Oral Answers to Questions

John Penrose Excerpts

Thursday 30th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

Yes, I would be delighted to meet again to press ahead on this agenda. Obviously business cases and a host of other details need to be worked up with TfL, but I met Heidi Alexander, its deputy chairman, earlier this week and we had a conversation on the matter then.

[John Penrose (Weston-super-Mare) (Con)]

Angry and frustrated passengers in the south-east and elsewhere will have been delighted to hear the Secretary of State say that rail franchising is not working anymore, but will the Minister confirm that swapping the uncaring private sector monopolies of franchising for the equally uncaring state monopoly of renationalisation will not help overcrowded or stranded passengers one bit? Will he accept that we need a new and third option in which passengers can choose between lots of different provider services on their line each day and switch to whichever one they like best, in the same way as they choose different brands of coffee or cornflakes instead of taking whatever they are given?

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

I hear what my hon. Friend says. There is an argument for open access on our railways. The Williams review, which will report in the near future, will provide an opportunity to debate the issue at quite some length. I very much look forward to having that debate with my hon. Friend because he has some positive ideas.

East Coast Main Line

John Penrose Excerpts

Wednesday 16th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

Clearly the Government have to act in a situation like this, and we have done so: we have acted decisively. The reality is—I stand by what I said—that there is no malicious intent. A major corporation has made a major mistake, and it has paid a price equivalent to a fifth of its market capitalisation, which is a big cost for any business.

[John Penrose (Weston-super-Mare) (Con)]

I welcome the Secretary of State’s response to my hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon (Stephen Hammond), who asked about open access. The Secretary of State was clear that open-access services will be maintained, but may I ask him to go further? In preparing for the end of the current deals in 2021, may I ask him, instead of going back to a failed nationalisation model or indeed of relying on the evident fragility of the franchising model, to consider greatly extending open-access rail to cover the entire line once the current deals are over?

[Chris Grayling]

I know my hon. Friend is a great believer in open access, and I think that this line proves that it can make a real difference. I give him an assurance that we will do all we can to continue to encourage open access to maximise the capacity of the railway network.

Rail Update

John Penrose Excerpts

Monday 5th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

Of course they are paid for by the customers. The private companies make the investment and they make the return on that investment because the passengers pay for fares. That is the way that business works. Perhaps Labour Members do not understand the way that business works. Customers buy something they want to buy. I am absolutely certain that customers want to travel in brand-new trains. That is long overdue on the east coast main line, where they have regularly failed to do so. However, there are clearly lessons to learn on this. That is why we have moved much more towards a quality basis for new franchises. I want an increased quality of service delivered to be the basis for the allocation of new franchises.

The hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown) asked about the west coast main line direct award. As I said, it will run for between one and two years. It will finish as soon as possible. I want this up and running. We are going to issue the ITT for the west coast partnership very shortly.

The hon. Gentleman raised the issue of staffing. The private sector-run east coast main line is today employing more people than it did in the public sector. As somebody who believes passionately that we need more customer service staff on the railway rather than fewer, I think that is a good thing.

The hon. Gentleman asked again about the devolution of Network Rail. I simply reiterate that I think that the SNP Government have quite enough to do without going beyond the devolution recommendations that we have put in place.

As regards the travelcard, it is being issued by the industry, which is moving ahead quickly with preparations for it.

[John Penrose (Weston-super-Mare) (Con)]

The last time the Secretary of State stood at the Dispatch Box, I asked him about open-access rail and competing rail firms. He rightly waxed lyrical about the benefits to customers in terms of choice and value that open-access rail can produce. As he looks at the options for the east coast main line, will he consider, in addition to the two options he has laid out for the House, an open-access alternative so that we can get away from the state-led and potentially even nationalised set of alternatives that we are otherwise being pushed towards?

[Chris Grayling]

I know that my hon. Friend feels very strongly about this. He is right about the benefits of open access. My view is that open access holds the existing operator’s feet to the customer service fire to make sure that it delivers. It would not be realistic to do this in timeframes available to me for making the change that we are going to need. However, I am very clear that the rules around the creation of the east coast partnership must and will leave room for open access.

