Britain’s Railways

Lord McLoughlin Excerpts

Monday 24th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord McLoughlin (Con)]

My Lords, I draw attention to my interests as set out in the register. I welcome the Williams report, but we should recognise the very great changes that were brought about by privatisation. Up until 1992, the number of people using our railways was 700 million. In 2019, it was 1.9 billion. That was a tremendous success, which was partly brought about by engaging with the private sector so that we got better services across our railway network. While I accept the necessary changes that the Secretary of State and my noble friend have set out, will my noble friend also acknowledge the very important part played by the private sector, and will she say that the private sector will be very much seen as partners in the way forward?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

My noble friend is absolutely right: during privatisation, passenger numbers more than doubled, so the involvement of the private sector has had a transformational impact on the way that we run our railways today. This Government want to keep the best elements of the private sector. We want to keep its capacity for innovation and work with it to drive growth in the railways. We will do that by having these new contracts for passenger operators, with strong incentives to run very high-quality services.

HS2: Phase 2B

Lord McLoughlin Excerpts

Monday 8th February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

My Lords, we have been very impressed by the scale of the regeneration plans for the proposed HS2 station at Toton. In the IRP it is very important that we consider regeneration and economic impacts on local areas, as well as how to create the right kind of rail network.

[Lord McLoughlin (Con) [V]]

The Government were right, following the review by Doug Oakervee, to continue with HS2, which is now happening and taking place to Birmingham and Manchester. Does the Minister agree that it is absolutely essential that the eastern leg of the project, which takes in the cities of Derby, Nottingham, Sheffield and Leeds, also gets the benefits from what is a major engineering project for this country?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

My noble friend might have seen a letter published today by Connecting Britain, which is made up of 120 leaders from the places that he mentions and beyond. It says:

“The Integrated Rail Plan is your chance to move on from Covid to what the future of the UK should look like. Levelling up parts of the country that have seen traditional and considerable underinvestment, and that would benefit from a plan for growth.”


That is exactly what we intend to do.

High Speed Rail (West Midlands-Crewe) Bill

Lord McLoughlin Excerpts

Monday 14th December 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord McLoughlin (Con)]

It is always a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, who speaks with such fervour about a project that I think it is fair to say he created and made the initial plans for. Of course, he left office in 2010, and a lot has happened since then: HS2’s formation and growth, and the case being made for it. It is perhaps worth occasionally reminding the noble Lord, who looks at these things through rose-tinted glasses, of the last Labour Government’s appalling record on transport infrastructure spend. Between 2000 and 2007, we had the lowest infrastructure spend of all the OECD countries, and in the World Economic Forum ranking we fell from seventh to 33rd in infrastructure investment terms. The rose-tinted glasses therefore occasionally need polishing, so that we can look at our true record.

It is true that any big infrastructure project is always hugely controversial, and that is certainly true of HS2. One has to accept and understand it when people oppose this project because it is on their doorsteps and they will perhaps not benefit directly from it; that too is certainly true of HS2. I have never dismissed those who oppose this project because it goes through their area, but we also have to look to the greater good for our country.

Importantly, this is the first time in over 100 years that we will have built a new north-south railway in this country. The noble Lord, Lord Adonis, mentioned my role. I commissioned David Higgins to produce a report on how we could get the benefits faster. When I was Secretary of State, I told the House of Commons that his report, which was published in 2014,

“suggests opening the new line to a new hub station in Crewe six years earlier than planned. Direct trains will of course be able to run off HS2 lines to serve places such as Stoke, Liverpool, Manchester, north Wales and Scotland, and faster too, and the line to Crewe sooner would mean journeys that are shorter than they would be under phase 1”.—[Official Report, Commons, 24/3/14; col. 29.]

A point I often make is that HS2 is not just about speed; that is just one element. HS2 is about freeing up capacity. We have seen a huge growth in the use of our railways over the past 20 years. Today’s Covid experience has obviously had a devastating impact on the use of our railways, but I do not think it is going to be long-term; I still think we will see a growth in rail travel once we get over this horrendous Covid problem.

I very much welcome Third Reading of this Bill today; it is another stage in the objective proposal of HS2. Where I do agree with the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, is that this is a project that serves both the east of England and the west coast main line. It is absolutely essential that we see such development in the East Midlands.

There have been big changes since the whole concept was first announced, with HS2 now going right into Sheffield instead of just going to Meadowhall and then on to Leeds. Another change is the redesigning of the route as a result of measures that have been investigated, looking at the practicalities of how we best serve the cities outside London. Indeed, serving what will be Toton station, and the service to Chesterfield, Sheffield and Leeds, will radically enhance our cities outside London. This is part of the concept of HS2; it is the right thing for us to do, and it will level the playing field between the north and the south. I congratulate the Minister on achieving this and getting Third Reading of the Bill and the extension up to Crewe.

