Train Operating Companies: Yorkshire

Rachael Maskell Excerpts

Wednesday 19th December 2018 Westminster Hall

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

Thank you, Dame Cheryl; it is a pleasure to see you in the Chair—you have heard the sheer anger of our constituents about the state of our railways. Today’s debate could have been called, “Why we desperately need an alternative Government to run our railways.” We have a detailed worked-up plan that will address the real challenges that commuters face on a day-by-day basis.

My hon. Friends the Members for Batley and Spen (Tracy Brabin) and for Barnsley East (Stephanie Peacock) highlighted that this is not just about personal stories, but about lives having to change because of a failure of timetables and the governance of our railways. We know the particular difficulties that people have had because of the halting of the electrification programme, which has had a catastrophic impact. The timetable fiasco resulted from that—

[Kevin Hollinrake]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Rachael Maskell]

I will just begin my speech, if I may.

There are excessive fare hikes, poor infrastructure, franchise changes and no certainty for the future. The Williams review critiques how dreadful the whole infrastructure is and how it is imploding around our constituents, who want only to turn up at work in time and to live out their lives. This is a disgrace.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

Rather than calling for a change in Government, would our constituents not prefer us to work on a cross-party, constructive basis to try to solve the problems? Much of the debate has been very constructive. Would that not be a better way forward?

[Rachael Maskell]

The reality is that the Government are not interested in the detailed solutions that we have been working towards for eight years to put the railway system back together, working across the industry with all stakeholders. That is why we need to move forward. If the Government want to join us in that, we would welcome that conversation, but to date they have blocked us. There is a real difference in policy. I note what the hon. Gentleman says, but also what my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford South (Judith Cummins) says. We need to look at the penalties that should be placed on these rail companies, such as freezing fares where there has been rail failure. It is wrong that people pay more for more failure on the railways.

The reality is that the Government have failed. Their ideology that is driving this forward is falling apart. Under the new model of publicly owned railways that we will put in place, we will see long-term security, long-term planning, long-term investment and stability for the whole rail sector.

We know about the inequality. We have heard the statistic about how London and the south-east have had so much more investment than we have in Yorkshire. There are consequences when we do not see the resources there. As my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) said, let us think about the vitality of connecting Sheffield to Leeds and Manchester—connecting the major cities of the north. In fact, the connectivity between Leeds and Manchester is the same length as the Piccadilly line. Think about the frequency and the reliability of the Piccadilly line compared with what we see at the moment.

We have heard tales of woe from across the trans-Pennine route. We have had a downgrade of the downgrade that was already planned—that came out of the board meeting a week or so ago. That downgrade will have serious consequences, because the Government have removed vital reliability from the service. Not only have we lost freight elements, as my hon. Friends have mentioned, and journey time savings—my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson) highlighted how journey times will extend with more stops on the line—but we have lost the reliability factor. That means that the only marker that will have an upgrade is capacity, because there are larger trains. Even then, we will not reach the potential on that line.

Dirty diesel is being put on the route as opposed to full electrification—the only thing that will deliver the reliability that is required. We have heard that this is all part of a stepped process: in control period 6 we will see some of the upgrade, and it will be completed in CP7. Will the Minister tell us what certainty there is that in more than 10 years’ time—we must remember that timeline, because we need connectivity today—CP7 will bring about that full upgrade of the trans-Pennine route? That is the crucial route for the north and we need the upgrade now.

My hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North highlighted the appalling state of stations. We must remember that stations are places of service—they are where people wait and they need facilities. Public toilets are a basic public health necessity and they must be there to meet passenger needs. We need to make sure they are put in place. We also need to make sure that our stations are accessible. We have heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Batley and Spen about the situation in Kirklees, where only eight of 16 stations are accessible. We have heard about Marsden station from my hon. Friend the Member for Colne Valley (Thelma Walker), and about Mirfield station. I was with Leonard Cheshire just last week at York station—even there, there was only one information point in the whole station. If a passenger is in need, where do they go? It is unacceptable.

