argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Rail Franchising — House of Commons, 2018-01-10
Topic: Transportation
Lisa Eva Nandy (Labour, Centre-left): It has been quite a week for the Transport Secretary, but even by his standards this debate might qualify as a low point. My constituents listening to this debate will be absolutely astonished to hear the rosy picture he painted. For most of my constituents in Wigan it is not so much a daily commute as a daily struggle to get on trains that are older than I am and that are often late, overcrowded, dirty and cold, for which they are rewarded by seeing their fares go up every year The human cost is enormous. I am contacted every week by constituents who are tired, stressed, anxious about money or seriously considering giving up their job because they do not know how many more bedtimes, bath times or story times with their kids they can miss. We are failing in one of the basic functions of the state, which is to provide a decent public transport service. There is a much wider cost in towns like mine.
Rail Franchising — House of Commons, 2018-01-10
Topic: Transportation
Mohammed Afzal Khan (Labour, Centre-left): We have head from Ministers that higher fares will fund improved services. I come from Manchester, the city that had the first railway station, yet we find that the stations and railways in my constituency are in desperate need of investment. Levenshulme station is one of those. It has been hit by consistent flooding over the holidays, and lights in the station did not work for days, posing a real danger to passenger safety. In the 21st century, the station still does not have disability access. Ultimately, the passengers, who are paying higher fares—
Rail Franchising — House of Commons, 2018-01-10
Topic: Transportation
Albert Owen (Labour, Centre-left): In the short time I have, I wish first to pay tribute to all the staff who work on this country’s railways. They do an excellent job of getting our trains moving under difficult circumstances. I also pay tribute to the work of the shadow Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough (Andy McDonald), who over the past few weeks has been standing up and making the case for the British public, who deserve a better service than they have been getting. I agree with one thing the Secretary of State said—I, too, pay tribute to the former Minister, the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr Hayes), who has now left the Department. He understood the value of trade unions. He was one of the few Conservative Ministers who would regularly meet the unions, because he understood that by working together, management and workforce, we can provide a better service I want to make two points. The first is that, since the botched privatisation of the 1990s—it was a privatisation too far—we have lost the important transport integration that we once had in this country. I was born and raised, and still live, in the port and railway town of Holyhead. The ferries used to be full of people coming across to our country and going to continental Europe. They would get a train, bus or another means of transport. That has now been broken by the franchise agreement. Each mode of transport now operates in a silo, and we need to get that integration back I believe in the private sector, the public sector and, indeed, the not-for-profit sector having a stake in British industry and in our British transport system. I wish to make the case to the Minister, whom I welcome to his place, for the not-for-profit sector. In Wales, our water is run by the not-for-profit sector, which meets all the criteria of the European Union and provides an excellent service. It invests its profits back into the company, and customers get a better service from it than they do from many of the private, ideologically run ones in England. There is therefore a model that works, and it is the not-for-profit one. The sector values its customers and its workforce, it makes money and it reinvests its profits During the passage of the Wales Act 2017, which was before Parliament in 2016, I and other Members asked for the Railways Act 1993 to be changed so that Wales could have a not-for-profit company for its franchise. That would have worked, but the Government resisted it. I say to the Minister that at this late hour, he should look again at the 1993 Act and allow Wales to run its affairs in a way that is good for customers, good for its communities and good for growth across the country. If the Government are serious about spreading wealth, they need to improve their rail systems and fix the broken franchise system.
Rail Franchising — House of Commons, 2018-01-10
Topic: Transportation
Daniel Joseph Carden (Labour, Centre-left): It is blindingly obvious to many of our constituents that the current model of rail franchising and profiteering from our railways is broken, inefficient, fragmented and unjustifiably expensive. Our private railways are subsidised by more than £5 billion of public money every year—and that is before the bail-out of Stagecoach-Virgin East Coast and the missing £2 billion. It is no wonder it is being called the great train robbery British passengers pay the highest fares in Europe to travel on sometimes packed services while rail companies are laughing all the way to the bank. Since 2010, fares have risen three times faster than wages, and the 3.6% increase last week was the steepest hike in five years. Conservative Ministers said that higher fares would fund improved services, yet long-promised investment, including rail electrification, has been scrapped I want to focus on the current dispute at Merseyrail, where 207 guards may be scrapped. I have had an Adjournment debate on this topic, and I will not repeat all the answers I was given in the short time available today. Against the backdrop of police cuts and rising crime, the role of the guard in Merseyside is more important than ever. The Merseyside travelling public have supported the retention of guards throughout the dispute, amidst grave concerns about passenger safety. Is it fair that Merseyside passengers should pay fares that Merseyrail’s owner, Abellio, uses to pay for Dutch public railways, but do not enjoy the same safety standards as passengers on Dutch railways The franchising system fails to allow for good industrial relations. Train operating companies have little interest beyond the term of their franchise agreements, effectively buying a licence to print money. Changes to staffing are strategic decisions that should be considered many years in advance with the agreement of staff and their trade unions, but that is never the case. The antagonistic strategy adopted by the Government has had an adverse impact on passengers. It is high time that we had a Labour Government willing to bring our railways back into democratic public ownership. The Merseyrail dispute is not going to disappear. Reluctantly or not, the Government and regional and local politicians will have to engage further if we are to get our railways moving again in 2018. I say to Merseyrail’s owners, Abellio and Serco, that they should not do deals on Merseyside that they think they can hide in their corporate offices.
