Oral Answers to Questions

Rachael Maskell Excerpts

Monday 28th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

I was wondering who my hon. Friend was referring to then—I thank him for that compliment. As somebody who represents a beautiful part of the country, he has long been a champion of local people ceasing to be victims of the planning system and taking control of it themselves, and he is quite right that neighbourhood plans are the way to do that. From my own experience in my constituency, I have been concerned that they take some time and effort to put in place. We are reviewing what we can do to smooth their passage, and we have some funding available to assist in that, but I would be more than happy to meet him and take representations from him and his constituents.

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

City of York Council has presided over a net loss of social housing, and, according to a report published today by Centre for Cities, its level of house building has been one of the worst in the country. We have a serious housing crisis. What steps will the Minister take to ensure that our Tory and Liberal Democrat-controlled council builds the housing that is so desperately needed in our city?

[Kit Malthouse]

As I hope the hon. Lady knows, we have set aside significant resources to help councils achieve their housing aspirations. We will be helping with infrastructure and providing other assistance to help them over the line. Critical to that, however, is ensuring that they have a local plan. I am sure that the coalition that is in control of City of York Council would welcome the hon. Lady’s participation in their creation of such a plan, rather than her antagonism towards it.

Local Government Funding

Rachael Maskell Excerpts

Tuesday 15th January 2019 Westminster Hall

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

Thank you for chairing this debate, Mr Walker. Although £44 million has already been wiped from York’s budget, another £4.1 million will go this year—hardly austerity coming to an end. Local authorities are the game changer for introducing early intervention and prevention into a system. Thanks to a perverse decision by my local authority, the budget to tackle substance misuse was slashed by 25%—a £2 million budget lost £500,000—even though we have the highest level of deaths due to substance misuse in the country. We see the consequences of such cuts across York, and I can give many such examples.

York also has the worst funded education in the country. Schools are on tight budgets, and that is matched with the highest level of attainment inequality in the country. Such a diminution in funding has consequences that are harming my community, and I implore the Minister to put his money where his mouth is and end austerity by ensuring that local authorities have the resources they need to transform our communities.

Labour councillors across York are ready to transform our city, with incredible ideas about early intervention and prevention. Without those resources, however, they will be constrained, and if we are to see a game changer in the way our society works, we must make the right choices. In particular, I reflect on housing investment in our city. Hardly any social housing has been built in York since 2015, and that has had serious consequences for many other factors. We need only turn to the work of Michael Marmot to know the impact of such policies on public health. We need not only resources but the right leadership to make real changes in our community. This debate is just a start, and it is important to follow it up. I would welcome a meeting with the Minister to talk about the difficult issues and challenges our city faces, because the funding formula is not working across the board.

Finally, the business rates system has failed our community. It is driving people away from the high street, which has a perverse effect on the income received by local authorities. We urgently need the review that was promised two years ago, and I implore the Minister to speak to Treasury colleagues so that that comes to fruition.

[Mr Charles Walker (in the Chair)]

Outstanding timekeeping.

Oral Answers to Questions

Rachael Maskell Excerpts

Monday 5th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[James Brokenshire]

I have just been told that it is my hon. Friend’s birthday today. I wish him a happy birthday and note his pitch for perhaps a birthday present. We will note it down.

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

A constituent of mine has been a faithful council tenant for 30 years. Over this time, she has invested much in her home. Her ex-partner served notice when he moved out, and now City of York Council is moving to evict her next week. This is having a serious impact on her mental health—among other things, it has led to her feeling suicidal—yet the council still plans to move her. Will the Minister urgently meet me to discuss this case and the mental health assessments of tenants that should take place?

[Mrs Wheeler]

What a very sad case. Of course, I would be delighted to meet the hon. Lady.

Shale Gas Development

Rachael Maskell Excerpts

Wednesday 31st October 2018 Westminster Hall

[Mark Menzies]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. In recent years, the Government have put protections into areas of outstanding natural beauty. So, if the Government recognise that these developments are not acceptable for AONBs, what about the rest of the countryside? On the point about consistency, it is very important that we approach this issue in a sensible, constructive, well-planned way, and moving to permitted development is nothing short of irresponsible and downright bonkers.

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. When local authorities have developed policy based on their analysis of the impact that fracking will have, surely their voice counts, particularly when it is backed up by the voices of local people overwhelmingly saying that this activity will be a disaster for their local community?

[Mark Menzies]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right. My hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake) referred to some planning experiences that arose while working with North Yorkshire County Council in Kirby Misperton. The second consultation was about bringing shale gas production sites into the NSIP regime, and I can see some of the benefits of that. One important aspect is getting consistency in decisions that are taken across the country. For example, in Kirby Misperton, there was a sensible addition: 400 metres, or half a mile, was added between the shale gas exploration site and residential properties. No such conditions were placed on either of the sites at Preston New Road, or on the application at Roseacre Wood. When planning inspectors are making those decisions—and they are different planning inspectors all the time—and those decisions are going up to the Secretary of State, inconsistent decisions are being made time after time.

Taking permitted development off the table—it is an absolutely crackers idea—I ask the Minister to look into how we can move to a planning regime where there is consistency, and where we avoid some of the decisions that go against local communities and that ignore traffic issues, population density, and the proximity of residential houses. I ask him to look at how we can come up with a workable framework. For example, there are no rules—

Local Authority Budget Reductions

Rachael Maskell Excerpts

Tuesday 30th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Dan Jarvis]

I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s intervention; he makes a very important point. I think back to many of the conversations I had with members of the public during the referendum campaign, many of whom used it as an opportunity to vent their frustration against a political system that they felt had not served them well. If we are going to address those feelings of disenfranchisement and alienation, the closer that we can place political decision making to the people who will be affected by those decisions, the better. That is why devolution provides a really important opportunity for the Government to engage with those communities and place not just political power but resources closer to the communities who will be affected by the decisions that are taken.

