Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Rob Wilson and Kelvin Hopkins

Wednesday 9th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wilson]

Name-blind recruitment has been implemented in 75% of the civil service. We are working with other major workforces across the public sector further to embed name-blind recruitment. In addition, all civil service recruiters are required to undertake mandatory training to avoid unconscious bias before they embark on any recruitment exercise, and this includes panel members involved in sift and interview for fast stream apprenticeship schemes and executive recruitment.

[Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)]

I welcome what the Minister says, but does he agree it is important to recruit civil servants who will be lifelong servants of the state and the public and whose sole commitment is to public service?

[Mr Wilson]

Of course, and obviously we want to attract the best talent possible into the civil service. That is why we commissioned the Bridge Group report, which found that the fast stream, in particular, was deeply unrepresentative. We are taking considerable action to change that, however, including, as I just said, with name-blind recruitment, by publishing the pay ratio between the median and highest-paid employees and by creating over 200,000 apprenticeship opportunities in the public sector for young people.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Rob Wilson and Kelvin Hopkins

Wednesday 7th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Civil Society (Mr Rob Wilson)]

Yes, I do. This real concern is shared by many in the sector. Most notably, the Wellcome Trust has voiced fears of the impact it would have on legacy giving. The National Council for Voluntary Organisations reckons that 10,000 charities get legacies each year, to a value of about £2 billion. Lord Winston, who is a widely respected Labour peer, has been joined by Charles Clarke, the former Labour Home Secretary. As they have both added their voices, I hope that the shadow Chancellor will rethink this wrong-headed policy.

[Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)]

T2. Earlier in this Parliament, Ministers flirted with the possibility of a politicised senior civil service. That danger seems to have receded, but will the Minister now reaffirm a Government commitment to the historic principle of political impartiality in the civil service, specifically in matters relating to the European Union?

Network Rail

Debate between Rob Wilson and Kelvin Hopkins

Thursday 2nd February 2012 Westminster Hall

[Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for St Albans (Mrs Main) on a first-class speech. I agreed with almost every word she said, but I am afraid that I do not share the rosy view of Network Rail that the hon. Member for Reading East (Mr Wilson) expressed.

[Mr Wilson]

It was my experience.

[Kelvin Hopkins]

It is not my experience. I have had many contacts with those who have worked in the rail industry over the past 15 years and before, and I have heard a stream of criticism from people fearful of being exposed because they would be victimised if their names leaked out. To illustrate that point, I deliberately forget their names, but I have heard a lot of very disturbing details.

I have a passionate interest in railways and have supported them since I serviced the TUC transport committee in the 1970s. I have been a rail commuter on Thameslink for 43 years, and have travelled through St Albans in that time. I have always believed that railways are the transport of the future, which was not the view of the Department for Transport until recently—quite unexpectedly as far as it is concerned, there has been an enormous surge in rail passengers in recent years. Despite higher fares and travel problems, people have chosen to use the railways, which confirms my view that they are the transport mode of the future. There has been much investment over the past 15 years, which has been expensive, but we need a lot more of it.

Privatisation has been a hugely expensive mistake. Indeed, a Department for Transport official was heard to say privately at the time that privatisation was intended to facilitate the decline of the railways. That was the Department’s view then. It was thought that the railways were a diminishing form of transport and that eventually we would all move to our cars. The great mistake, of course, was to divide the railways between Network Rail and the train operators—to separate track and train. No other country in Europe has chosen to privatise their railways. They have seen the mistake that we made, and the problems that that caused. There have been accidents and there are serious safety problems, even now, and of course there has been a massive increase in costs.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman), the Select Committee Chair, said, Railtrack was an appalling organisation. In the foyer of its headquarters it had an electronic indicator showing its share price. That is what it was concerned about—not serving the public, or safety. Eventually, of course, the previous Government were forced to abolish it and to come up with another solution. I understand that a private conversation took place in Downing street for several hours, between Stephen Byers, Tony Blair and the then Chancellor of the Exchequer. Tony Blair got bored after a certain time and walked out, saying “Well do what you have to do, but no nationalisation.” So they came up with the strange beast called Network Rail, which is neither nationalised nor privatised, and has no effective accountability at all. We have had not just privatisation but fragmentation—but that fragmentation was based on some economic theory, which was once explained to me by an economist. I said, “Costs were supposed to go down, but they went up massively.” “Yes,” he said, “our theory didn’t work.” Well, why do they not just reverse what they did and reintegrate and renationalise the railways?

There has been a massive increase in costs, in both public subsidy and fares, and, as Sir Roy McNulty concluded, at one point, our railways were up to 40% more expensive than continental railways. I have said in the Chamber, and to Sir Roy, whom I have met twice with my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), that the big difference between continental railways and ours is that the continental ones are publicly owned and integrated, while ours are privately owned and fragmented. I do not think that he was listening to me, because he clearly had his card marked, “Whatever you do, no public ownership: find another solution.” One of the things that he has done, which I completely disagree with—the railway unions have made the point—is to consider staffing cuts. The staff on the front line have apparently been judged very efficient. They are not the problem, or the ones who cause the costs, but they are the ones who will have to pay the price, because in place of a challenge to what Network Rail does, there will be cuts to staff in stations at night.

Network Rail is a dysfunctional organisation. It is expensive and bloated, and is a law unto itself. I have met David Higgins a couple of times, and I have a high regard for him. He is a decent person, but he has taken over an organisation that is out of control. He has had great difficulty in penetrating that appalling organisation. Network Rail is a rogue organisation, and impenetrable. I have described it as an entrenched management mafia. I understand that within the organisation David Higgins suffers a degree of hostility, because every time he tries to change anything he is resisted. That is not just within the management structures; even at board level he suffers from those problems. It is down to the Government to back him up when he wants to do things, and to break the stranglehold of the corrupt management that has been there so long.

The vice-like grip of the old guard stems back to Railtrack days, and even though it was abolished some of the same people—and the same practices and culture—carried on. As I have said, I have had dozens of conversations over 15 years with staff and former staff, and they are all fearful of being whistleblowers, and I can understand why.