Mr Mark Francois
MP for Rayleigh and Wickford · Conservative · United Kingdom
“Secondly, what actions is he as Defence Secretary, no doubt in consultation with the Chief of the General Staff, taking to push back against these pernicious in-year funding cuts imposed by the Treasury?”
“Taking him at his word, I must press him on some extremely worrying reports—first published in The Times on 3 September, and amplified in the Defence Eye journal on Tuesday—that British Army training is being seriously curtailed in order to provide in-year efficiency savings— “cuts”, in pub English— at the Treasury’s behest.”
“I am sure that I speak for the whole House in paying tribute to the Ukrainians for their fierce and determined resistance. They are fighting for the values of freedom and democracy, which this House has represented for centuries, so when we say, “Slava Ukraini!”, we mean it.”
“On behalf of the shadow Defence team, I would like to take this opportunity to welcome the new Defence Secretary—Labour’s third in three months—to his place and to thank him for advance sight of this important statement.”
“Tragically, a number of innocent civilians were murdered in Kyiv last night. On supporting Ukraine and brave President Zelensky, there has been absolute solidarity between ourselves and the Labour party.”
“On housing numbers, there is no Reform MP present this afternoon, but Reform-led Rochford district council has just published its regulation 19 local plan.”
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“We do not normally heckle points of order, but, if the right hon. Lady is going to do that, I will say that our party’s leader, my right hon. Friend the Member for North West Essex (Mrs Badenoch), refused the grant. The band appealed, and this Government did not oppose the appeal. Those are the facts. Will the right hon. Lady please explain to us exactly how that happened and how we can get the money back? I did not want to make this issue partisan, but she interrupted me. Thirdly, I understand that Kneecap are still booked to appear at Glastonbury, which, under the circumstances, would be unconscionable.”
“Finally, given that it is an open secret across the whole of Wickford that Asda has been talking to the developer for over a year now, the time really has come for Asda to make its mind up either one way or another. I very much hope it will, which is why I have asked to meet personally with its executive chairman, Allan Leighton, to try to obtain formal confirmation of this. The time for hesitation has passed; I hope Asda will proceed and that my constituents can have a supermarket in Wickford that is fit for the 21st century.”
“To summarise, I am pleased that Greater Anglia has finally let the contract to rebuild Wickford station, which will commence this summer and conclude by the end of next year, and that McDonald’s is now converting the old Prezzo restaurant to open this summer, which I am sure will materially help to increase footfall on the high street. But we still have the major outstanding issue of what will happen to the old Co-op supermarket site. I very much hope that Labour-led Basildon borough council will agree to pass Heriot’s planning application—ideally next month—not least as Basildon council’s deputy leader, Councillor Adele Brown, told the town council annual meeting last night, while I was there, that it is now intending to support the application. That would represent a major multimillion-pound investment into Wickford and the borough.”
“As the Minister can probably tell, I am now completely exasperated by the total inability of Asda to make a decision either one way or another. Accordingly, yesterday I wrote to Allan Leighton, the executive chairman, and have asked for a personal meeting with him in order to try and explain to him some of the background that I have sought to lay out in this Adjournment debate, and then to try to elicit a final decision from him and his company either one way or another. We cannot go on with this endless prevarication by one of the nation’s largest supermarket groups. In truth, I suspect that Mr Leighton had never even heard of Wickford before yesterday; well, he has now.”
“I understand that one of Mr Leighton’s inherited challenges is poor industrial relations between Asda’s management and the staff in its stores; if it communicates with its staff in the way that it communicates with MPs, I am not surprised. For the record, Asda already has a successful store in my constituency in Rayleigh, which is often very busy, especially at the weekends, and, prior to the 2010 boundary changes, when South Woodham Ferrers was part of my constituency, it also had a very successful store there. I am not against Asda as a company per se, but the way in which it has treated both me as a Member of Parliament and, far more importantly, my constituents leaves a very great deal to be desired.”