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. Does he agree that we are also seeing greater inequality as a result of the way in which devolution is being dished out? Some places are advancing with a devolution deal, yet for Yorkshire, where the local authorities desperately want to advance into devolution, it is apparently being denied.

[Dan Jarvis]

My hon. Friend makes a really important point to which I will return in a moment. I am very grateful for her intervention.

I was talking about the redistribution of power and how, together with investment, this will lead both to better public services and to the re-engagement of people in a common sense of community purpose. I believe that devolution does offer the opportunity to do this. Whether it is a mayoral or an assembly model, when we get devolution right, it offers a fairer and more democratic means of governing and delivering—one where working people have a greater say in the choices that affect their lives and a greater stake in the services on which they rely. We can seek to achieve radical transformative change in the communities that we serve only if those communities control their own destinies. That means this Government listening to those communities, and to the leaders they have elected to represent them.

My hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) referred to devolution. Will the Minister say when the local authorities of Yorkshire—I know that he will take a very close interest in these matters, for obvious reasons—will get a response to the recent Yorkshire devolution proposal submitted by me and the council leaders? It is not just a matter of basic courtesy that this happens soon; it is in everybody’s interests—the Government’s and all our local authorities across Yorkshire—to move it forward as quickly as possible.

I said that it was important for the Government to listen to the communities that they are there to serve. Well, I have been listening to what the Government have been saying. I know from ministerial responses to parliamentary questions that I have recently tabled that the Minister’s Department intends to publish what is being referred to as a devolution framework. When will this be published, and what consultation has taken place to underpin it? The Minister is obviously very welcome to say what is going to be in it, although I suspect that he may not wish to take up that opportunity. Whatever is in it, I very much hope that it will be driven by what communities actually want. “One size fits all” will not work in this regard.

If we are to enable the right level of devolution to take place, we need to abandon an economic and political model in which the only hope is for wealth to trickle down and prosperity to ripple out. We must replace it with a three-tier system of government—local, regional and national—giving each tier the powers and resources it needs to make a difference in the communities for which it is responsible. Only if we do this correctly will we put the right people at the heart of decision making, end the status quo whereby so many people have become disenfranchised, and allow communities to overcome the challenges they face and to thrive. Greater funding and stronger powers for our local authorities should be the first stage of that journey—but yesterday’s Budget represented, I am afraid, another missed opportunity.

Homes (Fitness for Habitation) Bill

Rachael Maskell Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Friday 26th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Ms Buck]

I am grateful for that intervention and I will happily congratulate Newham Council, because although it has a problem with its housing stock, it has led the charge on local enforcement. I am happy to give it credit for doing that.

Many landlords take their responsibilities seriously, but still 1 million households across the private and social sectors are forced to endure conditions that harm them or pose a serious risk of harm. According to the latest English housing survey, 15% of private tenanted properties have category 1 hazards classed as a serious risk to the occupier’s health—that is 750,000 households —at least a third of which contain children. A further 250,000 socially tenanted properties have a category 1 hazard under the housing health and safety ratings system, which works out at about 6%.

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech. Does she agree that it is completely unacceptable that in my constituency families of four are living in a box bedroom with only a single mattress on the floor?

[Ms Buck]

I totally agree; overcrowding is a scandalous problem in our social housing, and it is often equated with some of the very poor standards people experience, with damp and condensation linked to overcrowding. These are tragic cases and we urgently need not only an expansion of social rented housing to enable people to escape these kinds of conditions, but the provisions in this Bill and other measures that the Government have introduced.

Landlords currently have no obligation to their tenants to put or keep a property in a condition fit for habitation. A requirement does exist to ensure the structure and facilities such as the heating, gas and water are in repair, but this does not cover issues such as fire safety, heating that is functioning but inadequate, or poor ventilation that can lead to the condensation and mould growth seen in the kind of cases I have outlined. A range of fitness issues seriously affect the wellbeing and safety of tenants and about which tenants can do nothing at all.

For private and housing association tenants, it is possible for the local authority to enforce fitness standards under the housing health and safety rating system, under the Housing Act 2004, but there is a huge degree of variability across councils in terms of inspection, the issuing of notices and enforcement rates. About 50% of councils have served none or only one Housing Act notice in the past year. One London council, Newham, which has an active enforcement policy, accounted for 50% of all notices served nationally and 70% of those served in London. A freedom of information inquiry by the Residential Landlords Association found an average of just 1.5 prosecutions per council, and my own freedom of information research found that enforcement action of any kind accounted for only 1% of the estimated number of category 1 hazards. That means there is a complete postcode lottery on the prospect of councils taking steps, with the real prospect being that the council will not do so.

For council tenants, the decent homes standard requires homes to be free from category 1 hazards, and considerable progress was made in improving the quality of housing stock, thanks to the decent homes initiative, but the 2004 Act and housing health and safety rating standards have little impact, as local councils cannot enforce against themselves. So council tenants have no way to enforce, or seek to have enforced, fitness standards, including fire safety, if their landlord does not do anything. The Bill enables all tenants, whether private or social, to take action on the same issues and standards as local authorities can.

East Coast Main Line Investment

Rachael Maskell Excerpts

Wednesday 17th October 2018 Westminster Hall

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is good to see you in the Chair, Mr Owen, and I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell) for opening the debate with many pertinent points, as well as going over the heritage of our railways. I am pleased to say that the Rocket will end up residing at the National Railway Museum in York where it will have a good home. Our city can certainly boast its share of rail heritage.

