Train Services: Extreme Weather

Tuesday 3rd November 2026 Westminster Hall

14:30

[Josh Newbury (Cannock Chase) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the impact of extreme weather on train services.

It is a pleasure to open the debate with you in the Chair, Ms Jardine. As we all know, we love to talk about the Great British weather but that weather is not particularly predictable and it is becoming more extreme as a result of climate change. Although I was motivated to apply for the debate by the impact of this summer’s heatwave on train services in my constituency, I suspect that hon. Members have come to it with a huge range of weather in mind; I am sure we will hear about something akin to the 10 plagues of Egypt, reflecting the diversity of our great nation.

For many passengers on the Chase line, the turning of the seasons into the warmer months now brings a familiar question: will the train make it to Rugeley? That is not quite the seasonal tradition that people usually have in mind. We might have hoped for a little sunshine, a trip away or an afternoon in the garden but now we will probably have to check whether we can get a train home. Passengers along the Chase line know the problem well: as temperatures rise, delays and cancellations become more frequent. Services are cancelled at short notice and journeys are cut short. The trains that do run are often overcrowded and often halted at Hednesford, with the dreaded rail replacement bus completing the journey to Rugeley Town and Rugeley Trent Valley stations.

My constituent Alan, who heads the Chase Line Rail Promotion group, rightly asked me to tell the House that, for many months this year, trains did not reach Rugeley for much of the day. At best, services were cut from half-hourly to hourly and passengers often did not know even where to catch the bus. As hon. Members will have heard from their constituents, missing a train is not just—as the Tannoy often says—an inconvenience; it can mean missing an appointment, arriving late for work, or even having to lean on friends and family to get home after a long day.

[Shockat Adam (Leicester South) (Ind)]

I thank the hon. Member for starting this debate so powerfully. During the July heatwave the East Midlands Railway service between Leicester and Nottingham ran directly and did not stop in between because, the Tannoy said, it was simply too hot. Does the hon. Member agree that students and businesses cannot revolve around a service that works in that way?

[Josh Newbury]

Having grown up in Leicestershire, I am familiar with the line that the hon. Gentleman talks about. There we have another example of how hot weather can affect train journeys. I will describe in detail how it affects my constituency, but he is right to raise how it affects his constituents. It massively impacts those who need to stop off on that line, at somewhere such as Loughborough, and can really affect their lives.

I wanted to make sure that my constituents’ experiences were heard directly in this debate, so my office ran a survey of people who use the Chase line regularly. The responses covered all sorts of journeys: people going to work, students getting to college, and families trying to get their children where they need to be. I want to share details of a few of those experiences.

Rosie told us about her regular 8 am journey from Hednesford to Walsall for college. She said that delays and cancellations have meant arriving late and missing lessons. Replacement buses make the journey much longer and on some occasions she has had to spend around £22 on an Uber just to arrive on time. She told us that she sometimes found out about cancellations only after buying her ticket and then struggled to get a refund.

Another respondent told us about their son’s travelling to college in Stafford. There is no direct bus from where they live, so the train is only practical way for him to get there. Both parents work so they cannot drop everything to drive their son when the train is cancelled. Emma also highlighted the importance of the Hednesford to Rugeley Trent Valley connection for children who travel on to Stafford. There is no direct bus alternative for that journey, either. Without the train, how are those students supposed to get to college? What do those aborted journeys mean for their futures?

The impact on people travelling to work is just as clear. Jack commutes from Cannock or Hednesford to Birmingham New Street. He described repeated delays and serious overcrowding, particularly at peak times. He told me that during hot weather two train-loads of passengers were often squeezed on to one service. He wants more frequent services during the morning and evening peaks—a fair request.

Angela told us about travelling from Rugeley to work at Birmingham’s Queen Elizabeth hospital. She uses the train to avoid the difficulty of parking, but the lack of reliability has made train journeys increasingly difficult. On one occasion her outward journey was cancelled so she had to drive to another station. On her return she found that she could not get back to Rugeley, where her car was parked. Lewis, who also commutes from Rugeley to Birmingham, has recently secured a major career opportunity after years of study and hard work, but constant delays and cancellations make it difficult to know whether he will get to work—and, just as importantly, get home. His commute costs him around £100 a month. We know how difficult it is at the moment for young people to get a foothold in their chosen career. Lewis should be able to concentrate on making the most of his opportunities, rather than worrying about whether the train will get him there. His role is hybrid, which helps, but not everybody has that flexibility.

Kris told us that after repeatedly being stranded at work, they stopped going to the station altogether. On some occasions, they had to travel via Wolverhampton and arrange a lift or find another bus because no replacement transport was even provided. Susan described a similar problem on her journey from Rugeley towards Birmingham. Her return service terminated at Hednesford; with no replacement bus, she had to pay for a separate bus outside Tesco just to get her home. Lee described repeated summer cancellations and the explanations that he has been given about infrastructure and signalling. He said that the stretch between Hednesford and Rugeley must have a world-unique microclimate because it is so consistently affected. I am not sure we can scientifically back that one up, but as a Chase line passenger myself, I am very much with him in that frustration.

The survey that we ran also showed how much the uncertainty can affect people’s working lives. I have heard from constituents who have suffered migraines from the stress of their commute, and others who have had to take annual leave because of cancellations. I do not think anybody expects a railway to run completely without disruption. There will always be incidents and occasions when services have got to change—safety must come first, after all—but passengers are entitled to ask why hot weather keeps causing such serious problems and what is being done to address them.

[Mr Will Forster (Woking) (LD)]

I thank the hon. Member for introducing this debate. Like him, I have surveyed my commuting constituents; as a result, I regularly complain about the unreliability of South Western Railway. It is particularly unreliable whenever there is hot or cold weather. Does he agree that the Government should deliver an investment plan to improve our railway network so that it can adapt to climate change, including by introducing air conditioning on all train services?

[Josh Newbury]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to raise that issue. Extremes in temperature are increasingly affecting our railways. In many cases our lines were not designed to run at temperatures into the high 30s or even below minus 10°, although they are increasingly having to endure those conditions. Those conditions are not going to get any easier—milder winters are not suddenly going to come back—so we absolutely need to make sure that the services in and out of the train are resilient to that reality.

The hon. Gentleman leads me perfectly on to my next point. We know that high temperatures affect the railways. Rails expand in the heat, signalling equipment can overheat and overhead lines can also be affected. Network Rail already takes steps to manage those risks, including through track inspections, painting rails white to reduce heat absorption, and monitoring infrastructure during hot weather. I recognise the hard work that railway staff do to keep services safe in difficult conditions, and I sincerely thank them.

I want to know what more can be done to make the Chase line more resilient. We should not be having to have the same conversations every summer. We all know that hotter and hotter weather will be coming. Passengers need to know that lessons are being learned and that the work is happening before the next heatwave.

[Edward Morello (West Dorset) (LD)]

In the south-west, we share a lot of those problems. The Salisbury-to-Exeter line runs a reduced service over the summer as a result of “soil moisture deficit”—a catchy term that means the ground is too dry and too hard, and the trains cannot run over it. That is not a new problem: we had a reduced service last year and the year before. Proper planning for what is now our everyday experience of climate change is vital. I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman agrees with me that the Railways Bill, currently in the other place, is an opportunity to ensure that our infrastructure is resilient for the future and is also taking account of our climate targets.

