Strategic Rail Authority

HC Deb 18 November 2003 vol 413 cc601-4

5. Mr. Patrick McLoughlin (West Derbyshire):

If he will make a statement on the Strategic Rail Authority's strategic plan 2003. [138858]

The Secretary of State for Transport (Mr. Alistair Darling)

The Strategic Rail Authority published its 2003 strategic plan in January of this year. It sets out the way in which the authority will work towards the Government's goals on the railway.

Mr. McLoughlin

I have given the Secretary of State notice of this question: why in 2002 did the SRA's plan talk about East Midlands Parkway station opening in 2003? His predecessor wrote to me shortly after that, saying: I understand from the SRA that the May 2003 opening date given in the Strategic Plan was an inadvertent error. May 2003 is the deadline in the franchise by which Midland Mainline can be required to have obtained all the necessary consents, permissions and rights over land to construct the station. Construction might then take about a year. That takes us to May 2004. So far, it does not look like any work is happening on that station. Can the Secretary of State give us the latest information?

Mr. Darling

The hon. Gentleman has a perfectly good point. I am grateful to him for having told me earlier this morning of the problems in relation to this station and drawing my attention to the reply that he received from my predecessor. He should not have been given the wrong information, and it should not have been published in the SRA's then plan.

In the past hour or so, I have had the opportunity to have a very preliminary look as to what has happened here. It would appear that the operators of the railway have been in discussions with Powergen, which for a number of reasons has expressed concern about building the station there. However, agreement has been reached to buy the land in question, and I am told that the operators are about to obtain the powers that they need under the Transport and Works Act 1992 to start building the station. The situation there is not very satisfactory, however, and if the hon. Gentleman will allow me, I would like to make further inquiries. Then I will write to him again.

Mr. George Stevenson (Stoke-on-Trent, South):

Given the vital importance of the upgrade of the west coast main line, particularly in areas of north Staffordshire in my constituency, will the Secretary of State support the SRA's view, expressed in its strategic plan, that that vital arterial rail link should be completed in total by 2006, and resist the blandishments of the regulator, who has suggested that the second phase could be deferred as a cost-cutting exercise?

Mr. Darling

There are two points there. First, it is planned that the west coast main line will be completed by 2007, not 2006. That has always been the case. Secondly, the regulator is quite right to draw attention to the fact that this is a project in which costs need to be controlled. I remind the House that when Railtrack was responsible for the network, it promised to build that line for a price of £2.5 billion. By the time it stopped trading, the cost had gone up to £13 billion. Now, with proper control and discipline, we think that the cost will be between £8 billion and £9 billion. I am afraid that that is a price that we are having to pay, because the line did not get the investment that it needed for some 20 or 30 years—ever since the late 1960s.

I agree with my hon. Friend that the project is well worth doing. It is one of the busiest passenger railway routes in Europe, it is critical to the railways in this country and I would like to see it completed by 2007. However, the regulator is right that we must ensure at every stage that we drive costs down to their absolute minimum.

Mr. Damian Green (Ashford):

In June, the Secretary of State said: The investment which is going into the railway is slowly but surely bearing results. If he still believes that, will he tell us what proportion of trains are now running late, according to the Strategic Rail Authority?

Mr. Darling

First, let me welcome the hon. Gentleman to his new post. We had expected to see the hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May), who we were told was in charge of both transport and the environment. I can only conclude that she must be dealing with the environment this morning, and therefore cannot be with us. It is nice to see the hon. Gentleman, though. [HON. MEMBERS: "What about Scotland?"] I have no difficulty in being present for Transport questions. I am always here: that is the big difference.

Yes, the investment is "slowly but surely" making a difference. I have mentioned the west coast main line; let me now mention again that we are replacing nearly a third of rolling stock on the network over a five-year period.

The hon. Gentleman is right in saying that, in terms of performance and reliability, things are not proceeding as quickly as they should. Although 80 per cent. of trains overall arrive on time, in far too many cases improvements are not being made fast enough.

There is a substantial variation between the best-performing trains, which are achieving 90 per cent. reliability or thereabouts, and some of the poorer performers, which are still in the mid-60s. The hon. Gentleman is right about that; the point on which we disagree is that whatever problems there may be on the railways, the answer cannot possibly be slashing investment, which is what the Conservatives favour.

Mr. Green

I thank the Secretary of State for his kind remarks and his welcome. As he is so interested in the whereabouts of my hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead, let me tell him that she is at the CBI conference in Birmingham listening to the many complaints from British businesses about the Government's failure to provide a proper transport policy to help them to conduct their business profitably.

The Secretary of State has just admitted that one in five trains run late. That is double the figure inherited by his Government. His response has been typical of this Government: he has abandoned the passenger growth targets, imposed above-inflation fare increases, and cut the number of services.

The Deputy Prime Minister once promised to increase choice and cut congestion. Is it not true that, instead, the Government have cut choice and increased congestion?

Mr. Darling

Not really, no. What is clear is that Britain's railways, and our roads for that matter, have suffered from decades of under-investment. Successive Governments, not just Conservative but Labour as well, have not spent as much as they should over a long period.

Part of our current problem with the railways is that the investment was not made at the right time. Members will recall that before privatisation British Rail expected to replace some 500 miles of track each year; after privatisation the rate fell to 200 miles a year. This year we are replacing more than 700 miles of track. The obvious consequences of failure to invest are problems with the track and with reliability. What the hon. Gentleman says might be more credible had he not opposed every penny of public expenditure on transport, and on other matters.

If the hon. Member for Maidenhead is indeed listening to CBI members, one thing they will be saying is that they want more investment to produce results more quickly. They are not calling for less investment. I just wonder what she is telling them she would do.

Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody (Crewe and Nantwich):

The Secretary of State will realise that value for money depends on a sensible set of priorities. Will he point out to the Strategic Rail Authority that ignoring the interests of freight and some of the smaller, more deprived parts of the UK is not a sensible way of keeping the whole system working? If we cut bits off, the core will suffer.

Mr. Darling

I understand that point. However, I do not think that it is right to say that the SRA is ignoring freight—far from it. More goods are being taken by rail than two or three years ago. What the SRA and indeed the rail regulator both recognise is that parts of the network are not used by high-speed trains and do not carry heavy freight. Just as motorways are constructed differently and are maintained to a different standard from A roads and B roads, it makes sense to ensure that our investment in the railways reflects the actual use of the rails. As I have told the House before, we spend about £73 million every week on the railways, matched by a similar sum from the private sector. It is a substantial sum. We need to ensure that it is spent properly and that we maintain the network according to the use of the trains on it.

Pete Wishart (North Tayside)

What comfort can the Secretary of State give his constituents that there will be no delay in plans to upgrade Waverley station in his constituency? He will know that Waverley is central to the Scottish rail network, so can he give a guarantee that the work will go ahead as a priority and that there will be no downgrade of the original plan?

Mr. Darling

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for asking a question about my constituency. As I was on a train going through his constituency yesterday, I thought that he might ask about that. Waverley station is an important part of the network. The SRA, the Scottish Executive and Edinburgh city council are all discussing what the right level of improvements is and how they should be funded.

One of the problems at Waverley is that, when Railtrack was responsible for it, it seemed more interested in building a shopping mall on top of the station than in improving the station itself. It is another example of the difficulties that were caused under Railtrack's stewardship of the railways. I hope that we can make the improvements that Waverley needs. It is an important station for the obvious reason that it connects so many services.