The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for
Transport (Baroness Vere of Norbiton) (Con) My Lords, I shall now
repeat in the form of a Statement the Answer given by my honourable
friend to an Urgent Question in another place. The Statement is as
follows: “Madam Deputy Speaker, I thank the honourable Lady for her
Urgent Question, which gives us the opportunity to set out the
Government’s disappointment with the experience of many passengers,
not just...Request free trial
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for
Transport () (Con)
My Lords, I shall now repeat in the form of a Statement the
Answer given by my honourable friend to an Urgent Question in
another place. The Statement is as follows:
“Madam Deputy Speaker, I thank the honourable Lady for her Urgent
Question, which gives us the opportunity to set out the
Government’s disappointment with the experience of many
passengers, not just across the north, but in other parts of the
country. We recognise that current performance is not acceptable
and is having an effect on passengers and the northern
economy.
I will focus on two operators to set the scene. The first
is Transpennine Express
services. TPE services have been impacted by a number of factors,
including higher than average sickness levels among train crew,
the withdrawal of driver rest day working, which is the option
for drivers to work on their non-working days as overtime, the
withdrawal of conductor rest day working and other overtime
working, and strike action on Sundays and some Saturdays since
mid-February under a formal RMT union dispute.
TransPennine Express had a formal rest day working agreement with
ASLEF that was due to expire in December 2021. The rates of pay
under the agreement were 1.75 times the basic pay with a minimum
of 10 hours paid, the most generous such agreement in the
industry. In December 2021, TPE approached ASLEF seeking
agreement to extend the existing agreement. Rest day working
forms no part of the terms and conditions, so either side is free
to refuse or enter into the agreement when it expires.
On this occasion, local ASLEF officials refused to extend the
agreement and sought to negotiate different terms. In the absence
of a new agreement, drivers withdrew their rest day working when
the existing agreement ended, and further offers have not
materialised into an agreement. TPE is undertaking an intense
programme of crew training to eliminate a backlog of
pandemic-induced route knowledge loss and delayed traction
training, and to prepare the business for timetable changes such
as the Manchester recovery taskforce December 2022 change.
Turning briefly to Avanti, the primary cause of recent problems
with Avanti train services has been a shortage of fully trained
drivers. It is a long-standing practice for train companies to
use a degree of overtime to run the timetable, to the mutual
benefit of staff and the operators. Avanti was heavily reliant on
drivers volunteering to work additional days because of delays in
training during Covid. When volunteering suddenly all but ceased,
Avanti was no longer able to operate its timetable. However,
nearly 100 additional drivers will have entered formal service
this year between April and December, and Avanti West Coast has
begun to restore services, focusing on its key Manchester and
Birmingham routes.
I end by saying that we need train services which are reliable
and resilient to modern-day life. While the companies have taken
positive steps to get more trains moving, they must do more to
deliver certainty of service to their passengers. We will fully
hold them to account for things that are within their control,
and we look for others to be held to account on matters that are
outside of the train operators’ control.”
3.47pm
(Lab)
Last night, Transpennine Express
announced 38 cancellations for today. This meant that passengers
who had planned for the 0551 service to Manchester Airport could
have missed their flight; passengers for the 0618 service from
York to Newcastle could have missed morning meetings; and
passengers for the 0727 service from Cleethorpes to Manchester
Piccadilly could have been late for work. This misery across the
rail network is now inflicting real damage to the economy. Will
the Government demand a binding remedial plan with clear
penalties so that operators do not also ruin Christmas for
families across the north of England?
(Con)
My Lords, the Government accept that the services are simply not
good enough. In the Statement, I was able to outline some of the
challenges that Transpennine Express
has had to address over recent weeks and months. Short-notice
cancellations are particularly harmful, and the Government are
working with Transpennine Express to
put in place a plan for recovery to ensure that it is able to get
its trainee drivers out on to the tracks as quickly as possible.
I note that the DfT works closely with Transport for the North as
part of the Rail North Partnership in managing both the Northern
and TPE contracts. We are in regular dialogue with TPE, and we
are obviously engaging with many senior leaders in the north so
that they too can hold people to account.
(LD)
I thank the noble Baroness for her answer, but it did not refer
to the loophole that Transpennine Express
exploits. When it cancels trains before 10 o’clock, these are not
counted in terms of the delay repay compensation. This also
massages its statistics, so that it looks better than it is. The
real picture is significantly worse than the official picture.
Have the Government investigated whether other train operating
companies are exploiting this loophole? If so, which ones are?
Can the noble Baroness assure us that the rules will change so
that passengers get a more honest picture of train performance?
Finally, will she assure us that the Government are committed to
improving the terms and conditions of their contracts with the
train operating companies? Avanti got a seven-figure performance
payment, despite it having the worst results across the UK. How
can that be right? How can train operating companies be rewarded
for abject failure?
(Con)
There were plenty of questions to be getting on with there. I am
afraid that I am not aware of the loophole that the noble
Baroness referred to. I will take that back to the department and
write to her with an explanation of how that is included in the
performance figures and whether or not we are able to improve the
communications with passengers so that they know that trains are
not running. We know that certainty is always the best option
when it comes to running passenger services. The noble Baroness
spoke about the performance fee. I am not entirely sure that it
was a performance fee; it may have been a management fee. All
fees go through an independent process. If payments are made,
they are as a result of the contractual and legal obligations
that the Government have with the train operating companies.