“I find this extremely disappointing, because—given the background that I have outlined, which I hope the Minister can appreciate—my constituents are now thoroughly fed up with what one might call, to use a military term, the paralysis by analysis that Asda has shown over all of this. I attended Wickford town council’s annual town meeting just last night, where this matter was a topic of considerable discussion among the 40 or so residents present. The general view of the audience was that Asda seemed completely incapable of making a decision either one way or another. As someone who was there said, I can say that it was not exactly Asda’s finest hour. For my own part as the local MP, I must confess that I have found Asda an extremely difficult company to deal with as it is generally very uncommunicative.”
“Indeed, I can tell the Minister that, even when I was out canvassing in Wickford nearly a year ago at the general election, multiple constituents raised with me where the Asda scheme had got to. If it drags on much longer, there is a real risk that Asda will suffer serious reputational damage as a company that struggles to make a decision. Specifically, I understand that the proposed scheme has been deferred several times from consideration by the Asda board and indeed was meant to be discussed at an Asda board meeting last week, only to be deferred yet again.”
“As I am sure the Minister is aware, Asda has been through considerable financial difficulties of its own, following its sale by Walmart, and the company is now loaded with a considerable amount of debt. As a result, its former chief executive Allan Leighton, a man with a rightly strong reputation in the retail industry, has taken over as executive chairman and is attempting to turn the company around—although he is on record as saying that this might take some time. Despite Asda’s reluctance to comment publicly on its negotiations with Heriot, I have to tell the Minister that it is, in effect, an open secret across the whole of Wickford that Asda and Heriot have been working on a new scheme, the design of which is already reflected in the planning application that I have just mentioned.”
“I know that the Minister will be reluctant to comment on the merits of the planning application, not least because of his quasi-judicial position in the event of a potential appeal. I hope, however, that he will at least be prepared to acknowledge that, after a number of years with a blighted, derelict supermarket, it would certainly be to the advantage of the town if the borough council were minded to pass the application in a timely manner. In short, as he is the Minister for Local Growth, I would suggest to him that if the Government are so committed to growing business, this scheme should appeal to them. That brings me on to the new proposal with Asda.”
“For its part, Basildon borough council, understandably becoming impatient at the lack of a planning application from Heriot, threatened to issue a section 215 notice compelling Heriot to clean up the site and ultimately to demolish the old supermarket, as it was becoming a considerable eyesore—it still is. In response, and after a couple of years of preparation, Heriot finally submitted a formal planning application to Basildon borough council in February 2025, based on a revised scheme for a brand-new supermarket with no underground parking and a reduced number of flats, with three storeys of accommodation above the store as opposed to seven. My understanding is that this planning application is extant and is due to be determined by the borough council’s planning committee, hopefully by the end of May—next month.”
“I have to tell the Minister that I was never really convinced of the viability of those proposals, especially given the high cost of developing underground car parks post covid, and the plans were generally quite unpopular across the town, too. The plan fell through, partly I think because of some of the financial challenges that Morrisons has been experiencing as a supermarket chain, which are well documented in the press. Heriot then entered into negotiations on an alternative scheme with Asda, which I shall refer to in more detail in a moment.”
“Given other recent developments in Wickford, which have led to a diminution in car parking spaces across the town, the car park adjacent to the Co-op site now effectively acts as the main car park for the town itself, yet a considerable number of those places are currently unavailable because of the hoardings that surround the dilapidated Co-op site—I can see the Minister nodding, so he clearly follows my argument, for which I am grateful. Several years ago, the Co-op site was acquired by a company called Heriot, a South African-based developer that sought to redevelop a supermarket on the site. Its first attempt was to agree an arrangement with Morrisons that would have led—eventually—to a brand-new supermarket, incorporating an underground car park and up to 137 flats above the store, some up to seven storeys high.”
“This meant that my constituents often had to travel some distance to do their weekly shop, a particular challenge for those who are elderly or do not have access to their own car, or both. I am pleased to tell the Minister that I subsequently reopened the newly reconstructed and indeed enlarged Aldi supermarket in November 2023, and it now appears to be doing a brisk trade. Nevertheless, this leaves the outstanding question of what will happen to the old Co-op site, which is currently in a state of poor repair and is boarded up.”