Rail Franchising — House of Commons, 2018-01-10
Topic: Transportation
John Timothy Grogan (Labour, Centre-left): Bearing in mind the strictures of the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire (Lee Rowley), I will try not to be too stale in my three minutes. We have heard a lot about the implications of the potential loss of £2 billion in premium payments following the premature ending of the east coast franchise. We have not yet heard what will happen to the promises made by Mr Branson and Mr Souter for improvements in the later years of those franchises. Are we still going to see—from Bradford, Middlesbrough and Lincoln—the two-hourly trains that were promised under those franchises? Are we going to see the direct train from Sunderland and the continuing increase in the number of trains from London King’s Cross There is now uncertainty over not just this franchise, but the trans-Pennine franchise in the north of England. There is lots of speculation that the operator will try to renegotiate because it promised £300 million to the Government for a service that was previously subsidised. Is it going to continue to do that? Following the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle), I think that the idea of a public sector comparator is, quite frankly, common sense. Why cannot there be a public sector comparator? I think that there was a golden age—under a Conservative Government, mostly—between 2009 and 2015 on the east coast, when the dominant provider was a public service provider In reaction to some comments from the hon. Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers), I do believe in open access at the margin. Open access only provides about 1% of services. I do not see why that could not continue under a system where the major franchises were in the public sector. No dominant provider—in the public or private sector—is likely to look at the needs of small towns such as Selby, which is served by Hull Trains, Eaglescliffe and Hartlepool. Morpeth is soon to be served by an open access operator. I hope that we would not neglect that under a Labour Government Northern Rail is owned by the German state, and I call on the Government to start talks. We can get a solution to the strikes that are affecting my constituents for three days this week. There is a simple solution in Scotland: the driver opens the door, and the guard closes the door and maintains safety. A solution can be reached, and the Government have a responsibility to try to reach it My final point is that we are still reasonably close to the Christmas season, which has just passed. I urge Ministers next year to fulfil the promises they made while in opposition on Boxing day trains. Fifty-eight hours is too long to close down the network. In opposition, the Conservatives said that they would do something. Trans-Pennine has made proposals that it will run trains to Manchester airport on Boxing day 2018; Northern Rail would provide 60 services. Ministers need to act.
Rail Franchising — House of Commons, 2018-01-10
Topic: Transportation
Daniel Stephen Zeichner (Labour, Centre-left): I would like to engage the House on the question whether franchising works. My local radio station, BBC Radio Cambridgeshire, will next week be celebrating 25 years since this country started on the journey from British Rail to anything but British rail. I remember it rather well because I went to a Railtrack meeting at the time and asked what I thought was a naive question: "Who is going to sort out the problems of who is responsible when things go wrong?" We might think now that people would have thought about that point then, but it is still being argued about 25 years on When I talk to people in the industry, they tell me about the small army of people who spend their time not helping passengers or improving the railways, but arguing over who is responsible for paying when things go wrong. Of course, there are so many opportunities to game the system. There are so many ways in which operators can make their trains just not quite late enough to incur any penalties I made a bit of a social gaffe at a dinner recently. I was sitting next to someone from a train operating company and asked the rather unfortunate question. "What exactly is the point in train operating companies?" I wondered, like most people would, "You don’t own any trains; you don’t own any tracks, so what do you do?" They said, "Ah—we sell tickets and we innovate." That explained it—"Kind of like ticket touts, then?" I suspect I am not going to be invited back for a follow-up. That is the problem with many of these people. It is a very complicated system My hon. Friends have already raised some of the issues on two of the routes that serve my city of Cambridge. I am grateful for the piece in The Sunday Times that was mentioned, where we learned a bit more about the East Anglia franchise—its £3.7 billion price tag. The managing director was right to describe it as "scary". That was negotiated in and around the time of the referendum in 2016, and, amazingly, renegotiated very hurriedly in the days afterwards—completely out of public sight, as usual, and all shrouded in commercial confidentiality. Within six months, the company had sold a 40% stake of itself to a Japanese company. Does any of this matter? I think it does. These are our public services being bought and sold, speculated on and turned into financial instruments, when what we actually need is an environmentally sustainable, cost-effective, reliable, sensible transport system that people in my constituency can afford With regard to the other route, I am afraid that a National Audit Office report revealed, as has been eloquently explained by some of my hon. Friends, the appalling levels of service that constituents of mine are suffering. Many of them are paying almost £5,000 a year for a season ticket—a huge amount for the many young people in my constituency to have to bear In conclusion, I say to the train operating companies: take a look at the station clock. Tick TOC, your time is up—just like mine.
