PARLIAMENTARY DEBATE
West Coast Main Line Franchise - 19 September 2023 (Commons/Commons Chamber)

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will make a statement on the contractual and operational situation of the west coast main line franchise—and I congratulate the Minister on his promotion.

Another day, another blow for passengers who use the west coast main line. Fresh from the negative cross-party reaction yesterday to news that High Speed 2 phase 2 is on the chopping block, we have the Department for Transport on the last day before recess—shock, horror—sneaking out the extraordinary award of up to nine years for Avanti West Coast and up to eight years for CrossCountry.

Despite improvements in Avanti’s service, it is still not running a full timetable, and the Minister cannot ask us and passengers up and down the west coast main line to simply forget the last few years of horrendous performance. The Avanti service was on the brink, run into the ground by mismanagement and poor labour relations. In his letter to MPs the Secretary of State says that “Avanti is the most improved operator where performance is compared to the previous year.” Well, that would not be particularly hard—talk about setting yourself a low bar. This award will be seen by most people as rewarding failure.

My criticism of Avanti is in no way reflective of the staff, who have been first class when I have used the service. I was not overwhelmed with confidence, however, when it took me several attempts at last week’s Select Committee to get Mr Mellors to tell me just how many jobs he proposed to cut by closing the Glasgow ticket office.

Given the variable standards delivered by Avanti, we need full transparency. So can the Minister tell me the exact criteria Avanti will have to consistently meet if the extension at the end of the core contract is to be granted? What engagement has the Department for Transport had with trade unions and the Scottish Government in making this decision? What alternatives did the Department consider? Was the operator of last resort considered?

Does the Minister not understand that this award will be seen as Tory “private best” dogma? We have piles of evidence through the operator of last resort and Scotrail that publicly owned and operated railways work. Moreover, with its stake in Avanti, First Trenitalia might well be able to reinvest in Italian rail infrastructure. Is it not time to follow Scotland’s lead and put our railway back into the public sector, where it belongs?

I call the Select Committee Chair.

As a regular user of Avanti services, I agree that the performance has improved markedly and I pay tribute to the new managing director, Andy Mellors, and his team for turning around what was an abysmal service. I appreciate that the Minister will not be able to talk in detail about the contract, but will he say a bit about the extent to which this new contract moves away from the micromanaged national rail contracts that have been in place since covid? They were right at the time, but are now stifling innovation in the sector and I hope that this is just the first of the revisions of these national rail contracts.

I call the shadow Minister.

For the second time in two days, the Government have been dragged to the House to explain the state of our crumbling rail network, and for the second time in two days, the rail Minister has failed to turn up. Surely things cannot get any worse for passengers in the north, we thought, but today, the Minister has proved us all wrong by confirming that passengers could have to suffer up to nine more years of Avanti West Coast and up to eight more years of CrossCountry.

The Minister claims that there has been enough improvement to justify up to a decade more of the utter chaos that is consuming our railways thanks to those two failing operators, yet the latest statistics show that Avanti was the second worst operator in the country for punctuality last month, with only 46% of its trains running on time. CrossCountry was the fourth worst, with only 49% of its trains on time. What is the Government’s response to that? More lucrative contracts and millions of pounds paid out in performance bonuses. These decisions have left glaring questions for the Minister to answer. What performance metrics were considered when the Government made these decisions? Have performance payments been restructured in the new contracts, or will they continue to reward failure? Did the Government consider the operator of last resort, which has driven improvements on other lines?

The country is tired of this cycle of failure, with cancellations and delays, and any prospect of reform kicked into the long grass. It is clear that this Government are determined to run our rail network into the ground. Is their plan really to allow for rail services to have another decade of failure under the Tories, with hundreds of millions handed over to shareholders in performance bonuses and fees? If so, it is clear that they are out of ideas and out of time. If they cannot put passengers first, is it not time for them to step aside and let us deliver the change our passengers so desperately need?

While I appreciate the points that the rail replacement Minister makes about recent improvements in Avanti, does my right hon. Friend accept that the failures of Avanti in recent years have led to consumers voting with their feet and refusing to use Avanti services where they can? In the case of passengers traveling from Birmingham to London, they have been coming on to the Chiltern line instead, which is adding to the overcrowding on that line. What reassurance can he give that there are incentives in the new contract for Avanti to win back that trust, so that we are not maintaining overcrowding on other railways such as Chiltern?

It seems that this contract has been awarded on the basis that it is a little less crap than it used to be. Is that really the way to make a decision in Government? The Office of Rail and Road statistics in August showed that Avanti was the second worst performing operator, with only 48% of trains running on time. That is not good enough. I speak as someone who is a customer, and I speak on behalf of my constituents in the north. It is appalling. This is ideologically, dogmatically driven. It is a nonsense.

