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27 Jun 2007 : Column 109WH—continued
Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD):
I shall not make a bid to put the Charles Cryer theatre in
Carshalton on the map. Does the hon. Lady agree that one of the big challenges for Transport for London in relation to the East London line is to make people aware of it? People are focused very much on the underground map, so TFL will have to work hard to raise people’s awareness that the service is available.
Meg Hillier: I completely agree with the hon. Gentleman. Along with the mayor of Hackney and others, I launched a campaign to get Hackney on the map, and we have tried to ensure that the East London line will be on the maps that are on the tube and in other places. Currently, the North London line is marked in faint background on the larger maps, but we have pressed for it to be a link that is shown on every tube map, so that when people buy or pick up a map at a tube station every single version shows the line.
It is important to recognise the importance of including those lines. I ran a small competition, and young Frankie from my constituency drew me a picture of how he thought the East London line should look. That was very gratifying, but we need to make sure that it is not just a child’s picture but something real and meaningful to people, so that they can tap into it. The London overground branding is a step in that direction.
When I first stood for election to the position of MP, and also when I was in previous roles, I campaigned on the platform of creating London’s outer circle line, of which the East London line is a part. The branding will help to deliver that.
People might not be aware that Hackney has a plethora of art galleries and that we are the home of creative industries and of artists. We believe that we have more artists than any other local authority area in Europe. That is difficult for anyone else to challenge, so we continue to say it. We certainly have very many, and I believe that when the mayor of Hackney was asked whether he would consider a council tax or rates rebate for artists, such as they have in Ireland, he was not very happy at the idea of losing quite so many council tax payers, so a rebate will not be a runner in Hackney.
We have wonderful parks. My constituency is very similar in size to that of my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North, which is geographically the smallest in the country but which feels bigger because of its parks. There is a new lido in London Fields, which is a full-length outdoor swimming pool that has recently opened thanks to the mayor of Hackney’s input. It is a real destination—estate agents are now including it in their particulars. London Fields station is on a different line, but it has increased its passenger numbers since the opening of the lido. I hope that, when the East London line opens, people will make the short hop to the lido from the stations on that line as well.
There are Broadway market and Ridley road market, which are very different in nature but which are both places that people want to visit. We have our destination shops too. There is a Burberry outlet store, which means that Hackney councillors are remarkably renowned for having very smart coats at civic events, and there is Primark. I kid you not, Mr. Gale, but when I am on a bus in Hackney with people who look lost, they are usually looking for one of those two places, if not the Hackney Empire. We hope that all those many
and varied attractions are facilities that people will be able to travel to on the East London line.
Neither should the interrelated benefits of the Olympics and the East London line be underestimated. Hackney will gain a new media centre from the Olympics, which we hope will be a major venue for creative businesses and media after the Olympics. Although I am sure that most hon. Members would love to have every national journalist live in their constituency and hop to the neighbouring offices, I would be happy if many of them were content to live in Battersea and travel the short distance to Hackney on the East London line.
My hon. Friend the Member for Battersea referred to the Dalston curve, the exact ownership of which my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) and I have disputed—as an argument among friends, that is. The curve is important because we needed to get a link to Highbury and Islington. There is also an important issue on the two Dalston stations that will be created, and some creative thinking is happening in the excellent TfL team. That is directed to linking up Dalston Kingsland, which is slightly to the north and west of Dalston Junction, to the new Dalston station, which is on the south-eastern corner of the junction.
So far, the £1.4 million that has been invested in London overground is remarkably good value for money. The benefits that I have listed are merely those that apply to my constituency, and it is important to highlight the overall benefits that will flow from the scheme. We need the southern link, to complete that London outer circle line for which we have been pushing for a long time. At the moment, we can go so far and then we sort of stop and have to hop on a bus or an indifferent train station. Putting everything together will give a coherence that London has long needed and that makes sense. It will make London a place that really is for everyone to visit, rather than a place where people on the outer lines stay in their own borough.
