Rail Services: East Durham Coastline

Debate between Simon Lightwood and Grahame Morris

Tuesday 1st April 2025 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Simon Lightwood)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Sir Jeremy, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Grahame Morris) on raising the important subject of rail services along the east Durham coastline. I also thank other Members for their contributions today.

The Government’s mission for growth is our No. 1 priority. We are kick-starting economic growth across the country. This means more and better jobs and more money in people’s pockets, but as I am sure my hon. Friend recognises, we cannot have good and stable growth without a rail network that performs for his constituents in Easington and everyone across the north-east and the country.

Let me be clear: I am as frustrated as my hon. Friend by the poor service his constituents have experienced using Northern. He mentions overcrowded services, and I fully understand that passengers get frustrated when they regularly have to stand on trains, but I assure him that the Department requires its operators to plan services and rail timetables to meet passenger demand. We issue operators with guidelines on loading, including on standing time, and for most of the north that is currently 20 minutes.

However, services need to be operationally resilient and to provide value for money for the taxpayer as well as a reliable service for passengers. That means that it is not possible to guarantee every passenger a seat on every service, as that would require operators to maintain significantly larger fleets to meet demand at peak times, with trains then standing idle for much of the time. That being said, Northern, like all operators, takes its safety obligations seriously, and if my hon. Friend sends me more details on the specific safety cases he mentioned, I will be happy to take them up with Northern and write back to him.

None the less, it has been made clear to Northern’s management team that its current performance is not acceptable. That is why the Rail North Partnership, through which the Department for Transport and Transport for the North jointly manage Northern’s contract, issued the operator with a notice of breach of contract. We have required Northern to produce a detailed plan to improve its services for passengers, including the constituents of Easington.

That plan will require Northern to follow the necessary steps to match the Government’s ambition for transport across the north. Northern must resolve long-standing disputes with the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers conductors to deliver a passenger-focused railway that runs seven days a week, whether on a Monday morning or a Sunday afternoon. It must develop its fleet and train crews and strengthen resources across engineering, control and operations. I also agree with my hon. Friend about the importance of resilience when staff go off sick, which is in Northern’s improvement plan.

[Grahame Morris]

I am grateful to the Minister for seriously addressing the issues that I raised, and I hope that he will address my other two principal suggestions. It is all very well talking about resilience, but people’s travel plans are formed by their experience. We are trying to grow the railway and the local economy, but when individuals go to the railway stations at Seaham or Horden with their families to go shopping in Newcastle or Middlesbrough and they cannot get on the train, that experience colours their judgment. The next time, instead of standing there in the rain for an hour, they will choose an alternative method; they will take the X10 or find some other means of getting there. We really need to up our game and provide frequent and regular services from these stations.

[Simon Lightwood]

I agree, which is why the Government are placing passengers at the heart of our plan for Great British Railways. I hear what my hon. Friend is saying very clearly.

The improvement plan aims to tackle the resilience issue by ensuring that the operator develops a structure, from governance to process, that enables the business to better manage staff sickness. I agree with my hon. Friend that the railway industry’s reliance on rest-day working to operate services is not sustainable. That is why the Rail Minister in the other place has instructed Northern to ensure that it recruits and trains to its full complement so that overtime can be used for additional tasks, such as training, rather than running services.

I am ambitious for Northern to get back on the path to delivery by meeting the steps in its improvement plan, which will result in a more reliable service for passengers and my hon. Friend’s constituents. Northern’s overall cancellations are at more than 8%. That is not acceptable, and I share Members’ frustrations. That is why the improvement plan also sets a clear target for Northern: 90% of all its trains should arrive within three minutes of the time listed on the timetable, and cancellations should be below 3%.

I turn to services, because I note my hon. Friend’s comments about the semi-fast Northern service between Middlesbrough and Newcastle. I assure him that the stops chosen reflect the aspirations for a semi-fast service between Middlesbrough and Newcastle, and were chosen in collaboration with Transport for the North and its members. I gently remind my hon. Friend that Transport for the North and its members have never requested additional stopping services on the Durham coastline. The current infrastructure could not support a two trains per hour stopping service as well as one train per hour on a semi-fast service. Given the line’s capacity constraints, including freight traffic and shared use with the Tyne and Wear Metro, adding stops at Horden and Seaham would require remodelling to assess its operational viability.

