Category: Transportation

Robin Millar – 2022 Speech on West Coast Main Line Services

The speech made by Robin Millar, the Conservative MP for Aberconwy, in the House of Commons on 15 December 2022.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn (Virginia Crosbie) on securing this debate, which is of such importance to residents and businesses across north Wales and in my constituency. We had a Westminster Hall debate just a few weeks ago on the strategic importance of the west coast main line, and here we are again today. We seem to debate Avanti’s service to our constituents almost weekly; I am coming to the conclusion that if it were as regular as our debates, we would have one of the most reliable train services in the UK. Members across the House, representing constituencies all along the west coast main line, have made important contributions today about the impact on their communities of poor service performance on the line.

Aberconwy, which is so reliant on visitors and on our connections with the rest of the UK, has been similarly affected. On behalf of residents, communities and businesses throughout Aberconwy, I want to take the opportunity once again to state that Avanti’s service, particularly the service that it provides to north Wales, has been utterly unacceptable. Avanti’s implementation of an emergency timetable in August was one thing, but implementing a timetable that removed direct services between London and north Wales was, and remains, inexcusable. I share the sense of upset and inconvenience that so many local businesses and residents have expressed to me.

Reliable and affordable rail is vital to the prosperity of communities in Aberconwy and north Wales as a whole. Levelling up, which we talk about so much in this place, cannot succeed without good transport connectivity. Along the coast, to the west of my constituency, my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn has worked tirelessly for three years, leading the campaign for an Anglesey freeport, an initiative that will create tens of thousands of jobs on Anglesey and across north Wales. Rail services are vital to the success of that project, every bit as much as investment in Aberconwy.

Our plan for Aberconwy highlights the importance of investing in tourism and promoting new business. Aberconwy boasts world-class visitor attractions. We are home to Conwy castle, a world heritage site that was recently confirmed as the most beautiful castle in Europe. We have Llandudno, the queen of the Welsh resorts. We have much of Eryri and some of the most stunning coastlines and landscapes to be found anywhere in the UK. Visitors from around the UK and around the world come to Aberconwy each year in their millions and make an invaluable contribution to our local economy, but for our economy to succeed, they need to get there. For north Wales to thrive as a visitor destination on the global stage, we need the reliable rail services that we have continually been denied.

I turn to new business. As the pandemic demonstrated so clearly, we in Aberconwy must diversify our local economy and reduce our reliance solely on tourism. Aberconwy is home to apparently limitless entrepreneurial instinct and talent—Llandudno was identified in Companies House data earlier this year as the start-up capital of the UK—but to attract new business investment and create more jobs across Aberconwy, we need reliable and convenient rail connections with the rest of the UK. Avanti is failing to deliver that service. The value that might be unlocked in Llandudno—for example, by bringing it within two and a half hours of London, which an electrified connection would achieve—would be extraordinary.

That is for the future, and I recognise that Avanti has implemented a new timetable this month to increase the number of direct services between north Wales and London—a timetable that has unfortunately been impacted by the strikes. I echo the calls of my right hon. Friend and neighbour the Member for Clwyd West (Mr Jones): the reliability to which we are entitled is not being delivered, and if there is not a dramatic and marked improvement in services, the Government must move to terminate the franchise.

I would like to take this opportunity to repeat a call I have made several times in these debates: if or when the franchise is removed, its name must change to acknowledge the strategic importance of the north Wales coast main line. The relegation of the north Wales coast main line back in August to effectively that of a mere branch line indicates that the Government themselves have not yet recognised its importance, despite the work of Sir Peter Hendy in his connectivity review. I make this request once again to the Minister: will he agree to review the name of the franchise and make it the north Wales and west coast main line?

I must highlight the strategic importance of the west coast main line to one community in particular: the United Kingdom. With principal terminuses in London, Holyhead and Glasgow, the west coast main line helps to bind together the nations of Great Britain and to strengthen our familial, business and educational ties. It is indispensable to the strength of the Union between our nations and to the success of our great British economy. Sir Peter Hendy highlighted that in his connectivity review, identifying and singling out north Wales as an important point of investment to develop this all-important UK network.

Finally, I would like to take this opportunity to address the strikes, which have, ironically, influenced the attendance in the Chamber today, in terms of both those who would have wished to be here and those who wished to be elsewhere for Christmas. Throughout the pandemic, the UK Government injected £16 billion of UK taxpayers’ money into the railway network to keep it afloat as passenger numbers collapsed. Unlike so many of my constituents and millions of people throughout the UK, not one railway worker’s job was lost, despite the collapse in revenue. Not one worker was furloughed. Jobs were protected. Full salaries were protected. Pensions were protected. Each railway job cost hundreds of thousands of pounds of taxpayer money to protect.

The pandemic has changed the way that people travel and work, and passenger numbers have not recovered to pre-pandemic levels. The network cannot thrive without reform, and rail workers should be united in safeguarding the long-term protection of their jobs by luring passengers back to the railway, not by taking their custom for granted. These strikes also disproportionately impact those who are in the lowest-paid jobs or provide vital public services. I thank those who do recognise that and are doing their best during this holiday season, many of whom I meet on the service. To strike at all is regrettable, and to strike at Christmas, when so many hospitality and retail businesses are trying to recover from the devastation of the pandemic is inexplicable to me and to them.

Rail has been at the heart of our nation’s history and progress. This line binds our Union together. It has brought wealth to our communities, and the service on it is key to our future. If you will pardon the pun, Mr Deputy Speaker, in north Wales we see these tracks converge. My final question to the Minister is this: will he seize his place in our nation’s history and secure the future of high-performing services on the north Wales and west coast main line for the benefit of us all?

17/12/2022
Rob Roberts – 2022 Speech on West Coast Main Line Services

The speech made by Rob Roberts, the Independent MP for Delyn, in the House of Commons on 15 December 2022.

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes North (Ben Everitt) in this important debate, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn (Virginia Crosbie) on securing it. Earlier this year, following months of disruption to the rail service on the west coast main line, Avanti was put on notice to improve its service. As we have heard already from a great many Members, everyone who uses Avanti—including me, as I travel between the House and my Delyn constituency—knows that, sadly, it continues to fail to provide us with the service we deserve, or even one close to that.

But, Madam Deputy Speaker, I have to offer a little note of sympathy for Avanti. Over the past few months, the man who never met a microphone he didn’t like, Mick “Grinch”, the union boss stealing Christmas from millions of people, and his militant arrogance, continues to ensure major operational issues across the network, and untold misery caused by his love of striking, which apparently is a last resort—of course it is. That is after a two-year global pandemic, which saw family gatherings come to a grinding halt to try to control the virus. This is the first year when everything should finally be back to normal and we can be with our families again at Christmas, but RMT members have decided to cause untold misery to families and businesses. They should be utterly ashamed of themselves.

We have a settled situation of devolution in Wales, which means that for more than two decades the people of north Wales, and the people of Delyn, have grown used to being overlooked and underfunded. We just get on with it, and we do our best to cope with whatever challenges we face. Like all my colleagues in north Wales, many of whom we have already heard from, I am determined to secure the opportunities of the levelling-up agenda, which was at the heart of the UK Government’s manifesto. For so many across north Wales, levelling up is so much more than the investment, jobs, and opportunities it promises, but it is being undermined and made more difficult because of issues that we have heard so much about in this debate.

