Chris Gibb Report: Improvements to Southern Railway

Debate between Tom Tugendhat and Andy McDonald

Tuesday 4th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Andy McDonald]

The hon. Gentleman rather makes my point for me. Why on earth are we discriminating against disabled people, who want the same freedom as able-bodied people to turn up at a railway station and carry on with their journey?

[Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Andy McDonald]

No, I am not giving way again. The hon. Gentleman should sit down.

Before the Secretary of State claims that this a conspiracy theory cooked up by ASLEF or the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers, a spokesperson for Govia Thameslink Railway said:

“there is no cast-iron guarantee that passengers with accessibility requirements can spontaneously board a train in the assumption there would be a second member of staff on board every train.”

Here is another quote from a representative from a train operating company seeking to introduce DOO, in a recent edition of Modern Railways, on the advantages of trains that could go into service with only the driver on board:

“The good thing would be that all of the regular passengers would still be carried, it would only be the wheelchair users who wouldn’t be able to travel”.

The Secretary of State will be well aware of numerous stories of disabled passengers who have been left stranded as a result of the staffing changes that he is forcing through. Sandra Nighy, 56, of Highfields, Tarring, was left stranded in the freezing cold for more than two hours waiting for a Southern service on Hampden Park train platform near Eastbourne, because there was nobody to help her on to the train. Sandra said:

“the whole situation was horrible and embarrassing and it is unforgiveable when I had booked assistance 48 hours in advance”.

Everyone should be able to use rail services, and providing assistance to those who need it should be a top priority to ensure a good quality of life. The Transport Secretary should be ashamed that he is making our railway less, not more, accessible for disabled people. I firmly believe that the Labour party, passenger groups, staff and the disability charities are in the right when we say that the Government’s objective should be to make our railways safer and more accessible, not riskier and more exclusive.

The Gibb report paints a picture of a chaotic relationship between Network Rail, the Department for Transport and Govia Thameslink Railway, none of which has sufficient oversight or responsibility, leading to poor performance on Southern. Gibb says:

“None of the parties in the system share the same incentives or objectives”.

He recommends

“that the custodian of the overall system integrity be better identified”.

While those criticisms are clearly true for Southern, they are an accurate summary of what is wrong with the way in which our railways are managed in general. Labour has consistently highlighted the fact that privatisation and fragmentation of the railway has prevented the necessary oversight and responsibility needed to deliver upgrades and run efficient services, which is why, as part of our plans to take rail into public ownership, we will establish a new national body to serve as a “guiding mind” for the publicly owned railway, to avoid the chaos over which this Government have presided.

There is no need for the Government to prolong the suffering of passengers any longer—this industrial dispute is but one part of an unedifying scene—as basic managerial inefficiency characterises this woeful service.

It is within the Secretary of State’s power to end the industrial dispute tomorrow. He can do it by calling off his plans to expand driver-only operation and by guaranteeing a second safety-critical crew member on every train, and he should do so immediately.

As with the east coast main line, which delivered the lowest fare rises and highest passenger satisfaction of any rail service in the country, and which returned over £1 billion to the Treasury, it is time to admit defeat and to take Southern back under public control as a public service.

The privatised, franchised railway system, which allows all comers, including state-owned rail companies from across the globe—with the bizarre exception of the UK itself—to extract profits from passengers and taxpayers alike has had its day. The Government should wake up and recognise the chaos they have created. They should do the right thing and bring our railways back under public control and ownership. If they don’t, a Labour Government will.

Vehicle Technology and Aviation Bill (Fourth sitting)

Debate between Tom Tugendhat and Andy McDonald

Thursday 16th March 2017 Public Bill Committees

[Andy McDonald]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for pointing out the necessary correction. My concern is that there is nothing in the Bill that requires software to be updated. I find that somewhat difficult to understand. These vehicles will be available for use and there will be several iterations of the software updates, so I am staggered that there is nothing to require that to happen. It is almost an assumption—the nature of the beast is such that of course it will be part of the debate—but there is no obligation.

[Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con)]

Many businesses have insurance for business disruption based on their updating cyber-security software for their accountancy models and so on. I am not entirely sure why the hon. Gentleman feels that such a provision is needed in the Bill when it works alongside the insurance element, so in reality the insurance company would provide that check.

[Andy McDonald]

I am not entirely sure that, as a matter of course, insurers would check whether the software on all the vehicles they insure is up to date. They might demand that at the outset but I am not sure what mechanism would make sure of it, other than to warn people that otherwise policies would be voided.