Oral Answers to Questions

John Penrose Excerpts

Thursday 18th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

We have two jobs to do for aviation post-Brexit. One is to conclude negotiations within the European Union, which will be part of the ongoing process of negotiating our successor arrangements, and the other is to negotiate successor agreements around the world. We are working on both those things right now.

[John Penrose (Weston-super-Mare) (Con)]

On the east coast main line, rather than taking us back to the bad old days of British Rail, as the Labour party’s renationalisation proposals would do, will the Secretary of State instead consider the Competition and Markets Authority’s recommendations for more on-track open access choice and competition, with the far better quality and cost of rail services that it says would result?

[Chris Grayling]

There is no doubt that open access makes a difference. I do not think for a moment that those who, for example, live in Sunderland, Middlesbrough or Bradford and have services from Grand Central would say anything other than that open access has been a good thing. That is the area in which the private sector has really made a difference, bringing services to the network that never existed in the days of nationalisation.

Rail Franchising

John Penrose Excerpts

Wednesday 10th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Alan Brown]

I agree with my hon. Friend. Carstairs junction could be a major blockage for HS2, as well as the other operation, so I hope that the Minister was listening to her intervention and will explain why, if the remodelling was a part of the direct award, it has not happened yet.

[John Penrose (Weston-super-Mare) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman decries the lack of competition from direct awards, so have he and his party considered the report of 18 months ago from the Competition and Markets Authority calling for more on-track competition within franchises as an alternative to the increasing allocation of monopolies through franchising?

[Alan Brown]

I am not against competition per se. There is certainly lots of information about models that are deemed to work better than others. One aspect of competition is that the public sector should be allowed to make its own bids for operating franchises. A bit of competition might help to drive innovation, but in no way should the public sector be barred from the process.

We then have the Virgin Trains East Coast shambles on the east coast line. The Transport Secretary stood at the Dispatch Box again to say that there was no bail- out. When he responded to me during proceedings on the statement, he claimed that the parent company guarantees would protect the taxpayer, but we now have confirmation that franchise fees were backloaded, meaning that Virgin was able to walk away without paying the £2 billion premium track fees it was supposed to pay. That was confirmed at the Dispatch Box. He said, “It’s okay, we’re going to get the £165 million parent company guarantee,” but that is considerably less than the £2 billion premium fees the taxpayer would otherwise have received, so the argument is nonsense. To say that the franchise might have failed is no excuse. It is testament, again, to the failed model currently being operated by this UK Government. The very fact that Stagecoach’s shares went up after we heard news of the new model proposed by the Transport Secretary tells us who is walking away with the best deal from the new arrangements.

The east coast main line gives us proof that public ownership can work. When the previous franchise failed, it was successfully run as a public operation that paid over £1 billion in track rental fees to the taxpayer and returned a nominal profit of £42 million from the overall operation. The large private companies would not suffer a £42 million profit, because they would think it too little, but it would be welcome for the public sector and could drive further investment. Another failing of the franchise model is that it only allows big companies to operate, and they chase massive profits, at the behest of their shareholders.

The public-private alliance model proposed by the Transport Secretary might in theory be an improvement but, again, it is bonkers not to revert to the working model under the public franchise. The new model will still contain risk in terms of multi-layer operations and interactions, and even the timetabling to get it in place, as was outlined by the hon. Member for Middlesbrough.

Strategic Road Network: South West

John Penrose Excerpts

Wednesday 19th July 2017 Westminster Hall

[Jesse Norman]

I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising that question. The answer is that we have a number of funds available and we look forward very much to the submission of bids, which will be given the full scrutiny that they deserve and merit.

Let me turn to the questions raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgwater and West Somerset. He started by referring to the A39, which I will touch on for a second. He will be aware that that is a local road, but as he also knows, the Government recently announced that from 2020, under the new roads fund that we have set up, which is entirely funded by vehicle excise duty—that is a tremendous innovation, or rather a move back to the future for our road network—we will segregate what we consider to be a major road network investment programme. I think that the A39 will be eligible to be funded under that programme. Once the consultation has been done and work is under way to programme that investment, my hon. Friend and local authorities will be absolutely welcome—indeed, they will be invited—to submit bids. I am aware of his strong feelings, rose-tinted spectacles or no, and those of my hon. Friend the Member for Wells (James Heappey) about the importance of dualling that road in both directions.