[Grahame Morris]

Will the Minister give way?

[Simon Lightwood]

I am going to make progress. My hon. Friend will forgive me.

I also note my hon. Friend’s support for new proposed services from Grand Central, and I recognise the important role that Grand Central has played in improving connectivity and choice for passengers in the north-east. That is why the Department has provided support in principle to Network Rail’s consultation on the application from Grand Central to extend its existing access rights for an additional 11 years. However, capacity constraints on the east coast main line mean that we cannot support Grand Central’s separate application to operate additional services. That was set out in our letter to the regulator on 4 February. I note that some of those services would call at Seaham, which is in my hon. Friend’s constituency.

I direct my hon. Friend to the improvements that the Government have already made to Northern connectivity and capacity. Although Northern’s procurement of new trains is at an early stage, and at this point I cannot say in detail where any of them will be running, I assure my hon. Friend that the new trains will have greater capacity and, over time, they will replace almost the entire Northern fleet, including those on the Durham coastline.

In Sunderland—home to the best football team in the world, as I am sure my hon. Friend will agree—we are carrying out the biggest overhaul of the railways in a generation to put passengers first and to deliver punctual, high-quality services. Grand Central trains already run to London five times a day on weekdays and four on weekends. That will only improve from December this year, when Grand Central will run an extra service to replace the withdrawn service from London North Eastern Railway.

Meanwhile, a regular metro service also provides connectivity to Newcastle, where two LNER trains per hour go to London. That will increase to three per hour from December this year. LNER continues to operate one return service from Middlesbrough to London, and although additional services to Middlesbrough are heavily dependent on changes to local station infrastructure, I remain ambitious for improvement.

I assure my hon. Friend that the Department remains supportive of a role for open access services where they provide improved connectivity and choice for passengers. However, we must ensure that they are a good use of taxpayer money and do not negatively impact the operation of the network. It must be noted that although the Department reviews open access applications as part of a standard process, access to the rail network is a matter for the regulator, and no decision on the applications from Grand Central has yet been made.

As I mentioned the east coast main line, I will reassure my hon. Friend about the Government’s commitment to invest in rail. The east coast main line will take advantage of a £4 billion investment when the timetable changes in December. That will mean 16,000 more seats daily between London and Newcastle, an hourly LNER service between both cities, more local trains north of Newcastle, new trains between Sheffield and Leeds, more services between Reading and York, and provision for additional services connecting Middlesbrough, Sunderland and Newcastle, and Nottingham and Lincoln. Again, I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Easington for securing this important debate, and I thank hon. Members for their brief but important contributions.

Question put and agreed to.

Bus Franchising

Debate between Simon Lightwood and Grahame Morris

Monday 9th September 2024 Commons Chamber

[Simon Lightwood]

The ability of local areas and local transport authorities to take back control of their bus services is crucial for rural areas, because they know their communities best. Those decisions should not be made from places in Westminster or Whitehall. Again, local transport authorities understand the specific needs of their local communities, be they rural or urban, and are best placed to make those decisions and design the network around those needs.

[Grahame Morris (Easington) (Lab)]

I welcome the statement and draw to the Minister’s attention the Transport Committee report, “Bus services in England outside London”, which was produced under the chairmanship of my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood), who is now Under-Secretary of State for Transport. There are some excellent recommendations in there. In regions such as Greater Manchester, the process of introducing bus franchising has been quite lengthy. Granting combined authorities the ability to directly award contracts would significantly shorten that timeline, allowing areas such as the north-east to bring about faster improvements. Will the Minister confirm that the better buses Bill will include provisions for direct award powers?

[Simon Lightwood]

I can confirm that my officials are investigating the means to do just that, and I will update the House accordingly as progress continues.

