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  • Robin Millar – 2022 Speech on West Coast Main Line Services

    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?

  • Rob Roberts – 2022 Speech on West Coast Main Line Services

    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.

  • Ben Everitt – 2022 Speech on West Coast Main Line Services

    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.

  • Esther McVey – 2022 Speech on West Coast Main Line Services

    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.

  • David Jones – 2022 Speech on West Coast Main Line Services

    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.

  • Navendu Mishra – 2022 Speech on West Coast Main Line Services

    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.

  • Virginia Crosbie – 2022 Speech on West Coast Main Line Services

    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?

  • Kevin Hollinrake – 2022 Speech on Prepayment Meters

    Kevin Hollinrake – 2022 Speech on Prepayment Meters

    The speech made by Kevin Hollinrake, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, in the House of Commons on 15 December 2022.

    Let me begin by thanking the hon. Member for Glasgow North East (Anne McLaughlin) for the positive way in which she introduced this important and sensitive debate. Like her, I have always adopted the principle that we get more with sugar than we do with salt, so I do whatever I can to protect the customers about whom she is concerned, particularly those with prepayment meters. As she said, the problems among that cohort will become worse during the winter, notably the cost of living crisis and the cold weather—nowhere more than in Scotland, she said, although north Yorkshire also gets fairly cold at this time of year, as, indeed, do other parts of the country: my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham) mentioned parts of his own constituency where people are being affected.

    The Government entirely share the hon. Lady’s concerns. It is of course important to bear in mind suggestions, such as those made in today’s debate, of ways in which to keep our rules and regulations and processes under review to ensure that these vulnerable people are protected. However, we are able to provide robust protections and financial support for people in those circumstances, and I shall say more about that shortly.

    The problems of debt create great anxiety, and that is another element that requires consideration. At times in the past I have been in debt, both personally and in my business life, and I know how anxious it can make people and their families. For some years I co-chaired the all-party parliamentary group on poverty, whose aim was to reduce the impacts of poverty and which considered matters such as the poverty premium, which is relevant to the issue of prepayment meters.

    Ours is not the only country that has these meters; they are used around the world, with the purpose of managing debt. The one thing that people in circumstances such as this need to be able to do is budget properly. I think it was acknowledged by the hon. Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady) that prepayment meters have a role in helping people to budget, and can reduce the chances of their getting into debt or their debt increasing, making their position even worse.

    Catherine West

    I think the whole House would accept that advice on debt and debt management is crucial, but when a student household is spending £12 for 20 minutes of hot water, which, extrapolated over 12 months, is £4,300—and that is not even a dual fuel bill; it is a single bill—there is a problem, and it has nothing to do with debt management.

    Kevin Hollinrake

    That is definitely an issue. We need to ensure that people have access to fair deals, and I shall say more about that in a moment.

    As was acknowledged by the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Southampton, Test (Dr Whitehead), one of the difficulties involved in not using a prepayment meter is the fact that the only alternative would be court action, which could potentially increase the debt and affect someone’s credit rating, which is the least desirable outcome.

    Anne McLaughlin

    The Minister seems to be arguing that if the energy companies have to take people to court, it will cost those people more than having their prepayment meters cut off. The point is that they will not be taken to court immediately. Someone like me can wait for a year while the energy company is trying to work out some plan. Energy companies are more likely to work with the person concerned to find a way for them to pay their bills than to take them to court straight away.

    Kevin Hollinrake

    The hon. Lady has raised an important point about people being treated equally. In these circumstances, people will often have been through the processes that she has described. They will have been on normal payment terms, and there will have been a debt recognition and reconciliation process that may have ended up with people either adopting a prepayment meter voluntarily or, as a last resort, having one forced upon them. There are mechanisms, which I will explain in a minute, whereby people are granted abeyance and forbearance.

    In the case of many households, if debt were allowed to spiral out of control—and that is not generally voluntary; it is more often due to matters beyond the control of those households, and it is important that we provide support for them—the suppliers themselves could find themselves in a perilous position. These are commercial suppliers of electricity and gas. In fact, this could force out of the market suppliers who specialise in cases such as this. The last thing we want is a lack of provision for people in these circumstances.

    These prepayment meters have moved on from the ones that we used to have. The modern smart meters are far easier to top up remotely, and make it easier to check balances.

    Stephen Kinnock (Aberavon) (Lab)

    I thank the Minister for giving way; he is being very generous.

    My constituency office is being contacted by a great many people who have still not received their prepayment vouchers from the energy suppliers, but are receiving letters from the suppliers telling them that if they do not use the vouchers by January they will be cancelled, which would of course push those people further into debt. What are the Government doing to ensure that they receive the vouchers and do not lose the money to which they are entitled?

