L

Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)

Speaking in the House of Lords on 27 January 2025

Debate

Avanti West Coast

Contribution

The noble Lord is clearly not lost for words. However, it is not within my gift to award free tenancies of public houses in London—probably wisely. A lot of what he says is right, and I will reflect on that with the Avanti management on Friday. My only cautionary note is that the effect of the storms on Friday and Saturday has led to significant disruption to most of the railway in northern England and certainly in Scotland. I have some sympathy with train operators in those circumstances, because there are occasions on which their staff cannot get to work simply because of the effects of the wind and associated damage. One should therefore be a bit careful. As a former operator of public transport, I know that it is sometimes difficult to get the right staff in the right place at the right time, when those circumstances happen. When they do not happen, however, you would expect train operators such as Avanti to have sufficient staff to be able to resource the service and have some reserve of resilience to keep it going in difficult circumstances. I sympathise entirely with what the noble Lord says.

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