Grayling: Blame Labour for the railway chaos
WE ARE SPENDING MORE ON RAIL SAYS TRANSPORT SECRETARY
THE transport secretary has blamed major ongoing failures in Northern Rail’s three-year-old franchise on the Labour Party.
Speaking at the Tory conference in Birmingham, Chris Grayling apologised again for chaos on the northern railways – before arguing the recent chaos has been ‘particularly’ difficult for the Conservative Party.
In a long section of his speech devoted to the railways, he admitted trains are ‘packed’ and that the network is ‘creaking.’
“I have already apologised for the disruption caused by the failures in the introduction of the new timetable in May,” he said. “It was unacceptable and I want to say again how sorry I am that so many passengers had such a difficult time. For us as Conservatives, it was particularly frustrating, because the new timetable is actually part of a big investment programme in the railways, to deliver more trains and more seats for passengers in both the north and the south. The chaos cannot and will not be allowed to happen again.”
Much of the chaos on the northern train network over the recent couple of years has been laid at the door of Northern Rail, whose current franchise was awarded by the Conservatives in 2015. At the time, the government promised ‘not just better services, and more seats at peak times, but also better journeys.’ However, figures released by Greater Manchester combined authority over the summer revealed the firm only hit its performance targets for the first two months of its contract, before then continuously missing them. Since the May timetable was partially reintroduced in August, Sunday services in particular have also been hit by repeated waves of cancellations. But Mr Grayling said the failures in the franchise were Labour’s fault. “After a decade under Labour when things stood still, we have much ground to catch up,” he said. “Do you know, they let a Northern Rail franchise with no new investment at all? That’s Labour and the north.
“What did we do? We let a Northern Rail franchise which is replacing and refurbishing every single train across the whole of the north of England.”
Rail chaos, has continued on the northern network this week.
Mr Grayling said the problems within the system have been about more than just the failed timetable introduction in May, adding: “In the last 20 years, the railways have been through an extraordinary period of growth. The number of passengers, the number of trains on the railways has doubled. The trains are packed. The network is creaking.”
He said passengers experienced too many things going wrong and they needed to look after them. Introducing one-click compensation for delays and disruption would make it easier to claim. “It’s frustrating for us because as Conservatives in government, we are spending more on rail than any other government in modern times. New trains. Upgraded tracks. New routes across the north, in the south and in the Midlands,” he said.
After a decade under Labour when things stood still we have much ground to catch up Transport secretary Chris Grayling