Midland Main Line (Electrification)

Robert Jenrick Excerpts

Wednesday 16th September 2015 Westminster Hall

[Robert Jenrick (Newark) (Con)]

I thank the hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Harry Harpham) for organising the debate. I represent the town of Newark, which has some of the best rail links in the east midlands. We are very fortunate, as a small market town, to be on the east coast main line. I can get to and from London in an hour and 10 minutes. There has been some good news for us recently, thanks to some Government investment. Our east-west rail links have improved. The Castle line, which takes us from Lincoln through to Newark and into Nottingham, has been upgraded, although I have to add that I have seen an election manifesto for my predecessor but three, from 1975, promising that he would upgrade the Castle line, so transport investments do take a long time. We are also hopeful that the Government will deliver the upgrade of another, smaller line—the Robin Hood line, in the constituency of my neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood (Mark Spencer)—which, equally, would provide an opportunity to unlock economic growth in an ex-coalfield community.

None the less, I cannot hide my constituents’ disappointment that the electrification has been paused, not because it affects Newark a great deal, but because it affects the large number of my constituents who commute into Nottingham and whose livelihoods rely on the economic success and vibrancy of that city, which, as has already been said, has comparatively extremely poor transport links. I can get to London in an hour and 10 minutes from Newark or in less time from Grantham, but for constituents taking the train from Nottingham, it will take two hours. That is clearly an absurd situation for a major city such as Nottingham versus a market town such as Newark.

I completely understand the Government’s reasons for the pause. As my hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley (Nigel Mills) said, Conservative Members are the first to support sensible use of public funds. The pause seems entirely sensible as long as it is a pause and is not for too long. That is the overriding message from today.

I would like to make a few observations about Railtrack that have partly come out of my discussions with the Newark Business Club, which is one of the best business clubs in the east midlands and has a number of passionate campaigners for improvements in rail links not just for the Newark area, but for the whole of Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire. None of us is an apologist for Network Rail, but I would like to make three points that might help people understand why we got into this situation, and to ask the Government to take them seriously in the future.

The first point, of course, is that in the history of Railtrack, as it then was, it was the darling of the City when it was first launched, but it quickly became apparent that the company had committed the cardinal sin of failing to invest in its own assets. Ever since its creation, and under a series of Governments, there has been a chronic failure to invest in projects such as this, which has led us to the present day. We need to correct that. One corollary of that failure to invest has been a severe lack of skills in the industry. It is undoubtedly true that if the Government do not do more electrification projects, we will not have more skilled workers who know how to do electrification projects, more projects will run over budget and more bad decisions will be made, because there will be fewer and fewer skilled workers in this country to do what can be quite difficult projects. If we want more projects to be delivered on time and more sensible decisions to be made, we need to do more of them and invest more in electrification.

Decision making is done in Network Rail, but also, inevitably, in the Government and in the Department for Transport, because Network Rail is guided by the Department when prioritising. That has been one of the main themes that we have heard this morning. Prioritisation of projects is, at best, surprising at times. It would be good if, in future, with the arrival of Sir Peter Hendy, he was given sufficient freedom to apply his very good judgment and experience to judge which projects make the most sense to deliver at any one time.

There are two elements to that. One is the assessment of how difficult projects are. I am not an engineer, but the engineers I have spoken to make it clear that not all electrification projects are technically difficult. Some are; some are not. Indeed, some of the projects that we have seen are basically simple civil engineering projects, which require a great deal less than specialist railway engineering skills. Examples are the upgrade of the infrastructure at Doncaster and grade separation at Newark.

A number of projects would not be especially difficult to achieve. It is surprising that several of those projects are being put on the back burner when more difficult projects have been given the green light. One of my constituents, who was part of the team who delivered it, raised with me the electrification of 200 miles of line between Crewe and Glasgow over three years, on time and on budget, in the early 1970s. That shows that we can do electrification projects as long as we pick and choose and prioritise the ones that do not require such technical skill. In contrast, some projects that have been given the go-ahead are very technically difficult and it is little wonder that they have ended up being delayed and over budget.

I would therefore like the Minister and the Government to give Sir Peter Hendy, whose arrival I welcome wholeheartedly, the discretion to try to improve decision making in Network Rail about the choice of projects, and for there to be less meddling in those decisions, so that projects with very compelling business cases, such as this one, are prioritised and there is better assessment of which projects are expensive to deliver and technically difficult, as opposed to those that could be given the green light straightaway.

My next point is with regard to the direct award to East Midlands Trains. Despite our concern about electrification of the line, that presents a great opportunity for my constituents and those of many other hon. Members in this room. I remember when the south-west got news of major improvements in its infrastructure due to its recent grant award. The Minister might like to tell us something of what she knows about those improvements, because it is a big opportunity to see upgrades of stations, services and rolling stock, regardless of the pause in electrifying the midland main line.

My last point concerns the depressing feeling that the east midlands always loses out. At an event two days ago in London, I met a number of people from across the country, none of whom lives in the east midlands but whose analysis of the reason why the Government have paused the project was that of all areas, the east midlands would give the Government the least aggro. I do not think that that is the case, but that is the perception across the country, within Government and among my constituents. It is all the more important that we MPs—there are not as many MPs here today as perhaps there should be—work together on a cross-party basis to give the east midlands as strong a lead in Government as we possibly can.

[Mr Bone]

A number of other MPs would have liked to be here—I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone) is among them—but there are three East Midlands Trains events today. I believe that we will see all those Members at some time today.

[Robert Jenrick]

I thank my hon. Friend for that remark. The east midlands consistently loses out across a whole range of areas, which include funding for our schools, our police service, our fire authorities, our local councils and, indeed, rail investment and our LEPs. Part of the blame for that must rest on us as Members of Parliament, because we need to be better at putting forward a consistent and intelligent approach. I look forward to the Government’s taking the east midlands more seriously in the years to come.

[Sir Roger Gale (in the Chair)]

Order. Mr Hendry, I called you earlier because I wanted to make absolutely certain that you had sufficient time to make your remarks. As a Front-Bench spokesman, if you wish to make any additional brief remarks now, you may do so.