Rail Services Statement The following Statement was made in the
House of Commons on Thursday 11 May. “In my most recent Oral
Statement to the House, I made clear the Government’s commitment to
deliver a railway that works for passengers, businesses and the
taxpayer. Where services are not up to scratch, we are holding
operators to account, and where there are systemic weaknesses in
the industry, we are pushing ahead with reform. So I wish to update
the House...Request free trial
Rail
Services
Statement
The following Statement was made in the House of Commons on
Thursday 11 May.
“In my most recent Oral Statement to the House, I made clear the
Government’s commitment to deliver a railway that works for
passengers, businesses and the taxpayer. Where services are not
up to scratch, we are holding operators to account, and where
there are systemic weaknesses in the industry, we are pushing
ahead with reform. So I wish to update the House today on our
progress, starting with the future operator of the TransPennine
Express contract.
Since I took office, I have been clear that First TransPennine
Express’s service levels have for too long been unacceptable.
Passengers, including many honourable and right honourable
Members across this House, have faced significant disruption,
including regular cancellations and poor levels of communication.
The underlying reasons behind this vary, but what is clear is
that the twin challenges of Covid and industrial action have left
their mark. First TPE’s driver training backlog now stretches to
nearly 4,000 days, which means that, at any one time, it can draw
on only 80% of its total driver workforce. Add to that a
breakdown in relations between the operator and the driver union
ASLEF, all told, there simply have not been enough drivers to run
the planned timetable. Inevitably, passengers have borne the
brunt, facing cancellation rates of up to 23% on Monday to Friday
services and gaps in services on some routes of up to six hours.
That clearly is not good enough, a point I have made directly
with FirstGroup which owns
First TPE, and which the Rail Minister—the Minister of State,
Department for Transport, my honourable friend the Member for
Bexhill and Battle ()—has made in weekly meetings with the Rail North
Partnership, where Transport for the North jointly manages First
TPE’s contract with the Department for Transport.
We will always hold operators to account for matters within their
control. We will give them a chance to put things right, but
despite a recovery plan put in place since February, there remain
significant challenges underpinned by ASLEF’s distinct lack of
co-operation. To achieve the performance levels I expect,
passengers deserve and the northern economy needs, it is clear
that both the contract and the underlying relationships must be
reset. I have therefore decided not to renew or extend First
TPE’s contract when it ends on 28 May. Instead, I am exercising
my operator of last resort duties and directly awarding a new TPE
contract to a public sector operator that will manage it on my
behalf.
As Transport Secretary, my obligation, first and foremost, is to
secure passenger rail services on which TPE passengers can rely.
That requires a new approach, and one that the OLR is best placed
to deliver in these circumstances. Most significantly, it
provides an opportunity to reset relations between management and
all stakeholders—from passengers to trade unions. I have also
asked my officials to review services in the north to help drive
efficiency and find better ways to deliver for passengers across
the region, and I will ask all interested parties, including the
northern mayors and Transport for the North, to engage with the
Government on this work.
While today’s decision will be welcomed by many and while it
shows a Government alive to the concerns of passengers, as my
honourable friend the Rail Minister and I have made clear, it
would be misguided for anyone to think this is an instant
solution. The problems First TPE faced will not disappear
overnight. Any operator facing industrial action and a union
co-ordinated ban on overtime working will struggle to run a
reliable service. So I invite those who have long called for
today’s decision, including unions, northern mayors and
colleagues across the House, to work constructively with me and
the Rail Minister to fix the underlying problems and help return
the service levels to where they should be. The OLR is just the
next stop on the line—it is not the terminus station—and once
market conditions allow, we intend to subject this and indeed all
contracts, both private sector and those under the OLR, to
competitive tendering.
There will be some, unfortunately, who use today’s decision to
further their ideological ends, and to argue that this justifies
all rail contracts being brought under public control. That would
be a mistake. The majority of taxpayers do not use the railways
regularly, but they could be saddled with the huge costs of
nationalisation, only to inherit the industry’s problems with no
plan to fix them. Nationalisation is a soundbite, not a solution,
and this Government will always be guided by the evidence to help
make the best decisions for passengers. That is why, earlier this
year, having seen the noticeable improvements on Avanti West
Coast, I resisted calls to bring the franchise into public
ownership. I extended Avanti’s contract by six months—a decision
vindicated, with Avanti-caused cancellation rates at the end of
March falling to 1.4% from 13.2% in January, and continuing to
improve, despite ongoing challenges.
