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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Mr. David Jamieson): Exactly.

Mr. Osborne: I am glad that the Minister's comment will appear on the record. I know that he is keen on rail services in the north-west of England and I look forward to hearing from him. I hope that those trains will

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continue to stop at Wilmslow—that is the whole point of this Adjournment debate. I am not asking for additional stops at Wilmslow, much as I would like them. I am simply asking for the service to remain the same in the future as it is today.

Richard Bowker then says that he has consulted

"passenger representatives, local authorities and other interested stakeholders."

Well, I have consulted passengers, local authorities and stakeholders in the Wilmslow area and not one of them had any idea, until I told them, that the SRA was planning to scrap the Wilmslow service. It is not surprising that they did not have a clue because, I repeat, the word "Wilmslow" does not even appear in any of the consultation documents. The letter makes no attempt to explain the SRA's plans or the rationale behind them. Mr. Bowker helpfully ends the letter by saying:

"I understand that you have previously discussed this issue with Stuart Baker, our West Coast Main Line Director."

However, I have never met Stuart Baker or discussed anything with him, although I am happy to do so in the future.

If the SRA is supposed to be the body that restores public confidence in the Government's rail programme, it needs to learn some lessons about being straight with the public and straight with the people who represent them in this House. Thankfully, I have discovered someone who does seem willing to tell me the truth about the future of the Wilmslow-London service, and that is Chris Green, the chief executive of Virgin Trains. Three weeks ago, he came to Chester to speak at an excellent rail conference that was organised by John Richards, the current high sheriff of Cheshire. He used his office to organise that conference to talk about rail services in Cheshire, and he persuaded several key players in the industry to come to Chester to take part.

I was a member of the audience and I asked Mr. Green what he knew of the SRA's plans to cut the Wilmslow service, and for the first time I got a straight answer. I took notes of what he said, and they are as accurate as I could make them without the use of shorthand. He said:

"Wilmslow is obviously a very important rail head, but the SRA feels that the London to Manchester service can only stop once, probably at Stockport, because of the publicity merits of having a 1 hour 59 minute service journey time to Manchester. We don't care whether the journey time is 1 hour 59 minutes or 2 hours 4 minutes, we want to stop at both Stockport and Wilmslow".

I am not surprised that Virgin wants to go on stopping at Wilmslow, because it is good business for them. Many people use the service, and pay top fares for doing so. According to figures provided to me today—miraculously—by Virgin Trains, 78,000 passenger journeys are made every year between Wilmslow and London, which is more than a couple of hundred passengers a day. We should also remember that only three trains stop at Wilmslow on the way from Manchester to London. Together, those journeys generate an annual revenue of around £3.1 million for the company. It is not surprising that the chief executive wants to keep the service and the lucrative business. I am not talking about trying to save a train line that no one uses or that the train company wants to stop operating. It is a popular service that the train company wants to continue to operate.

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Mr. Green thinks that the disadvantage in publicity terms of just missing the two-hour London-Manchester journey time target is more than outweighed by the advantage of stopping at Wilmslow to pick up lots of passengers. If that is the commercial judgment of the chief executive of Virgin Trains, which actually runs the service, I want to know on what grounds the SRA feels that it can second-guess him. What are its grounds for overruling the judgment of the train operator? Where is the evidence? What does it think the impact will be on those passengers who rely on the service? What assessment has it made of the effect on businesses in the Wilmslow area? What consultation has taken place with local people? We have seen nothing from the SRA, because it has told us nothing about its plans, or even that it had plans in the first place. If the SRA will not ask local people what they think, I will have to tell it, as, obviously, I have received loads of letters from constituents who use the service.

My constituent John Hillmer says that he is "dismayed" about the decision. Another constituent, Mrs. Yotty, who is a regular user of the service, thinks that the plan is "utterly ludicrous". She says:

"I am seriously thinking of going back to my car".

