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Diversionary routes when there are engineering works are often a problem. There is evidence that train operating companies are reluctant to divert on to each other’s parts of the network; they lose income that way. If they put on a bus, then Network Rail picks up the tab. There is a real incentive for train operators to go down the—for them—easy route of putting on buses rather than negotiating diversionary routes. The bus replacements are often poor quality and are usually not well equipped to deal with luggage and buggies. I have to tell the Minister that, as an enthusiast, I have all but given up travelling on the railway at weekends. It is simply becoming too difficult. Some of those issues also apply to redevelopments, such as those around Reading station at the moment, where diversionary routes are needed and the train operating companies are simply not co-operating.
Assuming you get through all that, you get to the railway station and then to the great parking rip-off charges. Birmingham and Manchester are now charging around £55 for four hours’ car parking. That is quite extortionate. Virgin is apparently now making about £1 million a year from the car parks at Birmingham International and Coventry. It now appears to be a parking organisation with a railway attached.
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On passenger experience when you get to the station, I had a slightly odd experience in February on Ipswich station. I was in my anorak with my notebook, spotting the trains, and the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, appeared. I found out afterwards that it was part of his great tour around UK stations. I congratulate him on doing that. I read afterwards that he had said,
- “the quality of stations is extremely variable and at many major stations the service level is often downright poor”.
Well, amen to that! That is indeed the case. A campaigning group called Trailblazers produced a report entitled End of the Line. It has reported that about half of all stations lack the basic facilities for disabled people. That is disgraceful after so many years of disability access legislation.
I recently saw posters on First Capital Connect warning passengers of the dangers posed by the ticket barriers that First Capital Connect itself had put up. In Sheffield, a trial scheme barred the bridge which was the pedestrian access for the tram passengers. Negotiating turnstiles that get you into the public loos—which you have to use because the loos do not work on the trains—when you have a piece of luggage or child in tow, or if someone has a stick and so on, is nigh on impossible. All of these things add to the difficulties for people when travelling by rail.
There is evidence that the franchise owners, who are now increasingly strapped for cash, are cutting their costs by raising charges in certain ways, such as parking, but also by reducing the number of staff in what they see as the soft areas: those that are not regulated and in which the Office of Rail Regulation does not take an interest. So there are fewer cleaners, fewer catering staff and fewer staff on the railway station. That means that the journeys are downright unpleasant. Last year I travelled from Devon to Paddington on a Sunday on the train that had come all the way from Penzance, a journey of around eight and a half hours. There was no catering available due to staff shortages. By the time we got to Taunton, to great cheers the buffet car opened because an off-duty member of staff had heard the announcement and thought it was outrageous that passengers should travel so far without refreshments. She opened it saying she would probably get the sack for this but it seemed like the right thing to do. Good for her.
There is often no space for luggage or seats are not available. National Express East Anglia is now going to charge us to book a seat, and First Great Western is abolishing the weekend upgrade. All of these things make train travel into something that is quite often just too much hassle and it is easier to get into the car.
If something does go wrong on the trip, my experience is actually rather different from that of the noble Lord, Lord Judd. I often find that station staff are quite poorly equipped to deal with the problems that arise if something goes wrong unexpectedly. On Peterborough station recently we rescued the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, who had been given some bizarre advice by the staff which would have put several hours on to her journey. Luckily my husband, who is also known as the human travel planner, was able to help her by giving better advice. I think it is
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There is something about quality which is very difficult to measure but which has a real impact on people’s willingness to travel and their satisfaction with the journey. I urge the noble Lord to take that forward and find ways in which we can make the passenger journey much more interesting and pleasant. I know one has to be careful about drawing exact parallels with buses, but it interests me that the places where the buses are operating best are where we have an entirely integrated system, where the buses are being run by a bus company working with a local authority which also manages the roads and the parking. When everyone is working together the outcome is significantly better. I think there are lessons to learn, because at the moment the problem is that this whole question about passenger experience is everyone’s job and therefore no one’s. It simply gets lost in the miasma. I hope that the noble Lord can use his undoubted intellectual powers to think about how this situation might be improved for passengers.
