Chris Gibb Report: Improvements to Southern Railway

Jeremy Quin Excerpts

Tuesday 4th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Quin (Horsham) (Con)]

The point of agreement between me and the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Stephen Lloyd) is that the service has caused heartache, distress and job losses for thousands. The report was commissioned to try to find ways to improve the resilience of the service, and I welcome it. I think everyone acknowledges the author, Chris Gibb, to be a serious, experienced individual, and he has produced a report that is thoughtful, helpful and comprehensive. The clear message that emerges from his report is that the primary cause of the appalling service that passengers received last year was the result of members of the workforce

“taking strike action…declining to work overtime and…undermining the system integrity”.

He concluded that

“if the train crew were to work in the normal manner…the output of the system, a safe and reliable rail service for passengers, would be delivered in an acceptable manner”.

The validity of Mr Gibb’s words has been reinforced by the 23 percentage point improvement in performance achieved by Southern over the past few months, when there have been no strikes. GTR has shown that with the support of its workforce it can deliver, as Mr Gibb says, an acceptable level of service for customers.

Like everyone in this House, I am horrified that we are again seeing a return to industrial action. The Opposition were keen to lambast the Government on public sector pay restraint last week, but I am acutely aware of how many public sector workers use these trains. ASLEF, on the behalf of train drivers, rejected a pay offer worth nearly 24% over four years. Passengers will draw their own conclusions. [Interruption.] Is the hon. Member for Middlesbrough (Andy McDonald) trying to intervene? If he would like to get in, I would love to hear whether he thinks that that is a bad thing that is being put to members. I have offered the hon. Gentleman the opportunity to come in and say that the 24% rise is adequate, but he has declined to do so. I understand, so I will return to my speech.

Passengers do not believe that the DCO trains that have operated on our network for the past 30 years are unsafe. They do not believe that passenger trains operated in Germany, Austria or Canada using DCO are unsafe. Passengers do not want much; they simply want the drivers and the on-board supervisors to do their job, so that they can get into work to do theirs. In the helpful statistics provided by the RMT in a meeting this morning, as referred to by my hon. Friends, it was confirmed that 97.25% of the 70% of Southern trains that used to operate with a second person on board continue to do so. Those trains have a second person who is not preoccupied with opening and closing doors; they are there to help passengers. That is a high proportion, reflecting the additional numbers of OBSs that have been recruited. It is not as high as I would like, nor is it as high as GTR intends it to be—GTR is aiming for 100%—but all train users would rather see the 2.75% of those trains continue to run for the benefit of passengers. If they did not run, the negative impact to the service as a whole would be far more than the 3% diminution in service. It would lead to many thousands of passengers being wholly unnecessarily delayed.

[Ms Ghani]

After this morning’s meeting, I just want to clarify whether the unions are striking because 2.75% of trains are running without on-board supervisors. That will have an impact on thousands of paying passengers.

[Jeremy Quin]

I thank my hon. Friend. She really has to ask the unions why they are still on strike. My understanding is that it is because of the 2.75% of the 70% of trains that traditionally had a second person on board. I am convinced that her constituents and my constituents would rather that those trains continue to run. I look forward to 100% coverage, but the 97.25% figure and the recruitment shows that GTR is serious about ensuring that there is a second professional on board. Passengers have had enough. It is high time that the unions ended their action.

As the Secretary of State made clear, however, it would belittle the report to suggest that it focuses only on industrial action. It is far broader and more useful than that. What runs through the report is the difficulty of operating trains on a hugely well used and complex service. As the report states, Southern is

“simultaneously running at absolute capacity at peak times, and undergoing a period of dramatic… change”.

The introduction of class 700s, new depots at Three Bridges and Hornsey, a doubling of Thameslink peak-hour trains to 24 through central London, and major infrastructure enhancements at London Bridge are all good improvements for passengers. They are vital to maintain a railway that has seen a massive increase in passenger numbers. As the report makes clear, Southern has been under strain with

“unreliable infrastructure, a timetable that is very tight and with overcrowded peak services”.

