Railways: London Midland Rail Franchise

Lord Snape Excerpts

Wednesday 31st October 2012 Lords Chamber

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, I share the noble Lord’s concerns regarding passenger experience. He is right that the problem relates to a shortage of drivers and the ability of London Midland to retain the drivers it has and attract new drivers. It is a competitive market. There is also a considerable lead time for taking on and training new drivers. This is a matter for London Midland. However, there are strong incentives for it to put the situation right.

[Lord Snape]

My Lords, is the Minister aware that since being granted a franchise London Midland has never recruited enough drivers or train crew generally, including conductors? Through the period of the franchise it has relied on its staff working rest days, Sundays and voluntary overtime in order to maintain the service. Without knowing the actual benchmarks to which the Minister referred, can he explain why on one day this year it cancelled no fewer than 100 services because of a lack of train crew? Is it not about time we did something to change this franchisee before all of us in the West Midlands take to our motor cars permanently?

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, it would be premature to terminate the franchise at this point. There are severe penalties for breach of franchise. The noble Lord’s analysis of the problem may be right. However, it is important to understand that all train operating companies rely on rest-day working but only to the extent of about 3% or thereabouts, whereas this operator is now in the region of 6%. A shortage of drivers causes a serious problem for that operator but it is the train operating company’s problem.