I represent York, which is the mid-point on the east coast main line and a significant railway hub that brings many networks together. I therefore have a constituency interest to ensure that we get the right upgrade—as we have heard, it is well overdue. We heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Lincoln (Karen Lee) and from the hon. Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers) about the significance of good connectivity through to London—my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) and other hon. Members also mentioned connectivity. We must ensure that we get right that connectivity to the main line, and keep those flows moving through. Although we are talking about the east coast main line, this debate is also about routes that feed into that line and are being brought into the modern age, so that they are not, as my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North described, a kind of heritage rail service. We must ensure that control period 6 considers the continuum of a journey as opposed to the segregation of different routes.

Too often with transportation not only are road, rail and other forms of transport segregated, but separate segments of our fragmented rail system go to different places. Instead, we need to understand the power of connectivity and bring that forward. One of our biggest frustrations in the north is the fact that the Government have downgraded the trans-Pennine opportunity—Crossrail for the north—which would create connectivity between Liverpool, Manchester, through to Leeds, York and Hull, stretching north and south and, importantly, feeding into Sheffield and getting that connectivity right. We must connect up the powerhouse of the northern cities and drive the economy forward. Without that we have linear routes as opposed to the rail consolidation we need—that point was made powerfully by my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North.

This is not just about rail; it is about economic growth. The tremendous site of York Central sits adjacent to the main line. We want investment, and upgrading the east coast main line is one opportunity to drive that forward. Connectivity to the ports and across the trans-Pennine route will enhance that, as will heading north to Newcastle and Scotland.

We unquestionably need more capacity and speed, and we certainly need fewer delays—that is the real frustration faced by many passengers. It was shocking to learn this week that stations in York had the second highest number of delays in the country. The measure was just one minute, but that still leads to the stark realisation that we need great improvement across our rail networks.

The lack of investment in control period 5 has brought that into sharp focus. There are bottlenecks. There are overhead power line failures around, I think, the Retford area, which cause constant delays there. There are problems with old-fashioned fencing, through which animals come on to the tracks with great frequency. If animals can get on to the tracks, so can people, which creates a safety risk. The numerous level crossings along that route snarl up different conurbations. We need to ensure that the power needed to drive our railway into the future is available.

We also all know about the issues with our old infrastructure and rolling stock. That brings me on to the new Azuma trains, which have been put on pause by the Office of Rail and Road. Will the Minister tell us more about that? We understand that ORR has put the pause on because it requires Hitachi to resolve some safety issues, yet it has not withdrawn trains elsewhere on the network that have the same problems, including the Pendolino trains. There seems to be inconsistency in the safety features of those new trains and we need to understand why. I sat down with representatives from LNER last week who were also scratching their heads about that inconsistency, as were those from Network Rail. We therefore look to control period 6 to deliver a railway for the future.

Engineers say that one of their biggest frustrations is that they are brought in to find the best way to generate the most efficient and cost-effective rail enhancements at the wrong stage of the process. We need to ensure that, when engineering takes place, it is of the highest spec possible, because this is a once-in-a-generation opportunity for the east coast main line. We do not want to have to keep going back and tinkering with and tweaking the spec. We want that investment at the forefront. Why have we seen a downgrade in the money? LNER and Network Rail told me that more resource is needed to bring the enhancement and opportunity to the east coast main line that we need, so I want to know why that spec has been reduced.

Tracks are being upgraded, which we recognise the need for, as is the overhead line equipment between Peterborough and Doncaster—I mentioned Retford—and the power supply for digital signalling. Anyone who has the opportunity to visit the Rail Operating Centre in York will see the absolutely mind-blowing things that digital signalling can achieve. We will also have welcome upgrades of fencing and bridge-strike prevention planning. I talked to engineers in my constituency from Low & Bonar about their using laser technology to look at the strength of bridges and the opportunity that that provides. They can use digitalisation to engineer infrastructure, and to work with train designers as they do so. Level crossing closures are also needed. However, the opening up of Kings Cross will also be a real enhancement to the line.

We need to make sure that we have the full benefit of digital rail on the east coast main line, because that is where the future of our rail network sits. That upgrade is therefore important—it is a passion of the route operator of the east coast main line. It is certainly also one of mine and will be one of any future Labour Government. We will take those strides into the future, not into the past.

We know what needs to be done on the railways and do not need another year-long review. The power of bringing operations back under public control has been shown, with an increase in LNER patronage since it took over the east coast main line franchise. There is no appetite for a fourth franchising process. However, we need to bring track and train together in the public sector to bring the connectivity together. I say to my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (John Grogan) that we absolutely believe that we should invest in new routes and new opportunities, and that we can do that under a national rail service. That is certainly what we want to do. It will not be a big, centralised body, as in the British Rail days. We are looking for a new model of public ownership that very much listens the voice of the passenger at the local level when devising what to do. He will have to hold his breath before seeing the details. We have been working with the industry, and it is very excited about the model we are putting forward.

We also need to ensure that we see a return for the passenger as well as the state, and we believe that our model will deliver that. We have rightly heard of VTEC’s £2 billion scandal. It robbed that money from passengers and got away with it, and passengers are now paying more and more for tickets.

There is without doubt great opportunity for the future of the network. Journey times will be down. We also have to think of the opportunity for growth. Some 80 million passengers travel on that route each year. We want a modal shift, with people having confidence in the reliability of rail and moving out of their cars. Since 22 May, people up and down the country have lost confidence in rail because of the timetabling chaos. Our model will make sure that that can never be repeated. Putting responsibility for operations and infrastructure in one place will mitigate against such disasters as those we have seen on the Government’s watch.

We want to make sure that rail is focused on the passenger, with good environments for passengers from stations through to trains, making sure that it is a public service in which people can once again have confidence. That requires good investment, which is what we want from the Government.

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Joseph Johnson)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Owen. I congratulate the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell) on securing the debate and on giving us the opportunity to discuss investment on the east coast main line. She is the chair of the APPG which, as she mentioned, I was pleased to attend a meeting of earlier in the year. She takes great pride in the railway and its contribution to her region of the north-east. The Government very much want to build on that heritage and ensure that we leave a railway that is stronger for future generations.

