Queen’s Speech — House of Lords, 2022-05-11
Topic: Transportation
Peter Snape (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I join the general acclamation of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Guildford for his maiden speech. I hope the House will forgive me if I move from acclamation to condemnation so far as some aspects of the Queen’s Speech are concerned. I will confine my remarks entirely to the transport section of the gracious Speech. I listened with interest to the Minister opening the debate. She painted a bright picture of the future, particularly the introduction of Great British Railways. It is not an organisation that has been greeted with such acclamation elsewhere. I refer your Lordships to yesterday’s Times where, in the business section under the heading "Danger signals flash at British Railways", Mr Robert Lea had some hard facts, in his opinion, to express about this future organisation. He wrote: "Does the consumer side with railway leaders who want to move ever closer to autonomous and guardless vehicles? Do passengers want or need the human interaction with ticket offices; or is everyone happy ordering tickets and getting journey information on an app? Are travellers relaxed that the track fitness regime can now be determined by algorithms and predictive maintenance rather than boots on the ballast?" Scottish colleagues will be aware that the lack of boots on the ballast was directly responsible for the recent Stonehaven accident, where fortunately—I mean that sincerely—only three people were killed. Had it been a normal service train, the carnage would have been much greater. That accident was caused entirely by the failure of any boots on the ballast. Carillion, the contractor, installed the drainage system almost a decade ago. The system had gone without any physical checks over that decade, and that accident could have occurred at any time. The lack of maintenance and of boots on the ground ought to concern all of us who are concerned about railway safety and railway maintenance. That Network Rail, the organisation responsible for railway maintenance currently and in future, is proposing to dispose of 1,500 people ought to give us cause for concern So far, at least, Great British Railways appears to provide only photo-opportunities for the Secretary of State. The other thing is the lack of any detail about future fares reorganisation. I have looked at fares reform, and I have mentioned it before in your Lordships’ House, and before making this speech I consulted Mr Barry Doe, who those of us who take an interest in these matters know and respect as a man who has written a column called the "The Fare Dealer" for Rail for the past 20 years or so Mr Doe had this to say about fares, Great British Railways and the future: "The supreme irony is that we have gone from a (nationalised) railway run totally by railway professionals to a so-called ‘private’ railway effectively run by civil servants … BR had gone from pence-per-mile to selective pricing, invented railcards and reached the structure we know today. All that has happened since is a severe muddying of the waters with complicated ticket restrictions and parochial fares that have given rise to split ticketing—but no new structure: in short we have had a wasted quarter century when it comes to fares and need to recoup those lost years … GBR must have an HQ with professional pricing managers, as BR once did, to ensure uniform fares" and eradicate the nonsense of split ticketing. He concluded: "The Treasury seems to be terrified of such fares reform lest it reduce income. That is as stupid as saying that Off-Peak fares reduce income. They don’t, because they increase usage"— and GBR must be given proper control of the fares structure in future I revert to the Times view of the future so far as Great British Railways and its structure are concerned. Mr Lea went on to say: "We come out of the pandemic with a renationalised national rail system, commanded from the DfT’s Marsham Street eyrie and operators merely fixed-fee contractors." Again, this is something that has bothered those of us who take an interest in and speak regularly on these matters A couple of years ago, I invited the Minister to accompany me on a trip around the Birmingham outer ring road on a National Express bus. Unaccountably, she turned me down. As her noble friend Lord Lexden suggested the other day, I suggest that she uses Avanti trains and comes, perhaps with me, to Birmingham. If we catch a not-too-late train and arrive at Birmingham International station after 10 pm, there will be no staff. Birmingham International is not a wayside halt; it is an intercity station a mile or so from an international airport. After 10 pm, more than 20 trains go to destinations as diverse as London and Reading, as well as local trains to Birmingham and Coventry, yet there is no one to sell or collect a ticket. The expensively installed barriers are open from 10 pm, so lots of people travel by train after 10 pm from Birmingham International without paying their fare—and who can blame them? There is no check. Surely that is the weakness of a contracting system that pays a company such as Avanti regardless of whether it delivers a proper standard of service—and I am afraid that it does not. If Great British Railways is to persist with the idea that after 10 pm there is somehow no need to staff mainline stations, fare evasion—which in my opinion is already at a considerable height—will get worse in future I have to say to the Minister who replies that not all of us are thrilled with the idea of Great British Railways. Those of us who have worked in the railway industry are aware of the negative nature of the Treasury so far as expenditure in the railway industry is concerned. We are aware that civil servants love to second-guess railway managers on where expenditure should take place. One of the reasons we have so many uncomfortable trains at present is that over the years the Treasury has insisted on cramming more and more passengers into smaller and smaller trains. When in the 1980s British Rail replaced its classic diesel multiple-unit services, which were built as three-car units, the Treasury insisted that those three cars be replaced by two-car Sprinter trains and trains of similar ilk. Cramming in more passengers will not attract any more people to travel by rail, regardless of whether Great British Railways is in charge and whatever the colour and nature of the staff uniforms In conclusion, in the words of Mr Nat King Cole, so far as the railway industry is concerned, I can see only "trouble ahead". Unless the Government give GBR and its management the freedom to properly run the railway and get the Treasury’s dead hand off the railway’s windpipe, trouble is what we shall see in the years to come.