TfL (Funding and Station Staffing)

Virendra Sharma Excerpts

Wednesday 15th January 2014 Westminster Hall

[John McDonnell]

The reactions of my constituents have been remarkable, and other Members may have seen the same. People cannot understand why they are paying more in fares while station staff and ticket offices are being cut. I can understand their being perplexed.

On 18 December, the Labour transport spokesman on the Greater London authority, Valerie Shawcross, asked the following question of the Mayor:

“Will you guarantee that all LUL stations will be staffed at all times?”

The Mayor responded by saying that officers were drafting a response that would be available shortly. We still have not had that response. The fact that the Mayor has still not been able to provide an unequivocal answer suggests that that guarantee cannot be given. Following the King’s Cross fire, a legal requirement was introduced that there be a minimum of two staff at every station, but that applies to sub-surface stations only, so the others are extremely vulnerable.

The business plan also sets out that London Underground will cut the frequency of essential maintenance checks, still plans to introduce driverless trains at some unidentified point in future, is not filling posts, despite large numbers of Londoners looking for jobs, and seems to be plugging the gaps in staffing with casual workers more frequently. My constituency has a railway estate and I represent a number of London Underground workers. To be told a month before Christmas that they would not have a job not only shocked them, but caused real consternation and, understandably, considerable anger. The two rail unions that represent staff at London Underground—the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers and the Transport Salaried Staffs Association—rightly consulted their members in the light of representations that they received. On Friday 10 January, the RMT issued the following statement:

“RMT members have voted by 77% for strike action and by an even bigger majority for action short of a strike. The results will now be considered by a meeting of the union’s executive.”

Dates will be set and there will be strike action unless meaningful negotiations with the Mayor take place. RMT general secretary, Bob Crow, said:

“RMT members on London Underground have voted by a massive majority for both strike action and action short of a strike in a dispute which is wholly about cash-led cuts”

and

“plans that would see the axing of nearly a thousand safety critical jobs and the closure of ticket offices at a time when the tube network is under growing pressure from customer demand and needs more staff and not less to ensure safe and efficient operation.”

[Mr Virendra Sharma (Ealing, Southall) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. I must register an interest as a former employee of London Transport, where I worked as a booking clerk. I can certainly confirm that security and safety are most important for station staff when looking after passengers. The cuts will create fear in passengers’ minds and they will be reluctant to use the underground, so that they do not have to face criminals. A few weeks ago at Northfields station in my constituency, a staff member was attacked and it was only because other staff were there to assist that he was saved and a disaster was averted.

[John McDonnell]

My hon. Friend is experienced and knows what it is like to deal with customers face to face on the underground. He knows the insecurities of travellers and staff and outlines a recent, concrete example of what can happen.

Let me finish what Bob Crow said:

“Not only are a thousand posts on the line but staff remaining are going to be forced through the humiliating and degrading experience of re-applying for their own jobs—the same staff who have been hailed as heroes when the tube has faced emergency situations”,

which echoes my hon. Friend’s point. Bob Crow continued:

“That is a kick in the teeth for the loyal and experienced tube workforce who have kept services running safely and efficiently under constant pressure from weight of demand and a creaking and under-resourced infrastructure.”

He also said—I add this as it may prevent some carping or questions later—that before anyone starts

“shouting the odds they should take note of the fact that the turn out in this ballot was higher than the last mayoral and GLA elections and the vote in favour massively outstrips anything that those same politicians can even dream of in terms of a popular mandate.”

Those are the views of rank and file tube workers.

On 9 January, the TSSA issued the following press release:

“A strike ballot of front line station staff was called today by the TSSA rail union in protest at plans to close 260 Tube ticket offices and axe nearly 1,000 jobs.

It gave London Underground seven days notice of a ballot which will start next Friday, January 17 and end on January 27. Any subsequent industrial action could start from February 3 in the event of a yes vote.

Manuel Cortes, general secretary, blamed the ballot on the ‘reckless’ behaviour of London Mayor Boris Johnson who he said was refusing to meet the unions over their genuine fears for safety and security with the wholesale closure of every ticket office.

‘It was the Mayor who came into office in 2008 with a firm pledge to keep open every ticket office on the grounds of keeping passengers safe and secure at all times.

‘Now he wants to scrap the lot, claiming there will be no problems because he will keep staff on station platforms, those that keep their jobs, that is.

‘He wants to scrap permanent station supervisors who are in charge of evacuations and replace them with mobile supervisors who will travel from station to station.

‘But he will not answer the question; “How mobile can you be if all lines are in lockdown because of an emergency and nothing is moving whatsoever?”’.

