The Secretary of State for Transport ()
With permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to make a statement
about the future of rail.
The railway is one of the nation’s proudest and most enduring
innovations. Almost 200 years ago the first line opened—the
Stockton and Darlington in County Durham. Within decades, the
railway’s iron web stretched across the nation, carrying trains
that transformed our economy and society. From steam icons such
as the Flying Scotsman and the Mallard, to the high-speed
InterCity 125, which became the stalwart of Britain’s railway for
45 years, this country was built by the railway.
In the 19th century, rail helped to make us so productive and
turned us into the workshop of the world, and rail powered our
great Victorian cities and shaped our economic geography. Rail
opened up vast, long-distance travel for ordinary people,
transforming opportunity for the masses. Just as rail moulded our
past, so will it shape our future. No other form of transport can
bind the nation so effectively and help us to level up our
country, bringing new jobs and investment to regions such as the
north and the midlands, as we build back from covid.
However, for rail to play that key future role and reach its true
potential, the industry requires radical overhaul. The Government
are deeply committed to rail. We are spending tens of billions on
modernising rail infrastructure, electrifying existing routes,
updating signalling stations, renewing train fleets, building new
lines, and making up for decades of underinvestment, but there
are problems that investment alone cannot solve, such as too many
delays, too much confusion for passengers, and different parts of
the industry not working together.
The part-privatisation of the railway in the mid-’90s
successfully reversed its long-term decline. Private sector
involvement has seen passenger numbers more than double, rising
more quickly than in most of Europe. Passenger travel is safer,
and our country is better connected, with billions invested in
new, modern trains and upgrading our stations—investment that
would not have happened under nationalisation. However, the
industry is fragmented, it lacks accountability, and it is
lacking in leadership. The chaotic timetable change of three
years ago this week demonstrated that point, as did the
Government being forced to step in to take over failing
franchises. Those are just some examples of how the railway was
not working, and of how it was neglecting its greatest, most
precious asset: the passenger.
Today I am proud to announce the beginning of a new start for the
railway in Britain. It is the biggest shake up in three decades,
bringing the railway together under a single national leadership,
with one overwhelming aim: to deliver for passengers. The new
public body, Great British Railways, will own the infrastructure,
run and plan the network, organise the timetable, and set most
fares. It will be one organisation, accountable to Ministers, to
get trains running on time, make the customer experience as
hassle-free as possible, and bring the railway into the 21st
century, a single, familiar brand, with united accountable
leadership.
We are going to sort out and simplify ticketing. Instead of
having queues at stations for wads of paper tickets, we will roll
out convenient, modern ways to pay and book—smartphones and
contactless—and a new Great British Railways website for selling
tickets across the network. We will welcome independents
continuing to compete in the ticket retail market, particularly
where they can grow new markets, recognising the value of private
sector innovation. Pay as you go will be more widely accepted,
and flexible season tickets will be introduced next month, saving
money for an increasing number of people who do not commute five
days a week. At the same time, “turn up and go” tickets,
conventional season tickets and Britain’s comprehensive service
will all be protected.
Although Great British Railways will manage the network, we must
not ignore the contribution that the private sector continues to
make. This is not renationalisation, which the Government
continue to believe failed the railways. Rather, this is
simplification. While Great British Railways acts as the guiding
mind to co-ordinate the whole network, our plan will see greater
involvement of the private sector. Private companies will be
contracted to run the trains and services, with fares set by
Great British Railways. It will work more like London buses and
London Overground, delivered by private companies but branded as
a single national service.
The operators will be rewarded for providing clean, comfortable,
on-time services, and our reforms will unleash opportunities for
them to innovate, helping us to change the way tickets are sold
and the way data is used, so that passengers can plan their
journeys more easily. These contracts will lower the barriers and
bring in new entrants, including community rail partnerships and
other innovative bidders operating on branch lines. That will
make the competition process easier and will be good for
taxpayers and passengers.
In England, we will work to bring the railway closer to those who
use the services, and in Scotland and Wales, we will continue to
exercise the current powers under devolution. Close collaboration
with Great British Railways will help to ensure that delivery
improves across the services and provides consistency for
passengers across the country.
This is also about changing the culture of our railway. Covid has
shown the very best of the railways. Ticketing staff, engineers,
drivers, guards, cleaners, signallers, maintenance workers and
timetablers have all played their part in keeping supplies,
vaccines and essential workers moving, and for that we owe them a
debt of gratitude. They have shown us what can be achieved when
this industry comes together, and we want to strengthen that.
Simpler structures and clearer leadership will make decision
making much more transparent and will remove the blame culture.
There is far too much bureaucracy focused on establishing who is
to blame rather than finding solutions. For example, all delays
greater than three minutes have to be allocated to someone for
financial penalties to apply. Until recently, under the delay
attribution rules, when a train was delayed by being hit by a
bird, who got the blame depended on the size of the bird. A small
bird was the fault of a train company and a large bird the fault
of Network Rail. Of course, trains are expected to withstand,
say, a sparrow, a pigeon or maybe even a smallish duck, but not a
swan or a goose.
Once a train has collided with said bird, it creates an industry
for debate, argument and litigation. Network Rail and train
operators currently employ a stunning 400 full-time members of
staff known as train delay attributors, whose sole job is to
argue with each other about whose fault the delay is. There is
even a national attribution board—a sort of supreme court for the
railway—which looks at these disputes and, in one case recently,
had to rule on whether a pheasant is a small or large bird. It is
completely bonkers. This is the sort of thing that will end. As
soon as possible, under our reforms, everyone, including the
train operators, will be tasked to work towards common goals and
manage costs. We will create a more financially sustainable
railway, saving money for the taxpayer. Rail services will be
better co-ordinated with each other and better integrated with
trains, buses, bikes and trams.
