Chris Gibb Report: Improvements to Southern Railway

Nusrat Ghani Excerpts

Tuesday 4th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. This is a shocking state of affairs. The reality is that there are some thoroughly good people working on our railways—people who do not agree with the current action and who just want to do the right job for their passengers. However, their leadership is now leading them up a path that they do not want to go up, and that is not in the interests of the staff or the passengers.

[Ms Nusrat Ghani (Wealden) (Con)]

Following on from that point, did my right hon. Friend hear the statement on Russia Today television from Mr Hedley, an activist in the RMT? He said:

“It’s very clear in our rule book, we’re in an antagonistic relationship with the managers and with the bosses. We want to overthrow capitalism and create a socialist form of society.”

How does that help our passengers?

[Chris Grayling]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The trouble is that this is all about politics rather than about the interests of the railways or of passengers getting on with their daily lives. It is a tragedy.

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[Ms Nusrat Ghani (Wealden) (Con)]

This morning I attended a meeting with representatives of the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers. It was a futile and frustrating meeting, in which the unions argued that it was proportionate and appropriate to strike because 2.75% of trains on Southern operate without an on-board supervisor. The fact that 97.25% of trains operate with one did not seem to sway them, which will mean untold damage to my constituents once again. In Wealden the service provided by Southern has been unsatisfactory for a long time, and we have raised that time and time again. While its performance has gradually improved over the past year, the behaviour of the unions has deteriorated, and the current industrial dispute is entirely irresponsible and cynical.

I welcomed the Gibb report, and met Chris Gibb last year to discuss the situation and, principally, Southern’s poor management and poor communication. The report does not pull any punches in respect of either GTR’s management or the Department for Transport, but the most damning indictment, by a long chalk, is Gibb’s assessment of the unions. The report plainly states that the primary cause of disruption to passengers has been industrial action by the unions, compounded by incredibly high levels of sick leave among drivers. The report describes the unions’ motives as “debatable” and their actions as “undermining the system”. Having said that, I should add that GTR and Southern are not totally devoid of responsibility. The union’s behaviour does not excuse the previously existing and ongoing infrastructural problems, which are within the control of a franchise whose financial penalties for failings are too lenient.

In any event, my constituents still have to put up with delays, timetable changes, short-form trains, extended engineering works, overcrowding, unsatisfactory compensation processes, nonsensical bus replacements, poor communication, and potential ticket office closures.

GTR’s handling of the dispute does not cover it in glory. Unfortunately, the Uckfield line is known as the misery line in my constituency. The Govia “transforming rail” consultation is certainly a step in the right direction, and I am pleased that passengers will have an opportunity to comment in detail on timetabling arrangements and proposed reforms, but that simply is not enough. GTR must be made to appreciate the seriousness of the inconvenience and frustration that are being caused on a daily basis.

Let me draw the Minister’s attention to appendix 5 of the report, which concerns the modernisation of the Uckfield line. I have already raised the issue with the Minister, and, as he knows, I support Chris Gibb’s recommendation for the electrification of the line and a depot in Crowborough. The Uckfield line connects the towns of Uckfield and Crowborough to London, and is one of the very few routes in the south-east that have not been electrified. It is hard to believe that a major railway line in a highly developed “global” country still relies on diesel trains, which are outdated and increasingly difficult to keep on track. When they break down they are hard to fix, and it is difficult to find new rolling stock. Even in the sweetest spot, when the Southern service is running a full timetable, with a full number of cars and a full quota of staff who have turned up for work, the service is still woefully inadequate.

The Gibb report states that the current fleet is “inefficient”, and that the sustained use of diesel is not viable. It points out that electrification of the Uckfield line would significantly increase passenger capacity and improve performance and timetabling, and would result in more efficient crewing and less pollution. Above all, it would provide a seven-day service in my constituency. An annual season ticket from Crowborough to London costs thousands of pounds. If my constituents are paying 21st-century prices for their rail tickets, they are entitled to receive a 21st-century rail service in return, and that means electrification.

We forget what the present situation means for people’s day-to-day lives. My constituent Christopher, who lives in Uckfield, says:

“The loss of peak trains will make it even harder than usual for me to keep my commitments to work and family, including being able to reliably collect my two 6 and 8 year old boys from school or after school club.”

Electrification and a depot at Crowborough would provide much-needed resilience on the line. No doubt the Minister has read the conclusion of that particular section of the report, which recommends electrification and has a solid financial case behind it. I look forward to having continued conversations with the Minister to try and secure that.

Wealden is in desperate need of a reliable modern train service that offers value for money. My constituents would like to know when the Uckfield line will no longer be known as the misery line, which will come about only once the strikes are called off. I look forward to working with the Minister to ensure not only electrification but a depot in my constituency of Wealden.

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[Stephen Lloyd]

I certainly did! I welcome the hon. Lady’s intervention and I thank her for reminding me that I was furious about Southern rail at the time. I thought it was absolute rubbish, and I said so frequently. I appreciate her allowing me to remind everyone about that. And it is good to be back; thank you.