“Having done that, I will now turn to an area of great concern for my Wickford constituents: the fate of the old Co-op supermarket site in the centre of the town, just behind the high street. There is a long-running and complicated saga, of which I have given the Minister at least some notice, so rather than try his patience by attempting to go through every detail, I will try to summarise the background. Several years ago, the Co-op closed its supermarket at this site. In addition, some two years ago, Aldi, which operates the other main supermarket in the town, demolished its store in order to build a larger, modernised one. The net effect was that for much of 2023 there was a perfect storm in terms of the lack of supermarket provision in Wickford, other than a small Iceland store on the high street.”
“It simply palmed off all responsibility for plans to expand the hospital on to the integrated commissioning board, which itself is now in the course of a major reorganisation. Having checked personally with the leadership of the current Mid and South Essex ICB, I can report that it has never been consulted by the council on any plans to expand Basildon hospital. Indeed, when the council published a supplementary document to the local plan, specifically regarding healthcare infrastructure, even then there were no clear proposals whatsoever to expand the hospital. I believe that the plan should be found unsound on that one key point alone, so I hope the Minister will understand why I wish to get my concerns firmly on the record.”
“None the less, we simply do not have the infrastructure, particularly the road infrastructure and medical facilities, to accommodate mass concreting over the green belt on this scale. In particular, there are no firm proposals whatsoever to expand Basildon district general hospital, which is at the heart of the Basildon borough. According to the NHS’s own standard metrics, it works on the basis of 2.4 prospective additional patients per household, which would mean pro rata almost 65,000 potential patients at the hospital, which is massively oversubscribed as it is. According to the hospital trust’s management, even before so-called winter pressures kick in, the hospital is normally running a bed occupancy rate of between 98% and 99%. The borough council’s response has been completely unconvincing, frankly.”
“As the local MP, I attended some of the preliminary meetings in this process, and I wish the newly created BID all the best for the future. My main purpose in this debate is to talk about the economic regeneration of Wickford, but given that Labour-led Basildon borough council released its regulation 18 draft local plan a few months ago, it would be remiss of me not to take the opportunity to point out to the Minister that I am strongly opposed to the council’s proposals to try to cram 27,000 new dwellings into the borough by 2043, including some 4,200 in and around Wickford itself. The local infrastructure in the borough simply cannot accommodate mass house building on this scale. I appreciate that we do need some new houses in the borough—young people cannot be expected to live at home with their parents forever.”
“In addition to the rebuild, which I believe will be very popular with my constituents, there is further good news: McDonald’s has recently acquired the old unoccupied Prezzo restaurant in Wickford High Street and is now refurbishing it to provide a brand new McDonald’s, due to open this summer. I suspect that will also prove popular with my constituents. Crucially, that should increase footfall on the high street and will be welcomed by local traders, even if that provides competition to other restaurants in the town. Moreover, local businesses in the town centre recently voted to form a new business improvement district in order to pool their efforts, in collaboration with the borough and town councils, to help revive economic activity in the town.”
“I am pleased to report that the 720s have proved considerably more reliable than their rather elderly predecessors. Nevertheless, it has taken Greater Anglia several years to confirm plans to rebuild the station. I personally lobbied Ministers at the Department for Transport, under the previous Conservative Government, to come up with the multimillion-pound funding necessary to rebuild the station and, in a bipartisan spirit, I am pleased to report this afternoon that Greater Anglia has recently signed a contract with Walker Construction. The rebuild of the station will now commence this summer and should be completed by the end of 2026 at the latest, and hopefully a little earlier, weather depending.”