[Josh Newbury]

We are hearing about a different impact from a different part of the country; it is great to get that perspective from the west country. I completely agree that we need to look at how the changing climate will affect different parts of the country in different ways. The different realities, different weather patterns and different topographies all need to be factored in. I also agree that the Railways Bill, which I will come to a little later, provides us with an opportunity to think about resilience when it comes to the future of the railways for decades to come. That is absolutely where our thinking needs to be: in the long as well as the short term.

[Shockat Adam]

As the hon. Member mentioned, Network Rail has itself admitted that the summer was extremely challenging and that it has work to do. Does he agree that apology is not a strategy and that every route, including the midland mainline, needs a published heat resilience plan before next summer?

[Josh Newbury]

The hon. Member makes an interesting point about what we need from Network Rail to ensure that the particularities of each area are taken into account. He is right that such work on resilience to climate change is needed; I hope that Network Rail will take that on board. Recently, I had a meeting with Network Rail and some of the affected passengers in my constituency, and the issue of long-term planning in the face of what we know is going to get worse and worse was part of it. I hope that the hon. Member will have a similar opportunity in his constituency.

Another question is about communication, because people can make other arrangements if they know in good time that a cancellation is happening. It is much harder when they have bought a ticket and travelled to the station to discover only then that the train is not running. Furthermore, when a service is cancelled or terminated early, replacement transport must get people to where they actually need to go.

Thankfully, we already have the diagnosis and the prescription for the Chase line; we just need the fee to dispense the cure. Back when the line was electrified, about a decade ago now, the project ran over budget and the previous Government refused to allocate additional resource; therefore, corners were cut. The track circuits, which tell the signallers where trains are on the line, were bought on the cheap. A model designed for underground railways was used and, unsurprisingly, they do not fare too well outdoors, in particular in the warmer weather. In fact, typically, they trip at any point above 24°. It goes without saying that this summer we had many days when night-time temperatures were higher than that, let alone during the day. That has led to the misery that my constituents have faced on the Chase line for successive summers. Network Rail itself tells us that a full replacement is needed.

[Alex Easton (North Down) (Ind)]

I thank the hon. Member for securing this debate. In my constituency, passengers on the Bangor-to-Belfast line know about disruption to do with severe weather, in particular where trees grow close to railways. Does he agree that the UK Government should work to support all relevant transport agencies—and, where relevant, the devolved institutions—to audit routes at risk from falling trees and to support prevention measures and actions before the next storms?

[Josh Newbury]

I am glad that fallen trees and leaves have been raised as an issue. We have all heard about the dreaded “leaves on the line” being the reason for service disruption. The hon. Member is absolutely right to raise it. That is an issue in all four corners of the UK, particularly as budgets have been cut and maintenance work has not always been done to the previous standard. He is absolutely right that we need to look line by line to identify where the risks are and to address the most severe ones, in particular, as he said, where trees are at risk of falling before the next season. We know that we have a stormy autumn and winter ahead, so that is a particularly poignant point. He is right that we need to look at that in the longer term as well.

My constituents faced that misery on the Chase line for successive summers, and Network Rail tells us that full equipment replacement is what we need. However, I am told that that will cost in the region of £3 million. With budgets being tight, we need the Department to support us with that essential infrastructure correction. At the moment, the alternative being looked at is a coating for the circuits, which might raise their operational temperature to about 30°. That will buy us a bit more time, but will still leave us vulnerable to major disruption next summer.

I hope that the Minister will pass this on to the noble Lord Hendy: my constituency neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield (Dave Robertson), and I would heartily welcome Minister Hendy to Rugeley to discuss the challenges on the Chase line. While he is there, we should also discuss the urgent need for an accessible footbridge at Rugeley Trent Valley station. The lack of a lift is a total barrier for wheelchair users and people with limited mobility. It can also make journeys difficult for older passengers, people carrying luggage and parents with young children. I heard from an older constituent who found the stairs at Rugeley Trent Valley a barrier to visiting his family. I also heard from a passenger with severely impaired knees, who had to crawl up and down the steep footbridge just to change platforms. No one should have to face that just to catch a train.

I recognise the wider challenges taking place on our railways. London Northwestern Railway and West Midlands Railway have returned to public ownership—an important step in the Government plans for Great British Railways. I welcome the move. Bringing railways closer together, with track and train working closely, should make it easier to plan services, deal with problems and give passengers clearer accountability.

The Government have also invested in new trains and stations right across the west midlands and in the midlands rail hub. That is all really welcome progress, and I want people in Cannock Chase to benefit, too. The wider issue, however, is about the condition of our railway infrastructure and its ability to cope with more extreme weather. Network Rail’s current five-year funding period, known as control period 7, runs from 2024 to 2029. Its total funding envelope is £45.4 billion in cash terms, but inflation has put that settlement under considerable pressure.

The Office of Rail and Road reports that Network Rail now expects to deliver just 83% of its original renewals programme in England and Wales by the end of that period. It has also warned that an increasingly ageing asset base has implications for reliability, performance and safety, and that that could lead to more asset failures over time. We have heard about that from hon. Members. I recognise that the railway faces financial pressures and that difficult choices have to be made, but hotter summers and wetter winters place greater demands on our network, so it is important that we keep the renewals programme under review and ensure that essential work to protect the railway’s resilience is not lost.

The Rail Freight Group has been in touch with me to raise a concern about the Railways Bill, which is currently before Parliament. At present, Network Rail pays compensation to passenger and freight operators when services are disrupted by bad weather and other incidents, which gives it a financial reason to keep services running where possible and to get them back up quickly when things go wrong. Clause 65 would remove the requirement to pay compensation for events outside Network Rail’s control. It is not yet clear whether that includes seasonal weather, but we understand that Network Rail is considering weather-related exclusions. I would be grateful if the Minister could clarify—if not this afternoon, in writing—what counts as being outside Network Rail’s control and when we can expect that to be defined. If weather-related disruption is included, there is a risk that Network Rail will have less financial incentive to keep services running or restore them, which could impact the Government’s ambitious target to grow rail freight by at least 75% by 2050.

I welcome the Government’s wider ambition to build a railway that people can rely on. The Railways Bill will create a strengthened passenger watchdog that will set minimum standards on many things, such as delay compensation and accessible travel. That is a welcome step towards ensuring that operators are held to account more when things go wrong and that passengers are at the heart of every journey. That is exactly what people on the Chase line are looking for. That line is an important connection for Cannock Chase and southern Staffordshire. It links people to jobs, education and services in Birmingham and beyond, so making it reliable is absolutely part of delivering the Government’s ambition.

I have a few practical suggestions. First, we need a review of the parts of the Chase line that are most vulnerable to hot weather—particularly between Hednesford and Rugeley, as hon. Members have heard me say many times—with a clear plan and a timetable for the work needed. Secondly, we need a proper hot weather plan for passengers, with good information, replacement transport to get people to their destinations and clear arrangements when services are cancelled or cut short.

Thirdly, we need to take a serious look at the frequency and capacity of services, especially at peak times. An hourly service is difficult enough when everything is running normally, let alone when services are disrupted. Fourthly, we need an update on step-fee access at Rugeley Trent Valley, including on the work that is needed and how it can be funded.

The people who responded to my survey are asking for very simple things: Rosie wants to get to college, Jack wants to get to work without being packed on to an overcrowded train, Angela wants to get to and from the hospital she works at and Susan wants to be able to complete her journey home. We can reasonably expect a bit of sunshine in the summer—we might even look forward to it—but the people using the Chase line should not have to spend the warmer months wondering whether the train will run, whether it will get them to their destination and how they will get home if it does not. I hope the Minister takes those experiences seriously and sets out what can be done to make lines such as the Chase line more resilient before next summer. I very much look forward to hearing other hon. Members’ contributions.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Christine Jardine (in the Chair)]

Order. I remind Members that they should bob if they wish to be called in the debate.

