Industrial Action on the Railways

Debate between Baroness Vere of Norbiton and Viscount Younger of Leckie

Monday 20th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

Well, that is marvellous; I have only just started my response, so if the noble Baroness could just hold her horses, that would be brilliant. Let us get back to the questions that she asked and indeed to the Government’s Statement. At face value, it is indeed the case that the current Rail Minister and her predecessor have met the unions in the past to press the need for reforms, and to outline the reforms set out in the Williams-Shapps plan for rail about the establishment of Great British Railways, changes to terms and conditions, modernising railway and creating this fantastic thing that we all want. But this was not part of the negotiations, because the negotiations are between the employer and the unions, as they have always been. That does not mean that the Government do not take great interest in the negotiations—we want to see an increase in pay—but it has to be done fairly, between the passengers, the taxpayer and the workers.

There are working practices that need to change. I am sure that all noble Lords will have heard of some of them, and I suspect that some have thought, “Yeah, it does need to change”. The noble Baroness, Lady Smith, asked about job losses. Over the course of the Covid pandemic, any job losses that have happened to date have been voluntary. A very successful voluntary severance scheme was launched in October 2021. There were 5,000 applications for that scheme—I am sorry, would the noble Baroness like to intervene?

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

My Lords, we should let the Minister respond, as is the way that it should be on a Statement.

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

The noble Baroness was mumbling, and I was desperate to know what she had to say.

Rail Disruption: Social and Economic Impacts

Debate between Baroness Vere of Norbiton and Viscount Younger of Leckie

Thursday 13th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, for asking this Question. I understand from the technical press that 86 out of 93 of these affected trains have either a failure of the yaw dampers, which connect the bogie to the body shell—they are quite important parts—or the lifting points, with cracks of up to one foot long. On the routes affected this clearly means that there are very few, if any, trains. These are trains designed and procured by the Government—

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord, but could he keep his question succinct?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

Unfortunately I missed the question, but I hope to provide some colour to what the noble Lord was saying. Indeed, there are two different types of crack. One is found on the yaw damper; those cracks were found three weeks ago and are not the reason for the withdrawal of the trains from service. The second cracks are on the lifting lugs and have led to the withdrawal of trains from service. I would like to reassure the noble Lord that there is a very stringent engineering risk assessment in place. These trains are checked every 24 hours and are being returned to service from today; we expect to have up to 25 coming back today. We hope that 60 GWR trains will be back by Monday and we believe that services will significantly improve.