Train Crew Shortages

Debate between Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill and Lord Berkeley

Thursday 5th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

The Northern staffing and industrial relations issues are intractable and, as I said, have been there for a very long time. In the past five months or so, we have at least got to the bottom of how many disputes they have, what they are about and how they might be resolved. The management of Northern is working hard to do that. It is unacceptable—the Government are clear that it is unacceptable—but there is no point in just painting it as a public sector operation. It was brought into public ownership four years ago because the service was dire then. All I can say is that not much effort was made to sort it out in the four years until this Government took office.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, yesterday the Government announced the first transfer, of South Western Railway, to government ownership—I think next May. Can the Minister confirm that what he has told the House about the new industrial relations arrangements for rest-day working and such things will be in place, so that from May, South Western Railway will have a 100% attendance for all staff as necessary?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

My noble friend knows as well as I do that actually these matters need to be resolved with staff representatives on a continuing basis. The transfer of South Western to public ownership will improve the performance of the railway, because it will be more coherently run between the track and the train. Of course, I cannot commit to perfect industrial relations from day one, but we will make sure that the resources are available for that to be done, and we shall also review, in each of the transfers, where we stand before the transfer, what needs to be done and how quickly it can be done after the point of transfer.

Bus Funding

Debate between Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill and Lord Berkeley

Tuesday 19th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

The reliability of bus services is terribly important to the people who use them and to the local economies of the places where they operate. This funding formula of itself will not affect the reliability of services, other than to give local authorities more resources for the officers and skills to be able to manage local bus services that they procure. The real penalty for unreliable operation of bus services outside London lies, currently at least, with the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency and the traffic commissioners, which can bring operators in front of them when they fail to operate the services that they have registered.

One reason why conurbations, led by the Mayor of Greater Manchester, are looking at franchising bus services is so that they can have greater control. In those cases where operations are franchised, there is a different way in which to penalise operators. In fact, one of the successes in Manchester has been a much higher level of reliability, not only because there is more direct control over the provision of the bus service but because the Mayor of Greater Manchester is taking a much stronger interest than previously in the ability of the road network to enable reliable bus operation. I would expect that to be replicated in other combined authority areas that choose to go down the route of bus franchising.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend on this Statement. It is not before time, and it is really good that we have a much longer-term commitment to the provision of cost-effective buses—which is, after all, what a very large proportion of the population need for their everyday use. As my noble friend said, buses are needed for going to work, school, college and so on, and I am sure that this will be very welcome around the country.

There is one group of conurbations that cannot be helped by this bus Statement, because there are no roads. I refer to the Isle of Wight, which does not have any roads to the mainland, and which has a population of over 100,000. Where I live, in the Isles of Scilly, the population is a bit smaller, at 2,500, but it certainly does not have any roads to the mainland. The people who live in those places still need access for everyday use—for visits to hospitals, schools and so on. Would my noble friend consider meeting some of the people involved to see whether there is not a similar formula that could be adapted for the sea routes, rather than the air routes, to give the residents of these island groups a fairer bite of the cherry, as is now going to be delivered to the rest of the country?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

My noble friend has raised this subject before, certainly with respect to the Isles of Scilly, and I am also familiar with the issues raised by the two Members of Parliament there are now for the Isle of Wight at a recent meeting with my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Transport and me. Of course, there is a very comprehensive bus service on the Isle of Wight and it will be supported by payments to the local transport authority there. I am not sure whether the rather smaller bus service on the Isles of Scilly is supported in that manner, but if the noble Lord would like me to find out I will do so.

Ferry services are very different. I know that the issues with the Isle of Wight, in particular, have been raised with the Secretary of State for Transport, and I will write to the noble Lord on where we are with that.

MV “Ruby”: Ammonium Nitrate

Debate between Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill and Lord Berkeley

Thursday 31st October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what discussions they are having with the Great Yarmouth Port Authority about additional safety precautions to be put in place to enable the MV Ruby to dock with a cargo of ammonium nitrate.

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill) (Lab)]

The Government have engaged with Peel Ports, which owns the port of Great Yarmouth, and the ship’s management company. They have provided guidance and advice to ensure the safe transfer of this cargo from the motor vessel “Ruby” on to another vessel for onward travel. Ammonium nitrate is regularly handled at UK ports and standard health and safety procedures have been, and are being, followed.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

I am grateful to my noble friend for that Answer and declare an interest as an honorary president of the United Kingdom Maritime Pilots’ Association. The cargo of 20,000 tonnes of ammonium nitrate is benign on its own, but I know from construction experience what happens when you mix it with a little bit of diesel and an explosive: in Beirut, about two years ago, it demolished most of the city, as I understand it. Is Great Yarmouth a great place to have a transfer like this, when that ship has been sitting in the North Sea for probably weeks, if not months, trying to get some port somewhere to accept it and unload the cargo? I would be interested in my noble friend’s response.

Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Bill

Debate between Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill and Lord Berkeley

Committee stage
Wednesday 23rd October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

I would be grateful if the Minister answered a couple of questions arising from the statement he has made, for which I am very grateful. He said that passengers do not want to be confused by different types of services and operators, but from talking to people who have been involved in TfL and Merseyrail, I get the impression that they think they are rather good. I am not sure they would agree that they would be better if they were run from London by some centralised organisation telling the people of Liverpool or Manchester how many trains they can run.

It all comes back to who actually gets the revenue from the train fares and who pays for the trains, which will probably affect what the local mayors can ask for. They might want to see more trains, but if they are going to have to ask central government for an extra train, that will get quite difficult. I do not think the Minister has answered the question of the money that will be saved through this amendment and the new structure. We have not seen how much money it is going to save or how much extra revenue it might generate. I look forward to his comments.

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend for his intervention. I do not disagree with him at all: those railway services are rather good. I did say that I was rather proud of the Overground, and from a distance I still am; it is a rather good service. However, there is a difference. Those services operate very largely within the Mayor of London’s geographical area, and the fares at the extremes do not differ. In Liverpool, I believe, they are wholly within the Liverpool City Region, but if not, the same applies. Consideration has to be given to consistency when the services stretch beyond those boundaries. That has been, and is capable of being, managed well.

The points my noble friend makes about who pays for enhancements—both the revenue costs of enhancements, and of extra trains if they are needed—and who gets the revenue from that are all subjects on which we are in harmonious discussion with the Mayor of Greater Manchester and Transport for Greater Manchester. It is possible to enhance railway passenger services in conurbations and elsewhere without having ownership of them, in circumstances where the proliferation of ownership may well create other costs. In the previous debate in Committee, I referred to the number of train crew depots in Newcastle. My recollection is that there are currently four, all of which have managers, supervisors and clerical staff. That is not the sort of proliferation of basic on-costs that we want to see in the rest of the system.

We are having a very practical discussion in Manchester about the eight lines that the mayor wants to specify. I suspect that, at the end of the day, when we reach an agreement, as I believe we will, the services the mayor wants will be presented as part of the Bee Network. I expect them to look consistent across Manchester, in the different modes that Transport for Greater Manchester controls. That is exactly the same effect as we had with London Overground and Merseyrail. We will have to bridge those gaps without creating further cost and confusing passengers.

Amendment 43, in the name of my noble friends Lords Snape, Liddle and Berkeley, requires the Secretary of State to produce an assessment of whether passenger services could be run by devolved authorities before any contract is awarded to a public sector company or any private sector franchise is extended temporarily by the Secretary of State. As I have said already, it is not our intention to devolve the operation of further services to local government as part of this process. Our intention is to end the failing franchise system and move to a public ownership model, which will then allow us more easily to reduce fragmentation and create a culture focused on delivering for passengers and taxpayers, not private shareholders.

It is deeply important that local leaders have greater influence over what services are run in their areas. That is why we are engaging with them to develop a statutory role for mayoral combined authorities in the rail network, which will become part of the wider Bill. As I have said, further devolution of services risks including fragmentation, but as I have also said, it is not ruled out by the Bill.

I turn to Amendments 12 and 13 from the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, which require the Government to consult with the Council of the Nations and Regions and the Prime Minister’s newly appointed envoy before transferring cross-border services to the public sector. This amendment is not necessary. The Government regularly engage devolved Governments on cross-border services. Both the Scottish and Welsh Governments are in favour of transferring rail services into the public sector, and we have worked collaboratively with Scottish and Welsh Ministers on the proposals in the Bill. Consultation will continue to take place as further services are transferred into public sector operation.

In addition, the Council of the Nations and Regions has been set up by the Prime Minister to foster positive collaboration with the devolved Governments. Clearly, we do not require a legislative amendment to encourage collaboration when the council exists to do just that, and I am sure that the newly appointed envoy will further facilitate that.

The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, referred to South Western Railway and in particular to the line between Salisbury and Exeter. I am confident that it will get better when South Western Railway comes into public ownership and we can get much closer liaison between infrastructure and operations and their management.

The noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, referred to Welsh ownership of infrastructure. I am not sure that she is right, bearing in mind our experience with the valley lines, in saying that they aspire to own the infra- structure, but the Bill would not prevent that.

Finally, the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, might want to note that Keith Williams, who he mentioned and who I mentioned on Monday, publicly endorsed the rail manifesto published by the Labour Party before the election. I will say no more about that.

With thanks to all noble Lords for this debate, I urge them not to press their amendments to this relatively narrow Bill, but I will reflect further on everything I have heard about devolution today.

Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Bill

Debate between Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill and Lord Berkeley

Committee stage
Monday 21st October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

Before the Minister responds, perhaps I could add something to my noble friend’s comments on Avanti and performance. My noble friend Lord Snape mentioned, I think, a 60-something per cent public performance measure. What we do not know is the difference between delays caused by Avanti itself and Network Rail, the infrastructure manager. GBR will be in charge of the infrastructure as well as the trains, and it is pretty important that we know the balance between the causes of the delay, and how this will improve. Maybe my noble friend the Minister could write to us and give us a breakdown of the performances of the existing services and Network Rail. I believe, at the moment, that Network Rail is responsible for something like 70% of the delays, but maybe I am wrong. I look forward to his comments.

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

On my noble friend Lord Liddle’s comment, I am sure the Secretary of State would like to make her own decision, but I am pretty confident that the work done in the department to assess whether Avanti is meeting its performance standards has taken into account what latitude there is. I suspect there is very little because of the contract terms.

I will write to my noble friend Lord Berkeley, and make the letter available, about the causes of delay on the west coast main line and to Avanti’s services. It is, of course, as he knows, undoubtedly true that every set of delays on the railway is due to a combination of the train operator and the infrastructure, and the way in which those parties manage their interaction with each other. When the Secretary of State and I have seen train companies about their performance, we have insisted that they are always accompanied by the relevant route directors of Network Rail. One of the issues is the root cause of the delays; another is how well those parties interact to resolve them. One of the issues on the west coast main line is that Network Rail’s control point, not unreasonably, is at Rugby where the signalling system is, Avanti’s control is in Birmingham and its train crews are managed from Preston. I would not run a railway like that myself.

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[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I think in due course we will have to come back in the substantive Bill with a proposition on how those decisions are made, who makes them, and for what period of time the plan is valid.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for his response to my amendment and other people’s. I have one or two questions that I hope will help the extended debate, because I do not believe we can leave the most important question of competition, which a number of noble Lords have mentioned.

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

Before the noble Lord sums up on his amendment, I think the Minister has yet to reply on the issue of the police.

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I apologise to the Committee; it is my novice inexperience. I thank the noble Lord for that intervention.

I turn to Amendment 40 in the names of the noble Baronesses, Lady Pidgeon and Lady Randerson, and the noble Lord, Lord Moylan. Amendment 40 would require the Secretary of State to report to Parliament on the impact of the Bill on the British Transport Police 12 months after its enactment. The BTP is governed by the Railways and Transport Safety Act 2003, which is not affected by this Bill. Under the 2003 Act, the British Transport Police Authority is responsible for the efficient and effective policing of the railways and for maintaining the British Transport Police force. The authority sets annual budgets for the BTP and recovers the costs of the BTP from the rail industry—of course, now, notably, this is all paid for by government—by entering into police service agreements. The authority sets the funding contributions for each railway service provider via a cost allocation model to ensure that contributions reflect the services provided by BTP and cover its costs.

Under the 2003 Act, the Secretary of State has made an order which requires railway service operators, as well as Network Rail, to enter into police services agreements. This obligation applies equally to public sector operators and private sector franchisees, and I can confirm that all four existing operators under DOHL have a police services agreement in place.

In conclusion, there is no reason to believe that public ownership under this Bill would have any adverse impacts on the freight industry or the BTP, so I hope my noble friend will be persuaded to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I apologise for intervening earlier and preventing my noble friend responding on the British Transport Police issue, which is most important. I would like to ask him whether it applies to Scotland.

About 10 years ago we had a debate here when the Scottish Government wished the Scottish police to take over British Transport Police activities in Scotland. My noble friend Lord Faulkner of Worcester and I tried to argue—I think the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, was there too—that this was a bad idea because policing the railways is fairly specialist work, as the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, has told us. We ended up trying to divide the House at about midnight, which my Chief Whip at that time did not think was a particularly good idea because I had not told him about it. I pointed out that he was probably in bed asleep by then. Anyway, we did not win that time, but we did manage to achieve BTP having responsibility for railways in Scotland. It would be nice if my noble friend the Minister could explain how that will work under the new GBR system.

