Sunak's DfT Ministerial Team

[LNW-GW Joint]

The clearout of ministers at the DfT from the Boris Johnson and Liz Truss governments is pretty comprehensive.
Only Baroness Vere remains, and she had aviation and local transport responsibility.
Rail minister Kevin Foster was also replaced last week.

The DfT has not yet replaced its organisation chart from the Truss era (with Anne-Marie Trevelyan in charge), but it does have a new page showing the Sunak ministerial appointments.
See the "Our Ministers" section in this:

Department for Transport

We work with our agencies and partners to support the transport network that helps the UK’s businesses and gets people and goods travelling around the country. We plan and invest in transport infrastructure to keep the UK on the move. DfT is a ministerial department, supported by 24 agencies and...

www.gov.uk

Summarising:
Secretary of State: Mark Harper (who delivered the 6-monthly update on HS2 to parliament on Thursday after only 2 days in office)
Ministers of State: Jesse Norman and Huw Merriman
Jesse Norman was a DfT minister in the Theresa May government and had HS2 responsibilities then.
Huw Merriman was Chair of the Commons Transport Select Committee, so there is a vacancy there now; he does have considerable rail knowledge.
Under Secretaries of State: Baroness Vere and Richard Holden

Responsibilities have not been disclosed.

 

[snowball]

I think Jesse Norman is quite sane relative to the current standards of Conservative MPs. He's married to Kate Bingham who chaired the vaccine taskforce.

 

[GoneSouth]

I do hope that Mark Harper’s long suffering constituents let him know their views on the sorry state of transport of all types in his constituency. Their XC rail service is falling apart, the Stagecoach network is slowly being dismantled, and will suffer another kick in the teeth on 20th November, and the roads heading east over the Severn are poor. I wonder how often he visits?

Not somewhere I’d like to live as a public transport user. Anybody know his personal views on HS2, which I suspect won’t do rail services and journey opportunities any favours in west of England?

 

[Thirteen]

Huw Merriman should get rail for his brief and probably having been chair for the Transport Committee means he's met a lot of the major players already.

 

[DanNCL]

Interesting appointments, not people I expected. This'll either be where we finally get people who'll make reasonably good decisions in the DFT, or where those previously considered to be less objectionable in the Tory party prove themselves to be just as bad as the previous ministers!

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

Huw Merriman should get rail for his brief and probably having been chair for the Transport Committee means he's met a lot of the major players already.

Merriman will be great for rail but i do wonder whether hes been given the role to get him off select committee where he's been fairly outspoken and financial constraints will crimp what he can achieve. Reality is the strikes can only be resolved by a cash injection from the DfT but the treasury isn't going to fund that but currently. However, Merriman can hopefully build bridges with unions that they need to be more cooperative with operators to make changes to working arrangements so its self funded along with getting DfT to also provide some additional funding as a stable railway will generate more income in the long run.

 

[deltic]

Merriman has a good understanding of all modes of transport, will be interesting how he changes from poacher to game keeper. The Transport Committee is still waiting for a response to its report on road user charging where they came out firmly in favour.

 

[Bald Rick]

By far the most important skills this team need to have is expert handling of the Treasury, closely followed by being able to give bad news in a way that will be accepted by local politicians.

 

[DarloRich]

By far the most important skills this team need to have is expert handling of the Treasury, closely followed by being able to give bad news in a way that will be accepted by local politicians.

SPOT ON: i would add be able to present that bad news as a successful Part of "levelling up!"

 

[Thirteen]

The most important thing for the DfT is mending and building bridges with the unions although the sticking point will be the Minimum Service Level Bill which I suspect will still go through Parliament because it's in the Manifesto and they aren't exactly going to go against it.

Will be interesting to see how the new team are like with both TOCs and also devolved bodies like TfL. The relationship between Shapps and Sadiq Khan was terrible so things can only get better.

 

[43066]

The most important thing for the DfT is mending and building bridges with the unions although the sticking point will be the Minimum Service Level Bill which I suspect will still go through Parliament because it's in the Manifesto and they aren't exactly going to go against it.

Indeed. Albeit it’s far from clear what the impact of this will be, in particular the bill as tabled doesn’t prohibit action short of a strike such as overtime bans. As we have seen staff not working overtime (whether as part of official industrial action or not) can still have an absolutely crippling effect on the network.

If the government really regarded this as a magic bullet I rather suspect it would have been introduced long ago…

 

[Tio Terry]

I fear Transport, and railways in particular, are in for some pretty drastic cost cutting.

There's plenty of comments in the media for the need to reduce government spending, things like the NHS, Education and (at this time) Defence are no go areas - especially when getting close to a GE. So it will be the relatively easy touches that will get hit the hardest. There's not a lot of public sympathy with rail workers within the public in general so I can see our government using the current situation to hit transport spending pretty hard.

I really, really, do hope I'm wrong.

 

[Agent_Squash]

Does anyone know if the Treasury are sticking to Rishi’s rule of borrowing to invest? If so, then I suspect a lot of upgrade work might be off the hook…

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Does anyone know if the Treasury are sticking to Rishi’s rule of borrowing to invest? If so, then I suspect a lot of upgrade work might be off the hook…

The pressure is really on current expenditure rather than capital spend.
The public sector pay policy is key as the DfT-controlled railway will be expected to conform to it.
Productivity deals are likely to be the only way out of this.

 

[baz962]

I fear Transport, and railways in particular, are in for some pretty drastic cost cutting.

