Rail Services
Debate between Mark Harper and William Wragg(1 year, 8 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Harper
I would say a couple of things. First, I did see the hon. Lady’s tweet, which is why I set out clearly the position with respect to the train service that was disrupted this morning: there were two services that were part-cancelled, and the rest of Avanti’s services this morning were running perfectly all right. The issue with the cancellation was to do not with Avanti, but with Network Rail’s performance.
On the hon. Lady’s second point, I come back to what I said earlier. I am not pretending that Avanti has fixed its performance or that it is up there with the best-performing train operating companies—far from it—but the question I faced was whether it had done enough to demonstrate that it was capable of turning its services around. I have set that out, and I will not try the patience of the House by saying it all again. It has made a significant improvement—enough to justify an extension until October. Is there more to do? There absolutely is. The hon. Lady is right to make that strong argument on behalf of her constituents, and we will hold the company to account.
Mr William Wragg (Hazel Grove) (Con)
My right hon. Friend is the antithesis of the Fat Controller, but may I thank him very much indeed for all his efforts in securing a satisfactory agreement with the unions recently? Owing to the complete shambles that at times we see from Avanti, which purportedly seeks to run a rail service, there will be concern among my constituents. Has my right hon. Friend reflected on the question of over-promising in bidding for franchises? Will his judgment of Avanti’s success or otherwise over the next six months be conditional on improvements such as the ability to book tickets further in advance than is currently possible?
Mr Harper
My hon. Friend is quite right, and I will take his initial comment in the spirit that I am sure he intended. We will judge Avanti in the same way that it is judged on the fee that it earns: on its operational performance; on the experience of its customers; on its financial management; on how it works with Network Rail, other train operating companies and other stakeholders; and on the fundamental performance that it delivers in its timekeeping, its punctuality and its level of cancellations. It will also be judged on its customer service experience. It is quite right to say that it has had some issues with the ability to book tickets ahead, and over the past week it has had some issues with its website. It knows that it needs to fix those issues and that we will hold it to account, as will my hon. Friend.
Points of Order
Debate between Mark Harper and William Wragg
Mr William Wragg (Hazel Grove) (Con)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Last night I objected to the motion on the adjournments for the conference, November and Christmas recesses, which will now be determined by a deferred Division tomorrow. I did so on the basis that, unlike the Labour party conference, it is not yet possible to book tickets for the Conservative party conference, which is due to be held in Manchester from 3 to 6 October. Given that we have been assured that covid restrictions will now end by 19 July, it seems a little strange that the party of government is unable to give the events, hotel and hospitality sectors the certainty that not only will its party conference go ahead, but that other such events will be able to proceed. Forgive me for being suspicious, Mr Speaker, but we are at risk of being strung along. I ask you, Mr Speaker, what means I have at my disposal to draw this matter to the attention of the House. How might we be reassured that the conference recess will be used for its intended purpose, rather than simply as a means to keep Back Benchers away from this House asking awkward questions?
Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con)
Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. It is important that, before the House is asked to take decisions on important matters, such as its being in recess for three weeks, it has available the essential information. If we are not to have an in-person Conservative party conference, we will not need to be in recess for that period. It therefore seems not unreasonable to ask the Government, in the person of the Prime Minister as leader of our party, to set that out before we are asked to vote tomorrow. That is not just important for us. As we have just heard in the urgent question, thousands of businesses across the country depend on conferences and events. If the governing party is not able to set out with confidence that an event scheduled for October can take place, the sector will draw its own conclusions, which will be very damaging to many thousands of businesses and hundreds of thousands of employees.
Covid-19: Government Transparency and Accountability
Debate between Mark Harper and William Wragg(3 years, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr William Wragg (Hazel Grove) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the Eighth Report of the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, Government transparency and accountability during Covid-19: The data underpinning decisions, HC 803.
I thank the Liaison Committee and the Backbench Business Committee for granting us time to debate this important report this afternoon. I thank the members and staff of the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee for their extensive service and their efforts to bring about the report. I note that many of them are in their places this afternoon.
Of course, a report about statistics will bring up various quotations from the past. I think particularly of Disraeli’s
“lies, damned lies, and statistics.”
