Transport Secretary: East Coast Franchise

I am grateful, Mr Speaker.

It seems that certain newspapers had sight of the statement appr...

Can the hon. Gentleman explain to me the difference between paying for something and financing it...

Absolutely. The private sector can organise financing, but the funding has to come from somewhere...

I am not sure whether this is bad timing, but the hon. Gentleman will be aware that today in Wale...

That is entirely a matter for the Welsh Government.

The east coast saga is littered with in...

This is now the sixth change of management for the east coast main line in 11 years. That cannot ...

My hon. Friend is entirely right. There are people now working on the east coast main line who ar...

My hon. Friend says something that sums it up. This has been about changing uniforms and livery o...

My hon. Friend is entirely right. It is ludicrous that the reported cost of changing the livery y...

I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman. He is being very kind in giving way. Does he recognise ...

If we speak to people who take that train journey regularly, I think they will have their own obs...

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

I really want to make some progress—I have taken a lot of interventions thus far.

I am conc...

Does my hon. Friend agree that there is huge support in the north-east for a directly operated ra...

I agree entirely with my hon. Friend. There is great support for a publicly owned railway on the ...

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

I’ll tell you what: I will answer one intervention and when I have finished with that one, I’ll s...

Virgin-Stagecoach has let down passengers, as well as the taxpayer. Does my hon. Friend agree tha...

My hon. Friend makes a very good point: we seem to be in the business of rewarding failure. The s...

Will my hon. Friend give way?

I will.

Order. Before the hon. Member for Harrow West (Gareth Thomas) intervenes, the shadow Transport Se...

I am grateful to you, Mr Speaker, and to my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough (Andy McDona...

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention. He makes his point very well. With your gui...

Can my hon. Friend offer any insight into the Secretary of State’s long-term vision for rail fran...

I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s intervention. I value the work she does so astutely as Chair o...

A moment or so ago, the hon. Gentleman mentioned ideology. I am a Welshman and I thought I unders...

The hon. Gentleman will recognise of course that the Government forced through the franchise opti...

Will my hon. Friend give way?

I will give way briefly, but it will be my last intervention.

Like many north-east MPs, I travel on the east coast line every week, and I am always being asked...

I think the explanation is quite simple: it was done out of ideological obsession and to put the ...

rose—

No, I am not taking any more interventions. Sit!

Last week, the Secretary of State failed t...

How does the hon. Gentleman square his statement that there is too much political interference in...

Had the hon. Gentleman been here for the entirety of the debate, he might have heard me refer to ...

What a lot of incoherence from the Labour party and the hon. Member for Middlesbrough (Andy McDon...

I will give way in a moment; let me make a bit of progress first.

I am not going to go thro...

The Secretary of State mentioned the Welsh railways, but the motion is not about the Welsh railwa...

I will tell the hon. Gentleman what the motion is about: Labour Members saying one thing in one p...

Is there not a much bigger problem with the Labour party’s policy of nationalisation? Labour Memb...

That is absolutely true. The irony is—I shall say more about this later—that it is the rail union...

Will my right hon. Friend amplify something that he hinted at earlier? Will he confirm that he se...

I do not intend that the arrangement will be permanent. What I am saying—I have said this all alo...

Will the Secretary of State give way?

I will give way once more, and then I will make some progress.

I am very interested by the comments that are coming from behind the Secretary of State. It is cl...

It appears that the Welsh Government—the Welsh Labour Government—take the same view, because they...

Had the franchise run its full term, would the Secretary of State have expected Virgin Trains Eas...

Any franchise that runs its full term is expected to pay the full premiums, but when National Exp...

rose—

rose—

I will give way first to the hon. Member for Easington (Grahame Morris) and later to the Chairman...

I am grateful to the Secretary of State. I hope that he will clear up that point about the last L...

If I am not mistaken, Lord Adonis actually accepted before the Select Committee that that did not...

I was at the same Select Committee sitting. Of course, in the year following those events, the La...

My hon. Friend is right. It is all very well Labour Members posturing, but we do have to operate ...

rose—

rose—

I will take two more brief interventions, but then I must make some progress.

I want to deal with the loss of premium payments. According to the Secretary of State’s own “Shor...

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for confirming that the talk of a £2 billion bail-out that we keep...

I thank my right hon. Friend for giving way; he is being most generous. He is forensically taking...

My hon. Friend makes a good point. The Opposition never cost in their renationalisation plans the...

I am going to make some progress. I will want to talk about a couple of other issues, for the ben...

I am not going to give way at the moment.

I will take no lessons from a party that says tha...

The right hon. Gentleman blames Network Rail for these problems and calls it a nationalised part ...

There is a certain irony in Labour Members keeping on saying that they do not think I am competen...

