Oral Answers to Questions

Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts

Thursday 19th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

[Louise Haigh (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab)]

In March 2021, in the middle of the pandemic, the previous Secretary of State promised buses so frequent that people would not need a timetable and said that the Government would

“not only stop the decline”—

in bus services, but—

“reverse it”. —[Official Report, 15 March 2021; Vol. 691, c. 50.]

Since then, have bus services increased or decreased?

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[Jesse Norman]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising the question. I myself have not recently spoken to the infrastructure board in Northern Ireland, but I shall make a point of doing so in the near future.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Gill Furniss (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)]

This week, I and colleagues hosted leading figures from across the car industry. They are desperate for the UK to lead the world in electric vehicles, but they are banging their head against the wall at the state of the charging infrastructure. In 2019, there were 33 electric vehicles per rapid charger; today there are almost 90 vehicles per charger. Given how critical the charging network is to confidence in the EV market, why on earth are there yet more delays to the botched roll-out of the rapid charging fund? Will the Minister consider using binding targets to speed up the roll-out?

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[Huw Merriman]

I am aware that the study needs to get out so we can look at how to get High Speed 2 trains up to Leeds, and so we can look at the other impacts on Leeds. There have been discussions in the Department this week about how to move that forward. I expect the report to be out very shortly.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Chair of the Select Committee.

[Iain Stewart (Milton Keynes South) (Con)]

My hon. Friend the rail Minister will be aware that services on the Marston Vale line serving my constituency are currently suspended because Vivarail, which maintains the rolling stock, has gone into administration. The replacement bus service is far from ideal, which is causing significant difficulties for my constituents, especially young people going to school and college. Will my hon. Friend assure me that he is doing everything he can to ensure the earliest possible reinstatement of that rail service?

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[Huw Merriman]

The most important thing for me is to make sure that the service is turned around. If the team at Avanti can turn that service around, then that will be a matter that we will look at when it comes to renewal of the contract. If matters within its control cannot be turned around, then of course that will lead to a different decision. Again, the timetable change of 11 December is difficult to assess, but it has involved 40% more services than in the summer, and all of that has taken place without rest-day working, because more drivers have been recruited and trained. I hope the hon. Member will join me in encouraging everyone at Avanti to deliver on that extended service. If it succeeds then we all succeed, Mr Speaker.

[Mr Speaker]

Just to say that the Minister ought to try travelling on the line, because it is an absolute disgrace.

[Wendy Morton (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)]

Key to improving services is actually providing services, as the rail Minister will be aware, and schemes such as Restoring Your Railway reversing the Beeching cuts. Will my hon. Friend continue to work with me and West Midlands Mayor Andy Street to deliver a station for Aldridge? The track is there. Mr Speaker, we must be one of the few constituencies across the country that currently has no train station at all.

[Mr Speaker]

It must be.

[Huw Merriman]

My right hon. Friend makes a great campaign point, which I hear. Mayor Andy Street met the Secretary of State for Transport this week. We are passionate to ensure that we can deliver the services that she needs in her constituency and that are needed across the midlands as a whole.

[Huw Merriman]

I am keen to visit as many projects and potential projects as I can to help see the potential and how we can realise it. When I am in that part of the country, I would be very happy to visit. On the levelling-up fund bid, as somebody who was disappointed first time around but has managed to get better news the second time, I would encourage the hon. Member to continue to apply. If one works hard with people of all political colours in the local community, one will be amazed by what can happen.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)]

Neither passengers nor hard-working staff are happy with the lamentable state of our railways on this Government’s watch. They have bumped up ticket prices twice as fast as wages have grown, yet passengers are experiencing delays and cancellations to most services at Britain’s busiest stations, with experts declaring that our rail system is broken. So what is their plan to fix the mess they have made? If the Financial Times is correct, their big solution is to impose even more devastating funding cuts of more than 10% on train operators. Forget managed decline: in 2023 it looks more like freefall decline. Rather than this veil of secrecy over steep service cuts, can the Minister confirm how much of a cut he is imposing?

