South Western Railway Franchise — House of Commons, 2018-12-05
Topic: Transportation
John Vincent Cable (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): That is a helpful intervention that anticipates what I am now going to say. Many of the problems do originate with the franchise and the franchisee, but there is some shared responsibility with Network Rail, which of course is a nationalised industry. Network Rail’s failings have been exposed throughout the network, but they are particularly serious here, because the decision was made several years ago to switch the control centre from Waterloo to Basingstoke. As a result, many staff were shed, and a disconnect was established between the running of the trains and the running of the crews, so at least part of the disruption is attributable directly to Network Rail. I think the common consensus is that the nationalised company suffers seriously poor management and many failures, among which is the fact that Network Rail has not updated any of its contingency planning since 2011. It is important to accept that it is not just the franchisee that is responsible for the many failures An additional problem is the lack of integration between Network Rail and the franchisee. Under a previous dispensation, the two things were run together. It would probably have been better if the original rail privatisation had properly integrated the franchise and the network, but that was done informally in the south western area under the previous franchise, and it has now completely broken down. There appears to be no integration at all, minimal co-ordination and just an instinct for blaming each other The combination of those all factors has led to the serious situation that we have at present, and I would hope that the Government recognise that. To prevent the situation disintegrating to the point at which we have another Southern railway scandal, the Government might intervene now to prevent the situation slipping further. There are several actions they can take, and my right hon. Friend has just summarised them. In relation to the franchise, there are essentially two options, one of which is to take the franchise away and replace the existing company with another—preferably a public service company, but there is a variety of options—and the other is to impose on the franchise a set of performance-related measures so the company is paid only when it delivers on its undertakings There are various ways of dealing with this problem. Unlike the Labour party, I do not believe nationalising the franchisee would necessarily help, but we have to find a mechanism by which it can be properly held to account and rewarded for success, rather than rewarded for failure The second area of activity that is needed is within Network Rail itself. It is fortunate that Network Rail has just appointed Andrew Haines as its head. I dealt with him extensively when he ran South West Trains, and he is generally thought to be a good manager. Whether he can personally turn this around, I do not know, but it would greatly help if there were proper integration of Network Rail and the franchise in this section of the system. I would be grateful if the Minister could indicate how he can help achieve all of that There are clearly questions for the Department to answer, notably on the franchise, how it has allowed this to happen and the options available to it to turn the situation around. Although Network Rail is a free-standing operation, though nationalised, it would be useful to have some indication from the Government on how they can push it in the direction of better management and better attention to the serious problems in this region.