Louise Haigh
MP for Sheffield Heeley · Labour · United Kingdom
“For far too long, the state has found itself reaching for the comfort blanket of consultation, review and process. To deliver change at the pace and scale the public expect, my Department is stripping out needless bureaucracy.”
“My hon. Friend, with her considerable experience in this area, is absolutely right. The fact of the matter is that no amount of money will make up for the impact that this terrible tragedy has had on countless victims and their families, but we are determined to deliver justice as swiftly as possible.”
“I thank and congratulate my hon. Friend on his many years of campaigning on this terrible issue. He will know about the Prime Minister’s personal involvement in and commitment to this issue, about his personal experience of campaigning alongside the victims, and how important he and the Department consider the matter.”
“I am incredibly sorry to hear about the experience of Stan and the death of his family member. Unfortunately, that experience has been shared by too many people, and the Government, including my predecessor as Minister for the Cabinet Office, have done considerable work to improve the scheme, setting out a number of reforms and new statut…”
“I will explain it to the shadow Secretary of State. There is a difference between rebates and grants. The mayor does not have the ability to provide rebates now and is unlikely to in the future, because it would involve getting data from His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs and having the ability to set income tax thresholds, which we will o…”
“The Infected Blood Compensation Authority has asked 6,321 people to start their claims. I am sorry to say that the horrible nature of this awful scandal means that there is inherent uncertainty about the number of eligible people, but we are deeply committed to ensuring that everyone eligible receives the compensation they are due.”
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“But we do not want to wait for legislation. The Government are already making improvements and taking steps to deliver reform across the railways. I have appointed Laura Shoaf as chair of shadow Great British Railways, bringing together Network Rail, the publicly owned train operating companies 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 that passengers want, 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.”
“The people impacted by delays and cancellations, who can no longer rely on the train to get where they need to, do not care who owns the trains—they care whether they are working or not. Under the model we inherited, no one could argue that they were working, so we will soon launch our consultation setting out plans for unification across the railway. As part of that, Great British Railways, 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. That will lay the groundwork for the introduction of the railways Bill, later this Session, which will establish Great British Railways and end the fragmentation that has hampered our railways for over 30 years of privatisation.”
“That is 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. I am grateful to you, Mr Speaker, for this opportunity to update the House 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 three months’ notice to the first private train operating company to be taken into public ownership, which we will announce as soon as Royal Assent has been achieved. No one has ever pretended that public ownership alone is a silver bullet.”
“With permission, Mr Speaker, I shall make a statement about rail performance. I welcome the shadow Secretary of State for Transport, the hon. Member for Orpington (Gareth Bacon), to his place. I am sure the Opposition will be interested in what we have to update the House about this afternoon. 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 4% when the last Government left office. The situation is holding back our economy, stifling our businesses and making life miserable for passengers.”
“We have been clear that open access should continue where it does not abstract revenue from the overall network and where there is capacity. There have been good examples, such as Lumo and Grand Central, and we are very happy to continue working with them. We will publish a long-term rolling stock plan in due course.”
“I am grateful to the shadow Secretary of State for acknowledging that we provided the statement in advance, and I suggest that next time he reads it before he responds. He will have heard me say that public ownership is not a silver bullet, hence why we are setting out a substantial package of reforms. As I also mentioned, that includes substantial workforce reform, including developing training policies—that is one of the ways in which the recruitment of drivers has been really held back—and reducing reliance on rest day working agreements. The shadow Minister might also want to check the latest statistics on TransPennine Express. It had the largest increase in punctuality of any operator contracted to my Department, including all those in private ownership.”
“I am grateful that my hon. Friend is concerned about my work-life balance—so am I. We are staffing up the operator of last resort, as it is currently known—we will shortly change its name, as it will no longer be the operator of last resort—and the Department has significantly increased its capability. Under the previous Administration, no one in government took responsibility for the running of the railways. We are taking a very deliberately different approach and, as passengers-in-chief, we will ensure that both the operator of last resort and the Department are sufficiently staffed up to manage the quick and successful transition of franchises into public ownership.”
“That is a result not least of the fact that the ones that are in public ownership were already the worst performing, and we need to look at how they have improved under public ownership. The real benefits will be brought about under Great British Railways, when we will be truly able to integrate track and train and deliver those improvements. We will set out the schedule for bringing the private TOCs into public ownership once Royal Assent has been given to the Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Bill, but the right balance must be struck between performance and return for the taxpayer, because we are spending hundreds of millions of pounds in dividend payouts and management fees. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to mention the Access for All programme and accessibility, which has not been good enough under Network Rail.”