As my right hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd West (Mr Jones) said, the west coast main line is a critical piece of UK infrastructure. It is essential cross-border infrastructure linking England to north Wales and Scotland, as identified in Sir Peter Hendy’s connectivity review. The north Wales coast line runs from Holyhead via Chester to Crewe, where it joins the west coast main line and connects directly to London. It is also vital in connecting us to the island of Ireland, and in connecting Northern Ireland with the rest of the United Kingdom through the port of Holyhead, which is the UK’s second busiest roll-on roll-off port, and vital for the infrastructure of north Wales.

When the trains between Holyhead and Euston do run, which is relatively unusual in itself, there are daily frustrations, which we have heard about many times. These are things that aggravate me and other passengers: the shop is not stocked, the card machine does not work, the wi-fi does not work, the carriages are overcrowded, and people have to sit on the floor—tattoos or no tattoos, sitting on the floor is never good. Recently, people have at times been unable to book train tickets in advance, because they show as fully booked even when they are not. Many colleagues have rightly asked whether Avanti could run a bath, let alone a rail service—although I would never resort to that type of rhetoric.

Just one train per hour goes from London to Manchester, instead of three per hour, as it was before. There is one train a day from London to Chester, instead of an hourly service, and a shuttle service from Crewe to Holyhead instead of what used to be nine direct trains a day from Holyhead to London. It is astonishing.

I regularly meet and speak to Avanti’s regional management. It has been reassuring to hear that they are committed to improving services and that they admit that a lot of their promises have simply not been delivered. That has led to job losses, including in some of the most senior positions, but it is now time to deliver. A new timetable is out, with a massive amount of new services on it. That is very welcome, but trains running to the old timetable were constantly delayed, cancelled or unreliable, so I am baffled as to how Avanti will offer the extended service it has promised when the pared-back offering was so shambolic in the first place. Time will tell. I am certain that Avanti is watching this debate very closely, so I say again: it is time to deliver.

I have stayed out of these debates in the past. In the face of a lot of criticism from colleagues about the service, I have stayed pretty positive, because pressures on the train operating companies have been significant. I try to stay as reasonable as possible and be as patient as I can with them, but I am afraid that I have come to the limit of my patience. If things do not improve now, swiftly, I will be first in line to tell the Minister that the franchise should not be renewed any further, because it simply does not deliver.

17/12/2022
Ben Everitt – 2022 Speech on West Coast Main Line Services

The speech made by Ben Everitt, the Conservative MP for Milton Keynes North, in the House of Commons on 15 December 2022.

I join colleagues in congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn (Virginia Crosbie) on securing this debate and the Backbench Business Committee on scheduling it.

Like so many colleagues here today, I am speaking on behalf of thousands of constituents who rely on their rail services, particularly the west coast main line, but are being thoroughly let down and deserve a far better service. As one of the major cities, and indeed the newest city, along the west coast main line, Milton Keynes is served by both Avanti West Coast and London Northwestern Railway. However, even if my constituents are lucky enough even to have a train turn up at all, the trains are often delayed, unreliable and overcrowded. I spend many a journey between Milton Keynes and London sat on the floor in between the carriages. It is a pretty miserable experience, apart from a few weeks ago when I was sitting in what is probably my usual spot on the floor just outside the toilet and I was joined by a bunch of lasses from Milton Keynes who were going to a Halloween party. We managed to strike up some conversation and they were good enough to share their cider. I had a nice journey down and arrived in London with a temporary tattoo, which is gone now. But we should not rely on generosity and community spirit to take the misery out of these journeys.

Many constituents have got in touch to share their poor experience, especially with Avanti West Coast. As Milton Keynes is one of the major community cities into London, my constituents need a punctual and reliable service to get into work, but often they just do not get one. The train service in Milton Keynes is often so bad that my constituents are resorting to driving to London stations such as Cockfosters, which is a 46-mile journey, and then taking the tube into London, rather than taking the train from Milton Keynes. In an extreme case, a constituent has shared that, due to the cancellation of two of the regular morning commuter services, they now pay more than £800 a month for a first-class ticket, just to guarantee that they will get a seat. Without paying for first class, they would face one of those overcrowded journeys that I end up on—and almost more often than not they are still paying for the privilege of being late.

Given Milton Keynes’s important and strategic location in the region, connected by rail to other major cities such as Birmingham and Manchester and well placed within that Oxford and Cambridge arc, any disruption in the rail service causes serious problems to my constituents’ everyday lives: not just difficulties in getting to work, but disruption and delays in visiting friends and family and getting to important appointments. In another case, a constituent has shared that they find the service offered by Avanti “abysmal”, with only one train an hour running from Birmingham and Manchester, down from three an hour. They have resorted to using the coach.

The problem is more than a lack of timing and reliable trains; there is also a lack of accessibility. Another constituent has been in touch, a wheelchair user who shared that, shockingly, the rail service is completely inaccessible to him on his own and often there are no staff available to help. In 2022, it is unacceptable that wheelchair users are left abandoned with no support to use the rail service.

The situation simply cannot continue. Not only does it impact my constituents, but it poses a risk to the growth and the economy of Milton Keynes as a whole. Year on year, Milton Keynes has consistently been ranked as one of the United Kingdom’s fastest-growing economies. In fact, a recent study named Milton Keynes as the fourth fastest-growing economy by the end of 2022, increasing year on year by 3.3% and adding £500 million to the local economy.

However, one of the major factors in that growth is our location and our transport connections. That is why huge local employers such as Santander move their headquarters there. But why would Santander continue to invest in our city, and why would talented people continue to choose to work, live and set up their businesses here when they cannot rely on the train arriving on time or with the capacity to take them on their journey?

Navendu Mishra

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the Department for Transport should conduct economic analysis of the damage that Avanti has caused to each constituency it serves? I tabled a written parliamentary question on that earlier this year, but the response from the Government was not helpful.

Ben Everitt

Far be it from me to direct my hon. Friend the Minister, but it does seem that the hon. Gentleman has an excellent point. What I assume he is getting at is that the growth of not just Milton Keynes’s economy, but economies around the country is being put at risk by these poor services. Potentially, there may be data out there that we can draw on, though I would not want to draw the Department’s resources too far from the clear focus on improving services, so I will leave that with the Minister to take forward.

The problem is that, while we recognise the importance of maintaining a good service on the line, we need to take things forward. We need to improve. I welcome the fact that the Government are putting pressure on Avanti to improve its services. We have heard in this debate about the short-term extension of the contract until April 2023—I note that there is no particular enthusiasm for anything more than a short-term extension at this point. That extension is not rewarding failure; it is a clear and urgent message to Avanti that it must improve its service and its performance or face losing the franchise.

