Chester-le-Street: Rail Services

Debate between Ian Mearns and Andrew Jones

Tuesday 15th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Jones]

The right hon. Gentleman has made a significant point. I have to say that that has not been my experience when I have been dealing with the train operating companies, but it is nevertheless clear that the communication to which he referred in his speech has not been good enough. I shall say more about that shortly.

As part of the wider drive to improve performance in the north, the Government commissioned Richard George, a respected industry figure, to review the performance of the region’s rail network. He will recommend operational improvements to increase reliability in the short and medium term. Richard will co-ordinate and lead the efforts of Network Rail and the operators. His remit is to help industry reach the right conclusions so that passenger impact is central to every planning decision; the passenger must be at the centre of all of our decisions. He has already helped highlight problem areas and will provide his conclusions later this year.

In addition, since the May timetabling issues Network Rail has established a programme management office. This will also help to ensure future timetable changes can be better planned and managed. There will be no repeat of the processes that led to the failure of May 2018 and that timetable change.

I thank the right hon. Member for North Durham for raising the issue of communication and poor information about cancellations and delays. I hear it in other parts of our network too, and it is simply not good enough. There are customer information screens at Chester-le-Street station, and both TPE and Northern publish updated information on their websites and social media channels, but we continue to stress to these operators and the whole industry the absolute importance of giving passengers the information they need when things go wrong. I have raised this with the train operating companies and will continue to do so. It has not been good enough. Obviously I want to get to a place where we do not have to make these comments, but until then a focus on communication is important.

[Ian Mearns]

In my experience trains that serve Chester-le-Street moving both north and south can suffer from cancellations, because if a train is coming from the south to the north and is late it is the habit of the operator to terminate the train at Darlington, and therefore not to allow it to travel on through to Durham, Chester-le-Street and Newcastle and then make the return journey. Can we ask the franchises to stop that practice, please?

[Andrew Jones]

The hon. Gentleman’s point is important, but there is also a point that the operators must consider in the operation of a timetable: how do they recover? If something goes wrong, how is that timetable recovered?

[Ian Mearns]

Additional rolling stock, Minister.

[Andrew Jones]

That is exactly what is happening, and I will come on to rolling stock in a moment. I understand the hon. Gentleman’s point and also where train operating companies are coming from, but regularly disadvantaging the same customers is not acceptable. I want to get to the place where we do not have to have these questions in the first place.

If things do go wrong, I also want to make sure we have compensation schemes. There have been delay-repay schemes and after May the Government asked Northern and TPE to implement special compensation schemes that quickly and fairly reimburse those passengers most adversely affected, and that included regular service users from Chester-le-Street. To date, over £1 million has been paid in compensation for the summer disruption.

Passengers will see the benefit of the new huge investment in rail in the north of England when the new rolling stock enters service this year. As part of the investment in TPE three new fleets of Nova trains will be introduced, starting from May this year until the end of 2020. For Chester-le-Street longer brand new trains will be in service, while on Northern the outdated and unpopular Pacers will be removed by the franchise by the end of this year. Passengers using the Northern services in County Durham will see refurbished trains offering increased capacity.

What does that actually mean? Nova trains are faster and have more capacity, and we are moving from three to five carriage trains; that means over 150 extra seats. The Pacers will in some cases be replaced by refurbished stock cascaded down from Scotland. These are class 170 trains which are longer than those they replace; they are increasing in size from 18 metres to 23 metres per carriage, again increasing capacity. The vast majority of the 500 brand new carriages from Northern and TransPennine will be delivered in less than a year from now, and every other train that is not brand new will be refurbished to be as-new.

The CrossCountry consultation was a concern. It ended on 30 August and we are conducting a thorough review of its findings. No decisions have been made about the CrossCountry timetable. The east coast main line timetable will be rewritten for all operators in 2020-21 and that will be an opportunity to review the current train services at Chester-le-Street, alongside wider long-distance service changes. The only decision that has been taken so far is to cancel the franchise competition because of the rail review. The current franchise ends in October, with the option to extend by one year. We are looking at options for the franchise and we are aware of severe overcrowding on that network, so we are looking to bring in additional trains as soon as the appropriate carriages are available within the existing rolling stock market. But the importance of Chester-le-Street and the north-east to the CrossCountry franchise is noted. Colleagues here asked me to note it and I have done so, and I give them my assurance that it will be considered.