This new plan for the railways, three years in the making, is not
about ideology. I am more interested in fixing problems, getting
things done and creating the public services that people want.
This plan is therefore about delivering for passengers—an
ambitious but common-sense blueprint for a more customer-focused,
more reliable and growing railway. As we head towards the 200th
anniversary of rail’s inception, the network faces perhaps its
biggest challenge with the collapse of passenger numbers during
covid. This new rail revolution will restore trust and pride in
Britain’s railways, secure it for the long term and ensure that
it plays just as formative a role in our future as it has done in
our past. I commend this statement to the House.
11:49:00
(Oldham West and Royton) (Lab/Co-op)
May I start by thanking the Secretary of State for Transport for
an advance copy of the statement, together with the report that
was issued earlier this morning? It is two and a half years since
the Williams review was first commissioned, and the very fact
that Williams was commissioned at all shows that the state, the
travelling public and those excluded from the railways because of
accessibility have been given a poor deal.
While much has changed through the network due to covid, what the
Secretary of State has announced today was pretty much what was
recorded in The Daily Telegraph last November. If that is the
case, will he confirm why did he not make the announcement back
in November, when it was reported in the national press?
Taking the announcements in turn today, the Secretary of State
said that control of the infrastructure and the contracting of
train operations will be given to this new arm’s length
Government-owned body, with private firms bidding for concessions
with an agreed profit margin built in. Can the Secretary of State
confirm whether a publicly owned provider will be able to bid for
these concessions on a level playing field? Will he also confirm
whether the operator of last resort will continue to exist? If
so, will it be brought fully back in-house?
It has been reported that the Treasury is demanding cost cuts of
between 10% and 20%. There is concern that rather than seeing
increased investment, the real driver behind bringing all this
together is more about disguising painful cuts. Any talk of cuts
in funding, such as the £1 billion funding cut to Network Rail
that we have already seen, will have a direct impact on jobs, our
regions and vital maintenance and upgrade works. Does the
Secretary of State know how many jobs could be lost with a
reduction of 10% or 20%, and what it might mean to each of our
regions? The head of Network Rail, Andrew Haines, and its
chairman, Sir Peter Hendy, are to be tasked with drawing up the
processes and structures of the new Great British Railways. What
date have they been given to report back?
On freight, can the Secretary of State say a little more about
how the reforms will impact on the track access regime and about
the governance arrangements that will exist for freight when
Network Rail takes control of the passenger railways and freight
together, albeit under a different name? Decarbonising transport
will require a much greater shift if we are to move more from
road to rail. How will the reforms help rail freight grow as part
of decarbonising freight transport? Importantly, what targets
will the Secretary of State set in that regard?
The Government have also made an announcement on flexible
ticketing, although to date few details have been provided. The
lack of any detail on these tickets and whether they will
actually be cheaper for the travelling public frankly renders the
announcement almost useless to millions of passengers. There is a
danger that flexible ticketing will fail to meet the test of
encouraging people back on to rail as we come through this
pandemic. What research have the Government done to ensure that
the type of product being suggested will address the needs of the
travelling public and get more people back on to rail?
This report fundamentally fails to tackle one of the biggest
challenges with our transport system, which is that the different
modes of transport just do not talk to each other. They do not
turn up together when required and they are not joined up. We
need a bus and train system that genuinely connects people,
rather than leaving them cold, standing, waiting for connecting
services. Will the Secretary of State work towards joining up
different modes of transport? Critically, if so, what devolved
powers does he envisage for our metro Mayors and our transport
authorities as part of this plan?
On devolution, will the Government finally follow through on
transferring train station responsibilities to our metro Mayors,
as was expected in Greater Manchester some years ago? We have not
seen any detail on what profit margin operators can expect in
practice and whether the cost of that will hit fares or
investment. How quickly will the Government publish that?
While I welcome the steps to increase public ownership and
control over the railways, as hon. Members might expect, they do
not go far enough in this plan. There is ample proof to
demonstrate that fuller public ownership, rather than a
concession model, would better serve the state, the public and
long-term investment. I fear that the Government have really not
understood the scale of the challenge in front of them. While we
may well see a change of name on the side of the trains,
fundamentally passengers will still be left short-changed.
Although the Minister says that this is not about
nationalisation, the fact is that, as we have seen through covid,
we have nationalised risk but continue to allow the privatisation
of profit.
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I have to say that I
sympathise, because I appreciate that it must have been difficult
to take in a report of 114 pages in the time available. Skimming
through it and coming up with questions will have been difficult,
and I therefore understand why he asked some questions that are
answered fully in the White Paper itself. Less understandable and
harder to fathom is how it was possible to put out press comments
about the content of the White Paper last night before it was
even seen, including a lot of points already covered in the White
Paper, and therefore rather misfiring in direction. Let me try to
pick through some of the questions asked.
Why two and a half years? As I mentioned, the breakdown in the
timetable took place three years ago this week. Keith Williams
was appointed to carry out the review, which he has done at no
cost to the taxpayer, I should mention, and brilliantly. There
was this thing called covid, and we went into the second and
third lockdowns in November, so it was perfectly proper to wait
until we had a clear indication and for the vaccine to be
deployed before coming to the House with the full report. That
also enabled us to bring that report up to date with what is
actually happening in the running of those rail services.
The hon. Gentleman asked about the operator of last resort and
whether it will still exist. The answer is in the report: yes,
very much so. As he knows, I already effectively run Northern and
the east coast mainline through the operator of last resort. It
is not about disguising cuts of any type. He keeps coming back to
£1 billion of control period 6 rail funding. Because of covid,
operators were unable to spend the money, but they will have that
money to spend in the next period. None the less, we have ongoing
one of the biggest ever rail transformation programmes, if not
the biggest.
The timescales for change are all in the White Paper, and the
good news is that we will get going on this immediately. The hon.
