Ed Davey
Main Page: Ed Davey (Liberal Democrat - Kingston and Surbiton)Department Debates - View all Ed Davey's debates with the Department for Transport
(6 years, 2 months ago)
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Chris Grayling
As I said earlier, my ideology is very straightforward: I want more investment in the railways, I want more trains and I want newer trains and new opportunities. Of course, the model the hon. Gentleman is articulating would mean less investment in the railways, because we would lose all the private investment in new trains, for example. I do not believe that that is what the public want.
Mr Speaker
We shall now hear from a Kingston and Surbiton knight—Sir Edward Davey.
Sir Edward Davey
Thank you, Mr Speaker—that was a difficult choice for you.
The Secretary of State has today acted when a franchiser overpaid, hitting its shareholders. Will he commit to the House that when a franchiser under-delivers, hitting the passengers, he will also act?
Chris Grayling
If a company is systematically failing to deliver, yes. However, in many cases—indeed, I suspect I know precisely what the right hon. Gentleman is talking about—the infrastructure is the problem, rather than the train company. I cannot blame one person for another person’s failings; what I can do is try to sort out the failings that lead to these problems in the first place. If we look at the Waterloo line, for example, where the problems last autumn were caused by a technical problem around the Waterloo works, which took about two months to get rid of, that is a good example of where Network Rail problems caused the issues. That is why we need that £20 billion investment in renewing those parts of the infrastructure that are too prone to fail.