(Lab): I join other noble Lords in thanking the noble
Baroness, Lady Randerson, for securing this very interesting
debate. I too welcome the Minister to her first railway debate. I
am sure there will be many more and I hope she will be here to
take part in those as well. There can be no one in your
Lordships’ House who disagrees with the aspiration to improve the
quality of Britain’s rail services. I remind the House of my
railway-related interests as declared in the register,
particularly my chairmanship of the Great Western Railway
advisory board. I am also president of the Cotswold Line
Promotion Group, and chair of the North Cotswold Line Task Force,
which has been set up by Worcestershire County Council and is
supported by all local authorities and local enterprise
partnerships in the area to act as the catalyst for a better and
more reliable train service...
(LD): ...The
business case for extending the electrification north of Bedford
to the east Midlands was stronger than that of the Great Western,
but the Government of the day decided otherwise. Subsequently, an
expensive scheme of electrification was initiated on the Great
Western when skills were at an appallingly low level. The trains
themselves were developed by the Department for Transport, rather
than by railwaymen. The result has been an extraordinarily
expensive electrification scheme on the Great Western that has
absorbed all the money which it had been hoped was available for
electrifying the midland main line. The east Midlands cities of
Derby, Leicester, Nottingham and Sheffield have paid a high
price, and they are justifiably furious that this is so.
There is a way out of this if the Government will listen. As the
noble Lord, , mentioned, Network Rail has
recently stated that it would let private contractors bid for and
deliver “big schemes”. A competition put to the market would
allow a contractor to bid for the whole of the electrification
scheme, including any modifications to the signalling. I am quite
sure that this would attract bids from a number of
multifunctional operators, or even from the regions in Network
Rail itself if it were freed from the cloying influence of the
infrastructure section of that company. The risk would be
mitigated by coming to a long-term contract with the bidders, who
would be responsible for delivering and maintaining the system,
and who would, of course, be paid only on the results that they
achieved. As a railwayman of long standing, although I have no
interest to declare, I am absolutely certain that the whole
scheme would come in at a price very much lower in unit cost
terms than the Great Western, and it would avoid the expense and
poorer performance of producing bi-mode trains. The plain fact is
that straight electric trains are lighter, provide a more
reliable railway, use less power, are cheaper to run than
bi-modes and require less maintenance. They benefit far more than
bi-modes from regenerative braking and I am quite certain they
will make a significant reduction in journey times. I estimate a
reduction of six minutes in the London to Sheffield journey time,
which is very significant...
(Lab):...I would
also be obliged if the Minister could clarify—I sometimes get
confused by this—which electrification proposals or schemes, or
parts of electrification proposals or schemes, have recently been
abandoned and which have been officially paused or deferred. I
refer in particular to the Great Western electrification, the
Midland Main Line electrification, the electrification of the
trans-Pennine route and the Oxenholme to Windermere
electrification.
On the Great Western electrification, when will
the electrification of the route into Bristol now be
completed—assuming that this part has been deferred or paused and
not abandoned? As has already been said, at a time when the
Government are seeking to reduce the use of diesel fuel and
vehicles on our roads, they have just made a decision on railway
electrification which will increase the expected future use of
diesel power on our railways. The Government’s left hand does not
always seem to know what their right hand is doing.
As is clear from this debate, we all want to see the railways
expand and progress and have a successful future. However, this
Government has almost certainly cancelled or deferred more
electrification projects than any previous Government, on top of
their record of hitting passengers by increasing fares faster
than the rate of inflation at a time of austerity and no or low
pay increases.
To come back to the Great Western electrification, what
aspects of the contracts with Hitachi are having to be revised or
renegotiated in the light of the Government’s decision to delay
or abandon parts of the electrification scheme? Since the new
bi-modal trains will now have to be used more than expected in
diesel rather than electric mode, running costs and maintenance
costs are likely to be even higher. That is on top of the fact
that the bi-modal trains are presumably heavier than all-electric
trains, since they have a diesel engine to carry around, which in
itself already makes them more expensive, with higher running
costs. Electric trains are usually regarded as being more
reliable and cheaper to run than diesel trains. Do the Government
accept that view?
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