Gentleman will notice that the bottom left-hand corner on the
front of the White Paper says “CP 423”, which means that it is
command paper 423, which means that we can get on with it, and we
are doing that from this moment. A very good example of that is
flexi-tickets. He says that there is not enough detail. I am
pleased to let the House know that that detail will all be
available on 21 June, and that they will go on sale on 28 June.
If he takes the time to look in the notes to editors at the back,
he will see a large number of examples of what fares will be.
These will save people money in each circumstance if they are
travelling two or three days a week.
The hon. Gentleman asked about freight. I refer him to page 78 of
the White Paper, which talks about freight and our desire to make
sure that those freight paths are available within our railway.
The advantage of Great British Railways looking after all this is
that we will be able to accommodate freight paths. He asked about
the decarbonisation that freight will help to bring, and he is
absolutely right to focus on that. I am pleased to tell him that
a transport decarbonisation plan will be published before the
summer that will focus very much on how we already use the best
form of transport when it comes to decarbonisation in order to
shift more freight around.
The hon. Gentleman asked about the joined-up nature of transport,
with people, as he says, waiting in the cold sometimes for
transport that may or may not turn up. I know he has not had long
to look at the White Paper, but he only has to get as far as the
foreword to find my talking about that exact issue. He asks about
the way this will work with devolution. He will be pleased to
hear that I spoke to his friend the Mayor of Manchester only
yesterday, and I was pleased that he warmly welcomed the White
Paper today. Page 41 has all that detail.
I know that Oppositions, almost for Opposition’s sake, have to
nit-pick and find problems, but the reality is that the
nationalisation that they would impose on this country would lead
to fewer passengers, as it did last time; fewer stations, with
stations closed in our constituencies, as it did last time under
British Rail; track being cut, as it was before; and appalling
sandwiches. We are not going back to the days of nationalisation.
We can do better than that.
Mr Speaker
Let us go to the Chair of the Transport Committee.
(Bexhill and Battle) (Con) [V]
I welcome the statement, the White Paper and indeed the birth of
Great British Railways. We look forward to the Secretary of State
giving more detail to the Select Committee on Transport this
Wednesday with Keith Williams. In the meantime, let me ask about
page 56 of the White Paper, which deals with passenger service
contracts, promising:
“Revenue incentives and risk sharing”.
How will that work to ensure that the private sector continues to
invest in a way that it has done over the past 20 or so years,
when it doubled passenger numbers? Page 71 talks of “New flexible
season tickets” allowing eight days’ travel in a 28-day period.
Does that equate to 28% of the cost that passengers would expect
to pay and therefore make it an incentive to travel in our new
world?
I am grateful to the Chair of the Select Committee and I look
forward to coming before the Committee on Wednesday. I hope I
will get a bit more chance to expand on some of these subjects.
When Keith Williams and I were looking at the role of the private
sector, we very much looked at what was happening in London with
Transport for London: the way the buses, London Overground and
the Docklands Light Railway are all run by private enterprises
and how they bring something more than would have been available
if the state was simply running all those services. The
incentives for such enterprises will be to run good, efficient,
trains, on time—clean trains, with wi-fi; these are things that
passengers want—to carry on innovating and to bring their private
ideas and capital, while allowing Great British Railways to set
the overall picture. I do not want to disappoint him on the flexi
tickets; the 28 days does not refer to 28%, but I can tell him
that, fortunately, every ticket will be cheaper than buying a
season ticket when people are travelling now, in a more flexible
world, perhaps two or three days a week. These tickets will be
warmly welcomed by the travelling public, as people start to go
back to work.
(Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (SNP) [V]
I, too, thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of the
statement. I have to report that, yet again, although there was
consultation during the initial review, there has been no
discussion of the actual plan with the Scottish Government. As
for the so-called “Williams-Shapps” plan, it will be interesting
to see how quickly it is renamed the “Williams plan” if it does
not work. Although there are elements to be welcomed, I am afraid
that it amounts to a real missed opportunity, with the Tories’
continued belief that the private sector knows best and yet more
money flowing out of the system and into shareholders’ pockets.
By contrast, the Scottish Government have committed to taking
ScotRail into public ownership. Will the Secretary of State
confirm that nothing in this plan prevents the Scottish
Government from doing so? I am disappointed but wholly
unsurprised to see that the advice given by the former Rail
Minister to devolve Network Rail to Scotland has been ignored.
Moreover, the plan states:
“Dedicated station management teams will be created locally
within regional divisions of Great British Railways to manage
stations, land and assets.”
Will the Secretary of State confirm whether that results in GBR
taking on the management of some Scottish stations and taking it
out of ScotRail’s hands? How will the plan to roll station
improvement funds into a central accessibility fund affect
current relationships between Transport Scotland and the
Department for Transport and annual bids for Access for All
money? The plan also contains zero mention of international
connections and Eurostar, which is a big omission, given the
potential collapse of Eurostar. The plan document for GBR
contains lots of nice pictures but not a single one has been
taken outside England, which is indicative of a plan that fails
to recognise the need to devolve more power to the devolved
Administrations. Despite all the noise and rhetoric around the
Government’s 10-point plan, the document contains just one page
out of 116 on rail electrification. It says that the Government
will announce further English electrification programmes, but we
have been here before and their track record is utterly woeful.
So when will this plan be announced? Will passenger service
contracts be compulsory?
Lastly, the plan contains little specifically about Scotland.
Given that the functions of Network Rail are not being devolved,
can the Secretary of State tell us how the operational
relationship between the ScotRail Alliance and Transport Scotland
and GBR will work? The extension of ministerial control over
GBR/Network Rail means that that is likely to become far more
complicated.
