Ely: Railway Upgrade

Daniel Zeichner Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd December 2025 Commons Chamber

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

I draw Members’ attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests as a district councillor for East Cambridgeshire.

The outline business case for the Ely area capacity enhancement scheme shows that for every £1 invested, there will be a return of £4.89—so you may wonder, Madam Deputy Speaker, why we need a half-hour debate on what is so obviously a great scheme. Yet successive Governments have failed to deliver the scheme. There have been feasibility studies, consultations and task groups aplenty; funding was even promised just in time for the 2024 election, but we could all see at the time that the many promised schemes totalled far more than the money available, so I was not surprised when the incoming Labour Government acknowledged that the outgoing Conservative Government had not put funding in place for the project. The sum of £500 million is a lot of money to find, but it would deliver almost a quarter of a billion pounds in return, so I hope that the Government will commit to the funding soon.

The outline business case was submitted in March 2022, after which progress was held at a red signal, where it remains to this day. I was disappointed that the Ely junction project was not one of the projects progressed in the spending review, but I have been heartened by the Department of Transport’s responses to my written questions, in which Ministers recognise the undeniable benefits of the scheme. The Ely area capacity enhancement scheme would upgrade the railway to allow more trains to run through Ely, to improve connectivity and reliability for passenger services and to meet the demand for more rail freight between the port of Felixstowe, the west midlands and the north.

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

The hon. Member is making an important speech, and I strongly support what she is doing. Would she agree with me that the enthusiasm for East West Rail now makes the case for doing the works on Ely junction even stronger?

[Charlotte Cane]

I absolutely agree. This gives us a real opportunity to sort out quite a lot of network issues in Cambridgeshire. I would be delighted if we could resolve them all; that would make a significant difference to rail in the area.

The scheme would support sustainable, long-term economic growth. The upgraded junction would increase resilience in our transport network. There is currently a single lead junction, which means that a failure in that section has the effect of practically stopping all rail traffic. Without the upgrade, if there is a failure, the other Peterborough track keeps working for a while, but the other lines, including Ely’s, quickly fill up with stuck trains. Ely station is beautiful and the staff are great, but it is still frustrating to see the notices of delayed and cancelled trains building up as we wait for our own delayed train. Progressing the upgrade would allow us to strengthen the resilience of this network and mitigate the risk of any future bottlenecks.

The environmental benefit of the Ely junction upgrade is clear. Through upgrading rail freight capacity and increasing the number of journeys possible, we can take tens of thousands of freight journeys off the road and put them on to rail. Fewer lorry journeys mean not only less congestion, but fewer road accidents. Provisional figures for the first six months of this year show that there were 4,116 road casualties who were occupants of lorries—almost one accident involving a lorry every hour—and I am sad to say that 42 of those were fatal. Taking these lorries off the road can only improve safety, given the clear danger to their drivers and other road users.