Examination of Witnesses (Questions 157-159)
MR NEIL
SCALES, MR
ANTON VALK,
MR IAIN
COUCHER, MR
PETER SARGANT
AND MR
PETER FIELD
12 JULY 2006
Chairman: Good afternoon to you, gentlemen.
We do have one or two little bits of housekeeping. Members having
an interest to declare? Mr Efford.
Clive Efford: Member of the Transport
and General Workers' Union.
Chairman: Mr Stringer.
Graham Stringer: Member of Amicus.
Chairman: Gwyneth Dunwoody, ASLEF. Mrs
Ellman.
Mrs Ellman: Member of the Transport and
General Workers' Union.
Q157 Chairman: Good afternoon to
you, gentlemen. You are all most warmly welcome this afternoon,
with the emphasis on the warm, I am afraid. Can I ask you firstly
to identify yourselves, starting from my left?
Mr Scales: I am Neil Scales, Director
General, Merseytravel.
Mr Valk: Anton Valk, Chief Executive
Officer of NedRailways.
Mr Coucher: Iain Coucher, Deputy
Chief Executive Network Rail.
Mr Sargant: Peter Sargant, Assistant
Director Rail Services for Centro and representing the Passenger
Transport Executive Group.
Mr Field: Peter Field, Transport
for London and Director, London Rail Development.
Q158 Chairman: Thank you very much.
I think most of you know that there are certain hazards to this
room, so remember that the microphone in front of you records
but it does not project, so you may have to use quite a lot of
voice. Did anybody have anything they wanted to say before we
began?
Mr Scales: No, thank you, Chairman.
Q159 Chairman: In what ways is the
current franchise system better than a unified, state-run railway
system? Mr Sargant.
Mr Sargant: From the experience
that I have had working with British Rail in its Section 20 days,
when we had an agreement with British Rail to provide local rail
services, for us to now have a contract with a private company
which actually specifies in a great deal of detail the service
levels which we want gives us far greater control over the specification
of our services. So from our point of view, having a proper contract
in place rather than the previous rather woolly agreement, has
seen advantages, but has had a big impact on the cost of operation
which has led to difficulties funding the services locally.
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