Let me turn to the services at Chester-le-Street station. It is managed by Northern, which is conducting improvements throughout the life of its franchise to ensure that the station is well maintained. I understand of course how inconvenient it has been for passengers in the interim, but the waiting room and toilets are due to be refurbished very soon. As for the bridge, we are painting a structure that spans the east coast main line, so it is not as simple as a regular painting job. It is one that needs to be planned such that it minimises disruption. However, the point made by the right hon. Member for North Durham has been heard and I will ensure that Network Rail is aware of his concerns.

Our railways have to be fit for the future. This requires investment, vision, innovation and ambitious thinking, so that our rail network meets the needs of the people who rely on it. That is the point of our rail review. The service that we have and the structures we have had have served us well, taking us from 700 million passenger journeys a year to 1.7 billion. But times are changing and we are seeing huge investment. We are on the cusp of experiencing the benefits of the billions of pounds of investment. Our railways are undergoing much- needed transformation that, as a country, we have never experienced before. That will improve rail services in the north of England for good and it will see rail play its part in driving economic growth right across the north.

Question put and agreed to.

Bus Services Bill [Lords]

Debate between Ian Mearns and Andrew Jones

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Monday 27th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Jones]

I am not saying that Whitehall knows best; I am saying that the grant is best delivered to bus operators that are running cross-border services, and then to take it from there. It is not a question of Whitehall knows best. We are not determining the routes that operators should be operating. We are keen to see more support for buses and more routes available, but the way to achieve long-term sustainable bus growth is to have more passengers on the buses.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) mentioned the Paulley case, which took five years to go through our legal system and reached the High Court. Specifically, we will be inviting the Equality and Human Rights Commission to attend the meetings of our working group, on which progress has been made. We seek to have a small working group that will look at the practical implications of the Paulley case. Among the members invited so far is the Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee, because we want the voice of disabled groups. We also want the voice of the bus operators, so we have invited the Confederation of Passenger Transport and the Association of Local Bus Company Managers. We also want the voice of passengers, so Transport Focus has been invited. I hope we will see the Equality and Human Rights Commission, which has been invited to attend but not as a formal member. I hope to get things under way with our first meeting next month.

[Ian Mearns (Gateshead) (Lab)]

I apologise to the Minister, but may I take him back to the cross-border issue? Even in areas that do not have a landscape drawn out for elected mayors, local authorities have for the past three decades worked in partnership with one another where bus routes go across their local authority boundaries. I do not understand his point about devolving the grant to the bus company and not to groups of local authorities in travel-to-work areas.

[Andrew Jones]

The devolution of the funding goes straight to local bus companies. We are looking at how we can reform BSOG and I will take the hon. Gentleman’s points as a contributory suggestion. I do not want to change the system unless we are clear that it will keep more routes operational. We would have no guarantee, unless we ring-fenced the funding, that if we granted the devolution of BSOG to a local authority it would be used to support buses. It could go towards other forms of local transport. I want to keep it focused on buses. That is why it is with operators. However, I will take his point on board as we think about how to take this matter forward.

To answer my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke a little more fully, the working group needs to be very action-oriented. The High Court encountered practical challenges in dealing with the issue of disabled access. We need to get the balance right. The space that is used for wheelchairs may also be used for parents with disabled children, the owners of assistance dogs and people who use walking frames. I want to protect everyone’s needs.

Disabled transport plans such as DPPPs are important in providing confidence and consistency for disabled people when using transport. I have much sympathy with the reason underlying my right hon. Friend’s suggestion. We will take forward a recommendation in the guidance supporting the Bill that authorities ensure that information is made available to passengers. That might be in a form that is provided by the authority or by individual operators. Again, we have been working on this issue with DPTAC, which has developed a template. I am keen to publish that with the guidance and encourage bus companies to use it. I therefore expect us to make progress in this area, which I hope will assist my right hon. Friend.