4.07 pm
Earl Attlee: My Lords, I, too, am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, for initiating this wide-ranging debate. Using public transport is a fairly universal experience, especially for those who live or work in a city. There is no realistic alternative other than a pedal cycle or going by foot. I use the train from south London to attend your Lordships’ House. I see the chronic overcrowding every day at peak times. Luckily, most of the time I can avoid standing for the 20-minute train journey. Noble Lords will be painfully aware that we have problems in London today, but these are down to the dinosaur of a trade union leader whom I will not waste my breath by naming.
I also regularly travel to an Army camp in Hampshire, but it is a very finely balanced decision as to whether to go by train and then bus, or by car all the way. Each mode has its own advantages and disadvantages; I will not go into detail, but it is important to understand how difficult it is to persuade motorists to leave the car at home and how easy it is to deter them from using public transport. The noble Baroness, Lady Scott, talked about the relative costs of a private car and public transport.
An important duty for me must be to join all noble Lords in congratulating the noble Lord the Secretary of State. His appointment is seriously good news. My only regret is that I doubt that he will be given enough time to really make a difference.
I listened with interest to the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw. As he made his speech from the Liberal Democrat Front Bench, I take it that he was articulating official Liberal Democrat policy.
Lord Bradshaw: My Lords, I prefaced my comments by saying that they were personal remarks.
Earl Attlee: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his intervention. I agree with his views about Network Rail, a subject that I shall turn to later.
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As for the DfT, I do not understand why the department is so heavily involved in the specification of new rolling stock. What can the department do that the industry itself cannot do? The noble Baroness, Lady Valentine, made the very good point that you cannot have continental levels of transport investment with United States levels of tax. That point is relevant to all modes of transport.
The largest increase in bus travel has been in London, followed by the West Midlands. In London, the combination of a significantly increased number of buses—to the point where they are almost creating their own congestion—and the Oyster card has been very effective. The picture for rural bus services is not so good. In fact, last year’s transport statistics showed a reduction of 34 million journeys outside of London. I cannot avoid the feeling that the customer base for rural bus services consists of people without access to a car—of course there are two cars for every household on average. These people are frequently not well off at all, but often time is not too much of a problem. They do not think that bus fares are good value for money but, as a regular motorist, I think that the bus is good value for money. I sometimes share a double-decker bus with two or three others, going from Alton to Bordon for about £3.
However, what deters and concerns me is that I have a 10-minute walk to the bus stop, possibly in the wet. Nothing can be done about that, of course, but I have to arrive at the bus stop about eight minutes before departure time and then wait until the bus comes. I have to wait standing up, which makes reading inconvenient. Most importantly, I have no idea when the bus will come or even if I have missed it. When will all bus users know when the next bus will arrive by means of an electronic message board, or will this never happen?
My question for the Secretary of State is: what research has been done to identify the factors that deter motorists from using public transport? It is certainly no use relying on my prejudices or my hunches. If he does not know, perhaps he will write to me.
In a previous debate, I spoke about the success of the rail industry. Last year alone, there was an increase in passenger kilometres of nearly 5 per cent. However, in many areas we are running out of capacity; our population is growing and that growth is concentrated in the cities, for the reasons that noble Lords will understand and the noble Baroness, Lady Valentine, explained so well.
The noble Baroness, Lady Quin, referred to the transport needs of the north-east. In some ways we have an overheated south-east and we need to be careful to ensure that investment does not exacerbate the problem there and neglect other regions. What is the Secretary of State doing to avoid that pitfall and to allay the concerns of the noble Baroness?
The noble Baroness also talked about ticketing problems, which, as the Secretary of State will know, is a subject dear to my heart and to many other noble Lords. Some improvement in ticketing systems is being made. London commuter stations are having ticket barriers installed in order to facilitate the use of Oyster cards and to protect revenue. The Oyster card system
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The railway system is inherently inflexible. Trains can go only at predetermined times over a fixed route. This can be balanced by reliability. Unfortunately, this is largely in the hands of Network Rail, about whose performance I am becoming increasingly concerned. I am being briefed that possessions for railway works are unnecessarily long, but the work does not start immediately and efficiently. There are also regular signal failures causing severe disruption. The noble Lord, Lord Judd, ably described the problems of reliability. Unfortunately for the noble Lord, despite all the delays, the alternative of a private car is not realistic for him. He talked about a commission or a study. I for one would certainly like to understand why signalling is so unreliable, both on the overground and on the Underground.
