§ Mr. Mike Hall (Weaver Vale) (Lab)I ask you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, to convey my thanks to Mr. Speaker for granting me this Adjournment debate. I have been pressing for it on and off since the summer recess, when I raised with the Deputy Leader of the House some of the points that I am going to raise now.
The first part of my contribution will be about Hartford railway station, which is on the west coast main line in the southern part of my constituency. There is often a misunderstanding: Hartford might be a village, but the station in fact serves a large catchment area of about 120,000 in Vale Royal as well as the Kelsall district of Chester and the Knutsford area of Macclesfield. It prospered until 2001. It had been an integral part of British Rail's 'west coast main line services, and in the late 1980s services were expanded from Hartford. There seemed to be a great opportunity for the railway station to do well and serve my constituents.
In the aftermath of the Hatfield crash, Virgin Rail had to consider the services that it provided, and in October 2000 it suspended services on the west coast main line from Hartford station. In May 2001, those services were stopped altogether. The reasons and mitigating circumstances cited by Virgin Rail were extraordinary. It said that it had to speed up train services from Liverpool and Preston to London and to increase track capacity to allow extra trains to run. The company also cited poor passenger figures for the west coast main line from Hartford—only 60 passengers a day. For me, that is a reasonable number of passengers using such a service, and it is a poor excuse for removing the services altogether.
There was a considerable campaign to get Virgin Rail to change its mind, but it steadfastly refused. The company has now said that it is investing £2 billion in the upgrading of services on the west coast main line and introducing Pendolino trains, which can run at 140 mph although they may run at 125 mph on that line. Virgin Rail has also said that when services improve and journey times from the north-west to London are reduced, it would be wrong to reinstate the services from Hartford because that would increase running times. When the line is upgraded, the company will miss a real opportunity to increase the number of passengers travelling on its services, and it is a shame that it is being so pig-headed about the decision, which it took it in the face of strong local opposition.
Another mitigating circumstance cited by Virgin Rail was the fact that people could use Hartford station to travel to Crewe, where they could board the west coast main line services to London, and that because there was a good local connection, that would be a good service. Virgin Rail also made the fair point that people travelling from Hartford to Crewe do so at no extra cost to those on the west coast main line services from Crewe to London.
That argument would have had more power if Virgin Rail had not stopped its local services from Hartford to Crewe in 2002. If commuters want to travel from Hartford via Crewe and arrive in London before 9 o'clock, they have to drive to Crewe station because 133WH there is not a connecting service that allows them to board a train early enough. As such, my constituents and other commuters using the service now have either to pay the cost of leaving their car at Crewe, which is £5 an hour, or to take the alternative route of going to Manchester airport and flying. We need to look again at that service.
When the services changed, I wondered why passenger service requirements had not insisted that Hartford station was kept on the west coast main line route to London. The service had existed under British Rail and at the point of privatisation, and the passenger service requirements demand that services are maintained at the pre-privatisation levels. For some reason, the previous Administration—I do not blame my hon. Friend the Minister for this—decided not to include Hartford station in those requirements. If they had, I might not have been here this afternoon complaining about the activities of Virgin West Coast since privatisation.
One of the other improvements to which I draw my hon. Friend the Minister's attention is the service from Crewe to Hartford in the evening. The service from Hartford to Crewe in the morning is poor. As I said, there is no way to connect to the west coast main line service in order to arrive in London before 9 o'clock. We have a similar problem in the evening. If commuters coming back from London to Crewe arrive after 19.47, they have to wait two hours for a connecting service to Hartford. I have been pressing the Strategic Rail Authority and the rail service providers in the area to stop the Crewe to Winsford service at Hartford at half-past 8. I am pleased to say that that has now been agreed. That is a welcome improvement to the service, but we still need to look more closely at the services provided at Hartford station.
I pressed the SRA on its involvement in the matter, because I was under the impression that its job is to ensure that our railway systems serve the public, and that it follows the Government's view that we should try to get more people out of their cars and on to public transport. Its reason for the reduction of services at Hartford is a logistical one: it claims that there is a pinch point on the line between Crewe and Weaver junction, as there is only a double track along that section of the line. That is not accurate. It is, however, accurate to say that the 5-mile track around Hartford is double track. I have asked the SRA to insist that, as part of the west coast main line improvement, that section of track is improved, so that the pinch point is removed, allowing more and faster services on the line. Sadly, it has been unable to do that on what it calls "economic grounds".
