West Anglia Rail Line

Debate between Bob Stewart and Lord Haselhurst

Wednesday 11th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Sir Alan Haselhurst]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who has been another staunch ally in the fight for a better deal for regular passengers on the line. I agree that that is another example of how our service has fallen below the standards, which have been raised in certain other parts of the country. In terms of statistics, it is possible to argue overall that a higher performance rating has been achieved, but when the lapses occur, they are very serious indeed.

I could add to what my hon. Friend has said by describing my experience this morning. At the Audley End ticket office there are two counters. Both were closed, with a notice up to say that the one person who was in on this particular morning would be back at 9.45, which was one minute after the departure of the train to London. The rumour was that the ticket agent was having a break, but that meant that there were no tickets available to purchase except from one of the machines on the platform, and those machines are not flexible in what they can offer—they can only provide fairly simple fares. It would certainly appear to be a shambles that we do not have a proper standard of service in that way.

As I have said, there is a new train operator and a new airport owner, and there is seemingly a new franchise policy because when my right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet spoke in response to my Adjournment debate in 2011 she suggested that good times would come when we had new longer franchises, but I am not sure that that policy still holds; that may have now changed to having rather shorter franchises. I would be interested to know what my hon. Friend the Minister has to say on that subject.

Indeed, in addition to those other new circumstances, we have a new Minister. In fact he is the second since the previous debate. [Interruption.] Yes, I have no doubt at all that he is an excellent Minister, but he will be judged in part by the nature of his reply to me and my hon. Friends.

What is absolutely incontrovertible is that there has been no investment in the line. That is the problem.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

I am very interested in this line because I have been to Cambridge four times in the last year, and on two occasions I had to take a very long journey on buses. My right hon. Friend says the line is poor, and that seems to be borne out by my own empirical experience as a Member of Parliament from south of the river.

[Sir Alan Haselhurst]

I am sorry that my hon. Friend was inconvenienced on those occasions, but that illustrates a further problem that we experience on the line. I hope that the problem did not prevent him from collecting the honorary degrees that he was no doubt going to Cambridge for.

I might have suggested that not much has been happening, but in fact I suspect that things are now stirring, although not necessarily in a helpful way. The Mayor of London has shown great interest in acquiring control over part of this railway. More disturbingly, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State seems to have given assent in principle to that taking place. The Mayor would then have control over the services to Enfield Town, Chingford and so on, although not further up the main line between Tottenham Hale and Broxbourne. That is interesting, because one of the justifications for bringing together the services out of Liverpool Street in a single franchise was that it would make the operability of Liverpool Street more effective. If a second franchise holder were to be introduced, that could start to complicate matters in what is already a very constricted station.

My next point is that, to run those services, the Mayor will need some rolling stock, and I suspect that a portion of the rolling stock currently being operated flexibly by Greater Anglia would be painted a different colour and handed over to the Mayor. It is not clear, however, what would replace that rolling stock. I regard this as an aggressive, acquisitive policy on the part of the Mayor. I am not denying that it could be good for the people he serves, but it would have an adverse effect on the people served by me and by my hon. Friends the Members for Hertford and Stortford (Mr Prisk) and for Harlow (Robert Halfon) and others. Also, it cannot be right if there is to be no investment in the track. The situation would become altogether different if we had four-tracking. It might then be possible to accept that the two operators could work without the one interfering with the other.

A further disturbing matter, from the point of view of railway passengers, is that Stansted airport is starting to expand again in terms of passenger numbers, and I imagine that, under the dynamic new ownership of the Manchester Airports Group, those numbers will continue to rise over the next few years. That will build demand to a point at which we will look back on the history and say to Ministers, “Excuse us, but we would now like to have back those trains that you allowed to run on the Cambridge line to serve the commuters, so that the original intention of having 12-car trains going to the airport can be fulfilled.”

I have no particular complaint about there being a decent rail service to the airport; indeed, I am in favour of it. However, it could pose a second threat to the fleet that is available to Greater Anglia. The question would then arise: where are the substitute carriages to come from? I am advised by Abellio that there are no trains that can obviously be cascaded down to us. We would, I suppose, be grateful for second-hand trains, but we have been living with second-hand trains for far too long anyway and we deserve a full fleet of new trains.

A report has appeared recently from an organisation called London First. It puts forward what, on the face of it, seems a reasonable proposition. I replied initially to Baroness Valentine, the chairperson of the organisation, to say that I welcomed the contribution to the debate, and that anything that brought attention to the needs of the line was to be welcomed. But the more one examined the proposal, the more one became aware that the clue was in the title—London First; the approach was just that, and it would not be to the advantage of those of us who are further away from London and rely on services on that line. London First is proposing a third track over a short distance north of Tottenham Hale, as much as anything to facilitate services to Stratford. In principle, I see nothing wrong with that, but the proposal is not going to be to the benefit of the passengers we represent in ever-increasing numbers. It is a diversion from the real need of the line, which is to get four-tracking so that flexibility can be achieved.