Oral Answers to Questions

Michael Dugher Excerpts

Thursday 4th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr McLoughlin]

My hon. Friend, along with the Grimsby and Scunthorpe Telegraph, has led an interesting campaign. I am pleased to say that after consideration of the responses to our consultation on the Northern and TransPennine Express franchise, we have decided to retain the Cleethorpes services within the TPE franchise. The forthcoming invitation to tender for the TPE franchise will specify that direct services between Cleethorpes and Manchester airport should continue. I know that my hon. Friends the Members for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers) and for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) have both been at the forefront of this campaign, and I am very pleased to announce today that it has been successful.

[Michael Dugher (Barnsley East) (Lab)]

Polling shows that a majority of the public oppose the Government’s plans to privatise the east coast main line, and people in their thousands are signing the petition launched by Labour this week. Given that the east coast service has achieved the top customer satisfaction rating for a long-distance rail operator and improved performance, and given that the public sector operator will have returned over £1 billion to the Exchequer before privatisation, why is Directly Operated Railways not even allowed to bid for the contract? When will the Secretary of State finally listen to the travelling public and call a halt to this privatisation?

[Mr McLoughlin]

I welcomed the hon. Gentleman to the Dispatch Box last week when I answered his urgent question, but as this is his first Transport questions, I again welcome him to his post. I have to tell him how interested I was in the interview that he gave to the Daily Mirror on Tuesday, in which he said:

“I want to be a Transport Secretary not a train-spotter . . . there have been too many train-spotters in the job.”

Anybody in this job is not a train-spotter but is interested in what happens to the motorist, the passenger and the cyclist, and should not distinguish between them.

I come back to the point that I made last week. The tendering process has given great rewards to those areas, and will bring more services and better facilities to passengers on that route. I followed the route that the Labour Government followed for 13 years. When the last Labour Transport Secretary brought in DOR, he said that it would be a short-term solution.