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3 Feb 2010 : Column 128WH—continued
I am conscious of the time, as I know that the Minister will want to respond in depth, but it is a great credit to my hon. Friend the Member for St. Albans
that she secured this debate and allowed many of us to speak on behalf of our constituents, express concerns to the Minister and understand what remedies the Government intend to take.
3.46 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Chris Mole): I, too, congratulate the hon. Member for St. Albans (Anne Main) on securing this debate, which I know is of great importance to her constituents, and indeed to many thousands of other rail users across the south-east affected by the severe disruption to First Capital Connect Thameslink services over the past few months.
The hon. Lady mentioned two items submitted to me. On the first item, my office is not aware of the letter of 11 January to which she referred; it appears not to have arrived. On the parliamentary question, I believe that I signed the response this morning.
Anne Main: I thank the Minister for that. I have just skimmed a copy of the letter for the purposes of Hansard. Also, my staff chased up the matter with his office two days ago, and were given an acknowledgement that the response was late in coming.
Chris Mole: At times the service has been atrocious, involving delays, cancellations and poor customer care. Passengers have been let down badly-particularly on the Thameslink route, but also, as hon. Members have said, on the Great Northern route-and it is easy to see why so many are angry and frustrated. They deserve better. I want to make it clear that unless things improve radically, the Government will take the necessary robust and rapid steps to ensure that passengers receive the standard of service that they deserve.
The problems at First Capital Connect started in the autumn. As the hon. Lady will be aware, some train operating companies rely on overtime and rest day working to deliver their train services, and First Capital Connect is no different. The current difficulties began when drivers chose not to undertake overtime and rest day working in response to a two-year pay award deal offered by the operator. Such concerted unofficial action by the drivers was highly regrettable, given that talks with unions were ongoing. At a challenging time for the economy, the pay award offered was similar to that proposed by another rail operator-and, indeed, was better than pay deals in some other industries in the UK where workers are accepting zero growth or even pay reductions to secure their longer-term employment future.
As part of the franchise agreement, the franchisee is tasked with using all reasonable endeavours to keep services running and minimise disruption to passengers when rail services are disrupted by staff action. In the first working week in which amended timetables were introduced on the Thameslink route, the operator cancelled 126 trains out of its normal 380 trains, leaving 67 per cent. of trains in service.
Anne Main: The Minister is reiterating the timeline of catastrophe that my speech touched on. I want to know what the Minister did from October, when we were aware of what the drivers were doing. As I understand it, there was no meeting until 11 November.
Chris Mole: As has been made clear in statements to the House, Ministers were monitoring the situation from the point at which we were advised that officials had agreed amended timetables with the train operating company.
Chris Mole: As the disruption continued, First Capital Connect was progressively able to reduce the planned number of cancellations so that by 11 January this year, 80 per cent. of services were planned to run. The Department agreed the amended timetables to ensure that First Capital Connect could give passengers accurate information on the minimum level of service that would be provided. That was designed to reduce the passenger disruption and confusion caused by short-notice cancellations, and to provide passengers with a timetable-albeit a reduced one-that allowed them to plan their journeys.
In giving that approval, the Department required First Capital Connect to introduce specific mitigation steps to provide the best possible service, including protecting first and last services for all routes; balanced services throughout the day; replacement bus services where appropriate; reinstatement of services where resources were available; and making First Capital Connect tickets acceptable on other routes and transport modes.
Anne Main: Will the Minister give way?
Chris Mole: For the last time.
Anne Main: I am sorry if it is the last time, because there is an awful lot of detail. It is crucial that we know when the Minister was advised that the situation was becoming untenable. We know that a reduced timetable was agreed to, but on exactly what date did he become aware of how bad the negotiations had become?
Chris Mole: I have made it plain that Ministers were made aware when it was known for certain that concerted action had been notified to the train operator, which must have been the week before the implementation of the revised timetables.
Kelvin Hopkins: The Minister is talking about the reduced train service. The major problem beyond that was that the automated indicator system often bore no relation to the service, the automated voice system bore no relation to the indicator system and, just occasionally, there would be a live voice trying to sort out the mess. Will the Minister address that problem?
Chris Mole: My hon. Friend intervened at exactly the right point because I was about to say that First Capital Connect acknowledges that its provision of information to customers, including on customer information systems, has not been good enough. The company is in discussion with my officials on how it intends to improve information provision to passengers.