I wish to correct a couple of things that the hon. Gentleman
said. There has been extensive discussion with the Scottish
Government at official level about all of this, so they have been
very much briefed. I am sorry that they have not briefed him
along the way, as that would have been helpful. I know that he
approaches this subject with tremendous dogma as if our railway
lines do not interconnect, but they do, or as if the only way
through this in the case of ScotRail is to nationalise it. We
just take a much more open view about the best way to run a
railway. First, the lines happen to connect England and Scotland
together. Secondly, we have said in this White Paper that we are
happy not only to have this national body, Great British
Railways, involved, but to have competition from the private
sector or, indeed, an operator of last resort, the public sector.
We just have a much less ideological view of all of this. I think
it is about trying to juxtapose his very ideological views with
this much more straightforward plan to do what is right for the
passenger that is causing him quite a lot of his confusion.
The hon. Gentleman mentioned numerous different issues. For
example, he said that, on the international side of things,
Eurostar was in trouble. He may not have spotted it, but Eurostar
was refinanced just last week. He asked about the transport
decarbonisation element of it. He may have missed the answer that
I gave to the hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton () a moment ago, but the transport decarbonisation plan
is referenced in the White Paper, because it is due out very
shortly and will tackle those issues in a great deal of
additional detail.
I can reassure the hon. Gentleman that Great British Railways
will carry on running the infrastructure side of things, but
there is nothing in the White Paper that reverses or changes the
devolution picture: the Scottish Government will carry on running
ScotRail as they see fit. None the less, we do have to recognise
that we all need to work together. I normally hear him say
exactly that, because our constituents need to travel around and
they do not really care about all of the insider detail. They
just want a railway that works, which is why he should be
welcoming Great British Railways and this White Paper today,
because we will get a railway that works.
(Stoke-on-Trent North) (Con) [V]
May I start by welcoming my right hon. Friend’s statement today?
The people of Stoke-on-Trent North, Kidsgrove and Talke elected
me on a pledge to better connect places such as Milton via the
Stoke to Leek line, which I hope will reopen under my Restoring
Your Railway Fund bid. I also want to ensure that railways and
stations are responsive to the needs of local communities, such
as providing Access For All upgrades and car parking, which is
happening at Kidsgrove, thanks to from 2015, and I
hope to see it replicated
at Longport railway station. Will my right hon. Friend confirm
that, as part of these reforms announced today, our railways will
be more responsive to local community needs and work for every
part of our United Kingdom?
I can most certainly provide an absolute assurance to my hon.
Friend, who, I have to say, has been an incredibly doughty
fighter on behalf of his Stoke constituency. He mentioned the
Stoke to Leek line. I know that he has spoken to the Minister of
State, Department for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for
Daventry ()
and I know that he has an application into the third round of the
Restoring Your Railway Fund application, which is enormously
popular across the House. That is getting rid of the damage that
Beeching did to our railways in this country under British Rail
and it is good to see this Conservative Government opening it up
again.
(Luton North) (Lab)
Passengers in Luton North will be concerned by reports that the
Chancellor is planning to cut our railways. After 15 years of
Access For All funding, it is truly shocking how many stations,
including Leagrave in Luton North, remain inaccessible to
wheelchair users, those with mobility issues, and parents like
myself with pushchairs. Under this review, will the Secretary of
State accelerate Access For All funding so that passengers with
access needs in Luton North can have proper and equal use of our
railways?
I do agree, but we have a fundamental issue here: our railways
were built by the Victorians, who did not have any kind of
disability discrimination legislation at the time. Many of the
stations are far less accessible than we would want to see, which
is why we have the Access For All fund, with which the hon. Lady
is familiar. I always encourage people to bid for it. There is no
prouder moment than when I go round the country with my fellow
Ministers to open up stations that are now accessible to people
in every kind of way, and I encourage her to apply for that. I
have to say that the Chancellor would be pretty surprised to hear
the hon. Lady talk about his “cuts” to our railways. He has just
put £12 billion into keeping them running over the past year due
to covid.
(Amber Valley)
(Con) [V]
I welcome any reform that puts passenger interests at the heart
of the railway, but may I say to the Secretary of State that what
passengers in Alfreton and Langley Mill want is for their direct
link to London each day to be retained and not scrapped by East
Midlands Railway? Can he confirm that, under his new structure,
those sort of decisions about where trains stop and how often
will be for the new Great British Railways Company and not for
the individual franchisee or operator to make?
My hon. Friend illustrates the problem with the setup that we
have at the moment, where each individual railway company bids
for its own bit of the track—its own path. We are not using the
railway as efficiently as we should, so we cannot run as many
services as we should. I can absolutely confirm to my hon. Friend
that all decisions on direct links to London will be made by
Great British Railways in the future. I should have pointed out
to the House that this is a multi-year upgrade to our railways.
It will take time to provide fully, as the White Paper explains,
and it will require primary legislation. However, we will get on
with the main parts of it today, so from today, things will start
to improve.
(Richmond Park) (LD)
I welcome the review and the statement from the Secretary of
State. My constituents will particularly welcome the news about
flexible season tickets, which will be of huge benefit to
commuters right across London and the south-east, particularly
those who might be thinking of working from home more once all
the covid restrictions are lifted. I am a bit concerned about
what protection there will be for commuters from the undue hiking
of rail fares. How will Great British Railways be prevented from
imposing disproportionate fare increases on commuters?
I most certainly welcome the hon. Lady’s welcome for the White
Paper. It is great to hear that she thinks that flexi-tickets
will help her constituents; I think that they will, as work
patterns evolve post covid. I can provide her with the
reassurances that she is after, because today’s announcement of
Great British Railways does not change how fares have been capped
up to now, and all those regimes will remain in place. I think
there are great benefits coming down the road—down the line,
actually—for her constituents.