He called on the Mayor to end his six year ban on meeting the rail unions”—

he has refused to meet them for six years!—

“and to sit down with them instead to work out a solution which would guarantee ‘the safety and protection of all passengers at all times’.”

I repeat what the Mayor said in 2008, which was very specific. He said that there was no

“financial, strategic or common sense”

in the closures that were threatened at the time, and promised:

“We will halt all such ticket office closures immediately”—

That is a broken promise. It is a broken promise not only to the staff, but to the travelling passengers.

Passengers and the general public are anxious. A large poll—a face-to-face survey by Survation of 1,027 London underground users in 23 tube stations—showed widespread concern about the threat of ticket office closures: 71% of London Underground passengers interviewed said that they were “quite concerned” or “very concerned” about their station no longer having staffed ticket offices. Concerns were particularly strong among tourists travelling on the underground, with 81% saying that they would be “quite” or “very concerned” in the event of ticket office closures—no doubt because of their reliance on the offices for general information.

[John McDonnell]

Safety and security is a critical issue. Later, I will come on to some of the statistics that we have looked at, including research specific to women.

Perhaps the Minister will pass back to the Mayor of London that the same Survation survey found that 49% of underground passengers who were resident in Greater London would be “much less likely” or “somewhat less likely” to vote for a candidate for Mayor of London who went back on a promise to keep ticket offices open. That is what Boris Johnson pledged in his 2008 manifesto. That figure increased to 56% among those who voted for Boris Johnson in the previous election. People feel strongly, and they will be willing to express their concerns at the ballot box in due course. There is also a petition; 20,000 people have signed a 38 Degrees e-petition calling on the Mayor to keep his manifesto promise.

Political opposition to the cuts includes Labour and the Greens, and there has been cross-party support, including from some Liberal Democrat MPs, for early-day motion 787 proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn). That sets out the detail of the cuts in an objective fashion, but its conclusion is to call on the Mayor of London to reconsider his proposals and to keep the ticket offices open. One Liberal withdrew his name in due course, but that was a tube line to Damascus conversion as a result of promotion to ministerial office. [Interruption.] I cannot believe that others would do that.

For opposition from the wider community, let me run through some of the broad range of groups that have expressed concerns. The cuts have been opposed by the TUC and by disability organisations, in particular Transport for All, which is the voice for disabled people in London on transport issues, and Disabled People Against Cuts. The National Pensioners Convention has now expressed its concern about the implications of the cuts.

Threats to passenger services are real. Let me run through what the cuts mean in concrete terms. Now, every passenger may depend on staffed ticket offices when the machines are out of order or their Oyster card has stopped working. Under the Mayor’s plans, passengers will have nowhere to turn during such everyday situations. They will have to rely on their Oyster card or contactless payment cards to travel, or they will have to pay higher prices for paper tickets. Passengers will have to buy tickets online, if they can, or at shops, and they will have to find the correct ticket on the self-service machines. Experienced tube workers have said clearly that there are real fears that errors or problems with tickets will no longer be resolved at stations, because there will be no ticket office and of course the shops that sell tickets cannot help with such problems—nor is that their role.

[Mr Virendra Sharma]

The role of the staff at the station is not only to sell the tickets or clean the station, but to assist the passengers, whether children, women, the disabled or visitors who come to the city and do not understand the workings of the underground system, such as moving through the stations from one platform to another. Staff are guiding passengers. Once they are taken away, individuals and groups will be suffering. I hope that my hon. Friend agrees that once the cut has been made, visitors and passengers will feel that they are not getting such services.

[John McDonnell]

My hon. Friend is right that certain categories of passengers will be affected the most. To finish on the subject of tickets, however, the Survation survey found that there was little confidence about relying solely on the automatic ticket-vending machines: 52% said that they had been unable to buy tickets in the past, due to the machine being broken. Obtaining information on the correct price and travel advice are also important, as my hon. Friend says.

New forms of ticket retail have become increasingly available, but surveys have shown that passengers value the face-to-face contact with staff, even for simply navigating around the complex ticket pricing system. The Department for Transport’s own review of ticketing acknowledges Passenger Focus research that found that

“passengers are more confident with ticket offices than any other sales channel of obtaining the best value ticket for their journey”.

In response to announcements in recent years about main line railway ticket office closures and reduced opening hours, Passenger Focus stated that

“passengers really value the presence of staff at stations. Any reduction in ticket-office opening hours and the subsequent withdrawal of booking staff often reduces the overall facilities available at stations… We fear that this could lead to passengers feeling less safe at stations and paying more for their tickets than they should.”