West Coast Main Line

Lord Martin of Springburn Excerpts

Monday 29th October 2012 Lords Chamber

[Earl Attlee]

My noble friend Lord Bradshaw made some important points but, of course, for answers to many of them we will have to wait to see what the Brown report says. However, I agree that we need to be careful to keep what is good about the current franchising system. At this stage, in advance of the report, I would not want to comment on how long it will take to get the franchising system running again. Rolling stock is of course a separate issue from the franchising problems, but he makes an important point and I will draw it to the attention of my right honourable friend the Minister of State.

[Lord Martin of Springburn]

My Lords, I have stated to the noble Earl previously that every week when I come down here I travel on the Virgin Pendolino and travel home the same way. I hope that the officials in his department will take into consideration that the dedicated staff who work for the company feel insecure about what is happening. They had some relief when they were told that they had extra time—14 months—but that is not all that long when you are dependent on a livelihood. To illustrate to the noble Earl how dedicated these men and women are, perhaps he remembers the flooding in Cumbria that caused subsidence. At very short notice, these good people were able to get every passenger off at Preston and bus them beyond Carlisle to make sure that they continued their journey north. That is the kind of dedicated people the staff are. We often talk in this House about people raising families and working, particularly women. Many of those who work for Virgin are young women raising families. They arrange childcare so that they can get up early in the morning to carry out their work and ensure that their families are looked after. I ask that all concerned bear in mind that there is a dedicated workforce who are entitled to consideration.

[Earl Attlee]

The noble Lord makes an important point about the human element of this problem. I take this opportunity to make it quite clear that the front-line staff will not be adversely affected. It will be the same staff running the trains and the same rolling stock. In the short term, passengers will not notice any difference. As I said in the Statement, we may even be able to enhance the service. However, it is important to remember that there is a human element to this problem.