I will respond to my noble friend’s comments on the other issue, which is mainly about capacity and competition—whether it is freight, open-access operators or whatever. It was interesting that he said that the Government invested £4 billion in the east coast main line. That must have been in order to get an extra train per hour and a few other trains between Edinburgh and London. I am wondering who decided that it was a good thing to invest in the east coast main line to get more intercity services, rather than more freight or cross-country services. That it has not been delivered yet indicates that something else needs resolving, and we will have to see what that is.

The other issue is straight competition. I was not working on the railways before privatisation. I am assuming that Great British Railways in its 1990s shape had a number of divisions, as a noble Lord told us, including a freight division. That obviously worked very well at that stage, but when those in the freight division wanted another pass or two on a main line, I would hazard a guess that they had quite a job persuading the passenger people to move over a bit and give them space.

Great British Railways will be a monolith organisation. I am sure that underneath, it will have lots of subdivisions, which we will debate at some point. This will probably include the intercity services and regional services, and it will have to take into account open-access passenger and freight services. I cannot see how it will be able to demonstrate a fair allocation of paths when, as the noble Lord, Lord Young, mentioned, it will get all the extra revenue from an extra train if it is a GBR train, but no revenue apart from track access charges if it is an open-access train or a freight train.

This is a really serious and financially challenging discussion that we will need to have. I hope my noble friend will be able to respond in part to what I have said. I hope he will be prepared to meet me and anybody else who is interested in this competition issue before Report. I would like to see some wording in the Bill that would give open access passenger and freight some comfort that what goes in the next Bill will not send them over the edge. Could my noble friend respond to those points? I do not know whether he is prepared to.

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I will respond to my noble friend by either talking to him outside or writing to him.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Bill

Debate between Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill and Lord Berkeley

Committee stage
Monday 21st October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, for her intervention. In fact, I did not say that there was no need to sort out the terms and conditions now; I said there was no need to sort out the particular matter of how the overall pay and conditions might be dealt with, including with the pay review body. As a matter of fact, the employees would transfer under the transfer of undertakings regulations. At that stage, no change is possible on the transfer. That will need to be resolved and I am sure that changes are in fact needed, if only because, at least in my view, some of the existing train operating companies have failed to develop the terms and conditions in the way that they should have, both to operate a better service and to reward the staff more effectively.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to all noble Lords who took part in this short debate. My amendment was a probing one, as I said, and I have no regrets about tabling it because we have learned a great deal this evening. It has been easier to blame what has gone wrong in the railways and the strikes in the last few years on the trade unions or even the present Government, but most of the passenger franchises that have been operated in the last 10 or 20 years have had Department for Transport puppet-string holders behind them, telling them what they can and cannot do, which is not the way to negotiate. Most successful negotiations take place on the background of a client, customer or owner who knows what they are doing and has done it before, and trade unions that also know what they are doing.

I am pleased that my noble friend has given us a progress report on where this is likely to go and I thank him for the information and for updating me on some things, but I hope that it will not be too long before we see an even better arrangement for the workforce, whether it is a workforce plan or whatever, including Network Rail workers. Then everybody could get their heads down and get on with providing a good service to the customers—which is, of course, what everybody wants. On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Bus Franchising

Debate between Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill and Lord Berkeley

Thursday 12th September 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend for his contribution. I should have said in my previous remarks that this is all preliminary to a buses Bill, which will be introduced to the House in due course and cover a wider range of subjects.

This is offering a choice to local authorities. It gives them the opportunity of franchising, if they believe that it is the right thing to do. Of course, all funding is being considered in the round as part of the spending review. I cannot share details about the discussions with His Majesty’s Treasury at this stage, but, in the meantime, the department is building its capacity to provide tangible, on-the-ground support to local transport authorities that wish to take back public control of bus services. We are also working with all stakeholders to determine how the buses Bill will make franchising easier and cheaper to deliver and further reduce the barriers to its introduction.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I very much welcome my noble friend’s Statement, because it is about time that buses fulfilled their role of providing local transport for so many people. I worry about where they will get the money from and how many people will use them, if they use them to start with. As the noble Baroness said, it is important to get young people into the idea of using buses. How young is young? They need to be school kids right up to people starting their first job, who may well be in their 20s. If they live a long way from an established bus route, they will not get a job.

It is quite clear from what my noble friend said that all local authorities will be invited to do this and to participate one way or another, be it concession or franchise. But what happens if they do not want to do it? How will the Government encourage them? It is important to enable everyone who needs it to access public transport.

