due course on the timetable for the phasing in of services from 2018.

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

I declare an interest as the chair of the all-party Crossrail group. My constituents in Ilford will benefit enormously as a result of the improvements brought about because three stations in my constituency are on the Crossrail route. However, there is considerable disappointment on Redbridge council at the fact that, as a result of the cost-cutting exercise, the plans to remodel and rebuild Ilford station will not go ahead. The Minister has been invited to meet Redbridge council and visit the area. Is she likely to come to Redbridge in the near future to discuss that with my council?

[Mrs Villiers]

I pay tribute to the work that the hon. Gentleman has always done on Crossrail. The whole House will welcome confirmation that Crossrail has gone ahead; despite all the scare stories from Labour in opposition, the coalition is pressing ahead with it. We have made some savings on some stations. The plans for their redevelopment are less ambitious than they were, but they will still perform all the transport functions that were included in the plans’ original scope. Crossrail and the Department for Transport remain happy to work with local authorities to facilitate extra improvements that local authorities might want to fund and deliver to regenerate the surrounding area.

[Jackie Doyle-Price (Thurrock) (Con)]

4. When he plans to announce his consultation on the level of tolls on the Dartford-Thurrock crossing; and if he will make a statement.

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[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Mrs Theresa Villiers)]

The south-east airports taskforce is looking at ways to improve efficiency, tackle queues and reduce delays at Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted. It is due to report in July.

[Greg Hands]

I commend the Secretary of State and the Minister for their active and robust campaign to improve the passenger experience. I think that it has improved in recent months, particularly at Heathrow, but I polled my constituents and many of them disagree. Greg Taylor said:

“Compared to Asian airports…Heathrow is a disgrace”,

and James Max complained about

“bad baggage reclaim…expensive food and parking…poor public transport”.

How can my constituents get more involved in the process of improving the experience at Heathrow and other airports?

[Mrs Villiers]

My hon. Friend is right to give credit to Heathrow for real improvements over recent years. Although terminal 5 started pretty badly, it is now a high-quality facility, and the airport will be investing in a major redevelopment of other terminals, hopefully to bring them up to the same standards. But more needs to be done, which is why we will modernise the airport regulatory framework to put passengers at the heart of the system, to give the Civil Aviation Authority the power to intervene where airports fail their passengers, and to incentivise the sort of investment in improvement, to baggage handling and terminals, for example, that his constituents clearly want. We are also introducing a new consumer panel at the CAA to improve passengers’ ability to influence the regulation of the airport.

[Mr Marcus Jones (Nuneaton) (Con)]

8. What steps he is taking to tackle uninsured driving.

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[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

11. What consideration he has given to electrification of the Barking to Gospel Oak line.

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Mrs Theresa Villiers)]

We are committed to further electrification of the railways. However, electrifying Gospel Oak to Barking is not currently a strategic priority as a number of other schemes have stronger and more developed business cases.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

May I persuade the Minister that it is a priority and that the matter is of national as well as London importance? The Barking to Gospel Oak line is the only part of the London overground network that is not electrified, therefore running trains on it with diesel power is more expensive. Secondly, because the line is on a major freight route from the east coast, there has to be a change from electrified haulage to locomotive trains on that section. It would be of great benefit, both nationally and in London, if the line were electrified. Will the Minister look at it again and will she meet the secret group of Barking to Gospel Oak line MPs who would, I am sure, support the points I am making?

[Mrs Villiers]

I am happy to meet the group, as the hon. Gentleman asks. The problem is that electrification would be expensive, because tunnels, bridges and viaducts are close to habitation, and the passenger benefits would be quite limited because the route is already running brand-new diesel trains. The performance benefits—journey-time improvements—delivered by electrification would be limited. The combination of high cost and limited passenger benefits means that the scheme is well behind others, such as the midland main line, the Great Western line and the Wales valley lines in terms of best value for taxpayers’ money.

[Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

May I unveil myself as a member of the secret group of North London line supporters? I look forward to the Minister meeting us. I hope she will meet us on the line itself, so that she can experience some of the problems that my constituents face—we promise not to make her wear an invisibility cloak—and so that she can understand some of the challenges we face in London because the line is not electrified. Problems with the freight line affect homes in Waltham Forest and other parts of north-east London, so I hope she will accept our invitation. We look forward to showing her our patch of north-east London.

[Mrs Villiers]

Meeting on the line itself might be a little difficult.

On the freight points, the problem is that freight trains use many parts of the network that are not electrified, which is why the majority of freight trains are diesel. There is a real possibility that even if the line were electrified, the freight trains running over it would still mainly be diesel. I am afraid that the freight issues do not address the business case problems. We have limited funds; unfortunately, we have to make difficult decisions on priorities and although I am happy to listen to representations from the group, for the moment I continue to believe that other schemes have priority because they have a better business case.

[Mary Macleod (Brentford and Isleworth) (Con)]

12. What discussions he has had with the Mayor of London on the operation of the transport network in London during the London 2012 Olympics.

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[Mrs Helen Grant (Maidstone and The Weald) (Con)]

T4. Will the Minister meet me as soon as possible to discuss the reinstatement of the Maidstone East to City of London service?

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Mrs Theresa Villiers)]

I am happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss the matter. I have given the issue careful consideration, but she will know that changes to the franchise, which require extra subsidy, would be difficult to approve in the current fiscal climate.

[Margaret Beckett (Derby South) (Lab)]

Does the Secretary of State recognise that there is strong cross-party support in the House, not only for British manufacturing in general, but in particular for the sole remaining British train maker, which eagerly awaits the award of the contract for the Thameslink line? What is the timing for that?

[Mrs Villiers]

We expect to make some announcements on that contract imminently. Towards the end the year, we expect to draw towards contractual close. We will make further announcements in due course.

[Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)]

T5. In Rugby, a significant number of vehicles on our roads have been brought into the country by foreign workers, and they remain registered in their home countries. When I raised the matter with the Minister, he advised me that such vehicles can be used for six months in a 12-month period, or until the visitor takes up residence. However, there is currently no database for tracking such vehicles as they enter and leave the UK. That means that the owners of many vehicles use UK roads without contributing to the costs of maintaining them. Will the Minister consider a review to rectify that?

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[Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)]

Wycombe air park will be subject to various security requirements in connection with the Olympics. I learned this week that those arrangements will threaten the survival of Booker gliding club. Will the Minister meet me to try to find a way forward for that valued resource?

[Mrs Villiers]

I am happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss this important issue. We are very much aware of concerns about the imposition of airspace restrictions in relation to the Olympics. We believe that restrictions are essential to maintain security for such an important event, but we are always prepared to consider refinements to see whether we can respond to concerns expressed.

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[Gordon Henderson (Sittingbourne and Sheppey) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend give an assurance that a meaningful consultation will take place with rail user groups before any of the existing rail franchises are renewed? I am thinking in particular of Southeastern, which has just had its current franchise extended by two years, despite an appalling performance record on the north Kent coastal line and repeated customer complaints.

[Mrs Villiers]

When we issue new franchises, we carry out a detailed consultation process. We will be doing that when the current Southeastern franchise finishes. No consultation was carried out in relation to the continuation review, because this was a contractual term of the franchise that was agreed by the previous Government, which meant that an automatic extension was granted if targets were met by Southeastern. Those targets were met; we had no choice—the extension had to go ahead. In those circumstances, a consultation was not appropriate.

The Minister for Women and Equalities was asked—

Written Parliamentary Question (Correction)

Theresa Villiers Excerpts

Thursday 28th April 2011 Written Statements

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Mrs Theresa Villiers)]

I regret to inform the House that there was an inaccuracy in my written answer (45254) given on 14 March 2011, Official Report, column 97W, about assessment of the effects on competition in the railway industry of the acquisition of Arriva Trains by Deutsche Bahn. The correct answer is that the European Commission carried out an assessment of the Deutsche Bahn acquisition of Arriva plc in 2010. A copy of the European Commission’s assessment of the effects can be viewed on their website.

Railway Expansion

Theresa Villiers Excerpts

Wednesday 27th April 2011 Westminster Hall

[John Pugh]

I suggest that the ratio is 10:1, and perhaps an hon. Member will correct me if I am wrong. I speak with some bitterness, because I spent two years discussing the Crossrail Bill. Its Committee stage was one of the longest in the past 50 years, and it was pure endurance, but one could not help being impressed by the scale of what was being attempted, although there were days when one thought there were better uses for one’s time. It is an engineering marvel, and will link the bankers of Canary Wharf with their planes at Heathrow. I am not against that, but London is already probably the best connected capital in the world, and it already has a tube and bus network that is the envy of every other city in the UK. I genuinely doubt whether London’s contribution to UK plc will be massively affected whether or not we build Crossrail on the most expensive real estate on the planet, with all that is involved. If the bankers of Canary Wharf, like their Venetian counterparts, are forced to take a vaporetto along the Thames, life would not be greatly worse for the nation or the economy.

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Mrs Theresa Villiers)]

I cannot help intervening. Does the hon. Gentleman accept that the coalition has embarked on the biggest programme of rail capacity expansion in modern history, which includes significant projects in the north of England, not just electrification, but most recently the announcement that the Ordsall chord scheme has had the go-ahead? That will provide significant benefits for people living in cities throughout the north of England.

[John Pugh]

I am not saying that the Government have done nothing. I am saying that, like all Governments previously, they have in the pending tray schemes on which they have reached no rational conclusion or that have not been investigated thoroughly, and many of them are in the north-west. Even taking into account the investment in the north, which I welcome, applaud and wholly support, the proportion of that investment—the Minister may contradict my figures later—compared with the proportion anticipated for London, including Crossrail and the Thames Gateway, does not chime with the general drive to rebalance the economy.

I accept that there is a problem with overcrowding in London. Anyone who travels on the Northern line at certain times of day will testify to that. However, that is largely because London’s population is always swelled by the enormous number of people coming here every day by train, not because they cannot do business elsewhere, but because getting into and around London is already quite easy for business purposes. It is not easy absolutely, but it is easy compared with many other places.

Anyone who takes a few cross-country journeys by rail, such as from Reading to Liverpool or somewhere that is not on the London axis, knows how difficult they are. Although there has been investment in the north, we often have regurgitated rolling stock that the south-east does not want or has finished using. The bulk of the new rolling stock is coming to the Thames Gateway and the London area, but in Lancashire—the hon. Member for Blackley and Broughton will agree—we have the most appalling, aged rolling stock rolling up and down the northern line with no immediate improvement in sight. We have not gone as far as I would like in doing something about regional inequality in transport investment. If I transpose in my mind any of the schemes to which I have alluded and imagine them happening in London and the south-east, I conclude that they would take less time.

The Burscough curve is my scheme of first preference. There are two stations, half a mile apart, in a growing, substantial dormitory town. Trains of two major franchises cover two city regions: Merseyside and Preston, as well as central Lancashire. Those two conurbations have been identified as being poorly linked by transport, but linking those two city regions requires only half a mile of track. If that were the case in Southwark, Kensington, Walthamstow, Richmond or the Thames Gateway, I have no doubt that it would have been funded and done years ago. Colleagues may play the game for themselves with their own pet schemes. What is a no-brainer in London is often a half-century campaign elsewhere.

A simple example with which some hon. Members will be familiar is the snarl-up between freight traffic from the docks and passenger transport trains from Liverpool Lime Street station. That went on for a long time, and arose simply because of the failure to put in the Olive Mount chord. It was wholly supported by all the economic interests in the area, and it has now been done, but I genuinely believe that it would not have taken the same length of time had it occurred at Felixstowe, near Tilbury or elsewhere in the south-east.