At the beginning of December 2009, First Capital Connect and ASLEF confirmed that a pay settlement had been negotiated and they gave a joint communication to that effect to staff. The proposed pay settlement was considered by the ASLEF executive committee on
8 December 2009, which recommended its acceptance to members. The official deadline for members to accept or reject the offer was 13 January 2010. First Capital Connect and ASLEF undertook engagements jointly and separately with the train drivers to encourage them to return to overtime and rest day working. Although that strategy paid some dividends with a reduction in the number of cancellations, FCC was unable to operate its full timetable until 18 January 2010.
As if the drivers' action had not caused passengers enough disruption, severe weather early last month conspired to make a bad situation worse. The snow had a significant impact on the Thameslink route. Network Rail required emergency timetables to operate and there were additional infrastructure and rolling stock problems. At perhaps the worst point, on 7 January, FCC had only 25 units available out of 107 units, which severely hampered services. My right hon. Friend the Minister of State at the Department for Transport wrote to the hon. Member for St. Albans on that matter recently. I confirm that all repairs to the damaged rolling stock are expected to be completed by 10 February 2010.
First Capital Connect was not the only train operator to have problems in the snow. The rail industry is conducting a review of how it delivered services to passengers during the bad weather, including the provision of customer information, to ensure that lessons are learned.
Stephen Hammond: I think I just heard the Minister say that the problem was with 173 trains. I believe that in the rolling stock plan of January 2008, First Capital Connect was promised 255 new carriages. How many of those carriages have been ordered? Will that figure change in the next rolling stock plan?
Chris Mole: I shall write to the hon. Gentleman as that is such a detailed question.
Tom Brake: The Minister mentioned that the industry is about to carry out a review into the problems caused by the snow. Presumably, the industry carried out a review after the problems during the bad weather last year. Have any lessons been learned from that review, which must have been carried out about 12 months ago?
Chris Mole: That is another interesting question and I will write to the hon. Gentleman in response.
We are clear about the impact of the bad weather on train services and we are equally clear on the performance of the franchise as a result of the drivers' action.
Throughout this period, the Department has remained in regular dialogue with FCC and we continue to monitor its performance on a daily basis. Indeed, the Secretary of State met with the company this week. Although the services since 18 January are an obvious improvement on those delivered to passengers since the disruption began in October last year, the Secretary of State has made it clear that performance has remained unacceptable in terms of punctuality, cancellations and passenger service. Equally, the compensation package offered by FCC to Thameslink passengers is, in our view, inadequate recompense for the three months of chronic disruption. That has only exacerbated discontent.
We recognise that FCC is introducing new drivers; six started last month and five more are due to begin soon. Further new drivers will become qualified throughout the year and existing drivers will be trained on a wider range of trains. I think that goes some way to answering the question of the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) about the resilience of FCC.
Patrick Hall: The Minister is talking about driver recruitment and numbers. I notice that no one has said that they will force drivers to work on their rest days. The situation is clearly vulnerable and uncertain. I suggest that the Minister, train operators and Network Rail consider how all these issues can be changed so that we no longer rely on such a clearly unstable situation.
Chris Mole: My hon. Friend raises a reasonable point.
First Capital Connect has started a recruitment campaign for qualified drivers. Its recruitment actions will make First Capital Connect less reliant on overtime and rest day working, and more resilient.
Nadine Dorries: The Minister said that the compensation was not adequate. What does he think would be adequate?
Chris Mole: That is not for me to judge. That is a matter for the train operating company to consider as part of establishing a relationship with its customers.
I reiterate that, on current performance, FCC could very soon miss the benchmark levels in the franchise agreement. We have advised the company that we are considering all options open to us under the franchise agreement. Where other franchises have breached franchise agreement performance benchmarks, we have taken firm action to secure improvements in services to passengers. In the case of First Great Western, the remedial plan and the associated £29 million passenger benefits package delivered significant improvements to services.
Stephen Hammond: Will the Minister clarify that he said what I think he said, which is that the company is close to breaching the conditions? My understanding from First Capital Connect is that since 18 January, it is well above the performance improvement plans, well above breach and well above default. There is no possible way in which the Government can act unless they ignore the contract. Will he clarify what he said?
Chris Mole: The hon. Gentleman is clearly aware of the generalities of the framework and of the monitoring of cancellation, capacity and service delivery benchmarks under the franchise. A number of thresholds can trigger different types of intervention. We are looking at the numbers that FCC has given us for the period when the revised timetables were in place and for the subsequent period. We will look closely at whether those numbers lead to any need for intervention.
Recently, a remedial plan was agreed with London Midland to secure improvements to its services. We will continue to put customer interests first. I remind hon. Members of our debate yesterday, which was about the improvements that Thameslink passengers will see as a result of the Government's £5.5 billion investment in the development of the Thameslink service.
