Stockton and Darlington Railway: 200th Anniversary

Question

14:58:00

Asked by

To ask His Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the Stockton and Darlington Railway.

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper, and I declare a lifelong interest in railways.

The Stockton and Darlington Railway, the world’s first railway to use steam locomotives to transport passengers, shaped modern railways. To mark its 200th anniversary, Railway 200—a national celebration—is supporting the Stockton and Darlington bicentenary festival. That festival will highlight its impact on the local and regional industry, communities and innovation. My department is supportive of these events and of ensuring that the Stockton and Darlington Railway is rightly honoured for transforming transport and Britain’s and the world’s economy.

My Lords—

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that Answer. There are clearly many activities to which we can look forward. May I ask three quick questions? First, can he say a little bit more about the so-called Greatest Gathering, which I understand is going to take place in August in Derby, and which will bring together an unprecedentedly wide range of trains illustrating 200 years? Secondly, what hopes do the Government have that this anniversary will help the heritage railway industry, on which so much of our historical culture and tourism depends? Finally, will it look ahead to the future of railways, particularly the exciting new direct journeys from London to places in Europe and beyond?

I thank my noble friend. The celebration in Derby is from 1 to 3 August. It will be a huge gathering of historic and current railway equipment. It is entirely put on by Alstom, which occupies Britain’s oldest train manufacturing plant, and it will be a great occasion. The heritage railways movement is worth £600 million a year to the economy and has 4,000 employees and 22,000 volunteers. It has had a hard time since Covid, and one of the purposes of Railway 200 is to give it a bit of a hand in survival and growth. In respect of the present and the future, the real reason why this Government should support this celebration so much is that the railway is extraordinarily relevant to the modern economy: connectivity drives growth, jobs and housing, and, on the future, the technological change that the railways are presently going through is an eminently marketable resource. He is also right, of course, that European connectivity is important. My department is working as hard as it can to increase the number of European destinations accessible through Eurotunnel.

My Lords, I hope noble Lords can already sense my excitement at this Question, so I appreciate the time. It is an extremely important celebration—I declare an interest as the regional mayor for the Darlington and Stockton area—which will go down as a point in history for a key piece of infrastructure that hopefully will shape not just our past but our future. Along those lines, I ask the Minister: what is the department’s and the Government’s position on the CRSTS2 budget, which is still under review ahead of the spending review, and what representations is he making to the Treasury to make sure we protect that capital investment, to make sure that we can invest it not just in general transport but specifically within our rail infrastructure, to make sure we have a rail infrastructure fit for the 21st century?

Well, it is not much of a leap to funding in the spending review, so the noble Lord has answered his own question—the CRSTS2 budget is in process, there will be a spending review, and my department is extraordinarily active in making sure that the position of transport is well represented to the Chancellor in the Budget. But he will have to wait, as everybody else will, for the outcome of the spending review in due course.

My Lords, is it not worth reflecting that, 200 years ago, British engineering designed and built the first steam locomotives, built a phenomenal network of railways across our country, most of which is still intact and used today, exported all over the world and built railways in pretty well every continent? Fast forward to today and we have a situation where, while large numbers of countries across the world are building new railways and new high-speed lines, the last Tory Government took the absurd and costly decision to cancel HS2 north of Birmingham. Would not it be a wonderful way of celebrating 200 years of railway history if the Minister could come to this Dispatch Box and say, “We are going to clear up the Tory mess and build HS2”?

I thank my noble friend for that. The first priority of this Government is to get the present phase 1 of HS2 back under control. This Government inherited a situation where they could predict neither the cost nor the timescale of completion of the line between London and Birmingham. The Chancellor has taken the brave but right decision of restarting the tunnels to Euston, without which the railway would have no proper end, and our job is to make that work. Our job is also to put forward a plan for railway infrastructure for the rest of the country, particularly the Midlands and the north, and a lot of effort is going on in my department to do that logically, properly and in a properly costed and prioritised way.

My Lords, given this Question is about commemorating the railway, can the Minister confirm what plans the Government have to mark the first rail franchise coming into public ownership this May? Could it be commemorated with the provision of a basic catering service for passengers on the Waterloo to Exeter line, and perhaps even some seat reservations?

The first publicly run South Western Railway train will be at an extraordinarily early hour on 20 May. I fear I will have the doubtful privilege of traveling on it. I doubt it will have catering, because I suspect it is a suburban service from Strawberry Hill to Waterloo. The more serious answer about the Waterloo to Exeter line is that it could be more reliable, and a lot of effort is being put into making it more reliable. South Western, like most other current franchises, has a shortage of drivers, and I am working extremely hard with the department to make sure that it works better for the passengers both prior to and post the operation coming back into public ownership. We will look at catering, but the first priority is to make the train service reliable.

My Lords, in joining the good people of Stockton in celebrating the 200th anniversary, will the Minister recall that the first steam engine ran a decade earlier in Merthyr Tydfil, designed by the outstanding Cornish engineer Richard Trevithick? That was a reflection of the industrial greatness of those valleys at that time. Looking at HS2, which was mentioned a moment ago, will the Government now ensure that the Barnett consequentials come through to the Welsh Government in order for them to build a future for the railways in Wales that Wales most certainly deserves?

There is a Celtic competition between the Penydarren tramway of, I think, 1804 and its originator, Trevithick, who came from Camborne. Personally, I side on the Cornish side of that argument. The more serious point the noble Lord raised is of course a matter of national finance and one for my Treasury colleagues and the Chancellor.

My Lords, will the Minister recall that the steam engine was invented by a Scot, James Watt? I declare my interest as chairman of the Steam Boat Association and raise the serious point that we are very dependent on heritage railway in our country for tourism. The decision to close the last remaining coal mines means that coal has to be imported at great expense for that purpose. What are the Government going to do about it? Is this not an example of net-zero ideology harming our economy?

I am certainly willing to give credit to another Celtic nation for the invention of the steam engine. The matter of coal is, of course, a much wider question than coal for heritage railways. I would ask the noble Lord to look at an aerial photograph of the last Welsh opencast coal mine and the hideous blot on the landscape that it represents, and also at the huge damage that coal and the coal-fired equipment has done to the environment and the atmosphere. It is a factor in the continued provision of heritage railways and, as he says, steamboats, that there should be some coal. There is some coal, and I can write to him, if he wants, about the means by which coal substitutes can be procured rather than reopening coal mines.

My Lords, returning to the Question, Parliament, particularly your Lordships’ House, played a crucial role in the creation of the railways. Over a period of 200 years, noble Lords have toiled at the coalface of the hybrid Bills and other legislation without which the railways would not exist at all today. Can the Minister say that Parliament will feature prominently in the celebrations of the 200th anniversary of the railways? Might there even be an opportunity for noble Lords to fulfil some childhood dreams and drive a steam train?

I can certainly ensure that the noble Lord is able to drive a steam train, but it will not be on a railway line near Parliament. Parliament will have a unique opportunity this year to contribute to the future of Britain’s railways by considering and then passing the forthcoming railways Bill, which will put the railway back into a state where it can generate revenue, run better and reduce its costs. I think that will be an excellent contribution of Parliament to the future of the railway.