UK Parliament / Open data

Rail Performance

Proceeding contribution from Louise Haigh (Labour) in the House of Commons on Monday, 11 November 2024. It occurred during Ministerial statement on Rail Performance.

To confirm, we are working with the trade unions at the moment on productivity improvements. We are clear that some of the practices in place on the railways are not acceptable or fit for modern and efficient railways. In the pay deal, there was a side letter and agreement to work through training improvements, and we want to ensure that that is delivered. The previous Government’s approach meant that they not only failed to deliver any workforce reform improvements, but presided over the longest industrial dispute in our railways’ history, costing the taxpayer and passengers hundreds of millions of pounds.

The hon. Gentleman is right to point out that cancellations are high in the publicly owned TOCs. That is a result not least of the fact that the ones that are in public ownership were already the worst performing, and we need to look at how they have improved under public ownership. The real benefits will be brought about under Great British Railways, when we will be truly able to integrate track and train and deliver those improvements. We will set out the schedule for bringing the private TOCs into public ownership once Royal Assent has been given to the Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Bill, but the right balance must be struck between performance and return for the taxpayer, because we are spending hundreds of millions of pounds in dividend payouts and management fees.

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to mention the Access for All programme and accessibility, which has not been good enough under Network Rail. I am happy to write to him about specific stations in the programme.

Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
756 c522 
Session
2024-25
Chamber / Committee
House of Commons chamber
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