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Pudsey (Transport)

It is a pleasure to serve for the first time under your watchful eye, Dr. McCrea. It is in the nature of Westminster Hall debates that Members take on the role of parliamentary Oliver Twists in pleading with Minsters, "Please Sir—or Madam on some occasions—can I have some more?" I regret that I do not intend to depart from that noble tradition, but I appreciate how tall an order it is in the present economic climate. West Yorkshire has a population of 2.1 million, making it the third largest metropolitan area in England outside London. Leeds and Bradford are significant centres in their own right, and my constituency of Pudsey is positioned midway between the two. There are more than 100,000 daily commuting trips to Leeds city centre. Although the recession has led to a reduction in traffic flows, forecasts of housing and employment growth indicate that congestion will continue to worsen. Those dynamics intimately affect the communities in my constituency: they have an adverse impact on the environment, road safety and labour market accessibility for my constituents and will continue to do so unless substantial investment is made in alternatives. Everyone has to accept that there have been substantial, real-terms increases in transport funding in the Yorkshire and Humber region under this Government, which is to be applauded. However, it remains an inescapable fact, which I hope my right hon. Friend the Minister will not attempt to contradict, that the region has missed out when compared to others. For example, the latest Treasury figures show that total transport spend per head in Yorkshire and Humber is £239, compared to £826 in London. Of course, London is the nation's capital and can be considered a special case, but Yorkshire and Humber fares less well than all other regions. For example, the north-west and the west midlands received per head £309 and £269 respectively. It hardly requires a crystal ball to anticipate that transport will not remain unscathed in difficult future public spending decisions, but on the basis of the historical funding deficit highlighted by the Treasury figures which I have just quoted, I submit that there is a powerful argument that Yorkshire and Humber should not be further disadvantaged in comparison to other regions. Many of my previous debates on transport, and there have been many, have focused to a great extent on bus services, so I will start by referring to them. Bus patronage across west Yorkshire is broadly stable at the moment, but the growth in concessionary travel as a result of the Government's very welcome free English concessionary travel scheme masks a decline in fare-paying passengers. The largest bus company in Leeds, First, has reduced mileage by around 5 per cent. in 2009, which is a significant figure. The company has blamed that reduction on the recession, but the local integrated transport authority, Metro, believes that two fare increases of 8 per cent. in January and July 2008 have also had a significant adverse effect on demand. As one of those Members who have campaigned for years with a handful of colleagues, I very much welcomed the Local Transport Act 2008, which at long last provided practical powers for local authorities to introduce bus quality contracts and protect passengers from the worst excesses of the deregulated bus system. I have said it before, will say it again and will repeat it for ever: deregulation has totally failed my constituents, just as it has failed the constituents of many other Members. Services have been chopped and changed almost at will, and where they do exist, they are often missing or late. Many of the communities in my constituency have lost their services or key transport links altogether as routes have been whittled down to a profitable core. There is increasing concern about the large taxpayer subsidy that is paid to the bus industry for running tendered services, which I understand has increased by about £1 billion over the past five years. There is little evidence in west Yorkshire, and certainly not in my area, that we are getting true value for money, because so many of the contracts had only one tender. Metro, like many ITAs, I suspect, will be considering whether to develop bus quality contracts as a response to the current lack of integration, and continual above-inflation fare rises and reduction in service levels. It has to be said that one of the great risks of embarking on protracted and detailed work to introduce such contracts is the stated intention of the Conservative party, often articulated by the hon. Member for Wimbledon (Stephen Hammond), to repeal the relevant provisions of the 2008 Act. It amazes me that the Conservatives continue to believe that deregulation has worked, because that view is not shared by anyone who depends on bus services in my constituency or, I suspect, the rest of the country. Rail services play a vital role in supporting the social, environmental and economic interests of major cities such as Leeds. Over the past decade or so, Leeds and the three lines through my constituency have seen the highest rate of growth in rail commuting anywhere in the country. Unfortunately, inadequate investment in additional rail carriages has led to severe overcrowding problems on commuter services, examples of which are reported to me regularly by constituents. As I said earlier, all is not doom and gloom, but, unfortunately, we are working from a low starting point. In my constituency, we have seen investment in new rolling stock on the Wharfedale line, where excellent 333-class