Avanti West Coast Contract Renewal

Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts

Tuesday 25th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Foster]

I have met FirstGroup to discuss the overall position of its franchise. It should be remembered that FirstGroup is also involved in running the Great Western Railway franchise, which runs fairly successfully in the south-west and Wales. Other parts of its operation are going relatively well, are well managed, are delivering good outcomes for customers and are supporting our agenda of growing the rail network. For example, GWR operates the Dartmoor line that was opened last year.

On TransPennine Express, we recognise that a number of factors have affected performance. Again, quite a lot of training is needed following the backlogs caused by covid and related to the line upgrades. It is clear that TransPennine Express services need to improve quite substantially. Again, we look to work with FirstGroup to get the type of improvement plan we want to see.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister, Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi.

[Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Cat Smith) for securing this urgent question because Avanti West Coast’s continued abject failures are simply unacceptable. Over the course of its contract, Avanti has had the fewest trains on time, more complaints than any other operator and a wholesale failure to train new drivers, which has led to the mess we have to endure today. Despite this, Avanti has been rewarded with a contract extension. The Tories, as usual, are rewarding failure, yet there are gaping holes in the improvement plan announced alongside the contract extension, which will prolong passenger misery.

On the busiest main line in the country, at the busiest time of year, there is not a single bookable weekend service between November and Christmas—not one. The service reductions that the Government signed off were supposed to increase reliability, but they have done the exact opposite. Can the Minister explain today when services will be available to book and why the Transport Secretary failed to demand that as a condition of handing over millions in taxpayers’ cash? Avanti is being paid precisely the same management fee as under the previous contract, even though hundreds of services are not running—why? Travelling across the north is also becoming next to impossible. Today, more than 40 services on TransPennine Express have been cancelled. As my good friend the Mayor of West Yorkshire, Tracy Brabin, lamented to me:

“It’s chaos and the Government must intervene.”

So why are they planning to hand TPE an eight-year contract for this service in May? Perhaps the Minister can enlighten the House as to whether they are preventing a deal between TPE and the workforce which could improve services in the short term?

Today, what the public need to hear from the incoming Government—yet another Government—is a serious plan to get travel across the north back on track; they need to hear a plan to restore services. If the Government cannot get that, they must withdraw the contract, because passengers are sick and tired of excuses.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kevin Foster]

Yes, I will. In fact, I have already spoken to some of Avanti’s most senior management and made that point, particularly following representations from hon. Members. I also reinforced it in a meeting I had with FirstGroup more recently, and it has an overall interest in the Avanti operation.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the SNP spokesman, Gavin Newlands.

[Gavin Newlands (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (SNP)]

There are 14 trains scheduled this Saturday from Glasgow to Euston, but last Saturday only three actually ran, and yesterday saw more than 15% of Avanti’s Glasgow services cancelled. People in Scotland and the north of England are being treated as third-class citizens. I doubt that the laissez-faire attitude of the Department for Transport when it comes to industrial relations at Avanti would last five minutes if home counties commuter services were being slashed in the same way. When are Ministers going to roll up their sleeves and get involved? Was Mick Lynch not right when he said in evidence to the Transport Committee that Scottish Government politicians:

“have an attitude where they want to resolve the issue, whereas sometimes when we meet politicians down here they want to exacerbate the issue and make us their enemy.”

And that was before the Government tabled their utterly regressive Transport Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill; Tory party ideology is impacting taxpayers and passengers yet again.

The six-month extension is seen by everyone as kicking the can down the road. What work is ongoing right now to ensure that the DFT and Directly Operated Railways Ltd are ready to “take back control” of a key piece of cross-border infrastructure, and we follow the lead of Scotland in ending the disastrous experiment of privatisation?