Chris Gibb Report: Improvements to Southern Railway

Lloyd Russell-Moyle Excerpts

Tuesday 4th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

No, it does not. We have provided additional money for the infrastructure owned and operated by the public sector Network Rail—an additional £20 million last year and then a further £300 million that is being spent right now to stop regular signal failures, for example—but it is disappointing that all the unions and others can do is misrepresent the situation and claim that we are giving that money to the train operator. They know that that is not true. It is simply not the case. One part of solving the problem on this railway and ensuring that it is the good performing railway that it has not necessarily been in the past, even when the industrial action was happening, is to spend money on the infrastructure, so that we do not get points and signals failures—the things that frustrate people and cause problems day by day.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)]

Part of the problem is that there are not enough drivers on the network, so the train operator is unable to operate its trains when drivers do not take voluntary overtime. Drivers not volunteering to take overtime is not the problem; the problem is that the operator has not trained up or employed enough drivers. I declare an interest in that I received donations from RMT, TSSA and ASLEF during the general election, because I know that we can get a better deal for our railways by working with the unions.

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[Peter Kyle (Hove) (Lab)]

What a huge honour it is, Madam Deputy Speaker, to be called to speak for the first time in this Parliament under your leadership in the Chair. I congratulate you on your elevation.

I share the frustration of my hon. Friend the Member for Luton South (Mr Shuker) that, sometimes in this debate, we have been speaking most about the thing that Chris Gibb spoke about the least. That has been an intense source of frustration. Like every passenger, I utterly despair of the situation. If the Gibb report teaches us anything, it is that there is a lot of blame to go around. No organisation is blameless and, right now, a small amount of humility would go a very long way. That is why the Gibb report is such a useful tool and a credit to him as its author. For the first time we, as parliamentarians and passengers, can finally see behind the smoke and mirrors and grasp the full extent of the dysfunction that is the root cause of today’s problems.

The Gibb report states that,

“all of the elements of the system have been under strain: unreliable infrastructure, a timetable that is very tight…some key stations that are overcrowded, depots that are full and…in the wrong place, and people that are involved in informal and formal industrial action.”

This, in one paragraph, explains why the network has experienced so many catastrophic failures even before the start of the most recent industrial action. For example, two summers ago, Southern reduced its timetable by two thirds for almost four months. It was a terrible blow for commuters. The reason was a shortage of drivers. It was inexplicable to passengers how such a stupid act of planning and incompetence could have happened, and the consequences were far-reaching.

At the time, neither Southern nor the Government would accept responsibility for the shortage, simply blaming, as the Minister did today, the length of time it takes to train new drivers. When things go wrong, passengers deserve two things: an honest explanation of what has gone wrong; and the belief that lessons have been learned and will never be repeated.

This situation has become the “new normal” for passengers. It is a “normal” that has wrecked careers, broken relationships and hampered the economy of the south-east of England. Large businesses such as Brighton and Hove Albion have lost more than £l million in revenue, while charities such as Brighton and Hove Pride lost £140,000 last summer alone.

My point is simple: continued failure on our rail network is not a victimless situation. Its impact is felt deep and wide throughout our communities. That is the reason why an all-party group for the southern commuter was established almost two years ago. It has been an honour to co-chair the group with the right hon. Member for Mid Sussex (Sir Nicholas Soames), who is in his place. The group has transcended party boundaries, which has been incredibly important in such a difficult situation.

The Gibb report is clear on the way forward. We need better leadership, more partnership, and much more investment than has been the case for generations. On leadership, the report says that

“the custodian of the overall system integrity should be better identified, empowered and trusted.”

Gibb goes on to recommend the creation of a “system operator”. That is a logical conclusion of the leadership vacuum that has been created by a botched privatisation and an over-fragmented system. It also begs an important question: what on earth is the point of having a Secretary of State, a railways Minister and an entire Department for Transport if we now need a new person to come and give leadership to our rail network? What exactly are Ministers doing—or not doing—that is leaving such a leadership vacuum in our rail network? Rather than having a new rail boss, or “super-boss”, can the current ones not just do their jobs properly? Heaven knows, they are paid enough to do it.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

Does my hon. Friend agree that if the Minister is unable to show that leadership, he should think about resigning?