I have one example that I ask my noble friend to look into, although he may not be able to answer today. For those who live in the Isles of Scilly who want to go between the islands, the average fare in the winter is somewhere between £10 and £100—to get to the doctor, to the chemist or to work. It seems to me that what is good for city centres and the countryside in England could also be useful to people who live on islands. It might apply to the Isle of Wight as well, I do not know. I look forward to my noble friend’s comments.

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend for his contributions. What would happen if local authorities did not want to pursue this course? The existing and partnership arrangements for bus operations, which have been in place locally for some time, would continue. It is a fair observation that there is a huge variation in standards of bus provision across Britain. If local authorities do not wish to participate or to pursue franchising, they can continue to pursue the arrangements that they currently have with their bus operators.

I cannot, of course, comment on the costs of transport between the islands of the Isles of Scilly or the minimal bus service on St Mary’s. However, as my noble friend knows, the provision in Cornwall, which is a largely rural county, is very good. That is an example of an arrangement that has been tailored to a rural area. None of these new arrangements would prevent existing arrangements from continuing.

Local Bus Sector

Debate between Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill and Lord Berkeley

Monday 9th September 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what plans they have to provide longer-term support to the local bus sector.

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill) (Lab)]

The Government are determined to deliver better bus services. We are setting out an action plan allowing every community the opportunity to take back control of local bus services to deliver improvements for passengers and giving local leaders more control and flexibility over bus funding to deliver their local transport priorities for growth, jobs and housing. We will consider how best to support buses in the longer term as part of the forthcoming spending review.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

I am grateful to my noble friend for that Answer. He has long experience in the bus industry. Would he look, in particular, at the problem of rural bus services, which on the whole do not get much visibility? He may know of a very good one in Cornwall; buses go every half hour, with cheap fares. How will he ensure that the whole country benefits? Will the funding be there and will it be ring-fenced? Will the Government encourage or force local authorities to pick up their offer?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

The proposition for local authorities and communities throughout the country is to take advantage of the proposals that the Government will table, which will ensure the right solutions for each area. My noble friend knows that the bus service in Cornwall is particularly well organised; it is not franchised but is subject to a large degree of local authority control. Consistency of information, ticketing, fares and service standards is an important feature, wherever in the country buses operate.

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[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

At my age, I share the noble Lord’s enthusiasm for the freedom pass scheme. He is attempting to put me in the invidious position of making a concrete commitment for all time. The freedom pass, and the local authority and national scheme for free travel for pensioners, has lasted a long time and we would all hope that it continues into the future. The Government are not in a good position with the state of public finances they have been left with, but we will bear in mind his enthusiasm, and that of many others, for free travel for elderly people on buses as we move forward with our commitments for the bus service.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, in addition to the work that my noble friend is doing with buses, we will soon hear about the Great British Railways changes, with Ministers taking much greater control of the railways. Does this not provide an opportunity for some proper timetabling, so that when a bus arrives at a station there is a train soon ready to go, rather than one that has just left, which happens in so many parts of the country at the moment?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend for that question. It is a subject that has engaged the bus and railway industries for generations. In fact, it is more likely that the bus will have to alter its timetable to suit the railway, because the railways are a national, integrated system, but he is right to suggest that the opportunity arises as a consequence of the Government’s proposals for Great British Railways and for buses as part of a more integrated public transport service across the entire country. The Government will do their best to make sure those opportunities are built on.

Mail Carriage by Rail

Debate between Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill and Lord Berkeley

Monday 22nd July 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

There is certainly a constraint on the amount of railway capacity over the Pennines from east to west. The trans-Pennine route upgrade, which is currently costing £11 billion, is a significant project already in delivery that seeks to increase that capacity. I know the department’s officials have looked and are looking at what needs to be done with that upgrade in order to make sure that it is suitable for the carriage of more freight, including containers of the larger size.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, it is only 20 years ago that Royal Mail built probably between 26 and 29 large and complicated sorting offices connected to rail and road so that mail could be sorted. This was the modern way of doing it. Two of those—I think one of them is at Warrington and the other is at Willesden, opened by Her Royal Highness Princess Anne —are no longer going to be used. Does that have anything to do with my noble friend’s question about capacity on the west coast main line?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

The issue of the age of the infrastructure that Royal Mail uses is overtaken by the issue of the age of the train sets that it currently uses to carry mail. There were originally 15 train sets built, but only six are now in service and they are all 30 years old. Royal Mail’s judgment is that these railway vehicles are now of an age when they are becoming unfit for service.