Because of the way in which Network Rail is set up, the imposition of a penalty by the ORR has no effect. It is a not-for-profit organisation with members but no shareholders with a financial interest. Any penalties simply go round in a circle, but the directors—those responsible—feel no pain. There are about 100 members of Network Rail, which is too many to be effective in holding the directors to account. At Question Time recently, I asked the Minister why he has not exercised the department’s right as a special member to nominate a director for Network Rail. Can the Secretary of State now answer that question and tell the House how he proposes to improve Network Rail’s performance?
The noble Lord, Lord Clinton-Davis, talked about the importance of the aviation industry, which employs so many people in the UK and around the world. He will understand that we in the Conservative Party do not believe that a third runway at Heathrow is desirable. We would like to know the view of the Secretary of State and his boss, the noble Lord, Lord Mandelson. Are we still going to have a third runway or can any need be met by high-speed rail?
The Motion tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, talks about crime on public transport. The problem is not just the actual crime but the fear of crime and, importantly, inconsiderate behaviour by other travellers. One of the first acts of the mayor, Boris Johnson, was to ban the drinking of alcohol on London Transport. That has made a big improvement and is very popular. However, a problem that I am beginning to see increasingly on the rail system is beggars. We are sitting on a commuter train in the evening and we hear a beggar asking for money. It is most distressing for all the passengers and in every carriage there is always one passenger who is stupid enough to give the beggar some money. Can the Secretary of State say what he is doing about begging?
I pay tribute to Ian Johnston, the former chief constable of the British Transport Police. The BTP has done well, but there are major and obvious challenges ahead, particularly with the Olympics and the effect of
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I have looked forward to and enjoyed our debate. I now look forward to the response of our Secretary of State.
4.18 pm
The Secretary of State for Transport (Lord Adonis): My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, and all other noble Lords for their generous remarks about my appointment. This is my dream job. When I was 15, I wanted to be chairman of British Rail and I saw Sir Peter Parker as a prince among men. Alas, that post has now been fragmented into about 20 pieces. However, being Secretary of State for Transport in a Government committed to public transport is as good as it gets for a transport moderniser. I am privileged to be entrusted with these important duties.
I have never seen transport as just about the means of getting from A to B, however exciting the new or old planes, trains and automobiles that make that possible. Mobility is as important as education and health to a successful modern society. You can tell as much about the values of a society by its public transport as by its schools and hospitals. Transport is just as important to promoting genuine equality of opportunity.
I also want to pay tribute to my predecessor, Geoff Hoon. As the son and grandson of railwaymen, he is a hereditary Peer among transport enthusiasts. I greatly enjoyed serving under him and I note also the tribute paid by my noble friend Lord Clinton-Davis to my right honourable friend. I also thank the officials of my department and all those who work across the transport sector without whose dedication we would not have made the improvements in the quality of public transport which it is generally accepted have taken place in recent years.
Having paid tribute to the industry at large, I obviously must mention the Underground strike in London today, which is so seriously inconveniencing millions of passengers. I deplore the strike, and I urge the RMT to engage constructively with Transport for London to ensure that there is no repetition. I also thank all those who have helped to keep London moving over the past 48 hours.
The best testament I can pay to the general improvement in public transport in recent years is to cite four compelling facts. Buses now account for 5.2 billion passenger journeys a year in Britain. In 1996, that figure was 4.5 billion. Trains now account for 1.2 billion passenger journeys a year. In 1996, the figure was 801 million. However, numbers are not enough. Robert Louis Stevenson may have believed it better to travel hopefully than to arrive, but today’s passengers actually expect to arrive. As my noble friend Lord Judd and the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, noted, too often their arrival is delayed in unacceptable ways. The public want a transport system that is reliable, modern, affordable and safe. Those priorities are all involved in the Motion and are key elements of government policy. Let me take them in turn.
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First, I shall talk about quality and reliability. The bus fleet has been substantially modernised in recent years. The average age of the bus fleet is now 8.3 years, nearly meeting the target of eight years for bus modernisation agreed with the Confederation of Passenger Transport in 2002. Some 62 per cent of buses are now low-floor design, making them accessible to wheelchairs users, parents with buggies and the mobility-impaired. That compares to only 8 per cent in 1998. It is hard to overstate the difference that this is making to the lives of millions of our fellow citizens for whom public transport was previously a nightmare experience, if indeed they were able to take advantage of it at all.
