East Anglia Rail Franchise

Simon Burns Excerpts

Wednesday 16th December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Sir Simon Burns (Chelmsford) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St Edmunds (Jo Churchill) on securing this debate. The fact that so many Members are present in the Chamber shows just how important the debate is. I am particularly pleased to see on the Front Bench—it is not often that we see so many Ministers in an Adjournment debate—my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Ben Gummer) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel) because they, with my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich North (Chloe Smith), were on the taskforce that was created by the Chancellor and that has done so much work to identify and then promote what we need on our railway.

As my right hon. Friend the Member for Saffron Walden (Sir Alan Haselhurst) said, we are of course fighting for a better service for our constituents, but it is not solely a better service for them. East Anglia is an economic engine, and that engine needs to be sustained by improving communications. I am talking about the communications of commuters who commute on the line—whether it is into London to work in the City or into other parts of East Anglia. The benefits will also be felt by the freight service, which all too often has to come down on the main commuter line from Felixstowe to London to then go back up north. We need far greater improvements on the line from Felixstowe to Nuneaton to open up capacity on the lines down to London and up to Norwich.

Tomorrow is, of course, crucial because of the franchise and its implications for the future of our railways. The Minister will probably get bored stupid hearing this—

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Claire Perry)]

Never!

[Sir Simon Burns]

The Minister is very kind, and she can add to saying “never” by doing what we want. What we want and what we have to have is new rolling stock. Our rolling stock is archaic. It breaks down too frequently. Most of the eastern line from Liverpool Street, Chelmsford, Colchester and Ipswich to Norwich has two tracks—one up, one down—and if a train breaks down, particularly during the morning or early evening rush hours, there is utter chaos, with all the suffering that that entails. We must ensure, within the confines of the franchise wording, that whoever is successful in that bid and gets the franchise from October next year is under no misunderstanding—no ifs, no buts—about the fact that we will have new rolling stock that is fit for purpose for our railway needs.

[Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

I join in the general congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St Edmunds (Jo Churchill) on obtaining this debate, but will my right hon. Friend concur with two things? First, the service has become intolerable. Our commuters have had enough, and we should not be asking them to put up with a service continuing at this level. Secondly, I am afraid that the capacity of the network is not up to standard. We will have more housing in Essex, and unless we have improvements in capacity, we will go on having a vulnerable and unsatisfactory network.

[Sir Simon Burns]

My hon. Friend raises two important issues, which I will deal with briefly because other hon. Friends want to take part in the debate. First, capacity is a problem because the railway has two lines. We can take measures to help to improve it, one of which will be the loop to the north of Witham that will allow fast trains to overtake slower ones, which will increase the number of trains that can run on the line, particularly in the rush hour. Secondly, we need to identify other areas that can have loops. Sadly, because of the nature of the railway, we cannot put in more lines. For example, two more lines could not be put through my constituency, Chelmsford, to increase capacity, simply because the railway is enveloped by housing and businesses, and doing so is not physically possible. I certainly would not advocate knocking down houses for that railway expansion. With that constraint, we must look at other imaginative ways in which to increase capacity. We also need to ensure that all trains have 12 carriages during the rush hour and that we do not have some with eight carriages, as we certainly do at the moment.

Finally, the Minister can have as good a franchise as she wants and she can find as excellent a rail service provider as she can get, but that will not release the full potential that can be developed if Network Rail gets its act together and stops engineering works overrunning into Mondays and ensures that, when there are signal failures, track problems or overhead electricity cable failures, the work is done swiftly and efficiently to minimise disruption to the service. I know from previous conversations that the Minister is acutely aware of the dissatisfaction not only of right hon. and hon. Members, but of our constituents who use the service and pay for it day in day out, year in year out. I know that she, too, is determined to find a service provider who recognises their responsibilities to improve reliability and the quality of the service and to ensure that we have new rolling stock. I also know that she and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport are working to ensure that Network Rail gets its act together, so that we do not have unnecessary problems that cause disruption to our constituents.