Automated Vehicles Bill [ Lords ] (Second sitting)

Debate between Simon Lightwood and Grahame Morris

Committee stage
Tuesday 19th March 2024 Public Bill Committees

[Simon Lightwood]

New clause 2, tabled in my name and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Sefton Central, sets out that the accessible format of AVs being used as public transport will be set out in regulations. That would bring AVs in line with section 17 of the Bus Services Act 2017. It is similar to amendment 10 but has a wider scope. The requirement to consult with Welsh and Scottish Ministers would increase the transparency of the regulations to allow for proper scrutiny.

As I mentioned in the previous debate, we do not know what this technology is going to be used for or exactly how it is going to develop. We need to ensure that it will be accessible to disabled people no matter what the use case. Again, as I mentioned when speaking to amendment 10, disabled people are mentioned only in clause 87. That makes the Bill nowhere near clear or detailed enough.

For people with sight loss who use passenger services, both identifying and reaching a vehicle at the start of a journey and leaving it and making their way to a destination at the end of a journey can be difficult, even with a human driver to assist. It is important to reiterate that, as with amendment 10, there needs to be a clear and consistent standard for AVs when they are used as public transport, to make their location clear to passengers with sight loss when they make a pick-up—for example, with an audible signal. They should also be equipped to provide clear directions to get a passenger from a vehicle to their destination. During the journey there may be instances when a passenger needs to give further input to the automated driving system or remote operator. For instance, if a vehicle is delayed or diverted, a passenger may be asked whether they wish to continue their journey or stop at an alternative destination. The information must be presented in an accessible format that does not require the visual cues of a map or sight of the situation outside a vehicle to respond to.

As I mentioned when speaking to amendment 10, the UK currently has a 38% accessibility transport gap, which means that disabled people as defined under the Equality Act 2010 take 38% fewer trips than those without disabilities. That is linked to the point about disability groups being embedded in the process and consulted from the start, not only in respect of the statement of safety principles but throughout the Bill’s implementation and the establishment of an advisory council.

[Grahame Morris]

I rise to speak to clause 85 and new clause 2. My understanding of the explanatory notes in respect of clause 85 is that automated passenger services that resemble a taxi would have to obtain a relevant local taxi licence. I hope that that is correct.

Automated Vehicles Bill [ Lords ] (First sitting)

Debate between Simon Lightwood and Grahame Morris

Committee stage
Tuesday 19th March 2024 Public Bill Committees

[Simon Lightwood]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Vickers. Amendment 25 seeks clarity on whether the authorisation of pavement robot vehicles can be within the scope of the Bill, and ensures that the safety of other road users is not negatively affected.

The amendment questions whether the Bill includes regulation for delivery robots. It is an opportunity for colleagues to consider whether we have thought about how the framework might be different from that for the automated vehicle framework and how it would be the same. This could well be a key missed opportunity in the Bill, and investment could be taken elsewhere if we lose out on economic gains because of the grey areas and lack of clarity. Pavement use is a grey area because the robots contain motors and a pavement is legally defined as part of the road. This question is within the Bill’s scope, yet clearly the regulation of vehicles that primarily use the pavement must be different from the regulation for those that use roads.

Pavement robots need clear regulation—for example, to ensure that they do not negatively affect disabled people, or that they are regulated only on pavements that are wide enough. Asda and Wayve have an ongoing trial of delivery services, and Starship already serves communities in Milton Keynes, Northamptonshire, Bedfordshire and West Yorkshire—in fact, I have visited a site in the Wakefield constituency. The DFT plans to conduct research on pavement use, but if primary legislation is needed to enact what comes from the findings the issue may remain unresolved for years, meaning that the UK will continue to fall behind other nations and lose critical investment opportunities.

As I have seen in my Wakefield constituency, there is a lot of potential in the principle of delivery robots. They deal with the final mile from where the lorry drops off its load to when the parcel gets to the individual dwelling. I find them particularly good for people in my constituency who are socially isolated. Using electric robots for that last mile rather than diesel vans, as often happens currently, has the potential to make a big contribution to our net zero commitments.

