I will call Amanda Hack to move the motion and I will then call the Minister to respond. I remind other Members that they may make a speech only with the prior permission of both the Member in charge of the debate and the Minister. There will not be an opportunity for the Member in charge to wind up, as is the convention with a 30-minute debate.
That this House has considered restoration of the Ivanhoe Line.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms McVey.
I am pleased that colleagues have joined me for what I believe is the first ever debate solely about the Ivanhoe line—a train line that would reopen a direct passenger link between Leicester and Burton upon Trent. The line has a long history. Before the 1830s, Coalville did not exist; it was known as Long Lane and included the four medieval parishes of Whitwick, Hugglescote, Snibston and Swannington. When William Stenson, the proprietor of coalmines in Whitwick, returned from a trip on the Stockton and Darlington railway, he carefully studied the land between Long Lane and Leicester. Taking into account the mines in Ibstock and Bagworth, he planned the line of a possible railway.
Stenson enlisted the help of George Stephenson, “the father of railways”, who delegated the construction of the Swannington-to-Leicester railway to his son, Robert. It became the sixth steam railway in the country, linking Leicester and Long Lane so that coal could easily be transported between the two. Some estimate that around the same time the town became known as Coalville. The line traditionally transported coal before it was opened to passengers.
Fast forward to the 1960s, when what was then called the Ivanhoe line was closed during the infamous Beeching cuts of 7 September 1964. Since then, there have been many campaigns to get it fully back up and running, especially as it remained open to freight traffic until only recently.
I congratulate the hon. Lady on bringing forward this matter. I spoke to her before the debate, and I now rise to support and encourage her.
I hail from a rural constituency that once had a railway line but now has none whatsoever. Sometimes the bottom line is not the financial one, and sometimes obligations need to extend to more than profit margins. Does the hon. Lady agree that there must be an obligation —if necessary, a statutory obligation—to provide a rail service in isolated areas?
I thank the hon. Member for his intervention. Later in my speech, I will talk about how we can connect our communities, which is really important.
Lack of maintenance on the Ivanhoe line led to the gradual withdrawal of freight services, although the private section, from Bardon Hill quarry to the rail network, is still operational; in fact, the quarry has recently extended its lease. There was an opportunity to get the line up and running in the 1990s, but any hope of doing so was thwarted by the break-up of British Rail when it was privatised. Throughout all this change, there has been continuous local pressure to deliver a passenger rail service for my constituents. The most recent business case was supported under stage 1 of the restoring your railway fund, of which Lord Hendy, the Minister of State for Rail, was the chair.
The project originated from a successful bid by the Campaign to Reopen the Ivanhoe Line, or CRIL, and was one of the 12 projects nationally to receive restoring your railway development funding. I want to take a moment to thank everybody from CRIL for all their hard work to get to this stage.
The project, which was in phase 1 of restoring your railways, was for a partial reopening from Coalville to Burton upon Trent, with stations at Ashby-de-la-Zouch, Castle Gresley and Coalville. That would have finally reconnected two of the largest towns not connected to the rail network: Coalville and Swadlincote. Those two towns have also seen the highest growth in homes and employment in the last decade. The east midlands has grown by 8%, yet my constituency of North West Leicestershire has grown by 12% and South Derbyshire has grown by 13%.
I thank my hon. Friend for securing this debate. She has been a fierce champion for this campaign since before becoming an MP and has been relentless since—and I love her for it. I also thank the members of the Campaign to Reopen the Ivanhoe Line who live in South Derbyshire.
Swadlincote lost its original Midland Railway station in 1947, leaving it a disconnected town. There are very few places the size of Swad in the UK without a train station. The nearest train station, for anyone who wants to get anywhere, is in Burton. Anyone who wants to get a train directly to our capital city would have to go to Tamworth, over 15 miles away and 30 minutes away on a good day. East Midlands Parkway is over 30 minutes away, and there are many others.
I want South Derbyshire to continue to grow, with great tech jobs and opportunities. Does my hon. Friend agree that reopening the Ivanhoe line for passengers, as well as the railway station in Castle Gresley, would help to create a two-way gateway and opportunity for people in Swadlincote and the surrounding areas?
I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention and her support during the campaign. The main thing is that large towns need the infrastructure to match. There are certainly other examples of investments in railways to connect towns that are exceeding their passenger targets, such as the Northumberland line.
