First Great Western Rail Franchise

Neil Carmichael Excerpts

Tuesday 20th December 2011 Westminster Hall

[Mr Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Alan, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth (Sarah Newton) on securing a debate that I think most hon. Members in the Chamber have bid for at some stage. Fortunately, she got lucky just before Christmas, and I am grateful to her for that. I am also grateful to the Minister for attending the debate. We have had many discussions about rail services to and from Swindon, and she knows the passion that I and my hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson) feel for railways, especially considering Swindon’s unique railway heritage as the hub of the Great Western Railway. We regard Swindon as its home.

To bring things bang up to date, Swindon is a thriving town of 200,000 inhabitants, with rail services that run to the west, the east, the midlands and the south and are relied on by thousands of commuters in the town and region. Connectivity to London, Heathrow and other parts of the south is vital, and time and again that is cited as an important issue to local businesses and passengers.

The draft franchise document will be of huge significance and must meet the aspirations of rail users, both passenger services and freight. It must also be based on a correct set of specifications. In short, the mistakes that were made in the 2006 franchise must not be repeated; we must not step backwards. We must start by looking at the current service, rather than holding a Dutch auction—as my hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice) said—to see who can get to the bottom the fastest.

Since 2006, there has been a race to rectify some of the problems that have been created. How many of us have had to endure problems with punctuality, for example, and how glad are we that much has been done to rectify that situation? The recent Government announcement about extra capacity will provide some relief, but we are running to stand still. As I have said, those issues were not properly addressed.

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

rose—

[Mr Buckland]

I do not have time to take an intervention because other Members wish to speak.

Unless the new franchise delivers a service that is punctual and has appropriate capacity and competitive ticket prices, it will have been a missed opportunity. To put it bluntly: if our passengers do not get value for money, we will have failed.

Peak fares from Swindon remain unduly high compared with those from neighbouring stations and other parts of the network. That seems to be a hangover from another time, and it is causing a competitive disadvantage. Season ticket holders who have to travel at peak hours and are captives of the service now pay in excess of £7,000 a year, yet the service that they receive does not even guarantee them a seat at certain times of the day. That is wrong, and I believe that the terms of reference and the franchise process must specifically address the needs of frequent users and season ticket holders. I accept that smart ticketing may help, but I feel strongly that more needs to be done to cater for that group, perhaps by introducing reserved seating, for example, or by offering an enhanced service that makes people feel valued.

The link between improved rail services and wider economic benefits is clear, and we should factor in such considerations to the franchising process. Just as road schemes are often justified in terms of their wider economic benefit, we must ensure that the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and the Treasury are involved and engaged with the rail service to allow the fullest exploration of any wider economic benefits. Locally, we need strong engagement between the Department for Transport and the new Swindon and Wiltshire local enterprise partnership.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs Villiers]

I am happy to give the hon. Lady that undertaking. It will be a good contribution to the decision-making process.

Almost every hon. Member who has spoken has emphasised the economic importance of the Great Western rail network. They included my hon. Friends the Members for South Swindon (Mr Buckland), for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson), for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport and for South East Cornwall (Sheryll Murray), and the hon. Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Alison Seabeck). Clearly, it has a crucial role. Rail connectivity supports jobs and growth, and is, in particular, vital for the tourism sector, which is such an important part of the economy in the area served by the Great Western franchise. In response to the point made by the hon. Member for Plymouth, Moor View, it would be positive for the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, the Treasury, local enterprise partnerships and local authorities to be engaged in the important decision in question.

Passenger demand has grown across much of the Great Western network in recent years, as many hon. Members have acknowledged.

[Neil Carmichael]

I hope that the Minister will take on board the need to modernise the rail track as a whole, so that we can get more trains on the track. That is certainly relevant to connectivity for my constituency, and will make a big difference to the network as a whole.

[Mrs Villiers]

Improving infrastructure is an important part of the way we are seeking to improve rail services on the Great Western network.

As an example of what I was saying about demand, passenger numbers on the Falmouth to Truro line have doubled since 2006. In the process on which we now are embarking we need, as my hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon said, to learn lessons from the serious mistakes made when the current franchise was let under the previous Government. After a reduced service was specified on some routes, demand increased considerably, once the new franchise became operational. That resulted in controversial crowding, compounded by significant problems with reliability. Following on from that, a number of services were added to the franchise over and above the contracted minimum. The coalition recently agreed to fund a further 54 carriages on the network, including roughly 4,500 extra seats on the Thames valley lines. However, as my hon. Friends have said, demand continues to increase, so that crowding levels are still a live issue for the franchise.

