West Coast Main Line

Lord Goddard of Stockport Excerpts

Monday 4th July 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I hope that it will not be me personally, as I am not the Rail Minister, though it will be the Government. However, Great British Railways will be a body set up specifically for all those things that the noble Lord has pointed out, which will be to the benefit of passengers and freight since it will bring everything under one overarching umbrella. Will the Secretary of State and any Rail Minister at that time micromanage the network? Absolutely not. However, there will be one guiding mind. That is our ambition for Great British Railways.

[Lord Goddard of Stockport (LD)]

My Lords, I fear the Minister will never be able to see the virtues of Stockport, which is a vibrant community and is business- friendly. On Saturday, eight trains to Manchester were cancelled; on Friday, two; and on Thursday, one. The 2.40 was cancelled at short notice today as well. Every time a train is cancelled, hundreds of real people are disadvantaged. Is the Minister certain that there is not a sensible alternative to handing over HS2 to Avanti, as the noble Lord, Lord Snape, spoke about? You would not put Herod in charge of an orphanage, would you?

[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.