Rail Network

Part of the debate – in Westminster Hall at 11:49 am on 7 November 2006.

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Photo of Bob Spink Bob Spink Conservative, Castle Point 11:49, 7 November 2006

I congratulate Dr. Pugh on securing this important debate. I did not agree with every detail of his speech, but I certainly agreed with the broad thrust of his interesting speech. It is always a pleasure to follow Jeremy Corbyn, and I echo what he and others have said about protecting the corridors that are currently closed.

Recent Government policy has been to increase the cost of rail travel, which is already far too high, in order to reduce or hold down passenger numbers. That is particularly true of rail services into London, and the policy has pushed people on to the roads, which is mindless. It makes much more environmental and economic sense to increase peak capacity, thereby increasing the number of rail users and reducing the cost by the usual price-volume economic model. It is not rocket science, so I do not know why the Government continue to follow their policy of recent years. Some of my constituents have to travel into and out of London every day to work. Benfleet and Canvey Island in my constituency are part of the London commuter belt. Benfleet has the most used station on the C2C line, and it suffers particularly as a result of that policy.

Although I accept the need for major blue-sky schemes throughout the country, one of the quickest and easiest ways to increase capacity as we must would be to maximise the use of existing infrastructure and rolling stock. I have three examples of how that can be achieved. First, we should extend platforms so that we can run trains with more carriages. Doing so is easy, provided one obtains the various permissions needed, it is quite cheap, it can dramatically increase train capacity and it can enable more people to be transported into and out of London at peak times. Secondly, we must examine the old signalling. The C2C line needs investment in signalling to run more trains during peak hours. A little investment in signalling on the approach to London would enable C2C to run more trains each hour during those key periods.

Thirdly, and slightly more controversially, we should make small but strategic additions to the main lines. We should build spur lines and loops to existing tracks, and new stations to serve large communities. Many communities are without stations, but their people use the rail service. Canvey Island has 44,000 people, and 3,000 of them have to travel off the island to get on a train to travel to London to work each day. Only 600 people a day use the terminal at Shoeburyness on the same line, so we could afford a new station on Canvey Island, with a spur line linking it to Pitsea down Canvey way. It would be quite cheap, it would make a lot of environmental sense, and it would help to regenerate the community of Canvey Island.

It is dangerous and unacceptable that hundreds of people must stand when they travel into work—in my case for 40 minutes each way each day. We would not transport animals in that way, so why do we expect my constituents and those of my hon. Friend Daniel Kawczynski to do so? I ask the Minister to consider ways in which we can positively encourage schemes such as the Canvey Island rail spur and station and enable them to be realised. It is an environmental and economic no-brainer. I also call on Thames Gateway London Partnership, a massive quango that should be improving local infrastructure and the economy for our communities, to shift its focus from yet more building to community regeneration. That would be a jolly good start, too.