I am encouraged by the pre-election support of the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes for smaller schemes. I am heartened by the Secretary of State’s view that even in times of austerity it is sensible to sustain capital investment in transport, and that is what the Government are doing. I am restrained by due and proper caution with regard to some of the schemes, their costs and so on, but we can all travel in hope and never arrive. The Department can set out clearly what it can achieve, or it can simply wash its hands of the matter and put it down to local decision making. I have given reasons why that is not the best outcome.

I want to address the real problem of institutional inertia. We would never have found out that passengers do not suffocate in railway tunnels had we not sent passengers through them—that should not be done in an uncontrolled way, but we certainly managed to find out what happens. We do not know what happens if a scheme such as that at Todmorden progresses, because such schemes do not progress; they remain static. We will never find out whether restoring curves make sense, unless we restore them. That should not be done randomly, and I suggest that the Department rescues its paperwork on curves and their restoration, and prioritises its projects using criteria that can be understood. We must learn lessons by actually carrying out a project and make something happen.

We must also consider other alternatives. There is a long historic link between housing development, which the country sorely needs, and rail development. Housing development often provides a subsidy for rail development. A few years ago I attended a reception—other hon. Members may also have been there—at which the Kilbride Group promoted what it was doing for railway development in the south-west. That was linked to a major housing development, and a similar aspect of housing subsidy could creep into a project such as the Burscough curves. I am aware of the role played by that group and of the possibilities elsewhere. Given that so many people have banged on about this issue for so long, it would not harm the Department for Transport to invite those with such schemes in mind to some sort of seminar, at which problems and prospects on both sides could be aired.

It would also help enormously for the Department to point to an extra mile of track somewhere, and say why it had or had not worked, and to explain why it appears to be neither physically nor financially possible to put back track in England. That would be one way forward. It does not commit the Government to a single penny but it means that we can discuss the various schemes. A while ago I asked to speak personally to the Minister about the Burscough curves, but I understand that she had other priorities at the time and I lay no blame at her door for that. However, I am not comfortable with the strange, Kafkaesque world in which nothing really happens except that the odd consultant gets paid from time to time. The bizarre anomalies that lead to people supporting various schemes continue, but no final decisions are made. I suggest that there is a more intelligent way to do things.

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[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to speak under your chairmanship, Mr Robertson. I, too, congratulate the hon. Member for Southport (John Pugh) on securing the debate, which has been excellent. Clearly, it raises important matters about smaller rail schemes and how, in many instances, they could benefit local areas by increasing economic prosperity and improving access to the rail network for local communities. I agree with the hon. Gentleman that smaller rail schemes clearly should be considered as we consider how best to deal with expansion on our railway network.

We need to consider all ways of making our railways work in the most economically efficient way. Given that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Blackley and Broughton (Graham Stringer) rightly said, there will be serious capacity issues all over the rail network in the years to come, we need to think about the best ways of expanding the railways for the best value for money, which clearly involves looking at the types of scheme that have been discussed today.

With more and more people wanting to travel by rail, continued investment in increasing rail capacity and expanding the network are vital. With passenger growth expected to increase by up to 50% by 2020, and rail freight expected to grow by 30% during the next decade, substantial changes to the rail network will be needed.

Clearly there has been a great deal of debate in the House and media coverage about larger rail expansion projects such as Crossrail and Thameslink, the electrification schemes in Wales and the north-west, and the ongoing discussions about high-speed rail. Those projects will clearly attract the lion’s share of transport funding in the future. However, growing demand on the rail network can sometimes be satisfied, as we have heard today, by smaller enhancements, such as lengthening platforms to allow for longer trains or doubling single tracks. The former approach has been taken on some London commuter routes, and the latter is appropriate in rural areas that have become bottlenecks.

Of course, local rail expansion has been made more difficult—particularly given the expectation that these schemes and their business cases will be primarily led by local authorities, integrated transport authorities where they exist, local enterprise partnerships where they exist, and so on—following the comprehensive spending review, which left a 28% cut in local government transport spending. That has implications for the immediate future. Sometimes smaller rail projects will not be the best solution all over the rail network. As we see on an increasing number of routes, peak trains are already at maximum length and no further trains can realistically be added.

I welcome the campaigning work of the hon. Member for Southport and particularly the work that he has done to make the case for the Burscough curve, which will help to revive the disused electric track between Ormskirk and Burscough, thus bringing links to Southport. He must have found it a bit disheartening that the present Government in effect slapped a four-year ban on funding such projects, as he discussed in his speech. However, he is to be congratulated on showing the determination to find alternative sources of funding for the scheme, which will certainly benefit his constituents. I wish him well with that.

As many of us in the room are north-west MPs—the exceptions are the hon. Member for Chippenham (Duncan Hames), the Minister and her parliamentary private secretary, the hon. Member for Elmet and Rothwell (Alec Shelbrooke)—I agree with the hon. Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Eric Ollerenshaw) that people could mistakenly think that this is a north-west conspiracy. However, he knows that there is a great deal of rail congestion in the whole of our region, and many commentators have said that smaller schemes, many of which make up elements of what is called the northern hub, are key components in improving rail services across the north of England.

One ambition of the northern hub project is to increase train services in the north by 40% during the next 20 years, including for cities such as Newcastle, Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds and Sheffield. That would mean 700 more trains a day, which would make it possible for 3.5 million more passengers to travel by train each year. The estimated wider economic impact of the project is significant as it involves the creation of 23,000 jobs and a return of £4 for every £1 that is spent.

Although I welcome the recent announcement on the Ordsall curve, it has been frustrating for those of us who believe in the northern hub project that the Government have not yet made a firm commitment about when work on that worthwhile and economically beneficial project will begin. That would be a good starting point. I hope that any approval will not be piecemeal, however, because we need to take the northern hub project as a whole. I welcome the fact that the Ordsall curve will link Manchester Piccadilly and Manchester Victoria stations by the end of 2016, but that is only one aspect of the northern hub scheme. There is no Government commitment to the entire programme, so I ask the Minister to give a firm commitment that the project will be included in the next Network Rail control period.

Labour clearly remains committed to dealing with overcrowding and capacity problems on the network, and to considering how best to use further rail expansion to do so in the most cost-effective way. However, rail expansion and investment decisions can have a real impact on regional growth, and may help to perpetuate a cycle of increasing disparity of wealth between regions. Such decisions will be all the more important in the light of the abolition of the regional development agencies.

Smaller rail schemes obviously have beneficial effects in all areas of the country. In a previous debate, I played a parliamentary version of rail Top Trumps with the hon. Member for Chippenham over who had the worst rail service in the country—I think that I won with my example of one train a week in one direction only. However, the hon. Gentleman made a powerful case for extra investment in his constituency. I was disappointed that the Government sneaked out their decision to end all funding for local rail schemes developed by local authorities and integrated transport authorities on the same day that they announced the public consultation on High Speed 2.

[Mrs Villiers]

Does the hon. Gentleman know of any local authorities or local promoters that complained about that announcement? The fact is that none of those schemes is ready to kick off before April 2012, so they will still be subject to the same three-year consideration for national funding as under the system that we inherited from the Labour Government.

[Andrew Gwynne]

If that was the case, putting a block on the schemes was a pointless exercise.

The Government’s decision means that no central funding will be available for new schemes until April 2015, which will obviously affect schemes such as that in the constituency of the hon. Member for Southport. Why was that decision not included in the announcement about the comprehensive spending review? Such an important decision should have been announced on its own, rather than being overshadowed by an announcement on the same day about the public consultation on high-speed rail. That is a blow to further passenger choice and to economic regeneration.

The Eddington review outlined the significant returns that can result from smaller projects that unblock pinch points, saying that variable infrastructure schemes to support public transport in urban areas are likely to offer the highest returns. A recent report by the Transport Committee clearly identified the way in which the south, and particularly London, has benefited from rail investment, which was a point made eloquently by my hon. Friend the Member for Blackley and Broughton and others. The report also noted that transport investment per head in London and the south-east was three times as much as in other regions of the country. I do not wish to be misrepresented, so I point out that Labour certainly supports investment in London and the south-east, but similar interest should be shown in the needs of the rest of the country, and my hon. Friend made a valid and powerful point in that respect. Some smaller rail projects might be a way to redress the balance, but we will have to wait to see what is included in the next Network Rail control period.

I wonder whether there is a greater role for tram-train, which was mentioned by the hon. Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood. Such services could vastly improve local passenger services—and the passenger experience—by utilising existing infrastructure. It will be interesting to see the success or otherwise of the south Yorkshire trial and to note whether that can be adopted elsewhere.

Hon. Members will know that Labour is undertaking a fundamental review of all its policies, exactly as the Conservatives did when the Prime Minister became leader of his party. We are looking at all areas of policy, and I must tell my hon. Friend the Member for Blackley and Broughton that that includes the question of High Speed 2. I urge him to take part in that because his serious points about capacity on the west coast main line and regional economic disparities should be fed into the process. Whatever the outcome of the policy review, the party will remain committed to assisting the Government to secure the legal powers for High Speed 2 in the hybrid Bill. Like my hon. Friend, I urge the Government to do so for the whole of the Y-shape network, not only the route from London to Birmingham.

Local rail schemes can make an important contribution to solving transport challenges. Many of the points raised today will help to inform the debate. However, as we heard from a number of hon. Members, many local rail projects may be suspended until funding is identified. What the hon. Member for Southport said about building a viable business case was extremely valid, and it is difficult to pursue the process through a vast array of bureaucracy. How will the Government cut through that maze of bureaucracy to bring forward schemes promoted by local partnerships, as described by the hon. Gentleman?

Will the McNulty review make suggestions, and if so what is the Government’s view? What further advice does the Minister have for local authorities to get funding for their projects? Will she make a statement about smaller rail schemes such as the Todmorden curve? What work has the Department done to examine the benefits of reopening other disused rail lines? What will happen to the schemes that were in line for funding before the Government’s announcement earlier this year? The Southport scheme and others represent a small proportion of the schemes on our rail network, and we hope that those and many others will be given due consideration by the Government for the next control period.

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Mrs Theresa Villiers)]

I join others in congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Southport (John Pugh) on securing the debate and on his eloquent and articulate speech. All contributions to this good debate have given us an insight into what approach to take on rail expansion, particularly with regard to local schemes. I highlight the fact that my hon. Friend the Member for Elmet and Rothwell (Alec Shelbrooke) is in the room because he also takes a keen interest in local rail services in his constituency and campaigns to improve them.

My hon. Friend the Member for Southport acknowledged that there has been a problem in recent years due to a failure to address the increase in passenger numbers by increasing capacity. To be fair to the previous Government, they started to wake up to the problem, but rather late in the day. However, a significant programme of rail investment is now under way. That is a response to the sort of points that my hon. Friend made about the success of the railways in increasing passenger numbers, as well as about the significant economic and wider regeneration benefits that can be produced by the better connectivity that comes with the railways.

I assure my hon. Friend that there is no presumption against local rail schemes, as he indicated that there might be. He and other hon. Members have highlighted the benefits of local rail expansion, whether by reopening disused lines or providing better or more frequent services on existing track. The Government fully recognise the possible benefit of such schemes. I shall set out what assistance we can give on those and the sources of funding that local authorities might look to. However, it is also important to talk about some of the bigger capacity expansion programmes, because my hon. Friend is right that they are much needed.

