Oral Answers to Questions
Maria Eagle Excerpts(11 years, 3 months ago)
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Mr Speaker
As the Clerk has very originally observed, the Secretary of State has brought the matter back on track. We are grateful to him.
Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)
The Laidlaw report is clear about where the blame lies for the west coast franchise fiasco—it was Ministers who decided to carry out a botched reorganisation of the Department that left no one in charge of rail, cut one third of the Department’s staff and axed external audits of procurement. Is it not a disgrace that with the well over £45 million of taxpayers’ money that the Secretary of State admits down the drain, every single one of those responsible Ministers is either still in the Cabinet or has been promoted to it?
Mr McLoughlin
There are many ways in which one can read the report. The hon. Lady means to put her interpretation on it, and whatever I say will not change that interpretation. It is quite clear in the report that Ministers were not made aware of some of the problems, and if they had been referred up, different actions could have been taken.
Maria Eagle
If the Secretary of State will not accept what Laidlaw says about ministerial responsibility, perhaps he will accept the verdict of the Brown review, which is also clear about where the blame lies. It was the mistaken decision by Ministers to move to longer franchises as the rule, not the exception, and experiment with this risky new policy on the most complex franchise route. Instead of repeatedly blaming civil servants, who cannot answer back, when will Ministers finally take responsibility for this staggering waste of taxpayers’ money?
Mr McLoughlin
I think I have been very open with the House, and I have also commissioned inquiries. Initially the hon. Lady questioned their independence. I am glad that she is now happy to abide by those reports, which were clear that, had Ministers been warned, different actions could have been taken, which is exactly what the permanent secretary said before the Select Committee on Transport.
Rising Cost of Transport
Maria Eagle Excerpts(11 years, 4 months ago)
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Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House believes the rising cost of transport is adding to the financial pressures facing many households; notes that the Government failed to honour its pledge to cap this month’s rail fare rises at 1 per cent above inflation, resulting in some fares rising by as much as 9.2 per cent; recognises that this was a direct consequence of the Government’s decision to give back to the private train operators the right to increase fares by up to an additional 5 per cent beyond the increase set by Ministers; further notes that bus fares increased on average by more than twice the rate of inflation in 2012; calls on the Government to ban train operators from increasing fares beyond strict limits and to rule out the proposed introduction of a new category of super peak ticket which would increase the burden on hard-pressed commuters; and further calls on Ministers to support transport authorities pursuing Quality Contracts to bring accountability to bus fares, instead of using Better Bus Area funding to penalise authorities seeking to get better value for money for these taxpayer-funded services.
I begin by thanking and paying tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Barrow and Furness (John Woodcock), who has decided, because of a head injury, to step down from his duties on the Front Bench. He has been an excellent, hard-working colleague, full of ideas, and I thank him very much for all the work he has done in my team. I know that he will be back.
The cost of transport is rising; it is rising by more than the rate of inflation—by much more in many cases. That increase is being fuelled by an out-of-touch Government and Transport Ministers who just do not seem to understand the pain they are imposing on hard-working people. Returning to work after the new year, those who commute by rail found that the price of their tickets had increased by an average of 4.2%, and by as much as 9.2% on some routes. Over the past year, bus fares have increased by more than twice the rate of inflation and motorists have found that VAT at 20% wipes out any relief they have had from the deferral of increases in fuel duty. Yet most people are not seeing their wages go up by anything like as much as those increases, and for many their wages or salaries are stagnant or falling.
Mr Marcus Jones (Nuneaton) (Con)
Does the hon. Lady not acknowledge that if her party were still in government and fuel duty had been 13p a litre more than it is today under this Government, bus fares would have increased even more?
Maria Eagle
The hon. Gentleman knows that his Government have cut the bus service operators grant by 20%. As for any policies that a re-elected Labour Government may have carried out on fuel duty, it is just speculation to say that they would or would not have been cut or kept; it is completely speculative to suggest that there may not have been any changes in the intervening two years—
Maria Eagle
No, I think once is enough.
Together with the rising costs of housing, fuel and food, the rising cost of transport is adding to the cost-of-living crisis now making life much tougher for households across Britain. Yet Transport Ministers and the Government are so out of touch with the pressures that families are under that they are making it easier for private train companies and bus companies to hike fares and increase their profits—
Maria Eagle
I will in a moment. These companies are doing that off the back of struggling commuters and passengers. The pain is not yet over. This year, we are set to see even greater pressure from the rising cost of transport as the Government unveil their rail fares and ticketing review, with proposals for even higher fares at the times when most people need to travel.
Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
Is not the really sneaky thing the Government’s allowing train companies to regain the power of so-called flexibility, which enables them to increase rail fares by up to 5% on top of the regulated fare increase? The Labour Government removed that power from them in 2009.
Maria Eagle
My hon. Friend is entirely correct. Even now, this Government could put that right by simply removing that power from the train companies, as we did in office. I invite the Secretary of State, who is relatively new to his job, to consider that.
We have Transport Ministers and a Government who are so out of touch with the pressures that families are under that they are making it easier for the private train and bus companies to hike fares and increase their profits off the back of struggling commuters and passengers.
Henry Smith
I am grateful that my persistence has paid off. Will the hon. Lady acknowledge the considerable investment in rail? For example, my constituency has a £26 million upgrade of Three Bridges station, a £53 million upgrade of Gatwick station and extra rolling stock from Thameslink and Southern. The travelling public are seeing real improvements.
Maria Eagle
I acknowledge that over a number of years, under the current Government and the previous Government, there has been big investment in rail travel. That is a good thing and I do not deny that.
Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)
I want to point out that the situation is not uniform. In my constituency, London Midland has sacked the people who work in the ticket office and installed machines and CCTV cameras that do not work. Despite a promise made by the Secretary of State to the House in a recent statement, there is no evidence that security has been improved at all.
Maria Eagle
My hon. Friend is correct. Significant problems are occurring with London Midland’s handling of its franchise. I know that Ministers are considering that and I hope that they will be tough and ensure that the passengers—
Maria Eagle
We will wait and see what action the Government take before we conclude that they are being tough—I am just encouraging them to be tough.
Daniel Kawczynski (Shrewsbury and Atcham) (Con)
Will the hon. Lady give way?
Maria Eagle
I want to make a little progress, but I might allow the hon. Gentleman to intervene a little later.
The pain is not over yet. This year is set to see even greater pressures from the rising cost of transport as the Government unveil their rail fares and ticketing review, with proposals for even higher fares at the times when most people need to travel. Ministers are to reform bus funding in a way that, deliberately it would seem, will penalise transport authorities that seek to regulate bus fares in the way they are regulated in London.
In contrast, as we set out in our motion, Labour would be taking steps now to ease the pressure on those who rely on our public transport system, standing up to the train and bus companies on behalf of commuters. We would be on the side of passengers, not vested interests.
Last September this House debated rail fares, and to the frustration of commuters—and many on the Government Benches, judging from what they told their local papers—the Prime Minister marched his MPs through the Lobby to oppose Labour’s motion to cap fare rises at 1% above inflation. Of course, Liberal Democrat MPs were marching alongside them. Yet within a month of Tory and Liberal Democrat MPs voting down Labour’s attempt to help commuters, we had a U-turn. On the eve of his party conference, the Prime Minister finally said that he agreed with Labour, and pledged to cap the annual fare rise at 1% above inflation. As commuters found when they returned to work this month, however, that was yet another broken promise from this Prime Minister and this Government, because fares were capped not at 1% above inflation, but at 9.2%. The reason the Prime Minister could not honour his pledge to commuters is clear: he was simply unable or unwilling to stand up to the vested interests in the private train companies. They had lobbied hard before the last election to get an agreement that the Conservative party would give back to them a power that had been taken away by the Labour Government when times got tough—the right to turn the annual cap on fare rises into an average, turning a cap of 1% above inflation into fare rises of as much as 9.2%.
The Secretary of State for Transport (Mr Patrick McLoughlin)
I am surprised by what the hon. Lady says. She said that the previous Labour Government took that power away from the train operators when times got tough. Will she confirm that times got tough in 2010, which coincided with a general election?
Maria Eagle
No. There was a rule change that would have applied each and every year after the decision was made. Lord Adonis, who was in post at the time as Transport Secretary, took that decision and had been absolutely clear about it. If anybody in the House doubts that, they can read the Select Committee on Transport report on rail fares and franchises, published in July 2009. Lord Adonis told the Committee:
“The Government's intention is, therefore, that in future the cap should apply to individual regulated fares, not just to the average of each fares basket.”
He did not say “for one year” but “in future.” As Lord Adonis reaffirmed last year, when the issue came up:
“It was my firm intention to continue the policy for subsequent years, and I was mystified when…my successor”—
that is, the right hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr Hammond)—
“reinstated the fares flexibility. The only people who supported this change were the train companies.”
I do not therefore accept that the cap was a one-off or that it would not have continued into the future under a Labour Government.
How have the Government reacted? The Under-Secretary of State for Transport, the hon. Member for Lewes (Norman Baker), told passengers to stop complaining because fares are
“not nearly as expensive as is being presented”,
and then told peak-time commuters that they were paying for a premium service. I assure the Under-Secretary that many passengers do not feel that that describes their experience in getting to work in the morning on an overcrowded train. They do not agree with him that fares are not expensive.
Meanwhile, it was revealed that the hon. Gentleman’s colleague, the Minister of State, Department for Transport, the right hon. Member for Chelmsford (Mr Burns), was avoiding taking the train altogether, and had a chauffeur bill to and from his constituency—a commute that would take just half an hour by train on a season ticket that would cost taxpayers not £80,000 a year but £4,500 a year. Transport Ministers—
Maria Eagle
No, I will make some progress. We have out-of-touch Transport Ministers and a Prime Minister not willing to enforce his own commitment on fares.
Mr Burns
Will the hon. Lady withdraw the accusation that she has just made—that the service to Chelmsford cost £80,000? If she had done her homework or was being fair, she would know that pool cars cost the Department a flat rate of £80,000 for the year, regardless of how many journeys they make or how far they travel. Even if the car stopped coming to Chelmsford, the flat fee would still be paid at the same level.
Maria Eagle
I note the right hon. Gentleman’s attempt to argue that he is actually saving money for the taxpayer, and I will leave that for those who wish to report on these things to decide.
Daniel Kawczynski
I am rather disappointed that at the start of the hon. Lady’s speech she did not acknowledge that there had been significant increases in rail fares under the previous Labour Administration. Her argument would hold more water—we are all concerned about rising prices—if she had acknowledged that that had happened under her Administration as well.
Maria Eagle
I do acknowledge that there were rail fare rises of RPI plus 1 under the previous Labour Government, but when times got tough after the global banking crisis and financial crash, the last Government acted to protect commuters. As households struggled, we immediately changed the rules to force train companies to apply strictly the cap on train fares. That was 1% above inflation, not the up to 9.2% that we have seen this year. That rule change would have applied each and every year from then on—
Maria Eagle
If the hon. Gentleman allows me to answer the point put to me, I might consider giving way to him a little later.
