Great British Railways and Rail Services in the North

Lord McLoughlin Excerpts

Monday 5th December 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord McLoughlin (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Goddard, for securing this debate and I draw attention to my entry in the register of interests as chairman of Transport for the North. I endorse what the noble Lord said about the importance of the railway industry and the railways right across the north. I think everybody accepts that the service provided at the moment, be it by Avanti, TransPennine Express or Northern Trains, is not the kind of service we need and require. I say “need and require” because if we talk about the importance overall of the northern powerhouse and the service, the most important thing to anybody who relies on public transport is reliability, knowing the train is going to be there. What is being suffered at the moment, with cancellations the day before and on the day, is basically undermining the confidence of commuters and the passenger/traveller right across the region.

I wish my honourable friends and the new Secretary of State, Mark Harper, every success—I met Mark and said that one of my most enjoyable times was as Secretary of State for Transport. The interesting appointment is not just that of the Secretary of State, but that of Huw Merriman as Rail Minister, because he comes with special knowledge, having for the last three years chaired the Transport Select Committee. Indeed, I gave evidence in the early stages of my appointment as chairman of Transport for the North on the integrated rail plan, which was published by the Transport Select Committee around last May. It is a first-class document, it had first-class ownership in the then chairman of the Transport Committee, and I wish him well now in adapting what he said as chairman of the Transport Committee and putting it into action.

There is no doubting the economic impact of the current dispute and the problems across the region. I hope a way forward can be found, because one has to be forthcoming. I accept what the noble Lord, Lord Goddard, said about investment in other parts of the country, but we have seen investment in the railways; we have seen vast investment. Indeed, back in 1992, some 700 million journeys a year were made on our railways. The last year before the pandemic, it was some 1.9 billion, and that has been a revolution—I put it as strongly as that—in what our railways were providing. What we are now going back to is a time when people regard the railways as unreliable, and if they are unreliable, people will not use those particular schemes.

Part of the problem with transport is the long time it takes for big infrastructure changes. That does not mean that we cannot see changes that happen much more quickly, but some of the longer-term issues, such as building HS2, need long-term solutions. We are now well under way as far as that is concerned; it has been planned since 2009, publicly at least, and now one can see that infrastructure taking shape as far as its development is concerned.

But there are other congestion spots on the system that need to be addressed, not least Leeds station, which is now responsible for something like a third of the delays in the country. A long-term commitment is required to address some of the issues as far as Leeds is concerned. There was undoubted disappointment regarding the lack of a new station as far as Bradford is concerned, and I very much hope that, with the things that were in the Transport Select Committee, these issues will be addressed.

In the very few seconds that I have got left I would just like to place on record my great thanks to Liam Robinson, who has been chair of the Rail North Committee since 2015, and has been excellently involved in pushing forward that agenda. He has now taken on a new role; he has become leader of—

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

Can I ask the noble Lord to complete his speech?

[Lord McLoughlin (Con)]

He has now become leader of Liverpool City Council, so, having taken on a fairly controversial job, he now has an even greater challenge. So, those are some of the issues which are faced as far as transport is concerned, and I wish my noble friend well in her challenge ahead.