Rail: Great Western Passenger Franchise

Lord Touhig Excerpts

Tuesday 31st January 2012 Lords Chamber

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, I entirely agree with the noble Lord on his analysis of the overcrowding problems on the current franchise. He will be aware that the difficulty with the current franchise is that it does not incentivise the operator to increase capacity. However, there will be significant capacity increases, especially with the introduction of the IEP train.

[Lord Touhig]

My Lords, will the successful bidder for the franchise be required to provide new rolling stock? As a regular user of the service, I can testify to delayed and cancelled trains because of mechanical failure, sweltering or freezing carriages because air conditioning does not work, lavatories blocked or flooded, and on one train that I travelled on recently the brakes seized and part of the train had to be evacuated because of appalling fumes that filled the carriages. The one redeeming feature of the present operator is that it has excellent on-train staff, who have a difficult job working for a company that for many of us is still known as “Late Western”.

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, the bidders are able to take into account the condition of the rolling stock when they bid, with the exception of the IEP rolling stock, which they have to adopt. We need to avoid telling the bidders which rolling stock they have to use because otherwise that would compromise their negotiations with the ROSCOs.