Great British Railways and Rail Services in the North

Baroness Vere of Norbiton Excerpts

Monday 5th December 2022 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Transport (Baroness Vere of Norbiton) (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Goddard, and other noble Lords for their contributions to the debate. It has been another opportunity to discuss rail services, which I am always grateful for. Every time, I learn a little more and have a few more things to take back to the department. I apologise at the outset that noble Lords have not yet received the letter relating to a meeting with the Rail Minister. I can absolutely guarantee that it is in train; we are just trying to sort out diaries. I will then ensure that noble Lords can raise all their concerns directly with him, because there are a number of concerns about services that I have already fed back but am keen for him to hear directly from noble Lords.

I want to loop back to the title of this debate, which is about the decision not to introduce a transport Bill in the current Session. I assure the noble Lord, Lord Goddard—indeed, all noble Lords—that our work on rail continues apace. The Government remain committed to rail reform and continue to analyse the numerous and detailed responses from the summer’s consultation. We are committed to and focused on providing high-quality rail services throughout the country, particularly in the north of England where noble Lords have highlighted and identified recent changes. Finally, we remain committed to our plan to invest billions of pounds in rail infrastructure across the north and the Midlands, which includes the Northern Powerhouse Rail core network.

Turning to rail reform, in his plan for rail White Paper, Keith Williams set out the challenges facing rail—well, the challenges facing rail at that time. Life has changed quite significantly, because since then we have had a pandemic, the impact of which has been twofold. There has been Covid scarring on travel patterns: leisure has come back pretty much to where it was before, but business travel has not. The railways and passenger needs look different now.

The pandemic also affected training for train drivers and similar members of staff, and that has had an impact. It takes a very long time to train a train driver. The figure of 18 months is in my mind, but I am not entirely sure that is right. It is not weeks but months and months and months. Also, if train drivers want to change routes after a period of time, they have to retrain. That has been another issue; they have been unable to retrain on different routes during the pandemic.

It is right that in the face of that—and given the lack of parliamentary time for what is, I will not lie, quite a substantial Bill—we have chosen not to introduce it in the current Session. But we are using that time appropriately. To loop back to where we started—the White Paper, with input from the Government—those were proposals. Over the summer, there was significant and substantial consultation, which I believe closed in August. We received a large number of detailed proposals and responses to that consultation. If there is one thing I want to be able to do when I take the transport Bill through, it is to look noble Lords in the face say that we did ask industry and passenger groups and make sure that our proposals had been fully tested. Therefore, I am unable to answer all the questions about GBR relating to the costs and delay. To a certain extent, GBR is still in formation and under development. We are still looking at what it will do, what it will not do and how it can provide the guiding mind between track and train that was envisaged.

However, that does not mean that nothing is happening. The GBR transition team is already looking carefully at one of the key elements of the White Paper—the long-term strategy for rail that looks at a 30-year vision. Noble Lords will have seen our call for evidence on the new rail freight growth target. Noble Lords may also have heard me talk about the audit of more than 2,000 stations, looking at their accessibility. That work has continued, and we are making progress on modern digital ticketing options such as pay-as-you-go and national flexi season tickets. All these reforms can happen without legislative underpinning. We are very keen to put the legislation in place, but that does not mean that nothing has happened in the meantime. We continue to focus on reforms.

I heard yet again noble Lords’ many concerns about services. I am terribly disappointed and very sorry for the services currently happening on Avanti, TransPennine Express and, to a certain extent, Northern. We are well aware of them. We are hearing the concerns and holding those train operating companies to account for the things that are within their control. As the noble Lord, Lord Collins, noted, we have in place a remedial plan with Avanti. Frankly, Avanti is on probation. It has a contract, which will end in April. If it is unable to up its game, it will not have that contract renewed.

As I set out at the start of my speech, one of the primary causes of the recent problems has been the shortage of train drivers, both to work a standard roster pattern and those who choose to take on overtime to deliver a seven-day railway. On the first issue, increasing the number of train drivers, we are working to address that. Through the Rail North Partnership, the department is working with Transport for the North and collaborating with operators and northern leaders to establish a northern rail academy. This will be a multilocation training academy to offer the skills and opportunities needed for a career in rail. The noble Lord, Lord Shipley, mentioned this. We are focused on improving the routes through for people who want to become train drivers.