(Buckingham) (Con)
I welcome the commitment to making our railways more
passenger-focused and, indeed, resisting Opposition Members’
calls to go back to the bad old days of nationalisation. My right
hon. Friend will know, however, that my constituents suffer at
the hands of the railway that we do not want, HS2, while the
railway that we do want, East West Rail, lacks a firm commitment
to the important connectivity of the Aylesbury spur. As a key
strand of this review is passenger-focused connectivity, will he
fully commit to the Aylesbury spur?
I do not think we could ever accuse my hon. Friend of not putting
on the record his concerns about a new railway line, HS2, being
built through his constituency. He has been a clear champion for
his constituents in that regard. The other new railway—East West
Rail and the Aylesbury spur—is a matter that is under
consideration. I note that there is an Adjournment debate on the
subject this coming Monday, which one of my hon. Friends will be
answering. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham
() will get the opportunity to put many a point across as
we consider the exact path for East West Rail and its spurs.
(Luton South) (Lab)
Full public ownership of the railways is very popular with the
public, so it is disappointing to see the half measures announced
today that seem to nationalise risk but privatise profits. Will
Ministers allow a publicly owned company to bid for these
concessionary contracts?
As I have tried many times to stress to Opposition Members, we
are not ideological about this; we just want to do what works for
passengers, because they are the people who matter in all this. I
have pointed out—I hope the House will think that I have been
fair—the relative disadvantages of our previous public and
private versions of the railways, and I think this will capture
the best of both worlds.
To answer the hon. Lady’s question, I want community groups to be
able to be involved, as I have mentioned. I said to the hon.
Member for Oldham West and Royton () that the operator of last resort will still be a
factor as well. We will make sure that this is run in the best
possible way. I cannot really fathom why anyone would want to
carve out the private sector’s incredible contribution to the
railway, which has doubled in size over the last 25 years and is
growing.
(Bolton North
East) (Con) [V]
The Fat Controller could not manage it, and choo-choo Portillo
cannot document it. Can the Secretary of State harness Great
British Railways to make it the legend that brings a direct line
train from London to Bolton?
Well, there is a challenge. As I said, the strange thing about
the May 2018 timetable change is that it attempted to make more
paths available in order to use the track that we have better,
but the problem was that no one was in charge, and we know what
happened. The great thing about Great British Railways looking
after all these different elements is that it will be able to use
the track more intelligently. I do not know, but I very much hope
that one day that might lead to a train direct to Bolton.
Madam Deputy Speaker ( )
I call . Not here, so
I call .
(Cleethorpes) (Con) [V]
Unlike Labour Members, I welcome the Secretary of State’s focus
on what works rather than just on ownership, but we should not
lose sight of the fact that competition is a spur to improved
services. Open access operators have provided services to towns
that were not included in franchises. Can my right hon. Friend
assure me that these services will continue? Paragraph 25 of the
White Paper states:
“New open access services will also be explored where spare
capacity exists.”
Can we be assured that the default position will be to do
everything possible to ensure that we do not reduce existing
services and that we extend and improve services? As chairman of
the all-party rail group, I can tell my right hon. Friend that an
invitation to address the group is already winging its way to
him, and I hope he will be able to do so in the next few weeks.
Yes, absolutely—open access is something we really think is an
important part of the structure. It provides the competition. It
keeps everybody on their toes. These are often extremely popular
services. As my hon. Friend rightly points out, we absolutely
back them in paragraph 25 of the White Paper. Having visited the
National Rail Museum in York on Tuesday this week, I cannot wait
to bring my stories of looking round that museum to his group.
Madam Deputy Speaker
appears still
not to be here, so we will go to .
(Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab) [V]
The current system has been failing my constituency for far too
long, so I urge the Secretary of State to make sure that this
plan improves things and is a step forward. The five towns are
less than 20 miles from the centre of Leeds. If we were that
close to the centre of London, we would have many trains an hour
into the city, yet Normanton has only one train an hour into
Leeds; Pontefract, Castleford and Knottingley are all
underserved; and we need more trains to Sheffield, York and Hull.
I have met Transport Ministers repeatedly on this, so will the
Transport Secretary now guarantee that this new plan will mean
more local trains for the five towns?
I certainly welcome the right hon. Lady’s partial welcome, at
least, for the White Paper. I completely agree with her about the
necessity to join up northern towns. As the northern powerhouse
Minister in Cabinet, I spend a huge amount of my time looking at
the way that the railway service that I now get to run, Northern,
operates through the operator of last resort. The service at the
moment is just not good enough. She is right to say that if it
was in the south the connectivity would be vastly better. That is
why this Government are obsessed—obsessed, I say—with levelling
up, and why I hope that her discussions with the Minister of
State, my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry (),
are very fruitful. Great British Railways will, I think, be of
great assistance to her constituents.
(Basingstoke)
(Con) [V]
I welcome my right hon. Friend’s focus on delivering for
passengers. Many commuters face really significant changes in
their working week, and flexible season tickets will help, but
will he go on looking at affordability for long-distance
commuters on the Wessex route through Basingstoke? London depends
on highly skilled workers from places like Basingstoke, but the
cost of distance commuting needs to be kept under really close
review.
Yes, we are charging Great British Railways with looking at the
way that all ticketing operates. One of the things that is so
crazy at the moment is the extent to which we are still walking
around with paper tickets, which are about half of all tickets
sold, and the additional cost that a not-very-streamlined system
to use our trains brings to bear. One example that I hope to be
able to deliver for my right hon. Friend’s constituents—it has
actually recently been delivered to mine, although before I was
Transport Secretary—is the ability to touch in and touch out.
That then works with the Oyster system—although it is not Oyster
outside of London—and caps the fares, so that if her constituents
make more than X number of journeys a week, it automatically
prevents them from being charged more. Those are the sorts of
much more advanced ticketing plans that will be much easier to do
with Great British Railways because it will all be under one
roof.
