West Coast Rail Franchise

David Mowat Excerpts

Tuesday 14th June 2016 Westminster Hall

[John Stevenson]

My right hon. Friend makes a valid point. Indeed, we must not lose sight of the fact that there should be integration within our transport system, between the railways, the airports and the road and bus networks.

The important thing about the new franchise is that we get it right. It needs to be right for passengers, fair for the taxpayer, right for the industry and right for those who work in the industry—we must not overlook their contribution to the network. Therefore, the level and quality of service, investment in all aspects of service and ticket pricing are some of the key issues. I am sure that other Members will have their own issues, but I want to concentrate on four in particular.

First, there is the customer and service level. It is often the small things that matter, particularly to passengers and customers, and there is key evidence of issues that customers want the forthcoming franchise to address. These include car parking—the pricing, the number of spaces and the availability at key times. Another issue is luggage and storage on trains. Many people have commented that the storage is at the end of each carriage and they would prefer it to be closer to where they are sitting. They have also commented that there should be more space for luggage. Toilet facilities and wi-fi clearly need improvement. Wi-fi has improved at stations, but there is definitely an issue—I speak from personal experience—on the trains themselves, and customers are keen to see wi-fi improved.

Then we have congestion. Carlisle, I have to confess, is a quiet station compared with many others, but at Euston there is what many call the Euston sprint—people charging for the train, sometimes in an unedifying manner. There is clearly room for improvement on that in the franchise in the future. Customers’ views and opinions need to be heard, and there needs to be an appropriate conduit between the customer—the passenger—and the train companies and, indeed, on into Government. In my own experience, customer care has been positive overall, but customer service questionnaires demonstrate that there is still a lot of room for improvement.

Then we have ticket pricing. What is the Government’s overall aim? What balance do the Government want to see between the taxpayer and the passenger? What about the link between the retail prices index and the consumer prices index? What about competition? Those issues need to be addressed in the forthcoming franchise. I appreciate that revenue raising and the balance between the taxpayer and the passenger are important for the Government, but they are also important for the passenger and the taxpayer.

[David Mowat (Warrington South) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on leading the charge on this issue. The things he has listed are best addressed if there is proper competition in the franchise process. Does he agree with me and the National Audit Office that unless the Government get at least three or four participants in the bidding process, there will be a risk of inadequate competition? Does he also agree that, although Virgin has given an adequate service—in some ways, a good one —the Government must ensure that it does not have too big an incumbency advantage in the bidding process?

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[Drew Hendry]

Absolutely. I hope the Minister will act on the hon. Gentleman’s promotion of Carlisle by committing to look into connecting the new Borders railway with Carlisle. Perhaps that is something we could investigate as well. It would benefit many more people.

As I said, at the time of the franchise process, there was no communication with the Scottish Government. On the basis of the Minister’s comments, I am hopeful that that will change in future years.

As for the passenger experience, people in the 21st century have a right to enjoy a train journey. There ought to be a focus on working with others to deliver improvements to stations and to the passenger experience. The points that the hon. Member for Carlisle made when he spoke about improving the passenger experience are all vital to ensuring that overcrowding is reduced, that ticketing is sorted out properly and that integrated journeys are increasingly facilitated across all the stations in England and across the border into Scotland as well.

The UK Government should ensure that the new franchisee makes fares affordable across the piece. The Scottish Government have already taken action to ensure that fares are affordable across the Scottish rail network, by ensuring that their new franchisee will continue to limit regulated peak fare increases to the level of the retail prices index. Regulated off-peak fares will also be limited to increases of 1% below RPI for the lifetime of a 10-year franchise. The Scottish Government are making the best of the system that the UK Government continue to persist with. The Conservative UK Government introduced railway franchising in the 1990s, and the legislation precludes any public sector organisation from bidding to operate a railway service. No such barrier applies to state-backed organisations from Europe or elsewhere. That is patently unfair, so I hope we can look at how we can adjust that.

The SNP tabled a new clause in the Scotland Bill that would have devolved rail services in Scotland, giving Scottish Ministers full powers and flexibility to decide who would run such services. However, like every other SNP amendment to the Scotland Bill, it was voted down by MPs. The new clause also sought to ensure that the provisions of the Railways Act 1993 allowed direct awards to be made, to the full extent possible under European law, for the operation of rail passenger services such as the ScotRail Caledonian sleeper.

As a result of the franchise deal in Scotland, passengers and staff will enjoy an enhanced range of benefits, with advance fares between Scottish cities starting at £5, a commitment to pay at least the real living wage—the one applied in Scotland—to all staff and subcontractors, at least 100 apprenticeships and a guarantee of no compulsory redundancies.