Let me now turn to industrial action. For months, the Rail
Minister and I have worked hard to change the tone of the
dispute, and help facilitate fair and reasonable pay offers for
workers. In negotiations with train operating companies, the RMT
and ASLEF are refusing to even put those pay offers to a vote of
their members, despite RMT members who work for Network Rail
voting overwhelmingly to accept a similar deal earlier this year.
Instead, the RMT has balloted for yet more industrial action and,
along with ASLEF, it has cynically called strikes that will
cripple the network during the Eurovision Song Contest this week.
We are hosting Eurovision because last year’s winner, Ukraine,
cannot. It will be an event attended by displaced Ukrainians who
have fled Putin’s war, and the House has just been hearing about
that threat, so it beggars belief that unions have chosen to
disrupt such an internationally symbolic event—one that not only
presents a united front against Russia’s aggression but shows
solidarity with Ukraine’s resistance. So my message on behalf of
fed-up passengers is to say to the union leaders, “Call off your
strikes, put the fair and reasonable pay offers to a vote and
give your members a say on their future.”
With or without the unions’ support, the industry must modernise
to avoid permanent decline, and we are building unstoppable
momentum towards rail reform, as I set out in my Bradshaw address
in February. I have announced that Derby will be the location for
the new headquarters of Great British Railways, and today I can
report progress against the commitment I made to extend
single-leg pricing to the rest of the London North Eastern
Railway network. Tickets will go on sale from 14 May for travel
from 11 June, and it means that LNER passengers will benefit from
simpler, more flexible and better-value ticketing, removing the
frustration that a single ticket can cost almost as much as a
return.
In conclusion, since becoming Transport Secretary, my approach
has been to listen to the experts, weigh up the evidence and make
decisions in the interests of the travelling public. Today’s
announcements show a Government tuned in to the concerns of
passengers in the north, unafraid to take tough decisions to
deliver better services, and relentlessly focused on modernising
our railways while protecting passengers from the effects of
industrial action. That is what the British people deserve, it is
what we are delivering, and I commend this Statement to the
House.”
18:43:00
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
My Lords, it would be churlish not to welcome a sensible, if very
belated, decision from the Government to remove the TransPennine
Express route from FirstGroup The
appalling service suffered by people and businesses in the north,
at the hands of TransPennine Express and other rail networks, has
finally been acknowledged by the Government, and their decision
indicates that they can no longer go on defending the
indefensible, at least in the case of this railway.
TransPennine’s appalling record of cancellations—almost one in
five trains cancelled and fewer than half the services on
time—begs the question just why it took so long for the
Government to provide at last some light at the end the tunnel
for passengers and take the service back into public ownership.
East coast services, Northern Trains, London and Southeastern,
and now TPE, have all had to be nationalised since the Tories
came into office. Will the Minister now admit that the rigid
model of privatisation so keenly promoted by her Government has
comprehensively failed? We now need to reassure passengers and
businesses that services will improve. What steps are the
Government taking to bring about the rapid improvement in service
on TPE that we all want to see?
When I challenged the Minister recently about the profits of rail
operators—profits which seem quite extraordinary to passengers in
the face of such failure—she said that they related to a time
before the delays and cancellations were a problem. In fact, the
issues with TransPennine go back at least seven years. In August
and December last year, shareholders cashed in a £15 million
bonanza, paid out at the same time as passengers were facing more
than half of trains running late. How can the Government continue
to justify this profiteering when they now agree that this
operator has behaved so poorly that its contract must be
removed?
What is being done under the operator of last resort to address
the issues of poor management which have led to this horrible
failure of service to the travelling public? Will the Government
now do their job and get round the table to resolve the
industrial relations issues which have exacerbated the
problem?
What plans are there to ensure that the right levels of
investment are made in TPE to ensure that it delivers the
reliable, excellent service that the region deserves, and to
ensure that passengers do not have to endure the dangerous
overcrowding which has characterised TPE for so many years?
We all know that these problems are not limited to TPE. Surely it
is time for the Government to legislate for reform of our whole
railway system to create Great British Railways, which will also
drive contractual and fare reform. This will deliver much-needed
improvements to the railways for passengers and freight
customers, and for the taxpayer, who will then be investing in
the success of our railways—not picking up the tab for their
failure.
