Seaborne Freight

Debate between Chris Grayling and Lord Soames of Fletching

Tuesday 8th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

The company has told my Department in great detail about its plans, which are being finalised commercially. We are confident that the firm will deliver the service.

[Sir Nicholas Soames (Mid Sussex) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend will be aware that Seaborne Freight has had it in mind for well over two years to start the Ostend-Ramsgate route. Does he agree that the constant denigration of the contract, which means that the contractor will not get a single penny of anyone’s money until it fulfils the contract, is damaging to sensible work? Finally, if we were—God forbid—to crash out on WTO terms in the extreme circumstances mentioned by my right hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire (Mr Paterson), will the Secretary of State tell the House whether he would have any arrangements to take up shipping from trade?

[Chris Grayling]

My right hon. Friend makes a good point. There seems to be visceral hatred of small business on the other side of the House and a visceral belief that the Government should not be willing to contract with small business. The Government are told time and again that we should contract and work with small business, and help small businesses to develop, but when we do so, we get nothing but a wall of criticism from Opposition Members. The Labour party hates business. This new Labour party is very different from the one of 10 years ago—it simply hates business.

I say to my right hon. Friend that if we find ourselves in a no-deal situation, there are other measures that we can bring forward. We are actively looking at how we would do so.

Rail Timetabling

Debate between Chris Grayling and Lord Soames of Fletching

Monday 4th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I discussed that very issue with members of Rail North’s board last week. I am profoundly unhappy about this. I have indicated to Arriva that I am not prepared to accept more than the current two weeks and that it should use that two-week period to do engineering work, which will be necessary over the coming months, so that we are not wasting time when a bus service is in place. I have been clear to Arriva that doing this over the long term is simply unacceptable and that it has to get the trains back very quickly.

[Sir Nicholas Soames (Mid Sussex) (Con)]

I make a respectful suggestion to my right hon. Friend, which is that the rail industry readiness board should be taken quietly outside and disposed of. Is he aware that the rail service to East Grinstead, in which he has always taken an interest, has finally fallen over completely, that trains from Haywards Heath, Wivelsfield and Burgess Hill are shorter and more overcrowded, that people’s private lives are being destroyed and that this whole thing is an absolute disaster that must be put right?

[Chris Grayling]

I completely agree with my right hon. Friend, and I have communicated that to the company concerned.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Chris Grayling and Lord Soames of Fletching

Thursday 30th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Sir Nicholas Soames (Mid Sussex) (Con)]

T6. May I congratulate my right hon. Friend on his statement yesterday, which will be broadly welcomed? I much admire his gumption in sticking to his guns on an important matter. Does he agree that the service for my constituents on the East Grinstead line continues to fall well short of satisfactory? Is he aware that that is often due to the fact that train crew do not turn up? Does he agree that that is a failure of leadership and management and will he tell the company to smarten itself up?

[Chris Grayling]

I will happily do that. Staffing issues are always disappointing, but the other area of challenge on the Southern network has been the condition of the infrastructure. We will in the coming months be taking some major steps with some major projects to start to improve the quality of that infrastructure, including spending the £300 million we have already committed, with more to follow in the next control period.

Chris Gibb Report: Improvements to Southern Railway

Debate between Chris Grayling and Lord Soames of Fletching

Tuesday 4th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[The Secretary of State for Transport (Chris Grayling)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the Chris Gibb Report: Improvements to Southern Railway.

When I became Transport Secretary last summer, the Southern rail network was already bedevilled by a deep-rooted dispute causing massive disruption to the lives of thousands of people and damaging the economy across the region, but it was not the only problem that Southern rail faced. Those problems included too many infrastructure failures and a lack of joined-up government between track and train, as well as the problems that most of our commuter rail networks face after attracting ever more passengers each year, and far more than in the days of British Rail—a massive capacity challenge. That was the background to my decision to ask one of the railways’ most experienced leaders, Chris Gibb, to produce detailed advice for my Department on what we should do to get things back to normal for passengers: what was behind the poor performance on the route, and how could we solve it?

I asked Chris for his advice, because he has more than 30 years’ experience in the rail industry. It is not just me who acknowledges his experience; when the RMT was demanding the publication of this report, it described him as an experienced figure in the industry, and that was absolutely right. I should like to thank Chris for his contribution. His recommendations have been assessed, and 34 of his 38 suggestions are already in train and being worked on by my Department, by the rail industry and by Govia Thameslink Railway—GTR—which operates Southern. His findings make it clear that industrial action was the main cause of disruption for Southern passengers last year, when things were at their worst.

Southern passengers know full well how much their train service has improved since that industrial action largely ceased in January. Performance has been consistently better since the new year. The public performance measure is up by more than 20 percentage points from its low of 62% last December. That is much better, but it is not the best. There is still a long way to go, but the situation is clearly much better than it was.

Things are getting better for passengers, and the railways have been working much better. That is why it is tragic that the unions’ leaderships now want to carry on a battle that is meaningless and unnecessary. The performance of this railway will carry on improving only if the industrial action by those unions stops, but they seem unwilling to come to the party. ASLEF, the drivers’ union, started its overtime ban again last week, with the result that Southern passengers had 25% of their trains cancelled each day. And just when passengers thought that the services had stabilised, the RMT has called yet more strike action this month. Those passengers are at the mercy of the unions. I have asked the unions numerous times to walk in their passengers’ shoes and to call off the disruption of people’s daily lives that results from this ongoing action.

[Sir Nicholas Soames (Mid Sussex) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend is well aware of the terrible inconvenience suffered by my constituents in Mid Sussex and by many others along the line because of this and earlier strikes. Is he aware of the unions, working together, being encouraged by the Labour party? Or does he see this as a straight inter-union rivalry?

[Chris Grayling]

Let me stress again that I know how difficult this has been for my right hon. Friend’s constituents and for others. Their lives have been disrupted and turned upside down in a whole variety of ways. It is certainly the case that, in the early stages, the unions looked as though they were working together on this, but I do not think that relations between the two rail unions are now quite as warm as they once were. I am clear now that I think there is a direct link between the actions of the Labour party leadership, in trying to cause disruption for the Government this summer, and the decision to reprise industrial action. It is absolutely unacceptable that senior figures in the Labour party are being reported as encouraging trade unions to take action this summer. The public are the ones who will suffer.