The irony of all that—I draw my hon. Friend's attention to this particular problem—is that we are currently upgrading the west coast main line and introducing a new electricity supply at 400 kV. A network of substations and trackside feeder stations is being introduced along the whole west coast main line. The substation and feeder station in our area should be near Crewe. The national grid and Network Rail have been unable to find a site in the Crewe area, and have 134WH come up with a site in Weaverham in my constituency, adjacent to the west coast main line. It will be a massive development. What the national grid did not tell people during consultations was that the development will be the size of three rugby pitches. It will be slap-bang in the middle of green belt, and will be a blot on the landscape.
The supreme irony of that is not lost on my constituents. Although we can no longer use the west coast main line services from Hartford, the improvements to the electricity supply, which will speed up the trains going from the north-west to London and vice versa, will be bang in the middle of our green belt. I am not opposed to the upgrading of the electricity supply to the west coast main line, but I am absolutely opposed to this location for the so-called substation and trackside feeder station. I believe that there are alternatives in the area, which the national grid has so far failed to explore.
Another service that Hartford might benefit from is that from Liverpool to Birmingham. I am delighted with the news that from September there will be a fast service travelling every hour. I have heard various accounts of whether that will stop at Hartford. I understand that the fast Liverpool to Birmingham train will stop there at peak times, but may not stop there off peak. If it can stop at peak times, there is absolutely no reason why it cannot stop there off peak. If my hon. Friend cannot give me an answer to that question this afternoon, we will have to see whether we can persuade the people providing the service that, if it is feasible to stop at peak times, it should be feasible to stop off peak.
There will also be a twice-hourly Liverpool to Crewe service. The passenger service requirement means that, in the gap between 17.00 and 18.00, there should be two services from Liverpool, Lime Street to Hartford. Currently, there is only one service. The SRA has allowed the railway operator to breach the passenger service requirement, and revised it in January. That again was a retrograde step. If the new trains are to travel from Liverpool to Crewe and can stop at Hartford, we may be bringing services closer to what they were before privatisation. The other good news is that, in 2005, there will be a Birmingham to Preston train. Will the Minister confirm that that will stop at Hartford, too? If so, gradual improvements will be made to the station that was once probably the jewel in the crown of rail services in the north-west.
I wish to raise with my hon. Friend the 7.09 service from Hartford to Stansted airport. It is run by Central Trains and is an absolute disgrace. It is often late and it is frequently cancelled. I am told that the rolling stock is old and dirty and that the travelling public are not receiving good value for their money. Several constituents have raised the matter with me. The operating record of Central Trains is not good. As a regional operator, its performance is the worst in the league table and it is third worst in overall performance. That is epitomised by the 7.09 service from Hartford station. It needs to be improved.
Perhaps we can take a leaf out of the book of the Midland Mainline service, which I understand from today's Ceefax has a novel way to improve train punctuality. It has issued its guards with ACME thunderer whistles. The guards blow the whistles and 135WH that chivvies up the passengers to get on the trains more quickly, as a result of which the trains run on time. If that is all it takes to improve train services, I recommend it to my hon. Friend as an economic way to deal with problems of Central Trains, especially the 7.09 service.
My hon. Friend is aware of the Halton Curve. It is a stretch of railway line that connects the north Cheshire railway lines with the west coast main line, linking it to north Wales, Chester, Frodsham, Helsby and directly from Runcorn to Liverpool. It is called the parliamentary line in my neck of the woods because to close a railway line there must be an Act of Parliament. That is a statutory requirement. For that line not to be closed, a light service is run. During the summer on a Saturday morning, I am told that 18 passenger services run from Chester to Runcorn and do not return. The railway line is the missing piece of the jigsaw in the north-west. It would link the west coast main line with the new Liverpool-Allerton interchange; it would provide a direct link to Liverpool John Lennon airport; and it would allow freight coming in from Liverpool city docks and the Mersey docks to connect at Birmingham and Felixstowe without having to go on to the west coast main line. It would open up passenger possibilities at the gateway of Chester into north Wales and it would link up the gateway of Warrington into Blackpool and into the north-west.
