West Coast Main Line

Rachel Taylor Excerpts

Tuesday 15th July 2025 Westminster Hall

[Connor Naismith (Crewe and Nantwich) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the future of the West Coast Mainline.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Murrison. I am grateful for the opportunity to lead this important debate. As I look around the room, I see a large number of MPs from different parts of the country, reflecting the significance and length of this stretch of railway. However, it is clear that the line faces critical problems both now and in the future, as I hope to outline in the debate.

For me and, I imagine, many of the other MPs here, “critical problems” on the west coast main line are experienced by each of us, and indeed many of our constituents, every day. As fate would have it, in the very week when I have secured this debate, the west coast main line was affected by a day of disruption yesterday that impacted my journey to Westminster from Crewe, with issues between Stoke-on-Trent and Rugby affecting the line all day. Indeed, a meeting I was due to have earlier this afternoon was disrupted because the person I was due to meet could not get here on time.

In case Members were not already aware, the west coast main line is the beating heart of our national rail network. It runs 400 miles from Edinburgh and Glasgow, through Crewe and all the way to London Euston. It links the south-east to the north-west, Wales and Scotland. Not only does it serve more than 75 million passengers a year, but more than 40% of the UK’s rail freight moves along the route. That is nothing short of seismic—a point expanded on brilliantly in the Aslef trade union “Rail Freight Future” campaign, which I am proud to support. Outside of London, it is probably the UK’s most important rail line, and it is the busiest mixed-use railway in Europe, but unfortunately it has been left with no strategic vision or plan for future capacity shortages.

[Rachel Taylor (North Warwickshire and Bedworth) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for securing this important debate; we sometimes share journeys to and from Westminster. The whole point of High Speed 2 was to relieve capacity on the west coast main line from London to Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds, yet my constituents have suffered through years of endless delays and disruption because of HS2’s shocking mismanagement by successive Conservative Governments. Expanding villages in my constituency cannot be served by the line because of continual failure, and passengers are still stuck on overcrowded trains. Does my hon. Friend agree that this is simply not good enough and that the future of the west coast main line must ensure our constituents can travel without constant disruption and overcrowding?

[Connor Naismith]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to say that the primary purpose of HS2, on which I will expand later, was to deliver much-needed capacity on the line. Unfortunately, the Government inherited from the previous Conservative Government a worst-of-all-worlds situation in which we are not delivering on the capacity benefits that HS2 was due to provide while also leaving residents on safeguarded land with a lack of certainty and, in many respects, failing services. That is simply intolerable, so my hon. Friend is right to highlight it.