As the hon. Lady says, the east coast main line is a great national asset. Its sheer scope makes its huge importance to the national economy absolutely inevitable. It runs from London, through the east midlands, Yorkshire and Humberside, north-east England and reaches Scotland. The scope of the line speaks for itself. The extent of that scope creates wonderful opportunities for communities that depend on the line to access many other parts of the country, such as the region so well represented by my hon. Friend the Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers).

That said, the route is not without areas that need investment. The Government are committed to ensuring that we provide the money, time and resources that those areas require. I will take a few moments to describe to right hon. and hon. Members some of the investments that we are making in the east coast main line. However, before doing that, I will quickly respond to some of the more general points made about the distribution of transport infrastructure spending across the country, which is obviously a subject of great importance to Members for understandable reasons.

The chair of the Transport Committee, the hon. Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood), criticised the Government’s appraisal methods when deciding where to spend transport infrastructure funds. We do not accept that our methods do not provide regions with a fair share. As her Committee acknowledged, it is difficult to assign benefits specifically to one region from spending in that region when we have a national system such as the rail system. Benefits often spread beyond the area in which a specific investment is geographically located.

However, the Government have long acknowledged that the economy is imbalanced and needs rebalancing, and that changing the distribution of transport infrastructure spending to redress past patterns of underinvestment is an important part of what we need to do as an economy. We will therefore invest significantly in the north of England over the next few years. For example, between now and 2021, we will invest £13 billion in transport infrastructure in the north of England. Some of our biggest transport infrastructure items will be in the north of England, such as the trans-Pennine upgrade, which has been allocated £2.9 billion for the next five-year spending period from 2019 to 2024.

It is often asserted, seemingly without challenge, that the south gets more planned transport infrastructure spending from central Government than the north, but analysis by the Infrastructure and Projects Authority suggests otherwise: for the next four years, it reckons that the three northern regions will receive more per head than southern regions.

Let me focus on what the Government have been doing to ensure that the east coast main line continues to play an important role in our national economy. Hon. Members will be aware of the £5.7 billion Government-led intercity express programme—the new trains to which hon. Members have referred. The programme will provide the east coast and Great Western routes with a completely new fleet of trains equipped with the latest technology. The trains are being built at Hitachi’s County Durham factory, which is home to more than 700 permanent staff and supports thousands more in the national supply chain. Up to 70% of the train parts will be incorporated from sources in the UK. The full roll-out should be complete by 2020, as planned. As part of the programme, Hitachi has invested in a new state-of-the-art maintenance facility at Doncaster and has enhanced other ageing depots along the length of the line.

As I informed the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North in my letter last month, and as she mentioned in her speech, the Prime Minister has announced funding of up to £780 million in control period 6—the next five-year planning period—for the east coast enhancements programme. The programme will provide funding for important works, some of which the hon. Lady mentioned; they include power supply upgrades between Doncaster and Edinburgh, a new rail junction at Peterborough, modifications at Stevenage station to allow turn-back, and track remodelling at King’s Cross station. Together, those works will reduce congestion and enable more services to operate.

[Rachael Maskell]

Will the Minister explain why there has been a reduction in the amount made available to provide the upgrade when £900 million was requested?

[Joseph Johnson]

First of all, I would point out that this money represents a very significant increase in spending on the east coast main line. In control period 5, from 2014 to 2019, we spent about £400 million on upgrades to the line. In control period 6, that amount will increase to £780 million—it will almost double. To cast that increase as a reduction does an injustice to the Government’s ambition for this section of our network. That spending will be coupled with a £5.7 billion programme of investment in the new rolling stock, a significant proportion of which will result in increased capacity and more comfortable journeys for passengers along the east coast main line—that cannot be described as a reduction.

Of course, there will always be bids for further Government spending on all bits of the transport network. They cannot all be accommodated at the same time, but as and when business cases develop for specific pieces of work, they can be considered as part of our enhancement programme.

--- Later in debate ---

[Joseph Johnson]

May I deal with a specific point raised by the hon. Member for Jarrow (Mr Hepburn) about the trains and the line? He questioned whether they would operate at their potential. The top line speed on the east coast main line is 125 mph, and the new Hitachi Azuma trains will run at that speed. Passengers will benefit from journey time improvements delivered as a result of the trains’ improved acceleration and reduced dwell times in comparison with the existing fleet. Some of the passenger benefits from saved journey times are striking: journeys will be 10 minutes quicker between London and Newcastle, 15 minutes quicker between London and Edinburgh, and so on up and down the line. Those time savings should be celebrated.

The hon. Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) mentioned issues with electromagnetic interference on IEP trains. Hitachi and Network Rail are working together to resolve those electromagnetic compatibility issues and ensure that new trains can operate in electric mode when they enter service as soon as possible.

[Rachael Maskell]

I was referring to the cabling of the trains and to the fact that passengers or members of the public could climb up on the roof. There was an electrocution on a Pendolino train because of that design, yet those trains are still running on the Great Western route, even though the Office of Rail and Road has stopped them running on the east coast.

[Albert Owen (in the Chair)]

Order. I remind the Minister of the time constraints, especially if he wishes to allow the mover of the debate to wind up.

Increasing Choice for Rail Passengers

Rachael Maskell Excerpts

Wednesday 11th July 2018 Westminster Hall

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Moon. I know what an interest you and other south Wales MPs have in the rail network, not least since we saw the announcement of de-electrification last summer.

I thank the hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare (John Penrose) for bringing this debate to the Chamber. There was another debate on the same subject only yesterday afternoon. It is interesting to see how many Back Benchers and members of the Conservative party now recognise that the franchising system simply is not working. We have been saying for such a long time that it is failing and has no mechanism for success.

