Network Rail: Funding and Reliability

Lord McLoughlin Excerpts

Wednesday 26th April 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

My Lords, once again we shall address the notion of dividend payments, because it is really important that we are clear about it. The dividend payments declared during the financial year 2022 related to periods far preceding that 2022 period, and therefore were earned by the train operating companies under contracts that were in existence at that time. One cannot retrospectively go back and take away money without completely tearing up the contracts and starting again. Maybe a Labour Government would do that, but we will not. We will stick to the contract and work with the industry, and we will get improvements to our rail system that way.

[Lord McLoughlin (Con)]

Can my noble friend reassure the House of the vast importance that the Government attach to the whole rail industry, and the fact that it is incredibly important to our economy? To get that investment, we also need to see levels of service, which is the responsibility of the train operators but the rail unions too. To make the case for investment, we have to have good services.

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

My noble friend is absolutely right. Sometimes it saddens me greatly how some of the unions are potentially undermining the long-term future of our rail sector. ASLEF train drivers withdrew, without warning, their rest-day working agreement. I now understand that a new rest-day working agreement was agreed, which would have vastly improved services on the TransPennine Express. However, within 24 hours, ASLEF then withdrew again on an entirely unconnected matter. Once again, we are left without rest-day working. There is a very easy way to improve services, which is to encourage the unions to reach an agreement with the TOCs, particularly on rest-day working.