Louise Haigh MP: speeches 2024

Speeches

• 18 Nov 2024 · Bus Funding · Hansard source

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  It sounds like the Somerset volunteers are doing a cracking job. I am very happy to congratulate them and to welcome the £6.8 million of funding announced for Somerset today.

• 18 Nov 2024 · Bus Funding · Hansard source

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  May I begin by saying what an absolute joy it is to thank my hon. Friend the Labour MP for Welwyn Hatfield? He is absolutely right; I can confirm that the better buses Bill will extend powers to every local authority that wants to avail itself of franchising. Because we are well aware that not every transport authority in the country is in either London or Greater Manchester, the Department stands ready to work with those in more rural areas and with different types of transport authority, and to look at different models to give them the flexibility that will enable them to build a network that works for their communities.

• 18 Nov 2024 · Bus Funding · Hansard source

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  With your permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I will update the House on our plans for better buses in England outside London. When we talk about fixing the foundations of our country, our minds should turn to the nation’s most popular form of public transport, because nothing props up our economy more or better supports our society than the 3.4 billion passenger journeys carried by our buses each year. They are more than just taking people from A to B: they are a lifeline for young and old, in cities or towns, binding us to jobs, public services and opportunity. From trips to the shops or a doctor’s appointment to a job interview, buses shoulder the daily needs of Britain and, in doing so, underpin every single one of our national missions. That is why, come what may, this Government will always back our buses. Like much of the economy, our inheritance is dire. Some 40 years of failed deregulation have turned many lifeline bus services into liabilities. Passengers are let down as they sometimes wait for hours for buses that do not turn up. Areas are cut off as operators prioritise more viable routes in town centres. Fares continue to rise, and nearly 300 million fewer miles are being driven than in 2010. None of this was inevitable or an accident, but all of it was down to choices—political choices—paving the way for decline and placing a ceiling on the ambitions of many, especially the poorest in society, who catch 10 times more buses than trains. Enough is enough. This Government have chosen to back our buses and the millions who rely on them every day. In last month’s Budget, we confirmed more than £1 billion in funding to improve services, protect vital routes and keep fares down. Today, we are distributing that funding, which means more than £700 million for local councils to deliver bus service improvement plans and better meet local needs, and a further £243 million for bus operators, including funding a long-standing grant to drive down fares and drive up services. In many places, this is record investment, and every region and authority in England will benefit, especially areas that are historically underserved, such as rural areas and small towns. Councils such as Leicester, the Isle of Wight, Torbay and Cambridgeshire will see unprecedented levels of funding for services. Routes that are at risk will be saved and passengers will see faster, more reliable journeys. We are also putting money into safer bus stops and more accessible passenger information so that our bus sector is fit for everyone. I am delighted that metro mayors have welcomed the announcement, with city regions such as Greater Manchester, West Yorkshire and Liverpool receiving some of the biggest allocations. That is not all. We are committing over £150 million to cap bus fares at £3, ensuring passengers do not face a cliff edge of higher prices from next year, particularly in rural areas where buses are a lifeline. The current fare cap was only funded until 31 December, meaning that without the action we are taking, some fares would have risen by 80%. We were not going to let that happen. We are investing to keep fares down, putting money back in people’s pockets, and to provide more frequent services so that more people can get to more places at more times of the day. Not only are we a pro-investment Government, we are a pro-reform Government. We will not hesitate to overhaul parts of the system that simply are not working for passengers. If that means changes to how we allocate resources, we will make them; if passengers’ needs are not being met, we will prioritise them; and if laws are needed, we will introduce them. We have called time on the way that bus funding has historically been allocated. Previously, the Government made councils compete for funding, wasting resources and delaying decisions. That was overly complicated, led to inconsistent funding, and created uncertainty for authorities and operators. We are taking a fundamentally different approach. We have allocated funding based on local need, population, the distance that buses travel, and levels of deprivation. That puts fairness at the heart of future funding and ends the postcode lottery for bus services. It ensures taxpayer money goes to the areas that are most in need, where it will have the most impact and where passengers will most benefit. This is the first stop on our journey to support local areas to take back control of services and deliver better buses across the country. Finally, we will introduce our landmark buses Bill in the coming weeks—the biggest shake-up of the sector for 40 years. This Bill will allow councils across the country to adopt franchising models, as in Greater Manchester and London. That means local leaders taking back control of services, ensuring that routes, fares and timetables are all geared towards local passenger needs. This model works. It has been over a year since buses were brought under public control in Greater Manchester. Since then, passenger numbers have grown, reliability has improved, and new 24/7 services have been introduced. Roads are now managed in a way that works for buses, meaning that unexpected congestion or unplanned roadworks do not leave passengers stranded. That is what power in local hands looks like. It is why we are simplifying the franchise process to ensure local leaders waste no time in driving improvements for passengers. We will also remove the ideological ban on publicly owned bus companies so that our buses can finally be run for the public, by the public. I have said it before, and I will say it again: when it comes to our public transport, we are moving fast and fixing things. After years of decline, we are putting passengers back at the heart of our buses through record levels of investment and generational reform. Last month’s Budget sent the signal that, even in difficult economic times, this Government will never take our buses for granted, because we know that investing in buses means investing in people, in communities and in the future growth of our country. Better buses are just a few stops away. I commend this statement to the House.