(Denton
and Reddish) (Lab) [V]
I welcome much in this statement, but it is meaningless if we
cannot get more than one train a week through Reddish South and
Denton stations. At the convention of the north in 2019, the
Prime Minister promised northern mayors that they would be able
to run their own trains. Greater Manchester has ambitious plans
for both GM Rail and tram-train integration with the bus and
Metrolink networks, with full London-style integration. I accept
that today’s announcement is a big step in the right direction,
but it falls a little bit short of that 2019 promise. How do we
make Greater Manchester’s vision a reality?
I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s tacit support for this; he
is right about what we want to do and where we want to go with
it. As I mentioned earlier, I spoke to the Manchester Mayor
yesterday about the way that GM Rail can help to integrate all
these services. Needless to say, since that 2019 speech we have
all been tackling covid, and I think it is fair to say that GM
Rail would not necessarily be immediately in a position where it
would want to take over these routes, all of which are under
enormous financial stress and are being rescued by the
Chancellor’s £12 billion. It is our intention to press on with
the agenda of making sure that people can take one form of
transport to another—in the case of Manchester, on trams, buses
and trains.
(Cheadle) (Con)
Integrated public transport will be crucial to the north’s
post-covid recovery and the levelling-up agenda. It should be as
easy for my constituents to travel around Greater Manchester as
it is to travel around Greater London. As we have heard,
transport powers are devolved to the Mayor of Greater Manchester,
and a number of other organisations are involved in the region’s
transport infrastructure, from the operators to Network Rail to
Transport for the North. How will my right hon. Friend ensure
that existing transport proposals for Greater Manchester and the
north are consolidated into this ambitious plan for our railways?
That is an excellent question. My hon. Friend is absolutely
right; when she reads out the list of different organisations
involved, each of which has its own plans and ambitions, hon.
Members can quickly understand why we need this national body
bringing everybody together. It will be an effective way of
picking up on the ambitions of those organisations and, more
importantly, her constituents—the passengers who use those
services. She has brilliantly echoed the point of several other
Members in saying, “Actually, if it was London, it would already
be integrated.” That is where the Government want to get to, and
today’s announcement is one small step on that path.
(Newcastle upon Tyne North) (Lab) [V]
Whatever the future model of the rail industry, the east coast
main line will be key to enabling major projects such as HS2,
Northern Powerhouse Rail, Midlands Engine and East West Rail.
That points to the urgent need to improve the line itself, as it
last saw major investment about 30 years ago and just cannot cope
with the demands placed on it. Will the Secretary of State
confirm when the long-awaited integrated rail plan for the north
and midlands will be published? Will he give a commitment to
properly fund this key piece of national infrastructure? Will he
also meet me and cross-party colleagues on the all-party
parliamentary group on the east coast main line to discuss how
the Government can deliver on the capacity and reliability
improvements that this strategic line so badly needs?
The hon. Lady does not know it, but she and I share something
very much in common: a love for the east coast main line. I live
not a quarter of a mile from it and it is the line that I
essentially end up using more than any other; I was on it a
couple of days ago. We have actually been putting in massive
investment, which she may not have seen. For example, I have
signed off at least £300 million—I forget the exact figure off
the top of my head—to upgrade digital signalling, which will make
a big difference to both the reliability and the number of trains
that can travel up the line.
I feel that the thrust of the hon. Lady’s question was really
about the integrated rail plan and how we are going to use the
east coast main line within that part of the programme. The
Minister of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Pendle
()—who is the Minister for both HS2 and the
integrated rail plan—will be saying more about this with me
shortly. We share the hon. Lady’s ambition to ensure that the
east coast main line is capable of taking the traffic required to
service our constituents today.
(South Dorset)
(Con) [V]
Faster trains to London from Weymouth in my constituency will be
a key infrastructure improvement if we are to create more jobs
and prosperity. The line via Poole and Bournemouth operates to
capacity, so restoring a short stretch of track to the south-east
of Yeovil Junction to link up with the Salisbury line would do
the trick. Will my right hon. Friend reassure my constituents
that this easy improvement is a large blip on his radar?
I was just conferring with the Rail Minister, my hon. Friend the
Member for Daventry, and this is absolutely on his radar. There
have actually been few things we have done that have been more
popular in transport and rail than restoring a railway. I know my
hon. Friend will know all about that and be bidding into the
process, as others have around the House. This just demonstrates,
as his eloquent words show, the extent to which these railway
reconnections can make big differences to our constituents, and
this Government are fully in favour of doing that.
(Leeds Central) (Lab) [V]
Following the timetable chaos, the fragmentation and three
franchise failures on the east coast main line, my constituents
already knew that privatisation did not work, so I welcome the
Secretary of State’s acknowledgement of that today. However, we
know that Transport for the North’s core funding has been cut and
that transport spending per head in London is three times larger
than it is in Yorkshire and the Humber, so my constituents would
like to know what benefit today’s announcement will bring for HS2
phase 2b to Leeds, future investment in Leeds station and getting
on with Northern Powerhouse Rail.
The right hon. Gentleman will not have to wait very long for the
answer, which I mentioned before, about the integrated rail plan,
which includes things like what will happen on 2b east to Leeds
and much more on the east coast main line, as we were just
discussing.
I want to pick the right hon. Gentleman up on one point. I was in
the middle of nodding and agreeing with him, certainly about the
timetable debacle and what that demonstrated, but it is not the
case that TfN’s core funding, as he describes it, has been cut.
It has the money in the bank; it has not spent it. The actual
spending is in the billions of pounds, while we seem to have got
stuck talking about a £3.5 million administrative fund that is
already in the bank.
My point is this: we are committed to levelling up the north—all
constituencies, including the right hon. Gentleman’s own—and it
will not be very long before we are saying more about that
through the integrated rail plan. I entirely agree with him that
it is many years overdue, but it is great to have a Government
who are getting on with it now.