Despite the deficit that we inherited, the coalition has placed a priority on capital spending on rail programmes for exactly the sort of reasons that my hon. Friend outlined. We have heard about the major electrification programme in the north-west, including for routes between Liverpool and Manchester, Liverpool and Wigan, and Manchester and Blackpool. As well as benefiting long-distance services, that enables local services to be operated by electric trains, thus providing faster journeys for passengers and releasing diesel carriages for use elsewhere on the network.

New Pendolinos will be added to the west coast main line in the months to come. We have announced plans for the electrification of the Great Western line between London, Newbury, Oxford, Bristol and Cardiff. Long-distance services on both Great Western and the east coast will benefit from the new fleet of intercity express programme trains. Line improvements are also going on for the east coast. A major redevelopment at Reading station will benefit railway users right across the south-west of England and south Wales. The long-awaited upgrade of the London underground has been secured. Crossrail and Thameslink are under way and will provide a major boost for public transport capacity in London and the south-east. Funding has been secured for the whole of the CP4 programme of capacity enhancements. More than 2,000 new carriages will be introduced on to the network across the country by May 2019, around 1,800 of which will be additional capacity. That will include 650 extra carriages by May 2014.

We are also consulting on our plans to deliver a Y-shaped high-speed rail network connecting London, Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds. I am grateful for the graciously expressed support of the hon. Member for Blackley and Broughton (Graham Stringer). I assure him of our absolute commitment that the line will go to Manchester and Leeds, because we believe that will not only provide the vital uplift in capacity that he rightly highlights is needed on the west coast and east coast routes, but help to meet the ambition to rebalance the economy and close the prosperity gap between north and south. Our programme of rail and transport improvements includes significant investment in the north. When taking decisions about which investments to make, we of course take on board the wider regeneration issues and our ambition to rebalance the economy, not just the straightforward business case.

Further investment was announced in the Budget, including for the Ordsall curve, which is another important benefit for the whole of the north of England. A second project was the Swindon and Kemble redoubling, which will help to improve local services and resilience on the route to south Wales. The next high level output specification is in preparation, and we will give full consideration to the northern hub. The shadow Minister asked for the Government’s commitment to that, but I would be interested to know whether such a commitment is now official Labour party policy—I noticed that he did not specify that.

I welcome the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Southport about the Burscough curves. I know that he has campaigned for that project for a long time. I emphasise that the key first step to make progress on that is to get support from Lancashire county council and Merseytravel. It is important for local authorities to set priorities on a direct rail link between Ormskirk and Southport, and Southport and Preston. It is for local transport authorities to decide the best way to meet a local transport need.

[John Pugh]

Several hon. Members have voiced concern —the Minister is helping us a little with it at the moment—about the opaqueness of the procedure for getting these schemes to fruition. It would be helpful if the Department for Transport would give guidance to the campaign groups across the country about the stages through which they must go, the hurdles they must get over, who the groups need to get buy-in from, and who is necessary and who is incidental.

[Mrs Villiers]

Guidance is published on the Department’s website, but officials are always happy to engage with campaign groups and local authorities to help them to navigate something that is not an easy process. When one is talking about significant amounts of taxpayers’ money, we need to ensure that care is taken when judging how to deploy it. The Public Accounts Committee and the National Audit Office analyse very astutely whether we are making the right decisions on how money is spent, and that means that business cases have to be considered. My officials will be happy to engage with my hon. Friend on the issue. I will be happy to meet him to discuss the Burscough curves. My officials are heavily engaged with local authorities in the area about the Todmorden curve, which another scheme with considerable local support.

My hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Eric Ollerenshaw) spoke eloquently about the potential for reopening the Poulton to Fleetwood line. I much enjoyed my visit there. If he is having problems engaging with Network Rail, I will be happy to take that up and to encourage Network Rail to work with the group mentioned by hon. Friend.

In response to my hon. Friend the Member for Chippenham (Duncan Hames) on the TransWilts rail project, I know that the Secretary of State has looked at that recently. Again, if progress is to be made, the first step is to get the support of the local authorities. We want local authorities to be more heavily involved in decisions about rail and we are actively considering how best to bring down the cost of such rail schemes so that it is more viable to deliver the kind of improvements that hon. Members have asked for. We hope that the McNulty review will generate ideas on that point. In addition, we hope that projects such as the Rotherham tram train and the Abbey line tram project will give us an insight into whether light rail can provide a lower-cost alternative for some of the schemes mentioned today.

Sources of funding for such local schemes might include the private sector, if developer contributions are available. The local sustainable transport fund or the regional growth fund are also available. The spending review has provided significant funds for major local transport schemes—£1.5 billion up to 2015. A number of schemes have already been given the go-ahead, including improvements to Leeds station and the extension of the Midland metro. Projects such as Kirkstall Forge and Apperley Bridge are under consideration.

A further funding source is available after a certain period. For projects that are primarily local in nature, we think that it is fair to ask the local authorities to take initial responsibility for getting the scheme up and running, and funding it. We recognise, however, that the railway network needs to adapt to population growth, and we are always prepared to consider the case for reopening disused local lines or the enhancement of local services on existing lines. When a local authority has chosen a rail solution to meet its transport needs, it is appropriate for it to demonstrate its commitment to that solution by taking initial responsibility for revenue funding. Once the service has run for a few years and demonstrated its success, we will then assess it on the same basis as existing franchised services. If the scheme has a good business case, and if the ongoing subsidy required is affordable and can be accommodated within available budgets, we are prepared to consider providing funding at a national level from the departmental rail budget. Schemes would normally be considered for such central funding after three years, but because of the constraints on the budget, we have made it clear that new schemes will not be considered for central funding on that basis until after 2015, although we do not believe that that will have an impact on any existing schemes.

Sikh Turbans (Airport Searches)

Theresa Villiers Excerpts

Tuesday 26th April 2011 Westminster Hall

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Mrs Theresa Villiers)]

I am delighted to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Scott. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton South West (Paul Uppal) on securing the debate on this very important issue.

I should first respond straight away to the request for a ministerial meeting. I am very happy to agree to meet representatives of the Sikh community to discuss the issue. I will also respond to the questions about the Government’s approach. I emphasise that the Government are fully aware of the major importance of this issue for so many hon. Members who have turned up today and for the Sikh community. I appreciate and understand, as do my right hon. and hon. Friends in the Government, the pivotal role of the turban in Sikh culture and religious observance, and the distress and concern caused by the possibility of a public hand search of a turban.

[Mr Tom Watson (West Bromwich East) (Lab)]

All of us in this Chamber, when we see a turban, understand the spiritual nature that it signifies. Does the Minister agree that the values of Sikhism—tolerance, self-discipline and respect for others—would, when applied to this policy, sort it out straight away? What we actually need is for our European partners to be told in no uncertain terms that we stick by the Sikh community in Britain and we want them to be shown respect.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs Villiers]

Absolutely. As I shall go on to outline in my speech, the key to resolving the issue in a way that the Sikh community are happy with is to secure a change in EU rules. The Secretary of State is focused on that, as am I, and I will outline what we are doing on that in my remarks. We are anxious to resolve the issue in a way that is consistent with Sikh beliefs and values.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

We are considering those in the Sikh community, and we appreciate and understand their circumstances. May I suggest that the Minister should also look at the issue of Christians having to go through a body search whenever they go through airports? I make that comment because some of my constituents have come to see me about this issue. Some have had metal parts put into their bodies through medical procedures, and have to be subjected to a strip search every time they go through an airport. We are looking at the issue in relation to Sikhs; will the Minister look at it in relation to Christians as well?

[Mrs Villiers]

We always keep security arrangements under constant review, but I think that all of us here would agree that this issue has special resonance and concern for the Sikh community. Protecting air passengers from the threat of terrorism is crucial. Although several high-profile attempts to blow up commercial airliners have been foiled since 9/11, aviation remains, I am afraid, an iconic and enduring target for terrorists. The recent cargo bomb plot demonstrated once again that those wishing to launch attacks on aviation are well informed about the processes in place—any potential vulnerabilities could be exploited by terrorists.

As the threat evolves and as the terrorist groups devise more sophisticated plans to attack aviation, so our response must evolve. Working closely with airports, we regularly reassess our security regime to ensure that passengers and cargo are effectively screened, and that we comply with our international obligations. However, at the same time, we are very aware of the impact of screening measures on all communities and on the travelling public generally. We are always open to ideas on how to reduce inconvenience for passengers and to improve screening.

[Fiona Mactaggart]

I note the Minister’s point. I challenge my constituency neighbour’s claim to represent more Sikhs than any other Member in the south—they have all moved to Slough now, and I represent them.

The issue is not only about getting European agreement but about consistency in UK airports. Previously, Heathrow had agreed to abide by the wand and swab arrangement, yet I hear from constituents working or travelling through there that it is not consistently applied. Would the Minister, in advance of any meeting with the community, meet with airport operators to ensure consistency within the individual airports?

[Mrs Villiers]

The DFT is of course in touch with airports. There were some teething problems associated with the trial of alternative screening methods, but we are anxious to ensure that they are resolved.

In April last year, new European rules on the screening of headgear came into force, requiring headgear to be searched by hand whenever a passenger or member of staff triggers a walk-through metal-detector alarm or is selected at random for a search when entering a secure restricted area. The new rules immediately triggered serious concern in the Sikh community.

The coalition Government were not in office when the rules were adopted in Europe, but we acted swiftly in response to the opposition expressed by Sikhs about how the new rules were operating. Meetings with the Sikh community were held, and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State asked UK airports to delay implementation of the new EU rules while we discussed with the community how to address its concerns. The Department also raised the issue with the European Commission, and further meetings with representatives of the Sikh community were held.

Following those meetings, we conducted laboratory tests using explosive trace detection equipment to identify, if possible, an alternative to a hand search that would give equivalent protection. I am grateful to all the members of the Sikh community who took part in those tests. Initial results indicated that the most effective alternative process involved the use of ETD coupled with a hand-held metal detector. Although the lab work produced some encouraging results, scientists recommended that a larger on-airport trial would be required before any final conclusions could be drawn. We then acted quickly and got permission from the European Commission to proceed with a larger trial, to establish formally whether a combination of ETD equipment and hand-held metal detectors could provide an effective screening method for religious headgear as an alternative to the EU rules which had caused such concern.

The Commission agreed to our request and the trial started on 14 February. It will last for 18 months and represents a crucial step forward towards the solution that everyone present in the Chamber wishes to achieve. Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted are all taking part, along with 19 other airports around the country. The trial is now in progress or due to commence shortly at most major UK airports. Seventeen of the top 20 airports are taking part, including Birmingham, which serves the region including the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton South West.

Once the trial had been approved by the European Commission, I am afraid that we could no longer postpone the implementation of the April 2010 rules, which I know caused disappointment—I fully recognise that—but our obligations under the EU treaty meant that we had no choice. Airports had either to comply with the EU regulation or to volunteer for the trial of the revised procedures for screening headgear. We were left with no other course of action.

[Mary Macleod]

I congratulate the Government on making progress on the issue, while trying to find a solution that works for everyone. Can the Minister clarify what ongoing discussions are happening between the Europe Minister and the European Commission to find a resolution as soon as possible?

[Mrs Villiers]

A number of discussions have taken place with the European Commission. I shall report to it after this debate, to emphasise the serious concern expressed in Parliament about the issue and the importance that hon. Members place on achieving a resolution as quickly as possible.

[Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)]

The issue is important not only in the Sikh community; all other faith communities, as far as I am aware, are supportive of the view of the Sikh community, because they understand the respect-for-faith issues. The matter is now the dominant political issue in the Sikh community.