I have spoken to Avanti recently. It is positive that it is getting the point because, importantly, it has apologised and accepted that its service is not good enough. I understand that changes are on the way, with nearly 100 additional drivers added to the service between April and December this year, so we could see slight but welcome improvements to the service. However, this is very early days and my constituents and I are incredibly wary. I urge the Government to continue to actively monitor the service on that line and, more importantly, to hold the company to account, so that if we do not see drastic improvements to the reliability, punctuality and frequency of the service, that contract is removed. If we do not make those changes, Milton Keynes and other stops along the west coast main line risk being left behind. With so many opportunities for growth and success coming to the new city of Milton Keynes, it would be a real tragedy if all those benefits were put at risk due to a failing train operator.

17/12/2022
Esther McVey – 2022 Speech on West Coast Main Line Services

The speech made by Esther McVey, the Conservative MP for Tatton, in the House of Commons on 15 December 2022.

I, too, congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn (Virginia Crosbie) on securing this important debate today. Those of us who travel on this line sympathise with all the tales we have heard today and everything that she has said, because we are all suffering the same terrible journeys. As someone who has travelled pretty much every week from Wilmslow in my constituency to London since 2017, when I became the MP for the area, I have a wide knowledge of the service on which to draw and plenty of first-hand experience of the journey.

The west coast main line is one of the major routes in Great Britain, stretching 399 miles from London to Glasgow and Edinburgh via the west midlands and the north-west of England. The Department for Transport describes the west coast main line as

“one of our most important rail corridors.”

It links four of Britain’s biggest conurbations and serves all rail markets—inter-city, commuter, regional and freight—and there are 11 train operating companies using the line. However, I wish to keep my comments to the Manchester to London route and to Avanti. The train service between Wilmslow and London, on that Manchester to London line, used to be hourly, direct and took one hour and 50 minutes. Since the pandemic, the rise in industrial action and the start of Avanti operating the line, the service has gone shockingly downhill, ending now in the substandard service that we have today.

A few weeks ago, Bee Rowland, a rail traveller, caused a Twitter storm by posting a picture of her child whom she had stuffed in a luggage rack. I sympathised with her, because I had done exactly the same thing, only it was not a child that I had stuffed in the luggage rack—it was me, for the full two-hour journey. That was because people from several trains had had to cram into one train. Most people were standing, but, fortunately—I say fortunately, but it was ironically—I managed to squeeze into the travel rack and sat there for the full journey. Bee Rowland’s experience was on Grand Central, mine on Avanti.

The travelling public are being taken for fools. We no longer have a rail service; it is a rail sufferance. It is an unreliable system that has gone backwards to such an extent that it is probably as bad as British Rail used to be when it was the butt of every comedian’s joke. Trains might or might not arrive. There are delays, staff shortages, staff late for work, or just random cancellations.

I have been a lover of rail travel ever since I was young when I travelled everywhere on trains with my granddad, who started work on the railways at Lime Street station in Liverpool, aged 12, as a bag carrier, and stayed there until he retired. I am a railway lover and I have been brought up on trains, so to see the rail industry in such a mess makes me want to weep. It is being made worse, without doubt, by industrial action and the excessive strike action. It is as if the unions want to push these private train operating companies over the edge to make them fail.

The RMT’s latest act of sabotage—48-hour strikes between 13 December and 7 January, wiping £1.2 billion off the UK’s economy over Christmas—is hurting travellers, businesses and local communities. I am not excusing the management of these railway companies—certainly not—but between them and the unions, they will force people to travel by other means. It will be anything other than the trains. The people who will suffer the most will be those who work on the railways.

Since August 2022, Avanti has cut the number of trains between London, Euston and Manchester Piccadilly from one every 20 minutes to one an hour “until further notice”. It said that it had acted in the wake of industrial action

“to ensure a reliable service is delivered, so customers can travel with greater certainty.”

I am still waiting for that greater certainty, as are my constituents.

Life is difficult enough, but not to be able to get to work, to school, or to see families is unacceptable, especially at the prices that we pay to travel by train. Looking at the cancellation figures between 4 November 2021 to 12 November 2022, it appears that the average cancelled by Avanti was 5.5%, and those cancelled by other causes 6.8%—so, about 12% altogether. However, that is not the full story, because 33% of our trains have already been cancelled and so what we are saying is that 45% of trains have been cancelled. I often get to the station and find that even the guards do not know whether a train is coming or not. Then, I jump on the train to Crewe and perhaps on another one to Stafford and then I go on to London. Instead of a one hour 50 minute journey, it can take four and a half hours or even six hours, each way.

Let us look at the other side of the coin. Only last week, I had an insufferable journey to Crewe, only to find that a direct train from London had been put on at the last minute, which nobody knew about. So an empty train pulled into Crewe to give me the last leg of my journey to Wilmslow. We call these ghost trains; they are empty trains that travel up the line, pretending to get the numbers right, which they are not because nobody is on them. Sadly for its customers, Avanti West Coast had the fewest trains on time, at just 38.8%, making it the least punctual operator in the country. As for the part that runs through my patch, Avanti says that 87% of its trains from 16 October 2022 to 12 November 2022 were 15 minutes or more late. That is a huge amount that are unreliable.

So I guess there are a couple of messages for the Minister. Avanti has to get its house in order or lose its contract to somebody who can run a better rail service. We need to get our rail system back up and running. It has been knocked sideways during the lockdown and it is being battered now by industrial action, but we do not want any more excuses. We need to get our rail system back on track. So here is an idea to make our railway system reliable, regular and well-maintained: let us stop wasting those billions of pounds that are going into HS2 and get a proper train system working right across the country, locally and nationally, for all of the citizens of this country.

17/12/2022
David Jones – 2022 Speech on West Coast Main Line Services

The speech made by David Jones, the Conservative MP for Clwyd West, in the House of Commons on 15 December 2022.

First, I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn (Virginia Crosbie) on securing this debate and the Backbench Business Committee on facilitating it. I guess that the debate is of interest to a considerable number of Members of this House, and I suspect that the reason the Chamber is not fuller today is that a lot of them are in Euston station waiting to see whether they can get a train home. Indeed, to be absolutely frank, the only reason that I am here is that I had the foresight to bring my car on Sunday—I did not want to take my chances with Avanti today immediately before Christmas.

The west coast main line is one of the most important pieces of transport infrastructure in this country, as it links the capital with major population centres such as Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester, Glasgow and Edinburgh. Importantly for my constituents, as my hon. Friend said, it also connects to the north Wales main line, which links the capital to north Wales towns and Holyhead, which is the principal ferry port to Ireland.

For my constituents, the west coast and north Wales main lines are a lifeline to the capital city and the major cities of the north-west and the midlands. North Wales is an extremely important holiday destination, so it is vital for the north Wales economy that there should be good, reliable and frequent links to London and other cities. Similarly, north Wales businesspeople and travellers are entitled to have those links to the capital.

Sadly, the rail network is currently beset by strikes, but that aside, north Wales has not enjoyed a decent train service for quite a long time. For many years, as we have heard, the franchise was operated by Virgin Trains and the service was generally regarded as good, reliable and efficient. In 2019, however, the franchise was granted to Avanti West Coast, which is a joint venture of FirstGroup and Trenitalia, as we have heard. Since then, matters have declined considerably. It is ironic that an Italian company is involved, because it used to be said that the only decent thing that Mussolini ever did was make the Italian trains run on time.