“Incidentally, I also visited the Nationwide branch in Rayleigh a little over a week ago for much the same reason and to celebrate it reopening once again on a Thursday to revert to a five-day-a-week service, so well done Nationwide. Nevertheless, we also lost our police station in Wickford several years ago, and that has been boarded up ever since. Basildon borough council originally intended to replace it with flats, but it now has an alternative proposal to redevelop it as a community safety hub. We look forward to further details, including what the opening hours will be. To add to that, Greater Anglia, which operates the train line from Southend through Wickford into Liverpool Street, demolished a large part of Wickford station several years ago to extend the platforms to accommodate the new class 720 trains.”
“He will be much missed by people of all parties, and I pay tribute in the House to his service and offer my condolences as the town’s MP to his widow, Linda, and her wider family at this extremely difficult time. For context, I point out to the Minister that Wickford has been through a rather challenging time in recent years, especially since the covid pandemic. We have seen a number of banks and several other retail outlets close on the high street, which has contributed to a decrease in footfall. I recently visited the Nationwide branch in Wickford to congratulate it on remaining open, and on its wider corporate commitment not to close any high street branch across the country until 2028 at the earliest. I understand that will roll on, year by year.”
“I am grateful to have been given this opportunity to raise a number of important issues that are of considerable concern to my constituents in the town of Wickford, and in particular the future of the old Co-op supermarket site in the centre of the town. I am personally grateful to the Minister for being here on a Friday afternoon to respond to the debate when no doubt he also has constituency demands on his diary, so I thank him. Perhaps I could begin on a sombre note by paying tribute to the late Councillor David Harrison, who passed away only recently. David Harrison had represented Wickford on Basildon borough council for many years and had given decades of his life to public service in the town of Wickford, which he clearly loved. He also served very successfully as the mayor of Basildon borough.”
“On one level, I am loath to intervene on the hon. Gentleman, because he is being so charming and I do not want to spoil the moment. Just to place it on the record, on devolution, I do not quite see it the way that he and the Government do. None the less, he has been very helpful. We have a very active town council in Wickford and we have a very active BID. I will pass on his very kind offer to visit the BID. Perhaps he could come after—hopefully—we have celebrated the news that Asda will go ahead. Is that a fair deal?”
“Our local paper, The Echo , revealed last week that Labour-led Southend council and Lib Dem-led Rochford council are planning to build a new town of up to 10,000 houses on the border between the two. I understand that if this is done under the new towns fund, those numbers would be in addition to Rochford’s housing target, rather than making up part of the target. We would be talking about building nearly 20,000 properties by 2043, which is totally unsustainable, given that our infrastructure is creaking as it is. Can the Secretary of State confirm whether those new-town houses on the Rochford side would go towards our meeting the target or be in addition to it?”
“I rise to make one very brief point. The regulations amend the Motor Vehicles (Driving Licences) Regulations 1999. To get a driving licence, one has to pass a driving test. I have had lots of complaints from constituents, as I am sure have many right hon. and hon. Members, about the increasing wait times for driving tests. I have had extensive correspondence with Loveday Ryder, the chief executive of the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency, but some of the replies have been very unsatisfactory. Will the Minister go back to the Department and look at what we can do to speed up driving tests, in particular by combating the bots that capture the tests and sell them on for profit?”
“Madam Deputy Speaker, may I ask if you, or indeed Mr Speaker, have been given any indication that the Government intend to come to this House to make a statement tonight, or at the very latest tomorrow, about, first, an implied military threat to the Chagos islands, and secondly, a legal and diplomatic threat to the Chagos islands, which are and should remain fundamentally British?”
“On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Very worrying media reports have emerged overnight that the Iranian regime may be contemplating a military strike on our base on Diego Garcia. For instance, The Telegraph has reported: “A senior Iranian official said military commanders have been asked to target the joint UK-US base, which sits on Britain’s Chagos Islands, in an attempt to deter Donald Trump from striking Iran.” Moreover, in the last hour or so—with Foreign Office questions conveniently out of the way—there are emerging media reports that the Government may have come to a so-called deal with Mauritius over the future of the Chagos islands themselves. If that is true, the UK Parliament has yet again been kept in the dark about the future of what is still, today, British sovereign territory and a vital strategic installation.”