Before the Minister finishes her speech, I hope she can assure us that the Government’s position is that the outcome should be: no hand interference with the turban and no forced removal of it. If she can give that position statement on the Government’s behalf, we will know that we are aiming at the right place and, hopefully, that the negotiations will be a success.

[Mrs Villiers]

Certainly our aim is to reach a solution that avoids public hand search and removal of the turban. That is what we want to reach, but we must be certain that effective alternative screening methods are available.

My officials have been working with the airport industry to encourage the widest possible participation in the alternative screening method trials, but such trials are voluntary. We cannot compel all airports to take part, but we are seeing real progress as the trial proceeds. We are getting a valuable, real-world opportunity to see how the technology works in practice. Only by such testing can we demonstrate and be certain that the method works. Only then, with such evidence, can we hope to secure a change to the European rules so that one day, we hope, all airports will offer the alternative screening method using a combination of ETD and hand-held metal detectors. My officials will pass the trial data to the European Commission, as part of our efforts to secure a resolution.

We are continuing to work hard with airports to ensure that the introduction of the trial methods proceeds smoothly and that any teething problems are resolved. Airports are committed to working with the community to resolve those difficulties.

My hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton South West highlighted concerns about search procedures in other EU member states. We have no power to tell other member states how to run their security procedures—that is a matter for them—but I appreciate the concern and unhappiness expressed in other member states about the searching of religious headgear.

[Mr Virendra Sharma]

Is the Minister willing to write to the partner states expressing the concerns of Members and of the communities represented at the debate, so that the member states can start listening as well? As previous speakers have said, there is a lack of understanding in the European countries about Sikh and other faiths.

[Mrs Villiers]

That is a good idea. I am happy to write to the equivalent Ministers in other member states, pointing out the concerns expressed.

The strength and vibrancy of our Sikh community in the UK gives us a special interest in the issue, an insight we can usefully share with our European partners, so we will be doing our best to lead the debate not only with the Commission but with other member states. We are working hard for a solution. I appreciate that there is real frustration. Achieving the change we need will take time. Unfortunately, amending European law is never a speedy process. However, I would like to assure the Sikh community, all my hon. Friends and other Members present at the debate today that the Government take the issue very seriously.

Further meetings with the Sikh community are planned for May. We will continue to work hard on the issue and to engage closely with community leaders to maintain the highest levels of passenger security, but to do so in a culturally sensitive way which we hope will address the concerns of the Sikh community.

Question put and agreed to.

High-Speed Rail

Theresa Villiers Excerpts

Thursday 31st March 2011 Westminster Hall

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Mrs Theresa Villiers)]

Is my hon. Friend aware that the analysis of the business case for RP2 does not take into account the huge cost that would come from disruption to services as a result of the kind of upgrade she is talking about?

[Andrea Leadsom]

I thank my right hon. Friend for her intervention. I had not written that into my contribution because there is so much to say. As she well knows, HS2 requires the complete rebuilding of Euston station, and it would be extraordinarily difficult for services to be able to continue on the west coast main line during that period. In addition, as I am sure she knows, the proposals in RP2 are not the same as the first incremental improvements to the west coast main line in the first phase of regeneration, which required rebuilding virtually the whole of the track and the signals. The incremental proposals are entirely achievable while existing network services are utilised along the west coast main line.

[Mrs Villiers]

Does my hon. Friend accept that the more intensively a transport system is used, the higher the price paid in terms of lack of resilience? One of the major concerns about RP2 is that the line is intensively used at present, and the kind of even more intense use that she advocates would have a significant impact on it and cause major deterioration in reliability. There would be a significant negative impact on the quality of the passenger experience.

[Andrea Leadsom]

I thank the Minister again, but I have to disagree with her. There is no evidence that suggests that RP2 would involve a desperately intensive use of the west coast main line. Not only that, the capacity created by it would significantly exceed the likely demand, certainly in the short and medium term. Other rail experts argue that the forecasting model that is being used by the Department for Transport is suitable for forecasting demand up to 10 years only, not the 43 or 45 years for which the Department is forecasting. There is no clear evidence that my proposal would entail that intensity of west coast main line usage.

Another significant benefit of RP2 is that it can be delivered far quicker than HS2, thereby dealing with the problems of overcrowding now, rather than leaving the commuters of Manchester, Birmingham, Rugby and Milton Keynes to wait until 2026 for proper relief. The danger that is inherent in forecasting out to 45 years, as the Department has done, is removed by using RP2. It can be implemented incrementally—it is not all or nothing—and problems can be dealt with as they arise.

I fear that HS2 is a flawed project. There is no doubt that we have to improve our transport infrastructure, but I urge the Department to reconsider RP2, which is cheaper and more environmentally friendly. It would deal with the problems sooner and far more accurately than HS2.

I shall conclude with a final call to action. The original mandate of HS2 Ltd was to look at the feasibility of, and the business case for, a new high-speed rail line between London and the west midlands, and to consider the case for high-speed rail services linking London, northern England and Scotland. Because of that mandate, HS2 Ltd inevitably has a vested interested in seeing HS2 built. For the credibility of the project, the Department should undertake an independent comparison of the merits of HS2 versus RP2. Legitimate concerns have been ignored because of the insistence that opposition is just nimbysm. We must put that aside and have a rigorous debate on how to achieve our shared goals while getting the greatest bang for our buck. Thank you, Mr Walker.

[Mr Geoffrey Robinson (Coventry North West) (Lab)]

I am pleased to follow the hon. Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom). This is, indeed, a most important debate, and I would like to thank the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone), who is a member of the Backbench Business Committee, for giving it to us. As he made clear, we had wished for a debate on the Floor of the House, and he almost promised us one once we are further into the consultation period. I am pleased to see such a good cross-party alliance forming here against HS2, and I hope briefly to follow the hon. Member for South Northamptonshire in setting out some of the reasons why it is a monumental waste of money and diversion of scarce resources.

I assure my hon. Friends who represent certain London and home counties constituencies, and others such as my right hon. Friend the Member for Coventry North East (Mr Ainsworth), that those who oppose HS2 absolutely recognise the need for more capacity. We recognise that greater connectivity would be of great benefit, but we believe—I agree here with the hon. Member for South Northamptonshire—that Rail Package 2, which was worked out by Atkins, as the Minister knows, offers a much better prospect for being able to do that in a shorter time and on a much more cost-effective basis than HS2. I will say a few more things about that in a moment, if I may.

Those who represent Manchester and Leeds will naturally have an interest in seeing their constituents and businesses able to come down to London much more quickly than they can at present. I urge them to read about and get into the alternatives in RP2. It does most of what they could reasonably expect, given the scarcity of resources for capital projects, and all other areas of revenue expenditure as well, that this country faces in this difficult period.

The project mysteriously appeared at the tail end of the previous Government’s tenure of office, and was somehow or other—remarkably quickly—brought to the fore by Lord Adonis. One has to congratulate him on his coup in that respect. To many people, it came out of the blue, and provided the preponderant Tory part of the present Government with a marvellous reason for being able to cover their strange decision against the Heathrow extension—I know that many people had an interest in it. They managed to cover it by being able to say that they would replace it with HS2 going up to Birmingham and on to the north. It does not really do that at all. It is a great pity that the coalition Government missed the opportunity at least to subject this huge expenditure to a proper review. Instead, they jumped on the bandwagon to justify their stance over Heathrow.

As for the justification for HS2, I pay tribute to the work done by the HS2 Action Alliance against the project and I recommend its papers to everyone in the debate—I am sure some of them will be available, and Members should study them. For those of us who are against the project, it is a relief not to have to fix the numbers or to choose the numbers that suit our case best, as all Governments and Oppositions do, because every time we look at the Government’s numbers, they collapse. The Department for Transport brought some numbers out last March, and they brought some more out this year. Every time they bring numbers out and we examine them—there is no party political point in this—they are downgraded, just like current Government forecasts. At the end of my speech I will return to the point about what the Government should do in the present situation.

If one adopts some realistic assumptions on demand for HS1 and on the time benefit, the net benefit ratio is now down to 50p per pound spent. No time currently spent travelling by rail is counted at all, but the entire time spent on HS1 is counted at an annual rate of £70,000 a year, and every minute is brought into the so-called net benefit ratio. That is a monstrous distortion. One does not have to calculate other figures; one simply has to expose what the Government and the Department are up to.

Another point that has been made is that there is no alternative. I will deal with the subsidiary points in a moment. As I said, there is an alternative: it is called Rail Package 2, and it is in the Atkins alternatives. Before the Department published the revised forecast earlier this month, we urged it to study RP2. Instead, it bundled it together with two or three inadequate alternatives and tried to tar them all with the same brush. What we need the Government to do—they have made a useful start in this respect—is to set up an office to objectively and independently consider major infrastructure projects, in the same way that they set up the Office for Budget Responsibility. We do not have such an office, and nobody has looked at this issue other than the Government and the Department, whose minds are set in favour of HS2. What we are embarking on is not consultation; those who are against the project and those who are in favour of it can put their points, and ne’er the twain shall meet. The outcome, of course, will be a Division in the House in due course.

The Government are not listening; their mind is made up. Instead of just putting forward the same old flawed figures, why do they not look at the situation again, study RP2 objectively, try to develop it and see what alternatives emerge? They should do that productively and positively, not so that they can dismiss RP2 before they have made a decent analysis of it.

[Mrs Villiers]

I am sure I am not going to convince the hon. Gentleman on everything, but I hope that I can convince him that the Government have an open mind on this issue. We are listening to the concerns that are being expressed now and that will be expressed during the consultation. That is one reason why about half the route we inherited from our predecessors has been altered with a view to mitigating its local environmental impact.

[Mr Robinson]

I am grateful to the Minister. I hope that we can take that assurance at face value, as we are meant to. The test will be whether the Department is prepared objectively to get into the detail of RP2, because it has not done so yet. The Government should just study the papers produced by the HS2 Action Alliance and look at where they have tried to conflate a whole set of different alternatives. The Government and the Department—not the Minister, of course—should look at where they have tried to obfuscate the obvious advantages of RP2. From being 25% of the capital cost of HS2, RP2 has suddenly become 50%. That is all about the sudden increase in the cost of the rolling stock for RP2. Why has that happened? Can the Minister answer that basic question? After all, the Government say that they have studied this objectively.

[Mrs Villiers]

There are two different ways to analyse RP2, one of which involves purchasing rolling stock and one of which involves leasing it. That may be the source of the hon. Gentleman’s confusion.

[Mr Robinson]

We have suddenly gone from finding rolling stock available to having to purchase it. The change is not justified; it is not even spelled out. People will have their houses razed and they will suffer enormously. Every taxpayer will have to pay well over £1,000 towards HS2, but there is no real justification for this project yet.

If the Department is serious, if it wants to get back some credibility with those who look at these issues and if it wants to justify a real national case to people, including some in my constituency, as well as citizens elsewhere in Coventry and in Stoke, who will simply be bypassed and have a much worse service from HS2—businesses in Coventry will be adamantly against it, and those in Leeds and Manchester can no doubt be brought to say that they are, too—the least it can do is set up a proper inquiry into the business case for HS2 and explain why RP2 would not be a far better alternative or, at the very minimum, a valid alternative.

Conversations with Centro have made it clear that we need the added capacity, and no one in the debate has any doubt that HS2 would provide it, but at what cost? It will cost £18 billion to Birmingham and £30 billion to Manchester and Leeds. The cost per job created will be £600,000, which is monstrous. It has been said that that is about four times more than a normal job, for which the cost is £150,000, but even that figure is a gross exaggeration, and infrastructure projects can create jobs elsewhere in the economy at a much lower cost. The figure of £600,000 is mind-blowing.