It is no exaggeration to say that Avanti has performed deplorably for much of the year, and nowhere has that performance been more lamentable than in north Wales. For much of the time since August, there has been, at best, only one through train a day between Holyhead and London. Travellers from stations across north Wales have been obliged to change trains once and sometimes twice at Chester and Crewe. The north Wales main line has been reduced to the status of an inefficient branch line.

Complaints are legion. I will give the House a flavour of some of the complaints that I have received from my constituents. One said:

“The current North Wales to London service is the worst I have known in the 30 years that I have used it”,

and that that makes it “impossible” for them or their wife

“to hold UK-wide appointments which require our attendance at meetings in London.”

Another said that Avanti’s management of the west coast route is

“limiting our growth, because we can no longer rely on trains to and from London, as we did when Virgin ran the train line. As such, we have missed many business opportunities because we have had so many trains cancelled, resulting in our clients losing confidence in our service. We have also had return trains delayed, meaning we have incurred unnecessary expense and inconvenience as we have had to stay in hotels and lose valuable working hours the next day.”

I received one on Monday that said:

“I returned to Colwyn Bay on the 18:10 Avanti train from London Euston last Friday. The train consisted of only five coaches instead of the advertised 10 and effectively departed dangerously overloaded due to the number of passengers having to stand. The on-board seat booking system was absent, causing much confusion, no refreshment/buffet service available, and the service arrived over 20 minutes late to Colwyn Bay. In all, a very poor service, which, sadly, I have become accustomed to.”

I could regale the House with similar personal experiences, such as of my five-hour journey home last Friday that would normally take under three hours.

Those complaints are entirely justified when one looks at the empirical evidence. The website of the Office of Rail and Road reveals that the average rate of cancellations in Great Britain as a whole was 4.1% in the quarter from July to September 2022. However, in the same quarter, the rate of cancellations for Avanti West Coast was 12.1%—almost three times the national average. On punctuality, the percentage of recorded station stops arrived at on time for Great Britain as a whole was 67.7%; for Avanti, it was 38.8%—almost twice as bad.

As we have heard, Avanti’s operational problems have primarily been caused by a shortage of available drivers. It has pursued a business model of relying heavily on drivers undertaking overtime work as a matter of course. The short-sightedness of that approach is manifest in the dreadful service that north Wales rail passengers have endured, despite the best efforts of Avanti train staff, who I have no doubt are just as dispirited by the current situation as anyone else. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn, I highly value the work of Avanti train staff, who are always cheerful and efficient; it is just that they are trying to do their best while working for a really inefficient operation.

In August, the vast majority of Avanti staff refused to work overtime, meaning that the company, instead of having the staff to run 400 services, had enough to run only 50. Avanti called this “unofficial strike action”. ASLEF disputes that, saying that drivers do not have to work overtime, and it is hard not to have some sympathy with that view. The fact is that if Avanti wanted to take on the franchise, it was up to the company to ensure that it could deliver on its obligations. Avanti says that all train operators rely on overtime to deliver services, but other, comparable train operators have not had the difficulties that it has experienced. For example, LNER, which runs the east coast franchise, has run a normal timetable since February. Avanti must therefore be incapable of cultivating good relations with its staff in such a way as to achieve an acceptable service.

Avanti formerly operated the franchise under an emergency recovery measures agreement, which fell due to be renewed on 16 October. Many of us fervently hoped that it would not be renewed; indeed, north Wales Conservative MPs wrote to the DFT urging it not to renew it. However, before the 16th, the Department announced that Avanti’s franchise would be extended to 1 April 2023 to assess whether the company could improve its services.

As we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn, Avanti has introduced a new timetable with effect from 11 December, although that timetable still represents a reduction in the normal levels of service. Given the strikes that we are currently enduring, it is probably too early to say whether the timetable will hold. However, it is ominous that, as of yesterday, ASLEF has been balloting its members on strike action over new rosters.

Frankly, Avanti’s stewardship of the west coast franchise has been nothing short of appalling. It has not provided, and it continues not to provide, a proper standard of service to passengers on the west coast main line, and that failure must not be ignored by the Government. I have had a letter from my hon. Friend the Minister today saying that the Government are working with Avanti to try to improve the service. My suspicion is that, with respect, he is flogging a dead horse, because I do not think that Avanti is capable of improvement.

The current situation is not just inconveniencing travellers; it is damaging the economy right across the country, not least in the part of the world I represent. It is impossible to see any good reason why Avanti should continue to operate the west coast franchise. At the earliest possible moment, the Government should remove the franchise from Avanti and seek a new operator for the west coast main line. Avanti has had its chance, and it has failed. There is no reason why passengers in north Wales or in any other part of the country should be expected to continue to endure the consequences of Avanti’s sheer incompetence.

17/12/2022
Navendu Mishra – 2022 Speech on West Coast Main Line Services

The speech made by Navendu Mishra, the Labour MP for Stockport, in the House of Commons on 15 December 2022.

I declare an interest and refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I congratulate the hon. Member for Ynys Môn (Virginia Crosbie) on securing the debate. This is an issue that impacts hundreds of MPs, because the rail service that Avanti delivers connects us all.

I agree with the hon. Member’s closing remarks. If we were to think of a company that symbolised rip-off rail, Avanti would be the first to come to mind. It has a habit of blaming everyone when it comes to its failure. Poor management, expensive tickets, an unreliable service and trains that are not maintained or cleaned properly are all issues. I hope to cover some of them. I will not take too much of the House’s time.

My inbox is often full of people complaining about cancellations, uncertainty, lost business and students unable to go to their university or college because of the poor service provided by Avanti. It seems that one unifying factor around Avanti is that it is pretty much universally disliked. Whether passengers, businesses, staff members who work on its trains or those who supply the trains, everyone seems to have something to say about Avanti and it is almost always negative.

I know the Minister on a personal level and know that he is a hard-working Member of Parliament. A couple of weeks ago, I raised with him that TransPennine Express, which is experiencing similar problems on the network, is owned by FirstGroup, which owns 70% of the Avanti franchise. The Government should hold FirstGroup to account for the failures on Avanti, which are being replicated on TransPennine Express, because this is simply not good enough. It is not acceptable. I have tabled a number of written parliamentary questions on the subject. The fact is that Avanti has damaged the economy in my constituency as well as the wider north-west region.

In my intervention, I referred to the 175 catering roles that Avanti has axed, but there are even more problems when it comes to catering on trains. The equipment is often faulty, so passengers cannot pay with a card. Sometimes, they only take card and not cash—it depends on the train and what equipment there is.

The trains seem to be frequently understaffed. We have heard about the issues with drivers on Avanti. Having spoken to many people who work for Avanti West Coast, the reality is that senior management are viewed as toxic by members of staff. I prefer to travel by train rather than drive to London. My experience as a customer is almost all negative.

The debate is about west coast main line services, so I will not delve too much into ticket office closures, but my views are on record about ticket office closures and the support that those offices provide to people with mobility issues and those who might need extra help at a station. We need a wider debate next year about the value of ticket offices at railway stations.