(LD)
My Lords, I thank the Government for this Statement, and I
welcome the decision. It really was the only one possible,
because TransPennine Express not only was hopelessly failing to
improve and to deliver an acceptable service but was guilty of
wilfully attempting to deceive customers—and indeed the
Government—by using P cancellations as routine. P cancellations
are of fundamental inconvenience to passengers; they were going
to bed in the evening thinking that they could get their
early-morning train and waking up to find that it had been
cancelled.
All areas of the country suffered from Covid, but not all train
operating companies made such a hash of staff relations. I have
said in this House before that I travel every week on Great
Western Railway, and its recovery has been much smoother. It has
relatively few cancellations, and the staff are pleasant, helpful
and very well trained. Every week, I am very pleased that I am
travelling on Great Western and not TransPennine. This Statement
is long on anti-union rhetoric, but it fails to recognise or to
say with any grace that good management in the rail industry is
fundamental. It is important that good management in those train
operators that have managed the situation well is recognised.
I am very pleased to see recognition in the Statement of the
potential positive role of regional transport authorities. I was
delighted to see that, and I hope it is fully followed through.
However, the Statement says
“we are building unstoppable momentum towards rail
reform”,—[Official Report, Commons, 11/5/23; col. 488.]
but there is no sign of the Great British Railways legislation
which is fundamentally needed to sustain and boost that process.
The Government will say that it is possible to create a lot of
that structure without the actual legislation. However, in
reality, you need the controlled, guiding mind to drive through
all the other changes beyond those that can be done without the
legislation. The uncertainty that currently exists has a
crippling effect.
In practice, since Covid, we have, in effect, a nationalised rail
industry, because the Government in the shape of the Department
for Transport takes day-by-day, detailed decisions and does
day-by-day, detailed funding. Therefore, despite the
anti-nationalisation rhetoric in the Statement, without the legal
creation of the mixed public-private vision of GBR as a
concept—with which I agree—this Tory Government will bequeath a
nationalised rail industry to their successor at the general
election. We need a refreshed, cleaned-up service based on a
contractual system that replaces the current failed train
operating company franchise system, and we need a simplified,
cheaper fare system. I would be very grateful if the Minister
could address in her response what government plans there are for
GBR legislation, whether that is definitely now kicked into the
long grass beyond the general election, and, specifically, what,
if any, government plans there are to introduce a wholesale,
simplified fare system.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for
Transport () (Con)
I am grateful to both noble Baronesses for their contributions
and I will endeavour to answer as many questions as possible. I
will start with the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, who asked, “Why
now?” Of course, it is very simple: it is because the contract is
coming to an end. It is coming to an end on 28 May, so that is
why we made the announcement on 11 May that the contract would
come to an end and indeed it would then be handed over to OLR.
Obviously, the decision was taken after much consideration. It
was important to work in accordance with the policy statement
that we had already published. We considered carefully whether to
extend or award a new contract, and, after very careful
consideration and with regret, we decided not to do so.
However, the Government are clear that we want to hold train
operating companies accountable for those things that are within
their control, and it is also clear that at TPE there were many
things that were not in the management’s control and which will
have impacted the services that were delivered to passengers.
That included a very high level of absence, obviously the
complete lack of rest-day working, and some very interesting
shenanigans from the noble Baroness’s friends at ASLEF. In April
2023 they were offered literally the same deal for rest-day
working that they had in December 2021 but they managed to say
that that was not good enough. I do not know—I do not understand
it any more. Clearly, we are in a situation where nothing is ever
going to be enough, but of course it is the passengers who are
suffering at the hands of the Labour Party’s friends.
Other issues have impacted TPE. It has had a much higher level of
driver departures than would normally happen: 56 versus 25 in a
normal year, and each one takes 18 months to replace. It is with
regret that we felt that, despite an encouraging recovery plan,
it was not going to reach a good conclusion. The reason why we
felt that OLR was the right course of action is because it is an
opportunity to reset and review. I say “reset” because there
certainly needs to be a resetting of the relationship between TPE
and all its stakeholders, whether that be government, the trade
unions or indeed, quite frankly, their very poorly served
passengers. Everybody within the industry wants TPE to
succeed—except, potentially, the trade unions, which are not
behaving as they should. I encourage all stakeholders involved in
this, which includes the northern mayors and lots of council
leaders, to work together to try to reach a good solution.
The Secretary of State has asked for an official review of
services across the north to look at their effectiveness and
delivery. It is worth recalling, and it seems rarely to get
mentioned, that the TPE contract is the joint responsibility of
the Department for Transport and Transport for the North, on
which many Labour politicians sit. It is important to understand
that chucking blame around about how ghastly the department is,
is not really very helpful. We all have to work together to
improve TPE’s services, and I hope we will be working closely,
hand in hand, with Transport for the North to do that.
