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Sustainable Railways

At the moment we are discussing the governance issues of Network Rail, so let us continue to do so. What should be obvious to Network Rail is that its real customers are the passengers and the train operators and freight companies it serves and it should not believe that its real customer is the Department for Transport. But neither the passengers nor the freight companies have an effective means of holding Network Rail to account, due to the way that the company was set up. The only body to which the company management is required to account consists of the members, which it appoints. That is hardly a model of corporate governance. Indeed, the Select Committee's report concluded:"““If Network Rail's members cannot, or will not …they are not a body worth having.””" I agree. I welcome the Select Committee's critique of Network Rail. I urge Committee members to read the rail review document issued by my party yesterday. We have listened to that criticism carefully we intend to reform the governance of Network Rail. The Network Rail company needs a supervisory body. To comply with European legislation the members of that board will be from outside the rail industry and will comprise passenger representatives and independent members with a strong background in business and dealing with corporate governance issues. The remainder of the members will represent passenger, freight and open access operators and supply. The supervisory board will have an independent chairman. The management board should and will be accountable to the supervisory board for performance. So stakeholders in the industry would have a greater power over Network Rail's priorities, meaning that we should see an improvement in performance, with a focus on service quality, value for money and passenger concerns, and an improvement in respect of tackling overcrowding and producing better co-ordination and integration with track and train. The Committee is right. The governance structure is not adequate and it needs to change. The Select Committee also correctly highlighted the problem of communication, particularly, as we have already mentioned, in respect of the events of early January 2008. Having listened to the Committee's criticism of Network Rail, it seems appropriate that changes should be made. The Conservative party believes that the ORR should look at the licenses. We would work with it to amend the licenses issued by the regulator so that they place a much stronger obligation on Network Rail to keep the passenger and freight operators informed of issues affecting the efficient running of the services, such as the progress of engineering works and the likelihood of over-runs. The key problem with the 2008 overruns, in terms of the way that Network Rail interfaced with the passenger, was that very short notice was given to the operators to change their service. For example, at Liverpool Street, where there was chaos, National Express was given less than three hours' notice that that station would not re-open after the new year break. We will strengthen and extend the duties imposed on Network Rail to co-operate with the train and freight operators and to place a clear and explicit duty on it to co-operate with the train operators on passenger satisfaction, capacity improvements, overcrowding, growing passenger numbers and planning major upgrade projects. It is right that Network Rail's monopoly on capacity enhancement needs to be challenged, for only in that way can we ensure that the public purse is getting value for money. The Select Committee correctly highlighted a number of issues to do with the way that Network Rail contracts out its engineering works and the associated problems with value for money. Making small-scale enhancement projects available to and contestable by other operators, including the train operators, local authorities and community rail projects, would improve efficiency and help provide an important benchmark for Network Rail's performance. It was absolutely right that the White Paper highlighted safety as a key concern. Safety must always be the key priority—it must be a top priority—but nothing in the plans that would allow small-scale capacity projects to be contestable would affect the safety of the network. It is true that tragedies on the rail network are not the exclusive preserve of either the private or the public sector. I credit the Government with getting one thing right in its 30-year strategy: correctly identifying that the capacity shortage on the network should be the top priority. However, again, the Select Committee was quite damning:"““We are concerned that the Government is failing to take the concerns of the industry seriously…We recommend that the””" Department for Transport"““revise its method for predicting developments in rail patronage…The Government's approach to increasing capacity…is over-cautious.””" Hon. Members have given all sorts of examples of that from their constituencies. One example that directly affects my constituency is the inability of the Government to bring back into operation the five Eurostar platforms at Waterloo. They were told about those in November 2004 and, still, five years later not one of those is back in use. The Committee might say ““over-cautious””, but that certainly is not the word used by commuters. I should like to touch on three other areas where progress could be made in terms of capacity. I agree with a number of hon. Members who have mentioned the need to protect disused lines. The Select Committee correctly highlighted the question of disused rail lines. I have written to the previous two Secretaries of State about this matter to ask them to agree to a moratorium on the usage of disused lines so that they could be re-opened, but I have had no response to either of my letters. I think that in paragraph 23 of the Select Committee's conclusions, which says that the responses from the Government are ““less than convincing””, the Committee is being rather kind to the ministerial team. We need to ensure that there is a moratorium on disused lines so that they could be used for rail openings, if that becomes appropriate. When the Select Committee report was published it was correct to conclude that, at that stage, the Government had absolutely no interest in high-speed rail. Indeed, the then Secretary of State described high-speed rail as being risky and expensive and said that it would not help passenger demand. How things have changed. Although we may not agree exactly on the route, there now appears to be a cross-party consensus building on the need for high-speed rail. That would not only have huge impacts in terms of economic benefits for the north of England, but would rebuild capacity for both freight and passengers on the west coast main line. It is clear also that one should welcome today's statement from the Government about new carriages. Paragraph 25 of the Select Committee's conclusions welcomes the new carriages—wouldn't we all?—but has the statement today taken us any further forward? The Secretary of State failed to confirm exactly when any of those new carriages would come into operation. As I understand it, the 2013 phase will be only a testing phase. There will be no benefit from any of the new carriages until beyond 2015. Will the Minister say exactly when he expects the rolling stock announced today to come on board? Finally, as the ORR and others noted in their evidence to the Select Committee, it is not the place of Government to develop detailed strategies.