I am glad that that recognition is there. It has been brought to the fore over the last two months with the complete meltdown of the timetable and the real pain that that has put the travelling public through. The chaos continues even today. We have a new timetable coming in this weekend. We are holding our breath to see whether that will make a difference. Quite frankly, the public has had enough and wants change. They have said that they want a nationalised railway, and I will touch on what that means for the future.

I agree with the hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare, who wrote in The Telegraph that the chaos and the franchising system are

“symptoms of a broken rail franchising system that’s so brittle and inflexible it’s causing misery for millions. Franchises put train firms first, rather than passengers”.

That cannot be the case when we are talking about a public service. I will depart from agreement with him at that point, as he might expect.

I want to pick up the point about the range of options that would be available if there was an open access system, and the thinking that if someone’s train did not arrive on time, they could simply pop on to another train. We know that does not work at the moment under open access, and in fact, there is real frustration among the travelling public that they have to buy a new train ticket or wait at the station until that operator sends another train. Open access will not solve the ills that have been described.

The fragmentation across the railway system has failed, and bringing more operators on to the system through open access would mean more fragmentation, which is the last thing that the rail system needs. The whole rail industry is clearly saying that we need to bring the rail system together. In particular, its focus has been on bringing track and train together to ensure that wheel and steel connect, so there can be a conversation about what happens on the infrastructure and between the trains that run on it. That has universal support. I agree with the Government, who have also said that that is absolutely essential. Bringing more competition and more rail operators on to the rail operating system will further fragment those relationships.

I want to pick up the challenge about the creativity of new routes. Those opportunities will exist under any system. The complexity sits in the fact that many of those routes cross traditional route lines—the main lines—so they become more complex for timetabling. We need integration, rather than fragmentation, to address those challenges.

Labour has clearly said that we would introduce a programme of nationalisation of the railway system, but I want to make it clear to all hon. Members that that is not going back; it is moving forward to a new system of nationalisation. Just as hon. Members have articulated that they want new private-market models operating on the railways, there is no one system of nationalisation. That is what we have focused on in developing our model. We have worked closely with the rail industry, rail operators—who are embracing what we are saying—and people working across the infrastructure, and we have looked at examples globally, on how best to run the railway system in the future and how to put in the challenge, opportunity, enhancements and vital long-term investment to ensure that we have a system that works best for the future.

As the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown) said, we need only remind ourselves that the fact that more people are on our rail system is because in 1997 a Labour Government came in and invested in rail services, which had been so starved of resources that British Rail was run down in its final days. It is about ensuring that resources go to the right place in the system to revitalise the railways. We will see that under a new rail structure.

So much of this is about where the money flows. We must remember that private train-operating companies do not own the trains; they lease them from the rolling stock leasing companies. They lose between 30% and 40% in the additional charging by the ROSCOs on the back of those trains. If we owned our rolling stock, we could put that investment back into the rail service, which is exactly what we need to do. A report from the industry says that 30% is lost because of the Government’s on-off decision making. I agree with the hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare that we do not want political interference in the running of our rail. The level of political interference today across the rail system is extraordinary, with the Secretary of State at the head and making decisions about which lines will be electrified.

A Labour Government would not be interested in doing that. We want the rail service to run the rail service; we do not want the state to interfere. We will set the strategy, and the nationalised company will run the railways. People who are the experts in running the railways should move forward, rather than politicians who, frankly, make political decisions about the railways, as they are today. That would not happen under the nationalised company that we will put forward to run the railways.

We would structure the railways to ensure that we get that long-term investment, because the cry from industry is that the Government changing their mind about electrification and other projects has meant that it has had to not only gain skills and put apprenticeships on to build up to a programme that the Government said was going ahead, but then lay people off. What a waste of talent, let alone resource. We want a long-term plan. The franchising system and the open access system do not serve that need. The public are demanding that we ensure that investment, so we can plan our infrastructure changes and co-ordinate them with the routes and enhancements, such as the new rails and new opportunities, that we want to bring on to the track. That is what a Labour Government will deliver when we come to power.

One thing that has not even been mentioned in the debate, although I appreciate it is about passenger choice, is that we need to ensure that the rail network is there for freight. Operators across the network also need to have good access to our tracks and the ability to move goods across our country. As we are talking about the future of our economy, it is crucial that those choices are made for the sake of our economy, and that they work.

In the future, we have to say where the investment will come from. Open access is not the answer to longer term investment in our railways. The franchising system ensures that there is a profit margin that can go to companies, although many are not receiving those profits because, quite frankly, they are failing. The amount of money that leaks out of the system is not acceptable to the taxpayer. With regard to the recent chaos, we could be talking about £1 billion of taxpayers’ money being used to pay the compensation due to that failed timetable. It failed because of franchisers putting in their different demands and everyone wanting their new routes put on to a new timetable, and the Secretary of State changing his mind about his priorities and not leaving sufficient time to put a new timetable in place. The Secretary of State’s decision making and the infighting among the railways has been so costly. That will disappear with our nationalised railway system, because we will not have the barriers that could create that.

[Mrs Madeleine Moon (in the Chair)]

Order. I hope the shadow Minister is about to wind up. We have to hear from the Minister yet.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rachael Maskell]

I am watching the time. I will not go over my halfway mark.

[Mrs Madeleine Moon (in the Chair)]

You have gone over your five minutes considerably.

[Rachael Maskell]

Five minutes?

[Mrs Madeleine Moon (in the Chair)]

In an hour debate, it is five minutes.

[Rachael Maskell]

No one has ever told me that before, so thank you, Mrs Moon. I will come to my conclusion.

We want to ensure that the rail system works for passengers, that it improves social mobility, that it drives our whole economy forward and that it causes modal shift, to ensure that people are not getting into their cars, as they are today, but back on to the railways. That is why Labour’s model will work, and when we get into power, we will put it in place.