In some ways, the railways are a victim of success. In the days of British Rail, which the Opposition still seem to recall so fondly, the network was declining and, as Gibb points out, was relatively lightly used. In the 20 years since privatisation, passenger numbers have grown such that, on Southern’s routes, more passengers are now travelling than at any time in the past 90 years. The emphasis that Gibb places on collaborative working is welcome, as are the practical steps that he recommends to ensure that that takes place, many of which have already been implemented. I am pleased that on receipt of the report back in January the Government immediately committed £300 million to meet the basic infrastructure requirements that were set out. It is good to hear the Department’s strong commitment to ensuring that the region secures the investment it requires.

The report also has lessons for the operator, and Gibb makes clear the complexity of the Southern operator’s task. There are few, and I am certainly not among them, who view the scale of the franchise as optimal. However, for those who believe that firing the operator would be a simple gain, Gibb argues persuasively that such an approach is naive. Twice operators have been replaced by Government emergency provision, as the shadow Minister said, and the report implies that this comes at greater cost. In both cases, the routes were running at steady state; Southern is going through a period of substantial change. The implication of the report is that firing the operator would be, at best, risky, and at worst could lead to chaotic failure.

However, it appears to me that the operator, in bidding for the franchise, was too optimistic about what it might be able to achieve by crewing via diagramming software. The system can be highly efficient when it works well, and in theory it should work brilliantly, but that requires perfect operating conditions, which are not what Network Rail delivers. I am therefore delighted by the Secretary of State’s commitment to the additional drivers who are being trained and coming online, and I am pleased that there are now more on-board staff than at the start of this process. They will increase resilience and reduce dependence on overtime. He is determined to ensure that we have a modern, resilient railway that delivers for its passengers. I congratulate him on commissioning this report, and I thank Mr Gibb for his work.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

Thank you for calling me, Madam Deputy Speaker. I welcome you to the Chair, and thank you for chairing the debate. May I also put on record my proud relationship with working people through the trade unions, and declare my interest in that regard?

Today’s debate started abysmally. The Secretary of State for Transport failed to mention safety or access for disabled people once. His prejudices against working people came to the fore, clearly not from a party for working people. Thankfully, my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough (Andy McDonald) brought us back to the Gibb report, and we heard a total of 19 contributions.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood) for highlighting the consequences of brittle rostering and the problems caused by level crossings. My hon. Friend the Member for Luton South (Mr Shuker) spoke of the bullying that drivers experienced in attempts to make them come to work on their days off. My hon. Friend the Member for Hove (Peter Kyle) called for humility, and a focus on the breadth of the issues in the Gibb report. He also identified the Government’s failure of leadership. My hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) talked of rail chaos, but stressed that it was not due to industrial action. My hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Lloyd Russell-Moyle), who made the 18th contribution, focused on the issue of disability access.

The scene was set for the perfect storm. Today we have heard about the consequences for constituents, the industry and staff. Ageing infrastructure is failing because of a lack of resources and critical management to address vital maintenance. Heavy demand and over-capacity manifest themselves in overcrowding. New working practices—new timetables, new commencement of routes, new trains and technological advances—have been recommended, but there has been no strategic co-ordination to date. Above all, we have failed and fragmented franchises. Collaboration and strategic oversight were the last considerations, and the very worst outcomes from a profit-driven privatisation process have been apparent. Putting profit before passengers has resulted in their paying heavily: financially, for their tickets; in terms of the worst effects of overcrowding; and—Mr Gibb mentions this at every turn—in terms of having to deal with the complete unpredictability of the service. It has been utterly chaotic. The buck stops with the Government and the Secretary of State, whom even the courts have now told to exercise his force majeure to find a resolution.