Overall, the Government are investing heavily in the road network in the south-west and have committed some £2 billion to major schemes through the road investment strategy. Later this year, we will announce the preferred route for the A303 Stonehenge tunnel, which is a very significant project in its own right, and for the A358 Taunton to Southfields and A303 Sparkford to Ilchester schemes. I understand that my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgwater and West Somerset has particular concerns—concerns that he expressed with considerable pungency—about the route that the A358 should take into Taunton.

[John Penrose (Weston-super-Mare) (Con)]

Will the Minister reassure us all that, regardless of which of those routes and attendant end points for the A303 are eventually chosen, utmost priority will be given to completing that work as fast as possible? My hon. Friend the Member for Wells (James Heappey) cannot contribute to this debate—he is the Minister’s Parliamentary Private Secretary—but I know that he and my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster) feel strongly that taking the pressure of long-distance traffic off the M5-M4 triangle and allowing it to make progress down the A303 corridor is absolutely essential for everyone who lives on the M5, as well as for the long-distance traffic that uses it to get through Somerset.

[Jesse Norman]

I very much take my hon. Friend’s point. Of course, the point of the tunnel is not merely to safeguard the extraordinary and historic global asset we have at Stonehenge; it is also part of a much bigger programme of trying to improve the A303 for trunk purposes, in a way that is designed precisely to lift some of the pressure off other arterial routes. I take his point very well.

I should say that I do not recognise the description that has been given of Highways England. From my limited experience as a Minister, I know that it is not a perfect institution, but it has made significant progress since becoming Highways England. It is undoubtedly focused on the task of the effective delivery of schemes in order to get the best outcome for local people, which my hon. Friend mentioned.

[John Penrose]

May I reassure the Minister that there are those of us who do rather enjoy working with Highways England? It is certainly being helpful on the question of junction 21 of the M5 and junction 21A in my constituency. I can vouch for his point of view.

[Jesse Norman]

I am glad of that intervention, and if I may, I will proceed with my remarks.

To return to the A358, of course my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgwater and West Somerset made some quite colourful remarks about that. I am sure he will understand if I do not take a position on the issue, but he has made his concerns, and the public concerns of others, very well, and they sit in the record for further excavation and inquiry.

As my hon. Friend will know, Highways England recently held a public consultation on the routes that the A358 should take, and it will work closely with local partners to advise the Secretary of State and myself on the preferred route. Those schemes are just the first part of the £2 billion plan I mentioned to create a new dual carriageway route from the south-west to London.

If I may range slightly further outside the specific issue of the A358 and the A303, improvements to the A30 in Cornwall—both a planned improvement and one nearing completion—will extend dual carriageway standard road as far as Camborne. The Temple to Higher Carblake section opened last week and Highways England announced the preferred route for the Chiverton to Carland Cross scheme earlier this month.

Highways England is also creating a new junction on the M49 to support development at Avonmouth. The port of Avonmouth and the Avonmouth Severnside Enterprise Area to the west of Bristol currently have no direct access to the M49, which is hindering proposals to support economic growth in the area. A new junction on the M49 will improve access to those areas, ease congestion and contribute to the economic growth of the region.

Draft Road Traffic Offenders Act 1998 (Penalty Points) (Amendment) Order 2016

John Penrose Excerpts

Tuesday 6th December 2016 General Committees

[Andrew Jones]

No, such use would not be included in the provisions. Sat-navs can be an aid to driving, as can other things on screen, which would be reasonable to use. We are increasing the use of sat-navs in driving tests so that people become more familiar with them and their use without compromising the safety of the driving, so they are not involved in these provisions at all.

[John Penrose (Weston-super-Mare) (Con)]

The Minister is being very generous in the dying moments of his remarks. Further to the question from my right hon. Friend the Member for Brentwood and Ongar, will the Minister clarify whether someone using a mobile phone with a hands-free device would be caught in general by the measures that he is introducing today? For example, if they are stationary at a traffic light and they elected to dial somebody not on hands free but using the screen of their mobile phone and then moved off while speaking on a hands-free device, would that be caught by the measures he is proposing?

