Sojan Joseph

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Desmond. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hastings and Rye (Helena Dollimore) on securing this debate. She is an excellent campaigner on behalf of her constituents. I know this issue is important to them and she feels passionately about it. In her excellent speech, she ably demonstrated that the benefits of returning international rail to Ashford International would be shared far beyond my constituency. Nearly £80 million of taxpayers’ money was spent transforming Ashford International to accommodate international services. As well as developing services to accommodate international travellers, the infrastructure of the station was upgraded, and that included the addition of two new platforms. When international services started calling at Ashford for the first time in January 1996, Ashford became one of the UK’s first true international stations. From there, passengers could travel directly to cities in continental Europe, including Paris, Brussels and Lille. For nearly a quarter of a century, Ashford International saw dozens of daily Eurostar services, making it a vital link for residents and businesses in Kent, Sussex and the wider south-east to get to mainland Europe. Ashford was developed as an international hub and its connectivity was a key factor in attracting businesses. Substantial investment came to the town and the surrounding area precisely because we had international services, making it easily accessible from mainland Europe. It was also highly convenient for residents, with the regular service from Ashford meaning they could get on a train in the morning, have lunch in Paris and be back home in time for bed. In early 2020, during the covid pandemic, Eurostar suspended services to Ashford. Since then, people making the same journey have had to travel into London, which not only adds between two and three hours each way to their journey time, but costs considerably more. That decision was taken when travel restrictions were in place and Eurostar faced financial pressures, but more than five years on, those services have not returned. Part of the responsibility for that lies with the decision by the then Conservative and Lib Dem coalition to sell the UK Government’s 40% stake and preference share in Eurostar. That decision, which was driven by austerity, was short-sighted in the extreme and has been hugely detrimental to my constituency and the wider region.