We heard about the Equality Act 2010, but we must remember that it has been 23 years since the passing of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995, which called on stations to make reasonable adjustments. Quite clearly, that is shameful. We are nearly a quarter of a century on and we still deny disabled people the right to access railways. It is not just physical adaptations that are needed; we need to change the environments to accommodate neuro diversity. I suggest that the Minister talks to the TSSA, which is a leader in this field, about how we can accommodate autism and other such things, and make sure that our stations are supportive of people with sensory impairments.

Let me give the Minister a gentle reminder: guards are on trains not just to close doors, which is vital for passenger safety, but as the passenger champion to make sure passengers are safe—whether disabled or non-disabled—throughout their whole journey. It is vital that the Government get to grips with this agenda and ensure that passengers are looked after, as it is a public service, and that guards are back on our trains. It is an easy dispute to resolve, yet the Government seem so entrenched in their ideology that they do not want to move forward on this issue.

Our new model of public ownership will have the passenger at its heart. We will make sure that we take decisions in an integrated way, closer to where the passengers are, that power and resource are in the right place, and that we plan for the long term. We have a 30-year lifetime of infrastructure and rolling stock to make proper investments, to make sure there is a smoothing of skills, and to ensure good employability across the industry. Whether with operations, maintenance or enhancements, we will make sure that we timetable in such a way as to sustain our railway, so it does not fail passengers.

We want real investment in new technologies. It is heartbreaking that we go back to old technologies on our railway systems, because we see such advances taking place elsewhere in Europe and in the world. Yet in the UK, we are still stuck on Victorian railways. We have to move that agenda forward, because that will deliver the reliability that our passengers need and demand from this Government.

We have great opportunities ahead of us; we have heard Northern Powerhouse Rail mentioned. That will get the vital connectivity into Bradford if we have anything to do with it. We will make sure that the north is properly connected and has that modal shift where people move from road to rail—not just passengers, but freight. We have a real crisis with our environmental and carbon footprint. We have to see a modal shift. That will bring about the connectivity that hon. Friends talked about with bus services, making sure the whole system works together. We have the National College for High Speed Rail in Doncaster. I urge employers to make the best use of that academy as we move forward.

Finally, I want to talk about the franchising system. There is recognition that the whole system is broken. The train operating companies are self-serving; they have not provided the essential public service that, perhaps, was envisaged in the beginning; and they are certainly now orientated on profit. Rather than go through the franchising process, the Government have created 12 direct awards, and we clearly need to move on. We need real integration and Labour’s policies will be a catalyst to providing that essential connectivity for the sake of our economy and our environment, and to ensuring that people’s lives are restored and put back in order.

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[Andrew Jones]

As the hon. Lady knows, we have a system in which individual rail companies and the regulator have collective responsibility for these things, and that is what failed.

[Rachael Maskell]

Will the Minister give way?

[Andrew Jones]

I have given way a lot, and I have a lot to get through if I am to get to the answers. I will make a bit more progress before I take more interventions.

The May timetable change was a significant problem caused by ambition not being followed through with sufficient time to implement it properly—that obviously did not happen in the school of the hon. Member for Colne Valley (Thelma Walker). In September we appointed Richard George, a respected industry figure, to co-ordinate and lead efforts by the operators and Network Rail to look at performance across the north. He is reviewing the performance of the region’s rail network and making recommendations to improve reliability. His focus will be on operational improvement in the short and medium term.

Mr George is an independent expert, and he will act on behalf of railway customers to assist organisations in delivering organisational improvements. He will have a facilitation role in helping industry to reach the right decisions and focus on improving passenger services. He has already helped to highlight particular problem areas, and he will provide his conclusions in the new year. In the meantime, Network Rail has established a programme management office, so as to prepare better and to improve management of future timetable changes. An early recommendation from Network Rail was that it would be prudent for most of the changes planned for December 2018—including those in the north—to be deferred until May 2019. As colleagues have noted, we accepted that recommendation.

The modest changes that took place on 9 December were designed to improve performance, especially that of TransPennine Express through Yorkshire. I am pleased to report that the results in the first week—I recognise that these are early days—were encouraging, with TPE’s punctuality for the first few days 15% higher than the equivalent period in the previous week.

