Wessex Route Study (Passenger Capacity)

Ben Bradshaw Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd December 2014 Westminster Hall

[Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)]

I congratulate the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Maria Miller) on securing the debate, which is very timely in the light of the document that was published earlier this week, or perhaps last week, if I have got the timing right. However, the principal reason why I wanted to speak in the debate is that when I received my copy of the document, it took me some time to find any reference in it to anything west of Salisbury.

As you will be aware, Mr Streeter, historically this was the main line, as far as Exeter, to the south-west. It was certainly the fastest and most direct one. It is only in relatively modern railway times, since the Great Western line took over as the principal route, that it has fallen into decline. However, with the renaissance of the rail industry that the right hon. Lady mentioned, it faces similar pressures to railways all over the country. It faces similar and very welcome increases in passenger numbers, and that is not just about people travelling between Exeter and Waterloo. This line is a favourite of retired people and students, because it has rather competitive pricing compared with the First Great Western line. That is an element of competition that I am sure everyone here agrees can only be a good thing. Although the journey times are a little longer as a rule, people can get cheaper prices, so it is a very popular line, not just with people for whom it is convenient—those living in the constituency of the right hon. Member for North West Hampshire (Sir George Young), who may be speaking in a few minutes—but with people from Exeter and people visiting Exeter from London and the south-east.

The line is a vital lifeline on the sadly increasing number of occasions when our main line, the Great Western line, is incapacitated, usually through some act of nature at the moment. In the past two or three winters, we have lost our connectivity on the main line for considerable periods and, as you will know, Mr Streeter, that has had a very damaging impact on the economy of the south-west. The alternative rail access provided by the Wessex line from Exeter to Waterloo has been incredibly valuable, although there was a week or so last winter when we had no connectivity at all because the line between Yeovil and Exeter was also blocked. I cannot remember whether that was because of flooding, landslides or trees, but the route suffers from resilience and vulnerability problems, which I shall discuss in a moment. I remember one famous weekend when I was coming back from my constituency and I was literally stranded. I always take my bicycle on the train between Exeter and London, and I had to put it in a taxi from Exeter all the way to Yeovil to get to the nearest train station. That, admittedly, was a rare event, but it helps to explain the sense of vulnerability and isolation that we have in the south-west, with these two fantastic but ageing and in-need-of-investment rail connections.

We can find one or two mentions of the line west of Salisbury in the document, which are welcome, but I hope that the Minister, when he sums up, will be able to reassure me that justified as all the investment is in the south-eastern portion of the line, east of Salisbury, this line will also receive investment. It performs a vital function, not just for long-distance travellers but increasingly for commuters in the Exeter area. We have growing and thriving communities. We have a new town, Cranbrook, just outside Exeter, which is getting a new station. We have growing villages and market towns—Feniton, Honiton and others—in east Devon and they have irregular services at the moment. In some cases, that makes it incredibly difficult for people who would like to use the train to commute to and from Exeter for work to do so.

Devon county council, along with the other local and regional partners, has come up with a visionary transport vision for the area, including something called the Devon metro, which would involve significant improvements and upgrading of the access routes in and out of Exeter by rail. This route is one of the most important. I do not have the figures with me, but I would not be at all surprised if a large number of people commuted every day to Exeter from the growing and thriving settlements in east Devon, but they have, as I said, very irregular services, which tend to finish early in the evening and do not always start early enough in the morning.

I shall explain what we desperately need on the this bit of railway west of Salisbury, which over time has been reduced largely to single track. That is the main problem. With a single-track railway, we cannot run services as frequently as we can on a double-track railway; we need passing places. There are a few passing places, but not enough; we need more. Just a few more passing places at strategic points would enable this railway to run trains more quickly and regularly. At the moment, it is difficult to combine a regular service from Exeter to Waterloo with local stopping services servicing the villages and towns that I have referred to, but we need both. With the huge growth in passenger numbers that we have seen in recent years, and which are projected to grow even more in future, and with all the public transport policy from all political parties urging and encouraging people to use public transport where possible, not just for climate change and pollution reasons but for reasons of chronic congestion in cities such as mine, we need those rail routes to function properly as commuter routes, as well as the leisure and long-distance routes that operate at the moment as an alternative to the Great Western line.

