Chris Gibb Report: Improvements to Southern Railway

Alan Brown Excerpts

Tuesday 4th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

Since last year, we have worked to sort out some of the underlying problems with the management of this railway line, joining up the operations of the track and trains, spending more money on infrastructure, and helping to contribute to a better performing railway. Performance has been rising steadily since the start of the year. Chris Gibb rightly identified a range of problems—I have said to the House that we are working to try to solve those problems—but he was absolutely clear that the principal cause of the disruption experienced by the constituents of the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) and others was industrial action by the unions. He said that passengers would have experienced a relatively normal service had that action not taken place.

[Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)]

The Secretary of State continues to argue that the principal reason for the delays is industrial action. Does that not mean that the £300 million pledged by the Government in January is a waste of money and that they should be sorting out the industrial dispute?

[Chris Grayling]

No, it does not. We have provided additional money for the infrastructure owned and operated by the public sector Network Rail—an additional £20 million last year and then a further £300 million that is being spent right now to stop regular signal failures, for example—but it is disappointing that all the unions and others can do is misrepresent the situation and claim that we are giving that money to the train operator. They know that that is not true. It is simply not the case. One part of solving the problem on this railway and ensuring that it is the good performing railway that it has not necessarily been in the past, even when the industrial action was happening, is to spend money on the infrastructure, so that we do not get points and signals failures—the things that frustrate people and cause problems day by day.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)]

I am sure that quite a few hon. Members are wondering what the Scottish National party Transport spokesman can bring to a Southern rail debate. I am hopeful that I can provide a more rounded opinion on the Gibb report, which is what this debate is meant to be about. The Transport Secretary stood up for nearly 20 minutes and union-bashed; he did not give us much about what was in the report, and I think he made a poor start. I say gently to the right hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert) that his suggestion that staff are falsely taking sick days does not bode well for future worker relations. It is indicative of where the Government seem to be with the unions.

In this Chamber, we continually have debates about ideology. The Tory ethos is that the free market will always outperform the public sector, but the fiasco of GTR and Southern rail’s performance over the past few years—not just the past year—suggests otherwise. Calls have been made repeatedly for the franchise to be terminated, but the Government have always refused to act. Instead, they initially helped to reset benchmarks to ensure that GTR was not in breach of contractual performance measures.

Looking back, the report by the Transport Committee complained about a lack of transparency in performance data against contractual obligations. That in itself does not help those who want to understand the contractual position and find solutions. The Gibb report was a welcome interlude, although we have to question why the Government sat on it for six months. They have brought this general debate before us, not in a constructive manner but in a politically motivated, union-bashing fashion, and that will not help things.

I touched earlier on the fact that the Gibb report identified £300 million that had to be spent within the next year to ensure that the 2018 timetable could be achieved. That is quite an eye-watering sum, and it is a massive commitment. The Government committed that £300 million in January, but we are now a quarter of the way into the two-year process, and it would be good if the Secretary of State had told us how the work was advancing. I hope that the Minister will give us an update on that later on.

It took the Government 10 months to complete the programme of work and spend the £20 million that they pledged last November. I will just throw out there the fact that it took them 10 months to get through the initial £20 million programme, but they now expect to deliver a £300 million programme in two years. I presume that some of the £300 million programme will follow on from work identified in the initial raft.

The Secretary of State admitted that the Gibb report confirmed that franchise arrangements have been completely inadequate in their understanding of how infrastructure upgrades would impact on services. That is a failing of the Department for Transport, and the Government have to get to grips with it. The Gibb report also suggested that an immediate revision was required to the overnight timetable to allow for maintenance on the Brighton main line. Again, I throw that out there. What is happening about that, and about the production line maintenance that was supposed to be brought in as a consequence of the report?

[Maria Caulfield]

I am not sure that the hon. Gentleman has actually read the report. The appendix sets out both the short-term and long-term infrastructure projects, all the way to 2020. If he wants answers to those questions, I suggest that he reads the report.

[Alan Brown]

I am asking for answers from the Government, and I expect Ministers or the Secretary of State to give them to me. The Government announced a £300 million package to be delivered over two years. I am asking what is going to happen and whether the programme is on track, because we are a quarter of the way through the time period already.

The Gibb report also called for a review of little-used stations that have, it claims, too many services, which seems incredible against a backdrop of nearly 59,000 fully or partially cancelled trains in 2016. That is an issue that the Department for Transport could have identified earlier, and it should be resolved.

In terms of industrial relations—a subject that has formed the cornerstone of the debate so far—I am pleased to see that Gibb did say that negotiations must be entered into. Again, I repeat calls from other Opposition Members to the Secretary of State to show leadership and try to lead those negotiations. I disagree with Gibb’s negative comments about collective bargaining, and I do not think that that should have been within the remit of the report. His suggestion that discussions about driver-only operation could have a roll-back effect on other services that are already driver-only operation is a conclusion too far for me.

We have to be clear about the fact that safety is a key issue. The Gibb report confirms that narrow platforms at Gatwick cause overcrowding, and that the lack of station shelters elsewhere is an issue for passengers accessing trains. It is therefore fair for me, looking at this from the outside, to say that DOO can be seen as a problem for staff, because at the end of the day the staff have to deal with the consequences if an incident arises due to overcrowding or when people alight from trains. I would also say to the Secretary of State that this is a serious dereliction of duty, given that the Government are picking up a £38 million tab for lost revenues, as well as setting aside £15 million in compensation for passengers. Think what that £15 million could have done in infrastructure upgrades if there had been proper forward planning.

In Scotland, there has been far wider national scrutiny of the Abellio ScotRail Alliance, which operates Scotland’s trains. It came into being in April 2015, and I must say that it came in as a living wage employer right away, which is to be applauded. However, we must also acknowledge that its early performance was below contractual levels. The Scottish Government took the lead by intervening, and a performance improvement plan was agreed. Since then, 181 of the 249 actions have been completed, and a further 180 action points have now been agreed. The plan has been reviewed by the Office of Rail and Road, which found it to be robust and deliverable, but challenging. Punctuality on ScotRail is now at 90%, and it has been ahead of the UK average for four years.

Looking ahead, the Scottish Government are now exploring a public sector bid for ScotRail when there is a franchise break. On public sector bids, the UK Government have demonstrated, with the east coast main line, that public sector services are not only viable, but profitable for the taxman. The refusal of the Government to acknowledge this in the rush to reprivatise the east coast main line is frankly shocking. The franchise has raised £1 billion, and 2015 was rated as the best year in its history. It shows that public sector franchises can lead the way over private sector ones. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Hove (Peter Kyle) is just delaying me further. To be fair, he made an intervention earlier that was frankly a speech, so I presume he will cut out some of his own speech. Additionally, the UK now has a franchise system that allows state-run bids from foreign countries, yet the Government still refuse to allow public sector bids. There is absolutely no logic to such a conclusion.

Finally, as was mentioned earlier, there has been some industrial action involving ScotRail in Scotland. The Scottish Government were willing to meet the unions, and they ultimately agreed a deal that the unions and the Abellio ScotRail Alliance have signed off. [Laughter.] That is actually what should be happening, so instead of laughing about it, the Transport Secretary should show leadership and face up to being willing to speak to the unions and getting around the table with them.

To conclude, I hope that the Gibb report will show how these matters can be progressed with GTR. In truth, the Scottish Government have shown what can be done by showing a different attitude north of the border, and I suggest that the Transport Secretary should think about that as well.

[Several hon. Members rose—]