As for the bus network, the number of services has radically increased in recent years. As the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, noted, London is the greatest success story, thanks to the lead taken by Ken Livingstone. Bus patronage in London has increased by a remarkable 63 per cent in the last 10 years, but many other parts of the country have also seen improvements, and we have seen the development or extension of successful tram and light-rail systems in Manchester, Nottingham, Croydon, Tyne and Wear, Docklands and the West Midlands. We want further sustained improvement in bus services, accepting the noble Earl’s points about the variability of many services outside London, especially in rural areas. That is why we promoted last year’s Local Transport Act, which is now being implemented. The Act gives local authorities a wider range of powers to promote bus services through voluntary or statutory partnerships of the kind praised by the noble Baroness, Lady Scott. That includes provision for statutory quality partnership schemes so that local authorities can become more involved in setting standards for the frequency and timing of bus services, as well as maximum fares. I hope that with those powers more local authorities, in partnership with bus operators, can replicate the successes we have seen in places such as London, Brighton, Oxford, Cambridge and Telford.
Modernisation has also been the hallmark of the rail industry in recent years. Since the completion of the £8.9 billion west coast upgrade, there is now the most regular and fast service ever between London and Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester, north Wales and Glasgow, with a train every 20 minutes to Birmingham and Manchester, and a standard journey time reduced to 82 minutes from London to Birmingham and two hours and seven minutes from London to Manchester.
I know that the £16 billion east-west Crossrail scheme in London is particularly dear to the heart of the noble Baroness, Lady Valentine. I pay tribute to her personally, and to London First and the London business community, not only for prosecuting the cause of Crossrail over many years, but for promoting the highly innovative funding partnership between the Government and London’s businesses to which she referred. It involves businesses bearing part of the cost of the new line, from which they stand to gain significant benefit. Without that, Crossrail would not have proceeded. The Prime Minister, the Mayor of London and I officially launched Crossrail at Canary Wharf last month. The work is now well under way and I am confident that the project is beyond the point of no return.
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Alongside Crossrail, we are investing £5.5 billion to double the capacity of the north-south Thameslink line in London as one of a large number of capacity enhancements taking place over the next five years. The franchising system is also generating better services. This week we announced the re-letting of the South Central franchise, which includes the busiest commuter lines in south London, Sussex and Surrey and, I think, the line used by the noble Earl, Lord Attlee. I am not sure whether he uses South West Trains.
Earl Attlee: My Lords, I enjoy the Southern railway.
Lord Adonis: My Lords, in that case, the noble Earl will benefit substantially. Under the new franchise, thanks to more and longer trains, there will be an increase in the capacity of trains into London on the Southern railway in the morning peak, and leaving in the evening peak, of 14 per cent and 16 per cent, respectively.
The noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, asked who represents the consumer in the franchising process. It is the duty of my department to do so, but I stress that our recent specification of the South Central franchise followed extensive public consultation carried out by Passenger Focus, the passenger watchdog, which played a significant role in how we specified the franchise. This was specifically in response to the view that the department was not sufficiently customer-focused, as mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Scott. We intend to repeat this extensive public consultation, engaging Passenger Focus, when it comes to the specification of future franchises. Alongside this expansion of capacity, reliability has also been improving. Rail punctuality has improved by 12 percentage points in the last eight years. It now stands at nearly 91 per cent, which is the highest level since robust reliability measures were introduced. However, there is no complacency on my watch. Reliability needs to improve further still and on some lines—notably the west coast main line, mentioned by my noble friend Lord Judd—it is far below the level that passengers have a right to expect. I will consider carefully what my noble friend said on that matter.
I am also concerned to reduce the disruption caused to rail passengers by engineering work. The points of the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, were well made and I agree with them entirely. I want engineering work on the railway to be more efficiently planned and executed and for more use to be made of rail diversionary routes, rather than the bus substitution services that are the bane of rail travellers’ lives at weekends and on bank holidays. The Office of Rail Regulation and the Government are on Network Rail’s case on this issue. I will happily speak more fully to the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, outside the Chamber to explain what we have in hand. I know that this is also an issue of great concern to the noble Earl and I will also be glad to speak to him.
The noble Earl asked specifically about the appointment of a special member to Network Rail. I am sorry if I did not answer this question when he first raised it with me. We do not think that this is an appropriate course to pursue because we do not believe that the performance of Network Rail will be improved by micromanagement by the Government. Improvement
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