[David Mowat]

I was waiting to see whether the hon. Gentleman would address an issue that I am interested in. One day HS2 or a high-speed line will go to Scotland. Do the Scottish Government have a position on whether they would prefer that line to go up the west or the east coast?

[Drew Hendry]

At the moment, the Scottish Government’s position is that we must be included in the discussions. The UK Government have brought forward no plans to ensure that we are connected by HS2. It is vital to us that the routes that connect Birmingham and the central belt in Scotland are electrified immediately or as quickly as possible. As for the high-speed line, it is very difficult for me to give the hon. Gentleman a basis for our policy without seeing UK Government Ministers’ plans, because we have to scrutinise them to decide what is best for Scotland.

Rail staff pensions and travel rights are protected under the Scottish franchise. Crucially—this has come up a number of times—to make sure that we are connected and do business properly, there will be free wi-fi on all trains. That is often missing on journeys down here. There will be a new approach to cycling, with more than 3,500 parking spaces and bike hire at a number of stations. Eighty new trains are due to arrive at the start of December 2017, and there will be 23% more carriages across the network.

As I said earlier, the west coast main line affects Scotland. I mentioned the five stations. Passengers must have fast, frequent, reliable and punctual services connecting Scotland to London. The UK Government must commit to ensuring that the Scottish Government are much more involved in the future franchise.

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[Claire Perry]

I am agnostic on such things, but I can see no benefit in that. I do not know who in my Department the hon. Gentleman thinks would do a better job of running the west coast railway than those who do so now. I remind him that before privatisation, 14 trains a day ran between London and Manchester; 47 brand-new trains now run, with fantastic on-board services, of which we have all availed ourselves. I cannot see why he is so obsessed with the idea of civil servants running companies. The west coast case is a good example of how the private sector has invested.

Before I move on to the bulk of my speech, I want to associate myself with the comments of the Opposition spokesperson, the hon. Member for Middlesbrough (Andy McDonald), on the tragic loss of the Clerk to the HS2 Committee. It was an absolute tragedy, and we would all want to pass on our condolences to his family, and to put on record what a wonderful job he and that Committee did in very difficult circumstances.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle said, the west coast franchise has been a real success story; for example, we have seen a big increase in passenger numbers, a big improvement in passenger satisfaction, and capacity increase by more than 2,000 seats a day. The franchise is also leading the way with automatic delay repay, so people who buy a ticket on the west coast trains website and find that their train has been delayed do not have to do anything; they automatically get a refund if the train is delayed by more than 30 minutes. That is an excellent piece of passenger-facing innovation. The franchise has also put free wi-fi into 17 stations—I will talk about wi-fi on trains in a moment—and several other obligations have been delivered, or are in the process of being delivered. To reassure Members who asked about this, the company is replacing self-service machines, improving concourse and ticket-retailing facilities, upgrading waiting rooms and loos in many stations, and putting in about 350 new cycle racks. About £20 million is being spent along the route.

[David Mowat]

The Minister mentioned the automatic repayment system for delays, which is a good thing at one level, but the risk is that it might cause defensive timetabling. Companies have no incentive to take that extra few minutes off the journey time. Will she give us some assurance that that is not happening?

[Claire Perry]

Yes, I absolutely will. When any service that is this busy tries to stretch out timetables to avoid paying compensation, it simply creates more disruption, given how complicated the routes are. The company has no incentive to monkey with the timetable in order to avoid its compensation payment obligations. Furthermore, the company, in common with all train operating companies, receives money from Network Rail in the case of a Network Rail cause of failure, so again, properly, that money should be paid out to customers.

The improvement in the conversion of rolling stock has been mentioned. The company has been taking out first-class seating to include more standard-class seats, which is important. Those services can be very crowded, particularly in the shoulders—the times around the peaks.

[David Mowat]

I thank the Minister for giving way again. Will she give an assurance that, if it were possible for whichever company wins the franchise to take five minutes off the journey time to Warrington, for example, there would be no defensive timetabling, penalties, or other disincentives to stop that? That is important to making progress.

[Claire Perry]

My hon. Friend’s point about avoiding defensive timetabling is absolutely right. I will come on to talk about how everyone can make their important proposals for the new franchise. We want the franchise due to start in 2018 to put the customers on the route absolutely at the heart of the service, continuing some of the innovation and progress that has been delivered. We know that we need more capacity on the route, better value for money, improved punctuality—it is improving, but it is not good enough—and better management of disruption. By the way, those are things we want, and are contracting for, right across the country.