14:48

[Charlotte Cane (Ely and East Cambridgeshire) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Jardine. I congratulate the hon. Member for Cannock Chase (Josh Newbury) on securing the debate.

Many decades ago, I did an excavation in Rugeley of a Mesolithic cave site. Moving forward a little to the bronze age, we know from the excavations at Flag Fen that our forebears knew how difficult it was to travel across the fenland and how to build, maintain and keep an investment in good routes. Moving forward to the 21st century, it is extremely disappointing that we do not seem willing to put the same level of investment into our transport systems as they did back in the bronze age.

In June and August this year, one third of the trains on the line between King’s Lynn and King’s Cross did not run at all. Of the two thirds that did, 80% were delayed. That is extremely unreliable for commuters, students and people just trying to go about their daily lives—to go to the theatre and sports events. They cannot rely on a train that may or may not come, and may or may not arrive on time.

The other insult is that the train quite often terminates partway through the journey, so someone trying to get back from London will get as far as Cambridge, be told that that is as far as the train will take them and have to work out how to finish their journey from there. I myself have been impacted by that, obviously quite often, with all the going back and forth, but there was a particular instance when I had a surgery in Littleport. I left in plenty of time, but the train that I was trying to catch was cancelled and the next train terminated at Cambridge, so I arrived an hour later than I had intended and therefore was late for my surgery, which is extremely rude, and I really hate being rude to my constituents.

Worse than that is what constituents have written to tell me. One in particular has written to say that because their train has been so unreliable for getting to their job in London, their employer is now putting them under pressure. They are becoming an unreliable member of staff; their employer does not know when they will turn up to work. They are also having to make up the time at the end of the day, which means that they are getting home very late—often later than they expected, because not only have they left late but the train has then been delayed. That makes it a complete nightmare for them, because they have to be up early the next morning to go in.

The reasons are many and various, but one of the main ones is the overhead power lines. They do not like very hot weather. I think they do not like very cold weather either, but in the summer the issue was the very hot weather. However, the really big problem is that the tracks are buckling, because the soil underneath is moving. We have the same problem with our roads. This is a major problem and, with climate change, it will happen year in, year out, so we need to put investment into sorting that out.

I have talked to Great Northern and, in fairness, it is doing a lot to try to make the service less unreliable, but it will need proper funding from Government to help it to address the problem. My constituents rely on the service. As I have said, they need it for getting to work. Many students rely on it because the sixth-form colleges are in Cambridge and they need to get to college. Our main hospital is in Cambridge, so people need to get to the hospital. These train services are vital to people, so I call on the Government to look hard at what the particular issues are with extreme weather and the impact that it has on fen soils and at how we can make our rail lines more resilient so that my constituents can rely on a good train service.

14:53

[Jayne Kirkham (Truro and Falmouth) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Jardine. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase (Josh Newbury) and thank him for securing this debate on extreme weather and rail services. He will have known that I would probably turn up to talk about it, because the issue is felt so acutely in my coastal and rural constituency of Truro and Falmouth.

Coastal and rural areas such as mine need a railway that is reliable, resilient and speedy, so that our communities and economy can thrive. In fact, Cornwall has the fastest growing branch lines in the country; demand for rail has soared since covid. Yet in the duchy there is just one rail line going in and one going out. For the 1 million residents of Cornwall and Plymouth, that is all.

Anyone living or working across Cornwall and Devon knows the fragility of that vital link. The line through Devon and into Cornwall sits right on the sea wall at Dawlish and Teignmouth; it is exposed and exceptionally vulnerable to heavy seas. When bad weather hits, this section frequently breaks down, leaving us 1 million people effectively cut off from the rest of the country. In February 2014, the railway line was basically swept away and cut off for eight weeks—the track was hanging into the waves.

Great Western Railway shared with me in August that last winter’s cancellations exceeded 10% of services and punctuality dropped to 75%. As others have said, it is not just about storms and wintry weather. The heat we experienced this summer meant there were four separate lineside fires on the Falmouth branch in July resulting in full cancellations. Alternate branch line services were cancelled because the rails were too hot.

On Saturday the lines in Cornwall were “too slippery”. This is not just a story of severe named storms. Our line is now so precarious that train services get knocked out by standard non-extreme weather. High tides, leaves on the track or routine heavy rain are sometimes enough to trigger speed restrictions, single-line working or total cancellations.

When major storms do hit, the crisis deepens. Storm Goretti closed the route entirely. It was over a day in the end because we could not get home. And just a week later, during Storm Ingrid, I was on the 6 am train home from Westminster when we were halted at Dawlish as massive waves crashed over the track. With one line swallowed by the sea we joined a queue of trains crawling forward on the single operational track. Soon after that, Storm Chandra cut the line off yet again. The human cost of this persistent disruption is immediate. I have constituents contacting me regularly, sharing their frustrations and the impact of the disruption on their lives.

One constituent contacted me about an overfilled train from Reading to Truro that was impacted by Storm Austen, leaving her husband, who was coming back from abroad, heavily delayed. It is unacceptable that passengers travelling thousands of miles across the globe face the greatest hardship on the final leg home through our region. Network Rail teams work heroically round the clock, clearing fallen trees, repairing track faults and executing a £2.6 billion national investment in climate resilience, but our local infrastructure is simply failing to cope. Long-range forecasts warn of increasingly challenging weather this coming winter. It has already started with Storm Austen. With climate change the disruptions will become more frequent and severe unless we take decisive action.

In 2014, after the storms, the Department for Transport started the south west rail resilience programme. Phases 1 to 4 have been completed, but phase 5 at the Teignmouth cliffs has been delayed and is currently unfunded. Phase 5 involves de-watering and stabilising the cliff face. Testing is occurring, but funds are simply not there. There is a very real risk that a cliff could fall on a train. Much of the capital funding has gone to Northern Powerhouse Rail. We have one vulnerable line in and out for our 1 million people. There is no way of flying from Newquay to London most days because we have lost the public service obligation for our airport. It appears that Network Rail accepts that we will get cut off for a day or two when there is inclement weather, which I do not think would be accepted in many other parts of the country.

There are options. Brunel obviously did not think ahead when he designed where the line was going to go. We cannot really blame him, I suppose, but now we look back, we can see that maybe this was not the best place to put it. The Okehampton line has been reopened and—we have always talked about this as a distant dream—a second line could go along by the A30. The Railways Bill will mean that regional transport plans can be considered by Great British Railways. We hope that will apply to our Cornish transport plan as well. GWR will be nationalised in December this year.

Cornwall has extraordinary economic potential. We have immense value to offer the country, partly through the critical minerals that we have under our feet, but we need to remain connected. I am trying very hard to reopen the freight line that runs between Falmouth docks and the Falmouth branch line, which could bring some of those critical minerals in and out of Cornwall. But we need a more resilient line to connect to. The Royal Albert bridge is hard for freight to get across, and the cliffs are difficult to get past. Better rail links are not a luxury. They are a real necessity, particularly when we are out on a limb as we are. We will keep pushing until the far south-west gets the resilient rail network that our constituents need.

14:59

[Steve Darling (Torbay) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Jardine. I congratulate the hon. Member for Cannock Chase (Josh Newbury) on landing this really important debate.

