West Coast Main Line Franchise Debate

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Department: Department for Transport

West Coast Main Line Franchise

Jeff Smith Excerpts
Tuesday 19th September 2023

(1 year, 2 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Jesse Norman Portrait Jesse Norman
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The hon. Lady is deliberately drawing on statistics from before the recent improvements that the Government are recognising in this contract award. However, there is a further point: it is of course right to raise individual items, but we ought to get away from a situation in which politicians feel that they can micromanage and second-guess decisions made by people at the operating level. The key thing is to make sure that the quality of management is in place to drive continued, sustained improvement, as we expect it now is with the new chief executive, Mr Mellors.

Jeff Smith Portrait Jeff Smith (Manchester, Withington) (Lab)
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As a regular user, I recognise that the Avanti service has improved in recent months—although frankly, it would have been hard for it to get much worse—but given the sustained poor performance in the past and the August performance figures we have just heard about, this contract award feels very premature. Would it not have been better to wait and ensure that we see proven, sustained improvement from Avanti before awarding such a long contract?

Jesse Norman Portrait Jesse Norman
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Of course, a variety of considerations sit around any contract award. The attraction of this one is that it allows the most rapid possible progress on fleet improvements and support for the new management team that might be expected. As the hon. Gentleman would imagine, the Secretary of State has spent a considerable amount of time talking to the new management to make sure that they really are focused on improvement, and to hear in detail what their plan for that improvement is. The award was made in part on that basis.