East Anglia Rail Franchise — House of Commons, 2015-12-16
Topic: Transportation
Claire Louise Perry (Conservative, Centre-right): Before I respond to an incredibly powerful set of speeches, may I crave your indulgence, Madam Deputy Speaker, to put on the record my thanks to the staff of this place, who have done so much for us over the year? In my view, they never get thanked enough and I am truly grateful to them We have a star-studded Chamber for this Adjournment debate. Such debates are usually very ill-attended. I think there are more Members here than we had for the previous debate. It is quite terrifying to face this star-studded pack tonight. They represent—if I have not left anyone out—the fine counties of Suffolk, Norfolk, Essex and Cambridgeshire. They have very passionately and powerfully made the case for improvements in our railways I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St Edmunds (Jo Churchill). Like many new Members in the Chamber she has been an assiduous correspondent and lobbyist for improvements in her railways. She has focused specifically on the requirements of her constituents and on what the improvements will bring to the broader area I am pleased that I have the time to try to set out what we are attempting to achieve with the franchising process. There is a tension between specifying everything, crowding out any form of innovation in the market and not being able to cope with franchise change and setting out more broadly what we expect bidders to deliver, while letting them come up with the right solutions My hon. Friend, like others, very powerfully made her point about the need for new rolling stock. Indeed, she referred to what is currently running as "decrepit and aged". We have discussed this matter, so she will know that we absolutely expect the rolling stock on the whole franchise to be transformed, because we completely agree with the assertions made about its unsuitability for purpose. But we want the market to go away and find the best solutions for customers, based on what different customers along the routes may need. There is a combination of inter-city, metro and suburban services, and we want the bidders to be creative in what they come up with. I can, however, tell my hon. Friends that the score that we will give to rolling stock in this franchise process is the highest ever. We are no longer in the business, as previous Governments were, of letting franchises purely on the economics. That did a huge disservice to the customers who use the routes. Now, the process asks what the economics look like and, crucially, what the quality looks like for the passengers. Rolling stock provision will have the highest score ever in this franchise We will also have very clear customer performance targets in the franchise. I was shocked to find out that we used to let operators set their own. How can we possibly run a contract with an operator if we do not know what we are contracting for? I of course want to contract for measures such as punctuality and reliability, but crucially I want to contract for customers, because these are not empty boxes rolling around the network; they are boxes full of people, often over-full of people, trying to get to their jobs or home to their lives. I reassure right hon. and hon. Members that we are expecting a transformation in the quality of the rolling stock Turning briefly to stations, I know that my hon. Friend’s station is a grand old building that features all of 20 car parking spaces. We should expect to see real improvements at that station and at many stations across the network. We have asked bidders to make those improvements. We have asked them to work against a 40-year asset management strategy. We are trying to extend the management of the assets beyond the franchise period to ensure that investment proposals can be properly made for the stations in the franchise. We will look at those proposals in the bids and hold bidders to account against them Turning briefly to routes and services, I was delighted that we were able to confirm the absolute requirement for Norwich in 90 and Ipswich in 60. I pay tribute to the group that has been led so ably by my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich North (Chloe Smith); my right hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel) and my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Ben Gummer), who have to remain silent as they are on the Front Bench; and my dear friend the former rail Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Sir Simon Burns). That group has become the poster child for how to do it I am the most popular Minister and, in a way, the most unpopular Minister, because I am deluged in the Lobbies and at other times by people who want to talk about railways. What I say to them is, "Go and look at what was done in this study", because, for the first time, it tried to capture that elusive thing that we all know is there: it asked, if we invest a bit of money in transport, what is the broader economic value that it delivers You will be amazed to hear, Madam Deputy Speaker, or perhaps you will not, that every major infrastructure project in this country—the extension of the Jubilee line, HS1, the M25—has failed the economic value test that the Government have imposed on it, because such projects are looked at through a very narrow prism that does not factor in the economic value added that good transport investment brings. This group broke that mould and created a model—we are working hard to see how to capture this—that showed what we all instinctively know to be true: that if we invest in transport infrastructure, we grow the local, regional and national economy. That is an incredibly important point My hon. Friend the Member for Bury St Edmunds asks why no half-hourly service is specified between Ipswich and Cambridge, via Bury St Edmunds.