Public Transport: Boxing Day 2018

Debate between Martin Vickers and John Grogan

Wednesday 24th January 2018 Westminster Hall

[Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[John Grogan]

It gives me great pleasure to give way to the chair of the all-party rail group, no less.

[Martin Vickers]

It is in that capacity that I wanted to say that the hon. Gentleman is very welcome to come along to the group next time we have a meeting of the train operating companies to put the question directly to them. At the moment, unless it is in their franchise, very few of them provide a service. They ought to be more enterprising—we need more competition in the rail network.

[John Grogan]

I accept that the spirit of enterprise should be there, and I have some good news for the hon. Gentleman before I sit down. I will certainly take up his invitation—it will be one of the highlights of my parliamentary year to come to such an august body.

I do not want to adopt a particularly party political approach, but I would make a gentle reflection to both Front Benchers—it is a great pleasure to see the shadow Minister for Rail, my fellow Yorkshire MP and hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) in the debate, and I am glad she is taking an interest. There has been a tendency, as we might expect, that when parties are in opposition, they draw attention to this problem. I spoke to the office of the hon. Member for Wimbledon (Stephen Hammond) earlier today and pointed out that I would gently draw attention to his quote from 2008, where he said:

“Thousands of families travel the length and breadth of the country to visit relatives and loved ones on Boxing Day. But yet again this year the railways will grind to a halt, forcing people onto gridlocked motorways… Labour just do not get how important the railway is to people at Christmas-time.”

My hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough (Andy McDonald) has rightly mentioned that quote every Boxing day since he has been in office, and rightly asks for progress. However, I have not yet seen either Front-Bench team say that we definitely will make progress. However the railways are owned, and whether or not the major franchises come back into public ownership under a Labour Government, I hope a commitment can be made to Boxing day transport. I hope both parties can commit themselves to that.

I said there was potential good news for Boxing day 2018. That is largely concentrated in the north of England. For the past three years, Merseyrail has run a service. That shows the power of devolution. Merseyrail has a particularly close relationship with the Mayor of Liverpool and the councils on Merseyside, which have a greater consultative role in relation to the terms of the franchise and so on.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Grogan]

I agree with the hon. Member for Moray (Douglas Ross). We have to provide a quality service such that people know when the trains are running and that they will be of good quality. We cannot run a ramshackle service, because people will not use it. My worry would be that someone would say, “Why are we running these services at all?” as happened south of the border in 1980.

As I said, Merseyrail has been running services. This year, it was very enterprising, to use the word of the chair of the all-party rail group. It contacted Liverpool football club, which had an evening kick-off at 5.30 pm, and provided trains well into the evening so that supporters could not only get to the game, but get back afterwards. Northern Rail, for some reason—I am not sure how this came to be the case and whether it was down to an enlightened Minister or an enlightened civil servant—has to provide under the terms of its franchise 60 services in the north of England on Boxing day 2018. I am very hopeful that some of those may even go to Keighley, because I have had a very helpful letter from the chair of the West Yorkshire combined authority, Councillor Keith Wakefield. He says that it is working with the Department for Transport and Transport for the North, perhaps to enhance the 60 services and have more. The letter states:

“The consultation response submitted by WYCA noted that the Leeds North-West network (the Airedale and Wharfedale lines) were identified as a likely priority for Boxing Day services in the Leeds City region, not least reflecting the high levels of demand they attract at weekends/holidays and reflecting the extent to which the signalling is automated (which could reduce costs).”

If Bradford City are at home this year, I will look forward, possibly, to getting on to my local train service, on the Airedale or Wharfedale line, to get to the match.

In this more optimistic picture, TransPennine rail has an obligation in its franchise to make proposals to Ministers and to Transport for the North to run services across the Pennines. I understand that it has emphasised making proposals for the aforementioned Manchester airport, and that that is with Ministers and Transport for the North. I very much hope Ministers take an enlightened approach. I well remember a meeting about this in 2009 with Lord Adonis, marvellous man that he is, but I think that he rather humoured me and his mind was on High Speed 2 and very important projects such as that. These are little details, but I feel confident that this Minister is a man of such detail.

[Martin Vickers]

On the subject of TransPennine, which provides the main services via the south trans-Pennine route between Manchester airport and Cleethorpes, when the Minister has those discussions, will he make special mention of the fact not only that my constituents want to get to Manchester airport, but that of course people will flock in their thousands to Cleethorpes, where Grimsby Town will probably be playing at home next Boxing day?