Rest-day working, or overtime, has formed part of the railway industry for decades. Drivers can earn significantly more, and it is voluntary. They do not have to do it, yet they do. At TPE, under the rest-day working agreement that recently came to an end, a driver would get 1.75 times their standard salary and a minimum of 10 hours—I would go to work for that. That is clearly a significant boost. I would not want to turn around and say that rest-day working or overtime would be completely banned. I am not wholly sure that the drivers would necessarily want that, but I am keen to work with drivers to understand how the train operating companies reach an agreement that is right and not over-reliant on that. As we have seen at Avanti, where rest-day working has been withdrawn—the drivers are volunteering not to do it—the service has had significant difficulties. At TPE the situation is different. The rest-day working agreement has fallen away and the unions have chosen not to put the TOC’s proposals to their members, such that they could see whether they want to put the rest-day agreement in place. Then, of course, they could volunteer to do that or not; it is their choice. Nobody is forcing anybody to work on their rest day.

Noble Lords will have heard me talk previously about Avanti West Coast and its trials and tribulations. We expect a significant timetable uptick in December. Unfortunately, there will be some strikes after that uptick, which means noble Lords may not see the sorts of changes I would expect. However, let us focus on that timetable change. There will be significant changes to the timetable in the north. Some of these deliver the Manchester Recovery Task Force plan. Indeed, many of the services to and from Manchester take into account the Castlefield corridor. It is very congested at the moment, which has required some changes to services. These were put in place by the Manchester Recovery Task Force, which decided—I am so sorry to the noble Lord, Lord Scriven—that the direct service from Sheffield to Manchester Airport should not be maintained. The Government have plans to enhance the infrastructure around Manchester, which will alleviate that congestion. At that point, of course, we will be able to see many more services to and from Manchester Airport.

The noble Lords, Lord Scriven and Lord Collins, and the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, mentioned this issue about loopholes. I took that back to the department and will write in more detail about how it works. For the time being, I can say this: train operating companies have a contractual obligation to flag any changes they make to a timetable to the Transport Secretary in good time. Delays and cancellations are adverse to passengers and business. DfT factors in all cancellations when assessing operator performance. Key to all of this must be communications with passengers. It must not be the case that there is some sort of incentive to do something at short notice that could have been done with more notice to passengers.

I will briefly speak on infrastructure. I am very conscious that I have not answered all the questions. My noble friend Lord McLoughlin said that infrastructure and rail enhancement is a long-term game. As a Transport Minister, that is probably one of the most frustrating things. Also, for what is often many years before a spade goes into the ground, one has to do all of the approvals processes, et cetera. That means it sometimes feels like nothing is happening—but things are happening. The Government are committed to the integrated rail plan and the core northern powerhouse network. We will look at other programmes on an adaptive approach to see which investments are or are not working.

The Leamside line and the metro to Washington are much more local projects. The noble Lord will be aware that the Government are in discussions with local leaders about the city region sustainable transport settlements. We believe that those sorts of enhancements should fall within that type of spending, such that it is led by local leaders according to local priorities.

The Government remain committed to a modern seven-day railway. We recognise that there needs to be legislative change to achieve everything we want from the White Paper. However, we also recognise that people had some very significant views and gave some good responses to the consultation. It is right that we use this time to re-look at those responses and ensure that whatever legislation we bring before your Lordships’ House is right.

We are committed to improving services. We will have a change in December. Many noble Lords mentioned performance fees and dividends. Neither of those related to the period in which we have seen these cancellations: they were for previous periods. Publication of performance fees for the most recent periods will be coming very soon. Noble Lords will then be able to see the implications.

I remain grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Goddard, and all noble Lords. I will write with further answers to the questions.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

Before the Minister sits down, and for the record, she said that the change to the Sheffield to Manchester Airport service was due to the work undertaken by the Manchester consortium. Is it correct that the discussion and public consultation was jointly by that organisation and the Department for Transport, and that the department was therefore privy to the decision taken?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

Yes, absolutely. The Manchester taskforce that I referred to consists of the Department for Transport, the train operating companies, Network Rail, Transport for the North and Transport for Greater Manchester. As you can see, it is a mixture between the Government, local government, train operating companies and Network Rail. There is congestion in the Manchester area, and we would obviously hope to reinstate those services as we can, but clearly some prioritisation had to be made.