Local Government and Transport Committee,

Meeting date: Tuesday, May 25, 2004

Official Report 221KB pdf

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Rail Industry

I welcome members to today's meeting of the Local Government and Transport Committee. In addition to the regular members of the committee, I welcome Rosie Kane. She is here instead of Tommy Sheridan, who has sent his apologies.

The first item on the agenda is consideration of evidence from the Office of the Rail Regulator. I welcome Tom Winsor, the rail regulator, and Michael Beswick and John Thomas from the Office of the Rail Regulator. The primary reason for inviting you to give evidence is the review of track-access charges. You will know that that process has concluded, but we still want to explore issues. Given the recent announcement by the Secretary of State for Transport and Scotland of a review of the structure of the rail industry, it would also be useful to the committee to hear your views on that and on the submissions that the Office of the Rail Regulator has made as part of that process. I invite you to make an introductory statement if you wish, after which we will proceed to questions.

I thank you, convener, but I have no introductory statement to make.

In your response to the United Kingdom Government's rail review, you make no mention of the possibility of further devolution of control of the railways to the Scottish Executive or to the Welsh Administration, although that was referred to in the secretary of state's initial statement. Why was no mention made of that?

One of the principal issues in the Government's rail review—in so far as issues can be discerned at all—is the UK Government's desire to have more control over the costs of the railways. There is a notion abroad in Whitehall and Westminster that an unelected regulator is making public spending decisions for the Treasury, and that that is an offence to democratic principles and constitutionally outrageous. It is also not true. The second principal focus of the rail review is the future of the Strategic Rail Authority; the third is the issue of where safety should go; and the fourth is the notion that there should be a single directing mind for the railways, which is misunderstood in many quarters.

I believe—I express no opinion on whether this is right or wrong—that the issue of greater accountability for railway services in Scotland and Wales is very much a tacked-on optional extra that was put in as a sop to the National Assembly for Wales and the Scottish Parliament. I do not think that it is a central issue in the review at all, which is why I did not deal with it in my response. I have a view on the matter: I believe that greater local accountability for railway services is an extremely welcome idea, the time for which has come. I also believe that central control of transport planning in the Westminster jungle is highly undesirable, that central state micromanagerial planning of transport services is highly undesirable, and that there should be far greater local accountability for railway services wherever they are.

How would such local accountability be manifested within the structures?

My organisation has regular dialogue with the Scottish Executive. It is a great honour to be asked to appear before a committee of the Scottish Parliament just a few weeks before the end of my five-year term of office—I was rather hoping that I would be invited. We have regular dialogue with the relevant authorities in Scotland, but it would be inappropriate for us to establish a regional structure for our affairs in England and a national structure for Scotland, because we must make decisions on a UK-wide basis.

The Strategic Rail Authority has a different relationship with the Scottish Executive and with Scottish public institutions. Of course, the Scottish Executive has the power to give directions and guidance to the SRA in relation to railway services in Scotland; that should certainly continue. As I said in my response to the rail review, the SRA needs to be much closer to Government, which means that, as far as Scottish affairs are concerned, the SRA should be much closer to the relevant public institutions in Scotland. I cannot speculate on how that might manifest itself, but I believe that the SRA has become far too distant from its true constituents, which are the railway industry and the relevant public institutions.

I understand from your opening comments that you do not regard those issues as being at the centre of the outcome of the current review.

The UK Government will put something in about them, because they are worth while. I do not think that the Government intended to have the review at all until quite late in the day. I think that the review was born of the Government's frustration with the operation of the public institutions in the railway industry. There was a notion in Westminster that something had to be done—hence the review. The relationship with Scotland and Wales is perhaps more than an afterthought, but it is not a central issue. The Government will do something about it, but that will not be very material.

Can you provide any information on the financial implications of the new track-access charges regime on the subsidy payments made by the Scottish Executive to the ScotRail franchise holder?

Mr Thomas will be able to provide detail if we need it. Because of my decisions in December 2003 and on 10 March 2004 in relation to financing of the regulatory settlement, it appears that the Scottish Executive will be better off, because the amount of money that is paid in track-access charges—which is what the Scottish Executive gets from London—will be reduced because higher amounts of grants will be paid and, indeed, some of the income that Network Rail needs to receive has been deferred for two years and will be replaced by borrowing. Paradoxically and counterintuitively, there will also be a better railway service in Scotland, because the amount of money going into Network Rail will go up, which includes the amount for the provision of railway services in Scotland. It is good news all round.

