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That debate was about the closure of the Settle to Carlisle railway line. It was a very good Adjournment debate, which happened to take an hour and a half.
Some of my hon. Friends spoke, including Peter Pike from Burnley and the late Bob Cryer from Bradford, and the right hon. Member for Skipton and Ripon (Mr. Curry). The reason for the debate was that British Rail wanted to close the line, but the Conservative Government wanted to privatise it. Of course, nothing happened and it was saved. April will be the 20th anniversary of the saving of the Settle to Carlisle railway line and, hopefully, we will have an Adjournment debate about that anniversary, when we can pat everybody on the back and say what a good idea it was. That was the last attempt by any Government of any colour to close a major railway line. In many ways, it was the start of the renaissance of the railways. Unfortunately, the Conservative party decided to go through the trauma of privatisation. It discounted it in the case of the Settle line, but went for the big experiment.
We have heard comments about Network Rail, and my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs. Ellman), the Chairman of the Select Committee, reminded people that Network Rail may not be perfect, but it is a lot better than what we had under Railtrack. I remind hon. Members about that. It cost about £8.8 million to upgrade the west coast main line.
Mr. Martlew: I thank the hon. Gentleman for correcting me: it cost £8.8 billion. The estimate given by Railtrack was £13 billion, and nobody in this Chamber believes that it would ever have been completed by Railtrack. I would like to pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for North Tyneside (Mr. Byers), the Secretary of State who had the courage to put Railtrack into administration. If he had not done so, we would not be talking about a successful railway today. Hon. Members should remember that our railways have the most advanced rolling stock of anywhere in Europe, but listening to the comments from the Liberal Democrat spokesman, one would not believe it. We have the most passengers using the railways since the 1950s and there has been a massive increase in freight. That has all taken place over the past 10 years.
We are talking about a railway that is successful, but it still has problems. A very good report was published last month, called “Fares and Ticketing Study”. When looking at it carefully, I found that it asked a lot of questions, one of which is: “What is the cost of a rail ticket?” The answer, of course, is that nobody knows. One day it is this, the next it is that, and if we look a bit later, we find the price has gone up again. I would like some sort of price list on the window at the station saying how much people will actually pay for a ticket. There is no doubt that the train companies are creating confusion, which is benefiting them.
My hon. Friend the Member for City of York (Hugh Bayley) mentioned that people can get a £5 ticket, and I am sure he is right, but many of us believe that it is easier to win the lottery than to get such cheap tickets. We just do not know about them. There is no transparency, but there should be. We need transparency from the train companies. The Government did a lot of work simplifying the fares this summer, because they used to be even more complicated, but we need to know
their true cost. We need a system whereby the difference between the highest price and the lowest price is reduced.
On the Manchester to London line, there is now a fast, efficient train every 20 minutes. We almost have a system whereby someone can walk to the station, get the train and go—it does not matter if they miss one because they can catch the next one. However, people cannot do that because they would then have to pay the highest price, which penalises them. Even though we have a train every 20 minutes, people have to book, sometimes weeks in advance, to get a reasonable price.
Sir Peter Soulsby: Does my hon. Friend agree that there is a strong case for including in the franchise an obligation on the train operating company to offer the customer the very best value fare that is available, rather than, as is the case at the moment, the customer having to search hard to find that fare?
Mr. Martlew: I agree totally with my hon. Friend. For someone travelling from Carlisle to London, it may be cheaper to buy a single to Preston, and then one from Preston to Crewe, and then one to London. That makes no sense. If British Rail did one thing, it was to tell people the price of a ticket, and they knew what they were paying for. That is not now the case. The Government tried to simplify matters, but we have to return to this issue and give people reasonable value for money.
The Chair of the Select Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside, made pertinent references to the price of the tickets. I am not sure that any of us in this Chamber have yet said that we should increase the subsidy. If we are to reduce the price, or keep it the same, we can do two things: we can increase the subsidy or we can reduce the investment in the railways. The latter would be a major problem for us. It could easily be done and nobody would notice. My understanding is that the Conservative policy is to build a high-speed line from existing resources. That would mean that the maintenance of the rest of the line and the upgrade of the rest of the railways would be reduced—it is a sleight of hand. We need to decide among ourselves whether there will be extra subsidy, or whether money will come from the fare box.
During the previous debate, I made the point that there are parts of the country—my constituency is one—where people rarely use the train. Unlike London, their public transport system is made up of buses, and in urban areas those buses are not subsidised. In the big commuter areas, fares are considerably subsidised. If we are saying to my constituents, who might get on a train once or twice a year, that they should pay more subsidy to the railways so that other people will benefit, we should make that clear. But people should remember that not everybody uses a train very often.
I am conscious that I am coming to the end of my time. We have a railway that we can be proud of, but we are reaching a point where we are going to hit major problems. To get out of the recession and overcome the problems that the rail companies have, we will have to put in more subsidy. What we must not do is lose track of what we are about: creating a better railway for the future. We will get over this recession. We may have to put more money in, and perhaps later we can take it out again, but we should not start making major cuts that would mean we would not have a railway fit for purpose when we came out of the recession.