[Huw Merriman]

The hon. Gentleman will be aware that passenger numbers are at about 80% of where they were pre-pandemic. The timetable is at about 90%, so it continues to run ahead of passenger numbers. Taxpayers more broadly have put in £31 billion over the last two years to support the railway, and there will be a further £11 billion required for the year to come. We have a balance between those who use the railways, continuing to ensure that they can do so, and those who fund the railways and the difficulties they have in meeting their tax bills. I look forward to his optimism and enthusiasm in working with me to ensure that railway services improve, as I am determined they will.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the SNP spokesperson.

[Gavin Newlands (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (SNP)]

Cross-border rail services run by Avanti and TransPennine Express have been shambolic. Last week alone, TransPennine Express could not point to a single day when it ran the emergency timetable it had promised. On two days, Avanti had only one and two trains on time the entire day running out of Glasgow Central. In contrast, publicly-owned LNER was running a much better service. Is there not a lesson here that the private sector model has failed both workers and passengers and it is time to follow Scotland’s lead and bring rail operators under public control?

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[Huw Merriman]

As the Secretary of State said earlier, I will be speaking to the Office of Rail and Road about P-coding, because I feel it needs a good look. P-coding makes a lot of sense, to ensure that passengers are told on the day they travel whether the train will be operating. If rosters have not been put together because of staff shortages, that makes absolute sense, but the current levels on TPE give me concern, so I assure the hon. Gentleman that I will look at that. P-coding has been used a lot across the network due to the weather-related issues, where we have known that we cannot operate services the following day and want to let passengers know in advance. Finally, I assure him that performance-related fees, which take up the largest part of train operator payments, do of course take into account P-coding, as we would with other cancellations.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

[Louise Haigh (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab)]

The Minister must surely agree that this is simply not good enough. In November, he assured us that the new timetable would be deliverable. This week, the results are in and the service has never been worse. This morning alone, at least 123 services have been cancelled or disrupted on TransPennine Express. He cannot pretend that the management are blameless in this farce. The north cannot afford to continue like this any longer, so will he strip TransPennine Express of its contract and bring it under the operator of last resort?

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[Mr Holden]

I also represent a rural constituency, although in a different part of the country. What I would say to my hon. Friend is that we have made big progress in recent years, with more than 300,000 new slots available due to the extra 300 driving examiners we have hired since the pandemic. Waiting lists are coming down for driving tests, and rapidly, and we hope to achieve pre-pandemic levels within the next few months.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Simon Lightwood (Wakefield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Nationwide, almost one in 10 bus driver positions is vacant, hitting vital services across the country hard, but Ministers are asleep at the wheel, with no action plan to tackle it. Currently, the DVSA requires a provisional bus licence to start training, but with huge paperwork delays, 20% of applicants give up before their training begins. Will the Minister listen to calls to speed up this glacial process to allow applicants to begin their theory tests while they wait for their provisional licences?

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[Mrs Elphicke]

When there are delays at the port of Dover, whether due to weather, strikes or the French, the impact on local jobs, businesses and residents is absolutely enormous. I welcome the £45-million levelling-up fund investment in our local campaign to keep Dover clear. I thank my right hon. Friend for that. Will he join me in thanking the Conservative leaders of Kent County Council and Dover District Council, and the excellent leadership at the port of Dover?

[Mr Speaker]

Order. This is topical questions. Other colleagues want to get in. Tell me who you do not want to get in, because that is who you are depriving.

[Mr Harper]

I will give a pithy answer. I am grateful to my hon. Friend for all her campaigning work. Dover is a strategic port for the United Kingdom. This project will ensure that we can meet our requirements and keep that flow of trade and traffic going. I am pleased that we have been able to get that money to help the port of Dover.

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[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Huw Merriman)]

We have already written to our stakeholders and we will be launching a consultation. The results of that consultation, in terms of how the Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill would work across the network and whether we would look at a proportion of the timetable or parts of the network, will be determined only when it has been completed. That is the right way to take the process forward.

[Mr Speaker]

On his birthday, I call Anthony Browne.

[Anthony Browne (South Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

T8. Thank you, Mr Speaker—I could not imagine being anywhere more joyful than in the Chamber. The Liberal Democrat and Labour authorities in Cambridgeshire are introducing the country’s most draconian congestion charge, but they claim that they are being forced to do that by the Department for Transport, which supposedly rejected Cambridgeshire’s bid for bus funding because they were not committed to road charging. Can my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State confirm that that is untrue and that the Department did not require Cambridgeshire to commit to congestion charging to secure bus funding?