I find that hard to believe. Mr Thomas, will you provide more detail?

I will provide some figures on the ScotRail charges to highlight what Tom Winsor said. In the final conclusions on 12 December last year, the fixed track-access charges for ScotRail were £1.2 billion. As a result of the approval of Network Rail's proposed financing arrangements on 10 March, which resulted in Network Rail recovering a large proportion of its income in direct grants from the Strategic Rail Authority, ScotRail's fixed charges during the next five years will be £500 million. That represents a significant reduction in the charge as derived on 12 December last year.

How does that compare with the current charges, or the charges prior to the start of 2004-05?

I am afraid that I do not have the current charges in front of me, but I can provide that information after the meeting. However, there is certainly a reduction in the current level of charges.

Do you have accurate figures on how much is spent on rail infrastructure maintenance and renewal in Scotland? If not, how do you determine appropriate track-access charges?

We have estimates from Network Rail of the proposed spend in Scotland. The derivation of the charges is as cost reflective as possible. It is clear that some items cannot be easily allocated to Scotland, so they are jam-spread across operators. We propose shortly to start a review of the structure of charges, as we want to return to the cost-allocation issue.

Let me give an example. Network Rail has a clear idea of proposed expenditure on renewals and maintenance in Scotland, at least for the next few years, so those cost categories are easier to allocate. It is more difficult to develop a cost allocation mechanism for the return that Network Rail earns on the regulatory asset base, which is a considerable sum. However, that is not to say that that is impossible and, as I said, we want to return to the matter in the forthcoming review of the structure of charges.

You pressed Network Rail to delay or abandon the upgrade of the west coast main line in Scotland. Why? The SRA and Network Rail appear to have ignored that advice and they are proceeding with the upgrade. How has that happened?

We did not press Network Rail or anyone else to abandon the west coast main line upgrade or to delay it. It is my responsibility, with my colleagues, to determine what a competent and efficient network operator will need for operation, maintenance, renewal and enhancement of the UK-wide railway network, including the west coast main line. In doing that, we have to assess the work plans that companies propose, in order that we can ensure that the work is necessary and that it will be done at the right time, to the right standard and with the right costings and efficiencies.

The decision that we made in December 2003 was that certain aspects of the west coast main line upgrade should not proceed according to the original timetable—that includes the timetable that was published against our advice by the Strategic Rail Authority in June 2003—because those aspects were not needed in that time. Indeed, if the money had been spent in that timescale, it would have been wasted in some crucial and material respects.

For example, signalling renewal costs on the west coast main line are between 100 and 200 per cent higher, and track renewal costs are 44 per cent higher, than they are elsewhere. That is compared to Network Rail's unit costs elsewhere on the network, which were already too high. The overall efficiency target that we have set Network Rail is a reduction by about a third over five years. Therefore, if the work did not need to be done according to that timescale, it was better to defer it until unit costs and efficiency were under control, so that the same work could be done to the right standard, but for much less money. On Network Rail's figures, the decision that I made in December 2003 was worth more than £800 million in savings. On our figures—post-efficiency—they were worth £640 million in savings. I do not regard either figure as being trivial. That was why we made the decision.

If Network Rail is able, through reconfiguration of the WCML project, to find those savings, so that it can deliver the outputs faster within the overall financial settlement that I have set, that is up to the company. The company should, of course, be having mature and regular dialogue with the Strategic Rail Authority, which is paying the lion's share of the cost. That is how we arrive at decisions. There was not, however, a decision by my office to delay or abandon the WCML project; rather, the decision was to set funding levels that would have implied a delay unless Network Rail could reconfigure the project—as, indeed, it has in some respects. Perhaps Mr Beswick would like to elaborate.

As far as Scotland is concerned, Network Rail has been looking hard to find more efficient ways of doing the work between Crewe and Glasgow and it has succeeded in doing so. Within the numbers that we set Network Rail, it will this September achieve significant reductions in the journey time through the work between Euston and Crewe, and there will be further reductions in December 2005 and December 2008. The intention is that the fastest journey time from Euston to Glasgow will by December 2005 be four hours and 27 minutes. We are seeing a lot of effort by Network Rail, in conjunction with the Strategic Rail Authority, to find ways of doing the work more efficiently. They are not doing a lot of premature renewal; instead they are focusing particularly on what needs to be done to achieve the outputs, which is a good result in terms of not wasting money.

It seems to be a question of timescale and efficiency in finance. In going ahead, have Network Rail got it right? If you had your way, how much extra time would it take to complete the work?

