Chris Gibb Report: Improvements to Southern Railway — House of Commons, 2017-07-04
Topic: Transportation
Rachael Helen Maskell (Labour, Centre-left): Thank you for calling me, Madam Deputy Speaker. I welcome you to the Chair, and thank you for chairing the debate. May I also put on record my proud relationship with working people through the trade unions, and declare my interest in that regard Today’s debate started abysmally. The Secretary of State for Transport failed to mention safety or access for disabled people once. His prejudices against working people came to the fore, clearly not from a party for working people. Thankfully, my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough (Andy McDonald) brought us back to the Gibb report, and we heard a total of 19 contributions I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood) for highlighting the consequences of brittle rostering and the problems caused by level crossings. My hon. Friend the Member for Luton South (Mr Shuker) spoke of the bullying that drivers experienced in attempts to make them come to work on their days off. My hon. Friend the Member for Hove (Peter Kyle) called for humility, and a focus on the breadth of the issues in the Gibb report. He also identified the Government’s failure of leadership. My hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) talked of rail chaos, but stressed that it was not due to industrial action. My hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Lloyd Russell-Moyle), who made the 18th contribution, focused on the issue of disability access The scene was set for the perfect storm. Today we have heard about the consequences for constituents, the industry and staff. Ageing infrastructure is failing because of a lack of resources and critical management to address vital maintenance. Heavy demand and over-capacity manifest themselves in overcrowding. New working practices—new timetables, new commencement of routes, new trains and technological advances—have been recommended, but there has been no strategic co-ordination to date. Above all, we have failed and fragmented franchises. Collaboration and strategic oversight were the last considerations, and the very worst outcomes from a profit-driven privatisation process have been apparent. Putting profit before passengers has resulted in their paying heavily: financially, for their tickets; in terms of the worst effects of overcrowding; and—Mr Gibb mentions this at every turn—in terms of having to deal with the complete unpredictability of the service. It has been utterly chaotic. The buck stops with the Government and the Secretary of State, whom even the courts have now told to exercise his force majeure to find a resolution It has all been matched by a safety-critical industry. Staff rightly fear that they will find themselves before an inquest following an incident involving a passenger, for whatever reason—perhaps because the technology has missed what a second, human, eye would see. It is all happening in a high-risk setting in which there is the potential for an accident, a landslide or terrorism, and the possibility of a driver or passenger falling ill, antisocial behaviour, or some other incident. Those with disabilities are pushed to the back of the queue when it comes to ensuring that people’s needs are met throughout their journey. As we have heard, only 3% of trains do not have a second safety-critical member of staff. We have to wonder why the Government cannot resolve this dispute, and give priority to the dignity of a disabled person who could be left on a platform All this is happening in a charged industrial environment in which the Government’s agents, and the Government themselves, have declared that rather than resolving the dispute, which would be easy to do, they are deliberately trying to fuel it—