High Speed Rail (London - West Midlands) Bill (Fifth sitting)

Debate between Jonathan Reynolds and Simon Burns

Tuesday 8th March 2016 Public Bill Committees

[Jonathan Reynolds (Stalybridge and Hyde) (Lab/Co-op)]

This will become a Second Reading debate on public ownership if we are not careful.

There is a great deal of heat in the debate, and not much light. I have no time for those who pretend that British Rail was somehow a high-performing publicly owned service. Clearly, there were huge problems, with political interference in the investment periods and all of that leading to the creation of short-term problems. One thing that I struggle with a great deal, however, when comparing rail with other privatised industries is that, as the right hon. Gentleman just said, investment in the railways still comes from the taxpayer and not the private sector, so the risk is not in the private sector, but in the public sector. We, as the people who use the railways and pay our taxes, are the ones who put in the investment. It is Government money, not private money, that will be invested in the control period, is it not?

[Sir Simon Burns]

The hon. Gentleman is partly right; some of the money is taxpayers’ money, but a significant proportion of what funds the £38 billion over the next five years will be paid by the rail operators to rent the track. There is also the ability for private money to be borrowed for investment, so no, it is not exclusively—

[Jonathan Reynolds]

indicated dissent.

[Sir Simon Burns]

The hon. Gentleman nods his head in a negative way, but he is wrong. The investment of £38 billion in CP5 is not 100% taxpayers’ money. As I said, part of it is rent accrued from the rail operators, which pay to use the track.

Since privatisation, there has been a will and determination to invest, as well as the actual delivery of investment, to bring our railways up to scratch. The process is time-consuming, sadly, because of the problems arising from the earlier lack of investment. The other sad thing for rail users is that a lot of the investment that is badly needed to improve journey times and the reliability of the service is not seen immediately by them. New rolling stock is immediately seen by commuters and travellers, obviously, and they benefit from it, but when we improve and upgrade the track or the overhead cables on that part of the railway that is being electrified, users do not see the outcome of the investment in the same way. However, such investment is still critical to improving the performance of our railways. I am confident that that will continue.

The hon. Member for Middlesbrough mentioned the east coast main line. I would be the first to accept that it was a well-run part of the network, but it was run under Directly Operated Railways because the last Labour Government rightly withdrew the franchise from the franchisee because there was dissatisfaction with the way it was operating the line. DOR is an emergency mechanism that was introduced in the legislation on privatising the railways because there is a legal requirement for the railways to provide a service all the time. To avoid a hiatus if there is a problem with the franchise, DOR will, for a fixed period of time only, step in to ensure continuity of service.

The hon. Gentleman kept talking about a state-run service. I suppose that DOR could, by definition, be called state-run, but it was not meant to run the line for ever. Even the Labour Transport Secretary who took the action made it plain at the time that there was not going to be a never-ending provision of service by DOR.