To respond to passenger concerns about crowding and to support the economy, jobs and growth, the Government have prioritised investment in our rail network. Our programme of rail improvements is on a bigger scale than anything since the Victorian era. Some of the most ambitious and important changes will be taking place in the area served by the Great Western franchise. They include the intercity express programme to deliver a new fleet of electric and bi-mode trains and extra capacity; electrification of the lines linking Paddington, Bristol, Cardiff, Oxford and Newbury; upgrades to signalling and train operating systems; provision of an electric suburban fleet; a massive redevelopment of Reading station; Crossrail infrastructure works and rolling stock introduction; and, last but not least, the redoubling of the Swindon-Kemble line. Ultimately those will generate major benefits for passengers and for the economy of the area served by the franchise. However, delivering a programme on that scale is bound to have an impact on services during the construction and delivery phase, so franchise bidders will be expected to present robust proposals for minimising disruption during the upgrade works, with a keen focus on the needs of passengers.

As several of my hon. Friends have acknowledged, we are reforming rail franchising to give operators greater flexibility to respond to customer demand in a commercial way, but within a framework set by the franchise, which protects key outcomes, key journey opportunities for passengers, taxpayers and the economy. Our starting point in setting the specification for the franchise will be the current level of service rather than the contracted minimum. We also expect the franchise to include requirements on passenger satisfaction, for example in relation to stations, which several hon. Members have called for. As I have said, we propose a 15-year term for the new franchise. We believe that the increased certainty that that will provide will encourage private sector investment in the railways and the sort of long-term thinking called for by my hon. Friends the Members for Gloucester (Richard Graham) and for South Swindon. A longer franchise should also make it easier for the new operators to build the long-term working relationships with Network Rail and other stakeholders, such as local authorities, that are crucial to an efficient and successful railway. We will be asking bidders to consider how they would strengthen the reliability of services and improve stations and trains. Throughout the process, Passenger Focus will have a vital role to play, emphasising the huge importance that the Department places on passenger concerns. We are grateful for the useful input that Passenger Focus has already given us.

My hon. Friends the Members for Gloucester and for Truro and Falmouth and the hon. Member for Plymouth, Moor View, and others, called for faster journey times on the route. Those would in some circumstances require investment in infrastructure. That, of course, would involve a call on the taxpayer. The case for such investment can be strengthened if the wider economic benefits of improved connectivity can be properly understood and analysed. There is obviously a unified view among my hon. Friends about that, and it may be productive for hon. Members to work with local authorities, LEPs and other stakeholders in the south-west, to evaluate more formally the potential benefits of the kind of infrastructure works that would improve journey times, and such things as further electrification, which others have mentioned today. Other relevant issues might be the adoption of the model that has been used successfully in the north, on the northern hub or in relation to east-west rail, with the overall costs and benefits, and the possibility of section 106 contributions to the line, mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Chippenham (Duncan Hames). If faster journey times would involve taking out intermediate stops, the concerns of the communities that value those stops would need to be fully considered.

I know how important the sleeper service is in the south-west. We are at too early a stage to be able to announce all the final decisions, but we would expect bidders to consider clearly and carefully the popularity of the service when they were developing their proposals for the train services to run under the franchise. We will also be interested to hear bidders’ and other stakeholders’ proposals on additional electrification. We can see great benefits in western access to Heathrow, and are looking seriously at that in conjunction with our work on High Speed 2. If the Government go ahead with their HS2 plans, the interchange at Old Oak Common would, as my hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth said, provide important new journey opportunities for people outside the south-west.

We fully recognise the concern about rail fares and the pressure they place on family budgets, which is why the Chancellor has secured funding to cancel the proposed RPI plus 3 increase and revert to RPI plus 1 for the January fare increases. However, we recognise that it is vital to provide a longer-term solution, which means getting the cost of running the railways down, so that we can provide better value for money for passengers. We will expect the new operator for the Great Western franchise to develop close working relationships with Network Rail, as they are essential for bringing the costs of the railways down, as Sir Roy McNulty demonstrated.

We are keen to explore the scope for devolving further aspects of rail to local authorities. We plan to publish in the near future a consultation on devolution options for rail services in England. We have been discussing devolution with a range of local authorities including Devon and Cornwall, which have expressed interest. There is plenty of scope to use existing mechanisms to strengthen the input of the community and local authorities in the refranchising proposals.

I welcome the speeches that have been made today. I hope that all hon. Members will take part in the consultation and encourage their constituents to do the same.