As has been demonstrated today, MPs might be territorial. Constituents, however, are not; they need access to jobs and facilities, and the scheme will assist in that. If the second phase comes about, there will be 16 trains an hour between Dalston and Surrey Quays, which will be significant for waiting times. It is clear that, if people conceive of the service as a tube, they will be more likely to use it.
That brings me to the important issue of what in jargon is known as modal shift, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea referred. I shall not repeat his arguments, but London is growing, and we need to ensure that people move from a tube system that otherwise will be very overcrowded—a number of us experience that every day—to other modes of transport. The line will provide a vital outlet for some of that overcrowding. We should also ensure that more people start cycling. That already happens in Hackney—we have twice the number of cyclists of other London boroughs, so that Hackney really is the home of London cycling. We should make sure that people walk more as well. However, the extension would mainly shift people out of cars; about 400,000 fewer car journeys will take place.
There was a hot debate about the introduction of the congestion charge. It might have achieved a certain amount for inner London congestion, but some of the worst London congestion is in outer London, which is why phase 2 of the East London line extension is particularly important. To be parochial again, it will reduce the journey times from Hackney to Peckham for my constituents by 10 to 15 minutes, which is significant.
If the second phase were to receive £100 million, that would be money well spent. If the decision is made soon, money will be saved, which is why the issue is critical to the current spending round. Some of the preparatory works could be done in tandem with the works currently being carried out in phase 1.
In summary, the project is a real win for the Department for Transport. As I mentioned, transport projects can be notoriously difficult to deliver on time and on budget, as the many negotiations between the different public bodies, transport bodies—some public, some private—and political interests carry on. In this case, however, there is absolutely solid political determination across the parties, across the relevant geographical area in London and between the local authorities and the Mayor. The project is cost-effective and will be even more so if it is carried out quickly, and we have the benefit of a tightly financially disciplined Transport for London and the disciplined team led by Ian Brown. I have been in public life for more than a decade and seen several projects that have not been well run or very successful. However, if the Minister wants a good, winning project to hand on to her successor, if not for herself, I can assure her that the East London line will be genuinely well run and successful and that it will deliver for thousands of Londoners, including in my constituency.
3.10 pm
Jeremy Corbyn (Islington, North) (Lab): It is a pleasure to join in this debate, and I genuinely compliment my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea (Martin Linton) on his incredibly hard work on the issue and on the effective campaign that he has waged to ensure that the line links through to Clapham. I totally support his campaign and I hope that the Minister will understand the importance of extending transport in that way and the opportunities that it will offer.
I also say a big thank you to my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney, South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier) for the time she spent as a member of the Greater London authority. She worked incredibly hard at the difficult job of co-ordinating lots of competing interests around Finsbury Park station, none of which wanted to co-operate with one another most of the time, although they eventually all did. The station now has a refurbished exterior, and Transport for London is at last investing £40 million or £50 million in completely rebuilding the station to make it compliant with the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 and to improve its interior and security. That did not happen for nothing, but because a lot of people worked very hard over a long time. Now that we have an effective London authority, which can make such investments, things can happen, which must be some kind of success.
I have been in the House long enough to remember the dark days when the Greater London council was abolished and London Transport was grossly underfunded. We could not get decisions about anything out of anybody and we spent most of our time campaigning against closures—the idea of campaigning to open things was like something from fairyland. I therefore pay warm tribute to my two hon. Friends for their incredibly hard work on this issue and I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney, South and Shoreditch will be present when we reopen Finsbury Park station in a few years’ time, once the rebuilding work has been done.
It is also worth placing on the record the fact that the extension of the East London line—as part of an outer London overground circle railway, which is a good idea—has been a dream for a long time. Shortly after I was elected in 1983, the then Member for Stepney, the late Peter Shore, asked me to join him in signing a blocking motion against a private Bill so that we could protect the route of the East London line. He said, “There’s no chance the Government will give us the money for it at the moment, but if we can at least protect the route, there’s a chance of getting the money at some point in the future.” One should therefore pay tribute to those who have taken such a farsighted view of the subject.