Climate change is the real enemy we are facing, whether in the form of extreme heat or storms. Twelve years ago, the storm at Dawlish ripped away the sea wall, leaving it looking almost like a railway line somewhere in South America after a big storm. It resulted in eight weeks of closure down to the south-west of England—eight weeks that massively impacted us. One estimate suggested that the economic impact was around £1.2 billion. I remember getting on trains at Paddington that were usually busy but felt more like the Mary Celeste. It was incredible.

There were five parts to the puzzle of sorting the rail line out, as part of the south-west resilience programme. The fifth and final part remains outstanding, which is extremely worrying. Most of us enjoyed the really good summer we just had—some of us endured it—but the other side of the coin is much wetter winters, which could massively impact the cliffs at Dawlish. The cliffs are the enemy now, rather than the sea, as they could collapse. Work on that is unfunded, and we desperately need the funding. I hope the Minister will reflect on that in his comments.

Further up the line from Dawlish is Powderham, often a place for events. The challenge there concerns the Environment Agency’s choice of a managed retreat from Dawlish Warren, such that the warren, which currently acts as a protector to the estuary, could break and open up the railway line at Powderham to attack by storms and the sea. We need investment to protect that rail line, after we have achieved the success at Dawlish that we are hoping for from the Minister.

I want to reflect on where we are with the heat. In Devon and Cornwall, we have really poor-quality local rolling stock, which is almost life-expired. The perverse thing is that although they are new to us, the trains are third or fourth hand-me-downs from elsewhere in the country. The class 175s were handed down from south Wales, and they have not quite been got running, so even the hand-me-downs do not work. In the north of England, there has been investment in quality rail solutions for the trans-Pennine railways—partly electrification and partly battery. We should have a similarly futuristic rail service for Devon and Cornwall, which would not only be a lot more sustainable in our changing world, but would ensure that we tackle climate change by taking the carbon out of travel on our railway.

A specific challenge facing trains in the south-west is the lack of moisture in the soil, which means that they have to travel particularly slowly. We need to be alive to that issue, as well as to buckling rails. I speak to hoteliers such as the owner of the Berburry hotel, which is quite close to Torquay rail station. She gets international visitors, whose experience on the continent, sadly, is often of a much better-quality rail service. After decades of under-investment, we really need that investment.

I look forward to the Minister’s reflections on the fifth and final piece of the Dawlish puzzle, on how we protect Powderham in the light of the threat I highlighted, and on investment in quality rolling stock for Devon and Cornwall, so that we can face the future with confidence.

15:04

[Joe Morris (Hexham) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure, as always, to serve under your chairship, Ms Jardine. I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase (Josh Newbury) for securing such an important—and, given the weather on Sunday, timely—debate. When the weather turns, the Tyne valley finds out very quickly how well looked after its railway has been over the years. Last Tuesday, for example, 20 services were cancelled across the Northern network because of Storm Boelo and the whole Carlisle to Newcastle line was disrupted.

I grew up in my constituency and know what the morning after a particularly rough bit of weather looks like: people get a message on their app saying “Cancelled” or see that message at the train station, they make an apologetic phone call to their boss or client, and they wait for news at home, in the station coffee shop or just hanging around under the shelter. But this is about far more than just one storm. Extreme weather is no longer the exception. Heavy rain, flooding, landslips, high winds and extreme heat are all hitting the safe and reliable running of services, and climate change is the driving cause, as has been said.

The problem is that our railway was not built for this. Most of our infrastructure is of Victorian origin. Around 90% of Network Rail’s assets in my constituency were installed before the year 2000. Our rails are stressed. We exceeded the standard operating limit of around 30° in 2022. Track has been recorded at 51°. The July 2022 heatwave alone cut performance by 40% to 50% and cost £30 million in lost revenue in a single week. We have seen that replicated every year since. The result is buckled track, sagging wires and failing embankments.

Those are the headlines, but behind each disruption is a personal story. In Haltwhistle, closure of the line turns hospital appointments into an ordeal. In Haydon Bridge or Bardon Mill, it means people potentially losing out on a day’s work. In Corbridge, Riding Mill or Stocksfield, it means commuters being forced on to roads that could be flooded or blocked. In Prudhoe or Wylam, it means people being forced on to a bus that carries a fraction of what a train can. Rural lines like those in my constituency feel it first, and feel it worst. Cities have other routes. In the Tyne valley, when the railway goes, all that is left is the A69, which immediately becomes congested.

I want to add to the weather problem the trains problem. I recently wrote to Northern about the lack of capacity between Hexham and Newcastle and across the west of my constituency, including the absence of extra trains when Newcastle United are playing at home. It is hard to square the aspiration of a modern, passenger-focused railway with the fact that predictable surges in demand are managed by existing timetables. Northern has been candid with me that too much of the fleet is approaching the end of its operational life and needs ever more repair. Those units become unavailable unexpectedly because Northern runs many different types of train and not all are compatible with all routes, which limits its ability to move units around to strengthen services.

I am grateful for that honesty, but thinking it through again, when a storm hits and units fail, there is no spare train and no flexibility. An old fleet and an old network are asked to cope with a climate that neither was designed for. That is what 14 years of putting off tough decisions looks like to rural communities in my constituency, some of which face extensive difficulties even getting to the central train line. In Bellingham, Slaggyford, Knarsdale, Allendale or up in Stamfordham, an unreliable local bus that has been cut by the Morpeth Conservatives often does not arrive on time or at all.

I welcome the Government bringing the railway back into public hands and the new trains programme—the Minister is aware of my enthusiasm for that—but the structures are not resilient. Let me put a few challenges to the Minister. First, we need sustained investment in resilience rather than simply repair. We cannot answer extreme weather with more cancellations and permanent reliance on precautionary speed restrictions. Will he look at longer-term funding for renewals and maintenance so that the embankments, drainage and track are built for the climate that we have now and the one that is coming over the hill?

Secondly, we need safety and reliability together. The choice is not between accepting disruption and taking risks. Train drivers see and tell me of ageing infrastructure and extreme weather at first hand. Their experience must be part of how we plan for the decades ahead. Will the Minister make sure that it is?

Thirdly, we need spare capacity. Will the Minister press Northern on how the new trains programme will give the Tyne valley the flexibility to respond when something goes wrong—and when something goes right, like when there is a full stadium on a Mags or Newcastle Red Bulls match day?

Fourthly, we need a plan for the day if it goes wrong. We need proper replacement services, early and honest information, and a recovery plan in place for rural lines before the storm, rather than my constituency feeling like it is consistently improvised after the fact.

There is a bigger argument too: if we wish to hit our climate goals we need to get more people and more freight on to rail. Domestic transport accounts for 30% of our territorial greenhouse gas emissions and road vehicles represent around 90% of that figure. Rail is a fraction of that. A single freight train could replace up to 129 lorry movements. We cannot ask people to switch to rail and give them a railway that falls over at the first sign of trouble. The people of the Tyne valley and my constituency more broadly are not asking for luxury; they are simply asking for a railway that works when the weather does not.

15:10

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

It is, as always, a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Jardine. I thank the hon. Member for Cannock Chase (Josh Newbury) for securing the debate, which is another example of how he continues to deliver assiduously for his constituents—well done to him.

The events of the past year have given us a brutal wake-up call. We have seen record-breaking heatwaves causing rails to buckle, severe storms bringing down overhead lines and torrential downpours flooding key transport arteries right across the United Kingdom. This is no longer a temporary seasonal inconvenience; it is a permanent disruption to the daily lives of our constituents, and it requires an urgent and systematic response.

