Ashford International

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 7:26 pm on 7 March 2007.

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Photo of Michael Jabez Foster Michael Jabez Foster Labour, Hastings and Rye 7:26, 7 March 2007

I cannot agree that it is an abdication because I suspect that the Government will be prepared to look again at this issue. However, to date, it is certainly difficult to distinguish what has happened. After this evening, I hope that that situation will change.

Why is the Eurostar argument so acceptable to the Government? Nobody else would seem to have bought it. I suspect that it is because Eurostar has produced a number of facts that are simply wrong. If one starts from the wrong premise, one gets the wrong answer. The first argument that Eurostar makes is that the Brussels to Ashford route is little used. In the last few weeks, I have travelled back from both Brussels and Paris. I know that it is only empirical evidence, but there appear to be scores, if not hundreds, of happy passengers leaving the train at Ashford. Their existence seems to be denied by Eurostar. Why should that be so? I give two reasons. The first is that people simply buy their tickets from London. Why not? It is the same price. As a consequence, those joining at Ashford are perhaps ignored and not counted. Eurostar says that that is not quite right, because it checks things out with customer surveys. I was on the train last Friday and by the time I got on at Ashford, the customer surveys had already been sent round and were being collected back. No-one from Ashford was even in the count.

I must also comment on what I believe to be the disingenuous dissemination of information. The "Count down has begun" booklet is apparently a set of facts that supports Eurostar's case. However, in reality it is nothing of the kind. What it says is often factually incorrect. For example, the publication suggests that the average travel time by car from Hastings to the new Ebbsfleet station—a distance of some 57 miles—is 1 hour 16 minutes. Dream on. Negotiating the A21 is a nightmare and then as a reward one joins the M25, finally negotiating the M25/M2 junction. Doing that journey in 1 hour 16 minutes would mean seeing a blue light following shortly behind. It may just be possible in the dead of night, but then there would be no trains to catch. It is that sort of disingenuous proposition that has made people so angry. The same goes for the information given by Eurostar for the rail connections. It says that Brighton is within 1 hour 13 minutes of King's Cross Thameslink. In fact, the average timetable shows a journey of between 1 hour 18 minutes and 1 hour 46 minutes. That is a considerable difference. The facts are simply wrong.

Why is Ashford so important? Its location 45 miles out of London draws interconnecting road and rail traffic away from areas of chronic congestion around the capital. Ebbsfleet will do the reverse, increasing peak tidal flows. Ebbsfleet has a purpose, but not in attracting the current Ashford traffic. So, what do I want from this evening's debate? I want my hon. Friend the Minister to understand that this is not a cry from the wilderness on behalf of my constituents in Hastings and Rye alone. Although many of my constituents, such as Councillor Godfrey Daniel, Councillor Dominic Sabetian, Neil Perry, Rhoderick Powrie, Trevor Sheldrake, Terry Dorrity, Ann Hamilton, Simon Foster and Mike Turner of Friends of the Earth, are exceedingly exercised, this is a much wider cry than that. It is a cry that has cross-party support, with virtually no dissenting voice. I challenge my hon. Friend to find anyone who supports the Eurostar case. The campaign is currently supported by South East Partners' Brussels office, which represents local authorities across the south-east, by passenger groups on both sides of the tunnel, such as Railfuture and the Marsh Link action group, and by, so far as I am aware, not only the hon. Members who are present this evening, but the vast majority, if not all, of the region's MPs and MEPs.

My hon. Friend should not underestimate the strength of feeling about the preservation of this vital service, with the prosperity, convenience and environment of the south-east at stake. He must not be taken in by the superficial figures that Eurostar offers him to support this dastardly deed.

When I initially secured the debate, I thought that all that I would be able to do would be to ask for the Minister's support in my entreaty to Eurostar. However, according to an article in The Guardian on 21 February, it appears that the Office for National Statistics believes that the British end of Eurostar is effectively under Government control because of the Government's stake in supporting the enterprise. If that is the case, I ask that my hon. Friend not only requests Eurostar to think again, but demands that it does so. In the other place, on 8 February, my noble Friend Lord Bassam confessed to a liking for Ashford, but suggested that the Government could not intervene because the previous Conservative Government had committed the enterprise to the private sector. That might have been the case, but if things have changed and the ONS is right, my hon. Friend has a further opportunity to act.

In the short time available for the debate, it has not been possible to explore in detail all the economic and environmental arguments that are available to those who want Ashford International to prosper, and nor has there been time to dissect the paucity of the Eurostar case on which my hon. Friend might have previously relied. I thus ask my hon. Friend to meet me and a delegation of south-east MPs and MEPs, together with interest groups, so that we can persuade him, if he is not yet already persuaded, that Ashford International must be saved for the south-east of England.

Annotations

Richard Madge
Posted on 29 Jun 2007 10:54 pm (Report this annotation)

The travel time by rail from Hastings and Bexhill to St Pancras is 2 hours or more, compared with less than an hour to Ashford