[Tom Tugendhat]

Would not that in many ways be similar to servicing vehicles? My insurance policy, like many others, requires me to service my vehicle, which is about as non-electronic as it is possible to get these days, pretty regularly. The insurance company will not have checked in advance, but if they later find out that an accident was caused because the vehicle was not in a roadworthy condition because I did not maintain it properly, my insurance is invalid. I understand the hon. Gentleman’s point, but not why he believes it should be in the Bill, rather than leaving it to insurance companies to manage.

Vehicle Technology and Aviation Bill (Second sitting)

Debate between Tom Tugendhat and Andy McDonald

Tuesday 14th March 2017 Public Bill Committees

[Tom Tugendhat]

It makes up about 50% of insurance profits in the UK.

Ben Howarth: I am sure that individual insurers will look at the potential impact on other parts of the market, but we have not.

[Andy McDonald]

Q Returning to the issue of software, clause 4 devotes a lot of attention to when insurers will not be picking up the can—something that we are familiar with. Can you say a little bit about how you are expecting software to be updated? What is the process for doing that? We all update our phones; we plug them in and press “install”, and the phone tells us when it is done. What is the current state of knowledge? Where are we, scientifically, on achieving that?

Linked to that, what responsibilities should there be on manufacturers to provide updates and tell the owners or users of vehicles that those updates have to be made? As I read it, there is nothing in the Bill that places any obligations on manufacturers to do that. A lot of time is devoted to when the software has not been updated, but where is the principal obligation for the manufacturer to do it? There are a lot of questions, but I am wondering whether that loops back to the definition and whether that needs attention to ensure that we have addressed the obligation. So how is it done and what are the obligations on the manufacturer?

Iain Forbes: Those are good questions. To answer the second one first, what is important about this Bill is that it is looking just at the insurance regime for these vehicles. It will have to work in concert with other parts of the law, including the system by which vehicles are approved for sale. You might imagine that if vehicles that operated automated systems were to be approved for sale there would be a close look at what would be necessary to ensure that the systems were updated where necessary to take account of any changes that were important to ensure safety.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andy McDonald]

Q Although we are not specifically restricting this discussion to aviation, because it could be another vessel, I think BALPA has suggested in evidence to the Committee that it is equally important and significant when lasers are shone at air traffic control towers. Have we got a history of that happening? Is it a significant risk? Would you prefer to see the legislation embrace air traffic control towers, rather than just vehicles, as currently described?

Martin Drake: There certainly is history of it in the USA, and I can think of a couple of times in the UK where a laser has been shone at the air traffic control tower. For an air traffic controller working the tower—that is the control bit that does the final approach and the controlling of the aircraft as they depart, so it is within close proximity of the airport—most of that is done visually. If his or her eyes were to be affected, it could reduce their capability of seeing aircraft close to the airport. They would then have to come off duty and be replaced fairly rapidly. It is not as common as shining at aircraft, but it does happen.

Steve Landells: Can I expand on that slightly? It depends on the airport’s procedures, but I know of one airport where, if a laser is shone at the visual control tower, they take the visual controllers out of that tower. You effectively shut down the airfield.

[Tom Tugendhat]

I am sorry; what did you say?

Steve Landells: They take the visual controllers out of the tower to protect them, and if that happens, the airport is effectively shut down.

[Andy McDonald]

Q What do you think should be happening to better control the availability of the devices themselves? What restrictions would you prefer to see in place to stop the devices being acquired?

Simon Bray: There have been discussions about whether to deal with some of these items as offensive weapons. Clearly, if there is an intent to shine and to harm someone’s eyesight with one of these devices, you can deal with them in that way, provided you get the evidence behind it that demonstrates possession of an offensive weapon with intent to cause harm; likewise if you assault someone with a laser. The difficulty is investigating and proving those instances.

What the Bill does do is provide blanket legislation that is suitably serious—more so than the different sorts of legislation that we are having to use at the moment. It is an advance on what we have currently got. I definitely take the point that were we to have additional powers restricting sale and possession, it would be easier for us to deal with things before they take place.

Richard Goodwin: Colleagues I have been working with in the Department for Transport are working with colleagues in the Department responsible for business employment, looking at potential import restrictions and some of the issues around how we control the sale of some of these lasers. That work has been going on for seven or eight years, and during that time the availability and power of lasers has increased and the cost has come down. There is a Department looking at that control now, and clearly we support that.