Transport Secretary: East Coast Franchise

Ian Mearns Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I do not intend that the arrangement will be permanent. What I am saying—I have said this all along—is that when we move ahead with the full future shape of the LNER, we will not do everything in exactly the same way. What has been done on this railway in the past has not worked, and I do not intend to do it again. We will do things differently. We will consider giving the staff a stake in the business, and we will look at a different kind of investment from the private sector. However, as I shall make clear, I believe—the Welsh Government clearly believe—that a partnership between the public sector and the private sector is beneficial to the country, and not something to be cast aside as an evil and sinister attempt to do down passengers.

[Ian Mearns (Gateshead) (Lab)]

Will the Secretary of State give way?

[Chris Grayling]

I will give way once more, and then I will make some progress.

[Ian Mearns]

I am very interested by the comments that are coming from behind the Secretary of State. It is clear that he is in favour of state ownership of UK railways; the only problem is that it is German, Italian and French state ownership.

[Chris Grayling]

It appears that the Welsh Government—the Welsh Labour Government—take the same view, because they have just awarded the contract for the Wales & Borders franchise to a French state business in partnership with a Spanish-owned private business. Again, the Labour party says one thing in one place and does something else in another.

What we have heard from Labour in the last few months has been a litany of misinformation, misunderstanding and inaccuracy. Let us take the bail-out point. Labour Members claim that there has been a £2 billion bail-out. That is just plain nonsense. It is wholly inaccurate to claim that there has been a bail-out now, when the railway will continue to make a healthy profit for the taxpayer. It would equally be inaccurate to claim that Labour had bailed out National Express when it did not push through nearly £1.5 billion of future premium payments after 2009. The railway carried on making a profit then, and it will carry on making a profit now.

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[Alan Brown]

Funnily enough, Stagecoach’s share price increased when the Transport Secretary gave a statement from the Dispatch Box in February. Share prices go up and down, which is to do with the overall performance of these companies, and they are very big companies. The whole point of these big companies bidding and providing parent company guarantees is that it is supposed to offset the risk, rather than leaving the risk to the taxpayer.

On the question of state-owned companies or public sector organisations running franchises, the Transport Secretary’s logic completely falls apart when we consider that four foreign state-owned rail companies already operate franchises in the UK. Those companies are making a profit here for reinvestment in their domestic set-up, which is proof that state-run railways can work efficiently.

The previous east coast main line services are further proof that public ownership can work. When the previous franchise failed and was taken into public sector operation, it returned £1 billion in track fees to the Treasury and turned an operating profit of £42 million. So, as has been asked before, why move away from that successful model to one where VTEC can come in with inflated sums and then get to walk away? It is clearly not right.

The southern rail franchise shambles also happened on the Transport Secretary’s watch. The main conclusion of the NAO’s report is that it could not be demonstrated that the franchise has delivered value for money. At the time, the operator blamed Network Rail and the unions, and the Government blamed the unions, completely ignoring the Transport Secretary’s role in refusing to engage with them. The fact is that 60% of the cancellations were due to Govia Thameslink Railway and only 40% were caused by Network Rail. The UK Government set up the model supposedly to deal with the complex infrastructure upgrades, but the Government took all the revenue risks, so the strikes actually cost the taxpayer, because the loss of revenue is underwritten. The Government also awarded the franchise based on an even higher roll-out of driver-only operation, which is what caused some of the disputes.

[Ian Mearns]

This is not just a problem with southern. Southern is a failing franchise, but northern seems to be on the verge of failing, too, with complaints from passengers across the north of England about services regularly not being provided.

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[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

I am pleased to be allowed to speak in this very important debate. I start by thanking the staff on east coast rail who, during the eight years I have been in the House, have been unfailingly helpful on my twice-weekly journeys to and from Newcastle. They have been unfailingly cheerful and unfailingly efficient despite the turmoil that successive Conservative-led Governments have put them through.