(Lab)
My Lords, would the Minister accept that Avanti does not just run
its services badly but is responsible for the poor operation of
many railway stations? My journey from Birmingham International
this morning is a perfect example of how bad things are. I
arrived for the 12 o’clock train. The lift had been out of order
for three weeks. On the board, the train was shown as being on
time; when I got through the barrier, it was shown as cancelled;
and when I got to the platform, it was shown as delayed. The
staff are unsupervised, unmotivated and disillusioned because of
the lack of any management operation so far as Avanti is
concerned. I asked to see the manager, but there are no managers
around. I got to London the usual 40 minutes late. If Ministers
had to travel on this shoddy service, Avanti would have been
fired months since.
(Con)
Obviously, I am deeply disappointed by what the noble Lord
experienced. Ministers do travel on these services; I get it in
the neck quite frequently from colleagues. I reassure the noble
Lord that I have arranged a meeting with the Rail Minister, as
promised previously in your Lordships’ House. That is now in the
diary and I hope to be able to share the date of that meeting
with noble Lords. I hope the noble Lord will come to that
meeting, set out his concerns and allow the Rail Minister to set
out exactly what the Government are doing, working with Avanti,
TPE and many of the train operating companies, to improve
services across the country.
(Lab)
I should declare an interest as a regular traveller from Carlisle
to London with Avanti, as well as an occasional traveller with
TPE to see my son and daughter-in-law in Edinburgh. What evidence
is there that their services are improving? When I came down on
Monday morning, every other train from Glasgow to London was
cancelled—a 50% cut. Whereas the normal journey time from
Carlisle to London is three hours and 20 minutes, it has extended
the timetable by at least half an hour and then a high proportion
of the trains are late. Why have the Government not acted, as a
decisive Government would, and withdrawn the franchise from these
disastrous operators?
(Con)
The Government have acted in a very decisive fashion.
A noble Lord
My Lords—
(Con)
Perhaps the noble Lord will allow me to finish. Officials meet
Avanti weekly. A recovery plan has been agreed with Ministers and
with the ORR, and we are monitoring whether or not Avanti is
meeting that recovery plan—currently it is—and 100 new drivers
have entered into service between April and December. I reiterate
to the noble Lord, as I believe I have done previously, that
removing the franchise from an operator would not make the
service any better, because not even the Government can rustle up
train drivers out of nowhere.
(Con)
My Lords, the word “nationwide” occurs in the Question. I have
every possible sympathy with the noble Lord, , and others, but there are those
who use the east coast main line, and various strikes are
threatened. Is my noble friend at all confident that the strikes
between now and Christmas, which could prevent my coming here or
going back from here, will take place, and what is being done to
try to ensure that they do not?
(Con)
I recognise that industrial action is planned between now and
Christmas. The Government are doing whatever they can to act as a
facilitator and a convenor. The position remains that
negotiations need to happen between the train operating companies
and the unions. However, we know that strikes make matters worse
for the union members, passengers, the railway and, indeed, the
economy. My fear is that as the strikes continue, we risk driving
passengers away and entering into a cycle of decline in our
railways that we do not want to see. Therefore the Government are
very focused on trying to get to a stage where we no longer have
the strikes. That depends on having modernising reforms, which
are needed such that we can then afford a fair agreement with
workers.
(Lab)
My Lords, the Minister suggested that Avanti was sticking to the
plan that it had made with the Government. All I can say is that
it seems a pretty shoddy plan if the way in which it is sticking
to it leads to so many delays.
(Con)
We are working carefully with Avanti. The next uptick in services
will happen on 11 December, when we will see 264 services daily
on a weekday, which is up from 180 now. Unfortunately, I fear
that noble Lords will not see an improvement that day or indeed
on any of the subsequent days, because the services will be beset
by strikes and other industrial action. Many things are going on
here. The Government will absolutely hold Avanti to account for
the things within its control, but we need others to hold people
to account for things not in its control.
(Con)
My Lords, the Minister referred to strikes making things much
worse, and of course they are. However, I wonder, listening to
some of the reasons for industrial action, whether the Government
have presented the overall context of the situation we are in
nationally in quite the right terms. The other day, the noble
Lord, , reminded us that we have
drifted into what is very near a war situation, with inflation,
shortage and the obvious need for everybody to face for a
time—for the duration—reduced living standards and increased
deprivation. That is clear. Yet here we have all the arguments
about the need for catching up in real terms, improving
contracts, asserting a new deal and so on and so forth. This does
not seem the right language for the crisis we are in. Is there
not a case for explaining more clearly to the many groups who
feel they are oppressed in their living standards that this is
something we all have to face for a while until we can get out of
two or three of the biggest crises that have faced us since
1944?
(Con)
I am grateful to my noble friend for his contribution. I note
that at the recent fiscal event, the Chancellor highlighted the
difficult economic circumstances that the country is currently
in. However, I reiterate that there is a fair balance to be
achieved here, although that balance is affordable only if we are
able to achieve the sort of modernisation that our railway system
needs, where a seven-day operation is not dependent on the
approval of the workforce, just as major supermarkets nowadays
would not close on a Sunday. Therefore we need to be able to take
those steps towards modernisation, and we believe that then there
will be a landing zone when it comes to fair wage increases for
workers.
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