Putting train companies before commuters is what this Government are doing; when times got tough, we acted to try to support commuters. In future, if we get the chance, we will restore the rule and put it into law so that passengers will always know that the cap on fare rises set by Ministers is the one they see at the ticket office.
As I have said before, I believe that the previous Labour Government should have been bolder in taking on the train companies and they should have done so sooner, but the important fact is that we acted when times got really tough. This Government are just clobbering commuters even more.
Maria Eagle
No. I wish to make a little progress.
I think I have answered the point made by the Minister of State. If he is trying to argue that paying for a car is saving money because he is not having to pay for commuter rail fares, that is extraordinary.
Maria Eagle
No, I will not give way to the hon. Gentleman.
Buried in the innocuous-sounding Government paper “Rail Fares and Ticketing Review” is a plan to introduce a new category of ticket—the super-peak ticket. It proposes
“a ‘high-peak’ fare priced higher than the current Anytime day fare/a season ticket priced higher than the current season ticket.”
So a commuter who is already paying thousands of pounds for their season ticket faces this year being told that their very expensive purchase is not valid on every train, even if they have no choice about when they have to get to work, and most people do not have that choice. With a captive market, train companies will be allowed to hike fares even higher than they are now on services that suffer the most overcrowding and where there is already no guarantee of a seat. Only this Government would think that the answer to overcrowding on our trains is to price all but the richest off those services. The Defence Secretary gave away this Government’s view of the railways when he was Transport Secretary—“a rich man’s toy”, he called them.
When these tickets are introduced, an even nastier shock is awaiting commuters because the Government’s paper includes modelling on how much the cost of these new super-peak tickets could rise each year. Here is what the Government chose to include in their paper as apparently the favoured option:
“some fares (in the high peak) rising by an additional 7% annually (an additional 40% over the course of five years)”.
So there it is in black and white: new super-peak tickets introduced, with their cost then rising by 7% a year and 40% in just five years. We agree with the Transport Committee, which last week in its report, “Rail 2020”, urged the Government to
“rule out forms of demand management which would lead to even higher fares for commuters on peak time trains”.
The Secretary of State should take the opportunity of today’s debate to do just that, and I hope he will. If he does not, Labour will oppose any attempt to penalise commuters with new super-peak tickets.
The Government are not only hiking the cost of travelling by train but making it harder to buy the cheapest fare by supporting the campaign for the private train companies to close ticket offices or reduce their opening hours. The Government’s paper, “Rail Fares and Ticketing Review”, says:
“Ticket offices are the most expensive way of selling tickets…Train operators will be expected to reduce their costs and this is one important option they will want to consider…it may not be possible or appropriate for ticket office opening hours to continue at current levels.”
It may well be inconveniently expensive for the train companies to have to employ staff to sell tickets to their passengers, but it is one of the best ways for many customers to ensure that they purchase the cheapest ticket, not least when we have a ticketing system so complex that it can be very confusing. Surely decisions should be made on the basis of what is least expensive for passengers, not what is least expensive for train companies.
We know that Ministers do not plan on listening because we have seen leaked e-mails from the Department for Transport showing that plans to close ticket offices are already well advanced. This is what one official said in an e-mail to the Department’s press office advising it on what it could say on ticket office closures:
“We can’t say that the Government has no plans to close ticket offices because we have an application from London Midland where the minister has already decided to approve some ticket office closures (it’s just not been announced yet…and there will be more of those in the future.”
When I first read that out last year during Transport questions, the Minister, the hon. Member for Lewes, said that the official must have been mistaken as he had not approved any ticket office closures. Yet weeks later it was announced that the Minister had indeed approved London Midland’s plans to close some ticket offices and reduce the opening hours of others, despite the company’s abysmal performance in recent months which has caused such misery for passengers. What is even more revealing in the leaked e-mail is that it shows how the Government intend to pass the blame for those closures on to the train companies. This is what the official told the press office:
“your way of slipping in there that the initiative comes from the TOCs”—
the train operating companies—
“not us is very neat.”
So that is the Government’s plan for fares and ticketing: ticket prices rising by as much as 9% every year; more expensive new super-peak tickets which mean that season ticket holders will not even be able to get on every train without paying up to 40% more than other passengers over the next five years; and new freedoms for train companies to close ticket offices, making it harder for passengers to get the best deals. What a contrast with the ideas to make fares and ticketing fairer and simpler that we have heard as a result of listening to passengers during our policy review process.
Those ideas include a clear definition of peak and off-peak, to prevent passengers from facing massive extra charges on the train because it was not clear when peak time ended, and to prevent train operators stretching their peak time to stretch their profits at the expense of passengers. Another is a legal right to the cheapest ticket, so that passengers are offered the cheapest deal available, with rights to refunds if they find that they were mis-sold a more expensive ticket.
Another idea is a more flexible way for passengers to change travel plans so that if, through no fault of their own, they just miss a train and have an advance ticket, they can take the next train without incurring a massive new fare on board. Another is a right to a discount for a rail replacement bus service, because if your train, Mr Deputy Speaker, becomes a bus, which usually results in a longer journey, it should be treated in the same way as a service that is delayed for any other reason. Finally, it is suggested that there should be a cap on annual increases in station car parking charges, because it is increasingly clear that some train companies are squeezing yet more money out of hard-pressed commuters by whacking up parking charges when we should be making it easier for people to leave their car at the station and commute, because by doing so they are helping to cut congestion and helping the environment.
Maria Eagle
No. Those are the changes to fares and ticketing that passengers want, not the Government’s approach, which seems to be more about what is in the best interests of the train companies, not commuters.
If the Government are out of touch with the impact of fare rises on commuters, Ministers are even more woefully out of touch with the consequences for bus fares and services of their funding decisions since the election. When they set out plans to cut 28% of funding from local transport and axe a fifth of the direct support for bus services, Ministers claimed, incredibly, that that could be done without an impact on fares. The Minister, the hon. Member for Lewes, told the House:
“When I spoke to the industry following the spending review announcement, it indicated that the cut was so minimal that it hoped that it could absorb it without fares having to rise, which is what we hope will happen.”—[Official Report, 2 December 2010; Vol. 519, c. 953.]
What incredible naivety.
For the subsequent two years, those who rely on local bus services have had to listen to the Minister, with his fingers in his ears, denying all knowledge of the consequences of the cuts. At Transport questions last April, he said of bus services that
“there have not been the cuts that the Opposition are so keen to talk up.”—[Official Report, 19 April 2012; Vol. 543, c. 485.]
At Transport questions in November, he again refused to accept the truth when my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood) warned him of the higher fares and reduced services in communities up and down the country.
We now have the truth, because the Government have had to publish the annual bus statistics for 2011-12. They clearly show an average increase in bus fares of 6.5% in England and an even higher average increase of 7.6% in non-metropolitan areas. Those are increases of more than double the rate of inflation on services that are relied on by some of the poorest in our communities.
Angela Smith (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Lab)
Will my hon. Friend consider whether the impact of those increases will be felt by young people in particular, who have to pay high fares to get to college and to work and who are suffering a great burden because of the increases being visited on them by the Government?
Maria Eagle
My hon. Friend is right. The Government’s own statistics also reveal the truth on lost services. Directly contradicting the Minister’s claims, they show that between 2010-11 and 2011-12, mileage on supported services dropped by 10% in non-metropolitan areas in England and by 7% in metropolitan areas.
Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)
My hon. Friend’s point about lost services is crucial to those who live in villages in my constituency, particularly older people who do not have another option for transport. They face higher transport costs because there is no bus service any more. I am sure that my hon. Friend will agree that that is a consequence of what she is saying.
Maria Eagle
My hon. Friend is correct in explaining the experience that his constituents are living through. These are not just statistics, but the loss of actual services. Research by the Campaign for Better Transport has found that 41% of local authorities have been forced to cut services that are socially necessary and the support that they give them. That is on top of the cuts from the previous year, when one in five local council-supported bus services were cut or cut back. A tenth of councils have had to cut more than £1 million from support for bus services.
The Government’s own watchdog, Passenger Focus, has warned that the reduction in those services will impact disproportionately on
“older people, less affluent households, those with health related issues, or households containing teenagers”.
I hope that Ministers will accept that they cannot remain in denial any longer about the impact of the cuts to bus services—cuts that could have been avoided in their entirety just by using the Department’s underspend from last year, which Ministers handed back to the Treasury. Ministers need to explain to parents why they are having to struggle with the extra costs of getting their teenagers to college. They should explain to pensioners why the Prime Minister’s election pledge to protect their bus pass did not extend to protecting their local bus services, leaving many with a bus pass but no bus on which to use it, thereby reducing their access to shops and vital services and increasing their isolation.
Gareth Johnson
I am very grateful to the hon. Lady for giving way. Clearly, bus services, train services and transport systems have always had to be paid for in some way or another. Does she feel that most of the burden should fall on the passenger or on the taxpayer?
Maria Eagle
The hon. Gentleman has missed out the profits of rail and bus companies. Perhaps those ought to be looked at as well. As he knows, all Governments have to strike a balance. This Government have to do so, as did the previous one, and that will no doubt be the case for the next one too.
Because bus services outside London were deregulated, local authorities have for far too long been unable to limit fare rises or properly plan the network of local bus services in the interests of passengers and economic growth in their area. That is why the last Labour Government changed the law to enable transport authorities to use quality contracts to move to a tendered model for bus services, thereby bringing accountability over fares.
Maria Eagle
No.
That model means that decisions on fare rises are made by politicians, just as we have always accepted should happen for rail fares and as has happened for bus services in London. However, the integrated transport authorities that are rightly going down that route are finding that they are up against the vested interests in the private bus companies. Stagecoach is the worst culprit and has threatened to close depots, sack drivers and take buses off the road overnight. Sir Brian Souter claimed that he would rather “take poison” than enter a quality contract. His managing director accused the elected accountable transport authority of
“operating in the same camp as Marx, Lenin and Trotsky.”
Have the Government stood by transport authorities that are trying to secure a better deal in the use of taxpayers’ money? No. On the contrary, the Government are using their reform of bus funding to stack the odds even further against transport authorities. They are caving in to pressure from the bus companies and proposing to exclude from better bus area funding authorities that seek greater control over fares through quality contracts. Yet again, the Government are on the side of the wrong people and are putting the interests of the bus companies before bus passengers. The Government should think again and work with councils, not against them. Ministers should say to the bus companies, “You operate successfully in a regulated system right across Europe and you can do so here.” Instead, Ministers are cutting funding, oblivious to the impact on rising fares and reduced services, and standing in the way of local authorities that are seeking reform to deliver more for less and keep down fares.
