Confidence in the Secretary of State for Transport

Graham Stringer Excerpts

Tuesday 19th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)]

I agree with what the hon. Gentleman is saying. Does he agree with me that franchisees that walk away from a franchise should be banned from bidding for a significant period?

[Alan Brown]

Yes, I do. The Secretary of State says that there was a parent company guarantee of £165 million for VTEC, which is a lot of money, but if the parent company is picking up other money in franchises, including the direct award of the west coast main line, it is not actually losing that money. It should be penalised properly, and I agree with the hon. Gentleman that it should not be able to bid for other franchises. Its ability to bid for the east coast main line partnership has still not been ruled out.

The Secretary of State also justifies the predicament of the parent company by saying that it “got its sums wrong.” I remind him again that it is his Department that got its sums wrong when it carried out its due diligence and assessment. The Government are lucky that one of the other franchise bidders is not seeking redress from them, because they clearly got it wrong, and got the whole process wrong.

Oral Answers to Questions

Graham Stringer Excerpts

Thursday 19th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

That sounds like a very agreeable adventure to me. I must obviously add it to my bucket list.

[Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)]

20. What steps he has taken to implement phase 2b of High Speed 2.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

In November 2016, the Government confirmed the majority of the HS2 phase 2b route and launched a consultation on seven route refinements. The Government made a decision on the phase 2b route in July 2017. To deposit the phase 2b hybrid Bill in 2019, HS2 Ltd is developing designs for the working draft environmental statement. The Government have provided funding for growth strategies to HS2 places, enabling the plans to be HS2-ready.

[Graham Stringer]

Can the Minister assure the House that the hybrid Bill for HS2 phase 2b will take precedence over Crossrail 2?

[Ms Ghani]

Consideration of the hybrid Bill will take place when it is due to take place in Parliament. It is interesting to note that we have had a lot of support from Members across the House; it would be nice for that support to be reflected when the Bill comes to the House, with all Members voting to support it rather than abstaining.

Rail Announcement

Graham Stringer Excerpts

Tuesday 27th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I am aware of the situation, and the important thing to say is that we are a long way away from detailed timetabling. I share my hon. Friend’s view about terminating at Macclesfield, and I have told HS2 Ltd to do some work on that. We have to get the timetabling and the flow of services right, and I do not want anywhere to be disadvantaged by the transition.

[Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)]

As a former chair of Manchester airport, I thank the Secretary of State for his kind words about how it has been run. One reason for the airport’s success is that it has been careful in choosing its private sector partners over the years. Will the Secretary of State therefore explain why he is allowing private companies that have not honoured their contractual obligations in franchises to compete for important lines?

[Chris Grayling]

There are two points to make when talking about potential long-term private partners. First, the arrangements at Manchester airport have worked well. It is still majority-owned by local authorities, but it actually operates as an independent business with private shareholders. It is a good example of a public-private partnership, which may well be the way forward for HS2 Ltd. That does not mean that the organisations that are running franchises are those that might end up as private partners in the future, because we are looking at a different type of model for the future. Secondly, as for future bidding, as I have said before, I will fulfil my legal obligations, but I will also be as careful as possible to protect the interests of the railways and of passengers.

Rail Franchising

Graham Stringer Excerpts

Wednesday 10th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I am going to make some progress now, I am afraid, because the shadow Secretary of State asked a variety of questions about the east coast main line and I want to respond.

The reality is that sometimes the private companies get it wrong. The situation on the east coast franchise is a clear example. Virgin and Stagecoach overbid, and they are paying, and will pay, the price. I repeat—they will pay the price.

I have listened with interest to some of the ill-informed comments about the situation on the east coast line in the past few weeks. I have heard some absurd claims from people who do not understand what they are talking about. So let me explain to the House what the position is. I am not agreeing to early termination of a contract in 2020; no one has asked me to. This railway is paying a huge premium to the taxpayer and continues to do so, but the issue is that this franchise is not delivering the profits the operator expected and is at risk of not making it as far as 2020.

[Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)]

Will the Secretary of State give way?

[Chris Grayling]

No—forgive me, but I am going to explain this in detail.

Passenger numbers are rising on this railway; customer satisfaction is up; and the line is generating a healthy and growing operating surplus that is providing a much greater return to the taxpayer than when it was in the public sector. It is also worth saying that it is running more services and employing more staff. The money that the franchise pays to the Government is today 20% higher than it was under public ownership. But Virgin and Stagecoach got their numbers wrong. They have been losing money steadily, and have now lost the best part of £200 million in the past three years. Despite that, I am holding them to their full financial obligations, taking every last penny of the £165 million guarantee that we insisted on when they took on the franchise.

--- Later in debate ---

[Graham Stringer]

If I heard the Secretary of State correctly, he was confirming the article in The Sunday Times saying that the full contract, as it was let, was not legally enforceable. If that is the case, will he confirm it, and will he explain to the House why he agreed a contract that was not legally enforceable? If it is not true, why will he not demand the full £2 billion?

[Chris Grayling]

The hon. Gentleman has not understood the finances of the rail industry. The money that the taxpayer receives from the operating profit—the taxpayer receives the lion’s share—will continue to flow into the public coffers whatever happens. The contract that was let between Virgin-Stagecoach and the Government will be fully enforced—I repeat, it will be fully enforced—and I make the absolute commitment to the House that that will happen.

I will now make further progress. We have heard this afternoon, more explicitly than we have previously heard it, that the Opposition’s policy is to return to the days of British Rail. There is somehow the idea that this will bring nirvana, but it actually only takes a moment’s thought to realise how flawed their thinking is, assuming they have done any the first place.