A lot has been said about drivers and people who work on the trains, and I want to reference the “Justice for Cleaners” campaign. Last week I was outside the Department for Transport when shop stewards from the RMT handed in a letter to the Department regarding extremely low pay, long hours and the difficult jobs that cleaners do on the railway. Avanti does not have a good reputation. Those who have travelled on its trains will have seen that often they are not clean, they seem to be unhygienic and the toilets are in a terrible state.

During the pandemic, we all were happy to clap for cleaners and key workers, because they kept us safe and did a difficult job. Sadly, many cleaners across the world lost their lives during the pandemic because of the exposure they faced. Atalian Servest has the contract for Avanti West Coast. It is well known for low pay and long hours. A friend of mine—I would not like to name her—lives in my constituency, and I knew her son. Sadly he is not with us any more. She works as a cleaner on the railway, and I often bump into her on the journey from Westminster back to Stockport. We need to make sure that they get decent pay so that they do not have to rely on food banks. Research by the RMT shows that one in 10 railway cleaners are using food banks. One quarter of cleaners are skipping meals, and one in three are reliant on credit cards to survive. A shocking 84% of railway cleaners are struggling to make ends meet. Those figures are staggering.

A lot is said about collective bargaining, but if we look at the staffing model for the railways, we see that cleaners often tend to be some of the lowest-paid people. Inflation is at almost 11%, thanks to economic mismanagement by the Government, and those people are often on zero-hours contracts or low pay. We need to make sure that they are on a minimum of £15 an hour and get proper sick pay, travel facilities and a decent pension. It is not much to ask for in one of the richest economies in the world that people who clean our trains are paid a decent wage.

I noticed that earlier this week during Prime Minister’s questions, there was a question from a Conservative MP about the shocking state of the Avanti West Coast franchise. The Prime Minister said:

“My right hon. Friend is absolutely right about the unacceptable deterioration in the quality of Avanti’s service.”—[Official Report, 30 November 2022; Vol. 723, c. 898.]

I am glad that the Prime Minister is aware of what is faced by the millions of people who have to travel on Avanti. I know that the Minister sent a comprehensive letter to MPs this afternoon. In my view, it does not go far enough, but I am grateful to him for that correspondence.

As I have the Minister’s attention, I highlight the fact that I wrote to the Secretary of State for Transport on 29 November with a series of questions. I have not received a response. I have tabled a written question seeking a response, so I hope he can help me get a response to that letter.

I will finish on the point that the root cause of the failures with Avanti, but also with TransPennine Express and other rail companies, is privatisation. These firms prioritise profit extraction over public service and connectivity. Avanti has terrible customer service, and it prioritises profit extraction over fair pay for its staff and the people who work on its trains, such as cleaners. Public transport is a public service. Having good public transport links is excellent for our environment, air quality, connectivity, economic growth other such issues. We really do need better.

This might be a rare occasion when I entirely agree with a Member on the Government Benches, but I entirely agree with the hon. Member for Ynys Môn that Avanti should not be allowed to run the franchise beyond April next year. We need to make sure that the Government do not extend the contract and that the franchise goes back into public ownership, so that it is run for people and the planet, rather than for FirstGroup shareholders to feed off. I will finish there. I could say a lot more, and I apologise for stepping out earlier—please forgive me, Madam Deputy Speaker. Once again, I thank the hon. Member for securing this debate, and I look forward to the other contributions.

17/12/2022
Virginia Crosbie – 2022 Speech on West Coast Main Line Services

The speech made by Virginia Crosbie, the Conservative MP for Ynys Mon, in the House of Commons on 15 December 2022.

I beg to move,

That this House has considered rail transport services for communities served by the West Coast Main Line.

I am grateful to those from both sides of the House who are here today for this important debate on the west coast main line. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for allowing this debate. It is on a cross-party issue, and the irony is not lost on me that many Members are only here because they could not get a train back yesterday.

The west coast main line rail service has been the subject of some debate in this House already over recent months. Since Avanti became the franchise holder, taking over from Virgin in December 2019, services have been cut, cancellations are rife, staff morale is at rock bottom, and passengers and communities are suffering. Many have voiced their concerns and dissatisfaction with the service that Avanti has been running in questions, letters and conversations with Ministers. I have called this debate because this issue is important. It is important to our communities that we recognise and raise the issues we are all facing as a result of Avanti’s substandard service, and that our constituents know that we are working hard to keep the matter on the Government’s radar. My own community of Ynys Môn has been particularly badly hit, and I would like to give the House some background on why this matter is so important to my constituents.

Holyhead, as a port, has been a key point in the transport of mail from London to Ireland since at least the last quarter of the 16th century. In the early 1800s, the demand for faster delivery meant that mail started to divert via the port of Liverpool, which already had a rail link. It was the introduction of a new rail line in 1848 that saved Holyhead from becoming a backwater. From that point, Holyhead offered the fastest route for mail to Ireland. It was the speed of rail transportation that maintained Holyhead’s route as an important port and town. It remains the second busiest ro-ro port in the UK, with many passengers coming in by train and onward by ferry to and from Ireland.

As a terminus, the railway also brings Holyhead and the rest of Ynys Môn much-needed local employment. The island has one of the lowest GVAs—gross value added—in the UK, and Holyhead is home to some of the most deprived communities in Wales. Before rail was privatised, many local people worked for British Rail, either on the trains or as part of Sealink ferry services. Some are still employed by Avanti, Transport for Wales and Stena Line. Our local shops and services provide for passengers coming in on trains, bringing extra income into the town. Direct trains to London also offer an opportunity for local people growing up in rural north Wales to access the cultural and historic attractions of London, and experience the heady excitement of the big city.

So for Holyhead in particular, the railway is not just something that passes through the town. It has been part of the very fabric of life for 175 years. No one expected this way of life to suffer such a blow from the change of franchise. We all understand that our rail operators, including Avanti, went through very challenging times during the pandemic, and we understand that during it, it was necessary to cut the number of trains running at that time. The problem is that Avanti not only has not picked its game back up, but has allowed its services to deteriorate.

Our rail timetable has been shattered, with direct services between London and Holyhead hacked. Local ferry passenger numbers have been challenged by the lack of through train services from London. This has also stopped my constituents from accessing the cultural, political and historical collateral of the UK’s capital city. Those with mobility needs or travelling with children are particularly disadvantaged by cuts in direct services. Local people who commute from north Wales to other parts of the UK have been severely affected.

Some hon. Members will know from my recent Adjournment debate that Ynys Môn recently experienced another connectivity disaster, when the Welsh Government put in place an emergency closure on the Menai suspension bridge, having allowed the bridge to fall into disrepair. The bridge is one of only two physical links between the island and the mainland. As one constituent who moved to Anglesey to run his business told me,

“with the whole range of transport problems affecting Ynys Mon and the adjoining mainland I am starting to regret my decision to base the core of my business here and I suspect that many others share my view.”

Prior to the pandemic, the Trainline website claimed:

“It is possible to travel from Holyhead to London Euston without having to change trains. There are nine direct trains from Holyhead to London Euston each day.”

But in February this year, we had just one direct train running each way between Holyhead and London. When I wrote to Avanti to raise my concerns, its response was:

“We are currently working closely with Government, Network Rail and industry partners to update our timetable which we hope to move forward with in the next few weeks—this will include the reintroduction of further services to North Wales.”