University Places (England)
4 pm
Mr. Phil Willis (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (LD): Although the title of the debate refers to university places in England, I shall actually mention places in the UK. If the Minister has prepared his brief just in terms of England, I am happy with that, but it is a broader issue.
It is important to put on the record my belief that we have a truly world-class higher education system. Since the Robbins report in 1963-when I went into higher education-the higher education system has expanded from a small relatively elite system that served some 8 per cent. of the population to a mass semi-marketised system. In England alone, 42 per cent. of our 19-year-olds went into higher education last year. That is something to celebrate; it is a remarkable achievement.
Throughout that transformation, our universities have retained a world-class reputation with four in the world top 10, and 18 in the top 100. What is more, the recent 2008 research assessment exercise reported that 90 per cent. of the research submitted was regarded as of international quality and fell into the top three grades of "world-leading", "internationally excellent" or "internationally recognised." Some 150 of our universities had at least 5 per cent. of their research deemed world-leading. What is more, in arguably the most competitive academic fields of science, engineering and technology-SET-we remain second only to the US in our output of research and in many areas, from particle physics to robotics and bioengineering to genomics, our universities are truly world-leading.
This debate is about how we provide the nation with the next generation of brilliant scientists, technologists and academics, but it is also about providing the nation with a graduate work force, which has been recognised as crucial to our economic well-being by Lord Leitch and the UK Commission for Employment and Skills. Of course, relatively few of the 1.96 million undergraduates studying in our universities will go into academic careers. Most will find their way into a variety of careers serving the public and private sectors.
However, one thing is absolutely certain: it will be the development of intellectual capital honed in our universities that powers the UK out of recession and helps to resolve the huge global challenges that face us. As someone who has been close to the sector all my adult life, I recognise just how life-changing a university education can be. Few of us in Westminster Hall this afternoon would be here if it had not been for some involvement with higher education. I came from a small back-to-back house in Burnley with an outside toilet and one cold water tap, yet here I am. I am deeply grateful to Carnegie college in Leeds and to Birmingham university for what they have given me. Although I have always rejected the 50 per cent. target set by Tony Blair for the expansion of HE, I celebrate his ambition and that of others that more young people from backgrounds like mine should be encouraged to stay on at school and aim higher than their peers and parents.
However, as Chair of the Select Committee on Science and Technology, I also recognise that simply sending more young people to university is not a sufficient goal in itself. Although I would defend the right of young
people to choose both their university and course according to ability, encouraging more people to study science, technology, engineering and maths at school and then at university has become my passion. That passion is shared by many in our learned societies and is constantly promoted in the House through work by the Royal Society of Chemistry and others, to whom we all owe a debt of gratitude. It is in the areas of science, engineering and technology that students will have the greatest opportunities to contribute to the nation's economic well-being and enrich our society.
Bob Spink (Castle Point) (Ind): The hon. Gentleman has been a consistent advocate of our university system for many years. Although he is right to mention the individual opportunities that universities give, he will, no doubt, also acknowledge that the university system helps this country to keep its competitive advantage, create wealth and find solutions for some of the major problems, whether they are medical, climate change or whatever. Does he worry that the main parties, which are threatening hard cuts in public services, could get the big science budgets of universities in their sights? Does he agree that that would be a major mistake for this country?
Mr. Willis: If that is the case, I agree. The question is how we can avert it and maintain the investment that has gone into UK science, particularly big science-for example, our work at Diamond Light Source, ISIS, the great big particle accelerators and the other major facilities that we maintain. Having mapped out the key areas on which, I hope, there is agreement, I am saddened that the Government threaten to dismantle a decade of investment, encouragement and expansion at a time when we need to turn the tap on, not turn it off-the point the hon. Gentleman made.
Although President Obama is investing billions in fundamental research-in fact, that is the cornerstone of the economic stimulus package in the States-we appear to be going in the opposite direction. Yesterday when I challenged the Prime Minister at the Liaison Committee about the funding of science and higher education, it was disappointing that he said:
"What America has not done is what we have done over the last ten years which is to double the science budget and America is trying to catch up in a way that we have been investing consistently in science over these last few years."
That is palpably not so. Throughout the whole of the Bush years, an equivalent proportion of public funds was spent on science in the US and in the UK-funding was virtually pound for pound in proportional terms. The UK was catching up after the disaster of the Thatcher years, which is when the real damage was done to our science base and our higher education. Frankly, such statements are not worthy of a Prime Minister and a former Chancellor who has done more to support science in his time in Parliament than probably any other member of the current Government.
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