Railways: Transport for the North

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Thursday 19th July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

Having sat through previous exchanges, I am well aware of the anger in the north at the disruption to services following the introduction of the new timetable. The top priority has to be the stabilisation and restoration of the services to which people are entitled. On the noble Lord’s question about the franchise, the Government have instituted a review that will be completed by the end of the month to see to what extent GTR and Northern were in breach of their contracts. A range of sanctions are available if that turns out to be the case. My initial view is that much of the problems in the north was due to Network Rail being late with infrastructure and late in delivering the timetable. We must await the outcome. So far as splitting the franchise is concerned, the franchise is due to run for some time. There is a real risk of further disruption if the franchise were to be taken back on board now and then split. The top priority is to get stability, and then to make further progress with the substantial investment that is now planned by the Government.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, does the noble Lord agree that although Network Rail was late with its electrification of one route, many other faults have contributed to the present problem? Some very good people in Network Rail are trying to do some enhancements on the east-west route, which should be applauded. My worry, which I put to the noble Lord, is that Transport for the North needs to decide what it wants, and its members need to decide what services they want. I have had many discussions with them and, as chairman of the Rail Freight Group, I am very concerned that they are trying to cut out rail freight going across the Pennines in order to get one or two more passenger trains. They should look at the whole thing in the round and then talk to Network Rail about what is possible and come up with a coherent plan—which they do not have at the moment.

[Lord Young of Cookham]

The noble Lord makes a very good point. We have a national network and it is crucial that we preserve its coherence and integrity. That is one reason why one cannot devolve entirely responsibility for infrastructure to Transport for the North—the very reason given by the noble Lord. On what TfN wants to do, it has been there for only three and a half months. Looking at its business plan, it is now in the process of starting work this financial year on the business case for further devolution. As I said in my initial reply, if it wants more powers, the Government are very happy to look at that, but having given it responsibility under the statutory instrument, it is now up to TfN to come up with a statutory plan, advise the Secretary of State and, if it wants to, bid for more powers.