In June, Avanti said that we would have six direct trains a day in north Wales. That did not materialise, and by August it was axing trains across the whole network and introduced a significantly reduced timetable. As Transport Focus put it,

“The primary aim of introducing a reduced timetable is to ensure a reliable service is delivered to passengers so they can travel with greater certainty without the frustration and inconvenience caused by short-notice cancellations.”

However, in the second half of this year, complaints that I received about Avanti’s rail service from both passengers and staff increased by over 600%. A recent report from Transport Focus found that 28% of Avanti passengers said that they had experienced a change, cancellation or delay to their journey. Just over four in 10 passengers rated Avanti’s communication about delays as good. A quarter of Avanti passengers said that the level of crowding was poor.

For months, Avanti’s own travel tracker has shown a plethora of delayed and cancelled trains, many of which it has blamed on staff shortages, broken down trains or trains diverted to cover previously cancelled services. Data from the Office of Road and Rail shows that, between July and September, even though it had already removed thousands of services from its schedules, less than half of Avanti West Coast trains ran on time. One in eight was cancelled. That is nearly twice as many cancellations as the UK average. Many of us will recognise the reality of the situation all too well. Travelling with Avanti has become a lottery. A good, pain-free, on-schedule journey is such a novelty that my team celebrate when it happens.

We have been told by Avanti West Coast that the service will return to pre-pandemic frequency. However, a look at its timetable released this week for 11 December to 20 May next year shows just five direct trains each way between Holyhead and London Monday to Saturday, and three on a Sunday. The timetable for today, sitting as it does immediately after a strike day, offers four direct trains from London to Holyhead, with three making the return journey. That was this morning. Even I will admit that five, four or even three direct trains is better than the one we had earlier this year, but planning journeys is still a nightmare. Although Avanti has apparently committed to give us reliable timetables six to eight weeks in advance of travel, when I looked earlier this week, its website still showed no train timetable for some dates in January.

What worries most of us now is not what it says on the timetable but what happens in reality. After months of listening to Avanti’s promises and then suffering when it fails to deliver, I do not view the timetable with a great deal of optimism. How has this come to pass? What has turned a once reasonably reliable train service into what we have today?

Like other operators, Avanti was impacted by the pandemic. It has also been impacted by the nationwide RMT strikes and actions by other unions. However, its problems largely stem from staffing issues. For years, train operators have used staff working overtime to keep all their services running. They have relied on workers doing extra shifts on their day off to help crew trains. Avanti is blaming its problems on staff withdrawing their support for this arrangement, but according to staff, Avanti’s actions since taking over the franchise have led to this point. It has cut staff without replacing them and reduced morale to such an extent that workers have stopped volunteering for extra shifts.

Navendu Mishra (Stockport) (Lab)

On the hon. Lady’s point on staff, my understanding is that since Avanti took over the franchise, it has got rid of 175 catering roles. That is having an impact on the service provided on board in standard class as well as first class. The service that Avanti is providing is significantly worse than what Virgin, the previous franchise holder, provided.

Virginia Crosbie

I thank the hon. Member for that important intervention. He makes a clear point about the services that are being axed. They affect not only the people using the transport but those who are trying to work on the trains and offer a good service.

Mike Whelan, the general secretary of ASLEF, said earlier this year that Avanti

“does not employ enough drivers to deliver the services it has promised passengers it will run. In fact, the company itself has admitted that 400 trains a week are dependent on drivers working their rest days.”

Avanti says that it is working hard to address the problems by recruiting more staff. It says that by the end of December it will have 100 more drivers than in April. But Avanti staff are deeply unhappy and sceptical, as anyone who travels regularly will know.

Many Avanti staff have been working on the route for years. They moved to Avanti from Virgin when the franchise was changed. They have experience of working on the route when it was not perfect but at least functional. Earlier this month, the RMT carried out a survey of Avanti staff that showed that 92% of respondents are either not very confident or have no confidence at all in Avanti’s ability to deliver the improvements that it has been told to make to its services. More than 80% agree that their working lives have got harder since Avanti took over, there are not enough staff on the route and Avanti is mismanaging the workforce.

Avanti’s own staff rated service to passengers at just 22 on a scale of zero to 100. One respondent stated:

“the staffing issues started way before July. Jobs haven’t been backfilled for a long time”.

Another said,

“staff shortages have been an issue for months…Poor management of key contracts have made working for Avanti unpleasant and embarrassing.”

The survey details that frontline staff are on the receiving end of a high level of abuse from frustrated passengers. They say that management is chaotic, there is not enough information about services, and there are too few staff and too many last-minute shift changes. They say they feel disrespected, undervalued, demotivated, stressed and angry.

Rob Roberts (Delyn) (Ind)

My hon. Friend is making some very good points. Would she, for the record, agree that the staff who are there, despite feeling undervalued and demoralised, do a wonderful job in being cheerful, trying to be as upbeat as they can and delivering the best service they can in the face of such difficult conditions? The staff are doing their best in trying circumstances.

Virginia Crosbie

My hon. Friend makes a very important point. Personally, I am looking forward to getting on that train today. Some of these people are my friends—they light up my life—they are important and they are trying to do an important job in challenging times.

As one staff member said:

“The company has been run into the ground by Avanti…and the frontline are the ones taking the brunt of it. In my 15 years’ service I have never seen such a shambles.”

From the passenger perspective, one constituent recently wrote:

“There is no shortage of people who want to use trains; ticketholders come from all walks of life and are prepared to pay for safe, comfortable and efficient journeys by rail. These services can and have been delivered at times but, overall, the Chester to Holyhead service is…a byword for rip-off rail.”

In October, despite requests from many of us to terminate the franchise, the Government granted Avanti an extension of six months to get its house in order. Two months on, we have a new timetable that no one, including the Avanti staff, believes is realistic, a service cancellation rate that has done nothing but increase over the past year, and a history of broken promises from Avanti. It has until March 2023 to sort this sorry mess out.

Avanti’s website calls the west coast main line:

“Britain’s premier long-distance railway, linking together towns and major cities to create a vital economic artery for the UK.”

It goes on to say that it is

“on a mission to run a railway that generates prosperity and pride, right across the nation…an iconic railway the country can be proud of”.

No one would be happier than me if it achieved that mission. My journey home takes four hours on a good day, and the thought of more miserable months waiting on cold platforms or rearranging meetings because of sudden service cancellations does not fill me with a warm glow of joy. So I am coming clean and admitting that, like so many of my constituents, I have a vested interest in Avanti getting it right.

Looking at the timetables for today, I have absolutely no idea what time I will get home to Holyhead tonight—or if at all. All I can see are the words in red: “Delayed”, “Delayed”, “Cancelled”, “Not available to buy” and “Delayed”. Does my hon. Friend the Minister agree that the extension granted in October will be Avanti’s last chance, that it cannot keep blaming its failings on everything and everyone else and that, if we do not see significant improvements in service and a reliable road map to return the west coast main line to at least pre-pandemic levels by March, its franchise will be removed and the service put under the operator of last resort?

17/12/2022
Mark Harper – 2022 Statement on Rail Services in the North

The statement made by Mark Harper, the Secretary of State for Transport, in the House of Commons on 13 December 2022.

