Railways: Reliability

Lord Rosser Excerpts

Tuesday 31st October 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rosser (Lab)]

My Lords, I too extend my thanks to the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, for securing this debate. I also take this opportunity to welcome the Minister to her new and enhanced role, and extend to her my congratulations. I also extend my best wishes to the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, in his new role. Clearly, he is not looking for a quiet life. The Minister’s two most recent predecessors have moved on to departments dealing with people and issues outside our national boundaries; clearly, being a Transport Minister produces a desire to travel beyond our shores.

The noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, made reference to her lack of enthusiasm for seeing train operating companies in the public sector, so it would appear likely that the Government will be rather more in agreement with what the noble Lady, Baroness Randerson, had to say than they will almost certainly be with my contribution to this debate. Railway operation being in the public sector is not something new or original in this country, even today. London Underground is in the public sector, and it carries quite a few passengers. Even the previous Mayor of London did not seem to think this was an unacceptable state of affairs that had to be changed. There also seems to be quite a wide measure of public support for having the railways in public ownership, judging by opinion poll data.

However, I will use the time I have—indeed, I shall not take up all the time I now have—to raise a few specific questions with the Government on issues that potentially affect reliability and quality of service. In so doing, I make it clear that I would be more than happy to receive the responses in a letter following this debate.

Recently the Secretary of State wrote—as set out towards the end of the helpful House of Lords Library briefing for this debate—that, while one of his “biggest priorities” was northern transport projects,

“they must be designed and managed by the North itself”,

and that:

“It is not up to central government to grasp these opportunities”.


He said this despite the fact that Transport for the North is dependent on central government for the necessary resources to carry out projects of substance. In the light of rumours—let us hope that that is all they are—that seem to be circulating, can the Minister give a clear assurance that the Government are not contemplating or considering any change in the status, role or powers of Transport for the North?

I would also be obliged if the Minister could clarify—I sometimes get confused by this—which electrification proposals or schemes, or parts of electrification proposals or schemes, have recently been abandoned and which have been officially paused or deferred. I refer in particular to the Great Western electrification, the Midland Main Line electrification, the electrification of the trans-Pennine route and the Oxenholme to Windermere electrification.

On the Great Western electrification, when will the electrification of the route into Bristol now be completed—assuming that this part has been deferred or paused and not abandoned? As has already been said, at a time when the Government are seeking to reduce the use of diesel fuel and vehicles on our roads, they have just made a decision on railway electrification which will increase the expected future use of diesel power on our railways. The Government’s left hand does not always seem to know what their right hand is doing.

As is clear from this debate, we all want to see the railways expand and progress and have a successful future. However, this Government have almost certainly cancelled or deferred more electrification projects than any previous Government, on top of their record of hitting passengers by increasing fares faster than the rate of inflation at a time of austerity and no or low pay increases.

To come back to the Great Western electrification, what aspects of the contracts with Hitachi are having to be revised or renegotiated in the light of the Government’s decision to delay or abandon parts of the electrification scheme? Since the new bi-modal trains will now have to be used more than expected in diesel rather than electric mode, running costs and maintenance costs are likely to be even higher. That is on top of the fact that the bi-modal trains are presumably heavier than all-electric trains, since they have a diesel engine to carry around, which in itself already makes them more expensive, with higher running costs. Electric trains are usually regarded as being more reliable and cheaper to run than diesel trains. Do the Government accept that view?

There has recently been a change to the operation of the south-western franchise. Is the introduction or extension of driver-only operation included as part of the contract signed by the new operator of the south-western franchise?

On the issue of reliability, how much of the network grant to Network Rail, both in the current period and the next, is needed to meet contractual commitments to franchise operators under franchise agreements covering, for example, infrastructure improvements and levels and standards of maintenance—and thus presumably is not an amount that can be cut by central government—and how much of the network grant to Network Rail is potentially vulnerable since it could be cut by the Government without adversely impacting on contractual commitments with franchise operators under franchise agreements?

Talking of franchise agreements—this relates to something that the noble Lord, Lord Astor of Hever, said—how much have train operators been fined or otherwise penalised under the terms of their franchise agreements, and how many operators, for poor performance?

The Government’s statement of funds available in the period from April 2019 to March 2024, states that the Secretary of State is,

“looking to the ORR to ensure a strong and robust challenge on cost and deliverability. An important part of this will be to support an ambitious implementation of route devolution to deliver the benefits of competition and improved understanding of costs through better benchmarking”.

Can the Government say what precisely “route devolution” means in this context and what it is expected to deliver, and what is the nature and extent of the competition that will be created, as referred to in the statement of funds available?

I repeat that I would be happy with a written response to the questions I have asked, and I look forward to the Minister’s response to the many interesting and different points and issues raised during the course of this debate.