“To confirm, we are working with the trade unions at the moment on productivity improvements. We are clear that some of the practices in place on the railways are not acceptable or fit for modern and efficient railways. In the pay deal, there was a side letter and agreement to work through training improvements, and we want to ensure that that is delivered. The previous Government’s approach meant that they not only failed to deliver any workforce reform improvements, but presided over the longest industrial dispute in our railways’ history, costing the taxpayer and passengers hundreds of millions of pounds. The hon. Gentleman is right to point out that cancellations are high in the publicly owned TOCs.”
“The day when everyone is praising me to the heavens on HS2 is one I look forward to. As my hon. Friend knows, brand-new Elizabeth line trains are on order; the Mayor of London was awarded a £485 million capital settlement in the Budget partly for those trains, which are being produced at Alstom in Derby. That will significantly reduce the overcrowding and delays that she talks about. The Department works with the Mayor of London very closely on addressing those delays.”
“Shadow Great British Railways brings together the Department, Network Rail, and those operators that are already in public ownership to look at integration and ensure that our investment in the network delivers improvements for passengers as quickly and efficiently as possible. That work will absolutely cover maintaining the network, and we will set out how we will do so in the next control period, as we look towards the second phase of the spending review.”
“I completely empathise, and agree that the situation in Oxford is not good enough. The hon. Lady’s characterisation of Network Rail is partly why it is being abolished as we establish Great British Railways. I will of course meet her to discuss how we can improve the situation.”
“The truth is that the previous Government deliberately provoked and prolonged that strike, the longest in the history of our railways. They budgeted for a pay settlement not far off where we landed, and that pay settlement has already paid for itself through increased revenue and improved services for passengers.”
“The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. Chiltern was the worst-performing operator last year, in terms of the reduction in punctuality, which further makes the case for public ownership. The previous Government made lots of commitments, few of which were funded, but I will take that question away and determine where the rolling stock order is.”
“I was delighted to be in Derby recently to confirm that the headquarters of Great British Railways will be in that rail city. I am also delighted that, as I say, Alstom is manufacturing the new Elizabeth line trains, as a consequence of funding awarded in the Budget. Shadow GBR is really important for engaging with stakeholders and, crucially, putting passengers at the heart of developing a new culture—and a new organisation, in Great British Railways. It has the expert chairing of Laura Shoaf, who brings substantial planning and transport experience from her time as chief executive of West Midlands combined authority.”
“The hon. Lady is absolutely right, and unfortunately that is the picture across too much of our railways. The workforce terms and conditions are simply not fit for purpose. Part of our inheritance is that we do not have a workforce that can deliver a modern and efficient railway. We are working with Great Western Railway to address that egregious issue, and we will come back to the House shortly to set out our progress.”
“It was extraordinarily frustrating to see the news of the obscene amounts of money spent on that structure to do with HS2. That happened under HS2’s previous leadership. We are resolving this by bringing in Mark Wild imminently to lead the organisation, and we are also resolving issues around cost control and governance through James Stewart’s governance review of HS2. These things happened under the previous Government, and fortunately the electorate resolved that issue for us on 4 July.”
“I have routine conversations with Northern Rail, as the hon. Gentleman would imagine. The most recent was on Thursday. We facilitated a new rest day working agreement with it, which has significantly reduced driver cancellations, but there is an outstanding issue with conductors; there is a very similar situation with Great Western. In parts of Northern Rail, particularly in the north-west, Sundays are not included in the working week. That has led to an unacceptable amount of cancellations, which we are working to resolve. I will raise the issue of stopping at Preston with Avanti separately.”
“My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The strikes were costing us £20 million a day in lost revenue. That is aside from the economic impact of people coming off the railways and not making journeys to work, to see friends and family or to visit other towns and cities. Settling the pay disputes that were pervading our railways has already paid for itself.”
“I will look into the issue for the right hon. Gentleman. It may be that the Rail Minister has to make himself a hero; I will ask him to meet the right hon. Gentleman to discuss the matter.”
“I was absolutely horrified, on entering the Department, to learn that there had been no routine ministerial oversight, in any sense of the word, of HS2 for some time. We immediately established a cross-ministerial taskforce, comprising me and the Treasury, to oversee HS2’s costs. I have written to the chair to make it clear that, beyond safety, his first and abiding priority is to bring down costs. I have commissioned a governance review, led by James Stewart. We will look at the structure of HS2 Ltd, which has been too much at arm’s length, and too free to spend taxpayers’ money for too long.”