On rail and bus services, the cost of transport is rising by well above the rate of inflation. The Government should listen to passengers, and the House should support the motion. Let this be the last year when the train companies are allowed to turn the so-called cap on fare rises into an average. The Government should restore the strict cap on fares that was introduced by Labour and that they scrapped. They should also listen to passengers about ticket offices and look at the ideas that we have set out to make fares and ticketing fairer and simpler. The Government have so far shown themselves to be completely out of touch on the rising cost of transport and the pressure that it is causing for families who are already feeling the squeeze on household budgets. Today is an opportunity for Ministers to start listening, recognise the consequences of the misguided decisions that their predecessors have taken over the past two years on rail and bus services, and act. I invite the Secretary of State for Transport to do so.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Before I call the Secretary of State, I should say that there will be a time limit on contributions. It is difficult to say what the limit will be until the Secretary of State sits down, but I should not think that it will be much more than six minutes.
Mr McLoughlin
If I am still Secretary of State in 2017, I will have been the longest serving Transport Secretary. If my hon. Friend will forgive me, I have enough problems on my plate without making commitments for 2017. I look forward, however, to a Conservative Government making that decision—that is as far as I will go towards meeting that commitment at the moment.
The fact that we have capped fares to RPI plus 1% will benefit more than a quarter of a million annual season ticket holders by around £45 a year, and some commuters will be more than £200 better off over the two years. The motion before the House is confused in another way. It attacks the flexibility that allows operators to increase some regulated fares by more than RPI plus 1% if they cut other fares by an equal amount—for example, on Virgin Trains the Rugby to Euston season ticket has increased by almost 1% less than inflation. Today, the hon. Member for Garston and Halewood tried to claim that it was not the last Government who introduced that flexibility, or that such flexibility existed for more than one year. The changes to the agreement, which I can read to her, make it clear. The deed of amendment states:
“With effect from 00.00 on 1 January 2010 Schedule 5.5 of the Franchise Agreement will be amended as set out in the Appendix to the Deed…From 00.00 on 1 January 2011”.
Therefore, the agreement was amended for just one year.
Maria Eagle
Is the Secretary of State saying that Lord Adonis, whom he just praised, misled the Transport Committee when he said that he intended the agreement to go into the future and that it was a permanent change? Does he realise—he will find it out in 2014—that the year before an election, the limits of how far into the future one can go in the time of one’s successors are set by Whitehall and are different from those for the beginning of a Parliament?
Mr McLoughlin
I am not accusing the noble Lord of misleading anybody; I am informing the House of what he did as Secretary of State. He may have wished his changes to last longer, but they did not and were solely for that one year. Indeed, when the 5% flexibility was introduced in 2004 it led to some increases of 11% under the previous Labour Government in 2009 alone. That flexibility was suspended for one year—an election year.
However, that is not Labour policy now. How do we know? Well, let us look at Wales where this year under the Labour devolved Administration fares went up by RPI plus 1%, with flexibility of 5%.
West Coast Rail Franchise
Maria Eagle Excerpts(11 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)
First, may I thank the Secretary of State for early sight of his statement and the report?
The Secretary of State conceded to the Transport Committee that what had been uncovered even in the Laidlaw inquiry interim report was “damning”. It is, indeed, damning, and the final report is even more so.
For all the efforts by the Government in briefing after briefing to pin the blame on just three civil servants and to hide behind an internal human resources process, the results of which will never be made public, some things are very clear. It was decisions and failures by Ministers that led to the collapse of rail franchising, at huge cost to the taxpayer. The Laidlaw report is clear. It was Ministers who decided to change franchising policy; they decided not just to move to longer franchises, but to replace a revenue-risk sharing mechanism that had worked for many years with a complex new model requiring a best guess at GDP 15 years ahead. It was Ministers who oversaw a bizarre structural reorganisation of the Department that left no one in charge of rail. The Secretary of State has now said he will reverse that—finally, we have an acceptance of ministerial responsibility. It was Ministers who chose to axe more than a third of the staff at the Department in a year, with little thought for the consequences of the loss of expertise. And it was Ministers who axed external audits, removing quality assurance from the process. These were deliberate decisions taken by this incompetent Government.
It was also Ministers who failed to act when warning after warning was flagged up to them as this franchise unravelled. Why did alarm bells not ring at the fact that this process had not one but three senior responsible owners? It is not surprising that the Laidlaw report proposes just one in future—that is the whole purpose of a senior responsible owner. Does the Secretary of State not accept that Ministers have an obligation to ask questions and not just rely on what they are being told, not least when they are spending hundreds of millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money? It is clear from this report that they failed completely in their responsibility to do that.
The Secretary of State must now give taxpayers and fare payers some straight answers. First, has he received clear legal advice that will reassure taxpayers that he has not left the Department open to legal challenge as a result of his decision to hand out a two-year contract with no competition? Secondly, are reports correct that he has agreed a quid pro quo deal with First, whereby it will be granted an extension on its First Great Western franchise on a similar basis? Thirdly, the Government expected to receive tens of millions of pounds in dividend payments over the next two years from the west coast franchise and would have received more than £800 million from the great western franchise had First not exercised its right not to extend that contract—can the Secretary of State confirm that, under the management contracts he has been forced into, taxpayers will receive none of those payments? Fourthly, the terms of the deal that has been struck with Virgin allow the margin of 1% on revenue agreed for the first year to rise for the second—by how much could it rise and at what cost to the taxpayer? Finally, will the Secretary of State now come clean with the House on the full cost to taxpayers of the collapse of the Government’s franchising programme? There are media reports from the industry that the final cost could run into not tens of millions but hundreds of millions of pounds. Will he tell the House, taxpayers and fare payers what figure he has been given by his officials?
Despite all the Secretary of State’s efforts, no one is going to fall for the Government’s attempt to wriggle off the hook and evade responsibility for this shambles. They can devise a complex process of multiple reviews, they can hide behind confidentiality and legal privilege, and they can reshuffle Ministers as many times as they like, but the truth is that when commuters go back to work in the new year and find that their fares have gone up by as much as 6% above inflation they will know that it was Ministers from this incompetent Government who, instead of imposing a strict cap on fare rises, blew taxpayers’ money on this franchise fiasco.
Oral Answers to Questions
Maria Eagle Excerpts(11 years, 5 months ago)
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Mr McLoughlin
The truth of the matter is that a number of airports are now owned by different companies as a result of the changes that have been made, and they are coming forward with their own proposals, which will add to the approach taken by the Davies commission. It will certainly not be short of representations of various sorts, including, I imagine, from my right hon. Friend.
Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)
The Prime Minister came back from his summer holiday saying that he was
“more determined than ever to cut through the dither that holds this country back.”
Having dithered for a year before finally accepting our suggestion of an independent commission on aviation, the Government have now cynically set a time scale that pushes decisions beyond the next election. Will the Secretary of State finally listen to all those, including the CBI and the British Chambers of Commerce, who want the national interest to be put before party management, accelerate the time scale, and ask Sir Howard Davies to produce his final report by the end of next year?
Mr McLoughlin
In all honesty, the Labour party has also changed its position on what should happen at Heathrow. I would have hoped that the composition of the commission attracted widespread support. Indeed, one of its members is an adviser to the Leader of the Opposition on infrastructure projects. It is right that we get the right answer and build consensus on what we are trying to do.
Maria Eagle
Business will be bitterly disappointed by that answer. It is no wonder the Mayor of London has described his own Government’s approach to aviation as
“a policy of utter inertia”,
“glacial” and a “fudgerama”. HS2, Thameslink, franchising, investment promised in the autumn statement a year ago: all are running late. The Secretary of State is now presiding over the department for dither and delay. When is he going to get a grip?
Transport
Maria Eagle Excerpts(11 years, 5 months ago)
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Maria Eagle
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport for how many hours work Eversheds LLP charged his Department in respect of work relating to the West Coast Mainline franchise; and at what hourly rate.
[Official Report, 17 October 2012, Vol. 551, c. 338W.]
Letter of correction from Simon Burns:
An error has been identified in the written answer given to the hon. Member for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle) on 17 October 2012.
The full answer given was as follows:
Mr Simon Burns
In total, Eversheds LLP charged the Department for 420 hours work relating to the Intercity West Coast franchise competition. For reasons of commercial confidentiality, we are unable to disclose the hourly rates that were charged.
The correct answer should have been:
West Coast Main Line
Maria Eagle Excerpts(11 years, 6 months ago)
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Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for early sight of his statement—it was a good job I had my mobile phone with me so that I could read it. I welcome his willingness to come to the House and his stated intention to be transparent, which I hope will translate into actual transparency.
However the Secretary of State spins it, the truth is that this is a franchise fiasco with not one but four Cabinet Ministers’ fingerprints all over it. Who designed the new franchising policy, building significantly greater risk into the process? It was the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. Who reduced the Department’s capability to manage major contracts by cutting a third of the staff, including the directors of procurement, rail strategy and rail contracts? It was the Secretary of State for Defence. Who decided not to bother with an external audit, turning a saving of thousands into a cost of tens of millions, then delegated the entire process to her junior Minister and then failed to act on warning after warning about flaws in the process? It was the Secretary of State for International Development. And who declared himself satisfied with the whole process before the Transport Committee, despite the growing evidence that something had gone badly wrong, and then added to the chaos in the franchising system by replacing the costs of one competition with the costs of three? It was the current Secretary of State. This is a shambles involving not one but four members of the Prime Minister’s Cabinet, and it is about time they took responsibility for it instead of blaming officials.
After his last statement to the House, the Secretary of State failed to answer a single question I put to him, so perhaps today, in the interests of transparency, he can manage to give answers to five questions. The first relates to what Ministers knew and when. We know that his Department received a detailed report by Europa Partners five days before awarding the contract. Its author has said that a proper risk analysis was not at the centre of the appraisal. Can the Secretary of State now confirm that at least one bidder warned the Department of errors as far back as May 2011, with one executive telling the Financial Times:
“The spreadsheet contained certain assumptions that looked odd to our economic modellers, so we went back to the department and pointed it out”?
Again, why did Ministers not act on that warning? Can the Secretary of State tell the House who the senior responsible owner for this project was in his Department?
Secondly, on the cost to taxpayers, the Secretary of State doggedly sticks to his figure of £40 million, yet we know that that is just the cost of compensating the four west coast bidders. It does not include the cost of re-running the competition twice, of compensating bidders for the other stalled franchises or of preparing Directly Operated Railways to step in. So what assessment has he been given of the final cost of this Cabinet ministerial failure? How accurate are reports of a final figure of well over £100 million?
Thirdly, on his Department’s external advice, the Secretary of State has admitted in parliamentary answers that his Department paid £491,000 to Eversheds and £439,000 to WS Atkins for advice during the west coast tender process. Can he confirm whether those are the total amounts paid? What steps is he taking to secure a refund for taxpayers for any mistakes that may have contributed to this fiasco?
Fourthly, on the legal advice that the Secretary of State has received, what is his Department’s liability if the participants in any of these cancelled or stalled franchises take action against the Government? What advice did he receive on procurement and EU competition law before deciding to extend Virgin’s contract? What will be the cost of Virgin’s interim operation of the west coast main line until he can get to the first of the next two competitions?
