Train Operating Companies: Yorkshire

Kevin Hollinrake Excerpts

Wednesday 19th December 2018 Westminster Hall

[Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

Thank you, Dame Cheryl; it is a pleasure to be called in the debate and to serve under your chairmanship. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Dewsbury (Paula Sherriff) for securing this important debate. I have an awful lot of time for her, and a great deal of time for Dewsbury, having stood there as a candidate one year—not against my hon. Friend, who I am sure would have wiped the floor with me. I endorse many of her comments completely, particularly those regarding the impact on her constituents.

I was lucky enough to be chosen to lead a debate in September on exactly the same issues. I have to say that since that debate things have got worse, not better. I spoke about some of the commuting difficulties for my constituents, regarding not just the service itself, but the lack of communication around the services. Scheduled services running from York to Scarborough were stopping at Malton and unloading all passengers at that station, which has no toilets and no café. People did not know that they would be unloaded at Malton; they expected to go through to Scarborough.

It was completely disgraceful. The least people might have expected was for TransPennine to have told them at York that they would be unloaded at Malton. They could therefore have stayed at York until the arrival of a through train to Scarborough. It is simply unacceptable that, this summer, 56 trains were stopped at Malton in those circumstances; in the summer of 2017, only six trains were. That represents how bad the service has been.

TransPennine has made lots of promises about improvements. It has said that changing the driver rotas should improve things, and that some of the improvements in the north-west should have resulted in improvements to the service. However, that improvement in the service has simply not happened. In fact, November was the worst month this year for punctuality on the service through to the east coast—only 65% of trains arrived on time, and 20% of trains were defined as late, which is again the worst performance of the year. It is simply not acceptable for TransPennine to say, “We’ve had these problems and things are getting better.” They are not getting better. The least we might have expected is for the communication to be getting better, and it does not seem to be.

I concur with my hon. Friend’s comments on increases in rail fares. Generally, it is right that fares increase, as long as some of the investment goes into our railways—it is clearly good that we are seeing the levels of investment that we are in our railways. However, where there is such terrible performance, it does not seem right that the people responsible for that performance also increase fares. I wonder what the Minister can say about that. Are there any sanctions available to him that he could impose on TransPennine to emphasise that it should not put fares up until the service has improved, as an incentive to improve the service? The political pressure is just not getting through. We are all talking about this, but the service is not improving.

I wrote to the regulator, the Office of Rail and Road, to ask for the inclusion of TransPennine in the inquiry into Northern and Govia Thameslink. I felt that the inquiry related to communications, and I do not know why it did not include TransPennine. At this point in time, when things have not improved and the service is clearly below par, it seems perfectly reasonable that the regulator should look into that in a more detailed way. Could the Minister apply pressure on the regulator to include TransPennine in the inquiry?

There is some good news; there is no question about that. Despite some of the comments about investment, we are seeing higher levels of investment. Part of the problem has been the investment in the north-west. The delays in the engineering works for that have had the knock-on effect of causing delays on the trains. We are looking forward to the doubling of the frequency of journeys from York through to Scarborough by the end of next year, which will be welcomed by many of my constituents, with longer trains, better trains and new trains. That is all very good, but I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Dewsbury that we need a more strategic approach to investment right across the north.

My hon. Friend signed the letter that I sent to the Chancellor; in fact, 82 parliamentarians, including many who are here today, did so. It asked for a doubling of investment right across the north over the next 30 years. We are waiting for the Transport for the North report, and when we get that, the 82 parliamentarians who signed that letter need to work together collectively to lobby for a step change in investment over a long period of time. I think the figure of £100 billion is what we had in the letter. Some of that funding was for Northern Powerhouse Rail, which we all want to see—to bring forward that scheme so that it arrives at the same time as High Speed 2. I prefer to call that scheme Crossrail for the north, because that might move us up the pecking order.

