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Thameslink

I congratulate the hon. Member for Bedford (Patrick Hall) on securing this debate. He is an energetic chairman of the all-party group on the Thameslink route, and I am an enthusiastic supporter of that group. As he said, the core part of that important project is the bit between St. Pancras and Blackfriars, but the third stage, to which he referred, is the improvements that we will get up to 2015—unfortunately rather a long way away—to the Borough market junction and London Bridge station, which are equally important to the project. I am an enthusiastic supporter of the project because I represent people in south London and Orpington who use that service. As the hon. Gentleman knows, there have been huge problems with congestion of services through London Bridge station over many years because of the historic bottleneck resulting from unplanned development of railways during the 19th century. The problem was not tackled during the 20th century, and it is amazing that we have had to wait until the 21st century. Perhaps I can read out a short section of a letter that amply exemplifies the problems faced by my constituents. On 8 January, a lady wrote to Southeastern Trains about a train journey that took place between London Bridge and Orpington on 7 January:""I wish to make a strong complaint about the overcrowding on the above train…I was unable to move or breathe easily. It was not possible to remove my hat, gloves or answer my mobile phone. With lots of layers of clothing on and my coat"—" obviously, January 7 was a very cold day—""I was unable to stop myself from overheating. I can honestly say you were lucky no one was injured in my carriage...There was no security or help from the platform before leaving London Bridge…Thoughts were going through my mind of the Heysel stadium"." It does get that bad on some of these overcrowded commuter trains at certain times of day or night. That letter, written this year, indicates the daily problems that my constituents are facing, which, hopefully, will be alleviated in years to come by the Thameslink programme. The problem is not simply one of overcrowding on a daily basis, but of some of the choices that the Southeastern Trains operating company has to make. For example, it has had to cancel the only services between Orpington, Petts Wood and New Cross—an important area of employment for my constituents with Goldsmiths college and so on—to put in a new service to Lewisham to serve Canary Wharf. Obviously, Canary Wharf is also a source of employment for my constituents, but Southeastern Trains has had to choose between the two because the capacity constraints on that line are such that there cannot be both. That is frankly ridiculous in the 21st century. That is the overcrowding problem that we face. As we know, the notes sent out by Network Rail for this debate stated:""The track and signalling around London Bridge is the most complicated and congested in Europe. By 'untangling' the rail infrastructure at London Bridge we can deliver the massive capacity increase that 100,000s of passengers need and a high frequency service through central London."." That is what we are looking for. I appreciate the point made by the hon. Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes)—who is also a member of the all-party group on the Thameslink route—about the serious conflict between Borough market and the needs of passenger services in that area. It is a great pity that the problem has had to be resolved with some disadvantage to Borough market. The market is a wonderful piece of London's heritage, and although the solution that has been reached means some truncation of Borough market, I hope that it will none the less mean that the service can provide for what is an important part of south-east London's history.