North Wales Main Line

Robin Millar Excerpts

Tuesday 15th November 2022 Westminster Hall

[Robin Millar (Aberconwy) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the strategic importance of the North Wales main line.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms McVey. In securing this debate, I had two aims in mind: first, to establish the importance of the north Wales main line within the context of the manifesto commitment to levelling up; and, secondly, to set out why investment in the north Wales main line should be a priority for the UK and in Wales.

In my first words in Parliament, delivered a month after being elected to represent the people of Aberconwy, I highlighted how:

“In the past 20 years, the people of north Wales, and the people of Aberconwy, have grown used to being overlooked and underfunded”.—[Official Report, 15 January 2020; Vol. 669, c. 103.]

Members will recall that, in December 2019, constituencies and communities across north Wales had elected—if hon. Members will forgive me—a blue wall of Welsh Conservative MPs, which stretched from Clwyd South and Wrexham in the east right across to Ynys Môn in the west. Like all my Conservative colleagues in north Wales, I am determined to secure the opportunities of the levelling-up agenda, which was at the heart of the 2019 manifesto. It is inevitable, then, that much of our focus has been on the strategic north Wales coast main line. We seek investment for it as a key part of securing levelling up in north Wales.

The disparity in investment in rail infrastructure over the last two decades between north Wales and south Wales and other parts of the UK is clear. In June 2020, the electrification of the London Paddington to Cardiff line was completed. Thanks to that, it is possible to increase the capacity on that line by running a greater number of services, with new bimodal electric-diesel rolling stock. In turn, this has allowed for lower ticket fares due to economies of scale and lower running costs. Furthermore, it has improved the environmental footprint of each journey on that line.

Of course, south Wales is already benefiting too from £734 million of investment in the South Wales Metro, which is due to be completed by the end of 2023. This infrastructure project consists of the electrification of the Core Valleys lines and a further £50 million investment in the integration of the Cardiff Capital Region Metro. By contrast, across north Wales, the only investment in recent decades that we can speak of is the re-signalling between Chester and Llandudno Junction in my constituency, which was completed in 2015. In fact, the last great infrastructure investments across north Wales have been the development of the A55 road.

There was of course the construction of the Conwy tunnel in the late 1980s—admittedly, at the time it was the largest engineering project in Europe—and then the completion of the dual carriageway of the A55 across the Isle of Anglesey, or Ynys Môn, in 2000. These works removed crippling bottlenecks in Conwy and across the island, and allowed for a significant increase in capacity at the port of Holyhead. Irish Ferries’ MV Ulysses arrived, which at the time was the largest roll-on roll-off vehicle ferry in service in the world, and shortly after came the arrival of Stena Lines’ Stena Adventurer.

In recent months, we have seen more evidence of this disparity. The consequences of north Wales being overlooked and underfunded have been highlighted in two incidents: the closure by the Welsh Government of the Menai suspension bridge between Anglesey and the mainland, and the effective relegation of the north Wales coast main line to branch-line status by the withdrawal of through-train services from Holyhead to London.

For so many across north Wales, levelling up is so much more than the investment, jobs and opportunities that it promises. It is something that I have personal experience of: the chance to stay at home in our communities. I am a proud Welshman—born, raised and schooled in Bangor—but like so many of my friends and so many who I speak to today, we still have to choose to move away to pursue a career. Levelling up would mean it would not have to be that way.

Having established—I hope—an imperative for levelling up for north Wales, I turn to some of the specific impacts of investment in the north Wales main line. First, the line is a critical piece of UK infrastructure. It is essential cross-border infrastructure linking England to Wales, as identified by Sir Peter Hendy’s Union connectivity review. It runs from Holyhead via Chester to Crewe, where it joins the west coast main line and connects directly to London. It is also vital in connecting us to the island of Ireland, including connecting Northern Ireland with the rest of the United Kingdom. It does so through the port of Holyhead, which is the UK’s main port to Ireland and its second-busiest roll-on roll-off port.

Secondly, investment will maximise returns on the UK Government’s investments in High Speed 2. This is a really important point. The England and Wales designation of HS2 relies on investment in the links from Crewe to north Wales. The Welsh Government have disputed that, and claimed an estimated £5 billion as a Barnett consequential for investment in England where the benefits have not been realised in Wales. That claim can be rebuffed properly based on benefits to north Wales.

Thirdly, rail investment would put London within three hours of the university city of Bangor, and within two hours of north-east Wales. That would transform inward private investment and enable remote working for the majority of the population of north Wales, in particular the more deprived parts of north-west Wales. Further investment would promote the advanced manufacturing cluster, which exists across north-east Wales, Cheshire and Wirral. This leading global advanced manufacturing cluster has an economic output of £35 billion per annum. Better quality, faster access to London via rail will unlock further private sector investment and growth for this sector.

Investment will also help deliver on the promise to decarbonise our economy. The line is not as well used as it could be. Some 680,000 residents of north Wales rely on it for movements within north Wales and into England—for business, for pleasure, for contact with family and friends, and for public services. Higher service levels, line speeds and rolling stock, and lower-than-average fare levels, would result in higher usage, as they have done in south Wales. It is important that, in addition to fulfilling our manifesto commitment to levelling up, we invest to help bring us closer to our aim of decarbonising our economy.

