Future of Rail

Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi Excerpts

Tuesday 26th April 2022 Westminster Hall

[Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to be taking part in this crucial debate, and I thank my hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) for securing it. As my predecessor in this role, she certainly has superb knowledge in this field. I also applaud her for being an amazing champion of her constituents, and for her dedication in supporting York in its bid to be the new headquarters for Great British Railways. Indeed, there was a lot of harmony in the room when the hon. Members for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Andrew Jones), for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake) and for York Outer (Julian Sturdy) all supported York’s bid because of the city’s global rail cluster and digital technology firms, which contribute immensely to UK rail innovation. I applaud them all for their dedication, and I am sure that York will be a very strong candidate. Indeed, as a nation we must ensure that we increase exports of such cutting-edge technologies to other parts of the world.

We cannot debate the future of rail without considering its past. Understanding first where rail has come from in the past decade is crucial in understanding where it is going in the next. As the phrase goes, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”, which we definitely do not want for our railways. The 2010s can only be described as a disastrous decade for rail, with fares rising twice as fast as wages, as my hon. Friend the Member for Luton South (Rachel Hopkins) eloquently highlighted, cuts to rail services up and down our country, a network unlikely to be decarbonised and net zero by 2050, and a consistently vague communications approach for future development and investment in rail. Despite the Tory rhetoric of investment and expansion, the Government’s actions speak far louder than their words.

Passengers travelling by rail today compared to 12 years ago are paying twice as much for a lot less. Year on year, rail fares have ballooned, increasing by 49% since 2010, while wages across the UK have stalled, with weekly median earnings increasing by just 23% since 2010, all while incomes are being squeezed by a pressing cost of living crisis. How do this Government expect people to be able to keep up with these brutal hikes? Increasing passenger numbers while simultaneously pricing them out does not seem like the most robust strategy from the Government.

The Government solution appears to be the “Great British Rail Sale”, touted to offer huge savings on many off-peak intercity routes, but Labour findings suggest that these discounts will be applied to a mere 1% of all journeys taken, as my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Dr Huq) eloquently explained. Perhaps we are being far too generous, Sir Charles, as even the Tory press are running stories that only 0.66% of journeys will be discounted. This is nothing more than a gimmick, and rail staff, unions and passengers know that all too well. No wonder it has been called the “Great British Rail Fail”.

Short-term sales and political gimmicks should not be the future of our railways, but a permanent, affordable, efficient and green network should be. Given the steep cost of travelling on our railways, passengers would be expected to experience an equally steep improvement in services. Sadly, that has not been the case. This Government are imposing cuts of 10% on operators, threatening jobs across the network and reducing network capacity.

Furthermore, industry anxiety about omicron, used as a front to permanently reduced timetables, seems to have materialised, with 19,000 pre-pandemic services yet to return, as my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders) eloquently explained when he talked about services to and from Chester. In areas of the south-west, there is a distinct lack of services, as the hon. Member for West Dorset (Chris Loder), who has considerable experience in the rail industry, highlighted. It is evident to me that while the Tories might talk up the bright future of rail, all I can see is managed decline. Will the Minister tell us what plans the Government have to bring back these lost services and provide passengers with a future in which rail travel is better value for money?

A key part of rail’s future, and of all of our futures, is the climate crisis, but Government failures on rail are a pattern, with an equally poor record on electrification, despite increased climate change awareness during the last decade. This is the view not just of the Labour party but of industry professionals and stakeholders with whom I have had several meetings. The Railway Industry Association’s 2021 report, entitled “Why Rail Electrification?”, puts forward the case for a rolling plan of electrification, which is necessary for network decarbonisation, adding that that is how the UK will reach its net zero targets.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Mr Dhesi]

I can see several Members want to get in and normally I would be well up for taking interventions, but Sir Charles has intimated the lack of time. I apologise to Members on both sides, but I have only a few minutes.

Despite Conservative boasts in the Chamber about the record on electrification, the facts show that there is absolutely nothing to be proud about. The Government have reneged on plans to electrify east-west rail, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bedford (Mohammad Yasin) highlighted. According to Network Rail, 13,000 single track kilometres of rail or 88% of the total network should be electrified by 2050. However, between 2010 and March 2020, just 1,786 kilometres of rail track were electrified, meaning that only an additional 5,358 kilometres would be electrified by 2050. At the current rate, the Government will not get even halfway to their net zero target on electrification.

Perhaps the Minister will clarify this point, rather than just harking back a couple of decades to the days of the last Labour Government. How will this Government reach net zero targets on our rail network? We all know that the last Labour Government invested billions to modernise the old inefficient rolling stock. That is what their priority was. The priority now should be to tackle the climate crisis and electrify.

Part of the issue with the Government’s approach to the future of our railway infrastructure is its lack of detail, specificity and long-term commitment to investment. The devil is in the detail. Much to the dismay of the rail industry, the “Rail Network Enhancements Pipeline”, the document providing the detail on infrastructure delivery, which the Government have told the House will be published annually, is a mere 900 days out of date.

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Wendy Morton)]

It’s coming!

[Mr Dhesi]

Oh, it’s coming—only 900 days late, severely hindering industry players’ investment in their skills and technology and making future infrastructure programmes even more expensive and slower to deliver. Given the unheeded warnings regarding the enhancement pipeline, including a plethora of my own written parliamentary questions on this subject, perhaps the Minister will enlighten us today as to when the updated document will finally appear.

Then, of course, there is the distinct lack of accessibility, as ably highlighted by my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport (Navendu Mishra). I appreciate that the Minister has only recently taken on the rail brief, but considering the Government’s decade of rail mismanagement, what prospects are there for a promising future in rail under this Government? No doubt, the Ministers today will extol the virtues of Great British Railways as their innovative solution to revolutionise the railways and herald a bright future, but despite consisting of 113 pages, last year’s Williams-Schapps plan for rail lacked the detail necessary for the industry to understand its day-to-day operations.

As the barrister and legal commentator Max Hardy recently tweeted:

“A car journey costs the same if it’s planned 6 minutes ahead or 6 months ahead”.

If trains are not competing on price, comfort or convenience, what is the point of them? We need devolution and integration of our public transport, as was ably highlighted by my hon. Friends the Members for Cynon Valley (Beth Winter) and for Blackley and Broughton (Graham Stringer)—and, indeed, my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi), who explained why the fragmentation and privatisation of the rail industry has ensured that there is such a disastrous impact on our railways. I hope that the Government will look back into taking the railways back into public ownership, so that we put people before profit.

[Sir Charles Walker (in the Chair)]

Well done. Minister, you have 10 minutes and then Rachel Maskell has 90 seconds to wind up.