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[Ian Mearns]

Does the Minister accept that injuries can also occur to passengers? As a regular bus user, I have witnessed such injuries on a number of occasions. This is not only about pedestrians and other road users. Bus passengers, often without the vehicle being involved in any sort of collision, can be injured when, for instance, the bus brakes abruptly. Surely the travelling public on buses—the customers of the bus operators—have a right to some Government protection.

[Andrew Jones]

I recognise the hon. Gentleman’s point. There is no doubt that passengers can be injured on a bus. I am also a regular bus user—not that that is particularly relevant—and all of us who travel on buses will have seen such injuries. He makes a reasonable point, but it does not necessarily mean that we need to mandate a reporting system in primary legislation.

Transport for London is the main example of confidential reporting by a bus operator, and it has featured in our debates in Committee. I understand that TfL pays the CIRAS subscription. When the London Underground and rail contract came up for renewal, the CIRAS contract was extended to cover buses at no extra cost to TfL. That prospect is different from mandating that every bus operator subscribes to such a system.

As I mentioned in response to an intervention by my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller), there are 30 rail companies and 1,000-plus bus companies in this country. We also need to consider the evidence. I have not been made aware of any robust evidence to suggest that arrangements introduced in London have had a significant impact on safety. If a franchising authority wishes to stipulate a system such as CIRAS as part of its conditions of contract, it is of course free to do so—that is what TfL has done here in London. Authorities that negotiate partnerships could also include bus safety measures as part of such an arrangement, so I will explore through guidance how we could encourage operators and local transport authorities to consider the benefits of an independent confidential reporting system, but we will probably limit that only to a franchising or partnership scheme to start with.

I hope that, in the light of my comments, the hon. Member for Gateshead will feel able not to press amendments 6 to 13 and new clause 4.

I have been speaking for far too long, Mr Deputy Speaker. I am sure that you and Members on both sides of the House will be pleased to hear that I am coming to the end of my remarks.

Amendment 28, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for North West Norfolk, addresses decision making in enhanced partnership schemes. It would prevent requirements on how tickets are purchased or fares paid, on how fares or ticketing arrangements are publicised and on the price of multi-operator tickets from being specified in such a scheme unless all parties agree. Ticketing is a key element of the Bill’s partnership proposals, and one of the key principles of the enhanced partnership regime is that it does not require consensus by all operators.

Instead, affected operators may object to the enhanced partnership proposals at key points in the process, and the authority cannot proceed with its proposals if more than a sufficient number of operators object. Details of what amounts to that sufficient number will be set out in the draft regulations, on which we have recently finished consulting.

Leaving aside the objection mechanism, there are further safeguards to ensure that individual operators are treated fairly when ticketing requirements are included in an enhanced partnership scheme. A key safeguard is the ability for any proposals relating to ticketing, or any other element of an enhanced partnership scheme, to be subject to scrutiny by the Competition and Markets Authority, which will be a statutory consultee on the proposals. Our draft guidance on enhanced partnerships also makes it clear that all documents should include a section on competition, and it provides clear advice on how individual operators can raise concerns with the CMA at any point during the development or implementation of a scheme.

Perhaps most importantly, I can reassure my hon. Friend that an authority making a scheme has to be satisfied that any restrictions on competition introduced by an enhanced partnership, such as setting the price of a multi-operator ticket, are balanced by the benefit to passengers. The effect on small and medium-sized bus operators should also be taken into account as part of that process, and we have built protection for small and medium-sized operators into the Bill by requiring them to be considered, whichever regulatory model is chosen locally.

I make it clear that the provisions are about fairness, and not about protecting the commercial interests of operators. Bus operators may well prefer their passengers to buy a ticket for use only on their buses, rather than one that can be used on any bus service. That is of course in a bus operator’s commercial interest, but it might not necessarily be in the interest of a bus passenger.

If my hon. Friend’s amendment were to be accepted, only one operator would need to put its commercial interests first to block an improvement to ticketing for passengers that might grow the entire market in its area. Overall, the safeguards I have outlined are enough to ensure that proposals relating to ticketing are fair and reasonable to bus operators while delivering improvements that benefit passengers. I hope he finds my explanation reassuring and will therefore not press his amendment.

I believe the Bill already has decision making right and is in the right place to get the best outcome for passengers. In doing so, it will deliver on our devolution commitments, and I trust the House will agree.