As it stands, north Wales has one of the lowest usage rates for public transport, and rail in particular, which is perhaps evidence enough of the poor performance of public transport in comparison with road travel. Electrification of the main line would therefore make an invaluable contribution to reducing the carbon footprint of travel across north Wales. I hope I have made the clear case that not only is north Wales due a levelling up, but the impact of that levelling up is realistic and measurable. The corporate and commercial development of north Wales would benefit the entire community.

[Esther McVey (in the Chair)]

There are a couple of Back Benchers wanting to speak. I remind them that we will go to the Front Benchers no later than 5.15 pm. It would be helpful if the Minister could remember that Robin Millar has a couple of minutes to wind up too.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms McVey. I welcome the new Rail Minister to his place. This is the first time we are meeting across the Dispatch Box, so to speak, but given his track record as a very capable Chairman of the Transport Committee, he will no doubt look very carefully at all these various issues. I know that we will work together where possible for the betterment of our railways and our nation. I congratulate the hon. Member for Aberconwy (Robin Millar)—I will go so far as to call him my hon. Friend—on bringing forward this important debate so that we can discuss and address the strategic importance of the north Wales main line.

We face the longest recession for 100 years. Unemployment is set to double. The UK is the only leading economy that is shrinking. The Conservative party’s kamikaze mini-Budget cost the country at least £30 billion and counting. Given that bleak context, we look to the Government to boost growth.

The Welsh Government get it. Wales’s leaders understand the economic need to keep the railways running and to invest where possible, committing £800 million to rail and ensuring that 95% of rail journeys in Wales and its borders are on new trains, with more than half of those trains assembled in Wales and delivered by a publicly owned train operating company. When the Chancellor gets to his feet on Thursday, he must commit to linking our nations and regions, speeding up journey times, modernising stations and boosting growth.

As was eloquently highlighted by the hon. Members for Aberconwy, for Clwyd South (Simon Baynes) and for Ynys Môn (Virginia Crosbie), the north Wales main line drives growth and sees significant cross-border travel, yet Ministers treat it like a neglected branch line and take its passengers for fools.

I recently met the Growth Track 360 partnership in the north-west, which is made up of businesses and local authority leaders from north Wales, the Wirral, Cheshire and Chester. Alongside more investment for the Mersey Dee Alliance, the partnership has been calling for electrification. Where is it? It is important not just for connectivity but for the climate. Can the Government explain why they completed just 2 km of track electrification in that area last year? At the rate they are going, they will not meet their own net zero rail target until past the year 2100—almost 50 years late.

What about HS2? Ministers have thrown the project into utter chaos. As cuts loom, there is considerable concern that the number of trains per hour planned to run from north Wales to Crewe will be drastically reduced. As I am sure the hon. Member for Aberconwy would agree, we cannot stand idly by and let that happen. We need answers now. I hope the Minister can clarify that such cuts will not take place in preparation for the Chancellor’s autumn statement this Thursday.

Finally, let me turn to the Avanti in the room, as highlighted by the hon. Member for Ynys Môn. It is astonishing that Ministers have rewarded Avanti with an extension to its franchise. Ask any Avanti passenger who has waited for trains that never come, been stranded miles from home, or been rammed like cattle into carriages, corridors and toilets, “Should Avanti be rewarded with more public money?” and they will say, “Of course not.” With the fewest trains on time, failure to train new drivers and more complaints than any other operator in our nation, Avanti has stripped back services to and from north Wales to virtually nothing. Some days, there is just one train to London. To call it a skeleton service is an insult to skeletons. Why on earth was such failure rewarded?

[Robin Millar]

I thank the hon. Member for his speech, much of which I support entirely. Will he join me in urging the Minister, as I have done before in this place, to consider, at some suitable point in the future, rebranding the franchise as the north Wales and west coast main line service? That would properly reflect the strategic importance of the north Wales part of the franchise.

[Mr Dhesi]

That suggestion definitely needs to be looked at. At the moment, the franchise is an absolute disaster. Having recently visited the area on a family holiday to Snowdonia, I can attest to the fact that many of the good people of north Wales feel that they are being neglected, so if that is what it takes, then that is what needs to happen. At the moment, Avanti is doing a huge disservice to the good people of north Wales.

Does the Minister agree that if Avanti continues to fail passengers in December, it must be stripped of its franchise immediately? The people of north Wales cannot endure more months of Avanti’s failure. They deserve a world-class railway. Today, on this Government’s watch, they are getting a third-class shambles.

--- Later in debate ---

[Robin Millar]

I beg your indulgence, Ms McVey, to make a point in response to the Minister. I should have welcomed him to his new place—as gamekeeper, not poacher. I thank him for his comments. This has been a brief but pointed debate. I thank my hon. Friends the Members for Clwyd South (Simon Baynes) and for Ynys Môn (Virginia Crosbie) for highlighting the impact that investment would have on rural communities and tourism, as well as the Energy Island programme on Ynys Môn and the benefits it will bring to businesses there.

I make the point to the Minister that Wales works on an east-west basis. Money spent in one part of Wales does not always benefit the whole of Wales. North and south Wales are very distinct and different parts. Sir Peter Hendy in his review prioritised investment in the north Wales main line. Realising the benefits of HS2 and avoiding an expensive bill from the Welsh Government only underline the importance of priority investment in the north Wales main line. The positive impacts on residents, visitors, students, business and the environment have all been set out for that investment.

I note what the Minister said about the control period, the £1.2 billion additional investment in infrastructure, and the work on the RNEP. I welcome the development of a business case for Chester to Holyhead, and look forward to the update of the RNEP.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the strategic importance of the North Wales main line.