(Blackpool
North and Cleveleys) (Con) [V]
I very much welcome this greatly long-awaited plan. We have all
waited for it with such great anticipation, and finally it is
here. Can the Secretary of State set out how the plan will embed
the role of the existing rail ombudsman as the champion of the
passenger interest in the new system? Will he ensure that all
ombudsman decisions are binding on rail companies that obtain
concessions, and that their participation in the ombudsman system
is a condition of obtaining such a concession?
I want to pay tribute to my hon. Friend because, as a former Rail
Minister, there are few people in this House who will know more
about this subject than him. During this White Paper’s time, he
has made a significant input to what we have today, so it is in
no small part his triumph as well. We have Great British Railways
thanks to him.
To pick up my hon. Friend’s point about the rail ombudsman, there
is clearly talk in the White Paper, which I think he will
appreciate—and even recall—about strengthening the role of the
passenger champion. I know he pushed for that in his time in the
job, and I think he will be pleased with what he reads today.
(Arfon) (PC)
Welsh rail services too often do not work at all or work very
poorly indeed. That is unsurprising given that, as Professor Mark
Barry of Cardiff University says in a Welsh Government report, in
Wales we have 11% of the rail network, but it gets 1% of rail
investment. This White Paper, as far as I can see, unfortunately
offers not a lot that is new or useful to address this. Is the
Secretary of State aware that the respected Wales Governance
Centre, also at Cardiff University, reports a very
straightforward conclusion? It says that rail enhancement
spending to improve the often dire service that local people
endure in Wales would be
“higher under a fully devolved system.”
So will he just ensure that the Welsh Government get full control
of rail in Wales?
I should point out that the railways have not been some sort of
money spinner for the Treasury in the last year. We have spent
£12 billion, including on the Welsh services, so I am not sure
that anyone would have welcomed the cost of the lines. Of course,
I have devolved the core valley lines to Wales. In general,
though, the infrastructure is run at the moment by Network Rail
and it will be run by Great British Railways. I do want to
challenge the hon. Gentleman on the figure he used, because I do
not want it to go uncommented on. I am sure he is aware that the
11% and 1% figure is hotly disputed, due to the fact that it does
not look at passenger numbers and that geography is different in
different parts of Great Britain. None the less, on the main
thrust of wanting to see those services developed, I am entirely
in support of that and I will do whatever I can, while, as the
name suggests, Great British Railways will cover the whole of
Great Britain.
(Tunbridge Wells) (Con)
I warmly welcome my right hon. Friend’s decisive action on
flexible ticketing. It is ludicrous that, since the 1950s, the
railways have operated on the assumption that commuters go to
their place of work five days a week. That has not been true for
years and it is high time that it was brought up to date, and my
constituents will strongly welcome it. Will he continue to press
the case for reform by making sure that contactless travel is
available? It has been available for 20 years in London. It is
ridiculous that it is not available beyond London so that people
can avoid having to queue up to print paper tickets before they
can travel.
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right about contactless
travel. I mentioned that the experiment that happens to run out
to Welwyn Garden City has been enormously popular. The problem
with actually running the system out is that, as soon as someone
crosses more than one different train operating company, or even
if they do not and there is only one, there is a huge resistance
in the system, because it is so incredibly complicated, with its
fragmented nature at the moment, to bring that in. Great British
Railways will allow us to bring in more contactless travel, which
he will clearly warmly welcome, and I should mention his
phenomenal campaigning on the subject of transport for his
commuter constituency, particularly in Tunbridge Wells and
Paddock Wood. I notice all the time how hard he is working for
them and I think these reforms will be warmly welcomed by his
constituents.
(Liverpool, Riverside) (Lab) [V]
The Labour party has long argued that public ownership of the
rail network will provide better value for the taxpayer and for
passengers, who deserve more than rhetoric from this Government,
and yet again, the Government have not gone far enough. Secretary
of State, Great British Railways is not the biggest shake-up of
the railways in the last quarter of a century; it is just another
example of papering over the cracks. Can he give assurances here
today that this will not lead to thousands of job losses and
attacks on workers’ terms and conditions?
I am sorry that the hon. Lady does not agree with quite a number
of her colleagues across this House. Rather than dogma and
worrying about whether it is public or private, as if there is
some sort of clause IV incentive to set this up in a particular
way, why do we not just do what works for commuters and for
passengers? There was nothing about British Rail that worked last
time in favour of passengers—except for, as I say, closing
stations, closing track, serving terrible sandwiches. I do not
know why we would want to go back to those days and this
Government will not do that. Instead, we will do what works, and
what has been working is doubling the number of miles that
passengers have been taking on trains to the highest on record by
2019, before covid. The reforms today with Great British Railways
are designed to take that further forward.
(Harrogate and Knaresborough) (Con)
I thank my right hon. Friend for today’s statement. Over the last
25 years, we have seen passenger numbers grow to 1.8 billion a
year, up to the pandemic, of course, and we have seen service
levels grow to 140,000 services per week. They are both at the
highest level ever in British history, so he has a successful
platform, shall we say, on which to build. [Hon. Members: “Hear,
hear!”] Thank you. This was due to innovation, competition and,
above all, a focus on customers. Can he expand a little more on
how that focus on the customer will be maintained in the new
structure?
We are honoured to be surrounded by successful former train
Ministers in the House today, and I pay tribute to my hon. Friend
not only for having been a great train Minister but for knowing
exactly how many passengers—1.8 billion—travelled in the last,
most successful ever year for our railways, which was 2019,
before covid. He will be pleased to hear that the entirety of the
White Paper is written on the premise of putting the passenger
first and working out what they need, which is not very
complicated: trains that run on time, are comfortable—warm in
winter, cooled in the summer—and have wi-fi available. And no
more of those uncomfortable cardboard ironing board seats either!
