West Coast Rail Franchise

Debate between John Stevenson and Drew Hendry

Tuesday 14th June 2016 Westminster Hall

[Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)]

I always try to co-operate with the Chair and make sure to keep to the point, Mr Brady.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Carlisle (John Stevenson) on securing this important debate. It is always good to start these debates with points of agreement, and he made a number of good points. He said that this was a vital development for the west coast; I absolutely agree. He discussed the need to improve seating, toilets, luggage space and value for money for consumers and users, as well as parking and other facilities that people need to use the train network effectively. He rather skimmed over the franchise bid process—he went past it in his own version of the Euston sprint—but he can rest assured that I will cover that in a little more detail; not too much, but a wee bit. He mentioned what he described as the small things, although actually they are big things, as I think he knows; as he said, they are important to people. Unless we get the big things right—the developments at Euston station, which he referred to, and the franchise—those other things will be much more difficult to tackle.

The hon. Member for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham) rightly discussed the need for a better passenger experience, the effect on Coventry and Birmingham and the need to ensure that the Government are taking into account the connections required. That must happen all along the line from Euston to Glasgow and Edinburgh.

The hon. Member for Rugby (Mark Pawsey) rightly pointed out that the franchise must be handled right, and I will come to that point. He also discussed the need for new trains. As we have seen, the SNP Scottish Government’s franchise deal includes new trains and new stations across Scotland as part of the arrangement. There are lessons to be learned there.

My hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown) also mentioned the franchise. He talked about the knock-on effects, which are very important, and he made the great point about the cost to the public being equivalent to the cost of putting in place the wi-fi that is currently missing from passengers’ journey experience. He spoke about the ability to put into practice innovations, such as audio-visual accessibility, that make a huge difference to the travelling public who may need assistance. I underline his call for the Minister to update us on the commitments made during the direct award; I hope that we will hear from her on that. It would be remiss of me not to underline the great work done by Wabtec in his constituency on refurbishing rolling stock.

The west coast line is important to Scotland. Five Scottish stations are affected—Lockerbie, Carstairs, Motherwell, Glasgow and Edinburgh—so it is important that the Scottish Government have a say in the franchise process. I was pleased to see the Minister nodding when that came up earlier—I hope we will get a commitment from her on that. Passengers must have a safe, fast, frequent, reliable and punctual service that connects Scotland to London and the intermediate locations that have been mentioned, with on-board facilities and fares that attract passengers to the rail network and retain them.

Indeed, the UK Government can take lessons from the SNP Scottish Government on how to conduct a franchise process while offering passengers a fair deal on ticket prices and fares. After the shambles of the 2012 franchise bidding process, the UK Government must ensure that the next franchise process has the public’s confidence and that it will be able to deliver value for money for passengers. The cancelled franchise process for the west coast main line brought the whole franchise bidding process into disrepute, leaving the public with no confidence in the Government to conduct major rail franchise bids. In fact, the Public Accounts Committee said in 2013 that

“the Department did not apply basic processes properly.”

Crucially, the Committee also said:

“This is not the first time we have come across this situation.”

The Laidlaw inquiry found that there was a damning failure and that the public were left with a lack of confidence. That cannot be allowed to happen with this franchise.

The west coast main line serves five stations in Scotland, as I have said, and is one of the main routes that links passengers in Scotland with Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham and London. At the time of the cancelled process, as my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun mentioned earlier, the Scottish Government were going through their own franchise process for ScotRail, which had to be put on hold with absolutely no notice to Ministers in the Scottish Government. Keith Brown, the Scottish Cabinet Secretary, said:

“We had no advance notice of this decision being made. Obviously it does have implications for the line itself…what I would like to do is be involved in that discussion with the UK government to say what is best for rail users in Scotland.”

That is a fair request.

[John Stevenson]

The hon. Gentleman makes a fair request to the UK Government; may I make a fair request to the Scottish Government? Carlisle station is a station for the Scots as much as for the English. If the opportunity arises for investment in the station from the Scottish Government, will he support that?

[Drew Hendry]

Absolutely. I hope the Minister will act on the hon. Gentleman’s promotion of Carlisle by committing to look into connecting the new Borders railway with Carlisle. Perhaps that is something we could investigate as well. It would benefit many more people.

As I said, at the time of the franchise process, there was no communication with the Scottish Government. On the basis of the Minister’s comments, I am hopeful that that will change in future years.

As for the passenger experience, people in the 21st century have a right to enjoy a train journey. There ought to be a focus on working with others to deliver improvements to stations and to the passenger experience. The points that the hon. Member for Carlisle made when he spoke about improving the passenger experience are all vital to ensuring that overcrowding is reduced, that ticketing is sorted out properly and that integrated journeys are increasingly facilitated across all the stations in England and across the border into Scotland as well.

The UK Government should ensure that the new franchisee makes fares affordable across the piece. The Scottish Government have already taken action to ensure that fares are affordable across the Scottish rail network, by ensuring that their new franchisee will continue to limit regulated peak fare increases to the level of the retail prices index. Regulated off-peak fares will also be limited to increases of 1% below RPI for the lifetime of a 10-year franchise. The Scottish Government are making the best of the system that the UK Government continue to persist with. The Conservative UK Government introduced railway franchising in the 1990s, and the legislation precludes any public sector organisation from bidding to operate a railway service. No such barrier applies to state-backed organisations from Europe or elsewhere. That is patently unfair, so I hope we can look at how we can adjust that.

The SNP tabled a new clause in the Scotland Bill that would have devolved rail services in Scotland, giving Scottish Ministers full powers and flexibility to decide who would run such services. However, like every other SNP amendment to the Scotland Bill, it was voted down by MPs. The new clause also sought to ensure that the provisions of the Railways Act 1993 allowed direct awards to be made, to the full extent possible under European law, for the operation of rail passenger services such as the ScotRail Caledonian sleeper.

As a result of the franchise deal in Scotland, passengers and staff will enjoy an enhanced range of benefits, with advance fares between Scottish cities starting at £5, a commitment to pay at least the real living wage—the one applied in Scotland—to all staff and subcontractors, at least 100 apprenticeships and a guarantee of no compulsory redundancies.