“The problem across the entire railway is that we do not have sufficient drivers or staff, so too many parts of the railways are reliant on rest day working agreements. We should not have to rely on people volunteering to come on shift in order to run a Sunday service, but unfortunately that is the case at Great Western Railway. We will not be harmonising contracts or terms and conditions at Great British Railways, as we have established, but we need to get drivers and conductors on modern terms and conditions that reflect the railway that we need. We are attempting to address the specific issue at Great Western Railway; as I say, we will come back to the House soon with an update on progress.”
“We will see 44 additional trains per day on the new timetable from Southeastern. CrossCountry restored its full timetable today, and we hope to see new timetables from TransPennine Express in the coming weeks. We have procurements out for TransPennine Express and Southeastern, I believe, so my hon. Friend will see new rolling stock in due course.”
“The Mayor of London is the owner of Transport for London, but we can absolutely work together to see whether anything of that nature can be achieved. I see no reason why we cannot make progress on that issue.”
“I am grateful for those comments. Govia Thameslink had an improvement of 3% in its cancellations on last year, but it is still falling behind on punctuality. [ Official Report , 25 November 2024; Vol. 757, c. 8WC.] (Correction) I am happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss what more we can do.”
“One of the purposes of this reform was to save the taxpayer money, and bringing operators into public ownership as their contracts expire means there will be no compensation. We will also be saving the money currently leaking out of the system through dividends and management fees. It would not be fiscally prudent in the current environment to spend billions of pounds on nationalising the rolling stock, so we will continue the current arrangement whereby private finance is leveraged into rolling stock companies.”
“I absolutely agree. For too long, passengers have not been able to rely on the railways, and it has driven people off them. We see in the latest Transport Focus data that people are gradually starting to feel more confident in using the railways, but we have a long way to go to turn the tide on the last 14 years of failure.”
“We will be setting out a long-term infrastructure strategy in spring next year, working with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government and colleagues across Government to ensure that we are unlocking the transport infrastructure that will be of benefit and allow us to meet our housing targets but also improve rural connectivity. My Department is also reforming how we do appraisals to ensure we maximise our investment in transport infrastructure for economic growth and to tackle socioeconomic inequality.”
“LNER’s reliability has improved in the past year, but I am not naive and do not think we are there yet; these are only the green shoots of recovery. The real improvements from these reforms will come when we can truly integrate track and train. LNER and the east coast are a perfect example of where the previous system was failing. Billions of pounds were spent on upgrading the east coast main line, but with absolutely no improvement for passengers. By integrating track and train, we can ensure that those upgrades to the east coast main line are fully realised for passengers and that the timetable and service from LNER are improved.”
“The hon. Lady is absolutely right. Northern and TransPennine Express serve my constituency as well, and some of the most deprived parts of the north of England. Performance has not been good enough. TransPennine in particular has seen insignificant improvements since it was brought into public ownership, but neither operator is where it needs to be. We are working closely with them as a priority through the operator of last resort, not only to drive efficiencies, but crucially to drive performance. I was struck when I met Network Rail and some of the managing directors of the worst-performing operating companies that they made it clear that the previous levels of performance had simply been tolerated and accepted as normal across the industry.”
“We can hear from the House how much of an impact the levels of service on Northern Rail are having. Andy Burnham texts me every Monday about the performance on Northern trains, so I can assure my hon. Friend that it is a priority.”
“My views on Avanti’s performance are well known, I think. The right hon. Lady is absolutely right that it has not been acceptable. Shockingly, the way that national rail contracts were written under the previous Government means that Avanti has not defaulted. It is on a remedial plan to drive improvements, and we have seen a small increase in punctuality, but it still has a long way to go. We are watching over Avanti like a hawk to make sure that if it does default, it can be immediately brought into public ownership.”
“Wi-fi is one of the examples of passenger experience that we are clear needs to be delivered through Great British Railways. I take East Midlands Railway, and the wi-fi is even worse on that line. I would be happy to raise that issue with Avanti. We are in the process of attempting to facilitate an agreement with Northern on the conductor issue that my hon. Friend mentions in the north-west, which has the most egregious example of working terms and conditions being outside of a normal working week.”
“Again, the current fragmentation of the network means that we have dozens of different types of rolling stock across the network, all procured by different operators at different times, which are not interoperable between operators and cannot be moved around the network precisely when there are issues such as those that the hon. Gentleman described. With the establishment of Great British Railways and a long-term rolling stock strategy, we can procure fewer types of trains and start to move them around. I will take away the specific issue of short-form trains on Great Western Railway and write to him about what action can be taken.”
“I am conscious of the disruption that will be experienced by passengers coming from the south-west. We are putting in place plans so that trains can come into Euston rather than Paddington, but it is undeniable that there will be substantial disruption during the Old Oak Common works. I or the Rail Minister will be happy to meet colleagues who are affected.”
