Avanti West Coast Contract Renewal

Debate between Kevin Foster and Tim Farron

Tuesday 25th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Foster]

The assurances that Avanti is giving are that its plans for December will restore the majority of direct services into north Wales. DFT officials are engaging daily with Avanti, as I have touched on, because we do not just want to accept an assurance that the service will be better. Clearly, we want to have verified plans for it to be better. We are seeing additional train drivers coming in and we are reassuring ourselves that Avanti’s plans for December do not include the use of driver rest-day working, because the withdrawal of that prompted the major issues in its timetable. Clearly, we would not want Avanti’s improvement plan to be based on that factor. That is where we are at the moment. We are assured that it has the plan to restore the majority of services in December, but clearly we are engaging with Avanti daily and will see what happens in December, and that will then prompt what we do on the long-term franchise.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

Avanti is currently able to run approximately 40% of the services out of Euston that its predecessor used to run, with a massive impact on my communities and all those people from London, the biggest destination in the country, who visit the lakes, the second biggest. Staff shortages are clearly the problem, along with a lack of good will in the staff body. There are wonderful people working for Avanti, but there are not enough of them and they are poorly managed. Will the Minister reflect on the fact that one reason why there is such low morale and low commitment to good will and working overtime is the Government-sanctioned programme of ticket office closures, not just on the mainline at Penrith and Oxenholme but in places such as Appleby, Windermere and Grange. Will he push Avanti to make sure that we keep those ticket offices open, and therefore perhaps do something about staff morale and train reliability?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Kevin Foster and Tim Farron

Thursday 13th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Foster]

I am always delighted to meet colleagues who share my passion for investing in our rail network and who recognise that our stations are not just a handy place to board a train, but are sometimes the heart of a local community. We are investing in our stations: for example, we recently delivered a new mobility hub at Norwich station in the east of England. I am very happy to meet my hon. Friend.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

Staveley station in my constituency, on the Lakes line from Oxenholme to Windermere, has 41 steps to get up to it. It is 100% inaccessible to anybody with a mobility problem. That is an outrage. We have bid into several pots over the years, but because it is not a main line station, it never qualifies for any funding. Will the Minister meet me and local rail campaigners to make sure that Staveley station is accessible for everyone?

[Kevin Foster]

As the hon. Member will know, we are making great progress on accessibility through our Access for All programme across our stations. We are also completing an accessibility audit of all the stations on our network. I am happy to meet him to talk about his station and I look forward to announcing, in the next year, the latest round of stations that will benefit from Access for All improvements.

Ukraine: Urgent Refugee Applications

Debate between Kevin Foster and Tim Farron

Tuesday 8th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Foster]

Those kind offers will certainly not be wasted. We are moving at pace to set up our system and to increase the numbers while doing the basic security checks to keep our people safe.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

This may be down to Home Office incompetence, or this may be being done for political reasons, and, if it is, may I tell the Minister that he has misread the country? Like other people in this place, I have been overwhelmed by constituents offering their homes and the spaces that they have to refugees from Ukraine. The local charity, New Beginnings, which has been operating in Ukraine for many years, is desperate to sponsor people with no family links coming to the UK from Ukraine. When will that New Beginnings charity be able to sponsor Ukrainians to come here? It needs to know that this week.

[Kevin Foster]

I do not want to get into political point-scoring on this particular issue. It is neither seemly nor appropriate to do so. In terms of the routes, as we say, we place our first priority on families and relatives, because we appreciate that the vast majority of relatives will be able to stay with family. We are working at pace to set up the humanitarian sponsorship visa, but, obviously, our colleagues in the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities will be leading on operationalising the actual sponsorship element of that to ensure that we can give the warm-hearted welcome that many want to see.