Oral Answers to Questions

Rachael Maskell Excerpts

Monday 18th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Jake Berry]

Apart from doing ITV, Granada, the BBC and local papers, including the Manchester Evening News, I do not know where the hon. Lady has been looking, but we continue to work with Transport for the North to improve transport connections across the north of England. This Government have been absolutely clear that the performance of Northern has been unacceptable, but I offer Labour Members the opportunity to condemn the RMT strike action, which is going to make a bad situation worse, or are they too heavily in hock to the unions to do what is right for the northern powerhouse?

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

Good public health is the best way of improving the wellbeing of the community, yet York City Council has slashed the public health budget by £1.3 million and we now have the highest level of in-service drug deaths in the country, so what is the Minister doing to protect public health, particularly given the removal of the public health grant?

[Mr Speaker]

These are all magnificent questions, but I hope the House will take it in the right spirit if I say that I do not think many hon. and right hon. Members have yet read the textbook on pithy questioning available on general release from the right hon. Member for New Forest West (Sir Desmond Swayne). It would be a very useful Christmas present.

Northern Rail Services: Greater Manchester

Rachael Maskell Excerpts

Wednesday 6th June 2018 Westminster Hall

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair this afternoon, Mr Howarth. I appreciate that many of your constituents in Knowsley have been frustrated in the past couple of weeks, whether travelling in the region or across the country. We heard about the issue in Monday’s urgent statement, of course. It was unprecedented: for 90 minutes 65 MPs of all parties relayed to the House the pain that passengers throughout the country were experiencing, including anxious students not able to get to college to sit vital exams, children late for school, adults late for work and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi) has said today, people who have lost their jobs. Family life has been disrupted and childcare made impossible; people do not know when they are going to get home of a night, and businesses struggle when staff do not arrive. In the heart of the tourist season there is the fiasco of trains being cancelled at peak times in the Lake district—we stand with the businesses there.

I was struck by the experiences of my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger), who talked on Monday—column 63 in Hansard—about people who were fasting during Ramadan standing for five hours in blistering heat. Trains have been cancelled and delayed; they do not stop. People have been failed—“Northern fail” is the expression that comes to mind. The situation is not just in the north, but across the country. I know that passengers in the south-east in particular have also had years of that pain. We have a broken railway system.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton North East (Sir David Crausby), who eloquently highlighted the pain of his constituents, particularly the pain caused by Arriva Rail North. Electric trains in his area should have been running from Manchester via Bolton to Preston last year, but it will be lucky if they do so by the end of this year. Northern provides a poor service to passengers and they now have their worst punctuality rating in eight years. As we heard, only 83% of their trains arrived within 10 minutes of the scheduled time. Of course, in the past week things have got worse, with trains often being cancelled altogether at weekends.

The story for passengers in Bolton is one of broken promises, within a completely deficient system, and they are of course dependent on a completely deficient compensation scheme. As we have heard, it is far too complex for passengers to engage with, and it does not work for multimodal transportation, so fewer people claim on it. We have heard that disabled people and parents with prams have no chance of using the railway. At certain points on the line the trains are already packed, as there are too few carriages to meet the need. In the new upgraded rail system there is still a need to install the overhead gantries for the power lines at places such as Chorley, Bolton and Salford. However, because of poor ground conditions due to uncharted shallow mines around those locations, a third of the foundations were unsuccessful at the first attempt. All that work was outsourced to the failed company Carillion.

I thank all hon. Members who have contributed to the debate—the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Mr Wragg), who put some pertinent questions to the Minister, and my hon. Friends the Members for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green), for Bolton South-east, and for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams)—for sharing the impact of the rail meltdown on their constituents. The upset, anger and frustration that have been heard in the House this week are nothing compared with the actual pain that we have heard about directly from the public. Despite all that, the Secretary of State could not find it in himself to apologise for the part that he played. The only reason he remains in his post this afternoon is that the Prime Minister is too weak to sack him. All that we got was his belief that he was clever in apportioning blame to everyone but himself. Others are to blame—I grant him that; but the person in charge, at the heart of it all, is the Secretary of State. Perhaps the Minister will offer an apology on his behalf for the fact that he has utterly failed the British public.

So what do we know? Network Rail ran into serious trouble during control period 5, not completing many of the planned infrastructure projects, including promised electrification upgrades. Did the Secretary of State know? Yes; he personally intervened, cancelling many electrification projects. Hon. Members will remember that that was the day after the House rose last summer—presumably to avoid questioning of the kind that happened on Monday. The right hon. Gentleman announced that trains that do not even exist would run in the future, and said they would replace the planned new electric rolling stock as on the TransPennine Express route.

It is deeply offensive that new trains that cannot accommodate wheelchair users have been put on that line. We heard how Network Rail failed to complete its timetabling programme and how the Secretary of State, despite initial denial, knew that that was coming over the horizon. He said on Monday that he took calls weeks before the new timetable was due to be introduced, but in his statement he failed to mention that, with regard to a company limited by guarantee, he was the one person in charge—allegedly. Therefore he is fully to blame. If he neglected or negated his responsibilities he should resign.

People in the industry whom I have talked to have told me that the crisis was long predicted. When the company moved the timetabling function to Milton Keynes a significant proportion of the very skilled timetabling staff were lost, so there were not the personnel to do the work required. I have also been told that the process of rescheduling an entire timetable normally takes the best part of a year, and at least nine months. Given that the project commenced in earnest in February, it was not likely to meet its own timetable, to be stress tested and to be sure to work.

The glaring absence is the fact that the Secretary of State did not at any stage intervene and postpone the new timetable—and we learned why. He is, it now appears, the only person on both sides of an apparent Chinese wall dividing his Department. On a wing and a prayer he ordered that the timetable change should go ahead. There was a threat that the operators—the private, fragmented companies that he always defends—would sue him or the Department if the timetable was withdrawn. They had received promises from him on the new timetabling: that in May they would be able to run their new trains, on new infrastructure and at new times. Their financial structures, including how they would afford to pay their levies to the Department and how they would pay their shareholders, could not be delivered unless all the new slots ran on the promised terms in the new timetable, as set out in the franchises.

