Chris Gibb Report: Improvements to Southern Railway

Debate between Stephen Lloyd and Maria Caulfield

Tuesday 4th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Lloyd]

I agree, and I will address that when I turn to the Gibb report, but I wanted to say something else before getting on to it. If we asked members of the public around the country where they have DOO—outside the underground, as that is a different kettle of fish—whether they would prefer to have a second member of staff on the train, I bet they would say that they would.

The Gibb report identified GTR as being the worst performing operator in the country, with performance deteriorating two or three years before the current industrial dispute. I grant that the report identified industrial relations as being a primary cause of the system’s breakdown, but that featured on only one page of the entire 163-page document. That leads me to wonder just how impartial Gibb was in putting together the report. After all, while doing so he apparently spoke with GTR over 30 times and Government agencies over 45 times, yet he spoke with the two unions zero times. What is going on here?

When GTR won the contract direct attention was given in it to “best price”, rather than deliverability. Extraordinarily, that meant GTR winning without enough drivers. Gibb himself wrote:

“I understand that at least one losing bidder”

included more drivers and that

“it may have been the case that the bidder with the fewest drivers won”.

In other words, it was about cost; it was not about quality or customer care. So it was nonsense for the Secretary of State, who unfortunately has left the Chamber, to say earlier that he is trying to train more drivers and that he wants more train drivers. Frankly, the original contract was won by GTR on cost, with fewer drivers than its competitors.

Who is actually leading in the Southern rail dispute, from the rail perspective? Is it GTR and Southern rail, or is it the Government?

[Maria Caulfield]

The hon. Gentleman was an MP during the time when the contract was being let, while many of us were not. Did he not raise these questions and make these points at the time?

[Stephen Lloyd]

I certainly did! I welcome the hon. Lady’s intervention and I thank her for reminding me that I was furious about Southern rail at the time. I thought it was absolute rubbish, and I said so frequently. I appreciate her allowing me to remind everyone about that. And it is good to be back; thank you.

Let me go back to the question of who is actually leading for Southern rail in the dispute, and to the Gibb report. Gibb says that the Secretary of State is

“already determining the strategic direction of this dispute”.

As I said earlier, I am not sponsored by the RMT. Members on both sides of the House know that the Government are behind this dispute because they want to bring in DOO. That is as plain as the nose on your face. Yes, at the minute, there is a second member of staff on 97% of the trains, as another Member said, but that was not the intention at the beginning. The intention was to break the RMT and to bring in DOO. My priority is the customer—the rail passengers of Eastbourne who have suffered so much. This is frustrating because the Government went into this ready to have a war. They were ready to have a battle and to beat the RMT, but they have ended up with a complete stalemate in which the two sides have dug in and the passengers, people and communities of Eastbourne and the south-east are suffering.