[Andrew Jones]

In our legal system, the bottom line is that it is not illegal to use hands-free or Bluetooth kits; however, such equipment may also distract people. Good practice would be to pull off the road and make sure that one is entirely secure before using a mobile phone, using an app or sending a text or whatever. It is safer not to use any mobile phone while driving or riding.

Great Western Line: Electrification

John Penrose Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd November 2016 Westminster Hall

[Charlotte Leslie]

The hon. Lady also anticipates something that I will raise in my speech. Whichever Government want to make dramatic railway infrastructure improvements, they face challenges. Whether a Labour Minister or a Conservative Minister was sitting in the Minister’s chair here, I suspect that the challenges involved in delivering what they want to do could be very similar. I will come back to that point in my speech.

I am afraid that all south-west MPs might agree that, when we see the bills for HS2 soaring to £42 billon, the deferral of our meagre-by-comparison £5 billion project is particularly hard to swallow, especially since the south-west has consistently been among the bottom regions in the league tables for regional spend per capita.

The south-west is a region that boasts exciting opportunities, that is incredibly fast-growing, and that desperately needs the kind of focus on rail investment that we have seen with HS2 and Crossrail. So, forgive me, Minister, if I say for the south-west that, when it comes to seeing actual infrastructure—not promised but built—many people in the region feel that it is now our turn.

Nevertheless, returning to the point that my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire (Mr Gray), raised, there have been improvements and the Government are making efforts. I must also be fair about the context of this debate. I recognise that, this deferral notwithstanding, the region will still receive, which it might not have received otherwise, 5,000 extra seats on journeys into London at peak time. Most of us have made that journey, so we know that those seats will be welcome. We have been promised new trains, which will deliver faster journeys. We are told that there will be station improvements down the line. However, I hope that the Minister will forgive me for being honest and saying that, given the recent announcement of the deferral, we will believe these things when we see them. I would also appreciate a bit more clarity in the Minister’s response about the exact tangible benefits we will get in return for what has been a hard blow in the form of the announcement of deferral.

As I said, the improvements are welcome, and I do not want to be ungracious by denying that. However, major concerns remain about what the decision says about how we do big infrastructure projects and I will be asking the Minister specific questions. If he is not able to answer them today, I would deeply appreciate a detailed written response.

[John Penrose (Weston-super-Mare) (Con)]

I want to pick up on my hon. Friend’s earlier point about the south-west not always being at the front of the queue for such things. Bristol is, I think, the fastest-growing core city outside London, and therefore has a huge economic benefit to bring to the country. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is strange, therefore, that other areas have been given preference on the list for electrification? The deferral also includes the deferral of some of the Thames valley commuter lines and some of the lines to Oxford. Would it not now be sensible to re-examine the business case for the electrification of some of the lines radiating out from Bristol, on the basis that the economic case for Bristol’s economic zone must make it more attractive? That would go some way towards addressing the relatively low priority that Bristol and the south-west have previously been afforded.

[Charlotte Leslie]

If Hansard could kindly ascribe my hon. Friend’s comments to me I would be very grateful, because that is exactly the point I want to make. Yes, it does seem strange. It plays to a historical view that the south-west is always overlooked. I do not understand why we seem to have been axed when other places still seem to be a political priority. On the economic arguments, that does not make sense.

--- Later in debate ---

[Paul Maynard]

I have just said that we will be making announcements about what—[Interruption.] Is the hon. Lady going to listen to my reply or just mutter at me? I am happy to respond to her point if she wants to listen. We will take decisions about what control period 6 comprises and announce the whole of that control period at the appropriate time. As a member of the Public Accounts Committee, she will be more than aware that Sir Peter Hendy has already reprogrammed other projects across the country. As Rail Minister, I am not prepared to part-announce elements of control period 6 depending on what debate I happen to be in at any moment in time. That would not be a prudent way to go forward—nor, were I in her position on that Committee, would I think it a particularly prudent position for any Minister facing her queries to take.

[John Penrose]

Will the Minister give way?

[Paul Maynard]

I will happily give way, and then I will need to make a little progress.

[John Penrose]

Can the Minister reassure us that as a result of the deferral that he has just described, the cost-benefit ratio of the elements of the programme that have been paused will not be substantially changed? Can he also provide us with information about how those cost-benefit ratios compare with both the decision not to go ahead at all with the electrification of the suburban Bristol railway lines and things that are going ahead, such as High Speed 2?