Let me go back to the question of who is actually leading for Southern rail in the dispute, and to the Gibb report. Gibb says that the Secretary of State is

“already determining the strategic direction of this dispute”.

As I said earlier, I am not sponsored by the RMT. Members on both sides of the House know that the Government are behind this dispute because they want to bring in DOO. That is as plain as the nose on your face. Yes, at the minute, there is a second member of staff on 97% of the trains, as another Member said, but that was not the intention at the beginning. The intention was to break the RMT and to bring in DOO. My priority is the customer—the rail passengers of Eastbourne who have suffered so much. This is frustrating because the Government went into this ready to have a war. They were ready to have a battle and to beat the RMT, but they have ended up with a complete stalemate in which the two sides have dug in and the passengers, people and communities of Eastbourne and the south-east are suffering.

[Ms Ghani]

rose—

[Stephen Lloyd]

I will not give way. I am about to finish.

This is ridiculous, and it is about time that the Government and the Secretary of State showed some leadership. The Under-Secretary of State for Transport, the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard), is in his place, so I shall ask him two questions before I finish. First, will the Government confirm or deny that the Department for Transport has never interfered with or blocked the resolution of the Southern rail dispute? I am asking the Minister that specific question in the Chamber because he has the full responsibility to answer it truthfully, and I will ask it again. Will he confirm or deny that the DFT has never interfered with or blocked the resolution of the Southern rail dispute?

My second question relates to something that a couple of other colleagues have already said, but it is crucial. If the Government are serious about ending this dispute, to the benefit of the entire south-east as well as those in my constituency, why will they not host negotiations with both the unions? We know that they have had opportunities to do that, but they have not done so. They are trying to divide and rule. I say this: Minister, pick up the phone tomorrow and say to Mr Whelan at ASLEF, to Mr Cash at the RMT and to GTR, “I want you to meet me tomorrow in my office in Whitehall. I want all the unions and all the sides together with no preconditions.” I am absolutely certain that if the Government had the guts, and the honesty, to do that, we would resolve the issue within a week. Minister, I wait to hear your answer.

[Jeremy Quin (Horsham) (Con)]

The point of agreement between me and the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Stephen Lloyd) is that the service has caused heartache, distress and job losses for thousands. The report was commissioned to try to find ways to improve the resilience of the service, and I welcome it. I think everyone acknowledges the author, Chris Gibb, to be a serious, experienced individual, and he has produced a report that is thoughtful, helpful and comprehensive. The clear message that emerges from his report is that the primary cause of the appalling service that passengers received last year was the result of members of the workforce

“taking strike action…declining to work overtime and…undermining the system integrity”.

He concluded that

“if the train crew were to work in the normal manner…the output of the system, a safe and reliable rail service for passengers, would be delivered in an acceptable manner”.

The validity of Mr Gibb’s words has been reinforced by the 23 percentage point improvement in performance achieved by Southern over the past few months, when there have been no strikes. GTR has shown that with the support of its workforce it can deliver, as Mr Gibb says, an acceptable level of service for customers.

Like everyone in this House, I am horrified that we are again seeing a return to industrial action. The Opposition were keen to lambast the Government on public sector pay restraint last week, but I am acutely aware of how many public sector workers use these trains. ASLEF, on the behalf of train drivers, rejected a pay offer worth nearly 24% over four years. Passengers will draw their own conclusions. [Interruption.] Is the hon. Member for Middlesbrough (Andy McDonald) trying to intervene? If he would like to get in, I would love to hear whether he thinks that that is a bad thing that is being put to members. I have offered the hon. Gentleman the opportunity to come in and say that the 24% rise is adequate, but he has declined to do so. I understand, so I will return to my speech.

Passengers do not believe that the DCO trains that have operated on our network for the past 30 years are unsafe. They do not believe that passenger trains operated in Germany, Austria or Canada using DCO are unsafe. Passengers do not want much; they simply want the drivers and the on-board supervisors to do their job, so that they can get into work to do theirs. In the helpful statistics provided by the RMT in a meeting this morning, as referred to by my hon. Friends, it was confirmed that 97.25% of the 70% of Southern trains that used to operate with a second person on board continue to do so. Those trains have a second person who is not preoccupied with opening and closing doors; they are there to help passengers. That is a high proportion, reflecting the additional numbers of OBSs that have been recruited. It is not as high as I would like, nor is it as high as GTR intends it to be—GTR is aiming for 100%—but all train users would rather see the 2.75% of those trains continue to run for the benefit of passengers. If they did not run, the negative impact to the service as a whole would be far more than the 3% diminution in service. It would lead to many thousands of passengers being wholly unnecessarily delayed.

[Ms Ghani]

After this morning’s meeting, I just want to clarify whether the unions are striking because 2.75% of trains are running without on-board supervisors. That will have an impact on thousands of paying passengers.

