Asked by
To ask His Majesty’s Government what plans they have to improve
rail services in Great Britain.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for
Transport () (Con)
My Lords, the Government are absolutely committed to reforming
our railways and ensuring a high-quality, seven-day railway
across the whole country. In 2021, we published the Plan for Rail
White Paper to address long-term structural challenges within the
sector. In the immediate term, the Government as facilitator have
helped improve communication between negotiators and unions.
(LD)
My Lords, the Government rely on rail to support their carbon
reduction targets, but prolonged strikes and appalling management
at some train operating companies are definitely deterring
passengers. The announcement today of yet another rail strike in
the first week of January reinforces the public’s view that the
Government are presiding over decline and seem paralysed into
inactivity.
So my question to the Minister is this: Great British Railways
was hailed as the solution to the current mess in our rail
services, but the new Secretary of State now seems to have put it
on hold. Can the Minister explain to us why it is delayed and why
the legislation is delayed—or is it yet another abandoned
government ambition?
(Con)
I think that the reason for the delay in the legislation has been
well set out both by the Secretary of State and the Rail Minister
in front of the Transport Select Committee. There is a
significant pressure on parliamentary time at the current time,
owing to various challenges that were not anticipated. It is also
the case that we have received thousands of contributions to the
consultation around Great British Railways. We are working at
speed on all the things that do not need legislation, and we will
bring forward legislation in due course.
(Lab)
My Lords, there are things that we do not do if we want to
improve the railways. First, we do not close ticket offices to
the detriment of customers, and we do not sack guards on trains.
The single best way to improve the whole network has already been
proved on the east coast main line, which is to take the railways
back into public ownership—starting with the absolutely
disgraceful Avanti franchise, which
I have been the victim of personally for the last four out of
five weeks. That would improve efficiencies at the end of it,
increase revenues and get better value for taxpayers’ money. Does
the Minister finally agree?
(Con)
I am very concerned that the noble Lord states that guards are
being sacked. If he could let me know who is doing that, I would
be very happy to take that forward.
(Con)
My Lords, does my noble friend agree that, in improving railway
services at present, it would be best to concentrate on the
provision of more track capacity, especially as it might improve
connectivity to our seaports and airports in ways that will
improve the movement of passengers and freight and go some way
towards undoing the damage done by the Beeching proposals some 60
years ago?
(Con)
I am very grateful to my noble friend for raising this issue. It
is something that is top of mind—and, indeed, the pandemic
certainly showed everyone in the nation how important freight is
and how important it is to get it moving around. The Government
have published their future of freight strategy, and Sir has published his Union
Connectivity Review. All these are looking at these very
important elements of connectivity to our ports. In the Autumn
Statement, the Government recommitted to transformative growth
plans for our railways, and we will look at rail enhancements to
our ports as part of that.
(PC)
My Lords, does the Minister accept that this question refers to
service? The problem that we face with Avanti West Coast and
in other areas is that, when there is a lack of the necessary
number of drivers or trains, trains get diverted to certain
popular lines, away from other areas which find themselves
without any service whatever. If the railways are meant to be run
as a public service, there should be an entitlement to that
service in every part that depends on that line, not just a
concentration on those lines that make the most profit.
(Con)
I agree with the noble Lord that some train operating companies
have struggled recently: they have had to cut their services, and
that is deeply regrettable. However, since then a lot has been
done around recruiting more drivers. Services are coming back and
I hope the noble Lord will see an improvement.
(LD)
My Lords, Southern Rail got rid of its guards five years ago.
Last year, it awarded a passenger compensation of £17,000 because
she was repeatedly left on her train in a wheelchair. Part of the
negotiations between the train companies and unions at the moment
is over removing guards from further trains in other areas. The
Minister talked about a high-quality and reliable service for
passengers. How on earth can that be possible when, for disabled
passengers, guards are absolutely key to having a safe journey
and being able to get off?
(Con)
Absolutely. Our ability to provide a good service for passengers
with reduced mobility is top of mind. It is why we developed the
app to enable passengers to be able to book ahead. It is the case
that guards can provide a very useful service, but so can people
at the station. That goes back to the issue around ticket
offices: sometimes it is better to have people outside ticket
offices, walking around platforms, and being able to assist
people with mobility needs in order that they can get on the
trains that they need to.
(Con)
Can my noble friend enlighten us on some of the future thinking
in her department on new railway technology; for example, the use
of battery trains and hydrogen trains, which means that the
infrastructure in many areas will be cheaper because we do not
have to install electric overhead cables or a third rail? How
will that improve rail services in areas where it is economically
infeasible at the moment?
(Con)
My noble friend is quite right: the opportunities for
decarbonising our transport system using our railways are
massive. We have invested in hydrogen trains—I think they are
called HydroFLEX. That is something we will look to take forward
in those parts of the country that will be hydrogen hubs. Of
course, electric propulsion plays a very important part and we
look to technology around the world in order to see whether we
can bring it back to the UK.
(Lab)
My Lords, I always admire the way the Minister battles on with
this problem, but this Government have been in office for 12
years and the railways are a mess. Let us look just
at Avanti Back in
October, when I called on the Government to end Avanti’s
contract, the Minister told the House that
“in December, Avanti will go from 180
daily services to 264”.—[Official Report, 26/10/22; col.
1526.]
We are in December: how many services each day has Avanti averaged so far
this month?
(Con)
I do not quite have the data the noble Lord is looking for.
However, I think this may go some way towards meeting that. Our
view is that Avanti’s recent performance has not been good
enough, and we are seeking to understand why that is. We know
that about 20% to 25% of train services have been cancelled due
to staff shortages of both drivers and train managers, and we
know that there has been a significant amount of sickness
recently. Obviously, we are investigating that with Avanti However, I will
just say, looking at the bigger picture, that there are very
significant national strikes. Build on to that some action short
of strikes—for example, by fleet maintenance workers on South
Western and Chiltern—and this leads to stock imbalances on these
shoulder days, as does, of course, the removal of rest-day
working. It takes many different types of organisations to run a
railway. One of those is the unions, and we must make sure that
we encourage the unions to cease their action and get back to
running our railways.
(Lab)
My Lords, the Minister pointed out that there are many different
organisations involved in running the railway. We know that the
main reason for that is that the railways were privatised and we
ended up with huge numbers of separate companies of varying
quality, some very poor indeed, running or trying to run a
railway; a fragmented system; and a system that, partly as a
result of that fragmenting, has a near-incomprehensible system of
ticketing at times. I just ask her to agree, whatever our
differing views on privatisation—I know what mine are—that what
the railway needs is a unified railway structure, with clear
lines of responsibility and proper accountability to the British
public.
(Con)
I think I probably agree with the noble Lord, although I suspect
that I would achieve those goals via an entirely different
method. We have come a long way in getting the White Paper out
there and starting work on the long-term strategic vision for
rail, which is a plan for 30 years, and the GBR transition team
is currently analysing hundreds of responses to the call for
evidence. The starting point is a long-term vision; it must be
accountable to taxpayers but also much more accountable to
passengers.
