It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. I join other hon. Members in commending our hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth South (Mrs Drummond) on securing this important debate. I know that she is a tenacious campaigner in her constituency. I have seen at first hand how well she is respected by her local residents and we have heard today why that is: she has a tremendous
grasp of this issue and all those facing Portsmouth, which is such an important part of our country. It is fantastic to see not only my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth South, but my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth North (Penny Mordaunt). The people of Portsmouth have a fantastic team representing them here.
An overwhelmingly powerful case has been made today for further investment in the rail line in our part of the country. The economic case is clear for all to see. My hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth South referred to the southern powerhouse and I agree with her. Basingstoke has the 10th largest employment base in the south-east, and we are adding to that with the development of Basing View, which is right in the centre of town, next door to the station, and will create almost 3,000 new jobs in the coming years. Basingstoke has had one of the highest levels of house building in the country for the past 15 years. When others were not building, Basingstoke was.
When considering rail capacity and the capacity of the transport system in Hampshire, my concern is that north Hampshire is playing catch-up. We did not get the necessary investment in our roads and railways under the previous Government. I hope that the Minister will ally with us and advocate more investment. The south western main line has seen almost no significant investment since the 1930s despite having some of the most important towns and cities in our country along its route: Basingstoke, Guildford, Portsmouth, Southampton—the list goes on. We need to ensure that we have the right transport in place for not only business, but our constituents. We have made some progress, which I am sure the Minister will detail in her summing-up. I pay tribute to her for the interest and support that she has shown us as a group of Members of Parliament over the past few months.
I welcome the investment that is being made, but, as I said, we are playing catch-up. Waterloo is one of the last unmodernised stations in London, despite it seeing almost 100 million passenger movements every single year, a number which has doubled since privatisation. Peak commuter trains out of Woking are running at 173% of capacity, which equates to 500 extra people on a train, making it almost impossible to describe it as a comfortable journey. It is little wonder that the national passenger survey reports that just one in three passengers in our area feel that they get value for money when travelling by train.
My hon. Friend the Member for North East Hampshire (Mr Jayawardena) discussed getting more trains into his constituency, which neighbours mine so we share the same problems. I agree that we need more, faster and longer trains that need to be delivered not only in the next control period, but as part of the refranchising. We need more trains because there are further developments in signalling not only in Basingstoke, but in Woking. We need longer trains, because we still see trains that are not full length, such as the one that I caught to get to this debate today that could have been two carriages longer.
We are also not seeing trains in shoulder periods at anything like their full length. I particularly want the Minister to respond to that point, because we should be pressing South West Trains right now to increase the length of shoulder period trains, so that those who try
to do the right thing and travel off peak are not rewarded with hideous overcrowding. My right hon. Friend the Member for Guildford (Anne Milton) asked me to make one or two remarks on her behalf on that point, because she, in her own inimitable style, wanted to ensure that people were made aware of the overcrowding experienced by her constituents on peak-time trains. She asked that such trains should carry the maximum number of carriages in order to avoid her having, as she says in her note to me,
“to occupy her favourite spot sitting on the floor by the loo”.
Us regular commuters have all been there, because not only are no other seats available, but there is nowhere even to stand. Overcrowding on morning trains into London from Guildford starts at 5.50 am and continues until at least 9.45 am. The problems are chronic for my right hon. Friend’s constituents and I am happy to raise them on her behalf. I hope that the Minister can respond.
We have two clear opportunities here to get some change for our constituents and to ensure that they can see some light at the end of the tunnel—excuse the pun. The refranchising of South West Trains is coming up and we as a group of MPs will be working together to ensure that we get longer trains and that re-signalling work is brought forward so that more trains can be delivered for our constituents. There is also a much bigger opportunity, as referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester (Steve Brine), in the next control period—beyond the current control period 5—to get the economic message across to the Chancellor and the Treasury team. They need to understand that they must invest in the future of trains in our area so that we can continue to deliver the sort of economic growth that the country so badly needs. All the evidence shows that doing nothing is not an option.
My local enterprise partnership, enterprise M3, which does superb work and has already been incredibly successful in securing additional funding for local roads, has expressed concern about the lack of ambition in the plans set out in the Wessex route study. It also challenges what it describes as an excessive time period to improve an already chronically poor service.
I have two further points before I finish. Is the Minister content that the current Network Rail planning process for future capacity adequately takes into account the projections for house building in our area? While I certainly gained a clear impression that some growth in housing was being considered, I would like the Minister’s reassurance that the full scale of development is understood by Network Rail in its projections.
My final point builds on a comment made by my hon. Friend the Member for Havant (Mr Mak) about safety. Through questions that I have asked, I believe that there are no concerns regarding overcrowding on trains. The Office of Rail and Road deals with health and safety, but my concern is slightly different and is about accidents on the line. Will the Minister give us her thoughts on the work being done by rail operators and by Network Rail to ensure that we see fewer fatalities on the line? We have had a spate of fatalities on the line between Waterloo and my constituency that are tragic due to the loss of life and the dreadful nature of such events. I want to be assured that train operators are doing everything that they can to minimise the issue and hopefully to remove it completely in the future.
I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth South on securing this debate. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response. This represents the continuation of an important debate for our constituents throughout the south-east, and I know from the Minister’s great work that we need to secure her undoubtedly important support.
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