We now have Transport for London and the development of London overground. London overground’s leader, Ian Brown, is very good, and the idea of branding something as London overground to promote real transport integration in London is an important one. As my hon. Friends said, strangers to London do not generally go somewhere if they cannot easily find it on the tube map. If somewhere is not on the tube, they do not go there, because although they can understand the tube map, they have difficulty with anything beyond that. Transport for London has introduced the idea of London overground, which will make using the various routes more acceptable and ensure that there is much better information about buses, routes and so on. In that regard, I hope that we will have a more comprehensive London travel map. I am pleased that the North London line is on the tube map in a semi-tone, but why the North London line and nothing else? [Interruption.] I see an excellent map appearing before me in glorious Technicolor, so there we go—I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea for that. I hope, therefore, that the rebranding will be accompanied by improved information systems.
I want to say three or four quick things about the East London line extension. First, it is happening, and that is welcome. The work is being done at the moment, and one can see it going on day to day, and that is welcome. As has been said, I represent Islington, North, and people in my constituency use Highbury and Islington station—the station entrance is actually in the constituency of Islington, South and Finsbury, although Canonbury station, on the North London line, is in my constituency. I was worried when I saw that the work from Dalston to Highbury and Islington had been put down as part of phase 2. I am always alarmed when something is labelled “phase 2”, because
it sounds as though it is in never-never land—“Phase 2? Yes, that’s some time in the future.” I am pleased to say, however, that we now have clear undertakings from Transport for London that the phase 2 link to Highbury and Islington will follow on immediately from the completion of the expensive works necessary to reopen the Dalston curve, and that has been endorsed by the Mayor.
I endorse again what has been said about the need for a lot of imaginative thought to be given to the stations. If that does not happen, we will end up with two stations very near each other on broadly the same routes. We need slightly better thought to be given to that, and I am sure that that can be achieved.
I have raised on many occasions, and I do so again now, the question of possible links to Finsbury Park, although I realise that that is not part of the immediate scheme. Although Highbury and Islington provides a good link to the Victoria line and the line through to Moorgate, it would be very useful to use existing tracks to run services to Finsbury Park. That would give us the possibility of a link to the Victoria and Piccadilly lines, as well as to a large number of overground services, including all the east coast lines. If we are after reducing pressure on the inner London termini, any link to Finsbury Park would be a great advantage. That will not happen immediately, and I recognise that there are complications, but such a link is not impossible, and I hope that the Minister can at least give me some comfort and some idea of whether the Department is looking at the issue.
Martin Linton: Does my hon. Friend not regard it as inevitable that many people will not take a train to a London terminus in future, but get off at a hub station three or four miles short of the terminus and use the outer circle to get to another hub, thus avoiding the need to travel through central London, which will become even more congested? In addition to all the local benefits, putting Finsbury Park on the London overground system will therefore have a great benefit for through-London travellers.
Jeremy Corbyn: My hon. Friend makes a good point. The problem with London’s transport system has always been that it is radial—all routes run in and out of central London. It was presumed 120 years ago that most people wanted to travel from outer London to work in central London, and that might have made some sense at the time, but it simply does not make any sense now. As a result, there are real problems with car congestion the further one gets from central London, because the orbital routes are so ineffective and inefficient. Creating an orbital railway is part of that issue, but we need to go a lot further. We also need to go a bit further out. Enfield to Barnet should be an easy journey, but it is not, and there are plenty of other examples from all around London.
Stephen Hammond:
I listened carefully to the intervention by the hon. Member for Battersea (Martin Linton), who was surely making the point that one of the great disappointments of phase 2 is that Wimbledon has been left out, even though the original plan was to include it. It would have been an obvious place to include. As a hub station, it could have relieved
Clapham Junction and allowed people to move around the London overground more easily.