As far as the work on the Crewe to Glasgow line is concerned, we told Network Rail to consider what it is planning to do, because it looks very inefficient to us. Network Rail responded to us on that, and we put that response in the final conclusions on the basis that Network Rail would achieve the journey time improvements. Since then, the SRA and Network Rail have identified one or two areas, essentially to do with capacity between Euston and Crewe, where things can be done a bit quicker but much more efficiently. We now have a much more robust plan and our challenge to the scale of the project that was in place a year ago has achieved significant cost savings.

To explore that a little further, will you explain where the inefficiencies that led to higher costs on the west coast main line, compared to other parts of the network, were coming from? Were those inefficiencies in Network Rail, or were they to do with contractors that Network Rail was working with? Was it to do with the fact that contractors were able to ask for premium rates because of a shortage of competition?

The major factor was that the programme became very schedule driven. Network Rail was rushing to do the job against what was clearly an impossible timescale, although it did a lot of work to remove that impossibility. We told Network Rail to do the job at a speed at which it could do it efficiently, which is what is happening now. Clearly, there are other issues, such as poor management of contractors—which Network Rail has begun to address—and inappropriate standards. A load of issues built up on one another. The primary issue is that the work was far too schedule driven against tight deadlines without thought being given to how it could be delivered efficiently.

Do you accept the importance of the project to the Scottish economy? Aberdeen remains the oil capital of Europe, but it still has an inadequate rail service, so will the east coast main line improvements stop at Edinburgh? The east coast main line includes Dundee, Angus and Fife, all of which are important to the Scottish economy. When will the east coast main line improvements cover the whole of that line?

We certainly understand the importance to the Scottish economy of the improvements to the west coast main line. It is the busiest and most important rail artery in the UK—in some respects it is the busiest in Europe. It is essential that the neglect and wasted years of Railtrack's stewardship and the perpetual capital starvation of the railway by the UK Treasury over many years be reversed. Therefore, the importance of the west coast upgrade is fully appreciated by me and my colleagues.

On improvements to the east coast main line, the decision as to whether the east coast main line should be upgraded is for those who will pay for it—mainly the UK Government and the Scottish Executive. The importance of the east coast main line to the economy of north-east Scotland—Dundee, Angus, Fife and Aberdeen—is fully appreciated. I come from Dundee, so I understand that well. I have travelled on the line many times. However, it is for those who pay for the railway to decide whether they are prepared to put more into it to enhance its capacity and capability and the condition of the network.

I will go on to rail safety issues. It has been said that gold plating of the safety standards has increased costs and has been responsible for diminution of improvements in the rail network. Do you accept that? If you do, is it your view that gold plating is a necessary cost that should not be diminished, or do you believe that the safety standards have been set too high?

It is often alleged that gold plating of safety standards has contributed to significantly increased costs. One of the difficulties that has been encountered—I have the benefit of almost five years in this job—is the way in which the railway industry was demonised, including by public officials and the media, after the Paddington accident on 5 October 1999. That led to a cautious approach to safety matters on the part of everybody involved, including the Health and Safety Executive and certainly the railway companies.

A variety of defensive measures were taken by railway workers to avoid their being faced with serious criminal charges should things go wrong. For example, drivers would engage in a technique called defensive driving: they would, for fear of crossing it, drive particularly slowly—more slowly than they otherwise would—as they approached a red signal. That was because some railway companies have a policy of three strikes and you are out: three signals passed at danger—SPADs—and the driver loses his or her job. Cautious approaches have also been taken in relation to rail maintenance as a result of the Hatfield accident and the criminal prosecutions that resulted from it.

The application of railway safety standards does not have to be as rigid as we have found it to be over the past few years. Nobody gets fired for applying a safety standard at its full flame, yet there are engineering judgments to be made as to whether derogations from strict compliance with a standard are, in particular circumstances, justified. If the process of getting a derogation is lengthy and the judgments that are involved in either seeking the derogation or granting it are hedged around with risks of the kind that I have mentioned, people will be reluctant to do it.

There have been other instances when rigid application of safety standards has been severely criticised. I will mention one, which is the train protection and warning system. The system was devised and installed after the Paddington accident and will automatically stop trains that are travelling at up to 100mph if they have gone through a red signal.