To manipulate Orwellian language slightly, I think too of the idea that language is power. In this circumstance, I would say that data certainly is power.
The past year has seen the Government impose some of the greatest ever restrictions on the people of this country. For those restrictions to have moral and democratic legitimacy, the Government must be able to justify them. At its core, the report asks whether the Government have done that. The aim of the report is not to question the decisions themselves, but to ask whether the data was available for us to understand and to interrogate those decisions.
The report finds that while there has been great progress in collecting data—I emphasise that point most strongly—there have been a number of shortcomings in how the data has been shared, how transparent the decisions have been and how some Ministers have made themselves available—or, sadly, have not done so—to face parliamentary scrutiny.
Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con)
I was slightly disturbed to note in one of the report’s conclusions that Ministers who appeared in front of the Committee in place of the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster were not properly briefed to answer its questions. The Committee noted his
“refusal to attend this Committee and account for decisions”
and drew the conclusion that it was
“contemptuous of Parliament.”
In my experience, that is not the usual course of action of the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster; he is normally very happy to appear in front of Parliament. I wonder whether the Chair is able to furnish the House with any correspondence the Committee has had with the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster to see whether that lack of accountability might be put right in future.
Mr Wragg
I refer my right hon. Friend to my correspondence with the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, which is published regularly on the PACAC website. I would hope that the response to a well-meant, generous invitation to such a senior Minister will promptly be put right and that we will be assured of his attendance at our Committee, so that we can do the job we are there to do, which is to scrutinise Ministers and the Government, and indeed to give those Ministers the opportunity to place things on the record—something I think they appreciate.
As we progress through these latter stages of the pandemic, data transparency becomes more crucial. The public must understand the justification for each decision on the road map. I want to dwell on the progress to date; I am a fair-minded person and I like to give as much praise as I do criticism, although sometimes that may not be too apparent. On this occasion, I will dwell momentarily at least on the progress that has been made. The Government have amassed enormous amounts of data from a standing start, making much of it available to the public, including the covid-19 dashboard and through surveys by the Office for National Statistics, including the infection survey. The report pays warm tribute to the work of public servants, indeed echoing the words of Sir David Norgrove who paid tribute
“to all involved in this work, at a time of anxiety for them and their families, with all the disruption caused”.
One of the key messages of the report is in relation to accountability. The Committee has reviewed the common themes across three of our recently published reports. All three of those have highlighted the fact that the governance arrangements have not always been clear. Emphasised in those reports was a lack of clarity over the role of the Cabinet Office, the various covid Committees, and, indeed, the quad in decision making. In addition, as has been highlighted by my right hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper), we have had concerns over ministerial accountability.
I will, if I may, mention briefly how data have been communicated to the public. The Committee is very clear in its view that statistics should be used for the purpose of genuinely informing the public and that open and honest communication builds trust. Even when the Government have, on occasion, fallen short of their promises, that openness and willingness to share uncertainty certainly builds trust. We should avoid, as one of our esteemed witnesses said, the tendency towards number theatre, where big numbers are bandied around perhaps without very clear context, perhaps seeking to impress, rather than entirely to explain.
The UK Statistics Authority’s code of practice for official statistics promotes the production and dissemination of official statistics that inform decision making. The UKSA’s code of practice framework is based on three pillars: trustworthiness, quality and value. Trustworthiness is about having confidence in the people and organisations that produce statistics and data, and valuing the statistics that supports society’s need for information. We, as a Committee, have concerns that Ministers have not always lived up to the expectations of that code of practice. As a result of the evidence presented to the Committee, we have recommended that the ministerial code is strengthened so that it is clear that Ministers are required to abide by that code of practice in their presentation of data.
On the publication of that data, the Committee outlined clear recommendations. The progress around these recommendations has been varied to date, although I have been keen to emphasise areas of strong progress. We recommend that the Government should publish the data that underpin the restrictions that will remain in place for businesses at each step and do so as a matter of urgency. It is all very well having the data in the public domain, but we need to know what are the benchmarks. I have likened it in the past to someone taking an examination: they know what mark they got in that examination but they do not know quite what the grade thresholds are. Furthermore, in terms of internet publication, hyperlinks to this data should be included on those pages explaining those restrictions for maximum transparency.