“I am grateful to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for allowing my hon. Friend to ask a question. I thought he would mention the ferries as well—he also texts me often about the ferries. I am grateful for his point. The new model will deliver not only better services for passengers but a far better settlement for taxpayers, who have been ripped off under the previous model for far too long.”
“The purpose of displaying performance data at stations is to give passengers certainty and transparency about the state of the railways, but Great British Railways will also be far more accountable than under the current system. At the moment, to hold the railways to account, there is a complicated mix of responsibility between Network Rail, the train operating companies and the Department for Transport. Great British Railways will provide a single point of access to the railways for politicians and for communities, and we will be able to ensure that the organisation is single-mindedly delivering for passengers.”
“Nowhere is the Tory legacy of transport failure more obvious than in the legacy we have been left on High Speed 2, with costs allowed to run completely out of control, communities ignored, and misery for passengers baked into the plans. My Department is working with the rail industry to minimise disruption during the construction of Old Oak Common station, including through a £30 million investment in mitigations that will allow services to continue to operate during the disruption.”
“I am grateful to my hon. Friend for rightly raising these issues. I will be delighted to meet her to discuss the mitigations. Efforts will be made to minimise the impact on passengers, including trains terminating at either Ealing Broadway or Reading, but we will work with her to monitor and minimise disruption for her constituents.”
“I fully appreciate the implications of Network Rail engineering works, and the construction and maintenance of level crossings in particular. I will happily pass on the hon. Member’s request for a meeting to the Minister for Rail in the other place.”
“I am happy to answer that question, Mr Speaker. The two-year industrial dispute cost the taxpayer £25 million a day every time the Tories oversaw a strike day. The reforms that they pursued cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of pounds. We have since settled the national pay dispute and localised disputes on London North Eastern Railway and CrossCountry, leading to improved passenger services across the country.”
“Every death on our roads is a tragedy; for too long, they have been treated as an inevitability. The safety of our roads is an absolute priority for this Government. Since the general election, the Department has begun work on a new road safety strategy, the first in more than a decade, which will support our mission to build an NHS fit for the future.”
“I applaud my hon. Friend for raising this important issue. I know the blight that such antisocial behaviour and speeding has on communities, particularly in areas like the one he represents. A key part of our safer streets mission is to take back our streets, and the Government will give police the powers they need to seize illegal, dangerous and antisocial vehicles and take them off the streets for good, so that they can quickly be crushed. We are working on delivering the road safety strategy, the first in over a decade, to reduce antisocial behaviour, injuries and tragic deaths on our roads.”
“I am grateful to the hon. Member for raising that important issue. It is clear, with stats like those, that it needs some attention. I am sure that my hon. Friend the Roads Minister will be happy to meet him.”
“I fear I may be filling up the diary of my hon. Friend the Roads Minister, but I am sure she would be happy to meet my hon. Friend the Member for Burton and Uttoxeter (Jacob Collier) to discuss the road in question.”
“I am grateful to the hon. Lady for raising that point, and it sits at the heart of our ambition to develop the new road safety strategy. The previous Government pursued poisonous culture wars against road users of all descriptions. We are determined to take back streets for pedestrians, cyclists and drivers, and that will be at the heart of our new ambition for the road safety strategy.”
“I was fascinated to know how Opposition Front Benchers would approach their legacy when raising questions today. The legacy we have been left includes a maintenance backlog of billions and billions of pounds on our local roads. It is one of the biggest issues facing people across the country, and our manifesto committed us to repair and prevent up to a million potholes a year.”
“Practical driving test waiting times remain far too high after the previous Administration failed to reduce them, limiting would-be drivers’ access to opportunities. I have met the chief executive of the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency and driving test examiners, and I have instructed my officials to work at pace to identify solutions to this pervasive problem.”
“I am very grateful to you, Mr Speaker, as I am to my hon. Friend for raising that important question. He is absolute right. Average waiting times at the Wood Green centre currently sit just above the national average. The measures that the DVSA is already taking to reduce waiting times include conducting tests outside regular hours, at weekends and on public holidays, and continuing to deploy examiners from areas with lower waiting times. That is in addition to producing additional examiners across the country in areas where waiting times are highest. We will soon set out to the House further steps by which we will bring down waiting times further.”
“The state of the country’s bus services is too often unacceptably poor after more than a decade of neglect and decline. Politicians in my position have neglected them for too long, and it shows. In September we moved fast and announced transformative new measures to make it quicker and easier for every local authority in England to have London-style control over its bus services.”