Finally, on the review itself, does the Secretary of State not think it is extraordinary for his Minister of State to insist, in a parliamentary answer, that the Department for Transport board has no responsibility for this fiasco because it was delegated to one of its sub-committees? Surely the board is responsible for its own sub-committee. It is precisely this wriggling that makes people suspicious about the nature of this review. Will the Secretary of State, even at this late stage, think again and allow a genuinely independent review that can look at the role of the Department for Transport board and of Ministers?
The Secretary of State’s attempt to bury his franchise policy at midnight failed to cover up this nightmare on Marsham street that has rapidly become a nightmare for Downing street. Does the Secretary of State agree that
“Ministers must take responsibility for serious or systematic performance failures...flawed policy and poor design...Ministers must not be allowed to shuffle off responsibility”?
Those are not my words, but those of the Prime Minister. This is not just a faulty process; it is a faulty Government. It is time that the Prime Minister listened to his own words, followed his own advice and insisted on his Cabinet finally taking some responsibility for this franchise fiasco.
Oral Answers to Questions
Maria Eagle Excerpts(11 years, 6 months ago)
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Mr McLoughlin
I assure my hon. Friend that I asked those questions rigorously in the Department and I have been assured that this was a wholly different process. As I have said, I am awaiting the outcome of the two inquiries that I have set up.
Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)
Will the Secretary of State admit that taxpayers are set to be stung for far more than the £40 million he is paying back to bidders for the west coast franchise, because what he has not included in that figure is the cost of paying back bidders for the suspended Great Western, Essex Thameside and Thameslink franchises? Will he now come clean to taxpayers about exactly how much of their money will be poured down the drain as a result of his franchising fiasco?
Mr McLoughlin
I have given the figures that are available to the House. The other contracts to which the hon. Lady refers are on hold—they have not been let.
Maria Eagle
Is it not the truth that the cost to taxpayers is likely to be tens of millions of pounds more by the time the Secretary of State has Britain’s rail services back on track? He will hand millions over to private train companies; millions will be spent running three competitions for this franchise when he should have been running only one; and millions more will be lost if companies decide to sue the Government for the losses that his Department’s incompetence have caused them. Instead of the Department for Transport’s own board investigating itself, do not taxpayers deserve a truly independent inquiry into what went wrong and who was to blame for so much of their money being poured down the drain?
Mr McLoughlin
When I was told about this incident and the mistakes that were made, I ordered two immediate inquiries. I wanted to get to the bottom of it as quickly as possible, and that is what I have done. I am sure that we will not be short of a number of inquiries, which will take place subsequent to the Laidlaw and Richard Brown inquiries. I expect that the Public Accounts Committee will want to look at the issue.
West Coast Main Line
Maria Eagle Excerpts(11 years, 7 months ago)
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Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for advanced view of the statement. I well understand why, when he announced this embarrassing debacle earlier this month, he did so at one minute past midnight, when he hoped everybody would be asleep, because this is yet another staggering example of the monumental incompetence of this shambles of a Government. It is a failure of policy, a failure of process, a failure of ministerial oversight and a failure of ministerial leadership.
The Government’s new franchising policy, which requires risks to be calculated 15 years into the future, was designed by the current Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, announced by the current Secretary of State for Defence and implemented by the current Secretary of State for International Development; and it has shamefully been left to the former Chief Whip to try and deflect the blame for it on to three officials in the Department for Transport. It is just as well it has not been left to the current Chief Whip to deal with, or he would probably have blamed it on the police at the gates of Downing street.
The reality is that Ministers are responsible. It was Ministers who redesigned franchising policy to make it much more difficult to calculate which bidder should win. It was Ministers who slashed faster than any other Department the expertise and staffing available to carry out the task, including apparently making the director of procurement, the director of rail strategy and the director of rail contracts’ posts redundant along with those of senior finance staff; and it was Ministers who reportedly cancelled an external audit that was routinely done in other competitions to check the outcome of the franchise award ahead of its announcement.
It is incredible that Minsters continue to maintain that these problems only came to light late in the day, just before they made that midnight announcement less than two weeks ago. We know that Ministers were sent a report warning of precisely the problems that led to the competition being cancelled five days before the contract was awarded. Today was the opportunity for the new Secretary of State to begin to put things right, yet he has failed his first test and announced a way forward that adds to the chaos and confusion and risks even greater costs to taxpayers, replacing one franchise competition with three, opening up the prospect of three owners in three years, increasing the risk of further legal action and further costs to taxpayers, and adding to the uncertainty for passengers and staff.
Can the Secretary of State update the House on the likely final cost to taxpayers of the Government’s failure on franchising? If reimbursing bidders for the west coast will cost £40 million, what will be the costs of the stalled Great Western, Essex Thameside and Thameslink franchises? What legal advice did he receive on his decision to extend Virgin’s contract? Specifically, what advice has he received on EU competition law, procurement law and the impact on the fairness of future competitions for the franchise? In the light of this debacle, does he agree that it makes sense to maintain a public sector rail company that is equipped to step in at short notice in future, as well as providing a useful comparator? Will he therefore abandon the planned privatisation of the east coast service, which is delivering nearly £200 million back to taxpayers every year, which is profit that in future will be shared with shareholders?
Can the Secretary of State not see that it is completely inappropriate for a member of his own Department’s board, no matter what his other qualities are, to carry out an investigation that has to look at the decisions taken or approved by other members of that board, including Ministers? Will the Secretary of State think again and make his review truly independent? What impact has the 37% turnover of senior civil servants in the restructuring of the Department in the last two years had on its capability to conduct competitions such as this? As the Secretary of State mentioned his fares U-turn, will he now agree to make the train companies apply the cap to every route, so that passengers do not find, as they did last year, that fares may still rise by up to 5% above the cap?
This was a franchise fiasco made by Ministers—a policy scribbled on the back of an envelope in opposition; cuts that go too far, too fast, implemented in government. The result is chaos across the rail industry and tens of millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money down the drain—the direct consequence of decisions taken by Ministers. Now we have a proposal for an independent review that is not independent at all, while the Secretary of State’s solution to the west coast franchise fiasco is a decision to do it all over again—that is, twice in just two years. What an appalling waste of taxpayers’ money! What a shambles from this incompetent Government!
Mr McLoughlin
I thank the hon. Lady for her reasoned response to my statement.
The last Labour Secretary of State for Transport was not a Member of this House, but he said some very interesting things. Lord Adonis said:
“Ten year franchises, with the possibility of longer contracts should bidders make sensible and affordable proposals, will allow operators to invest and suggest new innovations.”
At that point the Labour party increased the minimum for franchises to run to 10 years, with an option of 22 years. There is therefore a long-standing position that longer franchises can work, including to the benefit of passengers, which it is important they should do.
The hon. Lady mentioned a number of points. One of the things that I was keen to do, on hearing of the problems we were facing in the Department, was to get to the answers as quickly as possible. That is why I set up the inquiries as quickly as I possibly could. I believe that Mr Laidlaw is perfectly capable of bringing his expertise to bear and showing us—[Interruption.] The hon. Lady ought to wait until he has done the inquiry before prejudging it, because at least we have taken the action to get the inquiry under way. I think that is the right way to go.
The hon. Lady talks about the reduction in members of staff in the Department. There has indeed been a reduction. Bearing in mind the economic climate in which we found ourselves, that was absolutely necessary and I make no apologies whatever for that. I am determined to see that the provision of services to the customers who use the west coast main line—of which there are many, with many constituencies involved—is carried out continuously, and that is why I believe Virgin are the best people to carry that forward.
West Coast Main Line
Maria Eagle Excerpts(11 years, 8 months ago)
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Daniel Kawczynski (Shrewsbury and Atcham) (Con)
Thank you, Mr Davies. The Shropshire MPs have been campaigning on a cross-party basis, together with our Welsh neighbours, on trying to secure a direct rail service for Shrewsbury. That issue is extremely important for us, bearing in mind tourism and business investment, and that is why I was delighted by the announcement that FirstGroup had been selected and would provide the direct service for Shrewsbury.
My first reaction when I heard about Virgin’s judicial review was frustration and concern, and I felt a little as though it was a case of sour grapes. Subsequently, I met representatives of FirstGroup, who stand by their figures unequivocally. I also met representatives of Virgin and held a meeting in the House of Commons that was attended by 40 colleagues, who came to interact with Virgin’s senior managers and directors. They tried to explain to us why, in their view, and from a commercial procurement perspective they felt that FirstGroup’s figures did not stack up.
Interestingly, Virgin Trains claims that it has been raising concerns about the whole procurement process with various Ministers over an extended period. Indeed, it raised the fact that it had tried to lobby Lord Adonis on this issue. It is therefore rather difficult for me to accept the flavour of some of the comments from Labour MPs that this problem has somehow developed recently. According to Virgin Trains, it had concerns at the time when Lord Adonis was in charge and it raised them with him. As I said, I invited representatives of Virgin to meet me and fellow parliamentarians, and 35 or 40 MPs came to that meeting. I have sent my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport minutes of the meeting.
I believe that immediately after the announcement, the shadow Secretary of State for Transport, the hon. Member for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle), whom I was watching on television, was calling for an urgent inquiry because the decision had been made when Parliament was in recess. I think that she expressed a great deal of frustration about that. However, I have been trawling through all the questions that she has submitted to the Secretary of State for Transport and the Department for Transport, and the Library has also been checking them and—she may correct me on this—I cannot find any questions from her during the past six months about the timing of the decision or the procurement process. As I said, she may correct me if I am wrong, but I feel that this is the Labour party jumping on a bandwagon.
Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)
The Government have chosen to delay the completion of the process by six months. They negotiated with Virgin an extension to the contract that it was running. Therefore, the timing has been a matter for the Government. Obviously, I was not aware that they would make the announcement in the middle of August, when Parliament was in recess. That would be a matter for the Government.
Mr Marcus Jones (Nuneaton) (Con)
I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this important debate. As a member of the Backbench Business Committee, I welcome the first of the Monday debates, which rely on the public’s response to e-petitions.
The west coast main line is vital to many of my constituents, who, I must say, are a little perplexed, to say the least, about the whole saga of the letting of the west coast main line franchise. In the debate today, it is important for our constituents to understand that we are here, as Members of this House, without the power or jurisdiction to change anything at this point. It is important to state that the only people who can change the decision, unless the will of the Government changes after the judicial review, are the judiciary. The judicial process must be followed and Members must respect that process.
That said, there are general principles that we should discuss, but as MPs it would be a grave error to delve into the minutiae of each bid, because we have not seen the information first hand, and so are second-guessing from the claims and counter-claims of the different companies involved. The issues come under two categories: first, the franchise process itself; and, secondly, how the various bids were applied to the franchise criteria. To take the franchise process first: Virgin Trains and others, particularly Opposition Members, contend that the tendering process was flawed. I have concerns and scepticism about that argument. If flaws had been identified at the outset, before the draft invitation to tender or when the Government released it, we should have seen a robust challenge from the Opposition at that point.