    Kevin Hollinrake

    Other Members have made that important point, and I will come to it, but I had better make some progress, because you asked me to finish in about four minutes, Madam Deputy Speaker, which I shall endeavour to do.

    We believe that there is a role for prepayment meters. Ofgem rules already require energy suppliers to offer a prepayment service only when it is safe and reasonably practicable to do so, and that applies whether a meter is smart or traditional. There are clear obligations on energy suppliers regarding customers in payment difficulty, and a prescribed process for occasions on which a warrant is required. That point was raised by the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown) and, indeed, by the hon. Member for Glasgow North East.

    There are clear expectations for suppliers in respect of the steps to be taken before they instal a prepayment meter owing to debt, or switching a smart meter from credit to prepayment mode. Those steps include conversations to discuss debt repayment, budget management and energy efficiency measures, and referrals to debt advisers and charities. Before a prepayment meter is chosen as the debt repayment pathway, its safety must be assessed, as well as the customer’s ability to pay. Suppliers must give their customers seven days’ notice before installing a prepayment meter or switching a smart meter to prepayment mode. Ofgem recently published a regulatory expectations letter, in which it set out its expectation that suppliers will ensure that prepayment meters are safe and reasonably practicable in every case.

    I would like to highlight some of the circumstances in which it is not deemed safe to have a prepayment meter, which include having specific disabilities or illnesses, or having children under five, as has been set out. Indeed, the hon. Member for East Lothian (Kenny MacAskill) raised that point. It is absolutely right that we provide support for those who are most in need.

    The hon. Member also raised the issue of social tariffs, which were introduced in 2008 as part of a voluntary agreement between the Government and energy suppliers. They were replaced by the current mandated warm home discount scheme in 2011. This has improved outcomes by providing consistent and transparent benefits, and by utilising data matching to improve targeting. Clearly, it is important that we continue to review our current provisions and see what else might be done to help people in those circumstances.

    Alan Brown

    The Minister almost seems to be making an argument that the warm home discount scheme has been more successful than the social tariffs. Why then has the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy confirmed that it is considering revisiting social tariffs? I do support that, but he seems to be making a contrary argument.

    Kevin Hollinrake

    I do not think it is a contrary argument. We should always look to improve our rules. We believe it is an improvement on the past scheme, but there may be further improvements we can make. That is the right iterative process to take.

    Richard Graham

    Will the Minister give way?

    Kevin Hollinrake

    Yes—for the last time, if I can.

    Richard Graham

    On action, what does the Minister think can be done on social tariffs?

    Kevin Hollinrake

    That is a very good point. We are happy to listen to evidence from right across the House on different things that might be done, but clearly the most important thing is to ensure that support is targeted at those most in need. If there are better ways to do that, then we should certainly be listening. I would be very happy to talk to my hon. Friend at any point about any suggestions he might have. I know these issues are very important to him, so I am very keen to continue that conversation.

    Catherine West

    Will the Minister give way?

    Kevin Hollinrake

    I am sorry, but I am already past my time. I will have to conclude.

    As Members will know, the Government have stepped in through various different mechanisms, including the energy price guarantee, energy bills support scheme and the energy bill relief scheme for businesses, with about £75 billion of taxpayer support for those areas.

    The hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green talked about inherited debt, which is a very interesting point. We have not had evidence of that. If she has evidence of that and could write to me, I would be very interested in taking that up for her.

    Before I conclude, I want to touch on standing charges, which is a very important point. We want to ensure that the market is as competitive as possible, so that people can access fair deals and we do not get the poverty premium that I mentioned earlier. Under Ofgem rules, charges must reflect the cost of delivering the service. It can be the case that there is a higher cost to suppliers for operating supplies for those on prepayment meters. It is important that we continue to look at that to see whether there might be better ways to ensure those customers are treated more fairly.

    To conclude, the Government are listening to consumers and industry. We are providing a substantive support package via the energy bills support scheme and the energy price guarantee. Ofgem, the regulator, has set robust regulatory protections for consumers on prepayment meters. We are committed to providing the support and protections necessary to ensure that consumers and industry will thrive in the decades to come. [Interruption.]

    I will conclude by talking about the vouchers. There is a problem in terms of vouchers. About 60% of people have managed to gain support through vouchers. We have written to suppliers on this particular matter. We need to improve the communication between suppliers and customers to ensure that take-up is higher. We believe that the take-up will improve over future weeks, but we are definitely keeping that under review and are keen to ensure all that support reaches households where it is intended to do so.