People want to find it easy and comfortable to get on, with
tickets that are easily available and contactless, as other hon.
Friends have mentioned. That is the way that we will take the
numbers back to 1.8 billion and beyond.
(Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab) [V]
Some 50% of rail stations in Greater Manchester are inaccessible
to people with a disability, and I hope that the Transport
Secretary agrees that that is unacceptable. On the face of it,
these plans are going to do little to improve accessibility, so
can he confirm that he will be giving our regional mayor,
, the funding and powers he needs to control and
improve stations, as they do in London?
As I have tried to stress all the way through, we are trying to
do what helps the passengers. I work in a completely cross-party
fashion on these things, including, as I mentioned, speaking to
the Mayor yesterday and supporting anything that will help
passengers, because that is a win for everyone. I agree with the
hon. Lady entirely about the inappropriateness in the 21st
century of a high proportion of stations being inaccessible. She
mentioned a figure of 50% in her case. That is not acceptable in
the 21st century, but nor can we magic a solution overnight. I am
afraid that today’s White Paper does not do that on its own, but
I think she will be impressed with other work that the Minister
of State, Department for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for
Daventry (),
is doing in the Department on accessibility, meaning that we are
making stations more accessible every single month now. I look
forward to that process continuing with Great British Railways.
(Wokingham) (Con) [V]
I welcome the use of private sector capital, ideas and management
skill in the new railway, and I welcome the forthcoming attack on
late trains, hard seats and dirty carriages. Will Great British
Railways ensure that it is genuinely open to bids and offers for
new routes, improved timetables, property developments on railway
land and improved service quality? Local partnerships and private
sector competitors can bring these about as long as they are not
thwarted from the centre, as they often were by Network Rail.
Yes.
(Aberdeen North) (SNP) [V]
Given that 60% of people in Scotland want total control of the
railways to be devolved to the Scottish Parliament and only 30%
do not want it to be devolved, can the Secretary of State explain
why he did not give consideration to this in the White Paper?
Network Rail currently runs the services, and for a good reason,
which is that the whole country is connected by rail. The
railways do not stop at the Scottish border and then turn into a
different format or track size. For the same reason, we want
Great British Railways to take overall control and, if we are to
run an efficient service, it would be crazy to do that and at the
same time split bits off. That would be completely against the
whole purpose of carrying out this reform. However, we have the
Union connectivity review, which is, for example, involved in
looking at how we can make London to Edinburgh a three-hour
journey on the train. I would really welcome the hon. Lady and
her colleagues being as involved in that as possible, because I
am heartened by their desire to see the whole of Great Britain
connected up.
(Waveney) (Con)
I welcome the Secretary of State’s statement. Greater Anglia’s
current franchise agreement provides for the reintroduction of a
through service from Lowestoft to Liverpool Street, but this has
been delayed, partly by the pandemic. The service is much needed
and it is to be regretted that this contractual undertaking has
not yet been fulfilled. I would be grateful if my right hon.
Friend could provide an assurance that the service will be
brought in as quickly as possible, preferably under the current
franchise agreement, but if not, under the proposed concession
agreement.
My hon. Friend is absolutely right to ensure that his
constituents get the best possible service. I was just conferring
with the rail Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry;
of course, the current franchise agreement does not stand because
the franchise agreements are being ended. I know that my hon.
Friend the Member for Waveney () will rightly continue to battle for that service and
that my hon. Friend the rail Minister will be happy to discuss it
with him further.
(Halton) (Lab) [V]
There is much in the statement that I can welcome, and I am
grateful to the rail Minister for meeting me earlier this week.
Widnes and Runcorn are great northern towns, and there are three
stations in my constituency, so the electrification of the
Liverpool-to-Manchester railway line that runs through the Widnes
and Hough Green stations is very important. On the Runcorn side
of the river, the superb redevelopment of the Runcorn main line
station quarter by Halton Borough Council needs to be
complemented with a new station at Runcorn. I hope the Government
will come forward with plans to support that.
I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s welcome of the policy
paper and I know he is meeting the rail Minister on this as well.
We will publish the pipeline for future railways works shortly
and the hon. Gentleman’s effective representations will have been
heard.
(West Dorset) (Con)
I support the comments made earlier by my hon. Friend the Member
for South Dorset () in respect of
the Yeovil south-east chord. This announcement is absolutely
brilliant news: it is the first clear statement we have had in
this House on radical reform to our passengers’ benefit. It will
also correct Labour’s disastrous Railways Act 2005, which further
separated the railway, rather than reintegrated it. When a Member
of Parliament has to point out to his local train operator that
15 lights at a train station are not working and the operator
still cannot fix them, something is terribly wrong with the
system today. That is one example. Will my right hon. Friend
assure me personally that he will not only prevent franchise
boundaries from being a blocker to further through services for
regional connectivity, but work with me to sort out the dreadful
frequency and continual issues we have on the Heart of Wessex
line, which has the worst frequency in the entirety of England?
It is a pleasure to respond, on this last question, to somebody
who has actually worked on the railways and understands these
things. I feel for his franchise, because it has to deal with him
and he will not take no for an answer—and quite right, too. He
points out several things about this reform that are really
important. The franchise boundaries, as he rightly describes
them, cause too much disruption and fragmentation—that is the key
thing that will end with Great British Railways bringing it all
together and finally listening to the representatives of the
people. I believe and have, I hope, strongly indicated through
things such as the Beeching reversal fund that Members of
Parliament in this place have an absolute right and duty to be
involved in the way that services develop in their areas. I know
that my hon. Friend and other Members throughout the House will
appreciate that Great British Railways will be more responsive to
them, as the rightful representatives of their constituents.