I turn to the final part of the job. I have no idea what the National Infrastructure Commission will say tomorrow, but this is a project for the whole country. It does not finish in Leeds or Manchester; it needs to go on—to Cumbria, Newcastle and Scotland. Yes, we and those cities will see the advantages in the train service running up to Sheffield, because the journeys will be shortened and they will be able to carry on. In the longer term—this is a long-term investment project—we will see changes of government but it is essential that, once we set out on these tasks, we fulfil them so that Scotland, Newcastle and our great cities outside London feel the benefit. This is a levelling-up exercise; it was always designed, and must continue, as that.

High Speed Rail (West Midlands–Crewe) Bill

Lord McLoughlin Excerpts

Report stage (Hansard) & Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords & Report stage
Monday 30th November 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blunkett (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I am very pleased to lend my support to my noble friend Lord Adonis and his well-crafted amendment, and to follow the noble Lord, Lord Curry, and—yes—the noble Lord, Lord Scriven. On a number of occasions this year, he and I have found ourselves in agreement: I am not sure whether that is bad for him or bad for me, but on this occasion we are wholeheartedly as one. That is because we have seen what has happened over the years. He mentioned electrification of the Midland main line. Christopher Grayling promised it, and within months he withdrew that promise. It is similar to the picture painted by George Orwell of promising, withdrawing and promising again until people were completely bamboozled and befuddled as to what they had been promised and what had been taken away. I counsel my noble friend Lord Adonis to be very careful in hearing, as I am sure that he will be, the words of the Minister, for whom we have the greatest respect but who has been given a government brief. If the brief is not to say, “Yes, of course we intend to go ahead with this and we will, therefore, be quite happy to publish our legislation,” then I hope we will move this to a Division.

There are three sets of people who helped the Government. One set are those who were against HS2 from the start. I understand why: they believe that the money should be redeployed elsewhere. There is a second set who say: “We do not mind you doing the north-west, but we are quite happy for you to give us the money for infrastructure work and other investment in Yorkshire and the north-east.” The third set says, “Do not rock the boat, because we do not want to be seen to be undermining phase 2a and the subsequent leg to Manchester because it would be grossly unfair.” All three are just so naive that it is breath-taking. It is breath-taking to suggest that money that would not be spent on HS2 would, in any way, be spent on other forms of infrastructure in the two decades to come. It is naive to believe that, if you give a fair wind to someone else, they will back you when they got what they wanted and you failed to get what you needed. It is naive to believe that a Government who will not commit to what they originally promised have somehow just mislaid the necessary words and are not intent on changing policy or their programme.

My great fear—and I have had it all along—is that we will, of course, get Crewe to Manchester, and we will get the fast HS2 line from Manchester to Leeds, so that the Leeds leg will be an extremely rapid cross-Pennine addition, but it will not be from Birmingham through the east Midlands and Yorkshire with the spur to the east coast main line and to the north-east. I worry about MPs from the north-east—many of them very new, and this is true of the east Midlands as well—who seem to live in a parallel universe where they believe that words do not say what they actually say, as Alice would have said in Wonderland. Unless you get it on paper and it is absolutely unequivocal, it is not going to happen. The east Midlands, Yorkshire and the north-east will lose out all over again.

The briefing notes sent out were very interesting. The noble Lord, Lord Curry, talked about people from London and the south thinking that the world stopped at Sheffield. I wish that they did believe that, but they think it stops at Watford. When they use terms, as were included in this briefing note, such as “the north” or “the northern powerhouse,” what they clearly mean is the north-west or Greater Manchester and the surrounding areas. That is what George Osborne believed, which was understandable from his point of view because at the time he represented a seat in the north-west.

It is time for the leaders of councils, the elected mayors and the Members of Parliament of every party from the east Midlands, Yorkshire and the north-east to start collaborating in order to have their voice heard; otherwise, they will find themselves conned. Once again, they will be seen as losers and I am sick of us being losers on the east of the Pennines: I want the north and the northern powerhouse to be right across what is the north of England. I want that promise of 30 million people benefiting to be not some sort of artificial myth: I want it to be a reality. It can be a reality only if we actually get this additional leg, promised from the beginning, through the east Midlands, which has a high density of passenger usage, which will then be accommodated by freeing up the existing services. That is the argument in Stoke and Macclesfield in the north-west; it works just as well for the east Midlands and Yorkshire, where there is high-density passenger mileage in this particular corridor. Let us unite in wanting to do something that at last will put the nation in better balance—not only the levelling up that is so often talked about but levelling up between the north-west and north-east of the Pennines as well.

[Lord McLoughlin (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to address the House on what I believe is a very important infrastructure project, one of the biggest undertaken by any Government in recent years. I have a slight worry about the amendment as tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, which is that it would put too much of a straitjacket on the Government regarding the future proposals that need to be ironed out. However, I find myself with a lot of sympathy for it.

