Cable on Waterloo International

10.04.51am GMT Wed 22nd Oct 2008

Vincent Cable (Deputy Party Leader; Twickenham, Liberal Democrat): What progress has been made on the conversion of Waterloo International for the use of London suburban rail services?

Paul Clark (PPS (Rt Hon Ed Balls, Secretary of State), Department for Children, Schools and Families; Gillingham, Labour): Works to convert one platform of Waterloo International for domestic use will be completed by December 2008. The Department continues to work with South West Trains with a view to some existing services operating into and out of platform 20 from next year.

Vincent Cable (Deputy Party Leader; Twickenham, Liberal Democrat): I thank the Minister and his predecessor for their support for this project, but the rail operators are saying that they cannot improve services unless they have more rolling stock. Will the Government give priority to that additional investment, under their accelerated programme for railway investment?

Paul Clark (PPS (Rt Hon Ed Balls, Secretary of State), Department for Children, Schools and Families; Gillingham, Labour): The hon. Gentleman will be aware that there are, in a sense, two stages-a short-term and a medium-term solution-in relation to, in this instance, Waterloo station. In the short term, we need to establish a service by next year through South West Trains. The longer-term solution will involve HLOS-the high-level output specification-and the reconfiguration of all routes into Waterloo, with longer trains to meet capacity requirements. That is part of the £10 billion package in which the Government are investing until 2014.