GWR and Network Performance

Andrew Jones Excerpts

Tuesday 5th February 2019 Westminster Hall

[Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty) on securing this debate. Great Western needs to answer questions not just on the Welsh lines, but on the service to the far south-west. It was good to hear from the hon. Member for St Ives (Derek Thomas) about Great Western’s service to the far south-west, but I am afraid I am not drinking the Kool-Aid in the way that he is. We need huge improvements.

Today marks five years since Dawlish was washed away. We all remember the hanging Peruvian rope bridge images. Five years on, there have been soundbites aplenty, and we have had press releases and promises coming out of our ears. If we could lay those press releases next to each other to form a railway, we would have the best train line in the world, but we cannot; we need the money. I really hoped that there would have been a funding announcement to coincide with the five-year anniversary, to show that Ministers get it. Instead, we seem to have half-cancelled visits, planning applications submitted without the funding to go along with them and a lack of understanding about when the money will come.

The far south-west needs and wants its fair share of rail funding. The programme for which Network Rail has submitted a planning application seems to be a good step forward, which would improve not only Great Western services but CrossCountry services that use that piece of track. We need the Minister or the Secretary of State to announce the money. They do not need to come to Devon to do that; they could make their announcement in Whitehall, or the Minister could make it today. All we need is confirmation that the money will come. To date, we have not had that, and the lack of funding for our train line grates on people in the far south-west.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Andrew Jones)]

The hon. Gentleman mentioned half-cancelled visits in reference to me. I know there was a media story about that yesterday. I have never been scheduled to visit Devon; I am afraid that that is just incorrect. I am very happy to ensure he does not inadvertently mislead the House.

[Luke Pollard]

I thank the Minister for doing so. If he has not planned to visit, I encourage him to do so, so that he can see the problems we are having at Dawlish.

[Andrew Jones]

Did the hon. Gentleman just tell me not to bother visiting, but say in the next sentence that I should visit? I look forward to a visit, but I ask that he be consistent.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Andrew Jones)]

It is always a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Betts. I will start by thanking everybody who has contributed to the debate, and congratulating the hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty) on securing it in the first place. Many issues have been raised, and I will try to address as many as I can in the short time allowed, so I must press on fast.

The question has been asked, “Are the Government investing in railways?” The answer is yes, of course; we are investing a record amount to deliver more reliable, more comfortable and safer journeys for our rail network. Alongside our investment in infrastructure, we have delivered new, more reliable trains on the Great Western main line. There has been a change, however, in the way we approach investment in the next funding period. In the past, we focused very much on enhancements, but we are now focusing more of our £48 billion budget on reliability, and particularly on repairing and replacing the worn-out parts of our network to increase reliability and punctuality.

[Stephen Doughty]

Will the Minister give way?

[Andrew Jones]

Oh, crikey—go on. I am always generous about giving way.

[Stephen Doughty]

The Minister mentioned reliability; I sat with Hitachi, the manufacturers of the new trains on the Great Western service yesterday, and they took me through their own reliability stats, which they admit have not been good, particularly with the introduction of the new trains. Basic things were missed, such as fitting them with filters to deal with pollen and seeds in summer, which meant record breakdown levels last year, during the hottest summer on record since the 1970s. Surely there was some problem with the commissioning of those trains in the first place?

[Andrew Jones]

With interventions that long we will really have to scamper. I do not accept the hon. Gentleman’s argument. New rolling stock often brings with it some kind of teething period, as we have seen throughout the history of our rail network, but the bottom line is that we are seeing new trains deliver a better service.

The modernisation of the Great Western main line will improve more than 100 million passenger journeys each year and will stimulate economic growth from London, through the Thames valley, certainly through Cheltenham, to the Cotswolds, the west country and south Wales. I fully recognise how vital this service is in not only connecting people but driving the economy.

I also recognise that GWR’s performance last year was not good enough and fell well short of passenger expectations. As a result, GWR worked with partners across the industry and put in place a performance improvement plan, which, although there is of course still more to do, has seen GWR move from delivering 72% of trains between south Wales and Paddington on time six months ago to more than 90% today.

The December timetable change was successfully introduced. The industry significantly reduced planned timetable changes to minimise the risk of severe disruption, which has served to stabilise services and to improve timetable efficiency. In the future, we will stage timetable changes, rather than having one big-bang approach.

