TSSA challenges Shapps over signalling claims and urges more modernisation

TSSA General Secretary, Manuel Cortes, has written to Grant Shapps to ‘totally refute’ claims unions are opposed to modernising on the railways.

In his letter to the Transport Secretary, Cortes welcomes Shapps’ ‘long overdue announcement of funding for digital signalling’. He stresses that TSSA has long supported and called for the implementation of the European Train Control System (ETCS) signalling - ‘yet we have been waiting 20 years for Government to provide funding’.

Earlier this week Shapps announced £1bn of funding to upgrade what he called “outdated Victorian infrastructure” with new digital signalling technology. TSSA described this as a ‘non-announcement’ given that the systems were set to be replaced anyway, as they date from the 1970s and '80s.

In his letter Cortes goes on to ’question whether the £1bn you have announced is simply recycled from the more than £1bn reduction you have made to Network Rail’s Control Period 6 funding settlement’.

The union leader also calls for the government to do more on modernising signalling – saying 'instead of making palpably false claims that unions oppose modernisation, we ask for a commitment that ETCS won’t stop at Grantham but will go all the way to Scotland’.

Turning to the ongoing rail disputes, after TSSA members at Avanti voted for strike action, Cortes called on the government to ‘commit to treating the hard-working professional railway people who will create this modernised railway fairly.

‘Fair pay, not year on year real terms pay cuts. Give our members the respect and job security they deserve. And commit funds to meet the drastic skills shortage which is really hampering modernisation’.

The full letter to Grant Shapps from Manuel Cortes is as follows -

30 June 2022

Dear Mr Shapps,

Funding for Digital Railway

TSSA welcomes your long overdue announcement of funding for digital signalling on the southern part of the East Coast Mainline and Northern City Line. However, I must totally refute your allegation that unions are opposing modernisation.

European Train Control System (ETCS) has the potential to increase network capacity, it will improve reliability and it is safer than conventional signalling. Why would TSSA oppose that?

Adopting ETCS was one of the recommendations of the Uff-Cullen report into the Paddington train crash. TSSA supported the recommendation back then and we have been making the case for ETCS ever since. Yet we have been waiting 20 years for Government to provide funding. And, I have to question whether the £1bn you have announced is simply recycled from the more than £1bn reduction you have made to Network Rail’s Control Period 6 funding settlement.

We support the introduction of ETCS. It’s why we invited David Waboso, then Network Rail’s Director of Group Digital Railway, to be headline speaker at our Future of Rail conference in 2019. It's why TSSA representatives have been actively engaged in consultation with Network Rail over the introduction of digital technology and we continue to do so. It’s why we have been calling for an end to the fragmentation of the rail network imposed by the failed Conservative policy of privatisation which has hampered modernisation for so long.

Instead of making palpably false claims that unions oppose modernisation, we ask for a commitment that ETCS won’t stop at Grantham but will go all the way to Scotland. Let’s have a commitment that you won’t be life extending the outmoded Automatic Train Protection system on the Great Western Main Line yet again but, instead, it will get the benefits of ETCS. Let’s have a commitment on ETCS for the West Coast Main Line and, over time, the rest of our railway too. And let’s have a commitment that you’ll end the nonsense of new lines being commissioned with “outdated lineside signalling” as you describe it, and they’ll get the benefits of ETCS too.

Commit to treating the hard-working professional railway people who will create this modernised railway fairly. Fair pay, not year on year real terms pay cuts. Give our members the respect and job security they deserve. And commit funds to meet the drastic skills shortage which is really hampering modernisation.

We need a just transition to a better, greener railway that is reliable and safe for workers and passengers. We need a railway built by a highly skilled and diverse workforce who can see a long-term future in the industry and a decent standard of living for their families.

This is the way to improve our rail infrastructure and give passengers and freight users the services required in a modern economy. So, I ask you, Secretary of State, to cease governing by misleading press releases, and start delivering the rail jobs and services the people of this country deserve.

Yours sincerely,

Manuel Cortes

General Secretary

TSSA is currently balloting members over strike action and action short of a strike in a dispute over jobs, pay and conditions at several rail companies – Network Rail, CrossCountry, East Midlands Railway, West Midlands Trains, Northern, LNER, Southeastern, Great Western Railway, C2C, Greater Anglia and TransPennine Express.