I myself as Secretary of State for Transport made many changes to the plans put forward by the noble Lord when he did his initial scoping project, which was then carried on. Not the least of those changes is in the Bill before us. This part of the Bill came about as a result of the review done for me by David Higgins about how we could get it to the north faster, because there was a lot of concern that we would build up to Birmingham and then it would stop there. So I am delighted to be able to partake in these proceedings in this House on this section of the project that I think I started off.

I was fascinated to hear the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, talk about the end of the Pacer trains. It reminded me of my time as Secretary of State: it was I who issued the instruction to the Permanent Secretary to override the advice of the department, which said that we could not possibly get rid of the Pacer trains as there was no financial case. I am very pleased that that has been done. It has been delayed slightly, but these things take a bit of time. Still, at long last those trains, which were brought in 40 years ago on a temporary basis, will cease to exist. I have to say I was surprised that there was no “Save the Pacer train” movement, because the rail industry can sometimes become very nostalgic, keeping everything in the past. As far as I know, there has been no such movement.

I did not get the exact wording of the Minister’s answer to the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, but she said it was time to get on with the Bill and not accept any more delays. I reinforce that to her: it is time to get on with the whole project in so far as it goes at the moment, because even the line up to Leeds and Manchester is not really the full project. It is only the start of the project of modernising our railway network. I find it ironic that I can get a high-speed train from London to Paris or Brussels, but not to Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, Edinburgh or Glasgow. That is the dream; we have to ensure that future generations get their own high-speed rail.

I regret the words “high-speed rail”. It is not about high speed, but about high capacity. One of the things that this railway does is release a lot of the capacity on other railway lines to fulfil some of the more desirable things that areas want. We have seen a modern revolution in rail travel in this country. At the time of privatisation, 700 million people a year were using our railways. Last year, before the outbreak of the Covid pandemic, the figure was something like 1.8 billion people. Railways have become a much more important part of our nation and of our cities. I believe that the Bill and the Government committing to going as far as Crewe is essential, but there is more about it that is essential. The line was always planned to be a Y shape. The most expensive part of the railway was actually building it from London to Birmingham and then its costs fall away a little, although I fully accept that it is still a very expensive project.

HS2

Lord McLoughlin Excerpts

Thursday 5th September 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. There is a further urgent question after this and there are then three ministerial statements before we get to the Backbench business. Therefore, there is a premium upon brevity from Back Benchers and Front Benchers alike. For the avoidance of doubt, what I am looking for from colleagues is not dilation and not preamble but single-sentence questions, which will be brilliantly exemplified, I feel sure, by the right hon. Member for Derbyshire Dales (Sir Patrick McLoughlin).

[Sir Patrick McLoughlin (Derbyshire Dales) (Con)]

Thank you for that challenge, Mr Speaker. May I first welcome my right hon. Friend to his position?

The easiest thing for the Government to do is to cancel this project. That would be easy to do, but it would be the wrong thing to do, for this reason: I would find it ironical that, as we leave the European Union, I can get a high-speed train to Paris or to Brussels but not to Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds or Sheffield. My right hon. Friend talks about the overspend, but we seem to be able to accommodate at the drop of a hat the overspend on the Crossrail project, which is overrunning. That is a London project that is incredibly important for London, but we do not take a similar view of a project that has been long thought out and is absolutely essential for the major cities outside London.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord McLoughlin Excerpts

Thursday 13th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sir Patrick McLoughlin (Derbyshire Dales) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend consider publishing a report, showing in table form the investment in transport in the north between 2010 and 2019, and between 2001 and 2010, so that we can see what investment has been given to the north over the past nine years, and in the previous nine years, which just happened to be under a different Government? This Government can be incredibly proud of the investment in the north.

[Chris Grayling]

I absolutely agree with my right hon. Friend. I pay tribute to him for what he did to step up investment in the north. When I listen to the Opposition waxing about a lack of investment in the north, I simply remind them that when they were in power they let a Northern Rail franchise with no investment in it at all, whereas this Conservative Government are replacing every single train in the north with either a brand-new or a completely refurbished train.

East Midlands Rail Franchise

Lord McLoughlin Excerpts

Thursday 11th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Jones]

There are a lot of questions there. First, Stagecoach has acknowledged to the Department that it had bid non-compliantly. We have received offers from other bidders in all competitions that are fully compliant in providing the required pension arrangements for railway workers so, to answer the hon. Gentleman’s question on whether this means the bid process is failing and others are refusing, clearly they are not because we have a compliant bid that won in good form.

