Croydon Area Remodelling Scheme

Peter Lamb Excerpts

Tuesday 17th March 2026 Westminster Hall

[Peter Lamb (Crawley) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Huq. This issue has been on my radar for a very long time. I used to be the leader of the local authority in Crawley, and we have been aware for many years that the capacity limitations that are coming on the line will be so severe that they will gum up the entire network—the whole north-south link through London—from the coast in Brighton all the way through to Peterborough and Cambridge. Ultimately, we can address that only by resolving the bottleneck in Croydon.

The Department for Transport has already commissioned scoping work and started the process of bringing CARS forward. A significant part of the land required to undertake the work has been purchased and is just sitting idle. Unfortunately, it was the victim of the great strategic vision of our previous Prime Minister, who cancelled HS2 and a number of other proposals. Since that point, it has been very hard for a Department to get things back on the agenda. The new Government have come in with a significant proposal for investing in infrastructure. People underestimate just how significant the Government’s proposals for infrastructure are. We are talking about £100 billion of additional infrastructure investment under this Government, which will transform a very large part of the country.

The risk we run into, however, is where that investment goes. There are different pressures acting on the DFT as a consequence. Some of it is about trying to regenerate regional economies in the north of England and other parts of the country. As someone who lives in south-east, it is to my benefit for other parts of the country to develop. The direction of travel of policy in this country for many decades has been, essentially, “We are going to move the entire population of the United Kingdom to the south-east, and that is where the only jobs will be.” That is not sustainable. The housing pressures are just not sustainable. We have to have regeneration elsewhere.

However, the risk with insufficient investment in the south-east is killing the goose that lays the golden egg. The south-east as a whole generates more economic activity than London. In combination with London, we are talking about a third of the UK’s economic activity. If we do not invest in the infrastructure that sustains that, we will run into very significant problems. The Gatwick airport expansion is supposed to come forward in my community. My community already has full employment, and it has a housing problem. With the capacity limitations expected on the line by 2030, my community will have a very significant transport problem—and I should add that those limitations will come into effect without Gatwick expansion.

Gatwick expansion will not necessarily bring any additional benefits to my community, but it brings benefits to the country. I can understand that, and I respect why the DFT is going in that direction, but if we are to see additional benefits to the country coming out of economic activity, that has to come with the necessary infrastructure not only to enable my community to avoid the negative consequences of the housing and transport pressure that will result if the scheme is not put into effect, but to enable the country to get the best possible rate of return on the investment. Ultimately, that is what those of us involved want.

A large number of business groups now support the scheme and are making the point that we are cutting off investment in the area. I was at a meeting last week with my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon East (Natasha Irons), the hon. Member for East Grinstead and Uckfield (Mims Davies) and a number of business and transport groups. One business group, which tries to bring inward investment to the United Kingdom, said that people refuse to move here when they have experience the railway capacity or the delays on the line getting to and from Gatwick. That is a real consequence of the UK’s inward investment strategy.

We need to ensure that we have the infrastructure to get the maximal benefits of the private investment that is coming in, and the south-east will deliver on that. This is the only profit-making line in the GTR network. The numbers coming through will quickly increase the rate of return for the Treasury, based on the investment. We are one of the very few areas where rail investment would do that, and subsidise other railway lines elsewhere. It will pay for itself in the long term, but we need the pump priming at the start. If we pump prime this part of the south-east with the relatively limited amount of capital we are talking about, it will deliver a much greater return to the Treasury and the UK, through the social and economic benefits of the resultant growth.

It is worth noting that passenger volumes are projected to increase by 50% by 2045, which is 15 years after we run out of capacity on the line. If CARS is not the solution to that, what is the DFT’s strategy for dealing with capacity limitations of that scale on the line? I am happy to lobby for something else if I am pointed in the right direction, but my understanding, from talking to transport people, is that this scheme is the only thing that is going to resolve that particular problem. There will be some temporary stops along the way, but they can be dealt with.

Despite the reduction in passenger volumes after covid, we are now essentially back to having the mid-week peak, so there is no time for delay. The works are urgently needed if we are going to move things forward. I appreciate that the Treasury needs to address a range of concerns, but this need is urgent now, and will ultimately deliver a much better offer for the United Kingdom in the long run. Please can we just get on with it?