Transport Secretary: East Coast Franchise

Daniel Zeichner Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Milton Keynes South (Iain Stewart) and other expert members of the Transport Committee who have spoken in this debate. I am only sorry that the Secretary of State has left the Chamber—left the dock, effectively—because I was rather hoping that we might discuss what we will do with the £2,400. I was going to suggest that we should perhaps buy him a bus pass, because I am very keen on moving from rail to bus. I was actually going to say something nice about him as well—only one nice thing, I hasten to add—because I was going to thank him for raising the vexed issue of the timetable changes. Many Members will have heard their constituents’ concerns about the way in which the process has been handled. Of course, this is a major set of changes—we understand that—and such change is not easy to implement.

I was on the “Mann in the Morning” programme on wonderful Radio Cambridgeshire this morning, listening to people who have had bad experiences on the rail line from Cambridge. Those experiences were immediately blamed by the Secretary of State on Network Rail. We are now in the process of no longer transferring risk within the system, but transferring blame. It is not all about Network Rail; the train operating companies must bear some responsibility. If we get a chance to look into what happened around this timetable change, we may well find that that is the case, too.

The positive side is that people in the industry want to make it work. The message from passengers that I heard today is that they want the system to be run as a public service, and that is also the ethos that many in the industry want. We should try to focus on that because, despite privatisation over 25 years, most people in the rail industry still have a public sector ethos. If we could celebrate that and make it work, we would do much better.

I do not agree with Members who say that the franchising system works. I am deeply sceptical about it. A number of reasons have been raised for the failure of this particular franchise. Network Rail is, of course, immediately blamed for ideological reasons. In fact, the evidence given to the Transport Committee rather suggested that the relationships were “not very clear” and that there were some “implicit” understandings rather than “contractual” understandings. If we are writing big contracts, we do not do it like that. Network Rail was not to blame for the failure of this particular contract. It was probably down to a decline in the number of season ticket sales because this route, as has been said, is volatile.

If we are to return to the Brown recommendations and say that train operating companies should not be subjected to these big macroeconomic risks, I would ask what kind of risk transfer is really taking place. These are the very risks that we face, and other businesses have to cope with such risks.

[Helen Goodman]

This discussion about the over-bidding on the franchise reminds me precisely of the discussion that we had with the mobile phone companies, which came along, cap in hand, having overbid for their spectrum. It was clear that the system was just not working because people wildly overbid.

[Daniel Zeichner]

I am afraid that my hon. Friend is right. That takes us into a much broader philosophical discussion about how we get investment into our key industries, and that applies to a whole range of discussions. Just look at the huge number of consultants, lawyers, contracts and all the rest of it that are involved. We are told that some 300 people are employed just on trying to sort out who is responsible for delays and that hundreds of millions of pounds are lost on this process. Frankly, do we really need all of that? What are the train operating companies actually delivering, apart from the delightful colour changes that have been suggested? If we ask passengers what they want, they say an integrated system. They are talking not about transferring risk or arguing about blame, but about getting the system to work. Let me conclude with a few words about the so-called future partnership model.

[Mr John Hayes]

The hon. Gentleman is, as ever, making a valuable contribution. One of the most interesting things that has come out of this debate, thanks to him and to my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes South (Iain Stewart), is the business of how we integrate transport policy. We have heard that a competitive element is associated with road and rail and that all kinds of other factors affect projections and estimates. Perhaps the Minister will take that away from the debate. There has always been a call for an integrated transport strategy, and every Government have wrestled with it. Perhaps this event will stimulate and catalyse just that sort of approach.

[Daniel Zeichner]

Once again, the right hon. Gentleman, an experienced former Minister, speaks very wisely. In the end, this is a slightly false debate. Of course there will always be a role for the private sector in transport; the question is whether we have to build in competitive mechanisms in this kind of way. We could probably repeat the same discussion with regard to buses and other parts of the transport system. We need investment—of course we do. It is a straw-person argument to point to British Rail 30 years ago. Of course we knew that there was underinvestment in British Rail 30 years ago. The question is what the system will look like in the 21st century and how we will unlock the resources that we need.

Let me turn now to the partnership model, which, I am afraid to say, the Secretary of State has hidden behind. The Transport Committee heard pretty clear evidence on Monday evening from experts in the field that that approach does not look like the best one to try out. Apparently, some 20 passenger, freight and open access operators use the line. Once again, this is a recipe for argument and dispute about who gets priority and how the whole thing will work. It seems to me that this was more an excuse for the Secretary of State to hide behind to spare his blushes, because he could not bear to admit the fact that the line was coming back into public ownership.

Finally, let me take this opportunity to disagree with Lord Adonis, who spoke very engagingly to the Transport Committee on Monday in defence of the franchising system. At the end of his evidence, he gave a warning to me and people in Cambridge who use the line into King’s Cross, explaining how difficult it could become because of the various competing priorities within this partnership. I had to tell him that that was already happening. A year or so ago, I had the pleasure of having a cab ride to King’s Cross—one of the best parts of being a Member of Parliament is that I get to ride in the front of the train. It was an extraordinary experience and very different from the mixed experiences as a passenger. I well remember the train halting from Cambridge as it joined the east coast main line, and the drivers pointed out that there are regular disagreements and disputes about priority at that point. These are very real issues.

Let me return to the people who really matter. I am not convinced that the passengers who were fuming on the station platform in Cambridge this morning are that bothered about the intricacies of franchising approaches and who is to blame. They want a railway that works and a railway that is affordable, and that should be the aim of everyone in this House.