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Sustainable Railways

I agree with the hon. Gentleman on that and hope that he can sign early-day motion 580 on First Capital Connect. Clearly, there needs to be a lot of pressure from constituency MPs on the company to protect those jobs and the safety of those stations. The loss of the staff positions and the associated danger is very serious. I hope that First Capital Connect will also be more imaginative about station development. I have just received a letter from the company about the future of Drayton Park station. The station is almost within the curtilage of the Emirates stadium in my constituency but, apparently, there is no rational business case for the development of the station. It is closed on match days to ensure that no one can use it, which many people find slightly absurd, to put it mildly. The company needs a bit more imagination in its operations and how it wishes to develop its interests. I shall make my final two points briefly because other hon. Members want to contribute to the debate. The first point is on the development and electrification of London Overground. Network Rail has just announced that it is putting £326 million into the upgrading of London Overground—I received a letter from the company yesterday. London Overground essentially runs services as an arm of TfL. I will welcome the improvements in the services, tracks, points and signalling and all that goes with it, and the development of a truly integrated transport system around London. However, I hope that the Minister will give me some good news on the electrification of the Barking to Gospel Oak section of the north London line, which I raised in an early-day motion and in meetings with him. That would mean that the trains could use the rest of the north London line, and make it possible to use the track as a freight bypass route. Freight bypass traffic cannot use that section of the line without changing locomotives from electric to diesel at either end of the section. That is a very inefficient way of running the railway. Investment in the electrification of that stretch of line would have enormous benefits. If the Minister cannot give me some good news on that today, I hope that he will write to me in future about it. My second point is a constituency point, but it says something about the integration of transport in London. Various hon. Members have unkindly said that there could not be a dirty station in London because it would get sorted out straight away. Sadly, that argument simply does not apply: I live in Finsbury Park, and I use Finsbury Park station almost every day, and it is a mess. It is badly laid out and designed. It has been the subject of competing interests between bus companies, Railtrack, Network Rail, several rail franchises, TfL and London Underground. Nobody can agree what to do. Every time we get three ducks in a row, one falls off and another appears, so we never get agreement on undertaking the necessary overall improvements. Sadly, one of the first things that the new Mayor of London did was cancel the previous Mayor's plan to introduce step-free access for the whole station, which I think is outrageous. The station needs a full refurbishment. It needs lift access between the underground, street and main line levels. That would improve things and make the station safer. Plans have been developed endlessly, and some in TfL have worked very hard on them. I would be grateful if the Minister intervened. He could hand the whole station over the TfL to manage, administer and develop rather than endure the endless, futile argument between Network Rail and TfL, and make the station as decent and safe as it ought to be. It is a very busy suburban interchange station. We need to show that we are capable of running an effective integrated transport system in this country. We have the potential for a brilliant rail system in this country. It needs investment, not for money to be taken out of it by franchise operations. That money should be invested in better services and better conditions on our railways.