Avanti West Coast

Baroness Vere of Norbiton Excerpts

Thursday 23rd March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Goddard of Stockport]

To ask His Majesty’s Government how they justify further extending the contract for Avanti West Coast, given its service record over the last six months.

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

My Lords, Avanti was awarded a six-month contract in October 2022 to provide the opportunity for its recovery plan to yield demonstrable improvements. It has done this, with services increased and delays and cancellations reduced. In this next six-month period, Avanti will need to do more to win back passengers with a reliable and dependable service. With accountability comes the chance to put things right.

[Lord Goddard of Stockport (LD)]

I thank the Minister for another magnificent effort in defending the indefensible. My question is quite simple. Will she agree to meet with me, as a frequent flyer on Avanti trains, to hear the other side of the coin? Tuesday’s Hansard reports her commenting that not all train delays are due to Avanti, which is true. The other side of the coin is that Avanti has completely changed the rosters and rotas for staff. They are now on 10 and 11-hour shifts, meaning that they have a 20-minute window at any station they land at before leaving it. If the train is 30 minutes late, there is no time to change. The next train is then late, and it is an ever-decreasing circle. This is affecting the staff.

The Minister also commented about sickness levels. Staff on Avanti trains feel undervalued and overworked, which cannot be a recipe for an outward-facing railway system. If Avanti cannot treat its staff with respect when all they want to do is give us a good service, somebody else should be looking after that railway system.

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I would be very happy to meet with the noble Lord to discuss Avanti, but I hope to offer him something slightly better—a meeting with the Rail Minister. I will extend that offer to all noble Lords so that we might discuss the issues that they are experiencing on Avanti. He might be able to reassure the noble Lord that we are taking these issues very seriously and want Avanti to put them right.

[Baroness Bryan of Partick (Lab)]

My Lords, as a Scottish user of Avanti, I hope the Minister understands the despair that we felt when we heard this decision. On the west coast, we look in envy at the east coast trains. Can she explain why the west coast line was not taken into public ownership after such a disastrous performance?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I am aware of some of the challenges of travelling down the west coast from Scotland. Many of them are due to infrastructure changes happening in the north of England. Sometimes it is tempting to compare the west coast with the east coast. One other element of the east coast that is worth thinking about is that it has competition. There are open-access operators on the east coast as well. That is a contributing factor to making the services better all round.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, my noble friend will be aware of the severe delays and disruption caused by TransPennine Express, which seems to be competing very well with Avanti on its record. Will she update the House on the Government’s plans for a possible renewal of such a hopeless operator? Will it be allowed more time, or will it be put out to tender for other franchise operators?

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

The current contract for TransPennine Express comes to an end on 28 May. It too is under a recovery plan, but TransPennine Express and Avanti have one thing in common that no other train operating company shares: they have suffered the immediate and simultaneous withdrawal of rest-day working by the trade unions. That has had an enormous impact on their services. It is worth bearing in mind that no other train operating company has had that.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, it is disappointing to hear the Minister again blaming the workforce for the problems of Avanti. Rail passengers in the north-west and Wales will have greeted the six-month extension to Avanti’s contract with incredulity. Over the past six months it has broken records for delays and cancellations yet, astonishingly, earlier this week the Times reported that the Government could offer Avanti a further 10-year extension at the end of this six-month extension. Can the Minister please now rule this out?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I am absolutely not blaming the workforce here. I have never said that I was, but the noble Baroness will be unsurprised to hear that I am putting a little blame at the door of the trade unions. On the process for the next round of contracts for the west coast—because there will have to be a contract—the publication of the 10-year period was a statutory notice. Should it go to Avanti, the six-month contracts would be taken off it. Should it go to another operator, it might be for up to 10 years. The noble Baroness should not read too much into it; it could be any period up to 10 years.

[The Lord Bishop of Manchester]

My Lords, as a fellow traveller on Avanti, often in the same coach as the noble Lord, Lord Goddard, I agree entirely with his comments. It is not only that trains are delayed or cancelled; sometimes the services on those trains are not provided, particularly food. These are long journeys and often at the very last moment, when you are sitting on the train and have been told that there will be food, you are then told, “We haven’t been able to load the food; there are no refreshments on the journey”. Can we please bear in mind that it is a whole service? The staff are wonderful, but they are labouring against impossible circumstances at the moment.

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

The right reverend Prelate is entirely right. That is one of the things on which we hold Avanti to account. Passenger experience is at the heart of what we want to do with our railway system, and as we look to the future for Avanti, and indeed for all train operating companies, passenger experience is one of the key things that they are judged on.

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, since Avanti has been rewarded with more after such a record of failure, what incentive is there for other train operating companies to maintain the highest standards and to improve? When the Minister gave us her answers on the Statement the day before yesterday, she was not specific. Can she make clear now whether Avanti will face financial penalties for its failures over recent months?

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

All train operating companies face financial penalties or financial jeopardy from their performance, as all train operating companies have performance fees. When the current period comes to an end at the end of March, there will be an independent evaluation of Avanti’s performance, and performance fees will be set accordingly. Two issues really impact performance at the moment—the ongoing issues around train crew and availability, and growing concerns around infrastructure, which is why our reforms to bring track and train closer together are so vital.

[Lord Snape (Lab)]

My Lords, is the Minister aware that in the last quarter of 2022, Avanti achieved a historic low, with only 45% of its trains on time? Sad character that I am, I have looked back through the statistics on train travel on the west coast main line. That 45% low never happened under British Rail, the London, Midland and Scottish Railway or the London and North Western Railway. I gave up when it came to the London and Birmingham Railway in the 19th century because I was bored with my own research. Is it fair or right that, despite that historic low, taxpayers should fund dividends to shareholders and bonuses to management while those of us who travel regularly on Avanti would rather walk than catch a train?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I am delighted to be able to tell the noble Lord that currently 90% of Avanti trains arrive within 15 minutes of their scheduled arrival time. That is up from 75% in early January. I am sure that noble Lords can see the trajectory. The dividend to which he refers related to a financial period to March 2021, well over two years ago now and not related to the current performance issues.

[Lord Reid of Cardowan (Lab)]

My Lords, I have been travelling on the west coast line for more than 40 years. Admittedly this is anecdotal, but my experience was that until Covid the service was actually quite good on Avanti. So was Virgin before Avanti. It was certainly better than the east coast line, quite apart from the fact that the east coast line went to Edinburgh whereas the west coast line went to the fair city of Glasgow.

Twice the Minister has mentioned infrastructure problems. Historically that was the problem with the east coast line, but there was sufficient investment to improve it. What is the nature of the infrastructure problems on the west coast line and why have they not been dealt with in the 13 years that the Government have been in charge?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

The Government are putting record investment into our railway infrastructure. There are two issues around infrastructure. The first is the long-term plans that need to be put in place to upgrade it, but there are also short-term issues. For example, overnight there was cable theft at Wolverhampton. Cable theft is not Avanti’s fault, but it has caused some of its trains to be delayed this morning. We have to clamp down on the short-term problems but also continue to invest in the west coast main line, which is exactly what we are doing.