Several of us are pressing my hon. Friend the Minister for such a measure to be included either in the west coast main line upgrade or for it to have discrete funds of its own to make improvements. Furthermore, a consortium could come forward involving the North West Development Agency, which supports the plan; Cheshire county council, which supports the plan; Halton borough council, which supports the plan; the chambers of trade and commerce in Liverpool, and a range of other organisations that believe that such action should be taken. We must not miss such an opportunity. It would be beneficial for the local economy and for the economy in the north-west. It would have an impact. We must remember that Liverpool will celebrate being the European capital of culture in 2008, and that all such matters will be important.
I want to end on a positive note. Two issues are acutely important in my constituency; one concerns a major boost to transport investment in Cheshire. It will cover a large part of my constituency with the exception of Halton borough council, which is a unitary council in the north of the constituency. The Department for Transport has awarded Cheshire county council an extra £26 million of funds for its local transport planning strategy for 2004–05. The county council welcomes that as a major boost to transport investment in the county. Slightly more than £12 million will go into maintenance activities, more than £10 million will be used take forward the county council's integrated transport programmes, and other money will be available for allocation to supplementary bids throughout the year. That is exceptionally good news for my constituents and is good news for council tax payers in the Cheshire county council area.
However, I contrast that with the absurd decision taken by the county council to cut its subsidised bus services after 7 o'clock in the evening. The cuts have 136WH taken place across the board, and the council is also considering cutting school transport services. Those are retrograde steps, which will mean that more people will use their cars, congesting our roads and making our environment more unsafe and polluted. Cheshire county council, with the extra cash that it was given by the Government, could have been a little more adventurous in the way it approached its transport policy.
Finally, I want to raise the question of Helsby station, which is on the Ellesmere Port to Helsby route into Manchester, and has recently received the best-kept station award. It is a magnificent listed building, and the local community has done a fabulous amount of work to make it a credit to and a jewel in the crown of our area. I want to place on record my thanks to the people involved in that project and to say what a wonderful job they have done. It is an example of what could be done with stations throughout the UK. My hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Mr. Miller) used that rail service on Saturday to go to Manchester; the service ran on time and the trains were clean. He said that it was a joy to travel on it. I give that example to show that I am not just being critical of our rail services; some things in my constituency work well.
During the time that I have represented Weaver Vale, I have been ably assisted by the North Cheshire rail users group and the Mid-Cheshire rail users group. Both groups have been a fantastic source of information and encouragement. I give particular thanks to Andrew MacFarlane from the Mid-Cheshire rail users group and to Ian Watson, who is no longer with the North Cheshire rail users group, but who put a fabulous amount of work into that activity. I also thank Mr. Frank Thomas, who has been one of the leading lights with respect to the best-kept station at Helsby, which is in my constituency.
I hope that I have left enough time for the Minister to respond to the points that I have made, but I shall sum up those points briefly. I am concerned about the diminution of west coast main line services at Hartford. I am also concerned about the diminution of cross-country services and local services, and emphasise the need to recognise that Hartford has a part to play in providing decent rail services, together with Acton Bridge and the other station in Northwich, as well as Runcorn East and the Runcorn mainline services in my constituency. I hope that the Minister can respond positively to the points that I have made.
§ The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Dr. Kim Howells)I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale (Mr. Hall) on securing the debate and providing an opportunity to discuss rail services to Weaver Vale. He made a fine speech, and represented his constituents well. He is well qualified to do so. I have been looking at various maps—I have become a bit of a rail anorak since I took on this job—and found that his constituency must have as many railway stations as any other hon. Member's. It has eight stations, served by at least four train companies, of which he mentioned two: Central and Virgin. 137WH My hon. Friend takes a great interest in communications across his constituency, because it requires good communications. His constituency is not a centre of big, urban populations, but it serves big, urban populations. His constituents are an integral part of several separate city work forces in the north-west of England. I shall try to deal with the points that he raised. I fully understand the importance of Hartford railway station. Hartford may not have a massive population, but it serves a large area and it is a popular station. We are encouraging companies to do what they can to improve railway stations and the rail services to and from those stations.
It might be helpful to give an update on the upgrading of the west coast main line, which is one of Europe's busiest mixed traffic railway lines. Decades of under-investment have affected the ability of current train operators—notably Virgin—to run punctual services on that route. In many respects, it was a second-rate railway, plagued with infrastructure failures and hampered by the poor reliability of the rolling stock. The situation was exacerbated by the speed restrictions imposed on the network following the terrible Hatfield derailment in October 2000.
