West Coast Main Line Franchise

Gavin Newlands Excerpts

Tuesday 19th September 2023 Commons Chamber

1.2 pm

[Gavin Newlands (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (SNP)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will make a statement on the contractual and operational situation of the west coast main line franchise—and I congratulate the Minister on his promotion.

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Jesse Norman)]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his congratulations. The Minister of State, the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman), continues to represent His Majesty’s Government today in Poland to support UK train companies, among others, at a major international trade fair, and I am therefore replying on his behalf.

The Department has awarded a new national rail contract to First Trenitalia to continue to operate the west coast partnership, providing west coast train services as Avanti West Coast. The national rail contract will have a core term of three years and a maximum possible term of nine years. After three years the Department can terminate the contract at any point with three months’ notice.

In October 2022 and March 2023 the Department approved the award of short-term contracts to First Trenitalia operating as AWC to continue to operate services on the west coast main line. Awarding short-term contracts allowed the Department to monitor progress by AWC in improving performance following the withdrawal of rest day working before considering whether it would be appropriate to award a long-term contract. Avanti’s performance has improved significantly during this time, and taking into account other relevant considerations, the Secretary of State has decided to award a longer-term contract, as announced in today’s written statement.

Over recent months Avanti has made significant progress in recovering from the poor reliability and punctuality delivered in the latter half of last year. In line with its recovery plan and since the introduction of its recovery timetable in December 2022, performance has steadily improved, with cancellations attributed to AWC falling from 13% in early January 2023 to as low as 1.1% in July 2023. Over 90% of trains now arrive within 15 minutes of their scheduled time, an improvement from 75% in December 2022.

[Gavin Newlands]

Another day, another blow for passengers who use the west coast main line. Fresh from the negative cross-party reaction yesterday to news that High Speed 2 phase 2 is on the chopping block, we have the Department for Transport on the last day before recess—shock, horror—sneaking out the extraordinary award of up to nine years for Avanti West Coast and up to eight years for CrossCountry.

Despite improvements in Avanti’s service, it is still not running a full timetable, and the Minister cannot ask us and passengers up and down the west coast main line to simply forget the last few years of horrendous performance. The Avanti service was on the brink, run into the ground by mismanagement and poor labour relations. In his letter to MPs the Secretary of State says that “Avanti is the most improved operator where performance is compared to the previous year.” Well, that would not be particularly hard—talk about setting yourself a low bar. This award will be seen by most people as rewarding failure.

My criticism of Avanti is in no way reflective of the staff, who have been first class when I have used the service. I was not overwhelmed with confidence, however, when it took me several attempts at last week’s Select Committee to get Mr Mellors to tell me just how many jobs he proposed to cut by closing the Glasgow ticket office.

Given the variable standards delivered by Avanti, we need full transparency. So can the Minister tell me the exact criteria Avanti will have to consistently meet if the extension at the end of the core contract is to be granted? What engagement has the Department for Transport had with trade unions and the Scottish Government in making this decision? What alternatives did the Department consider? Was the operator of last resort considered?

Does the Minister not understand that this award will be seen as Tory “private best” dogma? We have piles of evidence through the operator of last resort and Scotrail that publicly owned and operated railways work. Moreover, with its stake in Avanti, First Trenitalia might well be able to reinvest in Italian rail infrastructure. Is it not time to follow Scotland’s lead and put our railway back into the public sector, where it belongs?

[Jesse Norman]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his flurry of questions, and I shall address what he said. He asked for the release of the criteria of the contract awarded; that is a commercial matter and we are not going to discuss that, but I can reassure the hon. Gentleman that the Minister of State my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle has met very regularly with the entire industry and has been working on a weekly basis with officials and with Avanti, and therefore has had the matter very much in hand.

On the performance the hon. Gentleman describes, I am astounded that he is not agreeing with the Secretary of State and celebrating the improvement over the last nine months, and six months in particular: cancellations were as low as 1.1% in July; 90% of trains arrive within 15 minutes; over 100 additional drivers have been trained and brought on since April 2022. Each of those is a significant achievement.

It is all very well for the hon. Gentleman to talk about engagement, but the hon. Gentleman has not exactly been shy in writing to the Department, so I asked my officials to scan the letters we have received and I do not think there was a single one from him in the last year mentioning Avanti. If that is an indication of how content he is with the service, I am delighted to hear it.