Maria Eagle
As far as I am concerned, nobody on the Opposition Benches has suggested that the tendering process as it was undertaken was unfair. We do not know the details, which is why it is important to have a debate, to ask the Minister what he can tell us.
Mr Jones
I thank the shadow Minister for that comment, because it illustrates the crux of the issue. There is a lot of second-guessing and a lot of assumptions are being made. The people making those assumptions do not necessarily know the full facts. As I will come on to later in my comments, it is dangerous in any such tendering process for an MP or a Government to move the goal posts once the process has begun.
Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for West Lancashire (Rosie Cooper) on securing the debate. As has been said, more than 172,000 members of the public have signed the e-petition on the west coast main line franchising decision. This debate, which is a result of that petition and of the good offices of the Backbench Business Committee, has enabled Members to put their points. Many of them represent constituencies that are served directly or indirectly by this important strategic route.
A lot of concerns and other points have been placed on the record. From my experience as an Under-Secretary, I know that the Minister—I welcome him to his place for his first debate in the role—probably will not have enough time, even if he has the inclination, to answer all the questions. However, I am sure that he will undertake to write to those Members he does not get around to answering with the fullest answers, so that we can read what he thinks about every point made.
We have had excellent contributions, first from my hon. Friend the Member for West Lancashire, but also from the hon. Member for Milton Keynes South (Iain Stewart), my hon. Friend the Member for Halton (Derek Twigg), the hon. Member for Rugby (Mark Pawsey), my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen), the hon. Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Eric Ollerenshaw), my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley), the hon. Members for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Daniel Kawczynski), for Morecambe and Lunesdale (David Morris), for Nuneaton (Mr Jones) and, last but not least, for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy)—I would have guessed that that was his constituency from what he said. Not surprisingly, that includes many railway towns and constituencies that very much depend on stations on the west coast main line.
Many of the points made are at the centre of the debate arising from the awarding of the franchise. If Virgin Trains had not begun the legal proceedings that are now under way, Ministers would have signed the west coast main line contract before Members had had any chance to debate the issue in the Chamber. The truth is that Ministers probably rather hoped that the issue could have been done and dusted towards the end of the summer recess, with the decision slipped out while Parliament was not sitting and attention was focused on recovering from the Olympics. That is not helpful when we are dealing with a 15-year franchise that will cover several Parliaments. It is right that parliamentarians have a chance to debate the issue, and in that respect I very much welcome this debate.
I am disappointed that the Secretary of State—I congratulate him, too, on his appointment, as I have told him in the Chamber—was so quick to rule out a review of the process that led to this contentious decision. As a new Secretary of State, he would have been perfectly entitled to take the time to read through all the documentation and to have all the meetings. Yet, last week, he told the Transport Committee:
“I am content with the way in which the Department exercised its review of that contract.”
Despite his long-standing experience as Aviation and Shipping Minister many years ago, it is difficult to envisage how he could have conducted anything but the most cursory assessment of his Department’s action in this case. He came to his conclusion very quickly after his appointment, which is a shame. When the Minister meets the Secretary of State, I urge them, notwithstanding the legal process currently under way, to reflect on whether a decision to proceed with the signing of this contract should at the very least await the report of the Transport Committee.
One of the main concerns about the decision is that it seems to be almost exclusively a bottom line one, driven as it is by a particularly high pledge of payments to Government—FirstGroup’s successful bid was £5.5 billion compared with £4.8 billion offered by the incumbent. Obviously, such payments are an important part of any decision; I do not suggest that they should not be taken into account. None the less, there have been reports of the Treasury putting pressure on the Department for Transport, which is not unheard of in my experience, to focus precisely on the headline figure offered. The Department has admitted that it has accepted the bid that offers the largest dividend payment but that also carries with it the greatest risk to deliverability.
Two specific concerns raised by hon. Members relate to the credibility of the predictions of passenger growth and the profiling of the promised revenue payments, which are back loaded towards the end of the franchise period. There is huge variance in the rival claims about the growth in passenger numbers that each company believes to be achievable during the lifetime of the franchise. Virgin’s claim of 49 million passengers compares with FirstGroup’s claim of 66 million. The growth that we have seen on the line during the past decade has been largely driven by the £9 billion upgrade of the west coast main line infrastructure and the introduction of the fleet of Pendolino trains. The investment in track and train has delivered faster and consequently more frequent services. What is likely to drive similar growth in the next period, given that we are not about to have another such upgrade?
The invitation to tender documents also set out significant challenges that will face the west coast operator during the latter period of the licence, all of which could impact on the potential to achieve significant growth in passenger numbers. The most significant is the start of work on High Speed 2 at Euston, which will see the number of platforms for services available at any one time cut from 17 to 14 in order to achieve the rebuilding of that station. Yet it is in the later years of the contract that much of the projected growth is expected to come.
If the growth in passenger numbers is not credible, the only other source of additional revenue is higher fares or a reduction in services, or at least in the quality of services. As one would expect, the successful bidder has given some welcome reassurances on all those issues. The reason that concerns remain is that the Government have included in these new franchises new flexibilities to reduce services, close ticket offices, cut passenger-facing staff and even axe CCTV from trains. Such flexibilities would not enhance service provision were they to be taken up by the successful bidder.
Passengers would welcome clarity from Government on the extent to which those new “freedoms” can be used. Only today, Ministers have announced that they have agreed to requests from London Midland to close ticket offices and reduce opening hours at others, despite months of denying our claims that such measures were being planned. Passengers are nervous about the future.
The invitation to tender also gives the successful bidder significant freedoms in respect of fares throughout the term of the contract. It promises that fares can rise by
“RPI+3%+5% in 2013 and 2014 and then by RPI+1%+5%”.
Consequently, it is possible that some routes could see ticket prices increase by up to 11% for each of the next two years and then up to 8% each year until 2026. If that is to be the only way of meeting the promised revenue payments in the event of the predicted growth not being reached, it is no wonder that many passengers are concerned.
FirstGroup rightly points out that its profile of predicted growth and revenue is very similar to Virgin’s in the first two thirds of the franchise. However, it is the fact that the much higher growth and payments to Government occur towards the end of the franchise that is the cause of the concern. The figures are stark. The profile of proposed payments to Government increases from just £26 million in 2014 to £739 million by 2026.
Mark Pawsey
I am listening carefully to the hon. Lady’s argument. What I do not understand is whether, given what we now know, she would have made a different decision from that made by the Government.
Maria Eagle
The hon. Gentleman is tempting me, but it is impossible for me to make such a decision on the very low level of information that is in the public domain. As a Minister—I was never a Minister in the DfT, though I was in many other Departments—I had to make decisions like this, but I had to hand significant information––all the documentation and all the lawyers and officials. I do not have sufficient information in this Chamber today to answer that question. I hope he will regard my answer not as evasive but as plain common sense.
It is only in the final three to four years of the 13-year contract that the premium payments promised by FirstGroup exceed those promised by Virgin. The profile of payments goes steeply upwards from £26 million in 2014 to £739 million in 2026. The fear is that that builds in a clear incentive for the bidder to walk away from the contract before the payments are due, not least if the predicted revenue that is to fund the process does not start to appear as expected over the course of the contract and if the predictions turn out to be optimistic. FirstGroup states:
“Any suggestion we may walk away from our West Coast bid is misplaced. We would face considerable damage to our reputation and credibility if we did—and doing so would significantly impact our ability to win further franchises.”
I welcome that reassurance and I am sure that it is made in good faith, but I do not believe that, under the current Government’s approach to franchising, the consequences are as obvious.
In the past year, FirstGroup has exercised a right not to complete the maximum possible length of the contract it holds to deliver services on the Great Western main line, thus avoiding more than £800 million in dividend payments to the Government. I appreciate that FirstGroup would robustly state that that is not the same as walking away from a contract, but what is the same is that it was possible because the promised premium payments were highest during the final three years of the contract. Yet FirstGroup has secured the west coast franchise and it has been shortlisted again for the Great Western contract, so there are no consequences there for what is in effect gaming the system.
I do not accept that it is obvious that FirstGroup has cause to feel that it will suffer any damage, let alone find it harder to win future contracts, from terminating a contract early. Indeed, under Governments of both persuasions—I perhaps need to say under Governments of all persuasions, given that we have a coalition Government at present—we have not seen consequences follow from gaming the system or from failing to meet obligations. Companies have routinely been shortlisted again for franchises and have won franchises even though they have handed back keys or gamed the system to avoid making payments back to the taxpayer.
It is also said that the penalty for handing back the keys early is significant; at £190 million in the case of FirstGroup, it certainly sounds significant. However, put in the context of just one year’s payment to Government being £739 million, walking away does not seem quite such a bad deal if one is focused purely on financial considerations.
If these concerns were just being raised by the losing bidder, we might put it down to sour grapes; indeed, I think that was a phrase that one Government Member used. Clearly there is an element of that driving the judicial review and the challenge that we are now seeing. However, the fact is that many respected people across the industry are dubious about whether the bid that FirstGroup has succeeded with is viable.
Perhaps the Minister would be willing to listen to George Muir, who was the director general of the Association of Train Operating Companies between 1999 and 2008. Writing in Passenger Transport magazine, which is on my reading list, he starkly sets out the reason why there is widespread incredulity in the industry about this contract. He says:
“A 10.4% growth rate produces, in the year 2025/26, revenue of £2,982m out of which is to be paid premium payments to the government £1,696m…and profit to FirstGroup of £149m. Put it this way, in 13 years’ time this fine franchise is to have a profit margin of 62%. Wow! Surreal.
Put it another way, the premium in year 2025/26 is £1,140m in today’s money…and this to be paid by a business with passenger revenue last year of just £824m.
Well, if you believe this, you will believe anything.”
He warns that the Department for Transport
“cannot possibly believe they will get over £1bn, in today’s money, for four years on the trot from FirstGroup. They don’t. It’s a farce.”
Those are not my words, but those of George Muir, who was the director general of ATOC for many years and understands the industry. He is clear where the blame lies—it is in the changes that the Government have explicitly made to franchising since the election. He says:
“The problem goes back to Theresa Villiers’ franchise reform white paper of a couple of years’ ago, which she had been scribbling away in opposition. It reminds me of Andrew Lansley’s NHS reform, crackpot ideas in opposition.”
I stress that those are not my words; I am quoting George Muir.
The Government are right to prepare contingency plans if the legal challenge is not settled by the 9 December deadline for transfer. It would be helpful if the Minister could confirm that the proposal is to transfer responsibility for running these services to Directly Operated Railways. He would have our support for that decision and we would agree that a more appropriate course of action than pursuing the offer from the incumbent to allow it to continue to run the service temporarily on a not-for-dividend basis.