I say to the Minister, “Please, when you respond, don’t ignore the south-west.” I say that as chairman of the all-party group on rail in the south-west. The document unfortunately does not mention anything west of Salisbury in its opening pages or headlines. We have to look rather hard in the 180-plus pages to find anything at all about the line west of Salisbury. It is a very important line that has a great future.

I would like some reassurance that the proposals in the document will help Devon and enable Devon county council to deliver its vision for a Devon metro public transport system around Exeter. It is a fantastic, sustainable vision for transport around Exeter, and it is exactly the sort of thing that a forward-looking, visionary Minister, such as the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr Hayes), should support. I look forward to his addressing it in his response.

--- Later in debate ---

[Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)]

Like other Members, I congratulate my neighbour, my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Maria Miller), on securing this debate. It is about an issue that she and I have discussed more times than we care to remember, and I have a feeling that we will talk about it many more times over the months and years ahead.

Today’s debate is a great success, not least given my right hon. Friend’s brilliant speech. Often in this House, we talk about things that are declining and problems in this country, but debates about the railways start with a great success story. As my other neighbour, my right hon. Friend the Member for North West Hampshire (Sir George Young), correctly said, South West Trains is the victim of its own success, and that could be said of the railway industry across our country.

I do not wish to speak for too long, although time seems to be on our side—I want to hear from the Minister—but I want to make a couple of points. My right hon. Friend said that we must watch first class carefully. I completely agree; I have thought that for a long time. We have all seen surplus capacity in the first-class carriages. The TOCs need to watch that closely. I have often wondered whether the idea of first-class provision on our railways is an anachronism in the modern age, but maybe that is a debate for another day.

For my constituents travelling to and from Winchester, the issue is all about capacity. I have stations at Micheldever, Shawford and Chandler’s Ford in my constituency, but the vast majority of travellers, some 4.5 million a year, use Winchester railway station. Thousands commute from Winchester to London, primarily, each day.

I echo others in mentioning some of the success stories for my station and my service during this Parliament, which have been significant. A £3.5 million scheme brought the new decked car park to the station. I say to my neighbour, my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke, that it is very good and very welcome, but we should watch the lighting inside, which has to be right or there will be serious and legitimate safety concerns. We have excellent new cycling facilities. As a vice-chair of the all-party group on cycling, I was pleased to see those facilities come online.

We have a fantastic new footbridge at our railway station. When I became a Member of Parliament, people had to get taxicabs from one side of the station to the other, which was ludicrous. We now have wi-fi on many services leaving Winchester, which is brilliant, and we have made real steps on late-night safety around our railway station with the opening of a ticket office so that people do not have to go through the dark side gate. South West Trains—I do not apologise for pressing it again on this—knows that it needs to do better on that.

I am a regular commuter, and I receive feedback from constituents. The reliability of services on South West Trains is very good, and I get good feedback from people in that respect. That is not the issue on which I want to focus today. As others have said, the issue is with the lack of seats on the 6.31 am, the 6.48 am, the 7.5 am and the notorious 7.18 am—standing with one’s face in an armpit is probably one of the best outcomes for which one can hope on that service—out of Winchester into London. That is what really hurts my constituents.

A constituent who knew I was hoping to speak in this debate sent me a note saying that the key issue is obviously overcrowding on the early-morning services into Waterloo: “With ticket costs increasing year on year, and with little discernible increase in seating capacity, insult is being added to injury.” The Wessex route study, which I welcome very much, confirms that and neatly illustrates the current chronic undercapacity of services from Winchester. He said, “This is not news, Mr Brine,” and I completely agree. He talks about adding insult to injury—a standard season ticket between Winchester and London costs £5,500 a year, which is, next to their mortgage, the second biggest outgoing for many of my constituents. They are entitled to a seat for that money.

[Mr Bradshaw]

Is the hon. Gentleman aware that First Great Western has reduced the number of first-class carriages on its trains from three to two? That is a very good idea, although were South West Trains to follow suit, would he urge it not to lose the only quiet carriage in first class? I never go there myself because I am always in standard class, but I have had complaints from a number of people in the south-west who now have to put up with a lot of noise, as well as paying quite high fares.

[Steve Brine]

The right hon. Gentleman and I have spoken many times about some of these issues on the all-party group on cycling. Yes, the number of carriages should be reduced where there is a surplus, but I was making a wider point about whether it is morally correct to have first-class and second-class carriages on the railways.