So much for the targets in the 10-year transport plan to get people to use trains. Mrs. Knight, a pensioner in my constituency, says that she is "disgusted" and "angry" about what is being planned. Jim Crockatt, an excellent local councillor, says that he objects

"in the strongest possible terms".

Mr. Colin Jones says that he is "very angry", and that he "cannot believe" what is being planned.

If the SRA wants to dismiss the views of individual passengers, let me tell it what other groups are saying. The chief executive of Macclesfield borough council, David Parr, wrote to Mr. Bowker on 28 January and copied the letter to me. He wrote that

"the Wilmslow-Euston connection is a critical service to the local community and is well supported locally. At a time when public rail transport is critical to an integrated transport strategy, it is surprising that the SRA is proposing such a short-sighted approach".

He went on to ask Mr. Bowker whether he could share with the council the full rationale for the proposals.

Another huge employer in my constituency, AstraZeneca, the world's fourth largest pharmaceutical company, which employs more than 5,000 people in my constituency, last year, according to its figures, spent £750,000 on 6,500 train tickets to London. It is therefore a big user of the train service. Its site manager at Alderley Park, the big research centre in my constituency, has said:

"As a major global employer based in the North West and Cheshire, we would urge you"—

the Strategic Rail Authority—

"to at least consult on the future of the Wilmslow West Coast Main Line stop. It would be in the interests of the communities served by the station, including major business users, to see a measured and considered approach to the provision of rail services. As a significant business stakeholder and a user of the service, we would be happy to provide further information and participate in taking the matter forward".

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Surely the SRA is not so arrogant as to ignore a request such as that from one of Britain's leading companies? I repeat that it all it wants to do is

"provide further information and participate in taking the matter forward."

Before I give the Minister a chance to respond—perhaps he will respond at length, given the time available—let me say that I realise that the plans to end the Wilmslow service are not the Government's plans. They are not dreamt up by the Minister or the Department for Transport, but they are the plans of the Strategic Rail Authority. That authority acts under the directions and guidance of the Secretary of State, and the Government are ultimately responsible for its decisions.

I would therefore ask the Minister the following questions. First, is he prepared to ask the Strategic Rail Authority to look again at the plans to end the Wilmslow-London direct service? Secondly, will he ask the Strategic Rail Authority to be open with the public about what its plans are, and about why it feels able to second-guess the commercial judgment of Virgin Trains? Thirdly, will he require the SRA to conduct a proper consultation with the passengers, businesses and other organisations affected, of the kind proposed by AstraZeneca, before proceeding with plans to end the Wilmslow service?

What we are talking about today is a popular, lucrative train service used by 78,000 passengers a year. It is a service that passengers want, businesses want and the train operating company, Virgin, wants. The Strategic Rail Authority plans to ignore that and scrap the route to shave a couple of minutes off the Manchester-London journey time, and bring it to within a whisker below two hours. The chairman of the Strategic Rail Authority claims that he has consulted on the plans, but he issued a consultation document that did not mention them at all. He says that he is reviewing the responses, but no one who will be affected had a chance to respond. By the time we all woke up to what was happening, the date for responses to the consultation had passed. It was the worst kind of high-handed, arrogant and secretive decision making. It will hit the people whom I represent very hard. It is a textbook example of how Government agencies should not behave. I ask the Minister to use his power and influence to intervene and save this vital train service.

5.15 pm

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Mr. David Jamieson): I congratulate the hon. Member for Tatton (Mr. Osborne) on securing this debate and providing us with a welcome opportunity to discuss important matters. He has spoken with clarity and enormous charm, as he always does. I hope that he will not need Holmesian powers of deduction to understand my explanation of the current status of Wilmslow station. I hope that I can be clear.

I do not have Holmesian powers of deduction. However, paragraph A13.20 on page 38 of the Strategic Rail Authority's consultative document refers to the Crewe-Sandbach-Cheadle Hulme line. That is the line on which Wilmslow lies, as the hon. Gentleman knows.

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It is true that not every station is mentioned in the document, but I assure him that the station in his constituency has not been left out. If he looks at the document again he will see that.

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