What my hon. Friend is talking about reminds me of an issue that affects my constituents. The line between Liverpool and Preston crosses the line between Southport and Manchester. Up until the 1960s, the two lines were linked by two curves at the town of Burscough, just outside my constituency. For 60 years, there has been a campaign to get the curves reopened and to reinstall the commuter link between Southport and Ormskirk, and also between Southport and Preston, which would add huge amounts of GVA to the local area and create an economic powerhouse for the north-west. The cost of rebuilding and reopening the Burscough curves has been estimated at just £35 million. Does my hon. Friend agree that that would be £35 million pounds very well spent?
I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. I do not know a huge amount about his line, but that certainly seems to be good value for money, and it adds to the point about towns that need infrastructure. What does that infrastructure do? It gives those people opportunity.
On that point, I ask the Minister what work has been done to assess the impact on growth and investment in large towns like mine, and those of my colleagues, that are not connected to the rail network. North West Leicestershire, alongside other parts of the east midlands, is outside the East Midlands combined authority and does not benefit from the city region allocation, which, for Derby, Derbyshire, Nottingham and Nottinghamshire, is £2 billion. Although part of the Ivanhoe travels through the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for South Derbyshire (Samantha Niblett), it ends in Burton, which is also outside the combined authority, yet the Ivanhoe line would give my constituents the opportunity to get to Derby via Burton and vice versa.
The money allocated to Leicestershire is limited to public transport and some long overdue road improvements. If Leicester and Leicestershire were allocated city region funding at the same rate as the combined authority, we would have £1 billion to invest in Leicester and Leicestershire. We cannot just accept that the mayoralty alone gets the increase, when we know that the east midlands lags behind in terms of funding.
Research has shown that, had the east midlands received the same funding as the UK average between 2019 and 2024, we would have had about £10 billion extra for transport. Will the Minister highlight how areas such as Leicester and Leicestershire, within the most poorly funded region for transport investment, will be supported to ensure that services can be provided?
Now I want to talk about the value of the train line for our communities—the exciting and most important bit. MPs can get really competitive when it comes to who has the prettiest constituency, but mine is at the heart of the national forest, and it really does not get much better than that. The National Forest Company transformed the post-industrial landscape into a thriving success story of environmentally led regeneration in the midlands. Reopening the Ivanhoe line has the potential to create a beautiful train line travelling through the greenery of the national forest. The National Forest Company reached out to me before the debate and shared its recent research. It found:
My hon. Friend stressed the importance of rail freight. The Railways Bill, currently in Committee, will introduce a target to increase rail freight. Does she share the concerns relayed to me about the potential for this line to be closed to freight? Does she agree that we should be getting lorries and haulage off our roads and on to rail freight, as we are doing with Great British Railways?
I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. I will come to freight in a little while; he has pre-empted my speech.
The National Forest Company also shared that 99% of the over 200,000 annual visitors to Conkers, which is one of the key attractions in the national forest, travel by car. It feels counterproductive that the only option to make the most of our green spaces is driving, and there is certainly opportunity for investment along the line at Moira to assist with changing that.
The reopening of the Ivanhoe line through the national forest is critical if we are serious about reducing carbon emissions in this part of the midlands. There is also a local idea of changing the name from Ivanhoe to the National Forest line; I think that has a good ring to it. Last year, I did a survey, and about 400 people in my constituency responded: 90% said they travelled by car because of poor public transport, 72% said that they were prevented from travelling to where they want to go because there were no public transport options, and 97% supported the restoration of the Ivanhoe line.
My constituent Karen pointed out that there are many attractions and services in Ashby and that the rail line would be a valuable asset, bringing people to the castle, leisure facilities and the array of shops, pubs and cafes. Ashby is a pure market town. Unsurprisingly, a lot of respondents also said that the reopening of the line would help them to access job opportunities outside the area. One of my constituents told me that she is disabled and wants to work in Leicester but struggles on the buses to Ashby. Another told me how a train line would help him to see his young daughter more, connecting and putting his family back together. Another works for the management team at a homeless charity and explained on behalf of their clients that the reopening of the line would remove some of the barriers to accessing accommodation, attending appointments and securing local job opportunities.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms McVey. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for North West Leicestershire (Amanda Hack) on securing the debate, and thank everyone for their contributions, including my hon. Friends the Members for Southport (Patrick Hurley), for Burton and Uttoxeter (Jacob Collier), and for South Derbyshire (Samantha Niblett), as well as the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon).
