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Thameslink

I am pleased to have secured this Adjournment debate about planned major improvements to a transport route that is of considerable importance not only to many of my constituents in Bedford and Kempston but to hundreds of thousands of other people along the route and those who use its many connections. It is also crucial to the economy of London and a wide area north and south of the capital. Since I first sought this debate, we have unfortunately experienced the serious deterioration of the rail service operated by First Capital Connect. Therefore, before completing my presentation, it would be entirely remiss of me not to take the opportunity to raise some points about that, not only to reflect the inconvenience suffered by my constituents and others but because what has happened raises some legitimate questions about capability to deliver the much improved service to passengers promised by the Thameslink programme. I shall return to those matters later. I am pleased to see many hon. Members present for this debate, especially fellow members of the all-party Thameslink route group—my hon. Friends the Members for Crawley (Laura Moffatt), for Brighton, Pavilion (David Lepper) and for Luton, North (Kelvin Hopkins), and the hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Horam)—and others such as my hon. Friend the Member for Derby, North (Mr. Laxton). I apologise for not referring to the others who are here. I do not think that they have signed up to the all-party group, but they can do so later. Some of us have benefited from opportunities to inspect aspects of the Thameslink programme works, for which we are grateful to Network Rail, First Capital Connect and various construction companies. The Thameslink service has become such an accepted part of the transport infrastructure of south-east England that it is easy to forget how relatively recently it came about. The electrification of the midlands suburban route between St. Pancras, Moorgate and Bedford had already been started by a previous Labour Government in the late 1970s, when the idea of joining it up with what was then known as the Southern region began to be discussed. British Rail engineers devised a plan to reopen the Snow Hill tunnel route between Farringdon and Holborn Viaduct stations, a route that had not seen a passenger train since Lloyd George was in Downing street, and from which the last freight service had been withdrawn in 1970. The plan initially was for some kind of shuttle between West Hampstead and south London, but the project eventually grew to become Thameslink: a full-blown network of services linking Bedford and Luton in the north with Gatwick and Brighton in the south via the City of London, with an additional loop serving Wimbledon.