Jeremy Corbyn: That is a fair point. I am reluctant to discuss south London in too much detail, because there is a bit of territorial trouble, and I am doing my best to be fraternal to my colleagues in south London. Yes; it is an obvious point that we must see what is happening as part of a stage in the process of developing a much better transport system around London. If we are to reduce car congestion and pollution, it can only happen by means of a much better public transport system—partly through information and partly through usage, but above all through improved developments such as the one that we are discussing. I remain a strong supporter of the East London line extension and I pay tribute to those who have brought it thus far. I look forward to its opening.
I hope that the Minister will be able to give us good news on the Clapham link and all the other benefits that that will bring to south London. If there is to be good news about it, it will make an awful lot of sense to have the work done before the Olympics. There are all kinds of obvious reasons for that, but no doubt we shall hear whether it will be possible.
There are two final matters that I want to ask the Minister about. First, Transport for London owns the route—although Network Rail owns the tracks, in some cases—and has made the capital expenditure for the trains to run on the East London line. I have raised this question with the Mayor and with TfL and I raise it again now: why is it, then, necessary to bring in a private operator to run the trains, when London Underground and Transport for London have proved themselves very capable of running the underground system and the network in general? I am concerned that we seem to be moving along a route of creeping private finance running the service.
Meg Hillier: Like my hon. Friend, I have looked into the matter, but although in Hackney we think about what is happening as the East London line bringing the tube to Hackney, it is not, of course, the underground. It is not akin to adding on a bit of the underground line and extending the service of its trains. The extension will use a different gauge and different types of trains, and there is not really the expertise in Transport for London to run that. Surely it is better just to get on with it and provide it. I am concerned that my constituents should have a service, and that it should be properly managed, contractually, by the public sector, rather than about exactly who will run it.
Jeremy Corbyn: I agree that we want the service; that is why we are all here. London overground is a new development. I welcome it. I just question why it is necessary to bring in a private operator to do the work. I believe that a lot of expertise is available to make sure that the service is properly run. I make this point because I strongly believe that if the public own something and pay for it, they are also quite capable of running the service. We run the underground very efficiently.
My final point is that what is happening is a new departure for Transport for London—the taking of some overground facilities, as my hon. Friend the
Member for Battersea pointed out, into its orbit. That is very welcome. Ian Brown has proved a very good leader of the whole operation. I hope that the attitude and mood in the Department for Transport is one of preparedness to concede that it makes a lot of sense to bring as much of London’s rail network as is reasonable and feasible under one roof, so that it can be run with linked timetables and services. I see the current project as the first of what I hope will be many good developments in London, when London overground takes over other routes in other parts of London. There should also, where appropriate, be transfer of stations. Finsbury Park is an obvious example of one that it would be helpful to transfer to Transport for London, because the majority of the services there are related to Transport for London in some way.
We are in a good period. It is exciting, but I hope that the Minister will give us some good news.
Martin Linton: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for mentioning the issue of Transport for London taking over more London railway routes. Although he would not claim any expertise on this, I think that the point is particularly relevant to south London, where, because there are so few tube lines, many local stations have developed on a radial basis, and are of little use. However, there are some lines that could easily be taken into an overground system, such as the one from London Bridge to Victoria via Crystal Palace. Also, no doubt, some of the lines in the Mitcham and Hackbridge area could serve Londoners better if they were controlled by TfL in the interest of Londoners, rather than being thought of as appendages to commuter routes into London.
Jeremy Corbyn: That is a very good point. I study old railway maps and think about those matters quite a lot. It would make sense to encourage many of the routes in south London into orbital use. There are real opportunities for development of that kind. We greatly under-use our overground railways in London, and with more imagination we could achieve what my hon. Friend describes.
I welcome everything that has happened so far. I hope that the Minister will be able to give us good news on the extensions, and I hope that she will bear in mind the point that I made, which I consider a serious one, about the longer-term option of a link to Finsbury Park. That would improve the ability of that station to act as an effective regional hub for transport interchange.
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