Incidentally, I cannot imagine where the Treasury is on this. It has never been known to be terribly favourable to transport projects—on the contrary. It is also notorious for cutting waste and stopping projects that do not have a proper financial justification. How has the Department managed to convince the Prime Minister and now the Chancellor that it is in favour of the project? I cannot imagine why the Treasury has not stopped it. The only reason can be that the Government need something to explain why they have come out—this was purely for electoral reasons—against the development of Heathrow.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dan Byles]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom) on securing the debate after months of dogged perseverance, along with myself and the hon. Member for Coventry North West (Mr Robinson), and for her tour de force of a speech, which I think we all agree made the points very eloquently. I am also delighted to see Mr Speaker here; he obviously has a great interest in the matter.

The high number of Members attending demonstrates the importance of the issue, not just to those whose constituencies are affected, but to the entire country. It also clearly demonstrates the need for a full debate on the matter on the Floor of the House before the end of the consultation period. This involves a huge sum of money on a hugely important national infrastructure project. I believe it deserves full debate and discussion by the House.

Due to the large number of Members wishing to speak, and in particular due to the excellent job that my hon. Friend made in pointing out the serious flaws in the business case, I will not speak for too long. I see no need to repeat many of the points that have been made. We have heard that the net benefit ratio is potentially lower than some of the alternatives that we do not believe have been adequately explored. The NBR depends on extremely optimistic passenger growth numbers over which there are serious questions. As the hon. Member for Coventry North West said, we know that the Department for Transport’s record on estimating passenger numbers for HS1 was frankly diabolical. To risk £17 billion of taxpayers’ money on what might be equally diabolical passenger forecast numbers would be very wrong, without considerably more work being done.

I oppose the proposal in respect of the national business case. However, I would also like to point out my serious concern about the possible impact of the project on the regions. There has been a lot of discussion and talk about the benefits of rebalancing the economy and pushing economic growth from the south-east to the regions. That is often used as a principal argument in favour of this project. However, I do not believe that the Department or HS2 Ltd have adequately analysed the evidence from existing high-speed rail networks in other countries. The impact assessments produced by HS2 Ltd clearly demonstrate that one of the costs of HS2 will be slower and less frequent train services for some of the surrounding towns and cities—a point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Tony Baldry). I am less shy than the hon. Member for Coventry North West in saying that Coventry will see its direct rail services potentially slashed from three to one an hour. The remaining one will be slower.

[Mrs Villiers]

That is simply not true. There are some indicative forecasts in the HS2 analysis about how services might be configured in future. The reality is that Coventry is going to continue to enjoy frequent fast services. With HS2, it gets additional capacity for other journey opportunities, in particular, commuters get vital relief from overcrowding and lack of reliability as a result of overcrowding on the network.

[Dan Byles]

I am delighted to hear the Minister say that that is not true.

--- Later in debate ---

[Frank Dobson]

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. Another point is the connection with HS1. We are told that great strategists with vinegar-soaked towels around their heads came up with HS2 as the first stage of a great, high-speed rail network. They seemed not to notice that they had not proposed a connection with the only existing part of the high-speed rail network, High Speed 1, which comes into St Pancras station.

[Mrs Villiers]

I assure the right hon. Gentleman that the mistake that the previous Government made in not providing for a link between domestic and international services has been remedied by the current Government; such a link is part of our plans.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Slaughter]

I shall say a word in favour of nimbyism in a moment.

Yes, it is true that my constituency will suffer no loss of property, and I am obviously delighted by the fact. Indeed, 5,000 jobs and a minimum of 1,600 homes will be created by the new infrastructure. It will be a positive development in one of the most deprived areas of the country—White City, Shepherds Bush and Old Oak. I should say that I live five minutes from there, but it will put my constituents 10 minutes from Heathrow and just over 40 minutes from Birmingham. These are the sort of projects of which the country used to be proud, and it used to seek mitigation for them rather than avoiding them altogether on the basis that such decisions are difficult to make.

Having said that, I believe that the project is good not only because the route and the interchange have some parochial benefit but because they give direct access to the Great Western line, Crossrail, the Heathrow express and HS1 just a few minutes outside central London. That is an improvement.

I have two caveats for the Minister, if she will take the advice. First, the Government need to look for friends wherever they can, but they have not done that so far. Last year’s debate was on 11 March, almost a year ago, and the Minister was then Opposition spokesman. Her aggressive stance rather belied the fact that she supported the announcement made by Lord Adonis. Her questions then are ones that she could answer today. She asked:

“Will they match our commitment to start work immediately on taking the line beyond Birmingham to Manchester and Leeds as part of stage 1?...Why will they not match our commitment to start construction by 2015? What guarantees can they give that fares will be kept within the reach of ordinary families on modest incomes?”

Those are all questions that the Minister might want to answer today. Rather churlishly I thought, she then said about Old Oak:

“Although we do not rule out use of that site for dispersal, the idea that some kind of ‘Wormwood Scrubs international’ station is the best rail solution for Heathrow is just not credible.”— [Official Report, 11 March 2010; Vol. 507-08, c. 450.]

I remind the Minister of this every time the subject comes up, and I know that she is happy to eat those words.

[Mrs Villiers]

rose—

[Mr Slaughter]

I shall give way in a moment. So that bygones can be bygones perhaps the Minister will say, “I would be delighted if it was called Wormwood Scrubs International” when she comes to open it.

[Mrs Villiers]

It would be a pleasure. I hope that the hon. Gentleman is aware that the Government’s proposals include a direct link to Heathrow as part of phase 2 of the project.

[Mr Slaughter]

Absolutely, but that was always in Lord Adonis’ mind. The report that he commissioned from Lord Mawhinney clearly said that Old Oak was an appropriate, good-quality terminus and connection point to the airport, and pointed out that the Conservatives’ previous scheme of having the interchange at Heathrow would cost between £2 billion and £4 billion more; he effectively rubbished that scheme in favour of the Adonis project, which is what we have gone back to.

As I say, we should let bygones be bygones—except for this point. When the Secretary of State launched the scheme on 20 December, he made a statement in the House without presenting Members with plans and documents, so we were entirely in the dark. He went to Old Oak and launched the scheme that morning, giving notice to everyone, including the Conservative party, but not the constituency MP. The Minister and HS2 are rather short of friends at the moment, and they should look to cultivate people a little more if they wish to continue to have them speak out on their behalf.

As far as I am aware—other Members may have seen it—there is no HS2 briefing for this debate. I had no correspondence until I approached HS2 about a visit to the site. The consultation is not adequate. The only consultation for my constituents is to be held at the Westfield shopping centre, which is a long way from the site and an entirely inappropriate location, for one day; it happens to be tomorrow. If the Minister has some influence, she could take the message back to High Speed 2 that it is not making friends through its their approach.

A more serious point is this. Notwithstanding what I said in response to the hon. Member for Banbury (Tony Baldry) about the effect on individual constituencies, mitigation will be the key to the project’s success. That applies to my constituency, as much of the tunnelling will take place from the Old Oak interchange. When it comes to the disposal of spoil, the road network in the area is entirely inadequate given the traffic that will be generated. We may not have anything quite like the Chilterns in Shepherds Bush, but we do have Wormwood Scrubs. It is a large open space that is ecologically sensitive, and I have been protecting it not for years but for many decades. If HS2 and the Government wish to have, if not their support, then at least the acquiescence of hon. Members, they need to go a lot further.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Mrs Theresa Villiers)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Walker. This has been an excellent, high-quality debate, with some great contributions from hon. Members from all parties, and I congratulate them all. I congratulate the hon. Members who secured the debate: my hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom), the hon. Member for Coventry North West (Mr Robinson), and my hon. Friend the Member for North Warwickshire (Dan Byles).

I welcome what seems to be qualified support from the shadow Minister; we are not quite sure where he is going on this matter. I reassure him that we are fully committed to taking high-speed rail to Leeds and Manchester. We were the first to champion that in opposition, and we continue to do so. In response to a number of questions, let me say that work is under way on route and station options for the route north of Birmingham. HS2 Ltd has been asked to report to the Secretary of State on those options later this year.

It is good to see my right hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Mr Randall), and my hon. Friends the Members for Lichfield (Michael Fabricant), and for Kenilworth and Southam (Jeremy Wright), here. They have all been assiduous in pressing their concerns on Government and representing their constituents fully. Their frequent representations have been much valued by the Secretary of State and continue to have an influential impact on our thinking.

Let me turn to the points raised in debate. First, on the local environmental impact, let me make it clear that I fully recognise the concerns of those whose homes and communities could be affected by the preferred line of route. Responding to the concerns of the hon. Member for Coventry North West, we are putting a huge amount of work in to mitigate and reduce the potential impact. Approximately half the length of the preferred route to the west midlands in the plans we inherited has been changed. We have added more than a mile and half of green tunnels to maintain local access and minimise noise and visual impact.

Large sections of the routes have been lowered into deeper cuttings, reducing the number of viaducts to cut down on visual intrusion. We have made several route alterations to avoid settlements and important heritage sites. Under the revised proposals, the Chilterns will be crossed predominantly in tunnels and deep cuttings, or alongside the existing A413 transport corridor. The number of properties where high noise levels will be expected has fallen from about 350 in previous versions of the plans to around 10 properties, and we will plant 2 million trees between Birmingham and London. We will continue to listen to ideas for mitigation as part of the consultation process, at the end of which we will carefully consider all representations.

Let me turn to the points on the business case. On the criticisms made by my hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire in relation to our passenger growth figures, the consultation document forecasts that passenger demand will roughly double for long-distance services on the west coast main line. That projection covers 30 years and is based on modest growth rates of just under 2% a year; that compares to a 5% growth rate between 1994 and 2009. If anything, the numbers are cautious. For example, demand between London and Manchester rose by almost 60% over the four years to 2008.

My hon. Friend the Member for Tamworth (Christopher Pincher) expressed concern about the methodology in relation to other industry practices. There is widespread industry consensus, as highlighted by the both the shadow Minister and my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Withington (Mr Leech), that the west coast main line will be full within around a decade; some people think sooner, some later, but there is consensus that the line is filling up fast.

My hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire also expressed the concern, in her eloquent and well-argued contribution, that our analysis does not take account of the fact that time can be used productively on a train. We have listened, and we have carried out sensitivity testing on our numbers, and the results we have had indicate that factoring in productive time would have a broadly neutral impact on the business case for HS2, because failing to deliver a new line would leave trains more and more overcrowded, making it less and less feasible to do any productive work on the trains currently on our network.

As for the allegation made by one or two hon. Members that we are proposing a rich man’s railway, and the concerns expressed about fares by the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter) and the shadow Minister, our research indicates that 70% of passengers would be travelling for reasons other than business, with leisure trips particularly important. All our modelling is based on fares that are in line with existing services. Our assumptions about the expected fare-box do not factor in or depend on any premium for high-speed services.

The hon. Member for Luton North (Kelvin Hopkins) and other hon. Members expressed concern that the project would see the rest of our railways starved of funds. There is simply no evidence to back that allegation. On the contrary, despite a crisis in the public finances as grave as any that this country has faced in its peacetime history, the coalition is investing more than £30 billion in road, rail and local transport schemes throughout Britain over the next four years, and that includes the most extensive programme of rail upgrades in modern history, to which was recently added the Ordsall Chord scheme, which was welcomed by my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Withington.

Budgets have not been set beyond 2015, but we expect the case for investment in transport to continue to be strong in the years ahead, as evidenced by the commitments that we have made on Thameslink, Crossrail, electrification, the intercity express programme, and road improvements that stretch beyond the current spending review period.