I want to give a perspective from Northern Ireland, which the Minister will be glad to hear he has no responsibility for. However, I wish him well; he always gives us helpful responses to the questions that we ask. Northern Ireland MPs fly over here, get the Heathrow Express—or, depending where the flight lands, the Gatwick Express or the docklands light railway—and then take the tube the rest of the way. There are occasions when there are delays on the railway due to obstructions. Sometimes there are people on the Heathrow Express line, and last summer a bus hit a bridge and the Gatwick Express was unable to progress any further until the obstacle had been cleared. There are always problems. That is one of the reasons why travelling is one of those things that I endure—because there is always hassle and there are always delays.

While much of the national debate naturally focuses on major inter-city networks, I want to draw attention to the harsh realities facing my people in Northern Ireland, particularly in my own constituency of Strangford. I want to talk about the delays that happen and how they affect people’s daily lives, social engagements and their ability to have normality. We must look at how infrastructure failures are directly impacting two crucial groups: our children trying to access education, and our hard-working citizens trying to travel to work.

Let us look first at our young people and children who are simply trying to better themselves through education. We have students from across the Ards peninsula and the wider Strangford area who travel every single day to universities and colleges in Belfast and right across the Province to Londonderry. Their only way of getting there, if they do not have a car because that would be too expensive, is the railway. On many occasions now, when the rain comes, it is a biblical downpour, and the impact right away on roads and gullies is incredible.

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the issue now is not just confined to the south and south-east of the United Kingdom, as it may have been 20 or 30 years ago, and that given the increasing warming of our climate, it is imperative that all our devolved institutions, both north and south, need to ensure that they take steps to try to mitigate the problem that we see everyone encountering?

[Jim Shannon]

I thank my hon. Friend for those wise words. He underlines the very issue. When extreme weather hits Northern Ireland, as we have seen with increasingly violent storms and localised flooding, our transport network instantly buckles.

For a student heading from our area to the Magee campus in Coleraine or Londonderry, a single weather-related rail restriction, a flooded track or a missed connection means missing vital lectures, labs and exams. They are fighting against a system where a simple weather warning can completely derail their academic work. We cannot expect our young people to fulfil their educational potential when the physical infrastructure to get them to the lecture hall is entirely unreliable or continually breaks down.

The situation is even more acute for further education college students in my constituency who are travelling south to campuses in Downpatrick. Many of these young people depend entirely on the Strangford lough ferry service to bridge the gap between Portaferry and Strangford village. That ferry is supposed to be a lifeline—a one-mile crossing that replaces what would otherwise be a gruelling 46-mile journey by road. Yet we have repeatedly seen sudden suspensions of the ferry service due to severe storm conditions, high tides and subsequent mechanical strains caused by vessels operating in extreme weather. When the ferry stops, the education of these teenagers stops. Bus substitutions are hastily put in place, but they cannot make up for the hours that are lost. These students arrive at college exhausted and late, or—even worse—they are unable to get there at all. They face attendance penalties through absolutely no fault of their own.

The Minister will probably look at a map and say to me, “Well, Strangford does not have a railway line.” No, it does not, but our workers and our commuters are resourceful. Thousands of my constituents utilise the Belfast to Bangor rail line, which the hon. Member for North Down (Alex Easton) referred to. It is located just 10 minutes away from the edge of my constituency, so it is a good way to get a mainline train into Belfast; it is not too far away and its location means that people do not have to park their car in Belfast. Our workers, jobseekers and commuters drive, get lifts or catch connecting buses to Bangor station every morning to access a wider employment market in Greater Belfast, where the jobs are.

What happens when extreme weather strikes? On the Bangor line, as the hon. Member for North Down said, trees fall and there are leaves on the line; there are always problems. The Bangor line suffers immediate cancellations, or trains terminate early or skip vital stops, such as the City hospital stop or the Grand Central stop.

When the Bangor line fails due to weather-stressed infrastructure, the knock-on effect on Strangford’s workforce is immediate and devastating. It is the low-wage shift workers, the apprentices and the people who do not have the luxury of working from home who suffer the most. They are left stranded on cold platforms, they lose vital wages and on occasion they face disciplinary action from their employers for being late. Someone cannot say every time, “The train is late again today”, and expect it to be a normal excuse. It is the real reason, but repeatedly using it as excuse does not always work out.

[Jess Brown-Fuller (Chichester) (LD)]

It is interesting listening to the hon. Gentleman’s speech and realising the commonalities that we have, even though our constituencies are so far apart, with mine being located on the south coast of England.

A lot of my constituents travel outside the city of Chichester for work; similarly, a lot of people living in Bognor Regis and Portsmouth come into Chichester for work. All these people are encouraged to use public transport, but since extreme weather is rapidly becoming just weather, does he agree that it is incredibly frustrating for people who are constantly being told, “We are sorry for the disruptions, but we are experiencing extreme weather”? On 40 days this year temperatures have reached over 30 degrees. Similarly, leaves on the line can stop trains from running; indeed, the other day swans on the line stopped the trains from running on our arterial railway route. We need to get a grip and ensure that trains can run, so that people can continue to work.

[Jim Shannon]

The hon. Lady has given an incredibly accurate explanation of what happens in her constituency. When we look across the world, we see that Canada has extreme weather—snow in the winter and real warmth in the summer—but they seem to be able to cope with it all right. We must ask ourselves why we cannot adjust or perhaps learn from what Canada does.

I suggest that the social contract is being broken. We are asking people to slog their guts out and go to work every day, yet the state—as the hon. Member for Chichester (Jess Brown-Fuller) suggested—is failing to provide basic, resilient infrastructure to allow them to do so safely and reliably.

I say this respectfully: the national funding allocated for weather resilience must not be hoarded by the Treasury or spent exclusively on major English inter-city routes. We need that investment deployed with absolute urgency into regional infrastructure. We need it to be spent on securing the resilience of the Translink services, on stabilising the vessels on the Strangford ferry service, and on ensuring that vital regional feeder lines, such as the Bangor rail track, are fully weatherproofed against extreme temperatures and flooding.

The Minister probably does this already, but just to have it on the record, I will ask him to engage with the relevant Minister in the Northern Irish Assembly. Will he hold discussions and exchange thoughts and ideas about how we can better learn to deal with the extreme weather—whether the warm summers of 35° to 40° or the bad weather in the wintertime—that means that we are not able to travel in the same way? While exchanging those ideas with the Northern Ireland Assembly Minister, will he commit to resilience funding being released? Let us fix these lines, protect our commuters and ensure that extreme weather stops putting the lives, education and careers of our people on hold.

15:20

[Richard Foord (Honiton and Sidmouth) (LD)]

It is good to see you in the Chair, Ms Jardine. I congratulate the hon. Member for Cannock Chase (Josh Newbury) on securing this debate. It is one that I have tried to secure on a number of occasions, because the west of England line runs through my constituency, passing through the towns of Axminster, Honiton and Feniton. I was struck a moment ago by my hon. Friend the Member for Chichester (Jess Brown-Fuller) describing how extreme weather has become, simply, weather. That was very well put. In this debate, we could talk about not extreme weather but the impact of climate change on our transport infrastructure.

It is good to see the Minister for Local Transport in his place, because he has been fantastic at securing new railway stations for mid-Devon and Somerset at Cullompton and Wellington, respectively. He does an excellent job in his role, and that is why I am pleased to have the opportunity to talk about Liberal Democrat policy as well as the west of England line. The line connects Exeter with London Waterloo and goes via Salisbury. Much of that line, certainly west of Salisbury, is single track. When there is a disruption or delay, that means that the whole timetable gets thrown. Understandably, a lot of residents in east Devon have contacted me about that in the dry hot summers that we have had in the last two years. South Western Railway describes the main consequences of that dry weather as “soil moisture deficit”, which is a euphemism for embankments that are dry. That is largely due to the route sitting on clay. When prolonged heat and drought remove moisture from the soil, the clay shrinks, the embankments move and the track moves, too.