Rail Franchising — House of Commons, 2018-01-10
Topic: Transportation
Judith Mary Cummins (Labour, Centre-left): The subject of this Opposition day debate clearly highlights how this Government are not running the nation’s vital transport infrastructure in the interests of the many. We have heard how the franchise model is failing the east coast mainline. The taxpayer bail-out of the franchise by the Government is yet more evidence that our railways would be better off under public ownership. Let us not forget that the east coast main line franchise returned over £1 billion to the Treasury and was the best-performing operator on the network when it was in public hands. It seems that this Government are happy to reward failing companies for mismanaging our railways. This is not the only way that this Government are failing to deliver on transport policy, as the north of England has had a raw deal from central Government with regard to transport spending. Planned central Government spending per head of population on transport infrastructure for the next four years is £726 for Yorkshire and the Humber, versus £1,083 for London and the south-east. Meanwhile, money is frittered away on filling the pockets of private companies—money that would be better spent modernising the ageing infrastructure that is holding back places like my home city of Bradford. What is more, my constituents also have the pain of the 3.4% increase in fares this year, with average fares rising more than three times faster than wages—a slap in the face, and in the pocket, on top of years of insult from unfair underinvestment These figures are not acceptable, and have far-reaching consequences for the economy of the north of England and for the prosperity of my constituents. It is Whitehall’s failure to recognise that point that so enrages me. The north gets trees planted along the M62 while London gets Crossrail—hardly fair. An independent study of the north’s untapped potential set out how new investment, including High Speed 3, could unlock up to £97 billion and create 850,000 new jobs by 2050, with a stop in Bradford bringing in an annual boost of £53 million to the local economy and at least £1.3 billion for the whole region. The party of government made a manifesto promise about electrification of the trans-Pennine rail route ahead of the 2015 general election, but we are still waiting A radical rethink is needed from this Government to end the failed franchise model, to bring our railways back into public ownership and to invest properly in transport in the north of England. We in Bradford will not be fooled, satisfied or fobbed off with crumbs from the table.
Rail Franchising — House of Commons, 2018-01-10
Topic: Transportation
Karen Elizabeth Lee (Labour, Centre-left): Travelling by rail has always been something I enjoyed. My dad was a railwayman, and when I was nine, my family travelled to Italy by train, which was pretty exotic in the 1960s. Since being elected as the MP for Lincoln, I have had to use trains twice weekly, and it is often not a positive experience. I have to change trains at Newark North Gate, and I sometimes walk right across Newark to Newark Castle station, which can take up to half an hour Our rail network is currently unreliable. The trains are sometimes old and dirty, and the staff, who work hard, are demoralised. There is often a single coach from Newark to Lincoln, and it is usually absolutely packed, with no space for pushchairs, wheelchairs or cycles. It is an expensive way of travelling, and it does not persuade people who have a choice to do so to abandon their car, thereby making an environmentally sustainable travelling policy even harder to achieve As a result of the recent fiasco with the east coast main line, I, as an MP, as well as local businesses and Visit Lincoln, are worried that the six extra direct services we have been promised by Virgin Trains in 2019 may not happen in the end. Lincoln needs those services. My constituents need reliable, affordable trains, businesses need to attract customers and our tourist offer needs to keep on attracting visitors Lincoln has just got a brand new transport hub, of which we are very proud. It is my hope that Lincoln and the rest of this country will very soon get a Labour Government who will bring our railways back into public ownership so that we have the rail system we need and the kind of Government that this country deserves.