Speaking of the workers, I would not normally support singling out one worker—in this case, the Secretary of State for Transport—for criticism and in effect a fine for a collective failure of this Government, but if anyone is responsible for that failure, it has to be him. What is more, it is not only a failure of competence; more importantly, it is a failure driven by ideology—the Secretary of State’s extreme free market ideology. If he wants to play ideology at dinner parties around the country, that is his decision, but here he is playing ideology with the east coast main line, a critical piece of national railway infrastructure serving more than 20 million passengers per year and contributing more than £300 billion annually to the UK economy. Also, independent research shows that investment in it could generate more than £5 billion in additional GDP for our country and our region. The Secretary of State’s ideology is destroying jobs in my constituency, for which he must be held accountable.

Hon. Members may have heard me mention that before entering Parliament I spent 23 years as an engineer. My last job was for Ofcom, the communications regulator. As part of that, I spent a lot of time looking at the economics of networks and the benefit of competition, which is where I shall focus my remarks.

Free markets require competition. Without competition, markets become monopolies. I hope we can all agree that private sector monopolies are bad—there are no interventions, so we agree. On the other hand, public sector monopolies can be run in the interests of the many, not the few. Many believe that rail is a natural monopoly. I agree. Railways were born in my region. The Rocket—the first commercial locomotive—was built in Newcastle by the Stephensons, and will return to Newcastle for the Great Exhibition of the North this summer.

From the very start, it has been impossible to run railways competitively in the private sector. The Office of Fair Trading states:

“Competition is a process of rivalry between firms seeking to win customers’ business over time by offering them a better deal.”

What better deal was there under Virgin? Were there more trains? No. Were there better trains? No. Were there better services? No. People could argue that the uniforms and the advertising slightly improved, but does that justify the huge costs involved in bailing out the private sector three times in 10 years? Does that justify the huge costs involved in regulating private sector companies to stop them exploiting their monopoly positions? Private sector companies always abuse monopoly positions. They cannot help it. Did it give us the investment in transport in the north-east that we need for our economic development? Transport for the North estimates that we need £27 billion invested in our transport infrastructure. Did it justify the huge costs involved in designing multiple tenders and the exposure to legal challenges? Did it justify the uncertainty that has been so bad for staff and passengers? Absolutely not. The Conservatives are ideologically constipated on free markets to the extent that they cannot see the reality of our rail network and its needs.

[Ian Mearns]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend and neighbour for giving way. The Government are ideologically wedded to the privatisation model, but they must accept that, once the regular public subsidy for the railways is netted off, the amount of private sector investment is rather small.

[Chi Onwurah]

My hon. Friend and neighbour is absolutely right, which shows why this idea that this is a competitive market is a travesty. There is really no investment. More importantly, what little investment does take place is not at these companies’ own risk, because they are bailed out. Yet so infatuated are this Government with private sector monopolies that they do not seem to see that. We see the same thing when they deal with the tech giants: this Government are happy for private sector monopolies to walk all over UK citizens and yet the Government continue to stuff these companies’ mouths with gold.

We need a Government who recognise the role that the private sector can play in many industries and many businesses, but also recognise the importance of delivering natural monopolies through the public sector in such a way that citizens, consumers and passengers benefit. We need a Government who are not in hock to the private sector. As this Government are clearly incapable of understanding the very basics of network economics, I hope they will give way for a Labour Government who will do.

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[Alec Shelbrooke]

I am delighted that the hon. Gentleman has made that point. Indeed, that is the problem with a nationalised company. Many people have said, “Oh, it’s the Secretary of State’s responsibility in a nationalised company, ” but that is not how it works—it is not how it has ever worked. On the one hand, people are saying that the Secretary of State should take complete control of the railways, and on the other that he should get out. People who are running a nationalised operation do not share the sense of urgency of those in the private sector. There are litanies of delayed or missing projects under Network Rail.

[Ian Mearns]

The hon. Gentleman should just remember that Railtrack was privatised. It failed, and the Government had to take it back in-house to save the railway network.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

Railtrack failed due to the vandalism of John Prescott when he was Transport Secretary. He took advantage of the opportunity when British Rail’s failure to keep its system upgraded and safe culminated just three years into privatisation under Railtrack. The track that broke, which caused Railtrack to fail and to be transformed into Network Rail, did not degrade in the three years of privatisation. It broke as a result of a catalogue of rail mismanagement that led up to that point. It is one of the biggest disgraces—