Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Grahame Morris and Lord McLoughlin(11 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Grahame M. Morris (Easington) (Lab)
1. What assessment he has made of the recent performance of East Coast Mainline Company Ltd
The Secretary of State for Transport (Mr Patrick McLoughlin)
My officials meet with East Coast and Directly Operated Railways on a regular basis to discuss the performance of the franchise. DOR’s financial accounts are published on its website on an annual basis.
Grahame M. Morris
As this is the last Question Time before Christmas, I would like to take this opportunity to wish you, Mr Speaker, and the Secretary of State and his team, a merry Christmas.
I declare an interest: I am a member of the RMT parliamentary group—unremunerated. The Secretary of State will be aware that the East Coast service has delivered record levels of passenger satisfaction, returned £800 million to the taxpayer and seen almost half of fares frozen, due in no small part to the staff, who have worked so hard. The best Christmas present for them would be to cancel the privatisation. Will the Secretary of State meet me and a small delegation to listen to their concerns about the application of TUPE regulations if the sell-off goes ahead?
Mr McLoughlin
Either I or the Under-Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon (Stephen Hammond), will be delighted to meet the hon. Gentleman and some of his colleagues, but I just point out to him, as I have done frequently, that the last Labour Secretary of State for Transport said:
“I do not believe that it would be in the public interest for us to have a nationalised train operating company indefinitely…because of our recent experience of rail franchising”.—[Official Report, House of Lords, 1 July 2009; Vol. 712, c. 232.]
Those recent improvements in rail franchising have resulted in passenger journey numbers in this country going up from 750 million to 1.5 billion and people using our railways a lot more, with a huge amount of investment guaranteed by this Government.