On the comparison with investment in London, London is a great place, and I love being down here, but the level of investment is phenomenal. That leads to prosperity, because higher productivity leads to higher prosperity, and people in London are 50% more productive than people in the regions—not just the north, but right across the country. That is why average wages in London are 50% higher than in the rest of the country, and certainly than in the north. One thing leads to another. Investment leads to productivity, which is good for the UK economy and great for our constituents, because they become more prosperous as a result. We need a longer-term approach. It is a wonderful vision that we might see Crossrail for the north, or Northern Powerhouse Rail, connecting Liverpool to Manchester to Bradford to Leeds to York to Hull to Scarborough. It will transform opportunities right across the north, and that is exactly what we want.

[Mr Sheerman]

The hon. Gentleman and I are joint chairs of the all-party parliamentary group for Yorkshire and Northern Lincolnshire. Will he agree that many of us still believe that calling a halt to HS2 and investing that money in the sorts of trains our constituents travel on every day is better than this vanity project, which is going to cost £100 billion?

[Kevin Hollinrake]

That is a very interesting point. I am sure, Dame Cheryl, that you have your own view on it, which you might wish to express. At the very least, I would like to see Northern Powerhouse Rail, High Speed 3 or Crossrail for the north—whatever we want to call out—delivered at the same time. That is far more important than the north-south journeys.

The critical thing for me is to connect the cities, which gives opportunities to rural areas as well, and the key issue is devolution. The money and the powers should be devolved up to the north, so we do not have to come to Whitehall to ask for the money or to discuss where it should be spent—we should get the money in a long-term settlement. Devolution is key. It is great to see one of the current Mayors here, the hon. Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis), who is trying to work through the Sheffield devolution deal, which is very welcome. I think that devolution to the cities across Yorkshire—rather than to the wider county—is far more workable, and I am sure the hon. Gentleman will make a great job of the devolution deal he has on his table.

I am absolutely determined, as many here today are, to make sure we get a step change in investment, and to solve the shorter-term problems that the hon. Member for Dewsbury pointed to in her very compelling speech.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

Thank you, Dame Cheryl; it is a pleasure to see you in the Chair—you have heard the sheer anger of our constituents about the state of our railways. Today’s debate could have been called, “Why we desperately need an alternative Government to run our railways.” We have a detailed worked-up plan that will address the real challenges that commuters face on a day-by-day basis.

My hon. Friends the Members for Batley and Spen (Tracy Brabin) and for Barnsley East (Stephanie Peacock) highlighted that this is not just about personal stories, but about lives having to change because of a failure of timetables and the governance of our railways. We know the particular difficulties that people have had because of the halting of the electrification programme, which has had a catastrophic impact. The timetable fiasco resulted from that—

[Kevin Hollinrake]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Rachael Maskell]

I will just begin my speech, if I may.

There are excessive fare hikes, poor infrastructure, franchise changes and no certainty for the future. The Williams review critiques how dreadful the whole infrastructure is and how it is imploding around our constituents, who want only to turn up at work in time and to live out their lives. This is a disgrace.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kevin Hollinrake]

Rather than calling for a change in Government, would our constituents not prefer us to work on a cross-party, constructive basis to try to solve the problems? Much of the debate has been very constructive. Would that not be a better way forward?

[Rachael Maskell]

The reality is that the Government are not interested in the detailed solutions that we have been working towards for eight years to put the railway system back together, working across the industry with all stakeholders. That is why we need to move forward. If the Government want to join us in that, we would welcome that conversation, but to date they have blocked us. There is a real difference in policy. I note what the hon. Gentleman says, but also what my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford South (Judith Cummins) says. We need to look at the penalties that should be placed on these rail companies, such as freezing fares where there has been rail failure. It is wrong that people pay more for more failure on the railways.

The reality is that the Government have failed. Their ideology that is driving this forward is falling apart. Under the new model of publicly owned railways that we will put in place, we will see long-term security, long-term planning, long-term investment and stability for the whole rail sector.

We know about the inequality. We have heard the statistic about how London and the south-east have had so much more investment than we have in Yorkshire. There are consequences when we do not see the resources there. As my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) said, let us think about the vitality of connecting Sheffield to Leeds and Manchester—connecting the major cities of the north. In fact, the connectivity between Leeds and Manchester is the same length as the Piccadilly line. Think about the frequency and the reliability of the Piccadilly line compared with what we see at the moment.