In those conditions, it would be dangerous to carry on as normal. Speed restrictions have to be imposed. We saw the consequences of extreme weather on a railway line that does not have any disruption to the schedule in Lewes earlier this year, when a Southern train derailed. The problem in that case was “track geometry irregularity”, which I think is a euphemism for rails that have bent. In seriousness, I accept that safety has to come first. But we have to acknowledge that while safety is a priority, it is having severe consequences on the people we represent.

I want to consider young people who are trying to build their futures. One person from Awliscombe wrote to me to say that his 17-year-old daughter could no longer get to her apprenticeship for 8 o’clock in the morning, because the only train reaching Exeter at that time had been cancelled. Without any replacement bus service, he and his wife are having to make a 40-mile round trip by car to get their daughter to work. That is not an isolated incident: roughly 550 college students travel on the west of England line to Exeter college. A father from Offwell told me that his daughter, who has just started, is subjected to train cancellations and delays, and often spends two to three hours every day waiting for a train home from Exeter. A mother from Honiton explained how, since both the 7.30 am train and 7.45 am bus have been cancelled, there is no way for students to arrive on time for their 9.45 lectures.

Students are relying on the service to access their further education, but it is also affecting working people. Shelby Gittens is a dental hygienist from All Saints near Axminster. She has been prevented from reaching Exeter reliably before the start of her working day. Due to the delays, her office has had to reschedule her 9 o’clock patients indefinitely until the matter is resolved. Given that Devon is one of the UK’s foremost dental deserts, that is quite a serious consequence for people trying to get dental work in Devon.

[Caroline Voaden (South Devon) (LD)]

Forgive me for being late, but the railway did not want me to be here for the start of this debate. My hon. Friend talks about the impact of delays on the line on working people; we in the west of England are going to be impacted for two years or possibly more by the works at Old Oak Common. For the tiny sum of £12 million, which is just over half of what is being spent every day on HS2, highspeed wi-fi could be put on every one of the 94 trains on the Great Western Railway network. If it was, all those working people like me who get stuck on delayed and slow trains going down to the west of England would not mind an extra 10 or 15 minutes on the journey time, because it would be productive. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government need to fund that project?

[Richard Foord]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. Time is not wasted on a delayed train if there is a good wi-fi connection for the workers onboard, so I recommend that investment in the main line. On the west of England line, which is the poor relation to Great Western, I have heard from constituents who have been trying to get to colleges, schools and businesses, and from patients and families, about the effect it is having on the local economy. Those disruptions often hit the most vulnerable in our society the hardest.

Kathryn Wilkerson from Sidmouth told me that over the course of six journeys to London for work that she made in the summer heat, only one featured working air conditioning. She explained that on multiple occasions when she was on packed trains, she had to pause her journey and get off the train due to dizziness and to avoid fainting from heat exhaustion. Kathryn pointed out that this means that train travel in the heat can be dangerous, and that the rolling stock needs to be updated to adapt to the climate change that we all see.

Students, workers and the vulnerable all tell the same story. People I represent are right to ask why a line of such importance for the network as a whole remains so vulnerable. People can accept that temporary measures may be required because of soil moisture deficit, but this is no longer a temporary measure—it is the second year in a row that a schedule has been introduced for months at a time meaning that trains are only running once every two hours.

Weather-related delays across the country have cost around £370 million over three years from 2023-24, but that is just the narrow economic consequence on the railways, not the wider consequences for all those people whose anecdotes I have described. The Liberal Democrats believe that passengers deserve railways that withstand the climate conditions that we are set to face. Too much of our infrastructure, particularly in the west country, still relies on Victorian earthworks and drainage systems and assets that were not designed for today’s climate—and of course they have been subject to the Beeching cuts. Instead of bringing those facilities into the 21st century, the last Conservative Government left behind a legacy of underinvestment and crumbling infrastructure.

I have corresponded with Ministers in the Department for Transport, not least with Lord Hendy in the other place, about the west of England line. The specific thing that I have sought from Ministers is investment into passing loops on the line. To make an analogy with the road, passing loops are like pulling over to allow an oncoming vehicle to come the other way. I understand from Lord Hendy that if we were to make the case for investment in passing loops in control period 8—the period of 2029 to 2034—we could potentially see them developed at Tisbury, Feniton, Whimple and other places on the west of England line, to enable trains to pull over and to run on a more frequent basis, even when experiencing soil moisture deficit.

What further can the Minister recommend that we do to secure those passing loops in control period 8? More generally, how will the Government accelerate investment in climate resilience so that we can get ahead of the changes we know are coming down the track and make sure that our students, workers and most vulnerable members of society get the transport links they deserve?

15:29

[Mr Richard Holden (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship yet again, Ms Jardine. I congratulate the hon. Member for Cannock Chase (Josh Newbury) on securing the debate.

The challenges posed by extreme weather on our railways are not new. After all, in the early days of British railway innovation, plans could be repeatedly derailed by bad weather. For instance, one of the many challenges with Brunel’s infamous attempts to introduce an atmospheric railway in south Devon was that they repeatedly fell foul of the weather. That part of the country is still acutely impacted by such extremes today, as we have heard from many Members across the House.

Unfortunately, the problems posed by those extremes are not a thing of the past. After a spring and summer in which the performance of our railways has worsened, I commend the hon. Member for proposing this debate. As the Conservatives have repeatedly said—I hope this goes for all sides of the House—the approach to the railways must be evidence-based. Our railways should not be run according to a dogmatic ideology, but according to what serves the travelling public best.

Although Britain has one of the safest railways in the world, we cannot remain complacent. As we recently saw in Spain, rail accidents can have the most tragic consequences and we must do everything possible to avoid them. One approach we need to take involves improving the resilience of our railways—making them much more effective at coping with whatever weather conditions we experience. Given that the railways are performing worse now under almost every metric, that issue is all the more important.

Data for the first six ORR periods of the 2026-27 financial year showed a deterioration in performance across the vast majority of operators. That included delays on services such as South Western, London North Eastern Railway, Southeastern, c2c and Greater Anglia, many of which were performing much better under previous operators. That is reflected in the cost to the taxpayer. According to the DFT’s own numbers, South Western Railway spent £8.25 million on payouts to rail users under its delay repay scheme, despite the fact that fewer than half of eligible passengers actually claim compensation, meaning that that figure should be at least twice as high.

Possibly most worryingly, given the terms of this debate and the importance of addressing extreme weather, Network Rail-attributable delay minutes increased across every region of the UK except Scotland. That means that more delays for passengers were directly attributable to the organisation that manages infrastructure and which is likely to play a leading role within Great British Railways once it is fully established.

As the hon. Member for Cannock Chase mentioned, the impact that this issue can have on the freight sector is incredibly important. We need to fully understand some of the clauses in the Railways Bill and the impact they could have on what we want to see, which is greater numbers of freight trains taking lorries off the road where appropriate. However, freight companies need to have certainty that that will happen and that they will get properly compensated if there are issues with the network.

The changes we have seen are not small; they are significant. In the southern region in the last few time periods, Network Rail was responsible for over 50% more delays in minutes per 1,000 train miles than during the first few months of 2024. It is worth noting that, considering Network Rail’s comments about the challenges it faced this summer. If the governing manager of our rail infrastructure is facing severe problems with the weather, how can we have confidence that it will be a core part of GBR and manage the process of full nationalisation effectively?

