Sustainable Railways

With permission, I would like to make a statement about how the Government intend to strengthen the country’s railways over the next seven years and beyond. Our proposal is the most ambitious strategy for growth on the railways in more than 50 years. This statement is being made against a background not of decline or crisis, as in the past, but of remarkable success for our railway network. Of course, anyone who travels regularly by rail, as many of us in the House do, will know that big challenges remain before our country has the rail system that it needs. There is no room for complacency, but the measures put in place since the Hatfield tragedy mean that our railways are safer than ever before. Reliability, which declined sharply after Hatfield, is improving strongly on most lines and passenger satisfaction has improved. There has been sustained investment in the network, such as in the modernisation of the west coast main line and in new rolling stock. The result is that more freight and more people are travelling by rail than at any time for 50 years. Our challenge today is not about managing decline. Instead, it is about how we can build on that solid progress to provide a railway that carries more passengers on more and better trains, and on more frequent, reliable, safe and affordable services. That needs the Government, working with the industry, the regulator and passenger groups, to take action in three main areas: first, to secure continued improvements in safety and reliability; secondly, to achieve a major increase in capacity to meet rising demand; and thirdly, to deliver sustained investment through a fair deal for passengers and the taxpayer. Let me take each in turn. Safety has improved and reliability is back to the levels seen before Hatfield, even though we are running many more trains. Those who work on our railways deserve credit for their focus. The White Paper sets out how we intend to continue reducing the risks to passengers and staff on our railways. We also intend to build on the improvements in reliability. Currently, 88 per cent. of services arrive on time. By 2014, I want that figure to reach 92.6 per cent., through investment in new rolling stock, maintenance and equipment, which would make our railway one of the most reliable in Europe. For the first time, we will require the industry to concentrate on cutting by one quarter delays of more than 30 minutes, which cause the most inconvenience to passengers. As safety and reliability have improved, passenger numbers have increased, and overcrowding has become a real issue for many commuters. The White Paper contains the biggest single commitment for a generation to increasing the capacity of the railway through more services and longer trains. By 2014, we will have invested £10 billion to make this happen. Starting now, and over the next seven years, we will see: 1,300 new carriages to ease overcrowding in London and other cities such as Birmingham, Cardiff, Leeds and Manchester; £600 million investment to tackle bottlenecks at Birmingham New Street and Reading stations; the £5.5 billion transformation of Thameslink, which provides a vital north-south artery into and across London; and new plans put in place for the development of each of our main lines, including the next generation of inter-city trains and signalling. The Government are also committed to ensuring that we close no rural lines in this period. This continued investment will provide nearly 100,000 new seats for passengers on inter-city and commuter trains to our major cities. Our proposals will accommodate a further seven years of record passenger growth and, at the same time, start to tackle some of the worst overcrowding on some of our busiest services. There will be some 14,500 more seats in the peak hour on Thameslink alone and, while Crossrail remains subject to financial and parliamentary approval, it has the potential to deliver a similar scale of improvement for east-west services in the capital. The White Paper also outlines other improvements that groups such as Passenger Focus tell us that passengers want to see. These include a radical simplification of the fares structure and the modernisation of tickets to allow people to use smartcards; a further £150 million to be spent on 150 stations in the towns and cities outside London that form the backbone of the national network; better and safer stations from Wolverhampton to Dartmouth, Cleethorpes to Swansea, and Barking to Chester; and support for Transport 2000’s idea of local station plans so that people can better access the railway and make it part of a greener travel choice. We are also investing £200 million in a strategic freight network that will help to reduce the congestion on our roads and the environmental impact of moving goods. Sustained investment will be needed to underpin all this. Having fought its way back on to a stable financial footing following the demise of Railtrack, it is essential that the industry maintain financial discipline. Both passengers and taxpayers have suffered the consequences of financial crises, and we will not allow a return to those days. The challenge is to deliver the sustained investment that the rail system needs while continuing to protect passengers, but we must also strike a fair balance between the call on taxpayers and fare payers. Because we are determined to continue to protect passengers, any increases in regulated ticket prices will remain capped at the retail prices index plus 1 per cent. Such tickets account for over half the use of the railway and include season tickets and saver fares. There has been some recent debate about unregulated fares, which operators can vary to respond to customer demand. Some unregulated ticket prices have therefore increased. This is something that I will monitor closely and today I am committing to give Passenger Focus more say in the specification of future franchises before they are tendered. At the same time, many other tickets have been discounted. In fact, about 80 per cent. of passengers do not use the headline-catching first and peak tickets, but buy either a regulated ticket or a discounted product. A significant number of those fares have fallen in real terms over the past 10 years, with many deals cheaper in cash terms than they were under British Rail. The result is that many more people are now choosing to travel by rail—some 340 million more passengers each year than in 1997. This strong growth also means that the railways need less taxpayer subsidy. In the difficult years of Railtrack, it was the taxpayer who footed the bill. The proportion of subsidy funding nearly doubled in five years. It is right that we now seek to return it closer to historic levels. I believe that we are meeting our goals of protecting passengers and achieving a fair balance between the taxpayer and the travelling public, while delivering the necessary investment that we all agree is necessary. Today’s White Paper sets out our ambition for a railway capable of carrying double the number of passengers and twice the amount of freight by 2030, with modern trains and a network whose reliability and safety are among the best in Europe. This is not a White Paper that rests on distant promises of all-or-nothing projects. Schemes such as new north-south lines may have their place, and we will consider them if and as the need arises. This is a strategy that seeks to deliver real improvements that reflect passengers’ priorities and that builds on the real achievements and successes of our rail system over the past decade. Twenty-five years ago, our railways were advertising ““This is the age of the train””, but it was against a background of falling demand and chronic underinvestment in trains and infrastructure. Perhaps that claim was premature. If we can build on the progress of the past 10 years, with sustained investment and increased capacity while harnessing the full environmental gains of rail transport, we will be entering a new and exciting era of rail travel. This White Paper is a resounding vote of confidence in Britain’s railways and I commend it to the House.