Rail Infrastructure (Train Operating Companies) Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateAndy Slaughter
Main Page: Andy Slaughter (Labour - Hammersmith and Chiswick)Department Debates - View all Andy Slaughter's debates with the Department for Transport
(7 years, 8 months ago)
Commons ChamberUrgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
The incidence of broken rails is a worrying coincidence, to put it mildly. I am concerned about the number of infrastructure breakdowns in recent weeks. Passengers blame the train company, but often—recently, more often than not—it is an infrastructure problem. That route is suffering intensely from low-level industrial action on non-strike days, and effectively a work to rule has been in force on different parts of that railway for months, which is adding to the intense pressure. I wish the unions would just accept that their members are not losing as a result of the change. They have more job security and better pay than a lot of people in the south-east, and they should get back to work and do the job they need to do for their passengers.
The travelling public support devolution, as do a number of Conservative MPs, council leaders and Assembly Members, and indeed as the Conservative Government did when they signed the joint prospectus with the previous Mayor of London. Is it not just a narrow, petty, political point that the right hon. Gentleman does not want to devolve to a Labour Mayor, who would provide more frequent trains, fewer delays and cancellations, more staff at stations and frozen fares?
This is the problem with the proposition. The hon. Gentleman says that more frequent trains would be provided, but the Mayor’s business plan did not provide more frequent trains. It provided no extra capacity in peak hours into the stations that serve the Southeastern route, and it would have involved the biggest reorganisation of those routes since the 1920s. My judgment is that, as it does not deliver the more frequent trains the hon. Gentleman describes, we should design the franchise through partnership, rather than upheaval.