“Veterans who served in Northern Ireland will no doubt welcome the Veterans Minister’s decision—first suggested by the shadow Defence Secretary—that the MOD should judicially review the recent coroner’s verdict regarding the shooting of several IRA terrorists at Clonoe. Well done, I say, but why not go further to protect veterans, and drop the plans to revoke large parts of the Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023, which would only serve to facilitate yet more inquests of this type?”
“The Minister mentioned both sides of the House. Revoking the legacy Act would encourage a system of two-tier justice—one for our Army veterans and another for alleged IRA terrorists, including those given so-called letters of comfort by the Blair regime. With many of those veterans having served in proud regiments that traditionally recruited from red wall northern constituencies, why should a Labour Government assist Gerry Adams to sue the British taxpayer? How is that supporting those who served their country valiantly on Operation Banner?”
“Moreover, yesterday saw the death, at the age of 105, of the last remaining battle of Britain fighter pilot, Group Captain John “Paddy” Hemingway, DFC. We pay tribute to his brave service in Parliament today. Importantly, had we not had a defence industry in 1940, manufacturing Spitfires and Hurricanes, this debate would not even be taking place. We need a defence industry, and we need people at university to be allowed to freely choose to enter it without fear of intimidation.”
“It is probably true to say that had we not provided the Ukrainians with those NLAWs and, crucially, trained them to use them in complex anti-tank ambushes, the Russians would probably be having dinner in Kyiv this evening. There is an inscription on the Korean war memorial in Washington, which says quite simply, “Freedom is not free.” That freedom has to be defended, and in the modern world that requires military technology. While I can understand the passion articulated by the hon. Member for Leicester South in this debate, I say to him most respectfully that he is able to make those arguments in a democratic forum and publicly criticise the Government of the day because he is fortunate to live in a parliamentary democracy. That is not something we can say of all the countries in the middle east.”
“In addition, it is worth recording that the UK’s defence industry has been a key supplier of equipment for the defence of Ukraine. For example, the new light anti-tank weapon, NLAW, was used very effectively by Ukrainian troops in the defence of Kyiv in the first days of the full-scale Russian invasion in February 2022. Not only were many of those weapons manufactured in Belfast, but for years, Britain had been training Ukrainian troops, following the first invasion of Ukraine, including Crimea, in 2014. It was a combination of British military training and British-supplied equipment that helped prevent Russia from overrunning the capital of Ukraine in the first few days of that invasion.”
“That has long been my view too. We all want to see an end to the suffering in the middle east, particularly in Gaza, but I believe it is only via a two-state solution that that can ultimately be achieved. As the hon. Member for Leicester South said, the Opposition believe it is necessary to retain a viable defence manufacturing base in the United Kingdom, both for strategic reasons and because the defence industry plays a vital role in ensuring the nation’s prosperity. In economic terms, the Aerospace, Defence and Space trade body estimates that in 2022-23 defence work contributed approximately £38.2 billion to the United Kingdom economy, with exports reaching £38.7 billion. ADS also estimates that the defence, aerospace, security and space sectors combined supported 427,500 direct jobs in the same year.”
“Clearly, the events last night, including the bombing of targets in Gaza, are very concerning, as several hon. Members have already highlighted. The release of the remaining 59 hostages held by Hamas since the atrocities of 7 October 2023 is key to a sustainable end to the conflict in Gaza and to building a better future. The British Government should be directly involved in efforts to find a way through this very difficult moment. The international community must also reiterate that there can be no role for Hamas in Gaza’s future. The Foreign Secretary argued back in January that the only viable long-term settlement of this issue is via a two-state solution, which would permit the creation of a credible Palestinian state not under Hamas control, alongside an Israel with secure borders, free from terrorist attack.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Jardine. In accordance with parliamentary tradition, may I congratulate the new hon. Member for Leicester South (Shockat Adam) on securing this important debate? As I understand it, he is a graduate of the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology, so I hope he will appreciate it if I make a few points in my speech about the defence-related events that have taken place recently at some British universities. Perhaps I can begin by making some general comments about the situation in Gaza, as raised by several hon. Members this afternoon. I was on the Front Bench in the House of Commons on Thursday 16 January 2025 when the Foreign Secretary delivered the statement to Parliament concerning the ceasefire deal.”