rolling stock replaced 40-year-old, slam-door cast-offs from the south-eastern commuter belt. As a regular passenger, I used to marvel at the decrepit windows that were held in place by what appeared to be a type of Polyfilla. We have seen additional capacity recently on the Harrogate and Caldervale lines and, less recently, the £250 million upgrade of Leeds station and the refurbishment of all three stations in my constituency: New Pudsey, Horsforth and Guiseley. Following the Hatfield disaster, there was also substantial investment in maintenance and safety measures, which are largely invisible to passengers but essential to their safety and the service. Metro continues development work on the Leeds rail growth package, which includes the introduction of two new rail stations at Apperley Bridge and Kirkstall Forge, the former of which will definitely serve my constituents when and if it is built. I understand that the business case for the £23 million scheme has recently been re-endorsed by the region and is due to be submitted to my right hon. Friend and his colleagues at the Department for Transport shortly. I hope that he can give me some commitment or indication that they will give it a fair wind, and that the stations will be ready to open by 2012. All I have just described is in stark contrast to the Tory legacy, under which the first act of the original franchisee was to shed 70 or 80 drivers in order to stay within its bid. The result, of course, was the chaos of constantly cancelled services, loss of passenger confidence and patronage, and a shortage of drivers, all of which took several years and later franchisees to redress. Rail use in west Yorkshire has, however, recovered from that crisis and has increased by 54 per cent. over the past 10 years. Peak patronage into Leeds has doubled in the past 10 years, and between 7.30 and 9 am, more than 90 per cent. of trains have standing passengers, with some trains carrying up to 200 per cent. of seated capacity. A 2008 survey found that the 17.13 Leeds to Knaresborough service, which runs on the Harrogate line through my constituency, had around 270 passengers travelling on a three-car train with only 157 seats—it often has 110 standing passengers. The train operates at around 120 per cent. of total capacity, that being DFT capacity, which also includes some standing passengers. The DFT franchise capacity for the train is 222, which includes provision for 65 people standing, so the train already exceeds that by 50 standing passengers. There are particular concerns about overcrowding in the morning peak hour between 8 and 9 am on several routes, on which trains consistently operate at more than 90 per cent. capacity. As my right hon. Friend will know, when trains operate at more than 70 per cent. of DFT capacity, passengers have to stand to be carried on them. Harrogate line trains from Harrogate and Knaresborough through Horsforth in my constituency operate at 96 per cent. capacity on average. My right hon. Friend will know that the current Northern Rail franchise was awarded on a no-growth basis, despite the substantial increase in passenger numbers to which I have referred. Fortunately, Metro, Northern Rail and Yorkshire Forward have worked together to secure 37 extra carriages. That is welcome, as it represents an increase of one third for the lines served, but passenger numbers have doubled, and that puts it into context. That is why overcrowding is so acute, and why a sustained increase in carriages is essential. The 2007 rail White Paper and the high-level output specification for the railways recognised the problem in Leeds and set out proposals for investing in additional carriages. Subsequent plans, which were welcome, proposed 182 extra carriages for Northern Rail services, including some new-build diesel and electric trains. Unfortunately, following the DFT's embargo on ordering new-build diesel trains, Northern will now have to make do with substantially fewer carriages than was originally promised, and all of them, I regret, will be older-type carriages handed down from elsewhere on the network. The Wharfedale rail users group has highlighted the concerns of passengers, but those concerns are shared across all the lines that run through my constituency. In a thoughtful submission to the Yorkshire and Humber route utilisation strategy, WRUG called for a mix of additional, retimed and longer peak-hour trains for Leeds to reduce overcrowding, for more early morning trains at weekends, for improved frequency of trains on Sundays and for simple improvements to signalling on the line to improve flexibility and reliability. Unfortunately, the only improvement that was accepted—this is welcome—is the lengthening of four peak-hour trains in each direction by the addition of two coaches to increase them to six coaches, but none of the other improvements was accepted. Of course, that one is to be welcomed, and it is far better than what we inherited from the previous Government, but, as WRUG rightly says, if growth continues at even half the current level, the trains will be as crowded as ever within just a few years. To run longer trains, the platforms between Guiseley and Ben Rhydding must be lengthened. Network Rail says that that will not happen until 2012-13. That will obviously not tackle today's overcrowding, so there is a much greater sense of urgency about what is needed. There is also clear disappointment that the line will receive second-hand trains that do not meet modern access requirements for older people or people with disabilities. The trains will have limited space, with tip-up seats for