  • Alan Brown – 2022 Speech on Prepayment Meters

    Alan Brown – 2022 Speech on Prepayment Meters

    The speech made by Alan Brown, the SNP MP for Kilmarnock and Loudoun, in the House of Commons on 15 December 2022.

    I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North East (Anne McLaughlin) for securing this debate. She rightly said she is looking for action, and action now, rather than self-awareness, but she also said she is hopeful, verging on confident, that the Government will take action. I do not share her confidence, but hopefully the Minister will prove me wrong.

    I also commend the hon. Members for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady), for East Lothian (Kenny MacAskill) and for Hornsey and Wood Green (Catherine West) for their contributions.

    Obviously, I disagree with the inequity of higher standing charges being applied to people on prepayment meters. We have heard several times how people with disabilities already pay more just to get through their day-to-day life, and they suffer from paying these higher charges, too. My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North East and the hon. Member for Glasgow North paid tribute to Marie Curie and its “Dying without Dignity” campaign. It is heartbreaking to hear the personal example of the friends of my hon. Gentleman. I hope Mel and Tom get all the support they need. The hon. Member for East Lothian completely destroyed the euphemism of self-disconnection, and the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green covered a range of topics and constituency issues.

    As well as paying tribute to hon. Members, I pay tribute to the organisations that work tirelessly on these matters, including the End Fuel Poverty Coalition, National Energy Action, Energy Action Scotland and Citizens Advice Scotland. They all agree that forced prepayment meters, especially during this cost of living crisis, will create more problems for the most vulnerable and for society.

    As we have heard, the reality is that people are automatically disconnected once they reach £10 of credit. Fuel Poverty Action says:

    “Imposition of a pre-payment meter is disconnection by the back door. When you can’t top up the meter everything clicks off, regardless of whether you are old, ill, or have a newborn baby.”

    Forced prepayment meters mean that people who are already struggling are put on a system where they have to ration their energy and can be automatically disconnected when they reach their credit limit. They are also more likely to have a cold, damp home, with the consequent long-term health implications and the immediate heating or eating dilemma.

    It is estimated that 19% of houses in the UK are damp, but the figure increases to nearly a third, 31%, of houses with a prepayment meter. In other words, a household on a prepayment meter is 65% more likely to live in a damp house compared with the average baseline.

    Health conditions associated with living in a damp house have a consequence for our already stretched national health services. That reality is confirmed by figures from YouGov’s “Warm this Winter” campaign, which show that 51% of prepayment customers have health conditions or disabilities.

    As the hon. Member for Glasgow North said, we have to accept that, on one level, the majority of customers on prepayment meters have chosen this as a way of managing their cash flow and energy use, but it makes no sense that the most vulnerable pay higher standing charges and are therefore at more risk of being cut off because of the £10 credit limit.

    Research by Utilita indicates that as many as 14% of the 4.5 million prepayment meter households—that is 630,000 households—did not actively choose to be on these tariffs but were forced on to them. The number will dramatically increase during this cost of living crisis unless the Government take steps to ban forced switching to prepayment meters.

    A recent investigation for i revealed that energy firms have secured almost 500,000 court warrants to install prepayment meters in the homes of customers in debt since the end of lockdown. That is an astonishing number, and Ofgem and the Government need to get a grip. Further freedom of information requests reveal that 187,000 such applications were made in the first six months of 2022 alone. There is a real concern that the courts are now rubber-stamping warrants to install prepayment meters.

    Although I have been talking about prepayment meters, the roll-out of smart meters means that customers can be forced on to prepayment mode without the need for a warrant or for the meter to be physically changed, as they were at one time. Again, I support the End Fuel Poverty Coalition’s call for a ban on switching customers to a prepayment meter under warrant and a ban on switching customers’ smart meters to prepayment mode without their active, informed consent.

    The stark reality is that the most vulnerable are being forced on to prepayment meters. They then enter a cycle of unaffordability, energy rationing, disconnection and damp housing. To compound matters, many are missing out on the Government’s support package, which makes this pernicious cycle even worse.

    Caroline Abrahams, charity director of Age UK, says recent Government figures suggest that more than 40% of vouchers sent to prepayment meter households are yet to be redeemed. She expressed her concern at the estimate that at least 150,000 older households relying on old prepayment meters will miss out on the £400. This is completely unacceptable, so I ask the Minister to advise the House on what the Government are doing to ensure that the most vulnerable are able to access and use their vouchers or, if they cannot, to get some form of credit on their account.