The noble Baroness once again brought up the issue of profits and
dividends. I cannot give her a finance 101 class, because it
would be wrong and potentially a bit rude. However, dividends are
of course not the same as profits, as I am sure the noble
Baroness understands. I cannot address that any further: I have
tried before and it probably did not work, so I will just have to
leave it.
As the noble Baroness will know, there are a number of reforms
that we can do now. The key to that is work- force reform. The
transition team is doing the long-term strategic plan. Workforce
reform is key, but that has stalled. Why has it stalled? I think
the noble Baroness knows the answer without me telling her.
Turning to the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady
Randerson—
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
On the Minister’s last point, I did raise the issue of
management. There are two sides to the story in any industrial
relations issue, and there has clearly been some poor management
involved here. I am not going to put blame on one side or the
other, but I did ask the Minister to comment on how poor
management in TPE was going to be addressed. On the issue of
profit, TPE passengers find it extraordinary that such huge
profits were taken and that they resulted in dividends to
shareholders. This company, which had run the service so badly,
was being rewarded, as were its shareholders, for that failure.
Passengers find that extraordinary.
(Con)
But of course they were not. But anyway, we have been around
those houses many, many times, and I am frankly unwilling to do
so again.
Had the noble Baroness let me finish my remarks, I would indeed
have discussed the issue of management, in order to cover some of
the issues raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, but as
she has once again raised it, this is what I meant by the review
and reset moment. It is an opportunity for the OLR to come in. It
will look clearly at every aspect of the business, including the
recovery plan, with fresh eyes, and I very much hope that there
will be a renewed attempt to encourage the trade unions to think
very carefully about the future of the rail industry in this
country, for which, as I have said before, I am deeply
fearful.
Turning to the comment of the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson,
about P codes, she seemed to think that there was deception of
the Government. I could not quite understand why that would be
the case. I absolutely accept that we need to do something about
the use of P codes, which are used by very few train operating
companies. As she knows, the Office of Rail and Road is looking
carefully at how it can improve the coverage of P code
cancellations. From an industry perspective, we should make sure
that they are almost never used, but sometimes they can be
because there is train crew or rolling stock unavailability.
Often, P codes can be used because there is engineering work, or
whatever, which is clearly beyond the control of the train
operating company.
As for somehow deceiving the Government by using P codes, I
cannot see how that is possible, because the information about
the performance of the train operating companies is assessed by
independent evaluators. Unless the noble Baroness is suggesting
that the train operating companies are pulling the wool over the
eyes of the independent evaluators, of which I can see no
evidence at all, I do not think the issue of P codes is wholly
relevant in judging performance. It is relevant to the
information provided to passengers, and that is why we asked the
Office of Rail and Road to dig into it and think about how we can
publish the most useful information. Of course, our ultimate goal
is not to have short notice cancellations on or before the day
due to lack of rolling stock or train crew.
The noble Baroness also mentioned the involvement of regional
set-ups in rail, and I agree. That already happens with Transport
for the North being involved in both TPE and Northern. Clearly,
it is not a silver bullet, because TPE has gone the way it has
despite the involvement of Transport for the North, but we agree
with her that in future, making sure that strong regional
economies are involved in their rail is critical.
We want to progress many elements of rail reform. We will bring
legislation forward when parliamentary time allows. On simplified
and cheap fares, I hope the noble Baroness has seen the
announcement by LNER of a simplified single-ticket system,
because that is the direction of travel. We do not want to roll
it out across the entire system all at once because that might
cause chaos, and then we would be accused of not having thought
it through. But we are bringing it out—people will be able to buy
tickets halfway through this month, so, very soon—to see how it
works, because we believe it is a big step forward. I hope the
noble Baroness will try it, and I will be very happy to take
feedback from any noble Lord who has a go.
19:01:00
(LD)
My Lords, on the Scottish borders we have the absurdity that new
stations are being opened—at Reston, for example, and East
Linton—where the principal provider of trains is TransPennine.
However, the service is so unreliable that it does not bother to
publicise it, and it changes it at 10 pm anyway. The nationalised
operator of LNER seems to be doing a not perfect but reasonable
job in the circumstances. What confidence does the Minister have
that the nationalised operator can tackle the problems that both
sides of the House have talked about, which cannot be allowed to
continue in their present state?