Several Members mentioned the compensation offered for the problems in May, and we took early action to ensure that passengers were compensated for the disruption they experienced. Not everybody was disrupted, but there was disruption in many parts of the country, not just the north, and those who were delayed significantly were able to reclaim money under the delay repay scheme. We required Northern and TPE to establish compensation schemes targeted at the people affected. That meant that the compensation was more generous, and money was put back into passengers’ pockets more quickly. More than 14,000 claims from season ticket holders and regular travellers on Northern and TPE services have been submitted, and £1 million has been paid in compensation to date. This week the delay repay scheme was extended to cover delays of 15 minutes. That focuses on helping people to seek redress if something goes wrong, but our focus now is on improving reliability and the operational performance of the railways, so that we do not need such compensation schemes.

Industrial relations were raised, and that issue is having a significant impact on the economy right across the north of England, not just in Yorkshire. In an effort to break the deadlock, leaders from Transport for the North and I recently made clear a shared desire to have a second person on board Northern trains, not just on the platform. As I have said, if we need to change the franchise contract, I will not block that in any way. Indeed, we will go further and play our part in helping to develop a funding package to cover any financial implications from such a change. In looking at the dispute, I see that Northern and the Department for Transport have confirmed that individual jobs are secure and pay is secure right up to the end of the franchise. There can be change with respect to having people on trains. All those changes are what people who travel on the networks are looking for. In view of that, I call on the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers to suspend the strikes and get talking again. I want the company and the union to sit and talk, and to bring things to a conclusion.

The Williams review is a significant piece of work. It is a root and branch review of the rail industry, led by the independent Keith Williams. We are seeking ambitious recommendations for reform that will ensure that the rail network delivers greater benefits for passengers. The investment from the Government and the private sector must result in improvements for passengers, to provide better capacity, better trains and more frequent services.

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[Andrew Jones]

That was a repetition of the point that the hon. Lady made earlier, so I do not need to address it.

I gently remind hon. Members that we had a zero-growth franchise, which was put in place by the Labour party, and we are playing catch-up on under-investment. Labour Members may say that Labour invested steadily when it was in government, but the evidence is the exact opposite. We had a zero-growth franchise and are catching up from it. Let me consider what that catch-up might look like.

Although 2018 is clearly a year that passengers in the north would wish to forget, we should not overlook the fact that train services in the region will be changing fundamentally. A significant amount of investment will bring passenger benefits. On the infrastructure side, the electrification between Manchester and Preston, which I mentioned earlier, was finally energised last week and the first test trains are now operational. [Interruption.] It will benefit services across the north. That is my point. Electric passenger services will be phased in during the spring. Across the region platform lengthening is under way. Of course I recognise that performance is not good enough, and that is why we have made a change in the control period 6 budgets and priorities. Under CP6 there will be a budget of £48 billion. That covers the period from 2019 to 2024. The priority was moving away from enhancements to catching up on core reliability—the maintenance of the network.

[Rachael Maskell]

Will the Minister address the issue of the trans-Pennine route and the fact that reliability has now been taken off the table as part of the CP6 upgrade? It is vital that it should be put back on the table, to ensure that we get the connectivity that we need between Manchester and Leeds.

[Andrew Jones]

If I get time I shall come on to the trans-Pennine upgrades, but the core purpose of the CP6 investment, which is a record from any Government in British history, is to increase reliability and punctuality.

The key thing that passengers will notice is new trains. New rolling stock will come in on Northern, TransPennine Express and London North Eastern Railway networks in the coming months, including the removal of Pacers by the end of 2019. By this time next year the vast majority of the 500 brand new carriages committed by Northern and TPE will have been delivered, and the remainder will have been completely refurbished. TPE will have introduced its new Nova trains on the north trans-Pennine route and all the Pacers will be gone from Northern. There will be more services to add to those already delivered, especially at weekends; there will also be later last trains in the evenings and earlier first trains on Sundays. Elsewhere, LNER will begin introducing its new Azuma trains next year.

The trans-Pennine upgrade is a huge Government initiative—a £2.9 billion upgrade covering York to Leeds and Manchester. It is one third of the expected rail upgrade investment in the next control period, so it is a significant point. By the way, freight has been mentioned, and it is of course still under our consideration for northern trans-Pennine.