“I have had about 100 emails from WASPI women in my constituency. The ombudsman found that there was a case to answer, and recommended five options for compensation, leaning towards option 4. Does my right hon. Friend agree that even if the Government will not grant option 4, they should at least give the WASPI women something?”
“In the meantime, I am very pleased that the long-awaited rebuild of Wickford station will now finally go ahead, in order to serve my constituents and provide what they have long asked for: a station in Wickford that is fit for the 21st century. I thank the Minister for his patience as I have outlined so much of the background to the story. I now very much look forward to his reply.”
“Having campaigned hard in the previous Parliament to maintain ticket offices in our stations across the country, I am pleased to note that the design of the new Wickford station will indeed contain a ticket office, as I believe that it is an important element of customer service. I am sure that my constituents will welcome the fact that the new station will have one as well. While the current design for the new station, which will be used as a model for other new small and medium-sized stations across the country, does not include full disabled access, I hope that at some point that will be provided at Wickford as well.”
“While such facilities would clearly be desirable, especially for my disabled constituents, given all the previous delays to the project, the absolute priority must be getting the rebuild under way. If we could eventually achieve full disabled access, that would be the icing on the cake. To summarise, I thank the Minister for listening to my impassioned plea on behalf of my constituents after years of delay to finally get Wickford station rebuilt. As I said earlier, this has been a Norse saga with a whole number of twists and turns, but now that Greater Anglia has finally signed the building contract with Walker Construction, I hope that work can get under way this summer, and hopefully be completed by the end of 2026 at the latest and ideally sooner.”
“A number of my constituents have contacted me to express their dismay that the proposed design does not include wheelchair-accessible facilities, such that people would still need to negotiate the old footbridge to reach the London-bound platforms. I note in passing that when the new station was constructed at London Southend airport several years ago, it included full disabled access as part of the design. I understand that would normally be facilitated by an Access for All grant, which Greater Anglia has previously applied for, but unfortunately it has been unsuccessful, at least to date. Perhaps the Minister would allow me to put in a plug for any future resources, which might yet be looked on more favourably, to solve this problem.”
“Having spoken recently with the organisation, Greater Anglia is confident enough for me to say that it expects work to begin on the site this summer and that the work will be completed by 2026 at the latest, though it is hopeful that it might be able to shave some time off that, particularly if the good Lord is kind with the weather, which I very much hope He may yet be. I appreciate that there will be some inevitable disruption at the station while the works are undertaken. Nevertheless, Greater Anglia assures me that it will do everything it can to run a train service while the work is under way. There is one additional issue that I would like to raise with the Minister regarding disabled access.”
“I hope the Minister will forgive my cheek in taking this occasion to remind him of that priority. Turning to the timings of the station rebuild project, given the history of all this, I can understand why Greater Anglia is cautious about providing timings for the programme because were they to be exceeded—for instance, because of bad weather during the construction phase—there would be a further wave of criticism from my constituents. Nevertheless, I do think it is reasonable to give my constituents at least some indication of how long all this will take.”
“As part of the design, there is an iconic clock tower—or so says the marketing material—on which people seem to have firm views either one way or the other. For the record, I quite like the look of it, but I appreciate that some of my constituents have different architectural tastes, shall we say. Nevertheless, the overall design is a good one, and the sooner they start building it, the better. Having been in a lot of discussions with Greater Anglia over this project for several years now, I hope the Minister will forgive me if I take the opportunity, at Greater Anglia’s request, to remind him of the Department’s proposals to upgrade Ely junction, which it believes is an urgent and critical priority, and which has widespread business and industry support across East Anglia.”