• 18 Nov 2024 · Bus Funding · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is right that the 30% cut to his bus services is absolutely shocking. Behind every one of those cuts is a human story of opportunity and ambition curtailed. I have been working closely with Kim McGuinness on speeding up the franchising process. Under the current legislation, Andy Burnham took six years to bring a single bus service under public control, despite having been elected twice in that period on a mandate to do so. We want to ensure that we drastically speed up the process and reduce the cost to local transport authorities and mayoral authorities of getting to franchising, so that the money can be spent effectively on local bus services.

• 18 Nov 2024 · Bus Funding · Hansard source

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  The way the formula has been designed explicitly benefits rural areas, because a third of the allocation is dependent on bus mileage; that is why a number of areas, including Somerset, have done much better out of today’s allocation than in previous years. We are removing the controls that were previously required. All the funding will have to be spent on buses, but we believe it is right that local transport authorities take those decisions themselves rather than being constrained by central diktat from Whitehall.

• 18 Nov 2024 · Bus Funding · Hansard source

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  I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for those incredibly important questions. We have committed to publish the evaluation of the £2 bus fare cap shortly. We will introduce the better buses Bill in the coming weeks, which will allow every area of the country to avail themselves of the franchising powers and overturn the ideological ban on public ownership. My Department is also taking a much more proactive enabling role with local transport authorities, making sure that they have the capability and capacity to move to franchising. A significant amount of the funding settlement announced today is specifically for capability and staffing in local transport authorities. Finally, on pork barrel politics, the reason behind today’s funding is that we are not in the business of picking winners and losers. We want to ensure that every corner of the country has the funding it deserves and the ability to avail itself of the style of buses that we have enjoyed in London for four decades.

• 18 Nov 2024 · Bus Funding · Hansard source

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  I will take away the hon. Lady’s specific question about the percentages and write to her, but I was pleased to meet Ken Skates, the Welsh Transport Minister, just a few weeks ago to talk about the Welsh Government’s own ambitious plans for bus franchising across Wales. They are learning the lessons from Greater Manchester and London, and ensuring that every constituent in Wales will be able to benefit from better buses.

• 11 Nov 2024 · Rail Performance · Hansard source

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  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.

• 11 Nov 2024 · Rail Performance · Hansard source

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  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.

• 11 Nov 2024 · Rail Performance · Hansard source

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  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.

• 11 Nov 2024 · Rail Performance · Hansard source

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  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.

• 11 Nov 2024 · Rail Performance · Hansard source

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  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.

• 11 Nov 2024 · Rail Performance · Hansard source

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  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.

• 11 Nov 2024 · Rail Performance · Hansard source

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  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.