[Ian Mearns]

I would like to think that the Minister will provide within the guidance to the Bill, once it is enacted, a reference to the Confidential Incident Reporting and Analysis System as best practice in the industry. Notwithstanding that, I do not seek to press the new clause or amendments 6 to 13. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the clause.

Clause, by leave, withdrawn.



Clause 4

Franchising schemes

Amendments made: 2, page 16, line 38, after “an” insert “independent”.

This amendment and amendment 4 make plain the status of the persons who may audit an assessment under section 123B produced by a franchising authority or authorities.

Amendment 3, page 17, line 2, at end insert—

“( ) The Secretary of State must issue guidance as to the matters to be taken into account by a franchising authority when selecting a person to act as an auditor.

( ) Franchising authorities must have regard to any such guidance.

( ) The Secretary of State must issue guidance concerning the matters to be taken into account by an auditor when forming an opinion as to whether the information relied on, and the analysis of that information, by an authority is of sufficient quality for the purposes of subsection (2).

( ) Auditors must have regard to any such guidance.”

This amendment imposes duties on the Secretary of State to issue guidance on the matters to be taken into account by a franchising authority when selecting a person to act as an auditor and to issue guidance on whether the information relied on, and the analysis of that information, by an authority is of sufficient quality. It also imposes duties on franchising authorities and auditors to have regard to any such guidance.

Amendment 4, page 17, leave out line 3 and insert

“For the purposes of this section an auditor is independent, in relation to an assessment of a proposed franchising scheme, if the person would not”.

See explanatory statement for amendment 2.

Amendment 5, page 17, line 8, leave out from “person” to end of line 9 and insert

“eligible for appointment as a local auditor by virtue of Chapter 2 of”.—(Andrew Jones.)

This amendment alters the definition of “auditor” so that it means an individual or firm eligible for appointment as a local auditor by virtue of Chapter 2 of Part 42 of the Companies Act 2006 as modified by the Local Audit and Accountability Act 2014.

Clause 22

Bus companies: limitation of powers of authorities in England

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[Andrew Jones]

This amendment, tabled by the hon. Members for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner) and for Middlesbrough (Andy McDonald), proposes to remove clause 22. We debated this at length in Committee and I wish to reiterate that the several existing municipal bus companies, including Nottingham City Transport and Blackpool Transport, which serves the area of the rail Minister—my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard)—deliver a high standard of service, and I will expect that to continue. Their ability to provide that is not affected in any way by this clause. The franchising and enhanced partnership tools in the Bill will provide authorities with more influence over bus services than they have now, and striking that right balance between local authority influence and the role that the private sector bus operator can play is important. Our view is that passengers will see the most benefit where the commissioning and provision of bus services is kept separate. As such, we do not think that authorities should be able to set up new bus companies.

We have seen encouraging innovations from the private sector—although not exclusively within that sector—such as the introduction of smartcards, the installation of wi-fi and increased accessibility in our bus network. Those improvements have all been delivered through private sector investment and they show overall that the industry is always innovating and delivering a good deal for its passengers.

[Ian Mearns]

The Minister will be aware that over the past six and a half years local authorities up and down the country have seen significant and ongoing reductions in their revenue support grant. Ministers from the Department for Communities and Local Government have always been encouraging local authorities to be entrepreneurial and enterprising, and to go out there and earn money to backfill where the RSG once existed. By this measure, the Minister is precluding local authorities from doing just that.

[Andrew Jones]

I recognise what the hon. Gentleman says, but it is also fair to say that no local authority has either set up a municipal bus company or approached me with a view to doing so. Therefore, this is in some ways a slightly notional or theoretical debate—[Interruption.] Making sure we get clarity is the entire point here.

This Bill seeks a balance between local authority influence—we are providing local authorities with a variety of tools to address local issues—and the role that private sector bus operators can play, in order to ensure that both are incentivised to deliver the very best services for passengers. This Bill is about local authorities and commercial bus operators working together to improve local bus services. It is about co-operation, all designed to improve the benefits for bus passengers. I hope that this has made the Government’s position clear and that the hon. Member for Cambridge will not press this amendment to a vote.