Great British Railways

Lord Foulkes of Cumnock Excerpts

Tuesday 25th October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I am very grateful to the noble Baroness for raising that with me. I will take that back to the department. I know that there is a significant amount of work going on in relation to how online ticketing works. Clearly, it has to work with the accessibility app, and I will make sure that we take that up and see what we can do.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Young, made some very good suggestions today—although he is one of the guilty men responsible for the privatisation of the railways, which has caused most of the trouble. The Minister gave replies today that were very similar to replies that she gave to the noble Lord, Lord Young, and others weeks ago and months ago, and yet nothing is happening. When are we going to get away from the position that she says something here, but nothing actually happens on the ground? Will she and her colleagues go out and actually travel on the trains for once?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I will do that if the noble Lord stops pointing at me. The reality is that an enormous amount has actually happened. It takes time to put these things in place. There are two main issues when it comes to Avanti, for example. The first is the massive shortage of fully trained drivers, which was exacerbated by the need to stop training during the Covid period. As I mentioned, 100 drivers have now come through the system. However, the number one thing that would really help to restore services on Avanti is better co-operation from the trade unions.