Rail Services

Samantha Dixon Excerpts

Monday 20th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

I welcome my hon. Friend’s question. On the point about drivers, almost 100 drivers have been recruited—I said more than 100 earlier, but it is almost 100, and I would like to correct the record at this early opportunity.

My hon. Friend’s point about open-access operators is right. As I said in answer to a previous question, that competition and choice are welcome, but we can only have that when we have sufficient capacity—that is important. I also note that Avanti’s announcement today makes it clear that the new managing director it has brought in to grip its performance and to continue delivering improved performance has been responsible for two of those very successful open-access operators. I think that bodes well for Avanti’s customers.

[Samantha Dixon (City of Chester) (Lab)]

I have to tell the Secretary of State that the only cancellation my constituents would welcome is the cancellation of the Avanti contract. He mentioned the five services a day between Holyhead and Crewe, but he may not be aware that two of them have been cancelled today. For communities in Chester and north Wales, this ongoing nightmare is affecting lives and economic performance. When will the Secretary of State stop rewarding failure and get a grip on this service?

[Mr Harper]

I think the hon. Lady’s question would be fairer if I had pretended there was not more work to do. Avanti has delivered performance improvement, running 40% more services, reducing the rate of cancellations to 4.2% and running significantly more trains on time, but I was very clear that it needs to do better on punctuality and deliver sustained improvement on cancellations. I know how much cancellations inconvenience passengers—not just those who wanted to catch the cancelled services, but passengers on other services that are then overcrowded. Avanti has work to do, but I think it has done enough so far to justify a six-month extension. We will consider whether it has sustained that performance when we have to make a further decision later this year.