The original programme for installing the TPWS contemplated that it would be installed at approximately 4,000 locations throughout the network. However, the Health and Safety Executive decided that the system should be placed at the run-ins to stations, even though trains are going slowly at that point and there are significant performance implications because of dwell times at stations, particularly at the peak times, when congestion and intensity of use are at their highest. The HSE's approach led to the installation of the TPWS not at 4,000 locations, but at 14,000, which meant a significant increase in the project's installation cost and a level of TPWS coverage that was not contemplated when the project was first devised. In the opinion of many railway professionals—we are not railway safety professionals; the safety regulator is the HSE—that was unnecessary. That is an example of what is regarded in the railway industry as an over-rigid application of standards.

The rail review that is taking place now is contemplating a review of rail safety and is considering taking Her Majesty's railway inspectorate out of the HSE and putting it somewhere else. It used to be part of the Department for Transport, but it was put into the Health and Safety Executive in about 1990 or 1992. The Government believes that such a move may contribute to a less rigid approach and has four options in respect of HMRI: to leave it where it is; to give it back to the Department for Transport; to set it up as a separate self-standing independent authority; or to move it to the office of rail regulation, as we will be called from 5 July.

The option to improve HMRI while leaving it where it is should not be dismissed. I am certain that HMRI will not go back to the Department for Transport, because the department does not want it, and I am pretty certain that it will not become a self-standing authority, because the rail review is about reducing—rather than increasing—the number of authorities in the railway industry. I still regard putting HMRI into the office of rail regulation as being the most likely model, but it is fraught with difficulty.

I appreciate that that is a detailed answer, but the idea of a trade-off between safety standards and improvements in the rail network raises more questions for me. I would have thought—I would argue this with any member of the public—that to say that safety measures have been introduced at 14,000 places, rather than at the 4,000 that were recommended, is a much better way in which to sell the rail network and public transport than is ignoring the fact that some of the rail operators are trying to get derogations to get out of their safety requirements. I do not see where the trade-off can come or that we are improving the network if, in the wake of the Paddington accident and other disasters, we create the impression that we are trying to circumvent the safety standards that the HSE believes to be important.

To take an absurd example, it is possible to have a safe network on which no trains run. It is a question of cost. No system of land transport—of any transport—is risk free. We could have the safest system in the world at astronomical cost, so there is a trade-off to be made between absolute safety—or as near as we can get to it, because we will never get 100 per cent safety—and what we are prepared to pay for it. Let us bear it in mind that more than 3,000 people die on the roads of Great Britain every year and that the number of passenger fatalities on the railway in any year can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Indeed, since the Potters Bar accident on 7 May 2002, there has been none.

Where are we going to spend the money to save the most lives? That is a political question for elected representatives. There is a respectable body of opinion that enough money is already spent on rail safety and that more lives will be saved if we spend the money on road improvements, but that is a political matter for members. It is not a question of selling the railway network on the ground of better safety; the railway network is an extremely safe place to be. It is far safer than the roads or, indeed, any other mode of transport. It is not right to characterise what is happening on the railways as being an attempt by the rail operators to get out of their safety obligations. It is a question of sensible application of safety standards in the particular circumstances of a case.

So you believe that a political decision must be made about whether we want to project public transport in a good light. To get cars off the road to reduce the number of accidents, must we say to the public that there can be a trade-off between safety standards for public transport and those for road travel in private vehicles?

Yes. Every day every traveller makes a decision about the risks that they are prepared to take when they go out of their front door. No one is being deterred from using the railway network on the ground of its safety record. Quite the contrary—if people think about safety, they are attracted to rail because it is considerably safer than using the road network. During my time as rail regulator, I was struck by the fact that the media go wild about railway accidents but virtually ignore road accidents.

Given the importance that you attach to Network Rail having a full understanding of its assets, why has there been such a delay in the completion of the national asset register? When will that be completed?

I am aware that the committee's counterpart at Westminster has directed unjustified criticisms at us on that score. I welcome the opportunity to put the record straight before I publish my formal response to the Transport Select Committee's report of April 2004.

Railtrack was a dreadful company, in almost every respect. One of the principal reasons why the company failed was that it did not have adequate knowledge of the conditions, the capacity and the capability of its assets. When I took office, I immediately took action in relation to the company's asset management and asset maintenance policies and practices. We were dissatisfied on a range of issues relating to those. Regulatory pressure was applied. The company told us that it was getting on with preparing a register of the condition, capacity and capability of its assets and that no regulatory intervention was needed in that respect. It made three failed attempts to establish an asset register. We were profoundly dissatisfied with progress and took action to introduce a network licence condition binding on the company and enforceable under the Railways Act 1993 to establish such a register.

