Railways: Reliability

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Tuesday 31st October 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as chairman of the Rail Freight Group. I welcome the Minister to her exciting new post. I hope that she lasts longer than the previous Minister, because we have had a lot of musical chairs in the last week or two—but that is life. I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, on getting this debate.

Noble Lords have spoken already about the importance of reliability and the disasters that happen when things go wrong. Given the growth in passenger and freight traffic in recent years, which is of course very welcome, one of the major issues must be maintenance of the track. When things go wrong, it is quite often due to maintenance—more of the track than of the trains. So it is worth examining whether Network Rail, now owned by the Government, so they can answer for it, has the right equipment to maintain the network to modern standards.

Somebody recently drew my attention to the one train that monitors the electric overhead lines—we need more, but we have quite a lot at the moment—which is based on a 1973 converted coach. That makes it 44 years old, and there is only one of them. So it would be very interesting if the Minister was able to let me have, although I do not expect it from her now, a list of how many track measurement trains there are monitoring the gauge and the railhead conditions. Some noble Lords will remember the gauge and head cracking that happened probably 20 years ago. It is also about how old they are.

Now that Network Rail is divided more into separate routes, it would seem reasonable that each group could actually have its own equipment and be able to buy some decent modern equipment, then be benchmarked by the regulator and its own management as to who did the best maintenance, and who had the least delays due to things going wrong with the track or the signalling. That would be reflected in their bonuses, in the money that they got from central government—and on the performance of the trains. I am convinced that a little bit of incentive among the routes would bring enormous benefits improving the performance of the whole network, and therefore the performance of the trains.

I want to say a little bit about freight. We have talked about it quite often here. The support for rail freight comes from the Government’s rail freight strategy, the Scottish Government’s rail freight strategy, and the National Policy Statement for National Networks. Certainly, in many parts of the country, the encouragement that Governments are giving to freight is really good. A week ago, I was in Scotland trying to encourage Network Rail to allow timber to be loaded on to the tracks in Rannoch Moor and taken by rail, rather than across the bog, to the local sawmills in Corpach. It was very good to see the way that the Scottish Government and Network Rail were working towards a great solution, and I think they will get it. The Treasury has confirmed investment plans for rail freight in control period 6, which starts in a couple of years’ time, and the Scottish Government have done the same. Rail freight was also mentioned in all the three major parties’ manifestos for the last election.

Growth in rail freight is mainly in the container market and in aggregates and other building materials brought into city centres. The containers need terminals or interchanges where big loads can be made into small ones or transferred to road for the last few legs. I was pretty surprised and distressed last week to see the National Infrastructure Commission’s report, Congestion, Capacity, Carbon: Priorities for National Infrastructure, which said that the commission believes that,

“the pilots of ‘platooning’ truck convoys on motorways … may open the way to radical improvements in the efficiency and capacity of major freight distribution by road in the future … This would free up rail capacity for enhanced commuter and inter-city passenger services”.

The National Infrastructure Commission seems to be contradicting not just the policies in the documents I have mentioned but current thinking across the industry. In so doing, it is putting at risk a very large amount of private investment which is going into these terminals, on the basis of absolutely no evidence that I can see. They just thought it was a good idea and they would mention it. The people who live near some of these terminals do not like it very much. They have already cottoned on to this and are putting tens of millions of pounds of investment at risk. I hope that when the Minister responds she will be able to confirm her support for rail freight and for these investments. If the National Infrastructure Commission is going to come out with statements like this, it would be quite nice if it could provide some supporting evidence for a complete U-turn in policy. I hope the Minister will say something like, “They are independent and would say this, wouldn’t they”.

The railways have a really great future, for passengers and freight. The traffic is growing in a way that it is not doing anywhere else in Europe. We may sometimes worry about reliability, but the quality of service in most places is fantastic. I conclude by commending the Government’s suggestion that there should be contestability for some of the things that Network Rail does. We could try out new ways of reopening lines or enhancing them, such as the east-west rail or some of the enhancements which the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, was talking about. By having it done a different way, possibly with the private sector taking the lead, designing, getting the permissions, building and even operating the infrastructure, you can then contest whether it is more efficient than Network Rail or not. That could be a very useful way forward.