8.7 pm
Daniel Kawczynski (Shrewsbury and Atcham) (Con): The railway station in Shrewsbury is important because it is the first thing that many tourists see on arrival in our county town. Tourism is extremely important for us—it is our No. 1 income generator—and first impressions count. I can tell the Minister that the staff at Shrewsbury railway station are excellent. They are friendly and helpful and I pay tribute to the work that they do. They certainly make the experience of visiting Shrewsbury station more enjoyable.
We do, however, have certain problems such as weeds on the tracks, peeling paint, dirty tracks and various other aesthetic problems at the railway station. I would like to clear it up myself, during the recess. I would like to spend a few days with some volunteers clearing up the weeds and doing a bit of painting, but with all the health and safety legislation now in place, it seems quite difficult to organise. I ask the Minister whether he would agree to help me to organise a clean-up of Shrewsbury station, and whether he would join me during the recess. If he could organise that, we could both paint a few peeling walls.
I asked the chief executive of Arriva trains to come to Shrewsbury, which he did, and he said that the problem is—I made this point earlier when I intervened on the Chair of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs. Ellman)—that there is misinformation about who is responsible for maintaining and looking after various facilities, even a whole structure. In certain areas, parts of a structure above 2 m high are the responsibility of Network Rail and parts under 2 m are the responsibility of the train operator. I am exactly 2 m tall, so in those areas anything above my height is the responsibility of Network Rail. That simply cannot continue. I urge the Minister to bang a few heads together at Network Rail and the train operating companies, so that there is clear accountability, and we know who is responsible for maintaining and painting bridges and other structures at railway stations.
In Shropshire, we fought very hard to get a direct rail service from London to Shrewsbury. We were the only county town—apart from that of the Isle of Wight, for obvious reasons—without a direct rail link to our capital, and my No. 1 pledge in my election manifesto in 2005 was that we would get a direct rail service. We now have that service. It is the Wrexham to Marylebone service, which passes through Shrewsbury. Again, the staff are fantastic, the trains are punctual and the service is extremely good. That brings more tourism and business investment into Shrewsbury.
However, there have been extraordinary problems with Arriva and Virgin Trains trying to scupper that service since its birth. They have used their size to try to cajole and manoeuvre the Office of Rail Regulation to put in place as many impediments as possible. I urge the Minister in all sincerity to do everything possible to ensure that such large operators are not allowed to use their size to try to snuff out competition from other important rail companies that initiate vital services.
One thing that hampers progress for people using the train is a lack of car parking facilities at stations. I am sometimes prevented from using the direct rail service because there are no spaces in the car park next to Shrewsbury station. It is shared with the post office, and
there are a lot of post vans there. I urge the Minister to redouble his efforts to ensure that more investment is put into increasing the number of car parking spaces next to railway stations such as that at Shrewsbury.
Ms Angela C. Smith (Sheffield, Hillsborough) (Lab): Does the hon. Gentleman agree that investment in park-and-ride facilities at railway stations, so that we have an integrated public transport system, would be one of the best things that Network Rail or any train company could provide?
Daniel Kawczynski: I totally agree, and I hope that the Minister will take that on board.
I would like to have my traditional pop at Virgin Trains, which seems to be one of my favourite pastimes. I find its tickets extraordinarily expensive. When I use the service from Wolverhampton to Euston, I try to buy my tickets in advance and always give a specific time for travelling there and back. Sometimes I have had to run like the wind, pushing everybody aside, to get on the specified train. If a passenger misses their train by a few seconds, their ticket is null and void and they have to buy another one. There must surely be a little more flexibility from Virgin Trains in how they sell tickets. The system is extremely complicated.
Arriva operates a service between Shrewsbury and Birmingham, which I have used in the past. It is extraordinarily overcrowded during the summer months, and the windows are extremely dirty. They are sealed, so they cannot be opened, and there is no air conditioning. I have felt physically sick travelling on Arriva trains on that route in the summer months. It is an extremely unpleasant experience, and I have sometimes counted 18, 19, 20 or 21 people standing in each carriage, which is simply not acceptable in this day and age. I hope that the Minister will speak to Arriva and highlight some of my constituents’ concerns about the safety aspects involved when so many people are standing.
I called Mr. Bob Holland, the then chief executive of Arriva, and kept complaining about the situation so much that he finally agreed to accompany me on an Arriva service between Shrewsbury and Wolverhampton. Lo and behold, all of a sudden, when the chief executive appeared, the train arrived on time for the first time ever. We had extra carriages and, amazingly, they served tea and coffee and sold cakes, which was an experience that I had never come across before. The whole service was extremely smooth. It took me back to the days when I visited communist Romania and everything was prepared specially for President Ceausescu, to give him a false perspective on reality. If chief executives of train operating companies really want to know what it is like on their services, they should go incognito and without announcement. When they announce that they are coming, they get a spurious understanding of what it is like to use on a daily basis services such as those run by Arriva.
