(Cleethorpes)
(Con):It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship,
Mr Owen. I congratulate the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne
North (Catherine McKinnell) on securing this timely and important
debate. Sadly, my constituency does not lie on the direct route of
the east coast main line, but it is heavily reliant on it, as am I.
Looking around, most of the Members in the Chamber will be very
familiar with LNER, as it now is, as we go to and from our
constituencies. As the hon. Lady rightly said, the east coast main
line is vital to the economies of the eastern spine of the country,
but it is also important to those communities that lie off the main
line. Quite simply, I cannot get home without using the east coast
main line, but sadly I then have to use Transpennine. It is
perfectly fine—the only problem is that it takes 65 minutes to do
50 miles, which is not exactly what we expect in the 21st
century...
(Keighley) (Lab):...I
do not want to speak for long, but I want to say that the Labour
party looks forward to government. We look forward to the main
franchisee, the east coast main line, being run in the public
sector with Network Rail, with all the co-ordination and
efficiency that that will bring. From time to time, I raise the
question of open-access operators with shadow Ministers, because
there are open-access operators on the east coast main
line. Hull
Trains and Grand Central have re-linked towns such as
Halifax to the east coast main line, and First is planning to
bring in an open-access operator in 2021 to Edinburgh.
We can afford to be magnanimous as a new Labour Government. We
should also recognise that just as the BBC is a great public
service broadcaster but benefits from challenge from Channel 4
and the commercial sector, at the margin we should be confident
in our belief in public sector efficiency, and still allow
challenge in a 98% or 99% publicly owned sector.
I used to represent Selby, where Hull Trains identified a gap in the
market and provided a service. A big national operator will not
always be quite as fleet of foot as we might want. In thinking
about how to change the railways we must give more of a role to
local authorities, for example. However, there should not just be
one decision maker in Whitehall deciding on routes. I hope for
assurances on that matter from the Labour Front Bench...
The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Joseph
Johnson):...Let me focus on what the Government
have been doing to ensure that the east coast main line continues
to play an important role in our national economy. Hon. Members
will be aware of the £5.7 billion Government-led intercity
express programme—the new trains to which hon. Members have
referred. The programme will provide the east coast and Great
Western routes with a completely new fleet of trains equipped
with the latest technology. The trains are being built at
Hitachi’s County Durham factory, which is home to more than 700
permanent staff and supports thousands more in the national
supply chain. Up to 70% of the train parts will be incorporated
from sources in the UK. The full roll-out should be complete by
2020, as planned. As part of the programme, Hitachi has invested
in a new state-of-the-art maintenance facility at Doncaster and
has enhanced other ageing depots along the length of the
line...
...My hon. Friend the Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers)
raised several important points relating to his coastal
constituency. I congratulate him on all his campaigning to get
the town deal for Greater Grimsby and Cleethorpes—a hugely
important £67 million deal that will generate almost 9,000 new
jobs and help to create 10,000 new homes. Plans for a direct
service to Cleethorpes are not being developed at present,
but Transpennine Express, which serves the
area directly, will be getting new trains from December 2019,
with more seats and faster journeys...
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