On a practical point, may I say that I will chase the correspondence that my hon. Friend the Member for North West Leicestershire referred to in relation to HS2? More broadly, I thank her for her work in advocating on behalf of her constituents and championing their need to have public transport that serves their interests. She rightly points to the fact that this Government believe that transport is not just a means of getting from A to B; it is a key way in which we fulfil the lives of people in the United Kingdom and connect them to greater economic opportunity and to their families. We will use the transport network as a catalyst for economic growth and for making sure that we have the housing people need. My hon. Friend appears to be laser-focused on those principles in her work and advocacy, and I thank her for that.
I am grateful for the passionate case that my hon. Friend made for reconnecting the towns of North West Leicestershire in the heart of the National Forest, such as Ashby-de-la-Zouch, Coalville and Swadlincote, with passenger railway services to Burton-on-Trent and Leicester —bringing back services lost in 1964 where only quarry freight services still operate today. Transport connections such as the ones that she mentions underpin the core missions of this Government, whether that means kick-starting economic growth, unlocking housing delivery, or breaking down barriers to opportunity to transform lives.
Our objective is simple but ambitious: to build a stronger, more connected transport network that works for everyone, wherever they live. We believe that local authorities are best placed to make decisions about the investment priorities in their areas, but too often, places such as North West Leicestershire have faced fragmented funding and limited flexibility. That is why, from April, we are providing all local transport authorities with more consolidated funding settlements, giving them the ability to align transport investment with local priorities and wider regional objectives, accelerating projects that matter most to their residents, businesses and visitors.
“The second highest contributor to CO2 emissions within the National Forest is resident travel, with car travel accounting for 14% of the residents’ consumption-based footprint—higher than the National Average”.
It is fantastic to hear that the Government have stressed the importance of apprenticeships and fulfilling education and job opportunities for all, but how are my younger constituents going to get there? When I meet young people like William across my constituency, they tell me that public transport is a huge barrier to getting to the training opportunities and apprenticeships they deserve.
Buses are also leaving people stranded. Dave contacted me over the weekend. He went to watch a Leicester City match and got the last bus home to Ashby. However, the bus stopped in Coalville, and the passengers were told to get off and walk to another bus stop. They waited and waited for a bus that never arrived. He quite rightly says:
“where a simple bus ride can’t get people home, a train line would help enormously”.
North West Leicestershire also does not have a main hospital. My constituents travel to Derby, Leicester, Nottingham and Burton, and having to rely on services as unreliable as the one I just described is a real problem. As one constituent said in the survey:
“It’s harder to think of reasons NOT to reopen the line”.
I understand that, ever since we have come into office, we have had to battle to deal with the financial mess that the previous Government left behind. On that point, I want to segue on to another rail project: HS2, which has been marred by significant delays and cost overruns. It would have literally just gone through my constituency—it would have moved a dual carriageway in my constituency, but it would not have brought us a train station.
HS2 Ltd owns 74 homes in my constituency, more than in any other. I have written to the Secretary of State on this issue, and would be grateful if my constituents could get a definitive answer on how that money can be reinvested. Can constituencies with assets purchased for HS2 be allocated the appreciated asset value as well as the rental income that is coming in? Setting aside that money for rail improvements would make such a difference.
HS2 was about providing capacity. For the east midlands, Ivanhoe was the only project to progress in restoring your railway, creating rail capacity for both passengers and freight. It is outstandingly different from many other rail infrastructure projects, because we already have a track in place, and therefore it is quick to deliver. I have been engaging with CRIL, Network Rail, Midlands Connect, East Midlands Railway, Siemens Mobility, the East Midlands combined county authority and the National Forest. I have had numerous meetings with Ministers in the Department for Transport, and have mentioned the Ivanhoe line whenever possible here and in the main Chamber.
North West Leicestershire has so much potential, and we have to make it count. We sit in the heart of the UK, with great people, an ever-evolving community, tons of aspiration and an industrial past we are proud of. We have a real sense of looking forward. Significant levels of investment in UK logistics have not gone hand in hand with as much infrastructure investment as our community needs. In fact, the line would go through the golden triangle freight logistics area, which has the most intense concentration of warehousing in the country, so we should take the opportunity to improve public transport to this important employment hub.
North West Leicestershire is in some ways a great set of contradictions. We have an international airport, yet poor public transport. We have the East Midlands rail freight terminal, yet no passenger rail. We have great road networks, yet local roads have been poorly invested in. We are enhancing our environment, with the National Forest planting more greenery and trees to tackle carbon emissions, but we are cancelling that out because have only the car as an option. Siemens Mobility, the train signalling company, is based in my constituency, yet none of its staff can get to work on the train.