[Peter Kyle]

It is an honour to take an intervention from my hon. Friend for the very first time. May I welcome him to his place? There have been failures right across the board. Right now, what passengers really need is for people in those positions to get a grip without delay.

Infrastructure investment is the final piece of the jigsaw. On page 5, the report states:

“The infrastructure on the Southern network is in a poor and unreliable condition”.

The blame for that rests with successive Governments, not with this one alone. Passengers are shocked to hear of the historic under-investment in their rail network. The south-east of England accounts for 30% of our country’s passenger journeys but only 15% of the investment. At a time when Government are focused on HS2 at a cost of over £30 billion, too little is being spent on what Lord Adonis, chair of the Government’s National Infrastructure Commission, said is the greatest transport challenge that we face, which is getting people to and from work every day in the south-east of England.

The Government have unlocked £300 million of funding for immediate investment in the south-east, but to stand a chance of delivering the robust infrastructure we need, this level of investment simply must continue into the next control period.

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[Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to be called by you for the first time, Madam Deputy Speaker.

The reality is that this franchise has been a bad franchise for a significant time: it has not worked. I find the finger-pointing at the unions slightly hypocritical, given that Peter Wilkinson, a senior official at the Department for Transport, said only last year:

“Over the next three years we’re going to be having punch ups and we will see industrial action and I want your support...we have got to break them.”

He said that employees had borrowed money for cars on their credit cards and could not afford to go on strike, and he went on and on. If that is not a political motivation to aggravate this strike, I do not know what is—it is a clear ratcheting up of the dispute. Of course, there is always blame on all sides, but the Government and the Department for Transport are in a position of responsibility.

[Ms Ghani]

We all want a resolution because we want to ensure our constituents can take the journeys they have paid for. The hon. Gentleman has talked about how much friction there is. I will read a quote from Mr Hedley, the RMT union assistant general secretary. He said on LBC:

“I think all the Tories are an absolute disgrace. They should be taken out and shot to be quite frank with you.”

Is that the new, gentler kind of politics that the Opposition agree with and believe will bring a resolution to this problem?

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

It does not help when the Government have not been getting the unions around the table in the same room without preconditions. That is how we de-escalate things. People in positions of responsibility, such as the Minister, need to come forward and de-escalate it, and not just point fingers and quote from the radio but actually show leadership.

The reality is that this dispute is not about money. We have heard a lot from the Conservatives about trying to shove cash into the mouths of drivers. This dispute is about safety and accessibility. The unions have put a clear proposal on the table. They have offered to come to a deal that will ensure that disabled and vulnerable people can turn up to the train station without having to give notice, and that there will be safe conditions on the trains. The unions would then withdraw their action. That offer has been disregarded by GTR and its puppet masters in the Government. I call them puppet masters because this is a rigged contract that allows GTR to continue to get the cash incentive to run a service that it fails to run—it does not lose a penny when ticket sales are not made. It does not have to bear the risk. The problem is the contract.

The Government clearly need to bring the contract in-house. Gibb says that that would be disruptive but, as the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) said, that is because the Government wound down the direct operator and have left themselves with their pants down. They are unable to run a service and they are unable to hold the contractors to account.

[Tim Loughton]

The hon. Gentleman has spent most of his speech panning the role of the Government and the Department for Transport and now he is saying that he wants the franchise to be brought in-house, to be run by that same Government and Department that he has been panning. I have no problem with the franchise being removed, but he has to have a care that whoever is taking it over can do a better job of it, and that is not clear at the moment. Could it be a case of out of the frying pan, into the fire?

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

The hon. Gentleman is quite right—I would not want the Minister to be directly running the railways. It seems that the Minister is barely able to run his own Department and get people around the table to negotiate, which is one of his key responsibilities. Directly Operated Railways operated well on the east coast franchise and the franchise taken off Connex South Eastern. The service improved and it brought money back to the Exchequer. That worked then, and I see no evidence why it would not work in future.

Of course, hon. Members can point fingers at each other—I will be pointing fingers at the Government—but we must try to resolve this without preconditions. That means getting the unions around the table. We must not say that they are welcome around the table only when they have called off their strike. The Government have not got them around the table and we need to make sure that that is done.

If I was a headteacher in a school and had to send my children home because I could not organise supply cover, I would be blamed—not the teachers or the supply teacher who did not turn up. The blame needs to be on the management and on the Government. They need to step up. Our constituents are suffering every single day because of their failings.