Meeting of the Parliament 02 October 2019
It is customary at the outset of speeches for us to thank those who have taken the time to supply briefings to members ahead of debates. I thank the rail unions for their briefings. However, it was remiss of the minister, Joan McAlpine and the Tories not to thank Abellio for its briefing, given that they have so faithfully adhered to it this afternoon.
Today, Parliament has an opportunity to stand up for Scotland’s hard-pressed passengers, after years of a failing ScotRail franchise and misery for commuters. We can decide today that enough is enough—that the Abellio ScotRail franchise will reach the end of the line in 2022, that it will not be renewed or extended for another three years, that the interests of passengers must come first, and that our rail services must be returned to the public sector at the earliest opportunity.
We face a simple choice between public transport that is run as a public service in the public interest, or continuation of the ScotRail shambles and the Government’s failing deal with Abellio. Abellio has had four and half years to deliver what it promised at the outset of the deal, but it has not done so, even though the SNP said that the deal would be “world leading”.
Contractual targets have been missed. As Mike Rumbles said, there have been three improvement plans since the franchise began, but improvements have not been sustained. Because passenger satisfaction has fallen so far short of the remedial plan target, the target has been reduced. As has been said, 75,000 trains have been cancelled since Abellio took over the franchise, which is an average of 47 every day, and industrial relations have worsened.
I know that the SNP and the Tories are opposed to our motion, but let us listen to the people who work on our railways. The RMT, which has been demonstrating outside Parliament today, says that Abellio is “not fit” to run the ScotRail franchise and that
“mismanagement has led to a serious deterioration in working conditions”.
The TSSA says that the franchise is a “shambles” that has
“gone from bad to worse”.
The general secretary of ASLEF has said that the Abellio deal has
“been a failure by nearly every measure”
and went on to say that
“ScotRail receives the second highest share of net government funding of any franchise in the UK. It is impossible to see the franchise as offering anything other than terrible value for money for the Scottish taxpayer and passenger.”
The Abellio deal is not working for passengers, does not carry the confidence of workers and does not represent value for money for taxpayers. In fact, the travelling public are paying twice for the SNP’s dysfunctional deal with Abellio, because as well as paying some of the highest rail subsidies in the UK, they are paying for rising fares. People are paying more for a service that is not consistent enough and is just not good enough.
Scotland’s passengers deserve better: they deserve rail services that are democratically controlled and run in their interests. The cabinet secretary and other SNP members have said that their amendment is about Scottish public sector control of the railways, but it is not: it is about Dutch public sector control of the railways continuing for three more years. If the Governments of Germany, France and Italy, to name just a few, can run their national railways, and if the Dutch Government can run our railway, we can and must do the same in our country.
Scottish Labour believes, as a matter of principle, that the railways should be brought into public ownership at the earliest opportunity. Even those who do not accept that principle surely cannot believe that Abellio has earned the right to have the deal extended, and certainly not until 2025. If they believe that, either they cannot be among those of us who actually travel by train regularly or they are totally out of touch with Scotland’s passengers.
It is time to bring the Abellio deal to an end. It is time for a publicly owned people’s ScotRail that is under democratic control, is fully integrated with our public transport system and puts passengers before profit. That is the future that Labour chooses for our railways, and that is why I will vote for the motion.
16:38