I pay tribute to a group of people in my constituency whose conference I attended at Shrewsbury railway station a few weeks ago. They are people who work at the station or are associated with it who have an interest in passengers with autism. They held a conference to learn how best to look after, help and facilitate passengers with autism, both children and adults. I congratulate them on that tremendous initiative. Perhaps I will send the Minister the minutes of the meeting so that he is
aware of their tremendous plan. I hope that other railway stations will follow Shrewsbury’s example and do more to assist passengers with autism.
Finally, we can never be complacent about railway station facilities for people who are in wheelchairs. I often raise that point with Network Rail and the train operators. I have been MP for Shrewsbury for four years, and I am still dissatisfied with aspects of those facilities at Shrewsbury station. I will certainly write to the Minister about those concerns, and I hope he will take action.
8.17 pm
Graham Stringer (Manchester, Blackley) (Lab): The increasing gap between per capita expenditure on railways in London and the south-east and in the rest of the country is unjustifiable. When Ministers have appeared before the Select Committee on Transport or been asked questions on the Floor of the House, very few of them have justified that gap. In some cases, they have not known where their investment was going. Those who have attempted to justify it have used the Eddington report, which states that the rail network is good enough and that we should invest in the parts of the system where there is congestion. The problem with that approach, which is a bit like the one suggested in the Barker report on housing, is that it is fundamentally reactionary. It leads to money and investment being put where investment already exists, to the detriment of the rest of the county.
In the new ministerial team at the Department for Transport, we have a team with real vision. They have put electrification back on the agenda and are talking about High Speed 2. I am delighted about that, because transport is not just about making right what is already in place. When it is invested in properly and produces better transport, it transforms any economy. There is a need to be proactive.
There is a bit of a competition going on for high-speed routes. People are discussing whether, after Birmingham, the high-speed link should go to Manchester or Leeds on its way to Scotland. I do not want to get into that competition, because we can have our cake and eat it. The Victorians built railways at both ends of the country because they did not have the engineering capacity to get through or over the Pennines. After London, population density in the country is highest in Birmingham, west midlands, Manchester, Leeds, Newcastle, Edinburgh and Glasgow. We have got the technology to go over or through the Pennines, which would be the best route. Why do we not build a high speed link across the Pennines and kill two birds with one stone?
The other side of the coin is that we do not have to start in the south-east. We could start with the route between Manchester and Leeds and have a Crossrail of the north. We could then build high-speed links from there. That would transform the economy, and be good for the environment and transport.
Mr. John Leech (Manchester, Withington) (LD):
The hon. Gentleman has been successful in getting good publicity in the local newspapers today for his proposal for a high-speed rail link between Manchester and Leeds. Does he propose a brand new line, or does he
envisage using existing lines? Has he done any work on the impact on local services, which are often affected by improvements to inter-city services?
Graham Stringer: We are talking about a 20-year project. We would have to start with engineering, financial feasibility, route feasibility and so on. When considering such investment, we can afford to examine whether we go under the Pennines or use existing lines. All that must be on the agenda.
The hon. Gentleman anticipated my next point. In considering investing in high-speed routes, we should not forget that, London may have Thameslink, but exactly the same problems exist in the Manchester system, which affect the whole of the north of England. We refer to the Manchester hub, but perhaps we should say “the Irwell link” or “the northern link” to try to take the bottlenecks out of the Manchester system. While a high-speed link is built, bottlenecks need to be removed to ensure that the rest of the system works.
In a debate in Westminster Hall on 12 February, I asked the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham (Paul Clark) some questions about Salford Crescent. At column 522WH of Hansard, he promised me a reply, which I look forward to getting in the near future. I have not received it yet.
Mr. Martlew: Will my hon. Friend give way on the issue of the high-speed link between Manchester and Leeds?
Graham Stringer: I want to make four or five points, then I will give way.
Salford Crescent is a pinchpoint, next to where the routes to Wigan and Bolton meet. There are only two platforms, which take five trains. Salford council, the urban development company in the area and all the partners would like investment in that site so that there can be four platforms to ease congestion. That would benefit the whole of the north of England and start balancing investment between the north and the south of England. It would also be good for regeneration, and a bus station could be sited there.
My next point is about investment. High-speed rail would be good for the whole country, and getting rid of the congestion in the Greater Manchester system would be good for the north of England. The Government have said that they want to bring forward expenditure. We recently had a debate on the transport innovation fund and “congestion-TIF”, as it was called. The people of Greater Manchester rejected that, but the money is still sitting in the pot. I do not see the point of leaving it hanging around for three or four years, when it will probably disappear, given that the economy needs that investment now. It should be transferred to a productivity pot for which all districts and councils in the country can bid. Otherwise, it will not be spent. In Greater Manchester, it would be best to spend it on tram links or heavy rail links to Manchester airport, which is one of the major international access points to this country. That would have an economic benefit.
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