Oral Answers to Questions

Jerome Mayhew Excerpts

Thursday 15th May 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Jerome Mayhew (Broadland and Fakenham) (Con)]

Greater Anglia supports economic growth in the east of England with modern, quiet, fast trains, paid for by £2 billion of private sector investment. Its service is the most punctual in the country, it is popular with its passengers, and it is run so efficiently that instead of costing the taxpayer, it pays money into the Treasury. It is currently train operator of the year. Greater Anglia knows that nationalisation is coming, and it has offered to extend its operations to allow the Government to focus on the worst performing operators first. Why did the Government refuse? Is the Secretary of State focused on improving the lives of passengers, or is it an ideological determination to put the unions back in charge of the railways?

[Heidi Alexander]

I really do not know how many times I have to say this to the hon. Gentleman. I met him a couple of days ago, and I explained that our process for bringing train operating companies into public ownership is designed to offer best value for money to the taxpayer. We will not be buying out failing private sector operators by breaking contracts early. He is right to say that Greater Anglia provides an excellent service, and I am confident we will build on that when it comes into public ownership in October.

[Jerome Mayhew]

Perhaps the Secretary of State did not understand the nature of the offer from Greater Anglia. It was not expecting to be bought out; it was offering to continue its current arrangements for a couple of years.

In a previous answer, the Secretary of State said to me that the benefit of rail nationalisation will be the £150 million of efficiency savings. Let’s see how that is going. Her first nationalisation will be South Western Railway in two weeks’ time. That new service will need trains, yet The Telegraph has revealed that inept contract negotiations by her Department, where there was no effective competition, mean that the cost of re-leasing the same trains is increasing by £250 million over five years. Are those the efficiency savings she had in mind?

[Heidi Alexander]

The up to £150 million of savings that the taxpayer can enjoy as a result of train operating companies coming back into public ownership are the saved management fees that we are currently paying to private sector operators, and efficiencies will be delivered on top of that.

On the substantive issue that the hon. Gentleman raises about South Western Railway, the cost of renewing rolling stock leases has been fully and properly budgeted for, with successful commercial negotiations recently concluded. The franchising process under his Government saw some “buy now, pay later” deals done on rolling stock, where costs were always expected to increase. I think that approach was deeply dubious, but that was the short-termist, ill-thought-through approach of his Government, and we are now having to clear up that mess.