pushchairs and bicycles, and no advanced information systems or air conditioning, which are currently enjoyed on most of the rolling stock on the Wharfedale line. While any additional carriages will be welcome, it is vital that the DFT commits more firmly to a second phase of rolling stock for Northern that includes high-quality and, dare I say it, preferably new rolling stock for the region. I want to say a few words about Leeds Bradford airport, to which transport links are extremely poor. A recent planning application to improve and expand the terminal was opposed by many of my constituents. I stress that they are not nimbys—they accept the airport as a fact of life and moved into their houses knowing full well of its existence—but they genuinely feared that the application was a precursor to future unsustainable growth. When the council recently privatised the airport—it was controlled by five west Yorkshire authorities—and gave up total control over its development, I anticipated that we would quickly have a debate of that kind. It is ironic that, having let the genie out of the bottle, the council is now trying to make a virtue of putting it back in. The surrounding communities—my constituents—have been badly let down by the council's having earmarked little or none of its £60 million share of the proceeds from the privatisation for any measures to mitigate the impact of the airport's operation. The new terminal would allow the airport to cater for 5 million passengers a year. Although that level of patronage and more is projected in the airport's master plan, such growth has enormous implications for local environmental issues, including air quality, transport and road safety, as well the broader challenge of climate change. Without a major modal shift, which will require support from the Government, the impact on local communities is likely to be substantial, since the surrounding highway network cannot absorb even present traffic levels, let alone the projected ones. Although the airport's financial contribution to bus services is to be welcomed, that is unlikely to be sufficient to address the access problems. Setting aside land for a potential tram-train link is also welcome, but unless there is a much clearer commitment at an earlier stage from stakeholders such as the airport owners, the council and Metro—supported, I hope by the Minister's Department—to make such a link happen, it will continue to be aspirational and will not be introduced to meet the challenges that I have mentioned. Leeds is the largest city in the UK without a rapid transit system. The Minister will be relieved because I do not intend to mention the history of Supertram, but in the wake of the Supertram bid, Metro and Leeds city council are continuing to work in partnership to develop a high-quality rapid transit system for Leeds, known as new generation transport, which is effectively a trolleybus system. The NGT project is seeking to provide a high-quality transport system that will help to support the growth of Leeds' economy and improve the local environment by helping to tackle congestion. I hope that Leeds will, at long last, get its fair share of major infrastructure investment. Although neither the Supertram nor the new trolleybus system bid that has been submitted would directly serve my constituency and its communities in the first instance, each would have major social, environmental and economic benefits and could eventually provide options for links through Pudsey and west Leeds to both Leeds and Bradford. Following the submission of the major scheme business case, it is hoped that the DFT will provide a decision on whether the project will, by the end of this year, be given programme entry—perhaps the Minister can provide a bit more information on that—which I understand is the first stage in the Government's approvals process. The Minister's view on that would be appreciated. We also need the Government to support the delivery of the city region transport strategy and give a long-term funding commitment that reverses the historic underfunding that I have mentioned. The city region has just published its refreshed 20-year city region transport strategy in line with the Government's new approach to strategic transport planning beyond 2012, incorporating the Eddington and Stern recommendations regarding the economics of transport and climate change. The strategy focuses on the current and future demands on the transport network in the city region, with particular focus on jobs and housing growth and the transition to a lower carbon economy, which I regard as vital. The strategy defines spatial priorities and transport interventions to deliver sustainable economic growth. I cannot apologise for being somewhat parochial in looking through the plan, because elements of it are particularly relevant to my constituency: improved rail services between Leeds and Bradford; expanded park and ride facilities in the New Pudsey area; comprehensive bus priority for the A647; new rapid transit corridors between Leeds and Bradford; possible tram-train options to the airport; the A65 quality bus corridor; and new rail stations at Kirkstall Forge and Apperley Bridge. Westminster Hall, and Westminster as a whole, is obviously a place for special pleading. As Members of Parliament, we all want the best for our constituents and our constituencies, but I am pleading not just for Pudsey, Leeds and west Yorkshire, but for the whole region, because our social, environmental, and economic interests are so closely interconnected and have not, under the previous or current Government, been properly addressed.