Avanti West Coast Contract Renewal

Rob Roberts Excerpts

Tuesday 25th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Foster]

Again, it is worth noting that, in the case of Avanti—I shall talk specifically about Avanti as it is the subject of today’s urgent question—agreement on rest-day working with the trade unions had been in place for some period of time, and that it suddenly ceased in those volunteering to undertake it. This is not a case of there not being an agreement. For example, if people started volunteering for rest-day working tomorrow, they could pick it up and do it again. That said, is it sensible to be having large parts of a key train line relying on rest-day working? The obvious answer is no, which is why we want to look at wider modernisation—we may have some difference of opinion on that, but it is a key point—and on how additional drivers are being trained so that the December recovery plan for Avanti does not rely on driver rest-day working.

[Rob Roberts (Delyn) (Ind)]

One of the biggest problems on the north Wales coast line is that when Avanti stopped its services, my constituents had to put up with Welsh Labour’s Transport for Wales service instead, which is just as unreliable. It is so overcrowded that it looks a bit like the tube at rush hour. With a little bit of sympathy for Avanti’s situation, I have been trying to schedule my own train travel recently, and it is just as difficult to get a train because of strike action going on as because of the problems with getting tickets. Does the Minister agree that the hardest part for the public is uncertainty and cancellations? Would it not be better for Avanti to run fewer services well, especially down the north Wales coast line, rather than making promises that it just cannot keep?

[Kevin Foster]

The hon. Member is right to suggest that this idea of a publicly owned transport service being some sort of panacea of great customer service is rather false. It is interesting to hear the examples that he highlights of the service offered by the Welsh Government, which his own constituents get to experience. On the balance between reliability and the number of services being run, the reduced timetable was put in place partly to ensure that services would run. That said, the service is clearly not at the level that we would wish. That is why more than 100 drivers will have been trained between April and November, which is when we look to bring back the main timetable. Ultimately, it is for Avanti to deliver the services that it is contracted to provide.