We have heard tales of woe from across the trans-Pennine route. We have had a downgrade of the downgrade that was already planned—that came out of the board meeting a week or so ago. That downgrade will have serious consequences, because the Government have removed vital reliability from the service. Not only have we lost freight elements, as my hon. Friends have mentioned, and journey time savings—my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson) highlighted how journey times will extend with more stops on the line—but we have lost the reliability factor. That means that the only marker that will have an upgrade is capacity, because there are larger trains. Even then, we will not reach the potential on that line.

Dirty diesel is being put on the route as opposed to full electrification—the only thing that will deliver the reliability that is required. We have heard that this is all part of a stepped process: in control period 6 we will see some of the upgrade, and it will be completed in CP7. Will the Minister tell us what certainty there is that in more than 10 years’ time—we must remember that timeline, because we need connectivity today—CP7 will bring about that full upgrade of the trans-Pennine route? That is the crucial route for the north and we need the upgrade now.

My hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North highlighted the appalling state of stations. We must remember that stations are places of service—they are where people wait and they need facilities. Public toilets are a basic public health necessity and they must be there to meet passenger needs. We need to make sure they are put in place. We also need to make sure that our stations are accessible. We have heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Batley and Spen about the situation in Kirklees, where only eight of 16 stations are accessible. We have heard about Marsden station from my hon. Friend the Member for Colne Valley (Thelma Walker), and about Mirfield station. I was with Leonard Cheshire just last week at York station—even there, there was only one information point in the whole station. If a passenger is in need, where do they go? It is unacceptable.

We heard about the Equality Act 2010, but we must remember that it has been 23 years since the passing of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995, which called on stations to make reasonable adjustments. Quite clearly, that is shameful. We are nearly a quarter of a century on and we still deny disabled people the right to access railways. It is not just physical adaptations that are needed; we need to change the environments to accommodate neuro diversity. I suggest that the Minister talks to the TSSA, which is a leader in this field, about how we can accommodate autism and other such things, and make sure that our stations are supportive of people with sensory impairments.

Let me give the Minister a gentle reminder: guards are on trains not just to close doors, which is vital for passenger safety, but as the passenger champion to make sure passengers are safe—whether disabled or non-disabled—throughout their whole journey. It is vital that the Government get to grips with this agenda and ensure that passengers are looked after, as it is a public service, and that guards are back on our trains. It is an easy dispute to resolve, yet the Government seem so entrenched in their ideology that they do not want to move forward on this issue.

Our new model of public ownership will have the passenger at its heart. We will make sure that we take decisions in an integrated way, closer to where the passengers are, that power and resource are in the right place, and that we plan for the long term. We have a 30-year lifetime of infrastructure and rolling stock to make proper investments, to make sure there is a smoothing of skills, and to ensure good employability across the industry. Whether with operations, maintenance or enhancements, we will make sure that we timetable in such a way as to sustain our railway, so it does not fail passengers.

We want real investment in new technologies. It is heartbreaking that we go back to old technologies on our railway systems, because we see such advances taking place elsewhere in Europe and in the world. Yet in the UK, we are still stuck on Victorian railways. We have to move that agenda forward, because that will deliver the reliability that our passengers need and demand from this Government.

We have great opportunities ahead of us; we have heard Northern Powerhouse Rail mentioned. That will get the vital connectivity into Bradford if we have anything to do with it. We will make sure that the north is properly connected and has that modal shift where people move from road to rail—not just passengers, but freight. We have a real crisis with our environmental and carbon footprint. We have to see a modal shift. That will bring about the connectivity that hon. Friends talked about with bus services, making sure the whole system works together. We have the National College for High Speed Rail in Doncaster. I urge employers to make the best use of that academy as we move forward.

Finally, I want to talk about the franchising system. There is recognition that the whole system is broken. The train operating companies are self-serving; they have not provided the essential public service that, perhaps, was envisaged in the beginning; and they are certainly now orientated on profit. Rather than go through the franchising process, the Government have created 12 direct awards, and we clearly need to move on. We need real integration and Labour’s policies will be a catalyst to providing that essential connectivity for the sake of our economy and our environment, and to ensuring that people’s lives are restored and put back in order.