However, an asset register cannot be established overnight—it takes time. Network Rail has knowledge of its assets, but that knowledge is diffuse—the information is not collected in an accessible, systematic way. When Railtrack was established, one of its first executive acts was to get rid of large swathes of the company's expertise, especially in engineering. Many people left the company with its asset knowledge in their heads. The information was either not written down at all or not written down in a systematic, accessible format. The company did not do what every other privatised network operator did. British Telecommunications, the electricity companies and the gas companies did not have adequate knowledge of their assets—where they were, their condition, what it takes to look after them, how much that costs, how often they should be looked after and so on—so they compiled asset registers. In asset-intensive industries, it is essential for companies to have that information, which is their life-blood.

Railtrack did not compile such a register. In all the years from the establishment of Railtrack—from 1994, when it was established, through 1996, when it was privatised, to 1999, when I took office—the company took no adequate steps in this area. As soon as I took office, we applied pressure to Railtrack. In April 2001, we established a network licence obligation to prepare the asset register. However, we knew that, given the company's situation, it would take a number of years for the register to be established. At the time, we projected that the asset register would be fully populated with data by April 2005. Condition 24 of the network licence sets out a staged approach. The company must provide us with six-monthly reports on progress in establishing the asset register, so that we can maintain regulatory pressure to ensure that it is keeping to schedule and that the register is being compiled properly. We have done those things and are on schedule to meet the projected date, so it is not correct to say that the asset register has been delayed—it is on schedule. Your Westminster counterpart got that completely wrong.

Thank you for that explanation.

Excessive bureaucracy is an issue that has been raised on a number of occasions by various operators. For example, the managing director of ScotRail has claimed that Network Rail has excessive bureaucracy. What is your view on such statements?

Network Rail has a very poor inheritance from Railtrack. As I have said, Railtrack was a highly unsatisfactory company in many respects. It was certainly bureaucratic; it was also hostile to its customers and had a policy of neglecting its assets. That is why it failed.

When Network Rail took over, it expected to find a mess and it did but, in relation to many of the basic competences that one would expect to find in a national infrastructure operator, the mess was more severe than it had expected. Under regulatory pressure applied where appropriate, Network Rail has taken significant steps to improve its internal organisation and its competences in the key respects.

It may be that the managing director of ScotRail is frustrated by the inability to get a deal out of Network Rail, for example on an enhancement scheme or additional track access rights. In 2001, my organisation established a new network licence condition on the company that required it to establish a code of practice for dealing with dependent persons—basically, anyone who wants to get a deal out of the company, which was then Railtrack and is now Network Rail—and to comply with it. That is binding and enforceable. Under that licence condition, the company must deal with such persons with

"skill, diligence, prudence and foresight"

and must do so competently, efficiently and

"in a timely manner".

Those are not words that one naturally associates with Railtrack. That is the company's obligation; it must meet that condition. If ScotRail is dissatisfied in that respect, its managing director has a remedy under the present regulatory regime. That is part of the improvements in the company's accountability that we have established over the past five years.

Do you think that excessive bureaucracy is leading to overblown estimates of project costs, which is a claim that ScotRail's managing director has made? Is that a fair claim to make?

The company's processes for estimating costs, for assessing risks and for projecting the work that really needs to be done still have some way to go before they reach the appropriate standards, but I assure you that my office, in enforcing condition 7 of the company's network licence, which is relevant in that respect, is monitoring the position and will take action, if that is necessary.

The senior management of Network Rail is a completely different body of persons from the one that used to run Railtrack. That is perhaps the most beneficial change to the railway industry that has been made for some years. In the past, the Secretary of State for Transport's predecessors, Mr Prescott and Mr Byers, have asked me what single thing I would change in the railway industry to produce the greatest advantage. I said that they should change the competence of the management of Railtrack. That was achieved through an unsatisfactory and unconstitutional process. We are where we are now. This lot are far better than the last lot.

Before I ask my question, I will start with a story. I commute on the Edinburgh to Dunblane line. For four successive days—I think—the train has terminated at Stirling, which has obviously caused some inconvenience. In trying to find out why that is happening repeatedly, I have discovered that there might be a charging policy, whereby an amount of money automatically has to be paid—to Network Rail, I assume—for every minute that a ScotRail train is late. You might be able to confirm whether such a policy exists. To stop that happening, passengers must disembark at Stirling.