• 11 Nov 2024 · Rail Performance · Hansard source

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  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. 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. 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. 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. We are using those tools to unlock the punctuality and reliability that passengers deserve across the country. For example, Southeastern is now performing much better. Its cancellations are low, with its punctuality ranking among the top five operators contracted to my Department, and that level of service will increase by 44 additional trains per day when the timetable is updated in December. That is what shadow Great British Railways is delivering now. We are demonstrating what integration between track and train can deliver for passengers. Take those who rely on Euston station, for example. Indecision on HS2 left passengers with fewer platforms and greater overcrowding, victims of the so-called “Euston dash”. Convening Network Rail and train operators at Euston in the interest of passengers is an excellent example of the benefits that our reform agenda can achieve. Euston now not only has an integrated station management team, but a 100-day plan of rapid improvements that puts the interests of passengers first and individual organisations second. Platform announcements are made earlier, crowding has been reduced and, yes, the advertising screen has been temporarily switched off. Delays and cancellations were not the only inheritance. For two years, strike followed strike, and disruption followed disruption, in the longest industrial dispute on our railways. I have made it my priority to get around the table, reversing the previous Government’s antagonistic approach by resetting industrial relations and settling the pay disputes that saw the country grinding to a halt. I am working with the sector to speed up training and accelerate the driver recruitment pipeline, which will reduce the railway’s reliance on rest day working agreements and lower the burden on taxpayers. Settling this saga allows us to move forward with long-overdue negotiations on workforce reform, bringing our railways into the 21st century. That is what moving fast and fixing things looks like. We are putting passengers first and, today, I can inform the House that since the resolution of the LNER driver dispute, we have seen green shoots emerging, with the number of LNER cancellations falling. Not only have cancellations due to a lack of driver resource dropped to near zero as a direct consequence of getting around the table with unions, but revenue is £15 million higher for the recent rail periods this year versus the same periods last year. Overall cancellations are down from 7% to 5%, and LNER has run 100 more train services in the last four weeks than in the comparable period last year. Elsewhere, passengers will see a tangible impact on reliability on Northern Rail trains. Thanks to our agreement on rest day working, hundreds more driver shifts have been covered this weekend, cutting cancellations now and in the long run. At TransPennine Express, operator-caused, on-the-day cancellations averaged around 2% in the last year, compared to 5% in the year before it was taken into public ownership. On CrossCountry, we took immediate steps to implement a remedial plan to reduce its cancellations and get services back on track. Its reduced timetable has brought greater stability, and I expect even greater reliability in the long term as the full timetable returns today. Those are early signs of what happens when a Government get a grip and put passengers at the heart of decision making. Resetting industrial relations is already having a direct impact on better services, but it will take time to pass all the benefits on to passengers. We have to be clear-eyed about the problems, but we are committed to full transparency. I can announce today that we will be fully transparent with passengers by displaying performance data at stations to demonstrate how the railway is working and to allow the public to hold us to account as we deliver change. That is important, because the railway is a promise—a promise to passengers from the moment they buy a ticket that the train will arrive on time, as the timetable says. While there are encouraging signs, I am not naive to the reality that passengers will see only a broken promise so long as the departure board shows trains delayed and services cancelled. That is why I have approached the situation with the urgency it demands, including focusing on performance today; bringing together industry to make it clear that improvements that can be made now must be made now; and using every tool at our disposal to drive improvements as fast as possible. At the same time, the root of the problem grows deeper. Decades of muddled decision making have left the railway fragmented. We have tolerated an unworkable system of track in one organisation and trains in another for decades too long. This Government will turn the page on that chapter of fragmentation. I have wasted no time in kick-starting the long-term reform that our railway desperately needs. We have wasted no time in bringing train operating companies under public ownership. As today’s figures show, we have wasted no time in getting around the table with unions and making change happen now. That is what moving fast and fixing things looks like, and I commend this statement to the House.

• 11 Nov 2024 · Rail Performance · Hansard source

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  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.

• 11 Nov 2024 · Rail Performance · Hansard source

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  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.

• 11 Nov 2024 · Rail Performance · Hansard source

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  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.

• 11 Nov 2024 · Rail Performance · Hansard source

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  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.

• 11 Nov 2024 · Rail Performance · Hansard source

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  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.

• 11 Nov 2024 · Rail Performance · Hansard source

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  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.

• 11 Nov 2024 · Rail Performance · Hansard source

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  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.

• 11 Nov 2024 · Rail Performance · Hansard source

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  Either the Rail Minister or I will of course seek to meet representatives of West Midlands Trains to address its performance.

• 11 Nov 2024 · Rail Performance · Hansard source

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  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.

• 11 Nov 2024 · Rail Performance · Hansard source

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  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.