Our network suffers from three main problems. First, the infrastructure, which is already run in the public sector—Labour Members forget that—is often old and unreliable. About two thirds of the problems on our rail network result from issues with the publicly run infrastructure. This is not about who runs it and who owns it, but about investment in the infrastructure. That is why I am pleased to have just announced a further £20 billion renewal programme for infrastructure—concentrating on replacing older points, signals and the rest, and upgrading systems—so that we have a more reliable railway. That is the first problem, and the first solution.

The second issue is that the system is heavily congested. It would not matter who was running the railway, because routes into places such as London Waterloo or Manchester Piccadilly would still be full. What those stations and routes need is longer trains, and that is why the private sector, supported by the Government, is now investing in longer trains all around the country—in Manchester, all around London, in the west country and in the west midlands. That is the next priority. Probably the biggest renewal of rolling stock in modern times is taking place at the moment, and it is certainly by far the biggest in Europe. That is what is necessary. Someone on an eight-coach train that is full in the morning needs a 10-coach train, and that is what we are delivering. It is also why we are expanding capacity routes such as Thameslink, which will make a huge difference through central London, and why we have opened the Ordsall Chord in Manchester, which will provide linkage across the city and create extra capacity on trans-Pennine routes.

Thirdly, the system is organisationally too fragmented—too many people debating with each other, rather than solving problems for passengers—which is why our strategy is to bring back together the day-to-day operation of the track and the trains. Those are the three challenges facing the network today, and they are why passengers are often frustrated. We are working to address those problems with solutions and investment. That is the right strategy for the rail network, and shifting around the organisation, renationalisation and the rest of it will not solve those problems. Let us concentrate on the things that will make the difference for passengers, not on moving the deckchairs, as Labour Members seem to want to do.

Monarch Airlines

Graham Stringer Excerpts

Monday 9th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

This is definitely one area we need to look at again. We are already legislating to ensure that people who pay for a flight and hotel separately through an internet organisation can be covered through ATOL insurance. This is an area where we have to do more work. There is, however, a fundamental issue: if we were to put a levy on the cost of an air ticket, we would have to do it on every air ticket in the UK, but many of us on the Conservative Benches get regular representations from regional airports, for example, saying they want air passenger duty cut. This would increase APD, and that is why it is not a straightforward decision, but one we must consider very carefully.

[Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)]

I agree with the Secretary of State that in future situations like this one the Government should look for an orderly wind down, but is that not pie in the sky given the evidence of a conspiracy between Greybull and Boeing to protect their own capital interests against the pension rights of former employees and the people who bought tickets when it was already clear that the airline was bankrupt?

Taxi Trade

Graham Stringer Excerpts

Tuesday 18th July 2017 Westminster Hall

[Wes Streeting]

I agree. Actually, in some cases, Uber cars use taxi ranks constantly on the streets of central London. There are real issues about how the existing law is enforced and there is a need to clarify it. In our report, we strongly supported those who made representations, particularly the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers and other trade unions, including Unite, for which Mike Hedges gave evidence to our panel. We need Ministers to clarify their position on the two-tier system by issuing a formal response to the Law Commission’s 2014 report and by introducing a legally enforceable statutory definition of plying for hire.

[Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making a case for the updating and modernisation of the regulation and law applying to private hire and hackney carriages. He referred to the Law Commission report, which recommends a national system, and we have had reports from competition authorities that refer to deregulation. Does he agree that the licensing of hackney carriages and private hire vehicles should remain a local authority affair and that, when we look at the facts, deregulation nearly always leads to a worse service?

[Wes Streeting]

I strongly agree with my hon. Friend, who leads me directly on to cross-border hiring. He is correct that, although the Government have not formally responded to the Law Commission report and have not introduced as anticipated a new licensing reform Bill for taxi and private hire vehicles, the Deregulation Act 2015 meant that private hire vehicle drivers operating in one area could be licensed in a different area: an issue known as cross-border hiring. In practice, that means that where local authorities have rightly and appropriately determined specific licensing conditions suitable for their local community and population, drivers can abuse the patchwork quilt of licensing regulations across the country to flout rules.

Most alarmingly, we saw evidence of that happening in Rotherham. Right hon. and hon. Members will be acutely aware that in response to the terrible child sexual exploitation scandal, Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council rightly introduced one of the toughest licensing regimes in the country, including the requirement for drivers to have a recording device—either a camera or audio equipment—in operation at all times when someone under the age of, I think, 16 was travelling in the vehicle. However, the council found that private hire drivers could flout those conditions by licensing their vehicle in another part of the country. They could then operate on the streets of Rotherham quite legally and the council could do nothing about it. We heard compelling evidence from my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) about the risks presented to the people of Rotherham because those robust standards are being undermined.

Rotherham is the most serious example, but it is not the only example. Reading Council decided not to grant Uber a licence, yet drivers from Uber license themselves in London and drive around the streets of Reading. I was struck by the evidence provided to my office by the Mayor of London about the number of TfL licences granted and where the drivers live. For example, 747 people have TfL-issued licenses but live in Birmingham, 260 people live in Manchester and yet have licences granted in London, and 378 people live in Bristol but have licences granted by TfL in London. That is clearly flagrant abuse of the system.

We set out a common-sense approach to dealing with this problem: to create a statutory definition of cross-border hiring under which a journey must begin or end in the licensing authority where the licence was issued. That would be simple and easy to enforce and would solve the problem instantly.