    It is unconscionable to continue charging those on prepayment meters, who are more likely to be on lower incomes, more than customers who pay for their energy by direct debit. The energy companies may argue that prepayment systems cost more to administrate, which is probably true of collecting payments, but the additional cost should not be carried by those least able to afford it. Access to energy is literally a life or death scenario, and we need to remove this standing charge inequity.

    Let me illustrate the difficulty. I know someone who chooses to be on a prepayment meter. He did not use gas at all over the summer, but when he wanted to turn on the heating at the start of winter, he had to pay £70 to clear the standing charge debt built up over the summer. He could afford to do that, so it was fine, but others who rationed their energy over the summer will not be so lucky.

    A briefing from Energy UK confirms that, under licence requirements following Ofgem’s measures, suppliers should identify prepayment meter customers who are self-disconnecting and offer short-term support through emergency and “friendly hours” credit, as well as offering additional support credit to prepayment meter customers in vulnerable situations. In my example of a person having to pay £70 to clear the debt accrued over the summer, the supplier did not make contact to check whether there was any vulnerability or whether assistance was required. Ofgem and the Government need to ensure such steps are taken in the here and now. They must ensure that suppliers give such assistance, as per their licence obligations.

    The Government may talk up the energy price guarantee, and the billions of pounds of support allocated by that package sounds good on paper, but the reality is that, even with the current unit caps, it is estimated that average bills will cost £2,500, or £3,500 in Scotland. National Energy Action estimates there are 6.7 million households in fuel poverty, which will rise by 1.7 million in April when the average bill rises to £3,000. Nearly a third of households in Great Britain will be in fuel poverty come April.

    The reality is that the energy price guarantee is no guarantee at all. Average bills are much higher in Scotland, even though, as the hon. Member for Glasgow North said, we generate the bulk of the UK’s renewable energy. It is completely unfair that Scotland generates this energy, yet Scottish people are struggling to pay their bills.

    I completely support a ban on forcing customers on to prepayment systems, and the higher charges applied to prepayment systems have to be abolished, and abolished now. It is time for a proper social tariff. I accept that the Government have confirmed that they are looking at implementing one, but I fear that that will take too long and that this will, invariably, be kicked into the long grass and left to the next Government.

    I also support tiered tariffs, similar to the Dubai slab tariff. That would mean that those with the lowest energy usage got a significantly lower tariff. I would extend that to those classed as vulnerable and then have incremental tariffs based on usage. In general, therefore, those who used more energy and could afford to pay more would do so, as per affordability. Such a system would also incentivise demand management, which is good for the system overall.

    The reality is that more action is needed on this now, as my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North East said. I look forward to what the Minister will say, but I find it strange that a Treasury Minister will wind up rather than a Minister for the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, which I would have thought would be all over this.

  • Catherine West – 2022 Speech on Prepayment Meters

    Catherine West – 2022 Speech on Prepayment Meters

    The speech made by Catherine West, the Labour MP for Hornsey and Wood Green, in the House of Commons on 15 December 2022.

    It is a real pleasure to follow the passionate speech by the hon. Member for East Lothian (Kenny MacAskill), and I could not agree with him more. Despite our constituencies being so different, there are a lot of similarities, because in Hornsey and Wood Green, we have far too many people who are doing it tough this winter and are stuck on these dreadful prepayment meters, where the standing charges seem to change overnight without any advice and the tariffs are particularly high. Members across the House have emphasised the social inequity of this situation.

    I pay tribute to the chief executive of the citizens advice bureau in my constituency, Mr Daniel Blake, and all his volunteers, who do an enormously positive job to help people in their hour of need. I pay tribute to my constituency caseworkers and all those throughout the House who work tirelessly day and night to assist our constituents when they have no heating, hot water or electricity. That is increasingly common, despite the fact that we have had sub-zero temperatures for at least 10 days now. I also pay tribute to the shadow Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Test (Dr Whitehead), and his team, who do an excellent job in briefing MPs on the situation with prepayment meters and are trying to research and provide up-to-the-minute advice for our constituents.

    I broadly want to mention the dreadful customer service. I offered to assist my constituency caseworker with some work this week, because she was rather snowed under. It took 55 minutes for E.ON to pick up the phone, and this is probably what a lot of our constituents are experiencing; because they are at the bottom of the pile, they do not get heard. Other constituents have written to me telling me that they have not yet received their energy rebate vouchers. Since October, my constituents should have been receiving their £66 per month to help with soaring bills, yet they have not had any help. One of my constituents told me:

    “I have been trying to get my voucher, with no success. I have tried calling British Gas several times and have been on the phone for hours but no one picks up. I have no other way to tell them that I have tried. I am now worried I will lose this voucher!! We are entering December now.”