It has all been matched by a safety-critical industry. Staff rightly fear that they will find themselves before an inquest following an incident involving a passenger, for whatever reason—perhaps because the technology has missed what a second, human, eye would see. It is all happening in a high-risk setting in which there is the potential for an accident, a landslide or terrorism, and the possibility of a driver or passenger falling ill, antisocial behaviour, or some other incident. Those with disabilities are pushed to the back of the queue when it comes to ensuring that people’s needs are met throughout their journey. As we have heard, only 3% of trains do not have a second safety-critical member of staff. We have to wonder why the Government cannot resolve this dispute, and give priority to the dignity of a disabled person who could be left on a platform.

All this is happening in a charged industrial environment in which the Government’s agents, and the Government themselves, have declared that rather than resolving the dispute, which would be easy to do, they are deliberately trying to fuel it—

[Jeremy Quin]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Rachael Maskell]

I do not have time.

They are deliberately trying to fuel the dispute owing to their ideological aversion to trade unions—wanting to “break them”, in the words of Mr. Wilkinson, the Department for Transport official—as opposed to listening and addressing the real concerns that have been raised and are apparent for all others to see.

The stakes are high, and the Gibb report, although conflicted, recognises that. It is a serious attempt to analyse the multiple problems with the network, focusing on 10 different areas of failure, and then bring those findings together.

Cutting through the layers of self-interest—and no part of the network comes out particularly well—Gibb’s recommendations have sought to put passengers at the centre and he has pragmatically analysed the steps that need to be taken to build one Southern rail service which collaborates across operators, infrastructure bodies, the regulator and contracted services such as maintenance companies, with a reform programme that not only challenges behaviours, but sets a template for the industry to refocus.

The immense task set requires all parties to take a step back and listen to what Gibb is actually saying between the lines of text. This is an immense challenge. There has to be transition. Problem solving and working together is the only way through this and a new approach must be adopted by all. There has to be space for everyone to raise their concerns and, instead of being met by a wall of denial, a bit more flexibility would provide a win for everyone. When people talk about staff shortages, that must be addressed; and when people talk about safety challenges, they must be heard.

I want to return to the fact that we live in critical times and throw this challenge down to the Government. Technology is advancing at a pace, and this is something that we can be immensely proud of. Over the next decade, engineering and digitalisation across the rail industry will take us to new places that even today are unimaginable. But the rail industry is ultimately about people and, as we progress from generation to generation, the reassurances we seek do not change. In a safety-critical environment, passengers want safety guaranteed.

Incidents do occur, and I will never forget working in intensive care as the Potters Bar tragedy happened, and the carnage that I faced as a clinician trying to save lives and put bodies back together. Life is too important.

We lose 40 people on the Southern rail network each year through suicide. That is traumatic for our drivers and of course tragic for those involved. Passengers, or even drivers, take ill. Threatening and antisocial behaviour still occurs. Women can still feel unsafe travelling alone at night, as the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Stephen Lloyd) reminded us—and I note that there is no woman’s voice in the Secretary of State’s team; perhaps that would have been helpful to understand those safety-critical issues.

Terrorism is now a reality that hovers in all of our minds. Overcrowded stations and overcrowded trains do create risks. A disabled person may need assistance, not just with boarding and alighting, but throughout their journey. Who will be the passenger champion on each train? Who will keep them safe? Who will have the vital training in order to carry out those vital tasks? Who will provide the second set of eyes to support safe departure and keep the public safe? Those are the real questions the workers are asking and the Government are refusing to hear, and these are the issues that must be addressed for the sake of the public.

The Government would never dream of taking away cabin crew on a short flight, and yet, on journeys which may take a lot longer, removing the one person who keeps us safe, can answer our questions and concerns, and can help meet our needs, is doing the reverse of establishing what Gibb is calling for: a passenger-centred service.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough (Andy McDonald) said, none of us want to stand at this Dispatch Box and lament, “if only”, and recite that “lessons must be learned.” That is why Labour would build a united, integrated, safe, accessible and functioning service for the passengers, and we would also champion the rights of passengers.