We have made a huge investment in the west coast main line to turn around the decades of neglect. New rolling stock is being introduced on the line and the multi-billion-pound project to renew and upgrade the infrastructure is well under way. The Strategic Rail Authority's strategy, published last June, sets out how that will be achieved.
My hon. Friend asked an important question about the part of the upgrade that will improve the power supply to the west coast main line and he mentioned the proposed construction of a substation. I appreciate what he said; he is trying to represent the interests of his constituents who live in that lovely part of the world, and who face the prospect of a substation suddenly being dumped in their back yard. However, the site is at the point where the 400 kV electricity supply line crosses the railway line, which is the most convenient spot for a substation to feed the west coast main line, enabling the new trains plying that line, which need much more electricity than existing trains, to receive the upgrade.
I take my hon. Friend's point, but the substation is an essential part of the project to provide greater capacity on the line and to improve performance, and the prerequisite is to increase the power supply. The proposal is well into its planning stage and various procedures are being followed, so I can give my hon. Friend little comfort in that respect. He knows as well as I do the difficulties of trying to interfere with planning law if it has been followed reasonably accurately.
§ Mr. HallI am not asking my hon. Friend to comment on the merits of the planning application or to endorse it. I merely wanted to draw his attention to the fact that there is huge opposition to the proposal and that there is a viable alternative to the intended site.
§ Dr. HowellsI very much take my hon. Friend's point; he has become an expert on the issue, which I am not. However, I am afraid that he will have to take it up with the powers that be. There is little that we can do because we no longer have the levers to pull on these issues. 138WH As time is short, I will now deal with the specific matters that my hon. Friend raised. I am fully aware from the debate and from previous correspondence to me and to the SRA of his concern about passenger services to and from Hartford. Services to be introduced from autumn 2004 are still being refined, but the current proposal is that Hartford should have an hourly service provided by the Birmingham to Liverpool route. The SRA has concluded consultation on the proposed timetables for September 2004 and is examining the results. I have a draft of the timetable, which I will be only too glad to give to my hon. Friend. It looks pretty reasonable. He also asked about the additional service from Birmingham to Preston. That service is important because Preston station is, in many ways, a gateway to services north of that point. We hope that Hartford will be part of that service, and I will try to discover more detail about it as soon as I can.
The improvements that my hon. Friend wants for Hartford cannot be introduced earlier because of limited track capacity on the west coast main line while renewal and modernisation work takes place. He has played his part, along with his constituents, in putting up with a good deal of suffering and misery on that line while the work has been undertaken. I want to reassure him that, at the end of the process, it will be one of the very best railway lines anywhere in Europe. The line will see an enormous increase in capacity, a half-hour reduction in the travelling time between Manchester and London, and commensurate reductions in travelling times between Liverpool and London, Crewe and London and so on. That will benefit many of his constituents, as well as allowing greater capacity for more local services within and around his constituency. That is a very good news story—and a very expensive story, as he knows.
Delivery of the new fleet of high-quality 100 mph electric multiple units from mid-2005, facilitating a far better regional inter-city service, should permit an improvement in services to Hartford station. My hon. Friend will welcome that good news. If he does not want the new 100 mph trains, I will have them down in Pontypridd. I am sure that we would be very glad to receive them. They will give a big boost to train services in his area.
In the few moments that I have left, I will deal with the question of the Halton Curve. My hon. Friend has raised that matter with colleagues in the past and I know that he feels strongly about it. Currently, the lightest-possible service runs around it. I understand that it is mainly for rail enthusiasts in the summer, who go, as he put it, one way around the Halton Curve. I can see his point. Interestingly, the SRA has issued a consultation paper on what it calls community railways. My hon. Friend's suggestion on the possibility of a partnership approach in the north-west was also very interesting. I am sure that people in the region will consider carefully the idea involving John Lennon airport, which could certainly benefit from a connection to the market in north Wales for flights out of that airport.
My hon. Friend is right to identify the fact that there are parcels of money that could be put together 139WH positively so that the Government and the SRA could be asked to consider doing something at some future time with stretches of railway line such as the Halton Curve, so that they can provide new services that benefit everyone. I cannot give him an undertaking that we have the money in place to do something with the Halton Curve right now, because we have not, but I can 140WH guarantee that the Halton Curve track will be protected to ensure that people do not develop on it and render it incapable—
§ Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Frank Cook)Order.
It being half-past Four o'clock, the motion for the Adjournment of the sitting lapsed, without Question put.