Rail Timetabling

Lord Judd Excerpts

Monday 4th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sugg]

My Lords, the train operating companies are providing the bus replacement systems. I very much hope that they will be sufficient for those passengers who wish to travel. It is something that we are keeping a close eye on. The performance of those buses will form part of our regular updates from train operating companies.

[Lord Judd (Lab)]

My Lords, I am another resident of Cumbria. Does the Minister accept that it is not simply this crisis with which the public has been confronted, but the appalling record of industrial relations in Northern? Pain upon pain has been ladled out to the long-suffering traveller. Can she give an assurance that any comprehensive inquiry that takes place will look at the issue of industrial relations within its remit? Perhaps I may also ask the noble Baroness whether the Government are honestly taking full account of the outstanding success of the east coast line under public ownership. Why on earth can it not be recognised that there are areas of public service in the United Kingdom where what we need is an overriding culture throughout the organisation of service to the public, not simply profit-making?

[Baroness Sugg]

My Lords, I agree entirely that the railways need to provide a service for the public and not be focused purely on profit-making. On the east coast line, a subject raised by the noble Lord, under public ownership the line contributed less to the taxpayer than it does currently. It is still a successful railway, with 92% customer satisfaction. Recently we set out a way forward through an operator of last resort ahead of the East Coast Partnership, and we think that that will be a success.

On industrial relations, I mentioned earlier the issue around working on rest days which has been a problem as regards training new drivers, which is part of the problem. The inquiry will look at what went wrong, why this has happened and what lessons we need to learn for the future. It will not look directly at industrial relations, but if it turns out that they were one of the causes, the inquiry will highlight that.