West Coast Main Line

Lord Foulkes of Cumnock Excerpts

Monday 4th July 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

My Lords, Avanti West Coast is not the only train operating company currently facing difficulties, which are principally due to the uptick in Covid, as I suggested. There is a downward trend in the public performance measure and the moving annual average across all train operating companies, but it is expected that this will be proactively mitigated. The DfT will actively manage this process through the schedule 7.1 sections in the franchise agreements to make sure that we hold people to account, get the performance data, and understand why things went wrong and what we can do to fix them. Our goal is to deliver for passengers and for freight.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, given the awful service on the west coast and on other railways, and given that fares in the United Kingdom are so much greater than on the continent, including in Italy—which owns a big percentage of the west coast firm—will the Minister not agree with my noble friend Lord Berkeley about moving back to Great British Railways and that the unbelievably complex privatisation of the railways in Britain has been a total disaster? There are some guilty men opposite who should admit it.

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I cannot agree with the noble Lord at all. Bringing the private sector into the railways probably rescued them. The number of passengers has gone up enormously since the private sector was involved. There have been problems more recently, principally owing to the Covid pandemic, but the Government will keep the private sector involved in our railways. These national rail contracts will become passenger service contracts, and the noble Lord is most welcome to respond to the consultation on them.