East Anglia Rail Franchise

Will Quince Excerpts

Wednesday 16th December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Will Quince (Colchester) (Con)]

I add my congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St Edmunds (Jo Churchill), not only on securing this powerful and timely debate, but on giving us a platform on which to make some very important points. [Interruption.] That was not intended to be a pun, I hasten to add.

Not only is the town I represent the oldest recorded town in the country, it is also the fastest growing. Tens of thousands of homes have been built there and we are a massive tourist destination. We are also a commuter town and we have a large university. We have huge numbers of small and medium-sized enterprises and, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Sir Simon Burns) has said, Essex is an economic powerhouse. Therefore, tens of thousands of commuters in our county are being let down. The service does not represent value for money. The minimum cost of an annual ticket from Colchester to London is £4,800, so people expect to be able to get into work and to get home in time to see their families.

A number of points have already been raised eloquently by other right hon. and hon. Members. I will not dwell on all of them, but I want to touch on a few. On Abellio and communications, it is totally unacceptable to leave people sitting on a stationary train for 20 or 30 minutes without making an announcement and for them then to find out via Twitter why the train has not moved. One thing that has to get better as part of any new franchise—it will not cost a penny—is communication with customers. That has to happen.

A number of Members have already pointed out that some of our trains are more than 40 years old. We have trains that dispose of human excrement on to the tracks, not just on the line at various points, but even at stations. My hon. Friend the Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge) has said that he is happy to walk the line, but I am absolutely not happy to do so, because it is a public health risk.

I write to Network Rail regularly—I think I am becoming a bit of a pest—and it keeps telling me that it is investing £170 million this year. I pass that information on to my commuters and rail users, who keep telling me—I am very sympathetic to this view—“Well, show us the evidence, because it isn’t there at the moment.” There are consistent delays, signal failures and track problems—they face delay after delay after delay.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bury St Edmunds made this point eloquently: our commuters are really informed. As our Twitter feeds will demonstrate, it is very hard to keep up with non-train-related tweets, because of the sheer volume of train-related tweets. We cannot keep saying, “Jam tomorrow.” We cannot get around the fact that they are well aware that £1.4 billion has gone back into the Department for Transport over the past 10 years. They know that this line has not had the investment it has deserved over decades.

On the new franchise, I do not think that the requirements or requests are unreasonable. They include new trains, wi-fi, power sockets and toilets that do not flush human excrement on to the lines. I do not think that that is much to ask. It is reasonable for commuters to expect to be able to get a seat and to have a power supply and wi-fi so that they can work, and if their trains are on time not all of the time but most of the time, that would be an improvement. They deserve that.

I want to pay tribute and give credit to my right hon. Friends the Members for Chelmsford and for Witham (Priti Patel), and my hon. Friends the Members for Ipswich (Ben Gummer), for Norwich North (Chloe Smith) and for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin). They have played a huge role on the Great Eastern main line taskforce. The evidence of that is clear to see in its fantastic report.

I sit on the Transport Committee, which has recently agreed to launch an inquiry into our line. Both Network Rail and Abellio keep saying, “Jam tomorrow”, but we still have to wait until next October and, quite frankly, commuters have had enough. I do not blame them, because I use the train line as well. We talk about jobs that may be created through the new franchise, but what worries me most is the very serious issue of the jobs being lost now.

When I made that point in the Transport Committee, I based it on the anecdotal evidence I have received of jobs being put under threat. That is happening through choice, with people saying, “I can’t cope with this any more, given the constant delays and not getting home to my family”. However, there is also the pressure being applied by employers because people are not getting into work on time. After the Transport Committee had agreed to the inquiry, I started to receive actual evidence. One individual’s contract has been terminated, and they were told, “It is not to do with your performance, which we think has been excellent, but because your rail line”—specific reference was made to the operator—“means you have not been able to get into work on time.” That is totally unacceptable, and it is why the inquiry is very important. I also very much welcome the independent review, which my hon. Friend the Member for South Suffolk mentioned.

The performance of Abellio and Network Rail recently has been shambolic, verging on incompetent. I do not use those words lightly. Commuters and rail users from Colchester and across East Anglia deserve so much better. We must ensure, as part of the new franchise, that services get better. I want to say to the Minister that the one thing our commuters and rail users want for Christmas is a franchise that gets them to work and gets them back on time to see their families, and I hope that we can make that happen.