Rail Franchising — House of Commons, 2018-01-10
Topic: Transportation
Mary Elizabeth Twist (Labour, Centre-left): In my constituency of Blaydon, as elsewhere in the north-east, the future of our railways is of great interest. We have our own experience in our region, with the example of a directly operated railway on the east coast main line. That service was taken under public control following the failure of two contracts in 2009. My constituents and others, including hon. Members in the Chamber, were out there campaigning to retain the east coast main line in public ownership. Not only have the trains provided a good service, but the company has returned £1 billion of premiums to the public purse. That is why it was, and still is, galling for so many people in the north-east that the franchise was re-privatised in 2015 on the basis that that represented "best value" for rail users and taxpayers No wonder so many of my constituents expressed disbelief at the Secretary of State again looking to tear up the contract and at the current franchisees—Stagecoach and Virgin, which are known to be struggling to make their anticipated profit—being allowed to walk away from their commitment to make payments worth more than £2 billion under the current contract. It is therefore hardly surprising that folk in the north-east are enthusiastic about Labour’s commitment to take back rail franchises as they expire. Rail franchising has proved ineffective and costly, encouraging bidders to submit over-optimistic and unrealistic bids. It is about time we looked at bringing rail back into public ownership so that we get the best possible value and the best possible service for passengers from their rail services I want to refer to the National Audit Office report that was published this morning and the Secretary of State’s response to it—blaming the trade unions. The Government set the contract terms and specifications for franchises. The Government say, "You don’t need a second guard on trains." They bear responsibility for the problems in the rail industry and the industrial disputes that we face.
Rail Franchising — House of Commons, 2018-01-10
Topic: Transportation
Alexander Gordon Martin (Labour, Centre-left): In my region, Abellio is running some trains with guards and some without. It is using its plans to introduce new trains in East Anglia as an excuse for threatening to remove guards’ ability to supervise the closing of the doors. I have a great fear that my constituents’ travel needs will be sacrificed on the altar of the rail operator’s intransigence. Abellio is quite capable of running brand new, safe and viable trains with guards who fully supervise the train, including by closing the doors. It can do that in Scotland and do it in the Netherlands The Conservatives say that our train operators are better than they would be if they were state owned, but many of our train operators are state owned—just not by this state. Dutch democratic decision takers believe that passengers in their country deserve rail services that involve guards ensuring the safe closure of doors, but here in England, Abellio is awarded a franchise that is based on the removal of that safety measure, and once the franchise is awarded, the Government claim that any disruption caused by industrial action is nothing to do with them. The franchising system reduces every decision to what the train operator can afford to do within the franchise it has agreed. I want a railway based on the best interests of passengers and of our country.
Rail Franchising — House of Commons, 2018-01-10
Topic: Transportation
Grahame Mark Morris (Labour, Centre-left): I have had to take the Beeching axe to my speech, but I will make a couple of points in the few minutes available to me I wanted to take up some of the points made by previous speakers, including the Secretary of State, with which I completely disagreed and which, frankly, were fake news. If we look at the evidence and compare train fares in the United Kingdom and European countries—their state operators own many of our franchises—the difference is stark. I do not accept that this is about particular fares in peak periods It is worth looking at the German-owned operators. Deutsche Bahn owns Northern Rail, which is the principal operator in my region. Some 42% of Deutsche Bahn’s revenue is made outside Germany, much of it here in the UK, but 93% of its investment is in the German railway, so the company is creating profits here to improve services back in Germany It is clear that regulated rail fares have risen by an average of 32% since 2010, which is three times faster than the average median wage has grown. The Secretary of State said that fares increased more rapidly, or to higher levels, under the previous Labour Government, but we have to factor in average wages. The Conservative policy of raising regulated fares by the retail prices index ensures above-inflation fare increases every year. Compare that with Labour’s stance as set out in the motion, which I support. We would peg fare rises to the consumer prices index, which would save the average season ticket holder £500 over the course of a year. That would affect everyone’s constituents. Indeed, the annual cost of a season ticket for one of the Prime Minister’s constituents travelling between Maidenhead and Paddington has risen by £732 since 2010 Passengers on our railways pay some of the highest fares in Europe for increasingly unreliable and crowded services, and that has been my experience. Passengers, our economy and our environment need affordable fares and reliable services, which I do not think the Tories’ policy is capable of delivering. Labour would take back our railways into public ownership as franchises expire and use the savings to cap fares, and we would upgrade and extend the rail network.