I have two questions. First, is a review going on of that internal charging, which obviously takes up a lot of time? I gather that ScotRail tries to get the money back by arguing that there is a good reason for the lateness. Secondly, would a reintegration of the infrastructure and the train operating system into one organisation in Scotland make things easier? Will you explain why you are either for or against the coming together of the infrastructure and the train operations?

The charging policy incentivises railway companies to manage their affairs in a way that minimises train delays and the inconvenience for passengers. In the Stirling case, the charging depends on why the train is late and why it is terminated early at Stirling. I am not in a position now to say why. The charging regime is a commercial technique called liquidated damages, which is found in commercial affairs in all aspects of economic life throughout the world. The charging penalises the person responsible for the delay according to a preset tariff, so that the more severe the delay or the breach of contract is, the greater the pain that they will suffer. Therefore, they have a strong incentive not to cause the delay in the first place and to minimise the length of any delay and the severity of its difficulties.

It is for ScotRail to decide whether to terminate the train early at Stirling. The charging regime does not automatically dictate that the train should be terminated there. The company has the discretion to carry on with the train even if that would mean that the overall delay to passengers would be more severe than if the train were terminated early. It depends on the individual circumstances of the case.

You asked whether there is to be a review of the charging regime. My colleagues and I completed such a review—which also covered many other areas—on 12 December 2003. The review set the charging regime for the five years from April 2004 to April 2009. However, there is provision in my conclusions for doing more narrowly focused, smaller-scale reviews in the interim—before 2009—including reviews of the charging regime, if there is a case for that.

Having a charging regime has real advantages because it means that, in any assessment of who is to blame for a particular delay, there is a much more rigorous diagnosis of the cause of the delay and the railway companies are in a much better position to tackle the root causes of delays rather than just the symptoms. The best way of curing a problem is not to treat the symptoms but to correct the cause.

On the question of whether vertical integration would make things easier, I think that it might well obscure the root causes of delays. One of the advantages of the existing system is that it exposes the causes of delays. Vertical integration would not make things easier and it might lead to higher costs for the railway because inefficiencies and other wastes of money would be concealed.

I have a supplementary question. If one of my fellow travellers asks me, as a commuter or as an elected representative, about the on-going inconvenience, can I reasonably assure them that not only the Stirling line issue but similar issues on any line will be followed up and that a better way of dealing with the situation will be found, whether that means changing the timetable or whatever? Do such issues get followed through the system? You seemed to suggest that they do and that by stopping the trains early to reduce the charges that must be paid, we can find out what the problem is. Will the Stirling line case be followed through? Can I assure my constituents that you will do something about the problem so that they can continue on to Bridge of Allan and Dunblane and not have to terminate every evening at Stirling?

The structure of charges, including the performance regime that I have described, is within the jurisdiction of my office. However, the performance of ScotRail in particular and the decisions that it makes in those respects are within the jurisdiction of the SRA. I have every expectation that the SRA will monitor the performance of ScotRail closely, make whatever representations it needs to and, depending on its findings, take enforcement action under the franchise agreement.

You might be aware that the opening of the new Edinburgh Park station was delayed to a degree. One of the explanations that was given by some of the railway industry organisations was to do with problems in reaching agreement on changes to performance targets in relation to the opening of the new station. You will be aware that, over the next 10 years, the Scottish Executive plans to make a number of enhancements to the network such as reopening lines, building new lines and realigning lines. Do you believe that the performance regime will be able to cope with those enhancements in a way that will avoid delays due to the need to reach agreement on new performance targets?

I believe that the position is encouraging and that there should not be delays in that respect. I am not familiar with the details of the Edinburgh Park case, but I can look into it.

I was involved in examining the performance issues. You are right to say that one of the issues related to the performance aspects of the Edinburgh Park station. That was not the principal issue that delayed the project but it was a factor and ScotRail and Network Rail were in dialogue in relation to it. We had not dealt with the issue in any detail at the ORR, but we facilitated discussions and approved the approach that ScotRail and Network Rail were taking. Now we have an established process that can be followed in future, so negotiations on the subject of performance impact should be much simpler now.

I thank Tom Winsor, Michael Beswick and John Thomas for the information that they have given us, which has been useful.

The responses on safety that our witnesses gave highlighted the fact that there seems to be a lack of proportion between road and rail safety. Perhaps our society should question the degree to which we tolerate and accept the number of deaths that occur on our roads every day.

I am pleased that we managed to get Tom Winsor along before he finishes his period in office. I offer him my best wishes for the future.

Thank you for inviting us.