I feel that we have come on a long, wearisome and tedious journey tonight. I take the unusual step of apologising to my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State, who has borne it out so well. Although I know that he has visited some of the subject matter of the debate previously this year, I have about 4,500 daily reasons to be here. Those are my travelling constituents, the poor commuters who have to make these journeys daily on the train to get to work and back. My focus will be on the peak hours when commuters have to travel.

Castle Point has one of the highest out-commuting rates that I know of. Practically two thirds of its work force leave the borough daily to go to work. Some of them go just over the border to Basildon or Southend, some go a little further to Chelmsford, some go to parts of north and east London. Many of them work in the City. Approximately 3,000—I am going on bald figures—take the whole journey to Fenchurch Street and back on the train.

Because we have such a large commuting outflow, we are not just engaged with railways. If we look at the patterns, we will see that roads, too, figure largely. I know that the Under-Secretary of State went to Castle Point briefly last year and saw for himself some of the problems of congestion there. In my constituency, we have some traffic hot spots of which he is aware and which I hope he will revisit soon. One of them is the Sadler's Farm roundabout system, which I believe should become a grade-separated junction, especially in view of its strategic location in the south-east Essex economy and in the overall Essex economy.

In my maiden speech, I dealt with another hot spot—Canvey way. I distinctly remember describing in that speech the slowly moving convoys of traffic coming on to and leaving the island in the morning. I do not think that I have left that subject for very long at any time in this Parliament.

Access to Canvey island is perhaps an even more contentious and important issue. I was delighted when Castle Point was included in the Thames Gateway regeneration project, making it a regeneration area. As such, last summer, its name shone out of a Government document stating that the Government wished to examine the potential for improved access to Canvey island.

All that is very relevant. Traditionally, we have been a low-employment area. I am sure that hon. Members will agree that our long-term objective must be to ensure the creation of more quality jobs within the borough to help to mitigate the effects of excessive out-commuting, which has become so necessary in the post-war period as the community of Castle Point has built up.

It is therefore essential that the journeys that people have to make by train should be comfortable, pleasant and reliable. Sadly, that has not been the case. Traditionally— even in the good old days of British Rail—the line between Southend and Fenchurch Street has been known as the misery line.