Transport Secretary: East Coast Franchise — House of Commons, 2018-05-23
Topic: Transportation
Rachael Helen Maskell (Labour, Centre-left): Let us get things straight. Who runs the Department for Transport? Who makes the decision about who runs our railways? Is it the private operators? Is the Secretary of State completely under their control? Is it the officials? Has the Secretary of State completely abdicated his responsibilities and placed them in the hands of civil servants? Perhaps it is the Secretary of State. Of course the buck stops with the Secretary of State. He has the final say. It is his stroke of the pen that decides what happens. The fact is that the Secretary of State has more centralised control than we have witnessed for many, many years. He interferes with work programmes according to his political preferences and he certainly has the final say on all that happens in his Department It was, therefore, the Secretary of State who set out the franchising process for the east coast main line. It was the Secretary of State who had responsibility for the content of the franchise. It was the Secretary of State who had the ultimate responsibility to review the east coast main line bids. It was the Secretary of State who would have carried out the due diligence over the bids. It was the Secretary of State who would have determined whether a bid could be delivered. It was the Secretary of State who would have awarded the franchise. It was, of course, the Secretary of State who had the responsibility for managing the franchise ever since There is no point passing the buck to some rail operator. There is no point blaming officials. The Secretary of State is 100% responsible for every failed franchise. The Secretary of State therefore bears responsibility for the £2 billion black hole in his accounts created through the termination of the contract with Stagecoach-Virgin. It is now this Secretary of State who is responsible for nationalising the east coast main line. The hon. Member for Elmet and Rothwell (Alec Shelbrooke) mentioned Access for All funding; it is the Secretary of State who has cut £50 million out of the Access for All funding Labour is delighted that our desire to nationalise the railway is making so much sense to the Secretary of State. Before we come back into power, he has taken our policy to put rail back under public control, such was its success when Labour did that in 2009 on the east coast, putting £1 billion back into the hands of the Treasury. Unfortunately, the east coast main line will still not be under public ownership: private companies Ernst and Young, Arup and SNC-Lavalin will be taking over its operation I have to say to the Secretary of State that passengers up and down the east coast are saying no more franchising, and no more privatisation or privatisation dressed up as some obscure partnership. No. They are saying: keep it in public hands. As my hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Grahame Morris) said, 70% of the public are demanding that rail be put under public ownership. Labour will honour that demand. My hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner) highlighted how it was not just his but his constituents’ desire to see rail taken back in the interests of the public.