Rail Performance

Lord Moylan Excerpts

Wednesday 13th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, when a Secretary of State comes to the House of Commons to make a Statement, I have always imagined it to be a rather portentous matter; something serious must be afoot. I note that the Minister has not exercised his right to read this Statement to the House and I can understand why, because it is almost completely vacuous. There is nothing in it at all, really. They must be having a very quiet time in the House of Commons if they want to sit and listen to this.

We learn of a few modest but welcome improvements. We learn that there are going to be new signboards at Euston. We know that people will have their tickets accepted across publicly owned train operating companies in the event of disruption. We are even told that there are “green shoots emerging” at LNER—I thought that that phrase had rather been cast into history, but possibly it is better than “leaves on the line”. But the performance improvements that the Secretary of State claims credit for in the Statement are not all what they seem.

Cancellations on CrossCountry have been reduced but the Secretary of State does not reveal—or she does slightly reveal if you read it carefully—that this has been achieved largely by reducing the number of time- tabled trains. Cancellations have also improved on TransPennine Express, we learn in the Statement, but she does not mention that, according to the Office of Rail and Road, delays have increased. The passenger-in-chief, as she wishes to be known, claims great progress as a result of her “getting around the table with unions”. Those of us who remember her first encounter with the unions recall that she barely stayed long enough, I imagine, even to sit at the table before she conceded all their demands.

This is not serious stuff from the Government about the railways. The serious stuff was put very squarely by the Minister earlier this week, and it is that the railways cost as much as they did before Covid but they have only 80% of the revenues. That is the problem, that is how he summarised it, and that is what the Secretary of State should be coming to the Commons to talk about, not green shoots at LNER and possible improvements in cancellations on TransPennine Express. She said, as the Minister himself said earlier this week, that there is to be a consultation on the Government’s plans. He said he hoped it would be published before Christmas. She says it will be soon. We look forward to it. We will be judging it according to the standard of whether or not it addresses the problem. The railways do not have enough revenue. We want to know what the Government are doing about it. Statements such as this are merely faffing around.

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, that this is a real time filler of a Statement, and I will not waste the time of this House by repeating some of the points he has just made that I had picked up on. Instead, I will ask the Minister some questions that flow from the rather superficial things in the Statement.

The Statement refers to ticket simplification but that is obviously still a long way off and what is being offered is a very modest measure. What passengers want to see is some kind of outward sign that the Government are taking seriously the fact that they are getting a very poor service at a very high price.

Fares went up by 5% this year and are scheduled to go up by a similar amount in March. I urge the Government to look at that again. Indeed, I challenge them to look at it again and to freeze fares in March at the current levels in recognition of the fact that rail services are not good enough to justify fare increases.

The Statement includes an update on LNER and refers to improvements in driver availability on the line. Unfortunately, that is not a general picture. Both Great Western Railway and Northern Trains regularly cite non-availability of drivers and train crew as a reason for cancellation. Can the Minister tell us what the Government are doing, across all train operators, to deal with failures of recruitment and training? That is clearly what must be happening at the moment. I fear this situation could get worse as train operators come towards the end of their franchises. I am interested in the Government’s strategy to stop this system, which is bad and getting worse.

Finally, the Statement references an improvement in industrial relations, but the Government face a big challenge as the nationalised train operator moves to one harmonised set of terms and conditions. What are the Government intending to do to ensure that the inevitable levelling up of terms and conditions properly modernises the industry and does so at a cost that taxpayers and passengers can afford, and when will they do it?