Of course, the Government are also only days away from beginning the tendering process for the east coast main line. The taxpayer received a dividend of £187.7 million from the east coast line in the past year and £170.7 million in the year before that. From next year, that money will go either to private shareholders or to the state railway of Germany if it was to win the contract; it has made a bid for the Great Western contract. I do not believe that the east coast line has been given the stability and certainty to enable us to judge whether a not-for-dividend model could work in the longer term more widely across the rail system. Therefore, I hope that the Minister will be willing to consider our proposal that the east coast line continues to be run as a not-for-dividend publicly run comparator to some of the other companies that are running franchises.
In conclusion, let me be very clear that this issue is not about siding with any particular company, and I do not think that today’s debate has been about that. Having said that, I understand Virgin Trains’ frustration, which it frequently expresses, that it has been runner-up twice to successful bids on the east coast franchise and that the successful companies—Great North Eastern Railway and National Express—later failed to meet their contractual obligations. It is this unfortunate history of franchise contracts being brought to an early end, at least in part because of over-ambitious payment promises that later proved impossible to meet, that has sparked fears that history may be repeating itself. I hope that the Minister wants to ensure that lessons have been learned and I also hope that he will now agree that, even if it becomes legally permissible to do so, he will not proceed further with this contract until there is a chance for the House to receive and consider the forthcoming report of the Transport Committee on this issue.
Mr Hammond
My hon. Friend is right to make that point. As I said, my right hon. Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge had made the announcement in May 2011 and set out the timetable. It was apparent from that time when the announcement of the bids would be.
A thorough examination of the bids was carried out over nearly three months. As soon as the winning bidder was identified, in accordance with existing practice and the published timetable, the Department ensured that announcements were made to the London stock exchange that it intended to award the inter-city west coast franchise to First West Coast Ltd, a subsidiary of First.
A number of Members talked about parliamentary scrutiny today. It is not unusual that the announcement was made during a recess. On two occasions, the previous Government made announcements to the market, quite properly, on days when the House of Commons was not sitting. To suggest that that is a new way of doing something—
Mr Hammond
The hon. Lady comments from a sedentary position. She is quite right; she did not suggest that, but a number of her colleagues did. It is not a new way of doing things, provided that as soon as Ministers return to the House, they make a written ministerial statement. Following the announcement on 15 August, on the first possible date thereafter—3 September—my right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet took the opportunity to make a written ministerial statement to the House.
After the announcement, the Department received a legal challenge to the procurement from Virgin Trains Ltd, which had bid unsuccessfully. I intend to try to answer as many questions as possible, but I do not need to be reminded—I am sure that hon. Members do not either—that in cases where there is a legal challenge, it is difficult to answer all the questions that may be asked. As I said earlier, if I appear reticent, it is not any wish not to be transparent, but simply that when matters are subject to the judicial process, it is impossible to make broader comment.
It is right and proper, and the Department believes so, that our choices regarding new franchises and value for money for the taxpayer are subject to scrutiny by Parliament. However, there is a right and proper time for that to take place.
Many hon. Members paid tributes, quite rightly, to Virgin Group. Sir Richard Branson and Virgin have made an undeniable and tremendous contribution to UK rail. Let me try to assure hon. Members that the winning bid offers significant benefits to passengers. First West Coast Ltd has contracted to introduce 11 new electric trains of six carriages from December 2016. That will mean an extra 12,000 seats a day for passengers. First has also committed to retaining and fully refurbishing the trains already in the fleet.
In the speech by the hon. Member for Halton, his colleague the hon. Member for St Helens North (Mr Watts), who is not currently in his place, made a point about the leasing of trains. The short answer to his question is that commitment to lease trains is in the franchise agreement. To remove any part of the train fleet, the Secretary of State’s consent is required. I hope that that clears up that issue.
Subject to the approval of the Office of Rail Regulation, First will take advantage of the increased flexibility in the contract to introduce a number of new services from London Euston to Blackpool, Bolton, Telford Central and Shrewsbury. It will also introduce ITSO-based smart ticketing, which will benefit users across the country, bringing the sort of freedom that we have already seen in London with the Oyster system. It will not have escaped the attention of hon. Members that in its bid, alongside that investment, First West Coast Ltd has committed to reduce standard anytime fares by on average about 15% over the first two years.
There have been a number of questions on staff and morale. I reassure hon. Members that, as with previous franchise transfers, existing employees, including drivers, guards and back-office staff assigned to the part of the organisation transferred to First West Coast Ltd, will be protected by TUPE regulations. FirstGroup has also given a commitment to continued investment in front-line staff.
I reassure the hon. Member for Ynys Môn that all bids were assessed independently for deliverability, and all bids were assessed as deliverable. The Department believes that the winning bid is deliverable, provides value for money for taxpayers and passengers, and capitalises on the £9 billion already invested in the west coast main line and the £18 billion the Government are continuing to invest.
None the less, as the hon. Member for Garston and Halewood said, the Government can learn lessons from the mistakes of previous Governments on handing back keys and the failure of certain people on the east coast main line to deliver. There have been several comments on the procurement process, and we are acutely aware that we need to ensure we learn lessons from past franchise failures. In designing the franchise, some of those comments and recommendations, particularly the Public Accounts Committee’s recommendations, following the failure of the east coast main line have been taken into account. We therefore required First West Coast Ltd to provide a third party-backed guarantee, the largest guarantee ever required.
We have also removed the cap and collar system that was in place for the east coast franchise and introduced a GDP support mechanism—a question was asked about that. Indeed, the mechanism supports the Government because there is protection whether GDP goes up or down. I will happily write to the hon. Member for Halton with the full details of that mechanism when I am able to do so.
Rail Fares
Maria Eagle Excerpts(11 years, 8 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House believes that the rising cost of rail travel is adding to the financial pressures facing many households; and calls on the Government to restore the one per cent above inflation cap on annual fare rises for 2013 and 2014, and to ban train operators from increasing fares beyond that strict limit.
I begin by congratulating the right hon. Member for Derbyshire Dales (Mr McLoughlin) on his appointment as Secretary of State. He returns to a Department he left some 20 years ago—time flies—after serving for three years as the Minister with responsibility for aviation and shipping. Only three years thereafter—I hope not as a result of his experience—he took a 17-year vow of silence in the Government and Opposition Whips Offices, from which he emerges today, probably blinking into the light. I think I speak for the whole House when I say that we are all very keen to hear what he has to say. He is the third Secretary of State for Transport I have faced since taking up my role in opposition. I hope for his sake he lasts a little longer than his predecessors and I wish him well in the role.
I also welcome his new all-male team—of course, that is a matter for the Prime Minister, not the Ministers he appointed—including the Minister of State, Department for Transport, the right hon. Member for Chelmsford (Mr Burns), and the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, the hon. Member for Wimbledon (Stephen Hammond). Another Under-Secretary of State for Transport, the hon. Member for Lewes (Norman Baker), of course provides the continuity in the Department—something that he probably never thought he would do.
We are debating an Opposition motion, but there need be no disagreement in the House today. I hope that all right hon. and hon. Members, including Ministers, will feel able to support the motion in the Lobby later this afternoon. It is a straightforward motion with a simple proposition—that the rising cost of rail travel is now adding to the financial pressures facing many households. That is a fact, and I would hope that we will see agreement at least on that. It is something that we are all hearing from our constituents. I also hope that we can agree on a second basic proposition—that the level by which rail fares increase should not simply be left to the private train companies to determine. It is why we have the system of regulated and unregulated fares, with those tickets on which most people rely, including day returns and season tickets, having their annual increase capped.
There has always been cross-party agreement that there is a role for Government in the setting of fare levels and it is right that we retain the ability to protect our constituents from a profit-driven free-for-all on fare rises. The reality, however, is that the so-called cap on annual fare rises, even for regulated fares, is not a cap at all. So when the Chancellor stands up, as he does, and says that fares will not rise by more than 1% above inflation—or whatever percentage it might be—he cannot actually deliver that commitment at ticket offices across the country, because the cap is an average and train companies have the flexibility, as they like to call it, to increase fares by up to 5% above the so-called cap.
In January, just two months after the Chancellor had promised a 1% above-inflation cap on fare rises, what did commuters find when they went to buy their tickets? They found fare rises not of 1% above inflation but of up to 11% above inflation, because the train companies had exercised their flexibility to add up to another 5% on to some fares. That is what our constituents across the country face again in the coming new year—fare rises of up to 11%. We are kidding ourselves, therefore, if we think that what we are debating is whether the cap should be RPI plus 1 or RPI plus 3, because the train companies can game it to their advantage. That is why our motion proposes that if we are to have a cap on regulated fare rises—we believe that there should be one, and I think the Government do too—it should be a real cap.
Mark Lancaster (Milton Keynes North) (Con)
Given the hon. Lady’s concern about the impact of fare rises on families, will she join me in congratulating FirstGroup on its successful tender for the west coast rail franchise, given that it is committed to reducing by 15% the cost of a standard anytime return journey? Is this not a demonstration of an effective tender process by this Government?
Maria Eagle
Many questions have arisen from the announcement in the recess about the west coast main line. The hon. Gentleman is right to highlight that the winning bidder—we must remember that legal action is ongoing, so we are restricted in what we can say—has made that commitment, but issues have been raised over the deliverability and reality of the assumptions behind the winning bid. Those issues have been raised not only by some of the losing bidders but by other experts in the industry.
Mark Lazarowicz (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab/Co-op)
Given what my hon. Friend has said, does she understand my concern and that of many of my constituents about what might happen to the east coast main line franchise when it comes up for reconsideration? Does she agree that there is a strong case at least for considering keeping the east coast main line in the public sector, so that there is not this pressure on requiring payback in profits and payback for the Government, which was clearly one of the issues in the west coast franchise?
Maria Eagle
I agree that there is a strong case for having a public sector comparator, at least when looking at franchising. That is how the current system operates.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
Will my hon. Friend take it from me, as a Yorkshire Member, that these are extremely important issues? I am pleased that we have a Yorkshire MP as the new Transport Secretary—that is some consolation—but the east coast and west coast lines are vital to economic regeneration in Yorkshire and the north west. If we do not get it right, we will starve UK businesses in the regions.
Maria Eagle
My hon. Friend makes a strong point, even if his definition of Yorkshire is larger than everybody else’s. As somebody who was born in Bridlington, however, I understand that Yorkshire can be larger than one might think from looking at a map.
Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)
Does the hon. Lady not share my concern that under the previous Government, First Capital Connect, which runs the Bedford to St Pancras line, was obliged, because of its supported status, to claw back from the public? Imposing a cap now would put it in breach of its franchise. There were such obligations, entered into by the previous Government, on many of the franchises.
Maria Eagle
The hon. Lady makes a strong point. I agree that varying the fare cap on the basis of specific local investment promises in the rail network, which is what lies behind that issue, is not how we should set rail fares. Let us be clear, however: the Government are proposing a 3% above-inflation fare rise for the whole country, regardless of whether any additional investment is planned locally. Today’s motion, if supported across the House, would impose a clear national cap of 1% above inflation, so I hope that she will consider joining us in the Lobby to support it.
Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)
I very much support Labour’s motion, although it is a bit timid. Given that privatisation has left us with a costly, fragmented and dysfunctional railway, and given that increasing evidence shows that reuniting railways under public ownership could save us up to £1 billion a year, would the hon. Lady not agree to go further and bring all the railways back into public ownership?
Maria Eagle
At this stage, that would go well beyond the motion before the House, but I hear what the hon. Lady says. Given that she is now no longer the leader of the Green party, however, I wonder whether it is Green party policy—no doubt we will find out in due course.
Mr Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)
The motion calls for an increase of RPI plus 1 for fares. I am sure that the hon. Lady knows that the Scottish National party is the only governing party in these islands that has not raised regulated rail fares. Would she be so kind as to congratulate the SNP Government, who are practising what the Labour party preaches?
Maria Eagle
I am disappointed by that intervention.
One always has to balance rises with the issue of affordability on the basis of the public finances, but there ought to be agreement around the House that inflation plus 1 is a realistic way forward in this Parliament.
Maria Eagle
No, I have taken several interventions and I want to make progress; otherwise I will take up the entire debate with my opening speech, which is not what Members want.
If train companies were banned from increasing fares any more than the strict limit set by the Government, we could then have a political debate about what is the affordable level for that cap, rightly taking into account the state of the public finances, but that decision would at least be more transparent and enforced. My noble Friend Lord Adonis, when he was Transport Secretary, took such a step and banned train companies from increasing regulated fares beyond the cap set by the Government. He has been very clear about this in oral and written evidence to the Transport Committee. [Interruption.] The right hon. Gentleman for Ch, Ch—
The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Mr Simon Burns)
Chelmsford.
Maria Eagle
I knew it began with a “Ch”—that might be a way to remember it in the future. The right hon. Gentleman has not taken too long to get back into the habit of heckling from the Front Bench—perhaps he never got out of it in his role at the Department of Health.
My noble Friend Lord Adonis has made it clear in oral and written evidence to the Transport Committee, and on many other occasions, that he fully intended the ban on train companies flexing the fare cap to continue into subsequent years. That would be perfectly possible. I have said on many occasions that the previous Government should have taken action earlier, but the fact is that when times got tough they acted, but when times got tougher still this Government chose to give back to the train companies the right to fiddle the fare cap.
Maria Eagle
No.
What is the consequence? It is that the Government and the House do not have the ability to enforce the cap on fare rises they think they have approved. I therefore hope that we can all agree today that the cap should be precisely that—a cap, a maximum allowable increase.
Our motion also calls on the Government again to reverse their decision to increase the cap from RPI plus 1 to RPI plus 3 for 2013-14. This should not be a contentious proposal, and I hope that Members on both sides of the House will feel able to support it. I know that it is slightly devalued today, but Government Members might like to look back at the commitment they made in the coalition agreement:
“We are committed to fair pricing for rail travel”.
It simply is not credible to square that pledge with the decision taken to increase the annual cap on fares from RPI plus 1 to RPI plus 3.
Let us be clear who is benefiting from these excessive fare rises: the private train companies. I urge the new Secretary of State to ask his civil servants for a copy of a very good report—on his Department’s spending settlement and its progress in implementing it—recently published by the National Audit Office. It warns that the Department for Transport has failed to demonstrate that higher fares translate into payments back to taxpayers:
“There is a risk that the benefit of the resulting increase in passenger revenues will not be passed on to taxpayers fully, but will also result in increased train operating company profits.”
So there we have it. We know who benefits from fare rises: the private train companies.
Maria Eagle
I am seeking to make some progress. If there is time, I will give way a little later.
I know that some hon. Members may think, “All well and good: these private companies should be able to make these very large profits for running our rail services.” However, I wonder whether Government Members have been keeping track of who has actually run our rail services since privatisation. For example, the Chiltern and CrossCountry franchises are run by subsidiaries of Deutsche Bahn, the German state railway. Southeastern, London Midland, TransPennine and Southern are all run in partnership with subsidiaries of SNCF, the French state railway, while Greater Anglia and Northern rail services are run by a subsidiary of Ned Rail, the Dutch state railway. Let us be clear: the ability of so-called private train companies to hike fares beyond the cap does not just mean additional profit, as the National Audit Office has warned; it means additional dividends from those profits going back to the state railways of France, Germany and the Netherlands. The consequence is that fares on their domestic rail networks are, on average, a third lower than those on ours.
Maria Eagle
I will give way again in due course, but not at present.
I know that Government Members—those who are not serial rebels, and the Secretary of State knows who they are—may still want to ensure that they are in line with their Chancellor’s position on this issue. Let me therefore remind the House what the Chancellor himself said on the level of fare rises in last year’s autumn statement, when he performed one of his many post-Budget U-turns and bowed to pressure, not just from this side of the House, but from his own MPs, as well as rail passengers up and down the country. He said:
“RPI plus 3% is too much. The Government will fund a reduction in the increase to RPI plus 1%. This will apply across national rail regulated fares, across the London tube and on London buses. It will help the millions of people who use our trains.”—[Official Report, 29 November 2011; Vol. 536, c. 810.]
The real question today is: what has changed? Why is a 3% above inflation increase acceptable this year, when it was, in the Chancellor’s words, “too much” last year?
Mr Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)
Is not the timeliness of today’s debate emphasised by the analysis of fares in the south-east conducted by the Campaign for Better Transport? Its chief executive, Stephen Joseph, pointed out just last month that commuters in the south-east routinely spend up to 15% of their salary on getting to work in London and that unless there is a change in fare policy by the Government, the cost of journeys to work is likely to rise by some £1,000 when fares next go up?
Maria Eagle
My hon. Friend makes an important point. We are all now hearing from constituents who are paying out significant parts of their salary in the mere effort to get to and from work. There comes a point when, with other pressures, it is not acceptable for fares to rise at the level that the Government are contemplating.
Maria Eagle
The hon. Gentleman is right that there is a choice to be made about where to pitch the figure for RPI plus or minus whatever it is. Today’s motion is based on our current policy as it is—something I think the Government could agree with—which retains credibility in terms of deficit reduction, but which would also bring significant relief—[Laughter.] I do not know why Liberal Democrat Members are laughing. Despite their alleged policy to cut rail fares, they have voted repeatedly in this Parliament for Budgets, autumn statements and comprehensive spending review measures that increase rail fares by RPI plus 3%, so we are not going to take any lessons from them about how to implement policy on rail fares.
Maria Eagle
No, I will not.
Why is a 3% above inflation increase acceptable this year, when it was, in the Chancellor’s words, “too much” last year?
Mark Reckless
The hon. Lady asks why an RPI plus 3% increase might be acceptable, but this Government have not increased any rail fares yet by RPI plus 3%. The only RPI plus 3% increase happened on the Southeastern franchise under the last Labour Government, because we were used as guinea pigs.
Maria Eagle
The hon. Gentleman is simply wrong about that. RPI plus 3% was cut last year to RPI plus 1%, but the year before it was RPI plus 3%, so what he says is simply inaccurate.
If anything, pressures on household budgets have increased in the past year. Families are finding it even harder to make ends meet, get through the month and pay all the bills. We are in a double-dip recession made in Downing street. More than 1 million young people remain out of work. Energy, food and fuel prices are all up, adding to the pressures facing our constituents. The rate of inflation—the RPI figure that will be used to calculate January’s fare rises—went up to 3.2% in July. With flex, the formula for January’s fare rises, as it stands, is 3.2% plus 3% plus 5%, which means fare rises of up to 11.2%. We should get rid of flex, but we should also—as the Chancellor said less than a year ago—set the cap at 1% above inflation.
I know that the Secretary of State has been appointed to change some of the policies pursued by his predecessor—at least that is what the newspapers say. However, I hope that on this issue he will agree with the right hon. Member for Putney (Justine Greening), who told the Financial Times last month:
“I am keen to see what we can do to keep fares down to something affordable. I will be looking at whether there is a way of doing this in the autumn.”
She added that
“she did not know if the Treasury would make funds available to do this,”
but said:
“If you don’t ask, you don’t get, so I’ll make sure to ask.”
If the Secretary of State has not already done so, I hope that he will be asking the Chancellor to agree to the lower cap on fares, because as his predecessor rightly said, “If you don’t ask, you don’t get.”
Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)
Will the shadow Secretary of State clarify whether she accepts that her Government were wrong to impose RPI plus 3% on Southeastern, when the rest of the country had RPI plus 1%? That meant that from the Medway towns to London there was an increase of over 33%. Does she accept that that was wrong?
Maria Eagle
I am not sure that the hon. Gentleman listened to what I said earlier, but I have already said that I did not think it was right to tie such increases into specific improvements on specific lines, which is what happened in that case, and I have said that before. Perhaps if he listens a little more carefully, he will not have to intervene. I said that I did not think that was right, but the current Government—
Maria Eagle
I am in the middle of answering the hon. Member for Gillingham and Rainham (Rehman Chishti).
The current Government are proposing an across-the-board increase of RPI plus 3% on everyone, whether or not there is any improvement in investment or any increase in service. At a time like this, when people’s incomes are being squeezed badly, it is not easy for them to cope with that. We should not continue with those levels of increases.
Maria Eagle
I will give way to the hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert), because he is clearly very keen.
Dr Huppert
I thank the shadow Secretary of State for finally giving way—it has taken some effort. While she is in the mood for apologising for errors made under the last Government, will she apologise for the fact that rail fares went up in cash terms by 66% in that time? That had a huge impact on people across the entire country and made fares completely unaffordable for many people.
Maria Eagle
The hon. Gentleman, who purports to be the transport spokesman for the Liberal Democrats, even though the Liberal Democrats have a Transport Minister in the Government—the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, the hon. Member for Lewes—is going round the country saying that his party is in favour of cutting fares, when he and his hon. and right hon. Friends are voting for Government measures that increase them. If he starts to apologise for some of that, I am sure we can sit down and talk about mutual apologies that may or may not be possible.
Maria Eagle
I will not give way to the hon. Gentleman again.
As the Secretary of State’s predecessor rightly said, “If you don’t ask, you don’t get.” That is the first thing that he can do in his first Cabinet meeting—well, not his first, but his first in this role. [Interruption.] Oh yes, the Chief Whip attended, but this time he will be able to vote, if there are any votes—there are occasionally votes at Cabinet, although perhaps not in this one.
We now know that many Government Members agree with us on this issue, because they have been busy telling their local newspapers that the fare rises are too high. The hon. Member—soon to be the right hon. Member—for Sevenoaks (Michael Fallon), who is now the Minister of State at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and who is, we are told, even now parked in a tank on the lawn of the Business Secretary, has gone so far as to present a petition to the House on the issue. He writes on his website:
“At a time of rising energy bills, and high inflation more generally, many of my constituents are having to make painful savings in their household budgets. Southeastern need to understand this and reduce the size of the rail fare increase”.