A key element in the crux of the arguments by opponents of HS2 is the question of whether journey time savings delivered by high-speed rail will be worth the cost of building the new line. The Government’s proposals, as hon. Members have pointed out this afternoon, are about more than just speed. One of the biggest advantages of our plans is that a new line would release additional capacity on our existing railways, benefiting places such as Coventry and Milton Keynes, as my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale (Graham Evans) pointed out. That would help to address crowding problems for long-distance passengers, and provide more space for commuter services and the freight services that the hon. Member for Luton North championed so well, and it would also improve network resilience and reliability.

[Mr Ainsworth]

I recognise what the Minister says about Coventry. The city is split, and the council is opposed, as is my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry North West (Mr Robinson), but I cannot understand how it would be damaged by being only eight miles to the east of what would be the country’s major transport spine. The benefits are clear for anyone who wants to see them.

[Mrs Villiers]

The right hon. Gentleman puts the case very well. Coventry stands to benefit hugely from the plans under consideration this afternoon. Journey time savings matter. For example, the Y network would enable people living in Manchester and Leeds to get to Canary Wharf in roughly one hour and 40 minutes, and Heathrow in 75 minutes or less. I assure the shadow Minister that the plans for phase 2 include the direct link to Heathrow that we called for in opposition.

I believe that bringing the capital within 49 minutes of Birmingham and 80 minutes of Manchester and Leeds would spread the massive benefits of London’s global pull. It would do more to bridge the north-south divide than virtually all previous efforts to address a problem that has defied solution for decades, which is probably one reason why so many people north of Birmingham support the project so strongly.

[Mr Robinson]

The Minister spoke about regional benefits, and we increasingly see the Secretary of State and the Prime Minister emphasising in person the north-south divide. First, how does she explain the fact that of the jobs created—about 30,000—seven in 10 will be in London, not the regions? Secondly, does she really believe that £600,000 a job is good regional investment policy?

[Mrs Villiers]

The project will create jobs throughout the country. The suggestion that all the cities that are calling for high-speed rail will see their economic growth sucked away by London just does not hold water. Look around Europe, where cities such as Lille and Lyons have been transformed. In Europe and Asia, cities are fighting hard to be on the high-speed rail networks that other countries have the courage and determination to deliver.

[Andrea Leadsom]

Does my right hon. Friend accept that unemployment in Lille rose after high-speed rail went there?

[Mrs Villiers]

What I know is that Lille’s prospects were transformed by high-speed rail, and its unemployment level fell to much closer to the French average. If people in Lille were asked whether high-speed rail was bad for them, or whether they would like it to be shut down, I suspect that they would say no.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey (Stuart Andrew) said, shrinking journeys between cities in the north will have a hugely beneficial impact, enabling them increasingly to merge into a single economic area. I emphasise that with its potential to regenerate regional economies, create thousands of jobs, and boost our national economy by about £44 billion, the project is about much more than shaving half an hour off the journey time to Birmingham.

That brings me to the next allegation—that the project is not affordable. In practice, most of the spending will not kick in for at least five years, so it is not competing directly with other priorities in the current period of austerity. Spending will then be phased in over the period of construction, which we all know is, sadly, a long one. The annual average cost will not be out of line with projects such as Crossrail, as my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale pointed out. The figures in the consultation document also make no allowance for possible private sector contributions, which could be considerable, as hon. Members have pointed out, particularly in relation to the expected benefits of station redevelopment.

Perhaps most important is that delivering a major uplift in inter-urban transport capacity is not some nice-to-have luxury. It is absolutely essential if we are to prevent a capacity crisis on the west coast line and other key transport corridors in the years to come. No Government can afford to sit back, ignore the problem, and pretend that it does not exist.

Despite the valiant efforts of my hon. Friends the Members for South Northamptonshire, and for North Warwickshire, and the hon. Member for Coventry North West, the opponents of HS2 have not made a convincing case that there is a better way of dealing with the expected growth in demand for inter-city travel. My hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Chris White) suggested that information technology will provide the answer. I certainly hope that future advances in technology will make video-conferencing an alternative to more journeys, but I am afraid that after in-depth research, the Committee on Climate Change concluded that the net impact of such technology on travel is likely to be minimal, and I am afraid that improvements to the existing network just cannot provide the capacity that HS2 would. The Government are already committed to delivering a 30% uplift in capacity on the west coast line, with new carriages being introduced from April 2012, but that will simply not be enough to meet the demand for inter-city travel in the decades to come.

In response to the shadow Minister’s question about the capacity to deliver, HS2 would deliver 14 trains an hour, each of which would have about 1,100 seats. RP2 simply will not meet the future needs of this country’s transport system. The practical realities of further work on the existing line have a serious downside. As the right hon. Member for Coventry North East (Mr Ainsworth) said, passengers were subjected to a decade of disruption with the improvements to the west coast line, which have just been completed.

For the information of my hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire, the work required at Euston for RP2 would be considerably more disruptive than those required there for HS2, because they would have to be carried out within Euston’s current footprint, making it much more difficult to keep current services going. Disruption would be much worse this time, because the west coast line is twice as busy as it was seven years ago.

The most viable journey time savings that could be achieved using the existing line would involve cutting out intermediate stops, which we all know would be deeply upsetting for the affected communities. Moreover, line upgrades cannot deliver any released capacity benefits, and squeezing even more into the current timetable to allow more intense use of the line would compromise resilience, and is virtually guaranteed to lead to a serious deterioration in reliability. In contrast, infrastructure-related delays on HS1 average just 6.8 seconds. The simple truth is that whatever is done to the existing line, it could never match the economic benefits of faster journey times, capacity uplift, and regeneration that HS2 would deliver.

The hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Thomas Docherty) called for leadership in delivering the project, and we intend to provide that. He asked whether appropriate rolling-stock designs were available. Our research and analysis is based on rolling stock that is already in use in the many countries that have embarked on high-speed rail. My hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale pointed out that the high-speed rail link is a manifesto promise, and it is one that we intend to keep. My hon. Friend the Member for Tamworth expressed concern about the current status of compensation, and I assure him that the exceptional hardship scheme is already in operation.

Lastly, I will address the allegation that high-speed rail is not green and offers no environmental benefits. Our analysis shows that the shift from road and aviation that would come with delivering the west midlands section of the line would broadly offset any increase in carbon emissions from the new line, despite the significant increase in passenger journeys that it would accommodate. We would get a major economic boost without increasing carbon emissions, which is just the sort of sustainable growth most people in the country say we should have. The modal shift resulting from the Y-shaped network to the north of England would be greater still, with as many as 6 million journeys by air and 9 million by road expected to migrate to rail. The carbon benefits of rail over aviation are set to grow as we make progress on decarbonising the electricity supply.

The consultation under way is one of the most wide-ranging ever undertaken. We will listen to and consider all responses with care, including those that will help us further mitigate potential local impact, which I know hon. Members are concerned about. I genuinely believe that with care, effort and high-quality engineering, we can address the worst local impacts and provide much-needed reassurance to the constituents of hon. Members who have taken part in the debate. Similar things were done for HS1.

Today, we still rely almost entirely on railways built by the Victorians, and I think it is time we started catching up with the high-speed rail revolution on which our European partners embarked more than a generation ago. I believe that we can—and should—aspire to the sort of high-quality long-distance travel network that other countries take for granted. Our high-speed rail plans provide a once-in-a-generation chance to address the transport capacity needs of our economy in the future, transform our economic geography, and generate a boost for jobs and growth worth billions of pounds. We know that it will not be an easy process, but we should not let this opportunity slip through our fingers. I have welcomed the opportunity to set some of our plans before the House this afternoon.

Question put and agreed to.

Oral Answers to Questions

Theresa Villiers Excerpts

Thursday 10th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Amber Rudd (Hastings and Rye) (Con)]

5. What steps his Department is taking to improve rail transport in the south-east.

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Mrs Theresa Villiers)]

Despite the crisis in the public finances, the Government have secured investment of more than £18 billion in rail capital projects, including Thameslink and Crossrail, which will deliver major benefits to the south-east as well as to the national economy. To protect the interests of passengers, the Department for Transport also monitors the performance of train operators under their franchise contracts.

[Amber Rudd]

The issue in the south-east seems to be capacity, and we cannot continue to put ever more passengers on the same lines. Does the Minister agree that an upgrade of the Brighton to Ashford line might increase capacity and improve the quality of travel for passengers, and that it would be a great addition for all residents of the south-east?

[Mrs Villiers]

My hon. Friend has fought a long campaign on that issue, and I understand why she fights in that way for her constituents. However, the project would be expensive and, in the light of passenger usage, probably hard to justify in value-for-money terms—but I am always prepared to keep an open mind on it, as something to consider for the future. It is also the case, however, that significant capacity was introduced to the south-east in December 2009, and of course more will follow with the Crossrail and Thameslink projects.

[Heidi Alexander (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

May I ask the Minister for her Department’s thinking in respect of Southeastern’s application to vary its franchise commitment on exits and entrances to Lewisham station? Southeastern’s proposal to close the exit from platform 4 is opposed by the vast majority of my constituents who use the station, and I urge her to take their views into account when making a decision.

[Mrs Villiers]

I have to acknowledge to the hon. Lady that that is not an application to vary the franchise that I have yet received. Of course, when such decisions are taken it is very important for the views of local stakeholders—passengers—to be properly taken into account in terms of the outcome.

[Stephen Hammond (Wimbledon) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend was right to talk about the benefits of Thameslink, but many in south London will not enjoy the full benefits unless Network Rail timetables through trains from the Sutton loop. Will she ensure that Network Rail continues to keep that option open?

[Mrs Villiers]

I will certainly expect Network Rail to do all it can to minimise the disruption caused for passengers by the works under way on Thameslink and forthcoming works at major London termini. I will keep my hon. Friend’s proposal in mind, and I am happy to discuss it with Network Rail. I believe that he and I are meeting to discuss this soon.

[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

Will the Minister of State rule out breaking up our national rail infrastructure and handing those vital assets to the private sector, creating in the south-east and across the country what has been described as a series of mini-Railtracks?

[Mrs Villiers]

The hon. Lady knows perfectly well that this Government have shown a major commitment to investment in our railways, but we expect the rail industry to rise to the challenge of reducing costs, which spiralled under her Government. For the sake of taxpayers and fare payers, the cost of running the railways needs to come down. We expect Sir Roy McNulty to come up with workable proposals for delivering that essential goal.

[Maria Eagle]

The whole House will have heard the Minister refuse to rule out a return to the days of Railtrack, with private profit, not safety in the interests of passengers, coming first. She is in danger of repeating the shambles of rail privatisation, so will she urge her right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to think again, step back from this ideologically driven plan to fracture our rail industry further, and abandon this recipe for disaster?

[Mrs Villiers]

The hon. Lady was a member of the Government who established the McNulty review to find out the answers to the very questions that she is asking, yet she wants me to rule out a range of options before Sir Roy McNulty has had a chance to report. This is a review that the Labour Government set up, and I think it makes sense to wait for Sir Roy’s report before making a decision.

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

6. What assessment he has made of the role of branch lines on the rail network in stimulating growth and employment.

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Mrs Theresa Villiers)]

The Government recognise the positive role that branch lines can play in supporting economic growth. Such lines receive substantial support from the taxpayer via the train operator subsidy and Network Rail grant. In addition, the DFT’s community rail strategy is aimed at making it easier for local communities to get involved in promoting and supporting local lines.

