Lord Harper (Con)

I would say two things about that. First, I can confirm that that is indeed the case. However, I would absolve the Minister in front of us of responsibility. I was going to come on to this point later on in my remarks, but I may as well do so now since my noble friend has given me an opening. Relatively quickly after the election, the then Transport Secretary, who is now the very important First Secretary of State, handed money over to train drivers and ASLEF in a completely “no strings attached” deal. Of course, by “no strings attached”, I mean “costing nothing in return”: no productivity improvements, no improvements to efficiency and nothing at all either to improve the operation of the railway for passengers or to reduce its costs. That is what we are worried will happen. Then, ridiculously, we see subsequent pay deals where, just to use new technology, the taxpayer is required to hand over money in trade union deals. In no other workforce is that required. People are expected to use new technology to make businesses more efficient and help them compete. They are not expected to say, “We’re going to carry on using paper and pen unless you give us large amounts of money”. Any competitive business that did that would discover that it was not going to be in business for very long because it would be put out of business by all its competitors that were moving with the latest technology. That is the mindset that we want to make sure does not happen.