I will give way, but then I shall wind up my remarks so that others have a chance to speak.

I have been experiencing some of these teething problems due to the new timetable in Stevenage. T...

That is the most important thing. It is why we are pushing forward with the integration of track ...

Order. Before I call the spokesman for the Scottish National party, let me say to the House that ...

It is a pleasure to follow the Transport Secretary. He made a speech that will certainly appeal t...

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that one of the flaws in the east coast franchise, and one of the r...

I agree with the hon. Lady. I will address a couple of those points because I agree wholeheartedl...

Surely the definition of a bail-out is when the Government actually have to pay money to the comp...

Yes, there we see the ideological blind spot yet again. If somebody owes me £2 billion, I would b...

The Public Accounts Committee found last month that the passenger growth forecast by Virgin and S...

It certainly proves the current model is broken. If a franchisee gets its figures wildly wrong, i...

Is it not the case that what we are seeing here is not a free market situation at all? In a free ...

I completely agree. Rail franchise holders have been able to walk away. As has been said, the pro...

If that were the case, why did the share prices of the companies involved collapse?

Funnily enough, Stagecoach’s share price increased when the Transport Secretary gave a statement ...

This is not just a problem with southern. Southern is a failing franchise, but northern seems to ...

I agree, and I think that the Government are now looking at northern because it is yet another fa...

I do not want to deflect attention in any way, but may I remind the hon. Gentleman that that fran...

I am happy to accept that, but all the current problems are happening under the Secretary of Stat...

It is a great honour to speak in this debate, and I am looking forward to making a short contribu...

rose—

I will happily give way to the Chair of the Transport Committee.

I want to pick up on the hon. Gentleman’s point about the Brown review. One of its recommendation...

If the hon. Lady reads on, she will see that that recommendation states that franchisees

“s...

rose—

On that point, I will give way to my right hon. Friend, a former Minister of State.

I was able to work with the Secretary of State, as the House knows, and I can say with absolute s...

The former Minister of State is a friend of mine from when we were both in the Department for Tra...

Was steam still around?

Yes, steam was still around.

For most of the first part of my professional life, I used Bri...

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

I am mindful of the six-minute limit. I have taken two interventions, so I will not take one from...

I am pleased to be allowed to speak in this very important debate. I start by thanking the staff ...

I am grateful to my hon. Friend and neighbour for giving way. The Government are ideologically we...

My hon. Friend and neighbour is absolutely right, which shows why this idea that this is a compet...

It is an honour to follow my near neighbour, the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central (Chi...

I am sure the hon. Lady remembers British Rail, because we are still travelling on some of the 12...

It is not so much the rolling stock that I remember as not necessarily getting back for tea becau...

Thank you for calling me in this important debate, Madam Deputy Speaker. Like my party’s Front Be...

It is a pleasure to speak in this debate. As a member of the Transport Committee, I hope to injec...

The hon. Gentleman is saying that the issue with the east coast line is that there is competition...

No, my point is that Virgin is making a profit on the line and is very able to meet the competiti...

That should help!

No; if it is cheaper for people to use motor vehicles, they are more likely to do that than to us...

My hon. Friend and I served together on the Transport Committee for three years, and his speech i...

Absolutely not. I will come to that point and refer to the evidence that the Select Committee hea...

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

No; forgive me, but I have three minutes left and the hon. Lady’s previous intervention was not r...

Order. I am afraid that I have to reduce the time limit to five minutes.

2.49 pm

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Milton Keynes South (Iain Stewart) and other exper...

This discussion about the over-bidding on the franchise reminds me precisely of the discussion th...

I am afraid that my hon. Friend is right. That takes us into a much broader philosophical discuss...

The hon. Gentleman is, as ever, making a valuable contribution. One of the most interesting thing...

Once again, the right hon. Gentleman, an experienced former Minister, speaks very wisely. In the ...

The problem this afternoon is that we are just going to fall into the ideological arguments about...

Just give me two seconds. When we look at the money that was earned, some £1 billion was returned...

The hon. Gentleman is talking about the problems caused by Network Rail. Will he remind the House...

I am delighted that the hon. Gentleman has made that point. Indeed, that is the problem with a na...

The hon. Gentleman should just remember that Railtrack was privatised. It failed, and the Governm...

Railtrack failed due to the vandalism of John Prescott when he was Transport Secretary. He took a...

rose—

I am sorry, but I have taken two interventions and I will not have any more.

It was a disgr...

I always travel by train when I can, and with respect to colleagues from the north-east of Englan...

Clearly, I agree with the points that my hon. Friend is making. Does this not further reinforce t...

Indeed, and I will come to that later.

The second big positive of having a public sector op...

I am grateful to you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for calling me to speak in this very important debate.