[Jeremy Quin]

I thank my hon. Friend. She really has to ask the unions why they are still on strike. My understanding is that it is because of the 2.75% of the 70% of trains that traditionally had a second person on board. I am convinced that her constituents and my constituents would rather that those trains continue to run. I look forward to 100% coverage, but the 97.25% figure and the recruitment shows that GTR is serious about ensuring that there is a second professional on board. Passengers have had enough. It is high time that the unions ended their action.

As the Secretary of State made clear, however, it would belittle the report to suggest that it focuses only on industrial action. It is far broader and more useful than that. What runs through the report is the difficulty of operating trains on a hugely well used and complex service. As the report states, Southern is

“simultaneously running at absolute capacity at peak times, and undergoing a period of dramatic… change”.

The introduction of class 700s, new depots at Three Bridges and Hornsey, a doubling of Thameslink peak-hour trains to 24 through central London, and major infrastructure enhancements at London Bridge are all good improvements for passengers. They are vital to maintain a railway that has seen a massive increase in passenger numbers. As the report makes clear, Southern has been under strain with

“unreliable infrastructure, a timetable that is very tight and with overcrowded peak services”.

In some ways, the railways are a victim of success. In the days of British Rail, which the Opposition still seem to recall so fondly, the network was declining and, as Gibb points out, was relatively lightly used. In the 20 years since privatisation, passenger numbers have grown such that, on Southern’s routes, more passengers are now travelling than at any time in the past 90 years. The emphasis that Gibb places on collaborative working is welcome, as are the practical steps that he recommends to ensure that that takes place, many of which have already been implemented. I am pleased that on receipt of the report back in January the Government immediately committed £300 million to meet the basic infrastructure requirements that were set out. It is good to hear the Department’s strong commitment to ensuring that the region secures the investment it requires.

The report also has lessons for the operator, and Gibb makes clear the complexity of the Southern operator’s task. There are few, and I am certainly not among them, who view the scale of the franchise as optimal. However, for those who believe that firing the operator would be a simple gain, Gibb argues persuasively that such an approach is naive. Twice operators have been replaced by Government emergency provision, as the shadow Minister said, and the report implies that this comes at greater cost. In both cases, the routes were running at steady state; Southern is going through a period of substantial change. The implication of the report is that firing the operator would be, at best, risky, and at worst could lead to chaotic failure.

However, it appears to me that the operator, in bidding for the franchise, was too optimistic about what it might be able to achieve by crewing via diagramming software. The system can be highly efficient when it works well, and in theory it should work brilliantly, but that requires perfect operating conditions, which are not what Network Rail delivers. I am therefore delighted by the Secretary of State’s commitment to the additional drivers who are being trained and coming online, and I am pleased that there are now more on-board staff than at the start of this process. They will increase resilience and reduce dependence on overtime. He is determined to ensure that we have a modern, resilient railway that delivers for its passengers. I congratulate him on commissioning this report, and I thank Mr Gibb for his work.

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[Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to be called by you for the first time, Madam Deputy Speaker.

The reality is that this franchise has been a bad franchise for a significant time: it has not worked. I find the finger-pointing at the unions slightly hypocritical, given that Peter Wilkinson, a senior official at the Department for Transport, said only last year:

“Over the next three years we’re going to be having punch ups and we will see industrial action and I want your support...we have got to break them.”

He said that employees had borrowed money for cars on their credit cards and could not afford to go on strike, and he went on and on. If that is not a political motivation to aggravate this strike, I do not know what is—it is a clear ratcheting up of the dispute. Of course, there is always blame on all sides, but the Government and the Department for Transport are in a position of responsibility.

[Ms Ghani]

We all want a resolution because we want to ensure our constituents can take the journeys they have paid for. The hon. Gentleman has talked about how much friction there is. I will read a quote from Mr Hedley, the RMT union assistant general secretary. He said on LBC:

“I think all the Tories are an absolute disgrace. They should be taken out and shot to be quite frank with you.”

Is that the new, gentler kind of politics that the Opposition agree with and believe will bring a resolution to this problem?

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

It does not help when the Government have not been getting the unions around the table in the same room without preconditions. That is how we de-escalate things. People in positions of responsibility, such as the Minister, need to come forward and de-escalate it, and not just point fingers and quote from the radio but actually show leadership.

The reality is that this dispute is not about money. We have heard a lot from the Conservatives about trying to shove cash into the mouths of drivers. This dispute is about safety and accessibility. The unions have put a clear proposal on the table. They have offered to come to a deal that will ensure that disabled and vulnerable people can turn up to the train station without having to give notice, and that there will be safe conditions on the trains. The unions would then withdraw their action. That offer has been disregarded by GTR and its puppet masters in the Government. I call them puppet masters because this is a rigged contract that allows GTR to continue to get the cash incentive to run a service that it fails to run—it does not lose a penny when ticket sales are not made. It does not have to bear the risk. The problem is the contract.

The Government clearly need to bring the contract in-house. Gibb says that that would be disruptive but, as the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) said, that is because the Government wound down the direct operator and have left themselves with their pants down. They are unable to run a service and they are unable to hold the contractors to account.