Industrial Action on the Railway

Debate between Grant Shapps and Paul Maynard

Monday 20th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Grant Shapps]

I wish the hon. Lady’s relation well in his job, and I hope he can get back to it very soon. I have just explained that this Government are putting £96 billion into northern powerhouse rail, £35 billion into upgrades and more money into the restoring your railway fund. There has never been a more pro-rail Government, as far as I can see, in history. However, it is also the case that, during the pandemic, we pumped in £16 billion, equivalent to £600 per household in this country or £160,000 per railway worker, to keep them in their jobs. We love the railways, and I like the people who work on them as well—I just want them to work, that is all.

[Paul Maynard (Blackpool North and Cleveleys) (Con)]

I am sure the Secretary of State will join me in thanking the wider members of the railway economy who will have to come together to sustain a skeleton services over the coming weeks. Will he draw a conclusion, though, from the 2016 Southern and Thameslink strike, where a lack of familiarity with the Passenger Assist service for disabled passengers meant that many could not complete their journeys and in the worst-case scenario were left abandoned on deserted station platforms after the last service of the day? When he discusses contingency planning with the many train operators, will he bear that very salient point in mind, because it was forgotten last time and had to be relearned yet again?

[Grant Shapps]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend, who is a distinguished former Rail Minister and knows a great deal about the service. He is absolutely right about Passenger Assist. We are expanding that service by, for example, speeding up response times and introducing things like apps and standards to make sure that people can use our trains. We will shortly complete the work that we have promised on putting in tactile pavements around station platforms to remove another potential risk of using our railways. I am fully on board with everything that he said—we just need our railways running, though.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Grant Shapps and Paul Maynard

Thursday 24th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Paul Maynard (Blackpool North and Cleveleys) (Con)]

What steps the Government plan to take to increase the number of rail passengers.

[The Secretary of State for Transport (Grant Shapps)]

We are working with the rail industry to develop a number of recovery initiatives focused on restoring passenger confidence in rail travel.

[Paul Maynard [V]]

Given the importance of improving train passenger numbers once the nation has fully reopened, marketing rail travel will be crucial if only to keep the Treasury happy. What support will the Secretary of State give to community rail partnerships up and down the country, which do so much to enhance the quality of local services, not just in planting out flowerbeds and making stations more attractive but in attracting the leisure passengers that we will need to travel on all our railway lines in ever greater numbers?

[Grant Shapps]

As a distinguished former Rail Minister, my hon. Friend will be pleased to hear that community rail is very much at the heart of the recent White Paper on rail reform. He can expect to see our commitment to rail community partnerships grow in the years to come, which will, I hope, fulfil the ambitions he set out during his time as Rail Minister.

Britain’s Railways

Debate between Grant Shapps and Paul Maynard

Thursday 20th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Grant Shapps]

The right hon. Gentleman will not have to wait very long for the answer, which I mentioned before, about the integrated rail plan, which includes things like what will happen on 2b east to Leeds and much more on the east coast main line, as we were just discussing.

I want to pick the right hon. Gentleman up on one point. I was in the middle of nodding and agreeing with him, certainly about the timetable debacle and what that demonstrated, but it is not the case that TfN’s core funding, as he describes it, has been cut. It has the money in the bank; it has not spent it. The actual spending is in the billions of pounds, while we seem to have got stuck talking about a £3.5 million administrative fund that is already in the bank.

My point is this: we are committed to levelling up the north—all constituencies, including the right hon. Gentleman’s own—and it will not be very long before we are saying more about that through the integrated rail plan. I entirely agree with him that it is many years overdue, but it is great to have a Government who are getting on with it now.

[Paul Maynard (Blackpool North and Cleveleys) (Con) [V]]

I very much welcome this greatly long-awaited plan. We have all waited for it with such great anticipation, and finally it is here. Can the Secretary of State set out how the plan will embed the role of the existing rail ombudsman as the champion of the passenger interest in the new system? Will he ensure that all ombudsman decisions are binding on rail companies that obtain concessions, and that their participation in the ombudsman system is a condition of obtaining such a concession?

[Grant Shapps]

I want to pay tribute to my hon. Friend because, as a former Rail Minister, there are few people in this House who will know more about this subject than him. During this White Paper’s time, he has made a significant input to what we have today, so it is in no small part his triumph as well. We have Great British Railways thanks to him.

To pick up my hon. Friend’s point about the rail ombudsman, there is clearly talk in the White Paper, which I think he will appreciate—and even recall—about strengthening the role of the passenger champion. I know he pushed for that in his time in the job, and I think he will be pleased with what he reads today.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Grant Shapps and Paul Maynard

Thursday 12th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Grant Shapps]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. Obviously, the issue of covid-19 is occupying the minds of everybody in this country at the moment. As an example, 2,500 posters—digital as well as printed—have gone up in our railway stations. There is a very wide programme of enhanced engagement, and we are working with the Public Health England protocols. Yesterday I met the chief executive and chair of Network Rail to discuss the subject. The Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Rochester and Strood (Kelly Tolhurst), who has responsibility for aviation, and I have also had similar discussions with all the aviation industry leaders.

[Paul Maynard (Blackpool North and Cleveleys) (Con)]

Yesterday, we saw welcome support in the Budget for small and medium-sized enterprises to deal with coronavirus, but ferry companies and airlines are very much at the forefront of that challenge. What financial support and liquidity are available to these companies? Will the Secretary of State update the House on what progress he has made on reforming slot allocation, and will he meet me and sector representatives to discuss the adequacy of the Government’s support so far?

[Grant Shapps]

My hon. Friend was absolutely right last week to raise the issue of the so-called ghost flights; I think he was the first person to raise the matter in this House. I have since written both to the slots allocator in this country, Airport Coordination Limited, and to the European Commission, which has indicated that it will alleviate those slots to stop empty flights flying. My hon. Friend is also right about the pressure that the airlines are under, and we are doing further work with the Civil Aviation Authority and the EU, particularly over EU regulation 261. I would be very happy to meet him to discuss the matter.