MPs slam new year rail delays
Delays and cancellations across the rail network were “unacceptable” and a “fiasco,” MPs said last night.
In a House of Commons debate, MPs criticised the overrunning engineering work on the West Coast Mainline and at Liverpool Street Station, London, both of which caused significant disruption to commuters returning from the Christmas break.
However, a Conservative motion blaming the government for failing to make Network Rail more accountable was defeated.
Shadow transport secretary Theresa Villiers said the government had neglected to create a scheme to properly penalise failures.
But she accepted last week’s delays, described as a “monumental foul up” that created a “truly miserable New Year” were also the result of “incompetent” Network Rail managers.
She told MPs: “It is simply not acceptable, it should not have happened. With sensible planning it need not have happened”.
Lib Dem transport spokesman Norman Baker said the situation had been a “fiasco” and called on Network Rail to plan better to ensure a reliable service.
The public and freight operators are “entitled to a railway that is safe, clean, that is fairly priced, cost efficient and predictable,” Mr Baker told MPs.
Network Rail has apologised for the delays, which it blamed on a lack of specialist engineers.
The Office of Rail Regulation has already launched its own inquiry into why engineering works overran by four days and the railway operator is expected to receive a sizeable fine.
Ms Villiers criticised the practice of fining Network Rail, however, claiming costs were simply passed on to the taxpayer.
She argued: “The underlying problem is that when it created Network Rail, the government failed to put in place effective means to ensure that it was answerable for its actions.
“When it provides poor service, too often it gets away with impunity.”
Transport secretary Ruth Kelly said it was “frankly ludicrous” to blame a lack of accountability for the delays.
But she agreed the rail disruption had been “serious and unacceptable” and reassured MPs lessons would be learned.
With the rail network subject to cancellations and engineering work on a regular basis, Ms Kelly said the government had been taking the “tough decisions” to “clear up the mess left after privatisation where the state of the track had deteriorated dramatically”.
The previous Tory government had “managed decline” in the railways, she told MPs, while Labour was “planning for growth”.
A Conservative motion criticising the delays as “unacceptable” and saying Network Rail needed to be made more accountable was defeated by 303 votes to 235.
MPs voted 304 to 234 in favour of a government amendment which praised ministers for taking “decisive action to correct the flaws of rail privatisation”.