[Neil Carmichael]

With the big society in mind, will the Minister of State be sympathetic to a local community in my constituency who are interested in making use of the Berkeley line to develop tourism and links between communities and to stimulate economic growth?

[Mrs Villiers]

I am very impressed with the work being done by local volunteers and enthusiasts on that project. I know that they have applied for lottery funding. As for the logistics of getting such projects up and running, they would need to think about long-term sources of funding and discuss their plans with Network Rail and local train operators, as well as local authorities. I understand that they are considering both heritage tourist use and commuter use. It is often very difficult to combine the two, so they might want to keep their ambitions within a reasonable scope if they are to succeed.

[Mrs Louise Ellman (Liverpool, Riverside) (Lab/Co-op)]

In view of the McNulty report’s interim findings, will the Minister refuse to go ahead with a policy of saving money by a wholesale closure of branch lines, which would create a second Beeching?

[Mrs Villiers]

There is no suggestion of doing that. The point of the McNulty review is to find a way to deliver current services—and, one hopes, more services in the future—at a lower cost to the taxpayer. It is vital that Sir Roy comes up with good proposals for doing that if we are to relieve the burden on the taxpayer and the fare payer.

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

7. What recent steps he has taken to encourage cycling as a means of transport.

--- Later in debate ---

[Naomi Long (Belfast East) (Alliance)]

T2. As the Minister will be aware, passengers travelling from Northern Ireland to London will be hit by two increases—the air passenger duty increase and the passenger landing charges being proposed at Heathrow and Gatwick. What discussions will the Minister have with the Northern Ireland Executive and other colleagues in government to ensure that there is still good access between London and Northern Ireland for business commuters?

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Mrs Theresa Villiers)]

I refer to the comments of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State: taxation is a matter for the Chancellor. I am sure that he will bear in mind the impact of decisions on air passenger duty on regional connectivity. This Government fully recognise the importance of good regional connections between London and all parts of the United Kingdom.

[Claire Perry (Devizes) (Con)]

T5. One way to help hard-pressed rural motorists in my constituency would be to reverse some of the short-sighted Beeching decisions taken decades ago that ripped the heart out of our rural railway services. Will the Secretary of State undertake to look closely at one proposal on the table—that of the TransWilts railway, which would link Swindon, Salisbury and stops in between, and bring enormous economic benefits to the county of Wiltshire?

[Mrs Villiers]

I know that my hon. Friend has done great work on this issue, and that there is a lot of activity locally. She will appreciate that such projects, which have primarily local benefits, need to find funding locally. It is therefore important that she should engage with the local authorities, Network Rail and the train operators to see what might be logistically feasible in getting the project off the ground.

[Alun Michael (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

T4. The Secretary of State has today offered my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea East (Mrs James) sight of the business case for the decision in Swansea, but we were previously promised that the full facts and everything about the case would be placed in the Library. That has not happened yet. In view of the importance of what is a major European route, including its importance to the economy of west Wales, will the Secretary of State promise to put all the details in the Library without delay?

--- Later in debate ---

[Nick de Bois (Enfield North) (Con)]

London has rightly invested in the necessary infrastructure to ensure that the Olympics are a success, so will the Secretary of State work with the Rugby Football Union, Network Rail and local authorities to ensure that the rugby world cup in 2015 is not overlooked, and that we can have a station that is fit for the home of rugby and can meet the demands?

[Mrs Villiers]

We will certainly be working with all those stakeholders on the preparations for the rugby world cup, and plans are already under way to lengthen platforms at Twickenham station. We are also in negotiations to add new carriages into Waterloo. We have not yet taken a decision on where they will go, but Twickenham might benefit from that. I know that there is an interesting local scheme to redevelop the station, which could generate significant local benefits, and that the local authorities and other stakeholders are working hard to try to take that forward.

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the Minister. We are now much better informed.

Portsmouth-London Railway Line

Theresa Villiers Excerpts

Wednesday 9th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Mrs Theresa Villiers)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth North (Penny Mordaunt) on securing this debate. She made her case with great clarity and determination—she is a steadfast defender of her constituents’ interests. The first question that I should like to answer concerns the meeting she requested: I would be happy to meet her to discuss this further.

I fully appreciate how important rail services are for the residents of Portsmouth North—my hon. Friend’s constituents—and I am very much aware of the concerns that have been raised about the provision of class 450 rolling stock on the London-Portsmouth main line, which is an essential artery connecting communities across Hampshire, Surrey and south-west London. The provision of reliable rail services on the line is enormously important for economic activity and growth along the route. Nearly 7 million passenger journeys were made to and from Portsmouth stations in 2009-10.

To answer the questions asked by my hon. Friend, some explanation is required of the contractual history of the SWT franchise. The current Stagecoach South Western Trains franchise was competitively tendered by the previous Government in 2006, with the contract commencing in February 2007. All bidders were required to give a commitment to lease both the class 450 and the class 444 rolling stock for the life of the franchise term, because the Strategic Rail Authority—a body now disbanded but which at the time handled franchise decisions for the Government of the day—gave a statutory undertaking to the rolling stock company that owned the trains. That arrangement, known as a section 54 undertaking, was part of the funding package agreed to replace the older slam-door stock, which had operated in the south-west since the ’60s.

New-build class 444s and 450 electric multiple units were phased in between 2001 and 2007. If the previous Government had not required the operator to lease the trains, the taxpayer might have been left to foot the whole bill. Although the section 54 undertaking requires SWT to lease the trains, the operator takes the decisions on where to deploy the rolling stock across the different parts of the franchise network to address capacity problems as efficiently as possible.

As we have heard from my hon. Friend, SWT deploys a mixture of class 444s and 450s on services between Portsmouth and London. A 10-car maximum formation class 444 provides 598 seats, whereas a 12-car maximum formation class 450 provides 738 seats. My hon. Friend is rightly and understandably focused on the concerns of her constituents, but the train operator needs to balance the competing interests of different communities that use the services provided by the franchise.

[Mr Mike Hancock]

Is the Minister in a position to ask her Department to examine the figures that justified the decision by South West Trains to move the rolling stock away from Portsmouth to elsewhere? Is she able to argue that those figures are somewhat arbitrary to say the least and totally misleading in most cases?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs Villiers]

I am always happy to respond to the concerns of colleagues; I am happy to look at the numbers again and ask my officials to do that. As I shall point out later, however, there are very real capacity problems on the line that would be difficult to address without the use of class 450s.

[Penny Mordaunt]

The key part of my argument, which I hope the Minister will understand, is that South West Trains has not addressed overcrowding on the line. The fact that spaces for people to sit are provided does not mean that people have space to sit down. The group of people who suffer overcrowding potentially are the same group of people who suffer painful and uncomfortable seats. They are the same group of people who are asking for the new trains.

[Mrs Villiers]

I very much understand my hon. Friend’s concern, but in reality we—the Government and the train operator—have to balance the interests of different communities along the line. Even if it were affordable to replace all the 450s with class 444s, and even if they were used on all services, it would have a significant detrimental impact on people further up the line, many of whom would not be able to get a seat as a result. I shall come to that in a moment, however.

The most recent route utilisation strategy work makes it clear that the infrastructure is just too full to deliver additional trains. That leaves limited options for relieving overcrowding, one of which is to use longer trains with more seats, which the operator has chosen to do. The seats on the 450s provide vital capacity for passengers closer to London. If SWT were to use class 444s for all Portsmouth services, it would worsen peak crowding problems from stations such as Guildford and Woking. More passengers would have to stand between Woking and London than do today, and removing 450s from the Portsmouth to London route might have other knock-on effects, such as displacing the class 450 carriages on to the Weymouth line, where journey times are even longer than from Portsmouth to London.

We all accept that key crowding between Portsmouth to London occurs during peak hours. In response to public concern of the sort that my hon. Friend has raised, SWT has promised to use 444s in the off-peak where it can. The extent to which it can do this, though, is dependent on complex issues to do with timetabling and the availability of trains and train crew. These complexities flow from the intense use we make of our railways and the need to deploy rolling stock and staff in a way that generates maximum passenger benefits. That means that some off-peak trains have to be class 450s to ensure that they are in the right place for the peak-time slots.

My hon. Friend set out her view that three-plus-two seating is not suitable for services on journeys of the 90-or-so minutes that her constituents face in getting to London. I can understand her concerns. However, three-plus-two seating is currently deployed on a number of routes with comparable journey times—for example, journeys between London stations and Margate, and London Liverpool Street and Ipswich. Issues of health and safety are the responsibility of Her Majesty’s railway inspectorate and the Office of Rail Regulation. Neither of those bodies, I am afraid, has sought to restrict the use of class 450s on longer-distance journeys.

At the heart of my hon. Friend’s speech is the request that the Government should introduce new requirements on rolling stock seating into current and future franchises. I hope that she will understand that to intervene in the current franchise and require SWT to change its rolling stock would involve renegotiating contractual terms. This always comes at a cost to the taxpayer—a cost that I am afraid we can ill afford when we are striving to address levels of borrowing inherited from the previous Government which are the highest in our peacetime history. Looking forward to what might be included in the next franchise, she will be aware that the decisions that the Government make on the railways are constrained by a number of factors, including infrastructure capacity, affordability and value for money.

The experiences of my hon. Friend’s constituents reflect some of the very difficult trade-offs that are made on our railways every day of the year. I acknowledge, of course, that many passengers in Portsmouth would probably prefer the environment and the seating pattern of class 444 carriages rather than class 450s. However, for the practical reasons that I set out in my response about crowding levels further up the line and infrastructure limitations, I would be unwise to make promises on the pattern of rolling stock use on the Portsmouth line in the future. Changes of the sort that she would like in relation to the seating patterns on trains would have a significant impact on the affordability of the franchise process.

As well as these practical considerations, there is another reason why I am reluctant to make declarations on rolling stock deployment on the south-western franchise in years to come. We are in the process of reforming franchises, and we have recently completed a consultation on this. A significant element of the approach that we propose would involve giving railway professionals greater flexibility to make key operational decisions to enable them to react more effectively to passenger needs and to run their services in a more commercial way. We do not envisage specifying detailed operational issues such as the seating layout of rolling stock required on specific routes, as we do not believe that it makes sense to take that sort of decision in Whitehall. We want instead to put in place the right incentives to ensure that operators respond to passengers during the period of their franchises. We will therefore be looking to include demanding requirements on service quality.

[Penny Mordaunt]

I would very much like to hear from the Minister a commitment on this and an understanding of the implications of these types of seating, especially over long journeys. While I acknowledge that these trains are being used for longer journeys elsewhere, this is causing a tremendous amount of physical damage. People are having to employ osteopaths and chiropractors and are really suffering. It is not just a comfort but a health and safety issue. There are a wide range of options—for example, sticking the different trains together when they get to Guildford. Often, trains join up when they get to Guildford, and class 450 carriages can be put on when they get to Guildford and Woking to allow other commuters to use them. If they are in operation down in Portsmouth, people will sit on the comfier seats first. Also, there is other rolling stock that the Department is trying to do something with—I think that they are called class 460s and they used to be on the Gatwick line. There must be a solution to this out there, and I urge the Minister to pull the train operating companies together to try to find it.

[Mrs Villiers]

I am happy to work with my hon. Friend and the train operating company to see whether there are alternatives that have not been considered which can be brought into play without unfairly compromising the interests of passengers on a different part of the route, and without affecting the affordability of the franchise for taxpayers and fare payers. I encourage her to continue this dialogue with the train operator, and I am happy to take part in that. I think she will accept that I cannot promise to issue a directive to train operating companies on the detail of the seating plans of their rolling stock. That would not be affordable and it is not the right long-term option for the management of the railways in this country.