Members will be aware that, in July 2022, Avanti West Coast experienced an immediate and near total cessation of drivers volunteering to work on passenger trains on rest days. In response, it has had to reduce its timetable to provide greater certainty for passengers.

Similarly, TransPennine Express services continue to be impacted by the loss of rest day working, higher than average staff sickness levels, and historically high levels of drivers leaving the business.

The current rail services in the north have therefore been unacceptable, and on November 30 I met with the northern Mayors in Manchester. In that meeting, we agreed that the rail industry is not set up to deliver a modern, reliable service, and that we need both short-term and long-term measures to address this.

As a short-term measure, Avanti West Coast and TransPennine Express have both been rapidly increasing the number of drivers they employ. This is helping Avanti restore the services that it was forced to withdraw. Services increased in September, and have now increased to 7 trains per hour, restoring the full Manchester-London service. It is therefore disappointing that passengers will not see the full benefit of these changes until the current wave of industrial action is over. I was pleased to see the RMT call off the strike action scheduled for Avanti West Coast on 11 and 12 December, as sustaining this level of service will require the support of the trade unions.

I have also given TransPennine Express and Northern the scope they need to put a meaningful and generous rest day working offer to ASLEF. However, giving operators a mandate is only the first step. ASLEF needs to enter negotiations, and put any new deal to its members and, if accepted, do all it can to make that deal work. TransPennine has made a generous revised offer to ASLEF and it was almost immediately rejected without being put to members. It is up to the unions to decide if they want to improve services, for the good of passengers and the wider economy in the north.

Today, the RMT is on strike across the country again, disrupting services and driving passengers away from the railway. In my meeting with the Mayors, we all agreed on the need for a reliable railway seven days a week. That means not having fragile rest day working agreements and breaking the railway’s dependence on rest day working altogether. No modern and successful business relies on the good will of its staff to deliver for its customers in the evening and at the weekend. I want a railway with rewarding jobs, contracted to deliver every service promised to the public. I want to encourage passengers back to a financially sustainable railway.

14/12/2022
Mick Lynch – 2022 Interview with Richard Madeley and Susanna Reid

The interview between Richard Madeley/Susanna Reid and Mick Lynch on Good Morning Britain on 13 December 2022.

INTERVIEWER

[Asked Lynch why he had changed his mind on keeping the Christmas period strike free]

MICK LYNCH

Something’s changed, Network Rail have decided from Wednesday to start imposing their unacceptable changes that our members have just voted against. They have told us that no matter what happens they will impose work-life balance changes, changes to the working practices and the cuts to the safety inspection regime on the railway by 50 percent. So we had to respond to that, so the additional strike action that we’re putting on is during the Christmas shutdown, as from Christmas Eve the railway shuts down for engineering work. During that period our members will take additional strike action which is frankly targeted at Network Rail’s engineering works rather than the passenger service.

INTERVIEWER

[Asked if the strike was just about pay]

MICK LYNCH

Network Rail are bringing a series of changes on what they call a modernising maintenance program that involves cutting 50 percent of maintenance scheduled tasks, so it will cut the safety regime and the inspection regime by 50 percent. They want to move our members to a far greater level of unsocial hours, so Saturday nights, weekend work, midweek nights, they’re seeking to change their competency levels as they want them to work outside their current skill levels and we’ll keep talking to the company on that, but at the moment their proposals
are not acceptable. But that doesn’t mean that we can’t reach a compromise, so for many of our members in Network Rail pay is secondary to the changes to their working lives and the fact that they probably won’t see their families at the levels that they’re used to. The unsocial hours element is very important to them.

On the train operating companies they want to shut every booking office in Britain, they want to bring in driver-only operation and many other changes to our people’s terms and conditions that are not acceptable at this stage, all at a cut price way below inflation pay
increase on both of those companies.

INTERVIEWER

[Asked Lynch if some of his supporters were opposed to the strikes as they were almost sadists for the strike at this time of year? Why were strikes not in January?]

MICK LYNCH

We’re not targeting Christmas, it isn’t Christmas yet Richard I don’t know when your Christmas starts, but mine starts on Christmas Eve.

INTERVIEWER

[Called Lynch disingenuous]

MICK LYNCH

You’re ranting Richard. Have you finished? I have answered the question, if you give me a minute, I will answer.

INTERVIEWER

[Accused Lynch of talking nonsense, that Christmas doesn’t begin on Christmas Eve]

MICK LYNCH

Richard, why don’t you just interview yourself if you want to?

INTERVIEWER

[Said he was holding Lynch to account]

MICK LYNCH

Well you can’t interrupt me if you don’t let me talk.

INTERVIEWER

[Asked Lynch why action was being taken over the Christmas period]

MICK LYNCH

Are you going to let me speak now? I’ve told you that Network Rail will start imposing these changes from 15 December. They told us that three weeks ago, they told us that the consultation process had finished and they will move towards implementation so our strike action is
is in response to that. The strike action we’re taking at Christmas is during the Christmas close down where there will be no passenger services running after the evening of 24 December, so that does not impact on Christmas because the railway is closed down from the 25th to
the 26th into the 27th and that’s when we’re taking the action that you’re referring to. This week’s action was given with three weeks notice, well in advance so that we could get negotiations going and we haven’t actually had strike action for eight weeks, so there’s been plenty of time for the company to come up proposals that may be acceptable and our members have rejected those proposals on Network Rail on a turnout of 83%, two-thirds of them voted against the proposals, so we have to move this dispute forward.

I have no intention of spoiling people’s Christmas, the government is is contributing to that, that spoiling of people’s Christmas because they’ve brought these strikes on by stopping the companies from making suitable proposals. That’s the position that we’re in and we’ll have to keep this dispute going until we get a reasonable settlement and a reasonable set of proposals that our members want to accept.

[INTERVIEWER]

[Asked Lynch if this was in the hands of the Government and do the RMT need public support for these strike actions?]

MICK LYNCH

Didn’t you run a poll on your show last week where two-thirds of the respondents said that they supported the strikes, that’s after we announced them? I saw a poll on Yougov last week that said that the public was still supporting our railway strikes.

INTERVIEWER

[Questioned whether that support was still present?]

MICK LYNCH

What did the poll that your program ran online last week say?

INTERVIEWER

[Said they didn’t know]

MICK LYNCH

Well, I know. It was on your programme last week and we’ve got two-thirds of the support. We’ve still got plenty of time before the Christmas Eve strikes if Andrew Haines, the train operating companies, Hugh Merriman the Rail Minister and Mark Harper the Secretary of State, want to come to me with a set of serious proposals to improve their offer so that we can get a settlement to the dispute we’ll come over and see them as soon as possible. They’ve already invited me to a set of talks and we’ll attend those to try and get a settlement to this dispute. When our members decide that they want to accept it, that’s when the dispute will be finished.

13/12/2022
Richard Holden – 2022 Speech on Free Bus Travel for Care Leavers

The speech made by Richard Holden, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport, in Westminster Hall, the House of Commons, on 7 December 2022.

