Rail Franchising

Chuka Umunna Excerpts

Wednesday 10th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

Driver-only trains have been operating in this country for 30 years. The ASLEF union recently reached a perfectly sensible agreement with GTR about the development of new train technologies. Yet today the RMT is striking on South Western Railway, even though that company has said that it does not plan to take the second person off the train. That is an absurd position. Of course, the hon. Lady will remember the comments of the president of the RMT at the TUC conference, where he said that the real aim is to create a national rail strike and bring down the Government. That is my concern. It is about not passengers but political motivation, and that is not acceptable.

[Chuka Umunna (Streatham) (Lab)]

I sat here and watched the Secretary of State chuckle and smile as my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough (Andy McDonald) made his contribution. My constituents have been suffering from the most dreadful services from Southern and Thameslink, and that is no laughing matter.

The Secretary of State refers to industrial action. The NAO report is clear that his Department did not check whether GTR had enough drivers and did not have a proper understanding of the condition of the network when it was setting the requirements of the franchise. The report is absolutely clear that the “cumulative effects” of the decisions made by his Department

“have negatively impacted on passengers.”

The Secretary of State can talk about industrial action all he wants, but when is he going to accept responsibility and, as the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Stephen Lloyd) just demanded, apologise to our constituents for the dreadful misery they have been suffering?

[Chris Grayling]

I have been Secretary of State for 18 months. Let us be clear what I have done. There are a number of problems on the network—I have never made any attempts to hide that. The infrastructure is not good enough, which is why we have launched an immediate £300 million programme to upgrade some of the areas of the network that are failing too often and why we have changed ways of working. I asked Chris Gibb to go in and bring together the operation of the track and the train on a daily basis in order to improve things. London Bridge has been opened, and we are now able to run longer trains for passengers. Those are brand-new trains going through the hon. Gentleman’s constituency. Chris Gibb, who everybody has rightly said is a well regarded, independent figure, said that above all, the unacceptable disruption to the hon. Gentleman’s constituents was caused by the trade unions. The Labour party and the unions demanded the publication of Chris Gibb’s report. It was published, and that is what it said. They may not like it, but that is what it said.