Statement to Parliament: Our progress in overhauling the railways

Published: 11 November 2024
By Chris Haycock

class=gem-c-govspeak govuk-govspeak gem-c-govspeak--direction-ltr govuk-!-margin-bottom-0> Mandate for change 

I would like to start off by welcoming the Member for Orpington to his place on the opposite benches, Mr. Speaker.

And I’m sure the opposition will be interested in what I have to update the House with this afternoon. 

Because after 14 years of neglect, our inheritance was 

• a railway that was failing its passengers                          
• with cancellations at a 10-year high, and
• punctuality that is consistently inconsistent across the network

Back in 2015, cancellations represented around 2% of all services.  

But thanks to our inheritance of extraordinary failure, that doubled to around 4% when the last government left office.

The situation is holding back our economy, stifling our businesses, and making life miserable for passengers.

That’s why – as part of this government’s public service reform agenda – we are pushing ahead with the biggest overhaul of our railways in more than 30 years.

So, I am grateful to you Mr. Speaker for this opportunity to update the House today on the progress we are making.

As members will be aware, the Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Bill is making its way through the other place.

It will allow the government to give 3 months’ notice to the first private train operating company (TOC) to be taken into public ownership which we will announce as soon as Royal Assent has been achieved.

But, Mr. Speaker, no one has ever pretended that public ownership alone is a silver bullet.

For the people impacted by delays and cancellations, who can no longer rely on the train to get where they need to, they don’t care who owns the trains – they care if they are working or not.

Under the model we inherited, no one could argue they were working.

So, we will soon launch our consultation setting out plans for unification across the railway.

As part of this Great British Railways (GBR), as the single directing-mind, will plan services on a whole-system basis, to better deliver for passengers and freight customers, unlock growth, and provide the services a modern, efficient railway should.

This will lay the groundwork for the introduction of the Railways Bill later this session, which will establish GBR and end the fragmentation that has hampered our railways for over 30 years of privatisation.

But we don’t want to wait for legislation; the government is already making improvements and already taking steps to deliver reform across the railways.

I have appointed Laura Shoaf as Chair of Shadow GBR, bringing together Network Rail, the publicly owned TOCs and my department to drive better integration now.

Working with operators already in public ownership, we are seeking to drive savings by eliminating duplication and deliver the improvements passengers want to see, such as allowing tickets to be accepted across those TOCs in public ownership during disruption.

Shadow GBR gives us the tools to assess the structure of the timetable, question resource plans and review performance measures and targets.

And we are using those tools to unlock the punctuality and reliability that passengers deserve across the country, for example Southeastern Railway is now performing much better….

Their cancellations are low, punctuality ranks amongst the top 5 operators contracted to my department, and Mr. Speaker, that level of service will increase by 44 additional trains per day when the timetable is updated in December.

That’s what Shadow GBR is delivering now.

We are demonstrating what integration between track and train can deliver for passengers.

Take those who rely on Euston station for example.

Indecision on HS2 left those passengers with fewer platforms and greater overcrowding, victims of the so called ‘Euston dash’. 

Convening Network Rail and train operators at Euston in the interest of passengers is an excellent example of the benefits our reform agenda can achieve.

Euston, now, not only has an integrated station management team, but also a hundred-day plan of rapid improvements that puts the interests of passengers first and individual organisations second.

Platform announcements are made earlier, crowding has been reduced and the advertising screens have been temporarily switched off.

But unfortunately, delays and cancellations were not my only inheritance.

For 2 years, strike followed strike and disruption followed disruption in the longest industrial dispute on our railways.

I’ve made it my priority to get around the table, reversing the previous government’s antagonistic approach by resetting industrial relations and settling the pay disputes that were grinding the country to a halt.

I am working with the sector to speed up training and accelerate the driver recruitment pipeline, which will reduce the railway’s reliance on rest day working agreements and lower the burden on the taxpayer.

Settling this saga allows us to move forward with long-overdue negotiations on workforce reform, bringing our railways into the 21st century.

That is what moving fast and fixing things looks like, Mr. Speaker.

We are putting passengers first, and today, I can inform the House that…

Since the resolution of the LNER driver dispute, we have seen green shoots emerging, with the number of LNER cancellations falling.

Not only are cancellations due to a lack of driver resource have dropped to near zero as a direct consequence of getting around the table with unions.

But revenue is £15 million higher for the recent rail periods this year versus the same periods last year, overall cancellations are down from 7% to 5%, and LNER are running 100 more train services in the last 4 weeks than in the comparable period last year.

Elsewhere, passengers will see a tangible impact on reliability on Northern Rail trains.

Thanks to our agreement on rest day working, hundreds more driver shifts have been covered this weekend, cutting cancellations now and in the long run.

At TransPennine Express, operator-caused on-the-day cancellations averaged around 2% in the last year; compared to around 5% in the year before they were taken into public ownership.

On Cross Country, we took immediate steps to implement a remedial plan to reduce their cancellations and get services back on track.

Its reduced timetable has brought greater stability, and I expect even greater reliability as the full timetable returns today.

These are, Mr. Speaker, early signs of what happens when a government gets a grip and puts passengers at the heart of decision-making.

Resetting industrial relations is already having a direct impact on better services, but it will take time to pass all the benefits on to passengers.

We have to be clear-eyed about the problems. But we are committed to full transparency.

And I can announce today that we will be fully transparent with passengers by displaying performance data at stations to show demonstrate how the railway is working and allow the public to hold us to account as we deliver change.

And that’s important, Mr. Speaker, because the railway is a promise.

A promise to passengers from the moment they buy a ticket, that the train will arrive on time, as the timetable says.

And whilst there are encouraging signs, I am not naive to the reality that passengers will only see a broken promise so long as the departure board shows trains delayed and services cancelled.

That’s why I’ve approached the situation with the urgency it demands:

• focusing on performance today
• meeting with industry to make clear that improvements which can be made now, must be made now, and
• using every tool at our disposal to drive improvements as fast as possible

At the same time, the root of the problems grows deeper.

Decades of muddled decision-making have left the railway fragmented.

We have tolerated an unworkable system of track in one organisation and trains in another for decades too long.

This government will turn the page on that chapter of fragmentation.

I have wasted no time in kick-starting the long-term reform that our railway desperately needs.

We have wasted no time in bringing TOCs under public ownership.

And as today’s figure shows, we have wasted no time in getting round the table with unions and making change happen now.

That is what moving fast and fixing things looks like, a