Extracts from Opposition day debate on Rail Franchising - Jan 10
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Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab): In south Wales, First Great
Western reduced and cancelled services over Christmas and new
year—there was chaos—yet it has been handed a franchise extension.
Is it not time we had performance-related franchises and
performance-related franchise extensions, rather than franchises
being extended automatically no matter what the service? Andy
McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab):...The west coast route has operated
on a series of direct...Request free
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Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab):
In south Wales, First Great Western reduced and cancelled
services over Christmas and new year—there was chaos—yet it has
been handed a franchise extension. Is it not time we had
performance-related franchises and performance-related franchise
extensions, rather than franchises being extended automatically
no matter what the service? The Secretary of State for Transport (Chris Grayling):...The biggest problem is that we have not had enough new trains or enough investment. That is why it is right and proper that this Government are spending more than any since the steam age on improving the infrastructure, and why new trains are being introduced right across the country. There are new trains on the Great Western routes, on the east coast main line and in the north. Every single train in the north of England is being replaced or refurbished as new in a transition programme of a type that has not been seen for decades and decades. That is what the railway really needs... Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con):...As has been touched on, the one thing that some people miss, if they think the public sector is the instant solution, is that Network Rail is in the public sector. Having sat on the Public Accounts Committee at a time when the handling of the Great Western modernisation programme was under scrutiny, I can safely say that that was nothing near a success—in fact, it was almost a textbook example of how not to manage a project. What people are interested in is the services that they get. Personally, as an MP, my priority is: what do my customers get; what do my residents get; and what services are there? It is not necessarily whether the system is publicly or privately run.
Looking at the future franchises, I am conscious that a
consultation is under way about whether the Great Western
franchise should be split—I can see the hon. Member for Plymouth,
Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard) in his place—and whether our
section should split away from the section that serves south
Wales. When that was first proposed, I made the point that
actually, the current franchise is similar to the old Great
Western Railway company area—with some exceptions on the edges.
Perhaps that raises some questions about franchises. Yes, it is
good to have smaller franchises, as that makes services more
local, but by the same token there also has to be a sustainable
franchise to maintain the services of a large railway and the
main rolling stock... There is currently a process for the Wales and Borders franchise, which is devolved. But the Government said to the Welsh Government in the agency document last year that “for the purposes of this franchise competition, no cross-border paths to Bristol may be proposed.” This is a missed opportunity, when the Welsh Government are planning bold infrastructure projects such as the South Wales metro, which will improve connectivity. The UK Government’s approach could not be in starker contrast to the Welsh Labour Government’s. A constituent who complained about services to Bristol was told recently by Great Western, “That’s just how it is nowadays.” No, it should not be. The privatised rail system is not delivering, services are getting worse and fares are going up. We need the Government and rail companies to address these problems now and to take rail back into public ownership when the rail franchises expire... Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op): In the time available, I will confine my remarks to two key points. First, I ask the Minister not to split the Great Western franchise, but instead to focus his time and energy on investing in our train line. George Osborne, the former Chancellor, suggested a Devon and Cornwall franchise. That might have won headlines, but it won few supporters in the far south-west. Splitting Devon and Cornwall off from the Great Western franchise would condemn rail users in the far south-west to a second-class service. Labour and Conservative Members rightly oppose that appalling idea, but it seems that no lessons have been learned in the DFT. Instead of focusing on speed, resilience and affordability for the far south-west, we now have to defend yet another attempt to split our franchise. Splitting the west country services from those that go to Wales would reduce income for the south-west train line, risk investment and fragment our railways even further. I say to the Minister, who will shortly receive and consider responses from the consultation, “Please do not do this.” I welcome the Minister to his post, however, because I know that in the coming months he and I will speak an awful lot about trains, especially those around Dawlish. The priority for the Great Western franchise is investment, upgrades, resilience and faster journeys, not more fragmentation. The superb Peninsula Rail Task Force report—I encourage him to take it to bed to read if he has not yet done so—recommends investment in tracks, signalling, trains and timetabling from Penzance through Plymouth to Paddington. The full upgrade programme would cost £9 billion. Labour and the shadow Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough (Andy McDonald), have committed £2.5 billion from our infrastructure fund to upgrade the track, yet Ministers have not made any such investment or matched our pledge. It seems to voters in the far south-west that only Labour will invest in a long-term strategy for our railways... To read the whole debate, CLICK HERE |