“We look forward to confirming details of the timings for the delivery of the scheme later in the Spring and then to the implementation of the project to provide customers with better facilities at the station.” On that point, as someone who campaigned hard during the previous Parliament against what I described at the time as misguided proposals to remove the ticket offices in the majority of stations across the country, I am pleased to see that not only were those proposals abandoned, but the new design at Wickford station will include a ticket office. Indeed, the new design is, as I understand it, likely to be used as a model for the construction or reconstruction of other small and medium-sized stations across the country.”
“Nevertheless, I understand that Greater Anglia has negotiated with the Department, which has managed to provide some extra resource so that the project can now go ahead—I thank the Department for that. On 28 February 2025, Greater Anglia formally announced that a contract to rebuild the station had been signed with Walker Construction, and that the rebuild of the station would finally go ahead. Indeed, Martin Beable, the managing director of Greater Anglia, said at the time, to quote from its press release: “We are glad to confirm that the contract for the station upgrade at Wickford is now signed.”
“I should also like to thank the British ambassador, Ms Julia Longbottom, and her staff for helping to facilitate our discussion. I subsequently joked with her that when the new station eventually opens, I would like to see a plaque saying, “This station was rebuilt with the assistance of the British embassy in Tokyo.” If representatives of Greater Anglia are listening to this debate, as I hope they are—I have a funny feeling that they are—that is the least they could do after all of this. Back in Britain, following the general election, Greater Anglia initiated a competition for a contractor to rebuild Wickford station. Unfortunately, because the programme itself had been subject to multiple delays, by the time the bids came back, it had slightly exceeded the originally allocated budget.”
“As we were in Tokyo anyway, in order to try to progress the rebuilding of Wickford station, I took the opportunity to try to organise a meeting with Mr Hayato Iiyama, who is the deputy general manager of Mitsui’s mobility and industrial business division, and as such oversees that corporation’s transport-related investments in the UK. The embassy absolutely went the extra mile—or perhaps I should say track—and managed to set up that meeting. I was delighted to spend over an hour with Mr Iiyama to familiarise him with the background and context of the issue. I think it is fair to say that as an investor in Greater Anglia, he was very supportive, and undertook to see what he could do to help. I place my thanks to both him and Mitsui on the record.”
“I am pleased to say that I managed to persuade him to ensure that funding was provided by the Department to allow Greater Anglia to undertake the work. I then told my constituents in all good faith that we finally had the money, and that I was therefore confident that works would begin. In addition, Greater Anglia is part-owned by Mitsui, a very large Japanese corporation headquartered in Tokyo that has a number of global investments in different sectors, including transport. Back in March 2024—prior to the general election—I was serving on the House of Commons Defence Committee when we undertook a trip to Tokyo in order to prepare a report into the new global combat air programme, which aims to be the RAF’s new Spitfire for the 21st century.”
“At present, Wickford station basically consists of several platforms, an old footbridge without a lift, and a number of very unattractive portacabins. I hope the Minister will accept that that is hardly a station fit for the 21st century. The whole issue of rebuilding the station has turned into something of a Norse saga. I will not try the Minister’s patience this afternoon by attempting to recount every single twist and turn of the tale; suffice to say, the rebuild is long overdue. For several years, I have been consistently lobbying the Department for Transport to try to achieve the reconstruction of the station. As part of that effort, I made representations to the then Rail Minister, Huw Merriman MP.”
“As the local MP, I am very keen to promote its regeneration. That, I hope, segues nicely to the situation at Wickford station itself. The issue arises because several years ago, Abellio Greater Anglia—as it was then known—demolished half of Wickford station in order to extend the platforms for a new fleet of 720-class trains. Those new trains were designed to replace relatively old class 321 rolling stock, which unfortunately suffered from quite a lot of reliability issues—I can see the Minister nodding. I am pleased to tell the House that since the new class of trains have been introduced, reliability has improved markedly, so in that respect my constituents have been getting a better service. However, the long-promised rebuild of the station has yet to occur.”