(Con)
I agree that things cannot be allowed to continue in their
present state. That is why we have brought in LNER, which will
perform its duties and review every aspect, as I said earlier.
Noble Lords should understand that this is not a silver bullet. I
do not think we can expect a substantial change very soon,
because we still have no rest-day working, as ASLEF will not
allow it. Even if train drivers want to earn extra money, they
cannot, because it is not being allowed. So it remains the case
that only 80% of TPE’s drivers are fully trained, because there
is a nearly 4,000-day backlog of training. Again, that cannot be
done unless there is more flexibility within the train-driving
community to allow that to be cleared, so it will take quite a
long time, which is disappointing, but of course we hope to reset
all relationships and move to a better future.
(LD)
My Lords, I listened very carefully to the responses the Minister
gave to the Front Benchers and, like many millions of passengers
in the north, I am a little dismayed at some of the combative
language that was used. I gently suggest to the Minister that, to
solve this problem and get TPE working better, a little more
collaborative language, rather than combative language, would be
helpful.
I also point out to the Minister, who made cheap party-political
jibes about Transport for the North, that it is a collaboration
of all party leaders of all colours. It is chaired by a noble
Lord who sits on the government Benches and includes the regional
director at the Department for Transport, so please let us accept
that as a united board across party politics, as well as the
Department for Transport.
In so doing—and I hope the Minister will be a little more
collaborative in the answer she gives me—one of the big issues
for TransPennine Express, which many in the industry point out,
is that part of the reason for the 56 drivers leaving is because
they are being poached by freight companies offering double the
salary. How does this new arrangement that the Minister has just
explained help to deal with that problem? If it does not, what
solutions does she suggest could be put in place to ensure that
poaching does not continue and therefore cause a lack of drivers
and the problem for passengers who use TPE services?
(Con)
I am grateful to the noble Lord, and I am sorry he felt that I
was being combative. I think was slightly responding to the fact
of it being the terrible Tory Government yet again, when it is
about partnership working. If we are going to make our railways
work in the future, it is with this sort of partnership working
with TfN, which is an organisation I have a great amount of
respect for. I worked very closely with it for three years in my
role in the Department for Transport. I have an enormous amount
of respect for TfN, but it is just trying to understand that
there are other parties involved which have been trying to help
make sure that TPE operates as well as possible.
I understand the noble Lord’s point about the drivers. It is
something that the OLR will need to look at. I think there are
two issues: recruitment and retention. TPE has been very
successful in recruiting. It has recruited 113 new drivers this
year versus only 57 last year, so I hope we can reset the
relationship with the new blood coming in—obviously they take a
while to train. TPE is already a great place to work. We just
need to make sure that the drivers feel supported and able to
stay with TPE as it goes into the management of the OLR.
(LD)
My Lords, I would like to press the Minister on timescales
because the words “temporary measure” have been used. We are in a
position now where over half of the UK rail network—that includes
Scotland and Wales—is actually controlled by Governments. I feel
as though the Government do not quite know what timescales they
are operating to with their promise to return TransPennine, for
example, to the private sector, at least through contract
bidding. What measures are the Government going to use to decide
whether TPE can be returned to the private sector? That question
follows the other companies which have been put under government
control—as I say, to put us in a position where more of the UK
rail network is under government control than not. I simply do
not know what the Government’s plan is any more. Where are we on
Great British Railways? What is actually to happen? Have the
Government got any ambition at all, or are they simply now
responding to events?
(Con)
I think it is twofold. Events in the rail industry are having a
very significant impact on it and its long-term future, and I am
worried about that. In terms of the train operating companies
currently under the OLR, whether that be TPE or others, there is
a process by which services are stabilised and in certain
circumstances they are doing much better than they were before
and that is fantastic news. TPE will go through the same sort of
process to improve things as much as possible.
Then there would be a competition to procure a new operator. That
is a two-phase process. The first is market appetite and the
second is the competitive process. On market appetite, there is
evidence to suggest—and I could not possibly explain why—some
people might be slightly reluctant to get involved in UK railways
at the moment. Obviously, that is really disappointing, but I
think this goes to the heart of the problem. We want a good
railway system or we do not. We need workforce reform. Industrial
action is not all about pay; it is about workforce reform as
well, and those two things must go hand in hand in order for us
to have a modern seven-day railway which works for the
passengers. That is what we are trying to achieve. Unfortunately,
there are some roadblocks in the way at the current time.
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