We have a line, and we have the stations reserved in the local plan. The delivery from start to finish would be very short. The biggest contradiction is that we have gone back on public transport connectivity since the ’60s while growing exponentially. The reopening of the Ivanhoe line would be beneficial to investment and growth in public transport, but I also recognise that we have to prepare for the population growth that is already contained in the local plan, quite apart from the new growth in progress.
I promised my constituents that I would continue to push for the rightful restoration of the Ivanhoe line all the way from Burton to Leicester and I look forward to the Minister’s response.
The Ivanhoe route cuts through Leicestershire, Derbyshire and Staffordshire. In Leicestershire, for example, this means that a total of more than £251 million of vital investment—across highways maintenance, active travel, electric vehicles, bus services and other local transport—will be delivered through consolidated funding by 2029-30. Elsewhere along the line, Staffordshire will receive £342 million, and the Mayor of the East Midlands will receive more than £2 billion by March 2032.
That said, I will take away the point, which my hon. Friend the Member for North West Leicestershire made very powerfully, about the disparities between funding in mayoral combined authorities and the local authorities that directly border them. That is something that we are working on through the Railways Bill, to create more democratic accountability, irrespective of mayoral arrangements. I think that point was very well made, and I will take it away from this debate. However, that settlement will support transport authorities, including those outside of MCAs, to strengthen their road, public transport, walking and cycling links between towns, cities and rural areas, and ensure that improvements are felt across the entire region.
Soon, we will embed that approach right across the country through our integrated national transport strategy. The strategy will champion transport that is designed, built and operated with people at its heart, recognising that different places face different connectivity challenges and therefore need different solutions, but also that they have different opportunities. My hon. Friend made an important point about the latent potential of the tourism industry in her constituency, and how the Government must work hard to realise it in partnership with her.
We want to focus on making transport safer, more reliable and more accessible, giving more people confidence in the network and confidence that it will work for them. Crucially, we will also align transport more closely with housing and with public services, recognising that poor connectivity entrenches inequality, while good connectivity expands opportunity.
I commend the work of my hon. Friend in championing the case for reinstating passenger services on the Ivanhoe line, building on previous work to assess the viability of the scheme. While the Chancellor took essential steps to help balance public finances in 2024, closing the previous Government’s unfortunately unfunded commitments in the restoring your railways programme, we welcome transport authorities using local funding to develop the business case for their important local priorities. Indeed, authorities can work with Network Rail to develop and present business cases and investment proposals for consideration through the rail network enhancements pipeline, the Government’s funding portfolio for rail upgrades, at any stage of development. That process ensures that funding decisions are affordable and represent good value for taxpayers.
The Government are also keen to facilitate third-party investment in railway infrastructure that could support local development and housing plans. I urge local transport authorities to make best use of the funding we are making available to them, and to make the right decisions for improving transport connections across all modes, for Ashby, Coalville, Swadlincote and elsewhere.
Recognising the importance of improving transport connections in the wider midlands region, the Chancellor committed in the July spending review to progress to the next stage of the midlands rail hub, which will unlock thousands of homes and drive economic growth, with better connections and more reliable journeys for passengers. The first phase will create capacity in central Birmingham to improve reliability and enable additional trains both locally and to Worcester, south Wales and the south-west. We are working closely with Network Rail to ensure passenger benefits as soon as possible. Depending on future investment decisions, the later phases of the rail hub would also mean major benefits for the east midlands, with extra trains between Birmingham, Derby and Nottingham, including possible stops at Burton-upon-Trent and between Birmingham and Leicester.
East Midlands Railway’s new bi-mode Class 810 Aurora trains have already started to enter passenger service on the midland main line through Leicester and will continue with a phased roll-out through 2026. These new trains will bring a step change in the customer experience and will support growth. Once all those new trains are up and running, they will provide a 46% uplift in capacity, with more seats and carriages.
To conclude, today’s discussion has been an opportunity to reflect not only on the case for the restoration of the Ivanhoe line but on this Government’s priorities for improving transport connections to help people get about and to access the opportunities they deserve, and on how we can support local authorities in the east midlands to deliver on the transport priorities of their communities.
Although I feel that I may not have been able to answer the noble and ambitious aspirations that my hon. Friend the Member for North West Leicestershire has put forward today, I encourage her to keep the conversation going and to continue to hold DFT Ministers’ feet to the fire on this most important of issues. She is a tireless champion on behalf of her constituents and of their ability to get where they need to go, realise economic opportunity and lead richer, more fulfilled lives. I encourage her to continue in those efforts and I will watch with interest as she does so.