I recognise that a number of these concerns have been raised previously and reiterated today. For example, I understand that some of the Lib Dem Members who spoke today have raised the need to reconsider the current rail stress temperatures, given the much wider range of temperatures we are now experiencing across increasingly hot summers. Furthermore, more modern railway electrification infrastructure is much needed. It needs to be more resilient than the older and, as hon. Members have pointed out, sometimes inappropriate equipment installed over the decades. Given the Government’s cancellation of projects such as the midland main line electrification, it is unclear how they will effectively upgrade the older, less resilient infrastructure. We all acknowledge the costs involved in making significant changes to increase stress temperatures, but the Government must explain how we can maintain our railway in a cost-effective and targeted way. The previous reviews of extreme weather highlighted a clear need to better establish where the problems are and to target the root causes. However, to achieve that, Network Rail must embed cost control into its approach so that its resources are used as effectively as possible across what is a large network.

I share other Members’ love for our environment and acknowledge the need to protect it, but we must ensure that money is allocated to our railways properly and used as effectively as possible. The question is whether Network Rail’s current projects make the best use of such funds. Ministers have unfortunately given less than clear answers to some of my written parliamentary questions about biodiversity projects, so it is sometimes hard to understand how the money allocated to biodiversity is being directed, and whether it is being used in the best way to protect the infrastructure that our constituents across the country rely on.

We have heard from Network Rail about its innovative use of technology to achieve its aims of managing such projects, but does the Minister think that that technology and investment would be better directed towards ensuring that our infrastructure continues to operate successfully during periods of extreme weather? For example, Network Rail uses technology such as thermal imaging to examine issues around earthworks. East Midlands Railway reported savings of about £100,000 from doing that. However, the priority must surely be to ensure that those tools are always directed to improving resilience when facing weather conditions such as those we saw this summer.

Furthermore, in adapting to the changing causes of weather-related delays, we must consider how to build and maintain our infrastructure more cost effectively. Wherever possible, that means removing unnecessary regulations that make it more difficult to carry out the enhancements needed to make our railways more resilient. We cannot allow unnecessary bureaucratic regulations to stand in the way of measures designed to improve the railway’s resilience to the extreme weather conditions we are increasingly facing.

That can be achieved only with funding. The Government’s responses to written parliamentary questions on this matter as recently as September referred to £2.6 billion. However, the official control period 7 delivery plan, published in spring 2024, set out a

“step change in our approach to mitigating the impact of extreme weather…targeting £2.8bn of investment to protect our most susceptible assets, in particular earthworks and drainage to support reliability.”

Will the Minister explain the discrepancy between those numbers? If he cannot do so today, will he write to me?

The summary of regional plans for 2024 to 2029 set out clear spending commitments across all regions amounting to £2.79 billion. Is the discrepancy due to different classifications of maintenance spending, or have cuts to the resilience budgets led to a reduction in the allocated spending? Given that £2.6 billion is obviously less than £2.8 billion, that we have seen significant inflation in the rail sector and that the majority of the spending was earmarked for earthworks and drainage, is the Minister confident that all the necessary money for those projects is being delivered? That is what Members have been asking about today on behalf of their constituents.

The Government’s decision to indefinitely pause phase 5 of the south west rail resilience programme is directly linked to funding and the priorities that they have chosen to pursue. Although we obviously recognise that there are tough decisions to be made on spending, it would be helpful if the Minister could clarify precisely how much the Government are spending and whether they expect other significant projects in this space to be halted.

To reiterate the points that were made at the start of the debate, when dealing with extreme weather the Government must focus all their efforts on works that are most cost-effective and deliver for our constituents. Having wasted money on GBR signage, obscure bureaucratic projects and other ideologically driven activities, the Government need to demonstrate that they are prioritising things that matter to our constituents. We understand that our railways are experiencing a different set of challenges resulting from extreme weather conditions, but the Government must adapt accordingly. Otherwise, they will fail to deliver on the targets that are there to support our constituents.

15:39

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Simon Lightwood)]

It is always a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Ms Jardine. I begin by expressing my sincere condolences to the families and loved ones of those who lost their lives in the tragic train crash in Toledo, Spain, on 28 October and to all those affected. I know that the UK rail accident investigation branch was quick to offer its expertise and support to its counterparts in Spain in the aftermath of the tragedy. I also want to acknowledge the recent derailments at Lewes and Wickford and the collision at Bedford over the summer. My thoughts are with everyone affected by those incidents. I am sure that Members from across the House will join me in paying tribute to the emergency services and all those involved in the responses.

Those incidents are a reminder of our responsibility to remain vigilant, learn from what has happened and maintain an unwavering focus on safety. As the relevant independent authorities continue their investigations, it is important that we avoid speculation and allow their work to conclude before drawing any conclusions about causes.

I am pleased to speak about the impact of extreme weather on train services. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase (Josh Newbury) on securing the debate, and I thank all other Members for their contributions. If I do not manage to address specific points, I assure Members that the Rail Minister will have heard them, and they can always follow up in writing.

The effects of extreme weather on the railways are felt not as abstract statistics, as my by-election twin, the hon. Member for Honiton and Sidmouth (Richard Foord), said. This is about not just statistics but missed connections, disrupted working days, uncertainty for passengers and freight, and the impacts on local economies and customers. Communities need a railway that is safe and reliable and able to recover quickly when conditions deteriorate.

[Markus Campbell-Savours (Penrith and Solway) (Lab)]

In Cumbria, we fully appreciate how disruptive bad weather can be, and we have quite a lot of experience of it, but we do not appreciate why bad weather in Scotland can mean that trains heading north on the west coast main line terminate in Preston, which is nearly an hour away from Penrith and even further away from Carlisle. Will the Minister commit to writing to Avanti and Network Rail to determine why that is and consider solutions that might get my constituents home a bit quicker?

[Simon Lightwood]

My hon. Friend raises a really interesting question. I do not know the answer, but I will make sure I speak to the Rail Minister and see what answers we can get for my hon. Friend.

This summer brought the challenges we are discussing into sharp focus. The UK experienced five widespread heatwaves between May and August. In June, the Met Office issued a rare red extreme heat warning. During the most severe conditions, on 24 and 25 June, passengers were advised to make only essential journeys in affected areas, including the west midlands. Services continued to run, but safety required reduced speeds and amended timetables. That meant longer journeys and a greater risk of delays, cancellations and late changes.

My hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase is right to highlight the experience in his constituency. This summer, heat reduced Chase line services, while intense rainfall flooded the railway between Hednesford and Rugeley and forced trains to terminate at Hednesford. Further storms disrupted services in October. These events reinforce the need for better preparations, including drainage, targeted investment in resilience and strong local partnership working. Network Rail has produced a weather resilience and climate change adaptation plan for each of our regions, and those plans indicate where investment may be needed during hot weather and how issues can be addressed.

The first duty of the railway is, of course, to keep passengers and staff safe. Speed restrictions, targeted inspections and temporary closures can be really frustrating, but they are needed to ensure a safe railway. The task is to make those decisions earlier and more precisely, communicate them clearly and restore the service as quickly as conditions allow.

The industry has drawn practical lessons from summer 2026, including preparing earlier, focusing on the greatest risks, planning for prolonged heat, and making decisions sooner. Operationally, that means acting as one railway, using restrictions in a targeted way, building recovery into the response and adapting quickly as evidence changes. The Railways Bill will establish Great British Railways, which will integrate operations and infrastructure in regional routes to ensure that they act as one railway. In the meantime, the rail industry has established a climate change programme co-chaired by Network Rail and Department for Transport Operator Limited to provide strategic direction, align the industry and monitor delivery.