Our motion today would not only prevent train companies from imposing the eye-watering fare rises that the Business Minister rightly opposes; it would also cap his constituents’ fare rises at 1% above inflation.
The hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) has told his local newspaper:
“Harlow people are already struggling to make ends meet against a backdrop of rising petrol prices and wage freezes…They cannot be expected to pay massive rises in rail fares on top.”
The hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch) told her local paper:
“At a time when household budgets are stretched, the Government and Southeastern have a responsibility to ensure the cost of rail travel remains affordable. I will continue to make representations on behalf of my constituents”.
Good for her! Her neighbour, the hon. Member for Rochester and Strood (Mark Reckless), has said:
“What I have found with prices going up this fast is that many of my constituents have to get up at 5 am or 6 am to take a coach to London because they cannot afford to take the train whereas others have been priced out completely because they are spending almost all their take-home pay on a season ticket. I just think that is counter-productive. I think it is a question of fairness to people who are working hard and just doing their best.”
I agree with all those hon. Members’ representations.
I should also like to quote one or two Liberal Democrats. It will not be a great shock to the House to learn that many Lib Dem MPs have been sending out press releases to their local papers opposing their own Government—we all know that they do that. The hon. Member for Leeds North West (Greg Mulholland), who is not in his place, has said:
“I am very concerned at the proposed fare rises…At a time when the cost of living remains a big issue it’s not acceptable to ask rail users to pick up extra costs”.
The hon. Member for Manchester, Withington (Mr Leech) has actually claimed credit for last year’s U-turn, saying:
“I hope George Osborne and the Treasury will cut the train commuter some slack in the upcoming budget...Last year, Nick Clegg and Danny Alexander negotiated a RPI+1% fare rise for 2012, much lower than planned by some Conservatives. I hope they will do at least as much this budget.”
That is not very collegiate, but it is rather typical. I must not leave out the hon. Member for Cambridge, because he gets upset if I do. I can reassure the House that he has also spoken out, in his rather confusing role as co-chair of the Lib Dem transport committee. He has assured his local paper:
“I wrote to the Secretary of State for Transport earlier this summer to remind her of Liberal Democrat policy, and highlight our opposition to the RPI+3% rate.”
Putting out a press release is one thing—and it can be useful—but I hope that Members will follow their words up with action this afternoon and vote for this very straightforward motion, which proposes that the cap on annual fare rises should go back to the 1% above inflation cap that existed before the last election—which even the Chancellor conceded was right last year when he performed a U-turn—and that we should strictly enforce that cap, it being the will of the House, and not allow private train companies to add up to another 5% on to some fares. The result would be clear. Instead of 11.2% being the highest possible fare increase in January, no fare would rise by more than 1% above inflation. That would benefit our constituents considerably.
If we do not act, passengers are likely to face three years of double-digit fare rises on some routes, and many ticket prices will have risen by a third during this Parliament. We have reached a point at which increasing numbers of households are paying more on their season ticket just to get to work than on their mortgage or rent payments. For too long, Governments have let the train companies get away with treating passengers in a way that would not be permitted in other industries.
Maria Eagle
I am just coming to the end of my remarks; I think I have spoken for an appropriate length of time.
Today, we in this House have a chance to say, on behalf of our constituents, that enough is enough. I urge the House to put aside party differences and vote for the motion. It is something that we all agree on. Let us deliver for our constituents the guarantee that their rail fares will not rise by more than a strict annual cap of 1% above inflation.
Mr McLoughlin
I shall come on to some of the things we are going to do to improve the railway line that I use, which were announced before I became Secretary of State. I am very pleased about them, one of which is electrification. The last Government had a particularly poor record on that. There was a change in the franchise owners during the period of the last Government and certain changes were made to the service on that line.
Soaring demand meant that our ageing rail network was struggling to cope. There are now many more people travelling on the railways than at any time since 1929, but on a much smaller system. What does that mean? It means more overcrowding, more standing on trains, and rail consumers demanding a better service. We had to find a way to invest in the railway to support the economic recovery and to deliver the quality of service that passengers have the right to expect. That was the reality we faced, and we are meeting it head on by investing in the biggest rail modernisation programme since the Victorian era, while at the same time reforming the railways and reducing costs.
Maria Eagle
Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that during this Parliament and this spending review period, his Government have cut investment in the rail industry? Yes, they have announced a lot of investment for the next Parliament, in control period 5, which will go ahead some time in the future, but in this Parliament investment and infrastructure have been cut.
Mr McLoughlin
I was just coming on to say that this July, we announced £16 billion of public support for the existing rail network between 2014 and 2019—I expect 2014 to be during this particular Parliament—which will support over £9 billion of enhancements, meaning more services, more seats and more capacity, especially for commuters to our largest cities. The tap cannot simply be turned on as far as the rail industry is concerned. Passengers will also benefit from the completion of the northern hub in Manchester, £240 million of investment in capacity and connection improvements on the east coast main line, and a further £300 million for high-value, small-scale schemes in other parts of the country.
We are delivering a rolling programme of rail electrification on the Great Western main line to Swansea, on the valley lines into Cardiff and on the trans-Pennine route connecting Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds and York. We are creating a new “electric spine” for freight and passenger services stretching from the south coast to the east and west midlands and south Yorkshire.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Norman Baker)
I thank all those who have contributed to this debate, and I recognise the strong feelings that rightly exist about rail fares across the House and in all parties.
Reforming and modernising Britain’s railways is one of the Government’s top priorities. We are already delivering the most ambitious rail investment programme since the Victorian era to boost capacity and improve services. In July, we announced £9.4 billion of network upgrades across England and Wales for the period between 2014 and 2019, and a £4.5 billion contract to supply Britain with its next generation of nearly 600 intercity trains. As we heard earlier, we have committed to 861 miles of electrification—not nine miles, but one in nine miles of the entire network.
New tracks and trains are only one part of our blueprint for a better railway. We are also taking a fresh look at fares and ticketing to reflect the latest technologies and meet the changing needs of passengers. Such a review is long overdue. Many rail users find the current system archaic and impenetrable—we have recently concluded a public consultation inviting views on how we might make it more transparent, more accessible and more flexible.
One of the key drivers of change will be smart ticketing technology. In London, the Oyster smartcard has transformed public transport, providing passengers with a more efficient and convenient alternative to paper tickets, and accelerating the flow of people through busy rail and tube stations. Smart ticketing could pave the way for a new fares system offering discounts for passengers who avoid the busiest services. As well as benefiting individual rail users, it would help us make better and more efficient use of train capacity so the savings realised can be ploughed back into keeping fares affordable.
The Government’s ambition is for all public services to become digital by default. That means helping as many people as possible to switch to digital channels, while continuing to provide support for the small minority who cannot make the switch. Buying a train ticket should be no different. The hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Tom Greatrex) referred to the complexity of tickets and the difficulties people can have with ticket machines. Those two matters are being addressed fairly and squarely by the fares and ticketing review that the Department is undertaking.
The challenge for train companies, therefore, is to make buying a ticket online or from a machine just as easy as from a station ticket office. Purchasing a rail ticket should be a straightforward transaction, not an obstacle course. So as part of our reform programme, I want to ensure that when passengers buy tickets, they can navigate the choices available and find the best ticket for their journey, quickly and clearly. Train companies need to improve their machines so that they sell the full range of tickets and guide passengers through each step of the process. As I said, that is all part of the fares and ticketing review that is now under way.
As I mentioned, we are all concerned about rail fares and we all want an end to above-inflation fare rises, but it is important to put the Opposition’s motion in context. Under them, rail fares increased by 1% below inflation, but that was changed to 1% above inflation in 2004. Under the previous Government, therefore, we had years of above-inflation rises, and it appears from the motion that it would still be Labour’s policy, were it to come to power, to have years of above-inflation rises. We want to end these above-inflation rises, not continue them indefinitely, as the motion suggests doing. It looks a little opportunistic to talk about fares being capped, given that the record of the previous Government was one of continual year-on-year above-inflation increases.
We have heard about the issue of flex, which is the ability not only to increase fares above inflation, but—the Opposition did not mention this—to increase a lot of fares below inflation. The previous Government introduced flex in 2004, and it ran through until 2010, so it was in operation for several years. A 2010 deed of amendment introduced by the then Transport Secretary reads:
“With effect from 00.00 on 1 January 2010 Schedule 5.5 of the Franchise Agreement will be amended as set out in the Appendix to the Deed… From 00.00 on 1 January 2011”,
which is just after the general election, Members may note,
“the amendments to the Franchise Agreement set out in this Deed of Amendment shall be reversed”.
So there was a deliberate policy from the previous Government to end flex only for one year, and over a period that happened to cross the general election.
Maria Eagle
My noble Friend Lord Adonis made it clear that it was his policy to put an end to flex full stop and that it remained his intention to do so. The deed to which the Minister referred was a one-year way of dealing with it, but of course we were running into a general election, and there are rules about binding successors. Is he asserting that my noble Friend has been misleading the Transport Committee about his policy intentions?
Norman Baker
I am merely reading out the legalistic words that the previous Transport Secretary put in place stating that the policy was to be reversed on 1 January 2011. The facts speak for themselves. I have to ask, however, if the Opposition’s policy is now to end the flex, why the Welsh Assembly Government, run by the Labour party, continue to operate it. I have not heard any words from the Opposition condemning the Welsh Assembly Government. Or is it all right to have flex in Wales, where Labour is in control, but not in England, where we are determining policy for rail matters over here?
I am interested in a point that several Members made about the split of the responsibility for paying for the railways between passengers and taxpayers. The point about where that balance should lie is very important. The Opposition spokesman will know that Labour’s plan was for a 70% passenger and 30% taxpayer split. In 2010, the percentages were 64% passenger and 36% taxpayer, so one assumes that Labour wants to increase the percentage in order to reach its 70% figure. Our policy priority does not include worrying about the split per se, but is about getting efficiencies into the rail network—a point that my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton South (Mr Binley) rightly made. I can assure him that we are taking great steps to improve the efficiency of the rail network, and by and large we have adopted the report from Roy McNulty, which was a helpful contribution to the debate on the rail network, in order to bring down our costs.
Roy McNulty indicated that costs were about 40% above what they should be, and we are determined to make those savings. We have identified savings of £1.2 billion in control period 4—the present control period—and up to £2.9 billion of further savings in control period 5. There are further savings to be made through genuine efficiencies—not cuts—in how the railway is run. One, for example, is the alliance project between Network Rail and South West Trains. I am not quite sure whether the Opposition support that trial, but it is delivering real savings and efficiencies, eliminating duplication, reducing the cost of the railway and providing a better service for the people who use South West Trains. That is an example of how efficiency savings can improve services. I am happy to say that it is now happening on South West Trains.