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New Transport Secretary Louise Haigh vowed on Thursday to “tackle the hard yards” on making unions abandon outdated work practices on Britain’s strike-plagued railways and get trains in London running on time.
Speaking exclusively to The Standard, she said commuters could expect to see improvements on train services into the capital from the first half of next year as the Government’s landmark rail renationalisation starts to have an impact.
In a wide-ranging interview, the Cabinet minister also:
- Hinted that the HS2 high speed rail line from Birmingham will terminate at Euston rather than at Old Oak Common in west London.
- Said Sadiq Khan and other mayors around the country would get a “say” on new rail timetables in their areas.
- Stressed that a third runway at Heathrow would “crucially” have to meet the UK’s climate change commitments.
- Outlined how the Government is acting to stop so many e-bikes and other battery-powered vehicles from exploding.
- Told how ministers want to replicate London’s successful bus network in other towns and cities.
The Aslef rail union announced on Tuesday that train drivers had voted overwhelmingly to accept a pay offer, worth 15 per cent over three years, ending a two-year dispute at 16 rail companies.
Sir Keir Starmer’s government made the offer within weeks of the party winning the July General Election.
“This has brought the longest strike in our railways to an end and now we can tackle the hard yards on workforce reform and modernising our railways,” said Ms Haigh.
Tearing into the Tory stand-off with the rail unions, she added: “The previous Government deliberately prolonged and provoked a strike for two years in order to try to get reforms that were worth less than £10 million a year.
“For every day that the unions went on strike, it cost the taxpayer around £20 million in lost revenue alone.
“So, they threw taxpayers money, good after bad, wasted it on this completely unnecessary dispute.
“I’m really pleased that we have both settled that long-running dispute but also got agreement with the unions that we can take forward long-overdue negotiations on workforce reform.”
But it is far from clear whether the militant Aslef and RMT rail unions will agree to modern work practices or instead, as has happened in the past, drag their feet and strike to protect outdated ones which benefit their members but at the expense of damaging train services for passengers.
Ms Haigh insisted that the union chiefs had agreed to “enter talks on rolling stock training” which currently can “hold up” drivers for 18 months when new trains are introduced.
“We are going to negotiate and introduce a national training capability framework which will mean that we can smoothly introduce new rolling stock and it does not hold back drivers and staff off the railways,” she said ahead of Labour’s annual conference in Liverpool which starts on Sunday.
She believes it was a mistake by the previous Tory government to link pay to workplace reforms, as staff numbers were cut.
“We will look to recruit more staff so that we can be negotiating from a position of strength,” she argued.
“At the moment our railways are completely understaffed which means that the unions have a lot of influence because they have more leverage.
“They can withhold their drivers, or their staff, and withhold their overtime.”
Pressed on whether rail staff rosters faced reform, she added: “All of that is on the table. We obviously want to get the railways to a seven-day week, we want to make sure that we have the most modernised practices and that they are fit for Great British Railways of the 21st Century.”
She stressed that rail reforms should be done in a “collegiate way”with the unions and that resolving the dispute paved the way for some “industrial peace” to press ahead with a “very long-term view” under the new Great British Railways, rather than the short-termism of private train operating companies.
“For London commuters, first and foremost we want to get the basics right and we want to get the trains to run on time,” she said.
“I know South Eastern has not been performing over the last few years as well as it should.
“Because it’s already in public ownership, we can start to deliver those reforms even before full legislation is in place and hopefully we will start to see some improvements even before the full Railways Act..which will be introduced next summer.”
As for whether Londoners could see improvement to rail services in the first half of next year, Ms Haigh responded: “We are hoping to see improvements absolutely in the first half of 2025 as we can start to work collaboratively with Network Rail, through shadow Great British Railways which we have already set up which will bring together the publicly-owned operators, my department and Network Rail and will start to model the ultimate reforms that we will have under Great British Railways and that will start to improve day-to-day performance and the reliability of those operators that are under public ownership.”
Long-suffering London commuters, though, may be sceptical about whether public ownership will actually lead to better services, with some operators now publicly run still performing poorly.
Ms Haigh, though, explained Labour’s hopes for renationalisation: “The reason why we have experienced such terrible delays and cancellations, in particular over the last few years, is because the system has not been working as a whole.
“We have had operators working in their own interest against the infrastructure provider, Network Rail, that works in a completely different way, and they have not been working together either at the centre or even on the ground.
“By bringing railways into public ownership, we can make sure the decisions are made properly with track and train together and it will drive improvements in reliability and reduce those cancellations.”
The new Government inherited chaos over the HS2 high speed line, with confusion over whether its terminal in London will be Euston or Old Oak Common.
“Clearly Euston is going to be part of the wider picture but we will be making a decision soon on the tunnelling and the development,” said Ms Haigh.
Pressed whether it meant the high speed line would end at Euston, she added: “Nobody would have designed it in the first place to go between Birmingham and Old Oak Common and clearly some wider decisions have to be made in the future both imminently around Euston but also around the terrible situation that they have left us north of Birmingham, by worsening the capacity issues that already existed.”
On a third runway at Heathrow, the Transport Secretary said: “Any decision around Heathrow will have to be made in line with both arguments around growth, growing the economy in all corners of the country, but crucially in line with meeting our legally binding climate change test and carbon emission targets.
“Any bid would have to be made very clearly that it would have to meet that both at the airport and in terms of the impact on international emissions.”
Mr Khan has been pressing for more powers over suburban rail lines into London and Ms Haigh explained: “We have said already that we want mayors to have more of a role in Great British Railways.
“It’s really important that they have a say about the railways that are running in their areas both in terms of infrastructure and in the planning of the timetable.”
On the Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Bill passing through Parliament and getting Royal Assent, she said ministers were “absolutely hoping it will be done at the latest by December.”
One of Greater Anglia or West Midlands railways is expected to be the first train company to be given three months notice that it is being brought back into public ownership.
On exploding e-bikes, Ms Haigh said the Department for Business and Trade is bringing forward legislation on the safety of lithium batteries.
“The main problem here is people are buying bikes, or lithium battery powered vehicles, from abroad,” she said.
“They have not got the proper safety standards, they are then using non-compatible chargers.
“That is what is creating the risk.”
She added: “People should not have concerns if they are buying from a reputable supplier and they are using the right charging equipment.
“But clearly we need better information out there for how people should be using them.”
The Government has also laid statutory legislation to allow every local transport authority in the country to take on the bus powers that “London has enjoyed for the last 40 years”.