Starship has called for the regulation of the sector, because the lack of regulation has the potential to impact on investment decisions. In fact, Leeds City Council and Cambridge City Council did a survey that showed between 75% and 93% approval of the service provided by Starship Technologies. Between the Lords Minister and the Commons Minister there seem to be some crossed wires as to whether robot delivery vehicles are within the Bill’s scope, so some clarity on that would be good.

Amendments 17 and 16 and new clause 4 aim to improve transparency on the impact of AVs, to ensure that the public are properly informed and to increase Parliamentary scrutiny. Amendment 17 would mean that the sellers of automated vehicles might be required to demonstrate how each of the automated features were engaged and disengaged. That is critical in terms of transparency. Amendment 16 would require authorised self-driving entities to publish an equality impact assessment to assess the impact on other road users—including, crucially, disabled people.

New clause 4 would require the Secretary of State to commission a study on the transition period in respect of users in charge, to be laid before Parliament. The insurance company AXA has said that there is still debate over how long it would take for a user in charge not only to take back control but to understand their surroundings, fully re-engage with the driving task and react safely to an obstacle that the self-driving vehicle was incapable of dealing with.

Overall, the amendments and new clause 4 would provide greater transparency and reassurance to consumers, which I am sure Members will agree is crucial, and nowhere more so than in respect of the safety of AVs for all road users. In chapter 5.7 of its report, the Law Commission states that equality impact assessments must be published, but there is no reference to such assessments anywhere in the Bill. There is, then, a need for clarity on transition demands. The policy scoping notes, and the Minister on the Floor of the House, committed to equity of impacts, so why is that not on the face of the Bill, given that the Minister knows how important it is? I look forward to the Minister’s response.

[Grahame Morris]

I want to make a few points in support of my Front-Bench colleague, my hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield. As he rightly said, clause 3 would enable the Government to authorise a vehicle as an automated vehicle if it met the self-driving test and if other authorisation requirements were met. That is both a safety and an insurance issue, so it is fundamental to what the Bill is intended to achieve.

Seafarers' Wages Bill [ Lords ] (First sitting)

Debate between Simon Lightwood and Grahame Morris

Committee stage
Tuesday 17th January 2023 Public Bill Committees

[Grahame Morris]

Thank you, Mr Davies. I will hurry along.

To reinforce the point made by the hon. Member for Dover, I say to the Minister—I am sure he is aware of this—that some academic studies into crew fatigue were published in 2012 by Cardiff University. Further research is provided by the EU’s Horizon project and the World Maritime University’s EVREST report, and all the evidence highlights the dangers of crew fatigue caused by long hours. I believe the replacement crews on the Dover-Calais ferry were working 12-hour shifts, seven days a week, for up to 17 weeks without a break, when they slept on the ship. That must be a cause for concern in terms of health and safety.

In conclusion, I say to the Minister that we really need a maximum roster pattern in the seafarers’ charter. For the ferry sector, two weeks on, two weeks off is the pattern favoured internationally and by the maritime unions, for health and safety reasons as much as anything. I urge the Minister to work with the maritime trade unions and the Labour party in respect of this issue, and on refining the seafarers’ charter to get this right and to help restore jobs, fair pay agreements and training programmes, starting with the ferry sector.

[Simon Lightwood (Wakefield) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. I rise to speak in favour of amendment 62, which stands in my name and those of my hon. Friends, on the deduction of accommodation, food costs and other entitlements, and of amendment 45, which stands in the name of the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North, on preventing port hopping.

The intention of amendment 62 is to prevent operators from deducting accommodation, food and other costs from the national minimum wage equivalent. We do, of course, welcome the intention to ensure that operators pay a national minimum wage equivalent to those who have close working relationships with the UK, but as we have heard, significant elements of the provisions and their enforcement must be strengthened to prevent avoidance, which we know is rife in the sector.

First, the minimum wage provision has an offset allowing employers to deduct costs for providing accommodation. That is clearly ripe for abuse and must be ruled out explicitly. We know that P&O could potentially deduct £1,035 and Irish Ferries nearly £490 from a non-qualifying seafarer’s wages, if the accommodation offset is available to them under the secondary legislation provided for in the Bill.