It pains me to say it, but I have to tell my right hon. Friend that the decision his Department has made today will be very badly received in north Wales. North Wales passengers have had to endure a substandard service from Avanti for far too long. The prime example of that was this summer—at the height of the holiday season, which is so important to north Wales—when Avanti decided to cut four services and provided virtually no through services from London to the region. Can my right hon. Friend assure the House that his Department will be keeping a very close eye on Avanti’s performance in north Wales over the coming months and years and that, if necessary, it will terminate the franchise that has been confirmed today?

Once again, we find that Transport Ministers cannot even find friends on their own Benches for these decisions. People in my constituency and in the north of England will be astonished at the decision to reimpose Avanti because of its systematic failure. The Minister did not answer the question he was just asked. Will the Government guarantee that they will cancel Avanti’s contract if, once again, it is the poster boy for failure?

I am a regular user of the west coast main line, and the improvements in both punctuality and reliability over recent months have been welcome. The Minister will be aware of the ongoing capacity issues at Preston station that are compromising potential improvements across Lancashire, such as the creation of a passing loop on the South Fylde line, which would double the number of trains coming into Blackpool South every single hour. Can the Minister raise that issue with departmental colleagues, so that we can hopefully break the logjam and create the conditions for improvements in localised services in Lancashire?

Judging by their appearances in the Chamber, I guess that the ministerial team are just like Avanti: delayed or cancelled. Yes, the service has improved, but from such a low level, and it is still a woeful service. Does the Minister truly believe that this is a good outcome for passengers?

Holyhead is the second busiest roll-on roll-off port in the UK and, with Anglesey’s new freeport status, we are at the beginning of our economic renaissance. As such, it is vital that we have connectivity, particularly now that the Labour Government in Cardiff will not agree to a third Menai crossing. How are Ministers going to ensure that Avanti delivers a reliable service with direct trains from Holyhead to Euston for my Ynys Môn constituents, many of whom shared their frustrations with the rail Minister when he visited Anglesey in the summer?

Data shows that the number of trains cancelled across the rail network continues to rise and is at the highest level since records began in 2014. The Minister keeps referring to July’s figures, knowing full well just how bad August’s are—in fact, statistics show that trains in Ukraine are running more reliably than our services here, despite that country’s network clearly being under considerably greater pressure. These problems do not stop with Avanti: persistent issues on the west coast main line have a knock-on impact on any east-west services crossing that line. When will the Minister accept that the current system is simply not working?

I declare an interest as a long-suffering user of the Avanti service on the west coast main line. In 2021-22, Avanti had the most customer complaints of any operator and it is consistently rated one of the worst-performing operators on the rail network. Despite that, Ministers spent an eye-watering £4 million of taxpayers’ money in bonuses to company executives for customer experience and acting as a good operator. Can the Minister explain when it became Government policy to reward failure?

As a regular user, I recognise that the Avanti service has improved in recent months—although frankly, it would have been hard for it to get much worse—but given the sustained poor performance in the past and the August performance figures we have just heard about, this contract award feels very premature. Would it not have been better to wait and ensure that we see proven, sustained improvement from Avanti before awarding such a long contract?

This decision is as embarrassing as it is baffling. The Minister talks about improvements, but my constituents have not seen those improvements. He talks about reducing the number of cancellations: with Avanti having cancelled half of the services from Chester directly to London, that will obviously reduce the number of cancellations. Yesterday, for example, Avanti started a train from Crewe rather than from Chester. That presumably does not count as a cancellation, but that is absolutely no consolation to someone in Chester. It seems to me that the Government know that the companies are playing with the figures and are prepared to accept a second-class service for the people of the north.

The right hon. Member for Clwyd West (Mr Jones) and I have worked for many years on the issues surrounding rail connectivity covering Chester and north Wales and, since I arrived in this House in December, I have not seen any improvement. The Minister talked about micromanaging situations, but the reality is that the Government do not seem to have understood what happened to Chester and north Wales during the summer. As the right hon. Member said, the decision was taken to cancel through trains, which fundamentally affected tourism and the visitor economy, not just for Chester but across north Wales. To be honest, that smacks of gaming the figures, and my constituents and residents across north Wales are absolutely staggered that this contract has been re-awarded to Avanti West Coast. I simply do not understand that. This is so business-critical and important to local residents and there has been a failure to take into account the realities of travelling across Cheshire and north Wales.

The Government have ensured the immediate future of Avanti West Coast, but the same cannot be said for Great British Railways, which has an office but no powers. We urgently need a body to provide oversight and accountability to fix Britain’s broken railways. The Government are in favour of that, so can the Minister confirm that legislation to create Great British Railways will be announced in the King’s Speech?

Avanti manufacturing director, Andy Mellors, told the Transport Committee that Avanti would be cutting staff at Glasgow Central station by more than a third and closing its ticket office. Why does a company that delivers such a poor and expensive service, and that holds its customers in such contempt, deserve to have its contract renewed, potentially for almost a decade?

I thank the Minister for responding to the urgent question.