Avanti West Coast Contract Renewal

Debate between Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi and Kevin Foster

Tuesday 25th October 2022 Commons Chamber

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

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Cat Smith) for securing this urgent question because Avanti West Coast’s continued abject failures are simply unacceptable. Over the course of its contract, Avanti has had the fewest trains on time, more complaints than any other operator and a wholesale failure to train new drivers, which has led to the mess we have to endure today. Despite this, Avanti has been rewarded with a contract extension. The Tories, as usual, are rewarding failure, yet there are gaping holes in the improvement plan announced alongside the contract extension, which will prolong passenger misery.

On the busiest main line in the country, at the busiest time of year, there is not a single bookable weekend service between November and Christmas—not one. The service reductions that the Government signed off were supposed to increase reliability, but they have done the exact opposite. Can the Minister explain today when services will be available to book and why the Transport Secretary failed to demand that as a condition of handing over millions in taxpayers’ cash? Avanti is being paid precisely the same management fee as under the previous contract, even though hundreds of services are not running—why? Travelling across the north is also becoming next to impossible. Today, more than 40 services on TransPennine Express have been cancelled. As my good friend the Mayor of West Yorkshire, Tracy Brabin, lamented to me:

“It’s chaos and the Government must intervene.”

So why are they planning to hand TPE an eight-year contract for this service in May? Perhaps the Minister can enlighten the House as to whether they are preventing a deal between TPE and the workforce which could improve services in the short term?

Today, what the public need to hear from the incoming Government—yet another Government—is a serious plan to get travel across the north back on track; they need to hear a plan to restore services. If the Government cannot get that, they must withdraw the contract, because passengers are sick and tired of excuses.

[Kevin Foster]

We have been clear that the current position with services is unacceptable and we expect significant improvements. Long-term contract award decisions will be affected if, as we approach them, the service day to day is not where it should be. The management fees that are paid are specified in the contracts for operating. That said, the performance fee, to which the hon. Gentleman was perhaps also referring, for Avanti for the period beyond the withdrawal of rest-day working and the current timetable reductions is due to be independently evaluated. That is not just done by the Government and it has not yet been done. I suspect that the independent evaluator will want to take on board quite a number of these points, but the hon. Gentleman will appreciate why I would not want to give too many comments from the Dispatch Box on what the independent evaluator should do.

As for the plans for improvement, the first point to make, which has already been touched on, is that we are seeing more drivers being trained by Avanti West Coast and there are plans to reinstate the vast majority of the timetable in December. Clearly, when deciding what comes next we will want to make sure that that has worked and it is delivering an acceptable level of service for ourselves and for passengers more widely. On TPE, although we are of course welcoming the fact that we are starting very large-scale investment into that route, the level of which that route has not seen for decades, we need to see significant improvement.

As for moving immediately to cancel the contract, I remind the hon. Gentleman of the quotes in the Manchester Evening News on 6 October that were attributed to Mayor Burnham about how that could bring more disruption in the short term. The idea that putting this situation into the hands of the operator of last resort would immediately resolve a driver shortage and other issues is not one that stands up to any scrutiny.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi and Kevin Foster

Thursday 13th October 2022 Commons Chamber

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

I welcome the new ministerial team to their place.

To address the failure of privatisation and fragmentation, just last year the Secretary of State’s predecessor, the right hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Grant Shapps), announced the launch of Great British Railways. There were promotional videos with Michael Portillo and a nationwide campaign to host the new headquarters, with towns and cities investing enormous time, effort and money in their bids. There is a huge transition team, and millions of pounds of public money has already been spent. But now we hear that the whole thing is being scrapped and will not be included in the transport Bill. I appreciate that this Government are infamous for their U-turns and creating confusion, but can the Minister confirm: has Great British Railways been stopped in its tracks?

[Kevin Foster]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for welcoming me to my place and I look forward to perhaps more constructive exchanges. We are taking forward an ambitious programme to reform our railways. We look forward to confirming the position on the Great British Railways headquarters in the very near future. I have to say to the hon. Gentleman that, for those of us who remember his clarion call to bring back British Rail, that hardly brings back memories of amazing customer service and quality provision compared with what we have today.

HM Passport Office Backlogs

Debate between Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi and Kevin Foster

Wednesday 27th April 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Foster]

Passport applications would not usually be linked together as such. It is not like applying for a travel visa, for example, when a family will travel together. This document confirms that someone is a citizen and lasts for 10 years. As I have said, the service standard of 10 weeks applies to paper-based applications and to the digital service, although adult renewals via the digital service will inevitably be quicker, and we would not delay issuing a passport if it was going through the paper process. Certainly, 90% between January and March were issued within six weeks, so not the 10-week standard, and over 1 million were issued last month. For a first passport it may take slightly longer—that is more likely to be a paper-based application—but the 10-week standard still applies.

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

In response to the Post Office fiasco, the Prime Minister said yesterday during an interview on TalkTV’s “The News Desk” that he does not care whether an institution such as the Post Office is public or private but it must deliver value and good service. That is why the likes of me have been speaking about the dangers of the privatisation of our NHS and the Tories’ ideological fascination with selling off everything in sight. Whenever there is a problem, why is it always someone else’s job on the line, rather than the Prime Minister’s and those of his Ministers?

[Kevin Foster]

Perhaps I will put my answer to that one in the post.