Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Bill

Debate between Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill and Lord Hamilton of Epsom

Committee stage
Wednesday 23rd October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton of Epsom, for this amendment, which would require the Secretary of State and the Scottish and Welsh Ministers to consider each public sector operator’s progress in preparing for driverless trains before awarding a contract to that operator. The amendment appears to be of limited practical impact, as it would not require the franchising authority to do anything in light of the outcome of the assessment. That said, I understand from the noble Lord’s explanation that it was intended as a probing amendment, and I take it in that spirit.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, for his acknowledgement of my small amount of knowledge of railway operation, and that part of it that I appear to have transferred seamlessly to him. I have tried to educate him in that manner and, clearly, he has been a good pupil. I did not try to extend that to his political beliefs because at the time, when I was educating him in the operation of transport, I had no reason to do so. I will have a go at that some other time.

I also know about the operation of the Docklands Light Railway, referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton of Epsom, because I was responsible for its operation for nearly 10 years. As the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, said, every train has an attendant on it. They do not sit at the front. People who enjoy sitting at the front—including me—do so instead. More seriously, the attendant closes the doors, to ensure that they are safely closed, and can drive the train if they need to.

The Government have no plans for the rollout of driverless trains on the national railway network. Considerable technological development work would need to be undertaken to make this a viable proposition. There is some practical experience of automatic train operation in the United Kingdom—on several Tube lines and some on the national railway network too, such as on the core Thameslink route running through central London, where this system is vital in enabling the high frequency of service. There is also some limited semi-automatic operation on the Elizabeth line. However, in both cases, it is not truly a driverless system as the operation of these trains still requires a driver to be present while the train is in passenger service, to operate doors and initiate dispatch.

As a practical operator, and a passenger, I am very sympathetic to the view of the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, concerning staff on trains. From my experience at Transport for London, I can say that Tube trains which are automatically driven have a driver because somebody has to close the doors, somebody has to be able to stop the train in an emergency and somebody has to at least attempt to fix it if it goes wrong. On a train with up to 1,000 people on it, it makes sense for that person to have some space to work in and even more sense for them to sit at the front of the train, where they can see where it is going. That is the philosophy which we adopted.

The noble Lord, Lord Moylan, is correct. The real reason for that signalling system is to enable more trains to run more closely. My erstwhile colleagues on the national railway network still look disconcerted at the thought of one Victoria line train leaving a platform and before the last carriage has departed into the tunnel, the cab of the next one arrives, and the slower that they do it, the closer they get together. That is why you want signalling systems of this sort. That is the reason for the application—not the proposed application but the actual application—of the European train control system on the east coast main line that is currently being implemented. It has been funded by government. It involves several contractors and many UK jobs, and it is done precisely for the purpose of increasing the capacity of the line, enabling the trains to run closer together, and is a very effective business model. As locomotives and trains are fitted with that equipment in the UK, it will become progressively cheaper to equip new lines and it will improve train capacity on all of them.

I suggest that, realistically, the deployment of genuinely driverless trains on the national railway network is a long-term proposition for which passenger safety, practical feasibility and a business case are far from proven. However, there is a range of on-train systems short of driverless operation that can be deployed to improve train service performance and the overall efficiency of the system. These include relatively tried and tested systems such as forward-facing CCTV, which can be used to monitor trackside risks such as excessive vegetation growth; systems to monitor the condition of track and overhead wires; driver advisory systems, which help improve fuel efficiency and punctuality; and more cutting-edge technologies such as the automatic train operation that I mentioned.

Sadly, as a result of the fragmented system that we have, even relatively tried and tested systems have not been deployed systematically across the network. Instead, they have been implemented piecemeal according to the whim of individual operators as they have procured and specified their requirements for new or upgraded train fleets. A clear benefit of public ownership and the future consolidation of track and train within Great British Railways will be the chance to take a consistent approach to the deployment of existing technologies and the development and testing of new innovations right across the system. GBR can set a clear long-term direction for future rolling-stock innovation across the system, with consequential beneficial effects on reliability and the costs of the entire railway.

I will not make specific statements in favour of particular innovations or technologies as part of the debate on this Bill. However, I acknowledge the usefulness of technological development that the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton of Epsom, referred to, and agree with the noble Lord, Lord Ranger, that innovation and technological development have a significant part to play in delivering the best possible services for passengers at the least possible cost to taxpayers and farepayers. I emphasise that our future plans for the railway are aimed at creating the conditions in which innovation can flourish, within both GBR and the much wider private sector supply chain upon which GBR will depend. On that basis, I urge the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, I am most grateful to everybody who has contributed to this debate. I point out that my amendment asks for driverless trains, not “staffless” trains. I was not necessarily suggesting that there should be nobody on the train at all. As was pointed out, on the Docklands Light Railway there is always someone on the train.

My noble friend Lord Snape—he is not really my noble friend, but I regard him as a good chum—seems to be a bit reactionary about all this. I would not describe him as a Luddite because that would be rather tasteless, but the technology is coming down the road. It is doubling every two years and will overtake all of us. We might as well prepare for it. I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.