Stagecoach is an experienced bidder and fully aware of the franchise competition rules, so it is regrettable that it submitted a non-compliant bid that breached the established rules. In doing so, Stagecoach is responsible for its own disqualification. Bidders were invited to bid on the basis of a pension deficit recovery mechanism. They knew that at the very start of the process[Official Report, 25 April 2019, Vol. 658, c. 8MC.]. Stagecoach did not accept it and made some amendments as it submitted the bid. On what would happen if all companies refuse, clearly, by definition, they are not all refusing, so the question does not apply.

We will see an entirely new fleet of trains—a full replacement fleet—come into service. Inter-city services will receive new bi-mode trains, and regional services will receive new diesel trains. The express fleet, which is the Corby-Bedford-London service, will receive new electric trains that offer significantly enhanced environmental improvements.

What is interesting in this franchise is that we will see the first trial of a hydrogen-powered train. [Hon. Members: “When?”] In terms of timing, we will see the new trains coming into service in a phased way. We hope to see the first trains coming in next year, and so on over the next three years.

The bidding process was conducted in a fair and consistent way, applying the rules of engagement equally to all bidders. We have provided feedback to those who have not been successful. The reasons are always commercially confidential. Losing bidders may publicise them if they wish, but we will not do that because they are commercially confidential. The key thing that we are seeing here is a franchise awarded in the typical way that franchises are awarded in our rail industry, delivering passenger benefits.

[Sir Patrick McLoughlin (Derbyshire Dales) (Con)]

I am rather surprised at the late withdrawal, or barring, of Stagecoach from this franchise. It seems to have come right at the end, so it is odd that my hon. Friend is saying that somehow Stagecoach knew it was non-compliant, because if the Department knew so early that it was non-compliant, one would have thought it would have been told quite some time ago. These franchise bids are not cheap to make and they are very expensive for the company.

Will my hon. Friend be more specific, as usually is the case, about where the new trains are coming from? If they are to be in operation from next year, presumably an order is about to be made very soon. Where will that order come from? I congratulate the Government on widening state ownership of the railways, albeit that of other states.

[Andrew Jones]

There were a number of points in my right hon. Friend’s question. As soon as the decision was taken on this franchise, all the bidders were notified. That is entirely standard. He has a great track record of delivering improvements across our rail network. Bidders were notified, of course, across all competitions, so that they did not incur extra costs. These things are expensive to operate, so this was awarded in a fair and consistent way.

Obviously, the contract to deliver the rolling stock will be between the successful bidder and its rolling stock provider, but we expect to see significant improvement in the rolling stock, and the feedback I have had from passengers along the line and from colleagues who serve along the line is that they are looking forward to seeing the benefits that those will bring.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord McLoughlin Excerpts

Thursday 21st March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Jesse Norman]

It is absolutely right to celebrate what is being done in Manchester. It is also important to celebrate what is being done elsewhere in the country. If Sheffield is taking a lead, that is fantastic. Great work is also being done in Birmingham by the Mayor there, who has just appointed his own west midlands cycling champion, which we welcome.

[Sir Patrick McLoughlin (Derbyshire Dales) (Con)]

Many millions of pounds have rightly been spent on providing cycle highways and cycle routes, but there is no requirement for cyclists to use them. Should it not become an offence for a cyclist not to use these highways where they are provided?

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord McLoughlin Excerpts

Thursday 14th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Jones]

Again, I give the answer that I gave to my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis): we are doing both. It is not a question of one or the other. We are delivering HS2, which is required to add capacity into our rail network, and, at the same time, we are also delivering, in control period 6, maintenance and enhancements worth £48 billion across our classic rail network. So we are doing both, not one or the other.

[Sir Patrick McLoughlin (Derbyshire Dales) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend tell us what progress is being made on replacing the Pacer trains, which the previous Government continually failed to do? When will that train be off the tracks and replaced by new rolling stock?

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord McLoughlin Excerpts

Thursday 10th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. The former Secretary of State is chuntering animatedly from a sedentary position about a period of time and a mileage—that is to say, about a length of track—but I can assume only that at this stage, albeit in a very amiable and jocular fashion, the right hon. Gentleman is talking to himself. There are some dangers in that.

[Sir Patrick McLoughlin (Derbyshire Dales) (Con)]

What are they, Mr Speaker?

[Mr Speaker]

Only time will tell.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

Having heard the right hon. Member for Derbyshire Dales (Sir Patrick McLoughlin) from his seat, we can now have the considerable joy of hearing him on his feet.

[Sir Patrick McLoughlin (Derbyshire Dales) (Con)]

Will the Minister look at the responsibilities across his whole Department and other sectors covered by his Department as far as such situations are concerned? Last night, the M1 was closed for four hours, thus preventing all the supporters of Burton Albion from getting to the Etihad stadium. Will there be an inquiry into why it was necessary to close the M1 for four hours on both sides?

[Mr Speaker]

They missed a lot of goals.