I am clear that I expect GWR to do everything it can to minimise cancellations and other disruptions to services. It agreed to and implemented a contractual performance improvement plan, which includes a wide variety of activities across the whole franchise area to improve performance for passengers, including matters under the control of Network Rail.

[Nigel Huddleston]

The Minister is right that there is nothing MPs like more than a bit of railway or GWR-bashing every now and again. However, we need to acknowledge some of the positives. My patch will have a new station, the Worcestershire Parkway station, which will be of huge benefit to my constituents. I just need to make sure that the trains run through it on time.

[Andrew Jones]

Well done for getting that one on the record.

[Mr Edward Vaizey (Wantage) (Con)]

Talking about new stations, will the Minister meet me, colleagues and staff from GWR and Network Rail to talk about a new station in Grove in my constituency, which could be part of a network of two or three stations connecting Oxford and Bristol? As more houses are built in the south-east and south-west, local connectivity, alongside inter-city connectivity, is vital.

[Andrew Jones]

I most happily agree to meet my right hon. Friend.

Questions were raised earlier about how the industry is held to account. The answer is through the Office of Rail and Road, the industry regulator, which holds Network Rail to account for its performance and takes enforcement action in the event of unacceptable performance. The Government will hold franchise holders to account when things go wrong by enforcing their franchise agreements, with contraventions dealt with under the terms of those agreements and in accordance with the Department’s general management compliance process. Evidence of that can be seen in the recent action taken against Govia Thameslink Railway.

Passenger satisfaction is obviously critical and will remain an absolute focus for me as an incoming Minister. Colleagues raised questions about the governance of the area, and I am pleased to see that Network Rail has joined forces with the regional train companies, GWR and Heathrow Express, to create a new joint supervisory board to drive improvements. This is the latest stage of the companies’ commitment to working closer together to improve the passenger experience.

Investment in transport infrastructure has been a long-standing problem across the UK. We have not invested enough in our transport infrastructure over decades, which applies to Governments of all colours. However, I do not think that that accusation can be made against this Government. We are investing £48 billion in our rail network in the next control period.

[Geraint Davies]

Will the Minister give way?

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrew Jones]

I am running out of time. There will also be more electrification works in this period. The electrification to Newbury and to Bristol Parkway was introduced this year, and we are working to complete the electrification to Cardiff later this year. When all that is complete, we will see benefits including journey time improvements of 15 minutes, which is a significant change.

Fares were mentioned. I remind colleagues that we are in the sixth year of capping regulated fares in line with inflation. We have introduced a railcard for 16 and 17-year-olds, and the industry has introduced a railcard for 26 to 30-year-olds, so basically everybody under 30 will be able to access discounted rail fares. It might also be worth reminding Opposition Members that, in its last year in office, the Labour party gave passengers a 10% fare increase, and that, where Labour now has the capacity to run the railways, through the devolved Administrations, we have also seen fares increase in line with inflation. I gently say to those colleagues that they have been saying one thing but doing another.

Perhaps it is worth further reminding colleagues how many miles of the Great Western main line Labour electrified when it was in office—zero. How much new inter-city rolling stock did Labour introduce when in office? Absolute zero. I understand the comments from Opposition Members, but it feels rather like the arsonists complaining about the amount of time it has taken the fire brigade to arrive.

[Matt Rodda]

Will the Minister give way on that point?

[Andrew Jones]

No; we are out of time.

Several colleagues raised delay repay 15, which will be standard in all new franchise agreements. We are also working very hard to make mid-term contract changes to existing franchises, and we are very close to getting that agreed. I will keep colleagues informed of the progress.

We are about to run out of time. I thank everybody who has taken part in the debate. We have covered a wide range of issues, although I am quite sure that we have not been able to cover every single point. I recognise the work taking place at Dawlish, to which we have committed £15 million, and I look forward to going down there. Protecting that line is a national priority, and we will continue to invest in it and to develop solutions to improve its resilience.

I look forward to seeing many areas of the route transformed by December this year, with the new services and new trains that I mentioned. We will continue to introduce improvements during the franchise continuation period. I hope that 2019 brings a further improved service for our constituents and others served by this franchise who are constituents of Members who were not able to be with us today. I assure everybody that the Government are working hard to ensure that the rail industry delivers the service that our constituents rightly expect.