Rail Infrastructure (Train Operating Companies) Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Transport
Louise Ellman
Main Page: Louise Ellman (Independent - Liverpool, Riverside)Department Debates - View all Louise Ellman's debates with the Department for Transport
Rail Infrastructure (Train Operating Companies)
Louise Ellman Excerpts(8 years ago)
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Chris Grayling
My hon. Friend, who has great experience in such matters, is absolutely right. Right now, the incentives for team members in Network Rail are different from those in train operators. The incentive across the entire railway network should be to do a better job for the customer. Part of that process will involve aligning incentives so that everyone has the right motivation to deliver for the people who matter: the customers.
Mrs Louise Ellman (Liverpool, Riverside) (Lab/Co-op)
A joined-up approach could bring benefits and has been called for on many occasions by, among others, the Transport Committee. How will safety be protected in the specific model that the Transport Secretary now advocates? Could it be the beginning of a highly expensive fragmentation of the system?
Chris Grayling
The opposite is the case. This is not about fragmentation; it is about joining up. As the hon. Lady will know, we have various teams on the ground across our railways, some looking after the track and some looking after the trains. Sometimes they work together well, but sometimes they do not. By creating a structure that shapes teams on the ground, which involves decentralisation within Network Rail of the kind recommended by Nicola Shaw and the sort of partnerships that Sir Roy McNulty recommended, we will reach a place, about which the hon. Lady has talked in the past, where we have a more joined-up railway that does a better job for the customer.