    This is in sub-zero temperatures. I have written to the energy companies about this, and I am still awaiting a response. The MP hotline is also failing to respond on time. We know that some of the most vulnerable people in our society use prepayment meters, and many are having to pay more for their heating and pay back any debt.

    In fact, the cost of energy is not just an issue for those who are on prepayment meters. I noticed in yesterday’s press that there is even an MP who is feeling so out of pocket that he has had to claim over £3,000 from the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority because he is not able to afford his energy bill. This is obviously affecting a great many people. I would imagine that with our income, we are in a slightly better position than others. I will not mention this person’s name, because I have not checked with his office. This is a wide-ranging issue facing many in society, but the people we should be worried about in terms of the public health implications are, as my hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) and others have said, people who either cannot reach their prepayment meter to adjust it or who have significant disabilities.

    I look forward to hearing what the Minister says about the vouchers, because it has been well covered in the press and I hope it has been the subject of discussions with the private companies. He traditionally has been a great champion of consumers, and I hope he has not lost that zeal since he got into the bureaucracy; I am sure he has not and is just as passionate. I am sure that he listened to the hon. Member for Glasgow North East (Anne McLaughlin) and will take immediate action this afternoon, so that we can all go and have our Christmas break knowing that our constituents will not be left at Christmas and new year dealing with suppliers who fail to pick up the telephone, MPs’ staff pulling their hair out because they are not getting replies through the MP hotline, or standing charges that flip up without any advice at all.

    As many will be aware, energy prices have soared in the last year. One constituent told me:

    “It’s impossible to understand how families will manage to find thousands of pounds extra a year and the anxiety throughout the country is almost palpable. My rent (private sector) will go up significantly and I will almost certainly have to move as a result”.

    People on prepayment meters have to pay a daily standing charge, and their electric and gas costs are significantly higher. To give one example, I received a text saying that it cost £12 for a 20-minute use of hot water—that is for four young students who are trying to survive, have their showers and get themselves ready for their studies. Extrapolated over a 12-month period, that is over £4,300 just for gas, which powers the heating. This is clearly completely unacceptable and desperately needs an urgent review.

    I am extremely concerned about the high cost of prepayment meters and the impact on our constituents. Another constituent told me:

    “I’m a single pensioner living alone and I’m honestly scared by what I’m reading on my prepaid meter. Prices aren’t going to come down in the future—they’ll only rise”.

    What is being done to help our pensioners, many of whom are in damp and cold homes all day? We saw the tragic loss of life of a tiny child to damp and cold in the last month. We must redouble our efforts to put more pressure on the energy companies, so that they take immediate action for the most vulnerable on prepayment meters who are paying over the odds and in advance for energy that they have not even used.

    Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)

    The hon. Lady is making some excellent points, and this debate is incredibly important, which is why I signed the original motion. Does she agree that it is wrong for people who are already in arrears and need help with their bills to have to pay about 2% more, which I think is estimated at £84 between October and December?

    Catherine West

    The hon. Gentleman is right to emphasise that point. He lives on the cold Gloucester plain, which can get very chilly and snowy at this time of year, so he will understand the desperate anxiety that many people in this situation are feeling. I hope the Minister will take urgent action on this, because it is not a situation that affects people in only one part of the country. It is often people in privately rented accommodation, and these prepayment metres are literally taking all the money they have.

    I want to briefly mention the inherited debt problem, which some Members will be aware of. When a tenancy changes, new tenants move in and inherit the debt from the tenants who were there before. In some cases, they put their £10 in thinking that it will keep them going for a couple of days, not realising that they are carrying the debt of the tenants before. That £10 then disappears, and they find themselves having to put in £50 or £60—which they may not have readily accessible, given all the costs that go with a new tenancy—and negotiate with a completely new provider. There has to be a way of regulating that more and getting the regulator to be much more proactive and agile in these situations, so that we do not have this inherited debt problem and new tenants do not have to suddenly find hundreds of pounds just so that they can switch on their heating. I hope that the Minister will address that problem in his remarks.

    Will the Minister also comment on the practical difficulty when a supplier changes? I am aware of a constituency case in which service was very disrupted when a prepayment meter switched from npower to E.ON, which eventually got on top of the mess it inherited from npower, but the tenants had a very difficult time with only basic information. What can be done to clarify and explain the enormously costly standing charges and unit cost prices currently being charged to those in the most vulnerable housing in the UK?