I appreciate the opportunity to debate this issue with my hon. Friend. As I have said, I am happy to continue to work with her to see whether a compromise can be found. I look forward to meeting her, and perhaps other colleagues who have attended this debate, to discuss the matter further.

Question put and agreed to.

Olympic Airspace

Theresa Villiers Excerpts

Monday 7th March 2011 Written Statements

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Mrs Theresa Villiers)]

As part of the commitment to deliver a safe and secure Olympic and Paralympic games, the Government are today announcing their plans for temporary airspace control measures that will apply over London and the south-east during the games period.

The measures comprise an inner prohibited airspace zone and an outer restricted zone, approximately 60 nautical miles across, centred on the Olympic park.

Only certain categories of aircraft—those operating commercial services and subject to full security procedures—will normally be permitted to operate within the prohibited zone. Certain aircraft involved in, for example, police, medevac and Olympic broadcast operations will be exempted. Other operations at airports within this zone may also be considered for exemption subject to strict conditions, which will be assessed on a case-by-case basis. Similarly, we are working with Battersea heliport to agree a basis on which operations there may be allowed to continue.

All types of aircraft will be permitted to operate in the wider restricted zone provided that they can satisfy certain requirements designed to ensure that all aircraft within the zone can be readily identified and monitored by air traffic control.

It is envisaged that the measures will be in place from 13 July to 12 September 2012, to cover the period of both the Olympic and Paralympic games.

These measures have been designed to help to protect key games locations from potential airborne threats. It is normal practice to implement airspace restrictions during large-scale events such as major sporting events, and similar measures have been put in place for previous Olympic and Paralympic games. The measures have been developed to be proportionate and to minimise the impact on the aviation community during the summer of 2012.

It is not expected that any airports will need to close as a result of the measures. There should be no impact on scheduled air services, and limited impact on most other types of operation outside the prohibited zone.

The Government, the Civil Aviation Authority and NATS will now work with airspace users and others to ensure that the planned measures, and their potential impacts, are fully understood and discussed before the regulations to implement them under the Air Navigation Order 2009 are made later this year.

Options for airspace controls over other Olympics venues outside the south-east are still being considered and plans for these will be announced later.

Copies of a leaflet entitled “London 2012 Airspace”, aimed at the general aviation community, showing the coverage of the zones and setting out in more detail the restrictions that will apply within them, have been placed in the Library.

Rail Services (South-East London)

Theresa Villiers Excerpts

Tuesday 1st March 2011 Westminster Hall

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Mrs Theresa Villiers)]

It is a pleasure to speak under your chairmanship, Mr Benton. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford (Mr Evennett) on securing the debate and on his passionate defence of his constituents, particularly his commuting constituents. He is a steadfast campaigner for his constituents. I am very much aware of the significant concern expressed about the quality of rail services in south-east London and Kent by my hon. Friend and a number of other MPs, stakeholders and passengers. It is good to see my hon. Friend the Member for Orpington (Joseph Johnson) and the hon. Member for Erith and Thamesmead (Teresa Pearce) here to take part in the debate as well.

I fully appreciate how important rail service provision is in the suburban constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford, where so many people commute into London every day and which I have enjoyed visiting on a number of occasions during the past 10 years or so. As he set out, recent months have seen an overall decline in the reliability of services under the Southeastern franchise, culminating in the huge disruption that occurred during the cold weather episodes at the end of last year. He outlined some of the most troubling examples.

Ministers and officials were in constant contact with train operators and Network Rail throughout the severe weather. I think that we all accept that, unfortunately, some disruption is unavoidable when extreme weather conditions occur, but it is imperative to ensure that lessons are learned from the severe problems that passengers experienced in my hon. Friend’s constituency and elsewhere during the severe weather at the end of last year. That is why we asked David Quarmby to conduct an urgent audit of how our transport networks performed. We now expect the rail industry to act on the findings of that audit.

I have already had many discussions on the cold weather episode with senior representatives of the rail industry and will be meeting them again soon for an update on extending the trial of heated conductor rails, which could make a significant difference to resilience on the third rail networks; strengthening de-icing arrangements; dealing with stranded trains; and, crucially, improving passenger information generally and during times of disruption.

My hon. Friend rightly said that that was exposed as a severe problem during the recent poor weather. Like him, David Quarmby emphasised that electronic information on its own simply is not enough; train operators need to ensure that staff are properly briefed so that they can give passengers as much information as possible about which services are running and what they can expect despite the disruption.

It is imperative that reliability on the Southeastern network improves. It is imperative that the train operator becomes more responsive to its customers, as my hon. Friends the Members for Bexleyheath and Crayford and for Orpington emphasised. I will ensure that their comments on step-free access at Crayford, the waiting rooms at Barnehurst, toilet cleanliness and the lifts at Orpington are passed on to the train operator. The rail reforms that we are considering are designed to give train operators more opportunities to invest in improvements to such facilities, to make them more responsive to passengers and to give them the right incentives to perform reliably and well.

I have asked the rail industry’s national taskforce specifically to consider the performance of Southeastern and Network Rail in Kent. We need improved performance from the operator and Network Rail, as the infrastructure provider, if we are to make the progress that the constituents of my hon. Friend the Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford want. I say that because Network Rail is responsible for about 60% of delays and cancellations on the Southeastern network.

My officials monitor Southeastern’s performance on a four-weekly basis. I met Charles Horton, managing director of Southeastern, on 14 February and I asked him a series of searching questions based on the concerns raised with me by MPs and their constituents, many of which my hon. Friend has echoed. In the coming weeks, I will follow that up with a further meeting with Mr Horton and the Network Rail route director for Kent, and I will expect them to set out how they plan to improve their performance and to respond to the concerns that have been rightly raised in the debate. I will interrogate them on their response to the Quarmby audit and on the lessons to be learned from the cold weather disruption, although I should emphasise that there was already a significant problem before the snow arrived, as my hon. Friend said. I will urgently seek assurances from Network Rail and Southeastern on how they propose to improve overall performance.

[Joseph Johnson]

In those discussions with the management of Southeastern, will my right hon. Friend please ask when fast trains will stop at Orpington during peak hours? Orpington is a major commuter town, but we do not have fast trains during peak hours. My constituents are on their knees begging for such a service.

[Mrs Villiers]

I appreciate the importance of that issue. Although my discussions will focus on the reliability of the current service, I am happy to take on board my hon. Friend’s representations, and we will obviously take them very seriously as and when preparations are under way for timetabling changes.

It is important to mention some major capacity improvements, which will be delivered in the years to come. Despite the crisis in the public finances, the Chancellor has prioritised rail, and £18 billion will be invested in rail capital projects during the spending review period. Our ambitious programme will deliver real benefits for rail users across the country, including in south-east London and Kent.

Thameslink is going ahead in line with its original scope, albeit over a slightly longer time frame than originally envisaged. That will virtually double the number of north-south trains and deliver up to 1,200 new carriages. It is too early to say exactly how the programme’s benefits will be shared between different areas, because timetabling decisions are still some way off. However, even those communities that do not benefit directly from the new upgraded services could receive cascaded rolling stock to relieve overcrowding.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford recognised, the coalition has secured the funding to ensure that Crossrail is delivered in its entirety, including the Abbey Wood branch, which was the subject of so many scare stories from our political opponents. The project will deliver a 10% uplift in rail capacity across London and much improved access to jobs for many people across the capital, including south-east London, and in the south-east. It will open up new journey opportunities to docklands, the City, central London and our major airports. Furthermore, the Secretary of State recently announced that negotiations had been successfully concluded to allow a station box to be constructed at Woolwich. The coalition’s plans for rail therefore offer real potential benefits for people in south-east London.

I very much recognise the concerns that my hon. Friend’s constituents have expressed about rail fares. The retail prices index plus 3% formula was included in the franchise when Labour let it in 2005. That was to reflect the more than £600 million spent on 618 new rolling stock vehicles and the £93 million of investment in power supply, stations, depots and related infrastructure. Much as I would like to see the RPI plus 3% formula abandoned, that is unfortunately not possible in the current fiscal climate. The deficit we inherited from the previous Government means that we face some difficult choices, including asking passengers to pay a little more to support the massive investment in rail that I have just outlined, although we expect significant elements of that programme to benefit people across south-east London. None the less, it is imperative that the cost of running the railways comes down, because it is too high. Sir Roy McNulty is running an in-depth review into why the cost is so high. For the sake of taxpayers and fare payers in my hon. Friend’s constituency and across the country, we are determined to find the right solutions to deliver a more sustainable financial future for the railways.

My hon. Friend talked about his long-running campaign to extend Crossrail to Ebbsfleet. The route to Ebbsfleet was safeguarded in 2009, and we expect that to remain the case. Safeguarding preserves that option for the future. Of course, our current priority is to press ahead with construction and to deliver the Crossrail project within budget and according to the new timetable. However, we do not rule out the option of extension in the future.

My hon. Friend also raised concerns about the compensation regime that applies to Southeastern. I have not seen evidence that the figures have been dealt with inappropriately, but if any were drawn to my attention, I would of course take action. I recognise the concerns raised by his constituents about the way the compensation regime operates, and we are certainly happy to consider a more robust regime for future franchises that perhaps gives passengers more effective protection.

[Mr Evennett]

I am grateful for that helpful answer, but Southeastern is so marginally over the figure that one can understand constituents being sceptical.

[Mrs Villiers]

I am aware that there is a lot of concern and scepticism about the figures, but, as I said, I can reach a judgment only on the basis of the facts that are presented to me. My hon. Friend will appreciate that Southeastern is legally required under the franchise to have its figures independently audited, so we have that safeguard of an independent check on the figures.

In conclusion, it is vital that Southeastern and Network Rail significantly improve their performance on the lines serving my hon. Friend’s constituency and the whole of south-east London, as well as on its routes in Kent. I will continue to press both on the issue, and I very much welcome the opportunity to debate it today.

Local and Regional Rail Services

Theresa Villiers Excerpts

Monday 28th February 2011 Written Statements

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Mrs Theresa Villiers)]

Local authorities and integrated transport authorities from time to time wish to develop proposals for new or enhanced rail services where, in their view, they offer the best way of meeting the transport needs of their area. They have the necessary powers to secure the provision of such services but they are sometimes inhibited by the risk that significant revenue funding may need to be committed over the long term. I am keen to encourage local bodies to identify the best solutions for identified local needs and therefore wish to ensure that they are not deterred from considering an improved rail service where it clearly offers value for money.

The Government’s priority remains one of reducing the budget deficit and, therefore, careful consideration has to be given to any proposal that might increase the cost of the railway, either in the short or long-term. However, we recognise the arguments put forward by promoters that regional and local rail services need to adapt to population, housing and economic growth in localities. Therefore, it is only right that, once they have demonstrated value for money after a trial period, new or improved services promoted by local authorities are treated in a similar way to the more established services which are currently funded as part of the national network.

I would therefore like to announce to the House that the Government still intend to fund the provision of new or enhanced services promoted by authorities which have rail industry support, but in view of the tough financial decisions made as part of the spending review, no such funding will be provided prior to April 2015 (the start of the next spending review period).

It is important that the promoter demonstrates that a rail scheme is the best way to address regional and local transport issues; hence promoters would still be expected to fund a new or enhanced service for the first three years to demonstrate its commitment to the service and show that it delivers value for money in the light of actual experience.

Schemes which the Department would consider funding in this way would be subject to a number of conditions, details of which have been deposited in the Library of the House and will be made available on the Department for Transport’s website.