I think that we can expect law suits to come flooding in now. After all, those private companies’ sole reason for existing is to drive profit out of the state. Those rail companies had hired their new trains for the new electrified lines and expanded timetables. I remind Members that they do not own their rolling stock, but lease it by contract at an exorbitant rate from consortia of investment companies and fund managers. These private profit companies exist to drive profit out of the train operating companies, which in turn drive profit out of the state, taxpayers and passengers. They have disposed of their old rolling stock and moved it on to their next customers, while the new rolling stock cannot operate on the de-electrified lines—you could not make it up, Mr Howarth.

Then there are the train operating companies, and today we have heard much about Northern rail and its failure. It went ahead and signed contracts, demanding that services be run down to the bone. We heard how it cut the number of crucial staff to maximise its financial gain, and it failed to maintain or recruit sufficient staff to run on the new timetable. It knew what was coming over the horizon, and it failed. It is also trying to get rid of train guards, the very people at the heart of looking after the needs of passengers. We have ended up with not enough trains or staff to meet the needs of a rushed and untested timetable, although I must say that the staff have been phenomenal across the rail network, and we salute them for all that they have had to contend with over the past few weeks.

Only the Secretary of State and his Ministers sit at the top table and the interface of track, timetable and train. He knew about these challenges but did nothing. He let this chaos happen, either through sheer incompetence or by hoping that it would be the least worst option. He is the head of every decision, which is why either he must resign or the Prime Minister should sack him.

One subject that was not mentioned on Monday was how much all this will cost the public or passengers through future ticket increases. The money has to come from somewhere. I am sure the TOCs will call for compensation—they always do—and we also have the compensation scheme, and a commitment to a new compensation regime, which fellow MPs are already saying will be insufficient and that more will be required. Will students who were not able to sit their crucial exams, or businesses that could not open their doors because their staff had not arrived, be able to claim compensation? How much will all this chaos cost? I put that point specifically to the Minister, because ultimately taxpayers or passengers will pay, and they need to know how much it will cost.

This story will not end happily ever after. First we get a revised timetable that, as we have heard, has in many places been much worse than the original one. Then we get the mass cancellations across the service. We have heard that whatever timetable is applied, the chaos will run for months and months into the summer. What has the Secretary of State offered? An inquiry that will report at the end of the year. Thank goodness the Transport Committee, chaired by my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood), will provide answers long before then through its own inquiry. The Secretary of State’s inquiry will not report until after the next set of timetable changes have been put in place in December, although I have heard that those changes have fallen behind schedule.

This chaos has forced passengers off trains and into their cars—a modal shift. We talk a lot about a modal shift across our railway system, but we aspire to it going the other way. When rail services do not work and fail the public, people jump back into their cars because they have no other option. That leads to more congestion on our roads, more frustration and more pollution to exacerbate our poor air quality. I am sure that the rail companies will challenge the Government about that fall in patronage.

The great British public have been completely let down by this Government and their failed rail model, and they are right to be furiously angry at the Secretary of State, who blames everybody else—the bosses at Northern rail, for example—while forgetting that he is in charge. That simply could not happen under Labour’s proposals for a new model of public ownership. We will scrap the juggling of multiple private company interests and have one rail service that works together in the interests of passengers. The Secretary of State could make a start by moving towards that model—that would massively satisfy passengers across the north—and he could take the contract away from Northern rail, and use his powers to start providing reparations for this complete disaster on our railways.

[Mr George Howarth (in the Chair)]

Before I call the Minister, I gently remind him that it is customary to leave enough time for the mover of the motion to respond briefly to the debate.

--- Later in debate ---

[Joseph Johnson]

That is a good question, and one of the things that Stephen Glaister’s review will be looking at very carefully. It will look at all the processes that went into the creation of the May timetable and all the planning and preparation around it, to answer those kinds of questions and to see what lessons can be learned for future timetable changes, including the December timetable change. I will come on to compensation, if the hon. Lady hangs on for a second; I want to ensure that I complete the account of how we got to the May timetable change and what lessons we can learn from that.

I was talking about the training of drivers. Some drivers have been unavailable for their normal train-driving duties while they were and are undergoing that training. To make a difficult situation worse, Northern was unable to ask its drivers to work on their rest days for the last three months of this period, because, as hon. Members will know, ASLEF declined to extend the rest day working agreement that ended in February. That meant that Northern has not been able to absorb those exceptional or last-minute training needs and provide the additional flexibility for the train driver rosters that it needed to.

Let me turn to the questions about who knew what, when, and about where the DFT was in all this. In January, Network Rail informed the Department that it would not complete its upgrade of the Manchester to Preston route in time for the May timetable change. In response, Northern developed a new timetable in a compressed period and briefed stakeholders on the reasons why that was required. Following that, the late completion of the Blackpool to Preston blockade in mid-April meant that Northern had less time to complete those plans and its driver training. Northern then did not finalise its plan for the timetable until three days prior to its introduction. Industry readiness boards assured the Department and the Secretary of State that the timetable was ready for introduction, and the Department was not made aware of any expectations of high levels of cancellations.

Hon. Members have asked about compensation to reflect the significant inconvenience experienced by passengers. There is no doubt, and the Department accepts, that Northern passengers have faced totally unsatisfactory levels of service. I have met with many colleagues in the House, and I have also heard directly many stories from the travelling public of how the disruptions have impacted the lives of all those constituents.