Preparation is not confined to summer, nor are climate risks confined to heat and the consequential moisture and soil deficit in many areas. The developing El Niño is expected to increase the chances of wetter, stormy conditions across the UK this autumn and in early winter, with stronger winds and increased risks of heavy rainfall and flooding. Colder spells are also possible. The railway is therefore preparing for a range of conditions using drones, specialist treatment trains and autumn forecasts, while managing vulnerable trees, planning contingency timetables, monitoring conditions in real time and deploying winter equipment to keep passengers moving safely.

As well as operational preparedness, we need to look to the future. Summers such as the one we experienced this year will become increasingly common. As was said, extreme weather has become the weather. The changing climate means that resilience cannot simply be something that we consider after extreme weather strikes. It needs to be built into the everyday decisions we make about how the transport system is maintained, operated and funded. That is why the Department for Transport launched its climate adaptation strategy for transport in December 2025, setting out our vision for a transport system that is safe, reliable and resilient to a changing climate.

Importantly, the strategy is about turning that ambition into practical change, supporting the transport system to prepare for the impacts of climate change by setting the strategic direction, strengthening the evidence base and embedding adaptation into planning and decision making. That approach is already being put into practice on the railway. Network Rail is pioneering work on adaptation planning through its adaptation pathways so that investment can be prioritised and staged as risks change.

Publicly owned train operators have for the first time also developed weather resilience and climate adaptation plans looking at climate risks across the railway, not only in respect of infrastructure, but to staff and customer welfare too. For example, working air con is equally important. Just yesterday, the Department for Transport published the first transport resilience strategy to provide strategic direction to improve the resilience of the transport sector and ensure that resilience principles are embedded in decision making and planning. The hon. Members for Strangford (Jim Shannon) and for East Londonderry (Mr Campbell) will be pleased to know that as part of that work, we are setting up a four nations transport resilience group.

Looking ahead, Great British Railways will address resilience across track and train as one system, while the long-term rail strategy will highlight climate resilience and adaptation as a clear priority, building on the £2.9 billion being invested between 2024 and 2029. That has been invested in activity but also technology to improve resilience to extreme weather and climate change.

[Steve Darling]

A few months ago, Network Rail met me and other south-west MPs who are here today and told us that it is occasionally acceptable to close the Dawlish rail line. Does the Minister believe that it is acceptable?

[Simon Lightwood]

I will come on to talk specifically about the issues that the hon. Gentleman raised. All endeavours are being made and a great deal of funding has gone in to make that track as resilient as possible. I do not think that anybody wants to suspend services through that area, but unfortunately there will be instances where that may have to be done. The investment that has put in has made it more resilient; we saw that during the latest storms, when the line was reopened the day after its closure.

My hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth (Jayne Kirkham) and the hon. Member for Torbay talked about south-west rail resilience. I think that more than £165 million has been invested through the south-west rail resilience programme, including a new seawall, a rockfall shelter at Parson’s tunnel to Teignmouth and major cliff stabilisation work. As I just said, the value of that investment was demonstrated during the storms at the start of this year. This year also saw Cornwall’s worst ever rainfall totals, but the new seawall performed as designed, helping to protect the infrastructure from major damage and allowing the line to reopen the very next day.

Phase 5 of the resilience programme was not funded as part of the 2025 spending review. We are continuing to fund investigative work on that section of the route. Network Rail is currently undertaking a drainage trial to remove water from the cliffs, as well as further ground investigation. That will give National Rail the more detailed data that it needs for longer term solutions. All the monitoring equipment that is installed in those areas of the cliff between Parson’s tunnel and Teignmouth will help to provide a quick response when triggered. My hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Joe Morris) also mentioned Northern; it is procuring, I think, 450 new trains due in 2031. I appreciate that feels like a long time away but it is also looking at shorter term options to improve capacity.

I assure my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase and hon. Members throughout the House that this Government recognise both the immediate disruption experienced by passengers and the longer term challenge facing our railway. In a single season, Cannock Chase has seen the effect of heat, intense rainfall and storms. We will continue to work with Network Rail, train operators and local partners to learn from those events, improve drainage and operational preparedness, target investment where risk is greatest, and give passengers clearer information. Extreme weather cannot be prevented but its consequences can be better anticipated, managed and reduced. That is how we will secure a safer, more reliable and more resilient railway for Cannock Chase and for communities across the country.

15:51

[Josh Newbury]

I thank all hon. Members who contributed to this afternoon’s debate, either through interventions or speeches. I have found it very enjoyable, not because of the litany of examples of disruption we have heard from across the country but because of the richness of experiences with which hon. Members have come here today to speak up for their constituents. We heard many interventions in which Members highlighted particular constituency concerns, including from the hon. Members for Leicester South (Shockat Adam), for Woking (Mr Forster), for West Dorset (Edward Morello), for Chichester (Jess Brown-Fuller) and for South Devon (Caroline Voaden).

I was interested to hear about the archaeological endeavours in Rugeley of the hon. Member for Ely and East Cambridgeshire (Charlotte Cane). We will have to find her site and have her back to repeat that. She is right to raise her constituent’s problems in travelling in and out of London as well as within Cambridgeshire, and I support her calls for investment in her line, even if it is just after for my line.

My hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth (Jayne Kirkham) rightly highlighted the human consequences of disruption, particularly in Cornwall, as well as the fact that big pots of money have gone to elsewhere in the country, but Cornwall, where there is just the one line, has missed out. She is right to raise that as well as the lack of alternatives such as flights, many of which are being cut too. She highlighted the issues at Dawlish, to which the Minister and the hon. Member for Torbay (Steve Darling) referred. He is right that the real enemy we are facing in this battle is climate change.

The hon. Gentleman was also right to speak about the risks further up the line at Powderham. He mentioned ageing rolling stock, as did my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Joe Morris) who drew personal experience, having grown up in his constituency, and the fact that so much of the infrastructure in his part of the world is getting very old now. He rightly highlighted the disruption around major events, which I think underlined the fact that these disruptions can affect our sporting, hospitality and leisure industries as well as us individually as passengers.

The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), present and making an excellent contribution to the debate, as always, despite the lack of a train line in his constituency boundaries, was right to highlight the experiences of his constituents who use the Bangor line and the importance of resilient services going into Belfast, which the hon. Member for North Down (Alex Easton) also mentioned. I thank him for highlighting the issues for our young people, whose opportunities are often limited by travel disruption. The hon. Member for East Londonderry (Mr Campbell) reminded us that transport worries are spreading right across Northern Ireland, and of the need for cross-border collaboration, which I think is true right across the British Isles.

The hon. Member for South Devon made a really important point around train wi-fi. She is absolutely right: we face a lot of productivity issues in this country, and if people were able to work while they were stuck on trains, that would go some way towards addressing that problem. I commend her for the campaigning she is doing, although it is a road issue rather than rail, around the A379 at Slapton Sands. Her constituency is one that my family and I visit every year to go on holiday, and when we were down there this year I was struck by the explanations on hoardings of businesses affected by the washing away of the road and the immense storm they had at Torcross. I was also struck by her explanation of the work that she is doing as an assiduous constituency MP to get those issues resolved. I really wish her all the best with that campaign.

I finish the debate by once again thanking hon. Members. I am sure we will all continue to talk about this disruption, which we hope will be resolved soon. I thank everybody for bringing their stories to the debate today.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the impact of extreme weather on train services.

15:55

Sitting suspended.