It is a pleasure to serve for the first time under your chairmanship, Mrs Cummins. I start by thanking the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe) for bringing the debate forward, and I congratulate him on securing it. As chair of the APPG for looked after children and care leavers, he has done a huge amount in this area, and continues to do so. On a personal note, let me say more power to his elbow, because he does a great job of advocating for those who, too often, do not have a voice in this place.

The hon. Gentleman is right that there is a cross-Government responsibility to care leavers, whether on the part of the Department for Work and Pensions, as he and the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) mentioned, the Department for Transport, the Department of Health and Social Care or the Department for Education.

We know that buses are the foundation of an efficient and inclusive public transport system. The hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak was right that I have a healthy desire to increase public transport use, particularly following the pandemic, when we saw a drop-off in ridership, with the biggest fall happening in concessionary schemes for the elderly and disabled. I hope the hon. Gentleman will welcome some of the schemes to re-boost ridership over the coming few months. It is only through usage that we can help to keep buses sustainable for everybody to use.

As the hon. Gentleman mentioned, buses provide important access to employment, as well as education, leisure and other crucial connections that are valued by so many, including care leavers. In England, we provide free bus travel for those who are older or who have certain disabilities, and that important scheme helps maintain the network of bus services. It is also well used and popular, with more than 860 million journeys made in the year before the pandemic and take-up of around 80%, as the hon. Gentleman mentioned.

The Government are committed to bus services, and we provided £2 billion during the pandemic to keep them going. We have continued to provide support for the sector, which is helping to maintain services. It is not just about maintaining our existing network of bus services, but expanding it in scope and quality, through the city region sustainable transport settlements, the zero emission bus regional areas fund and, crucially, the bus service improvement plans. We aim to transform the quality of bus services across the country.

Why do I say all of that? Free bus travel does not mean much if there is no bus service. Our approach with the national bus strategy, as well as the enhanced partnerships and franchising we have enabled under the Bus Services Act 2017, will put buses on a more sustainable, long-term footing as a key part of England’s transport network.

Dr Dan Poulter (Central Suffolk and North Ipswich) (Con)

The Minister is right to point out the challenges of running a bus service when there are not enough customers to fund it. There are concessions for many groups in society, so might he at least take away from this debate the potential to look at this proposal, given the vulnerabilities of care leavers? We are dealing with a vulnerable group that is disadvantaged in many ways, for whom this could be a great benefit.

Mr Holden

I thank my hon. Friend for that point, which I will come on to address and which has been well made by both him and the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak.

We know that care leavers face massive challenges, including with transport. They need to get to work, education and training, as well as to have social interactions that are sometimes more difficult for them. The issue is of interest to me because of my previous life as a special adviser in the Department for Education, and I did a lot of work on it at the time. The “staying put” and “staying close” schemes have been really important in that respect. It is also important that we recognise that we have an extra responsibility to care leavers beyond the age of 18, and there has been important movement on that in recent years. That is where the Barnardo’s report is driving forwards today.

However, we could do more across Government. We have heard about the real and significant difficulties that exist, which the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak described so well. I am happy that a number of local authorities are already providing support, and the hon. Gentleman mentioned some of them. The work Barnardo’s undertook demonstrated that only 11 local authorities of the 116 that responded provided no transport support for care leavers. So only a few provide absolutely no help but, as the hon. Gentleman mentioned, much of that is discretionary, and those authorities are under pressure.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned the Greater Manchester scheme, which has been in place since the end of 2019 and offers free travel up to the age of 21. Many other places provide that discretionary help, but perhaps the hon. Gentleman thinks we need to look beyond bespoke pathways. Since the publication of the report in July we have also seen a pilot launch in my part of the world, the north-east, as the hon. Gentleman mentioned. More than 300 young care leavers have been offered free transport across Tyne and Wear. That pilot, which is a partnership between the councils, bus operators and the NHS, demonstrates how improving opportunities for care leavers touches many aspects of public services, as the hon. Gentleman mentioned. If the pilot is successful, it will be rolled out further locally using the BSIP funding, on which my Department is currently in negotiations with north-east authorities. That is a small part of the wider changes to bus services in the north-east, which I am keen to support as the Minister responsible. However, at the same time as praising the value of these trials, I must acknowledge that we face a tough fiscal environment, as noted by the Chancellor in his fiscal statement. Sadly, I am not sure that the Treasury would allow me to play Santa, even at this time of year.

As the hon. Gentleman noted, providing universal bus travel would cost around £77 million—adding around 7.5% to the current concessionary schemes. I am sure hon. Members present are aware that concessionary travel is managed by local authorities. In many ways, they do not get sufficient credit for operating—sometimes almost invisibly—the complex system of transaction and reimbursement around the concessionary scheme. That scheme needs to be sustainable in the long term. I am happy to say that 76 of the 83 authorities have chosen to enhance the scheme using their own resources, above what the Government provide.

If we wish to add further complexity to this locally run and operated system, it should meet three criteria: it has to be deliverable, effective and affordable. In many ways, the third part is enabled by the first two. The hon. Member’s proposals face some short-term challenges in terms of affordability, and I have gone into those. In terms of deliverability, the legislative regime would face challenges in simply providing for care leavers to receive free transport nationally. There would need to be changes to the Transport Act 2000. I am sure hon. Members present appreciate that that cannot be done overnight.

In terms of effectiveness, that is perhaps where we could benefit most from further work. As I have mentioned, trials and projects are under way in England to provide free transport for care leavers. My officials have recently been in touch with officials from some of the key authorities trialling these projects. I will ask to be kept apprised of developments and any evaluation of the trials, including the impact on employment outcomes, which the hon. Member for Strangford mentioned. It is perhaps worth mentioning that these schemes do not involve the English national concessionary travel scheme or legislative change, and they are seeking to do things more quickly by getting existing smart-ticketing products to care leavers. This is something local authorities could do with their own resources, and I will be very interested to see the outcomes of the trials.

I have previously mentioned the care leaver covenant, which is a fantastic initiative designed to provide support for care leavers, not just within Government, but across the public, private and voluntary sectors. My Department has played its part in that by participating in the civil service care leavers internship scheme. I would love to see transport providers, including bus operators, sign up to the covenant and provide free or discounted travel to care leavers to recognise the importance of inclusion across our society.

We take seriously all requests for extensions to concessionary travel, including for care leavers—I certainly do—but we have to balance them with universal changes, the financial sustainability of the scheme, local areas’ knowledge of how their transport networks work best, and how quickly we can deliver the changes we want.

In closing, I again thank the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak for calling for the debate, and I thank other Members for their contributions. I will meet the hon. Gentleman and Barnardo’s in the new year—possibly in Cornwall, where Barnardo’s scheme has been in place, because it would be interesting to see it on the ground. I will continue to look at the issue as part of our reviews of concessionary schemes. Perhaps there will even be a fourth-Session Bill—the hon. Gentleman could help me by lobbying broader Government in that direction. I will continue, as he asked, to engage across Government in this space, which is important, particularly in terms of employability and helping young people leaving care to make connections that will put them in good stead for the rest of their lives. This is a vital issue, and I look forward to engaging further with the hon. Gentleman and other hon. Members as we seek to improve concessionary travel across England.

11/12/2022