[Paul Maynard]

There will always be ongoing recalculations of the cost-benefit ratios of any wider projects, as well as the elements within them. I do not see this as a matter of HS2 or the great western main line. There are investment backlogs that we have to catch up on in all parts of the country, and each investment has to respond to a specific rail need in that region. Here, we are trying to respond to a specific rail need by ensuring that all the passenger benefits that can be accrued by electrification can be delivered as soon as possible for the use of the new bi-mode intercity express programme trains.

[John Penrose]

rose—

[Paul Maynard]

If the hon. Gentleman wants to intervene, it will have to be the final occasion.

[John Penrose]

That is very reassuring. I would be very happy if the Minister would provide the specific numbers that I asked for, perhaps in a letter.

[Paul Maynard]

I will happily write to the hon. Gentleman with that information at a later point. That is more than fine.

Hon. Members have noted the extra seats and the 15-minute journey time saving from London Paddington to Bristol Temple Meads via Bristol Parkway that the new trains will provide, and I hope that they will also note that those trains should stimulate economic growth across the region as a whole. Bristol is one of the few cities that is a net contributor to the UK Treasury, and that has to be recognised. We need to do more to work with Bristol to ensure that all those in the commuter belt around Bristol are properly able to access the city. That entirely makes sense. But we need to go back to the fundamental point that modernising this line has been an ambitious and challenging undertaking, and it has not been straightforward. Even closing the Severn tunnel for six weeks this autumn has caused immense disruption to journeys and people’s lives, but it has been worth while, because had we not closed it for those six weeks, there would have been five years of weekend work and disruption.

As a result of that challenge and the complexity of the work, with ageing assets, heritage sites and a very busy line that Network Rail has to work around, difficulties have occurred. As was mentioned, the National Audit Office report was highly critical of what had occurred. However, what is often not pointed out in these debates is the recognition the NAO has given to the changes that the Department has made since 2015. In particular, we now have a programme board for each route upgrade across the country, chaired by a senior responsible owner from the DFT, to provide effective oversight of delivery.

We are working closely with Network Rail, train operators and other partners to ensure that major construction works and the introduction of new train services occur in a pragmatic, sequenced and timely manner and that all elements of those complex processes interact sensibly with each other. There is no point in delivering a piece of rolling stock that cannot operate on a particular track because the infrastructure work has not been done. That requires work to be sequenced. Much of the criticism in the NAO’s report was of the failure to sequence early on in the process and understand the true scope of the project.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bristol North West was concerned that the decision represents a waste of money. I would say that it does not at all. The preparatory work will enable future decisions to be taken, which is also a point that she made. If one takes some of the work around Bristol East junction, for example, the savings made through the deferrals are specifically targeted at bringing forward the work to enable the capacity improvements that will allow full advantage to be taken of the new bi-modes. If that did not occur, there would be less benefit from having the bi-modes because there would not be the capacity at Bristol East junction. That underlines the point about sequencing work and, in a project of this complexity, the overall need to have a degree of flexibility in the system so that, as technology moves on, options change and new pieces of locomotive and rolling stock come on stream, we have the capacity in our projects to make those pragmatic decisions and seek to deliver the benefits to passengers as soon as is possible.

As I mentioned earlier, this decision underscores a wider approach to rail investment across the country as a whole. Passenger outcomes must be delivered while achieving the best value for every pound spent. On that point, the Government have been clear about the rationale for electrification. We are not against using electrification as part of a wider strategy for delivering improved services. Electrification does bring benefits. It enables, for instance, the use of electric trains, which over time reduce the cost of running the railway as well as bringing environmental benefits—but we have to make improvements in the way that makes most sense and gives most value to the taxpayer. Therefore, in some cases, where a train can run on both electric and diesel power, it is right to look at how that can be factored into any decision about how we sequence the different elements of any electrification process.

In the end, electrification is not an objective. It is a means to an end. It is an input. It is about putting wires up. It is about traction and power. It is an engineering solution to a defined problem. Yes, it is an enabler of new trains, but that new capacity is needed by passengers as soon as possible. Therefore, if we have access to these new trains, I think it right that we go down that path.