Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Paula Sherriff and Lord Johnson of Marylebone

Thursday 5th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Paula Sherriff (Dewsbury) (Lab)]

11. What steps he is taking to ensure the provision of compensation to passengers affected by recent rail disruption.

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Joseph Johnson)]

Recent disruption on the rail service has been unacceptable and the Government have been clear that passengers will be appropriately compensated. Transport for the North has agreed that the special compensation should cover weekly, monthly and annual season ticket holders on the worst affected northern routes who experienced severe disruption before and after the May timetable change.

[Paula Sherriff]

Well, that all sounds very good in principle, but owing to weeks of chaos, cancellations and delays, my constituent, Alex Hodgson, has had to use a significant proportion of his annual leave. He is still being passed between departments at TransPennine Express and has now been offered the equivalent of £1 a day compensation. Despite assurances from the Secretary of State, he and other constituents feel let down and ignored. What will the Minister do about it?

Transport Secretary: East Coast Franchise

Debate between Paula Sherriff and Lord Johnson of Marylebone

Wednesday 23rd May 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Joseph Johnson)]

As we have heard from right hon. and hon. Members, the railways always stimulate passionate debate, even if some of the arguments made by Labour Members do not seem to have moved on much since the 1970s.

Leaving aside Labour’s unwarranted, ad hominem, vindictive attacks on the Secretary of State, which only serve to underline how thin its substantive arguments are, it would have us believe that our future lies in returning to the bad old days of British Rail. However, scores of Conservative Members have used this debate to restate the merits of what has been achieved since privatisation, and they are entirely right to recall its considerable successes.

As my hon. Friends the Members for Spelthorne (Kwasi Kwarteng) and for Milton Keynes South (Iain Stewart) made clear, privatisation has transformed the railway. Passenger numbers have doubled, with 1.72 billion journeys in 2016-17. Passenger satisfaction has increased—ours has the second-highest satisfaction levels of any railway in Europe—and we have unprecedented levels of safety, meaning that the British railway is one of the safest in Europe. The public and private sector, working together, have responded to demand by delivering more services to more stations across a busier network. Some 71 more stations are open today than in 1994-95, and more than 7.3 million passengers services were planned on the Great Britain rail network in 2016-17, which represents an increase of 29% from 1997-98.

[Paula Sherriff]

The Minister seems to be referring to some utopian paradise with his talk of all the great things about the current rail system. Has he looked at Twitter this week and seen the complaints of many thousands of people, including many of my constituents, who are experiencing a living hell just commuting to work and college?

[Joseph Johnson]

We are of course dealing with the challenges of managing a busy, successful and growing network. The hon. Lady will acknowledge that we have just introduced one of the biggest—if not the biggest—timetable changes in the history of the railways to reflect the surge in demand for rail services. We recognise that there are problems, of course, and we are focusing on them so that we minimise disruption, but we should acknowledge that we are dealing with the challenges of success, rather than failure.

Let us not forget about freight either—it is one of the great success stories of privatisation. The private rail freight operators that took over from British Rail in the 1990s brought a new spirit of commercial enterprise and customer focus, and an innovative approach, to operations. That transformed a sector that had been in steady decline into one that, over 20 years, has doubled its share of the land-based freight market.

Privatisation has driven innovation, new private investment and customer service excellence, drawing in more than £4 billion of private investment in our railways since 2010 to deliver faster, more convenient and more comfortable journeys. Thanks to private investment, 7,000 new carriages are to be introduced on the rail network between now and 2021.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Paula Sherriff and Lord Johnson of Marylebone

Thursday 18th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Paula Sherriff (Dewsbury) (Lab)]

19. My constituents can barely get a seat on the train, yet this month they have had the shoulder the biggest fare increases in the country. Although Whitehall and rail bosses crow about improvements to stations such as London Bridge, can the Minister tell me how such projects will benefit passengers in northern towns like mine?

[Joseph Johnson]

It is northern towns like the hon. Lady’s that are going to be some of the principal beneficiaries of the replaced train fleet across the country. Passengers in her constituency will have improved, more reliable, safer and more punctual services.

Office for Students: Appointment

Debate between Paula Sherriff and Lord Johnson of Marylebone

Monday 8th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Joseph Johnson]

The board is representative of a broad range of higher education providers, as it is required to be under the terms of the Higher Education and Research Act 2017. It contains a vice-chancellor of the University of the West of England; a former vice-chancellor of BPP University; the chair of council at an arts college, the Rose Bruford College; and a senior figure from an Oxford college, who happens to be the bursar and also a director at the Oxford Centre for Higher Education Policy Studies. It is well representative of the excellent diversity of our higher education system.

[Paula Sherriff (Dewsbury) (Lab)]

May I gently remind the Minister that abuse comes to all candidates, not just Conservative ones? I truly want to believe that this House takes allegations of sexual harassment and inappropriate behaviour in the workplace seriously, but how can I when the Minister is continuing with the appointment of this misogynist man who thinks that it is appropriate constantly to tweet about women’s breasts, anal rape and masturbating over images of starving children?

[Joseph Johnson]

I do not see why we should take lessons from the Labour party on these matters. Let us take, for example, the case of the shadow Chancellor, the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), who made some extraordinarily intemperate and misogynistic comments about my right hon. Friend the Member for Tatton (Ms McVey). They were too vile to repeat, but typical of what the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) described as the persistent,

“low-level, non-violent misogyny”

at the top of the Labour party.