On the subject of the so-called quiet carriage, some of my constituents—and probably some of the right hon. Gentleman’s constituents—would find the idea of a quiet carriage laughable. Even though there are big signs on the windows saying that the carriage is a quiet carriage, many people seem not to notice. I have heard many mobile phone conversations in the quiet carriage during my travels, so the railways may need to do some education work.

I was talking about the cost of a standard season ticket for my constituents, which is huge. It actually costs more to get a season ticket from Winchester to Waterloo than it does from Southampton to Waterloo, even though we are nearer London. South West Trains is well aware of that issue, and I wish it would address the situation. Part-time season tickets are a nut that we have failed to crack, and I would be interested if the Minister had a comment on that issue. Smart ticketing is a coming issue, and I believe I am right in saying that it requires some sort of change at parliamentary level. Perhaps the Minister will clarify that situation.

High demand for peak commuter services to Waterloo from all our constituencies is, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke said, expected to increase dramatically over the years ahead. She coherently set out the housing development in her area; in my area our local plan, which is almost complete, is for 12,500 houses in the district over the next 20 years. Two thousand houses at the Barton Farm site, which is but half a mile from Winchester railway station, have been given the go-ahead in the past few years. I bitterly opposed that development. Yes, there will be a new primary school on the site, and there will be other infrastructure improvements from such a big development, but a brand new mainline railway station will not be built for my constituents as a result of that development, so something has to change and something has to give.

Southampton airport is a very short train ride from my constituency. Passengers going to and from that airport come through my railway station, and air passenger projections are only expected to grow. People relocating from London to places such as Winchester are welcome, and we enjoy having them. They come because of the “cheaper” housing in Winchester—everything is relative in life, but housing is certainly cheaper than in west London. They come to Winchester for the good schools, the great quality of life and the fantastic Christmas market that we have right now, but they want to commute back into London. They have every right to expect that they should be able to do that, and many contact me to say that they are horrified at the cost and the standing that they have to endure.

There are things that we can do, and others have mentioned some of them. The national infrastructure plan published yesterday has some very good announcements for my area. As I said in the House, the improvements to junction 9 of the M3, on which I campaigned for many years, are incredibly welcome. The smart motorways technology around junctions 10 and 14 are also a welcome investment in our motorway infrastructure for my constituents. Credit to the Minister and his Department for doing that. I thank him on behalf of my constituents.

There are things that we can do as a city. One of the core corporate priorities of Winchester city council is to reduce the daily outward migration from the city for work, which is why the council is so keen to redevelop Station approach, to keep top-quality employers such as Denplan and to attract other big, quality employers, all of which reduces the necessity for people to travel to London every day. It is important that should happen. Those are all things that we can do, but we cannot control all of them. The issue is about capacity.

The key constraints for passenger services are highlighted in the study, which states:

“the layout of the Waterloo throat restricts the number of services that can access the platforms at any one time; the layout at Clapham Junction does not allow all trains that currently pass through the station to stop there”.

The study continues:

“A further constraint on the ability…to accommodate passenger growth is the capacity of some station car parks”.

We have gone some way in that respect, but many other places have not yet done so.

Capacity is the issue. I admit that I was sceptical about the local enterprise partnerships, but they are part of the solution, as is Hampshire county council. Winchester Action on Climate Change sent me a brief ahead of today’s debate and, judging by its name, it is keen on railway travel, as am I. The organisation makes some positive contributions, and it will be responding to the route study in due course.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke talked about a significant plan of investment, which is exactly what is needed—now really is the moment for that. Ahead of this debate one of my constituents said to me, “A lot of the discussion points in the Wessex route plan are very big-picture and will take a long time, cost a lot of money and need a lot of political and stakeholder buy-in. What can we do in the short term?” I place one point on the record for the Minister’s consideration—I know he likes to muse on these things. As a temporary solution, could we make greater use of Victoria station for trains coming in from the Wessex area? I leave that idea for him to ponder.

You will be pleased to know, Mr Streeter, that I have nearly finished. First, however, I have some questions for the Minister. I know that St Pancras and all the investment there are very much on Ministers’ radars, but is Waterloo on the Minister’s radar? I do not know whether it is, but it needs to be.