Extracts from Westminster Hall debate on Rail Links: South-west England - Oct 24t

Wednesday, 25 October 2017 06:59

Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op):...With those objectives in mind, I have three simple asks of the Minister, his colleagues in the Department for Transport and those in the Treasury. First, will they look at how we can invest in quicker journeys and shorter journey times? The Minister will know that there is an opportunity to look at speeds on the Devon banks, the parts of the track between Plymouth and Exeter that are being repaired next year. While that work is...Request free trial

Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op):...With those objectives in mind, I have three simple asks of the Minister, his colleagues in the Department for Transport and those in the Treasury. First, will they look at how we can invest in quicker journeys and shorter journey times? The Minister will know that there is an opportunity to look at speeds on the Devon banks, the parts of the track between Plymouth and Exeter that are being repaired next year. While that work is going on, for a bargain price of £30 million, the track can be straightened, rails replaced and the speed limit lifted from 60 to 75 miles per hour. That would cut the journey from Plymouth to Exeter by three minutes; Great Western Railway trains would do it in just under an hour, and CrossCountry trains would do it in around 55 minutes. That would be a huge improvement on where we are now, and considering the billions being spent on High Speed 2 to cut journey times to the midlands for those in London, it is a bargain...

...The problems were not just in 2014, when the precarious train line at Dawlish gave out. Each time there are storms, CrossCountry, which runs Voyager trains, must cancel the last leg of the journey from Scotland to Penzance at Exeter, because its trains short-circuit at Dawlish if they are hit by waves, blocking the track and requiring removal, effectively closing our rail line. It is not a historical injustice, but a regular occurrence. The recent Storm Brian meant that CrossCountry trains through Dawlish were cancelled yet again in the last week, raising the question of whether anything has been learned in the three years since the floods. It is lucky that Great Western, which for the time being is still driving its so-called high-speed trains, can still go through Dawlish when the tracks are open. In no other part of the country would such a precarious train line or such a broken franchise commitment be tolerated by Ministers, so why are they tolerated in the south-west?..

Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con):...I have commented a couple of times that it is bizarre to have to look at the wind forecast, weather forecast and shipping forecast to see whether certain trains will be running west of Exeter. To be clear, that is not due to the track; it is due to the design of the trains and the rolling stock. Sometimes that gets confused, and people think the reason CrossCountry cannot run is an inherent issue with the Dawlish coastal railway, but it is not. When we see a 40-year-old train ploughing through a big wave, that is because of an issue with the design a few years back, which I hope is being carefully noted by Great Western in its trials for introducing new rolling stock on to the line within the next couple of years. That will be one of the most welcome investments we have seen in some time...

Darren Jones (Bristol North West) (Lab):...Now, as the Member for Bristol North West, my home constituency, I have two main concerns. First, I am disappointed that electrification of the track from London to Bristol has been cancelled. We now have the absurd position that new-generation Great Western Railway trains, which can be powered by electricity, get only as far as Maidenhead before they have to turn on the diesel engines. That cannot be right, and given that the Government are starting to fall behind on their climate change commitments, I hope to see that project completed soon..

...I welcome the commitment from Network Rail and Great Western Railway to the opening by 2020-21 of the Henbury spur, with 18-minute services from Henbury through North Filton into Bristol Temple Meads, but we need that spur to develop at the next stage into the Henbury loop, connecting the track through Avonmouth to the existing Severn Beach line, which runs along the south of my constituency, and ideally, if we are in the business of funding the projects that I am asking for, with a new station at Horfield and Lockleaze, too. That is important for residents and workers...

Dr David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op):...I met Great Western and Network Rail a couple of weeks ago. I made my usual request—as the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Alex Chalk) will know—to get half-hourly trains onto the Stroud valleys line, which goes to Cheltenham. They were interested, but non-committal. We need more trains on that line. It is an outrage that Gloucester and Cheltenham—two of our great communities —let alone the Stroud valleys, are badly served by the rail network. We need to have those trains sooner or later...

Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab):...On rolling stock, it was terribly unfortunate to hear about the initial trip of the new high-speed train serving our region. We understand from Great Western that it was unlucky. All the other trains that travelled that day were fine, but will the Minister assure us that when we get these long-awaited trains they will not pour water over people, they will work, will not break down and will be reliable? I also have a concern about the design for our luggage demands. Our trains were built in an age when suitcases were not the size of wheelie bins—people did not used to be able to carry those huge great cases—but I am worried that, having lost the guards van, and as a regular cyclist who puts my bike on the train, we will see conflicts between the people who regularly put their bikes on trains and people who need luggage space. If that becomes a problem, that is not only a problem for passengers, but for the staff who have to resolve the disputes...

Alex Chalk (Cheltenham) (Con):...The second limb of what is needed, therefore, is timetabling. Instead of a service in which trains from Cheltenham to London must go via Gloucester, where the driver gets out, walks down the platform, gets in at the other end of the train and reverses it out on the way to Stroud and Swindon, we need a service that cuts out Gloucester. I want to be crystal clear: I do not propose anything that would adversely affect Gloucester. We should not have a beggar-thy-neighbour approach. I am talking about additional services. If they were introduced the journey time would drop to about one hour and 40 minutes. What strikes me as slightly odd is the fact that, while we are spending billions of pounds on High Speed 2, which may or may not be a good thing, one stroke of a pen with respect to timetabling could achieve a dramatic difference for the 115,000 people who live in my constituency. An additional service with a more direct route could be dramatic, and it would not cost a penny. A vital point to note is Great Western Railway’s wish to extend the franchise, which will come up in 2019: it is a golden opportunity for many people in the south-west—certainly my constituents—to get a far greater, much improved service, for minimum taxpayer outlay. We must not miss that opportunity...

Steve Double (St Austell and Newquay) (Con):...There is no doubt that in the south-west we need to catch up on investment in our railways and close the gap. As hon. Members have highlighted, we have been neglected for many years under successive Governments and have not had the investment that we need in our railways. However, we should acknowledge some of the investment that is going on. We are getting new trains from Great Western Railway to replace the 40-year-old trains that we have on those lines, providing new capacity and creating a better environment for passengers. That will be hugely welcome when it reaches the south-west later next year. We should welcome and acknowledge both that investment and some of the work going on through Cornwall to upgrade the signalling, which will increase capacity and reduce journey times there...

Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op):...We need the Government to understand that the Department for Transport’s modernisation of Great Western Railway is seen as a disaster at every level, not least the fiasco involving the franchises, which I understand the Secretary of State is thinking of fragmenting even further, the new rolling stock procurement in which trains cost twice as much as on the west coast main line, and the incompetence and profligacy apparent in the intercity express programme. That is not my assessment, but that of the National Audit Office, which highlighted a lack of strategic oversight causing project costs to rise by more than £2 billion...

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Paul Maynard):...We are clearly seeing a great deal of change at the moment on rail in the south-west: brand-new trains, upgraded infrastructure, more capacity, faster journeys, greater resilience and greater reliability. That, after all, is what I believe passengers want. It is part of our record investment of more than £40 billion in the railways between 2014 and 2019, which will continue beyond that date to 2024, as set out in the statement of funds available that we announced just last week. We now expect to spend £48 billion on the railways between 2019 and 2024. It has allowed us to continue our extensive programme of renewals and deliver the enhancements deferred from the current period, to which the hon. Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) referred. More than £5 billion is being invested in the wider modernisation of the Great Western route...

...We have heard a lot about the peninsula rail taskforce, which remains a personal priority of mine; I thank my hon. Friend the Member for South West Devon (Mr Streeter) in particular for his kind comments. I stand by what I said at the launch: it is a most impressive piece of work, which I constantly cite to people around the country as a model for this sort of project. I do not want to be churlish, because I understand his desire for an official Government response, but I do not believe in gesture politics. A mere box-ticking exercise in which I issued a rigid ministerial statement entitled “Response to peninsula rail taskforce” would be less valuable than actual progress on the taskforce’s many recommendations. Some of that progress will occur as part of the rail upgrade plan, which will identify where different projects sit in the development process, but some of it will be delivered through franchise change, which operates to a slightly different timetable. I note that Great Western Railway is consulting locally on a scale never seen before in any franchise in the country. CrossCountry’s franchise is also coming up for renewal; it, too, is braving the south-west—even Torbay, I believe—and undertaking a consultation to understand what is most needed there....

To read the whole debate, CLICK HERE