It is entirely right for all those affected by the disruption to be properly compensated. I encourage passengers, in the first instance, to continue to use Northern’s Delay Repay compensation mechanism for affected journeys. Northern operates the Delay Repay compensation system for all its passengers. Under that scheme, as hon. Members will know, passengers are entitled to claim compensation for each delay of 30 minutes or more that they experience, whatever the cause of the delay. There are no exclusions for weather or other delays outside the control of the rail industry.

The Office of Rail and Road guidelines require train operators to respond to claims within 20 days of their receipt. Northern has assured the Department that it is working hard to respond to all claims within industry standards. I acknowledge the complaints that the hon. Member for Bolton North East has made about various aspects of the Delay Repay scheme. The Department is discussing with Northern ways in which we expect it to reduce its processing time for Delay Repay claims.

In his statement on Monday, the Secretary of State announced that, in addition to the standard Delay Repay compensation mechanisms, there would be a special compensation scheme for Northern passengers, subject to agreement by the board of Transport for the North. It is to be funded by the rail industry and will ensure that regular rail customers receive appropriate redress for the disruption that they have experienced. The industry will imminently set out more detail of the eligibility requirements and how season ticket holders can claim. However, the Secretary of State has already indicated, at a high level, that he expects that the scheme should offer Northern passengers who have experienced protracted disruption of this kind similar entitlements to those under Southern’s passenger compensation scheme last year.

[Rachael Maskell]

Can the Minister set out exactly who he means by “the rail industry”? Clearly, we are talking about Network Rail, which is culpable for some of the issues, as well as the Department for Transport and the operators themselves.

[Joseph Johnson]

I want to allow us a few days to refine the details of how the compensation scheme will work. We are working carefully with all players in the industry to ensure that a fair scheme is put forward that adequately provides redress to passengers. The Secretary of State has been clear that this will be funded by the industry. We will be bringing forward further details imminently, which I hope will answer the hon. Lady’s question.

What are we doing concretely to fix the problems that have occurred? Acting through the Rail North Partnership, the Department for Transport has put in place an action plan with Northern, which includes improving driver rostering to get more trains running now, increasing driver training on new routes, additional contingency drivers and management presence at key locations in Manchester, and putting extra peak services in the timetable along the Bolton corridor. Northern has also announced that, until the end of July, it will run fewer services than were originally planned, per the May timetable, to give passengers greater certainty and to increase opportunities for driver training. I believe that this temporary measure is necessary to stabilise the service, enabling improvements to be introduced gradually. Northern will then get back to a full timetable service.

The interim timetable, rolled out on Monday, will see an approximately 6% reduction in the number of train services—about 165 out of the normal 2,800 daily services. Northern is expecting to start to see significant improvements this week, from today, as their drivers are fully rostered on to the new interim timetable. The timings for today, as of 10.35 am or so, saw Northern achieve 86% on the public performance measure. With 665 or so trains operated, 2% were very late or cancelled, which is about 15 trains. There is positive progress here. This is Northern’s best weekday morning performance since the timetable changed. That 86% compares with weekday out-turns of between 60% and 70% for the first two weeks following the introduction of the May timetable.

[Joseph Johnson]

The May timetable is a big timetable change. It is roughly four times larger than any previous change over recent years of such timetables. It was a six-monthly timetable change. It was a very big change that reflected the massive investment that has been going into the rail system and all the opportunities to create new services across the country. In those circumstances, the timetable change did not just affect Northern and Thameslink, it affected every train operation in the country. All those other train services around the country had interlinkages with the train services being run by Northern, Thameslink and other Govia Thameslink Railway services.

As a consequence, simply suspending the timetable was not possible, because all the other train operators had put in place their own driver rosters and driver training programmes for all the other services running across the rest of the country. Not introducing the May timetable at that point would have been a far worse and more disruptive solution. This is progress. We recognise that there is significantly more to be done. We want to get back to where we were meant to get to, which was the full introduction of the May timetable, as soon as we can, but we want to do that gradually and to reintroduce services as soon as we can, once the appropriate driver training has taken place.

How can we ensure this does not happen again? As I have mentioned, work has begun to set up the independent inquiry into the timetable, implementation and deliverability of future timetable changes. That will be chaired by an independent transport expert, the chair of the current independent regulator, the Office of Rail and Road, Professor Stephen Glaister. In parallel to the inquiry, the Department for Transport is assessing whether Northern met its contractual obligation—a subject which a number of hon. Members asked about—in the planning and delivery of this timetable change. We will carefully assess Northern rail’s planning, risk assessment and resilience in preparing for the May timetable change.

We are currently reviewing whether Northern is in contravention of the franchise agreement. If it is found to be so, it would be referred to the Department’s enforcement advisory panel. The purpose of that panel is to review any contraventions of the franchise agreement fairly and consistently across all franchises. It will seek to respond in a consistent manner where different train operators commit similar contraventions, taking account of the Department’s enforcement policy and previous enforcement decisions, and will recommend the appropriate response, including any remedial plan or enforcement action, if required.

[Rachael Maskell]

Will the Minister set out a timetable for that? I think passengers have a real interest in knowing what timetable that scrutiny will cover.

[Joseph Johnson]

Work has been underway over the last few weeks on this question, and we expect to come to a conclusion as soon as is reasonably possible.

In assessing whether Northern has breached its franchise agreement, it is important to bear in mind that there are other players in this story and Network Rail is an important one. While bearing in mind Network Rail’s failure to deliver the infrastructure I mentioned on time, I want hon. Members to be assured that we will hold the operator to the terms of its contractual obligations.

I want to give the hon. Member for Bolton North East a chance to wind up at the end. I thank all colleagues for their contributions. I remind them that once this phase has been completed, passengers on Northern will benefit from 1,300 extra services a week. Rail users of Northern have much to be hopeful about in the future of their rail services. Brand-new trains will soon be introduced, building on the improvement to timetables and stations already made in recent years. We are working closely with train companies to drive down cancellations and will support Network Rail and the wider industry in delivering these significant improvements.