There's plenty of comments in the media for the need to reduce government spending, things like the NHS, Education and (at this time) Defence are no go areas - especially when getting close to a GE. So it will be the relatively easy touches that will get hit the hardest. There's not a lot of public sympathy with rail workers within the public in general so I can see our government using the current situation to hit transport spending pretty hard.

I really, really, do hope I'm wrong.

Maybe you don't think so, but none of my colleagues have had any abuse or anti strike sentiment and have had plenty of people saying good on you. I have seen plenty of support on social media too.

 

[Tio Terry]

Maybe you don't think so, but none of my colleagues have had any abuse or anti strike sentiment and have had plenty of people saying good on you. I have seen plenty of support on social media too.

I hope you are right and I'm wrong.

What I have seen on things like BBC's HYS seem to show that the public in general think that all railway staff are drivers on £76K who shouldn't be striking. Those who know the industry better know this is not true.

 

[Trainbike46]

I hope you are right and I'm wrong.

What I have seen on things like BBC's HYS seem to show that the public in general think that all railway staff are drivers on £76K who shouldn't be striking. Those who know the industry better know this is not true.

certain parts of the media oppose strikes in all forms, and by any group, and will use any excuse they can think of. Fortunately, it doesn't appear as though most of the general public share that view

 

[furnessvale]

certain parts of the media oppose strikes in all forms, and by any group, and will use any excuse they can think of. Fortunately, it doesn't appear as though most of the general public share that view

Sadly, 95% of passenger journeys in the UK are NOT made by rail. The majority of members of the public never go near a train. When the TV people do a voxpop on rail issues, they stand outside a railway station, and the opinions they hear are hardly representative of the general public.

 

[Chrisgr31]

Merriman will be great for rail but i do wonder whether hes been given the role to get him off select committee where he's been fairly outspoken and financial constraints will crimp what he can achieve.

That was my assumption. Been promoted to shut him up!

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

That was my assumption. Been promoted to shut him up!

It would be amusing if Wendy Morton got the vacant job as chair of the TSC.
That would be poacher turned gamekeeper, and gamekeeper turned poacher.

 

[newtownmgr]

I think Jesse Norman is quite sane relative to the current standards of Conservative MPs. He's married to Kate Bingham who chaired the vaccine taskforce.

My sons MP! He’s as useless as the rest of them.

 

[station_road]

The pressure is really on current expenditure rather than capital spend.
The public sector pay policy is key as the DfT-controlled railway will be expected to conform to it.
Productivity deals are likely to be the only way out of this.

The BBC have suggested that capital spending may also be cut - I wouldn't be entirely surprised to see bits of HS2 that aren't already contracted delayed

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-63474176

Mr Sunak is also said to be considering freezing international aid for two years, and cutting investment spending.

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

The BBC have suggested that capital spending may also be cut - I wouldn't be entirely surprised to see bits of HS2 that aren't already contracted delayed

Much as i would be happy to see that project dropped its gone too far now for phase 1 to reverse that decision but maybe there will be some delay to spend on later phases of a few 100's millions to help balance the books over next few years that won't materially impact the end goals given the wide date range they already have for Entry into Service. I would suggest the bigger issue is how much pressure is bought to bare on reducing the deficit on supporting day to day running of the industry even a few 10's of millions reduction will have a materially impact.

 

[Bald Rick]

I really, really, do hope I'm wrong.

You’re not. Very tough times ahead. Certainly the toughest in my 30year + career.

Maybe you don't think so, but none of my colleagues have had any abuse or anti strike sentiment and have had plenty of people saying good on you. I have seen plenty of support on social media too.

no doubt, but then you might only see what your social media thinks you want to see. My social media (what little of it I use) has a roughly even balance between support (mostly friends of those involved in the dispute) and ‘anti’ (mostly those affected by it).

 

[baz962]

You’re not. Very tough times ahead. Certainly the toughest in my 30year + career.



no doubt, but then you might only see what your social media thinks you want to see. My social media (what little of it I use) has a roughly even balance between support (mostly friends of those involved in the dispute) and ‘anti’ (mostly those affected by it).

Also those that were on the picket line and also on some TV. Although when I said social media, rather than what it shows me I meant on say Twitter when there is a discussion or thread and not necessarily about the strikes. Even conversations about the Tories etc and people end up talking about strikes and the odd comment hopes that they break the unions with way more praising the unions.

 

[Master29]

Seriously, who cares anymore. They're all useless clowns. Why anyone would froth at the mouth over any of these people shows how low the UK has set the bar on reality

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Seriously, who cares anymore. They're all useless clowns. Why anyone would froth at the mouth over any of these people shows how low the UK has set the bar on reality

Because you/we voted them in in 2019 for 5 years, and after Brexit, Covid and Ukraine we are in recession and they are responsible for moving the country forwards, at least until the next election.

More people may support the unions than not, but that doesn't mean they will get what they want, any more than any of us will be happy with the economic settlement.
An inflation-matching pay settlement, no changes to T&Cs and no redundancies, on 80% of 2019 revenue, is just not going to happen.
(Just my 5p).

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

Because you/we voted them in in 2019 for 5 years, and after Brexit, Covid and Ukraine we are in recession and they are responsible for moving the country forwards, at least until the next election.

forwards your joking they've set us backwards

More people may support the unions than not, but that doesn't mean they will get what they want, any more than any of us will be happy with the economic settlement.
An inflation-matching pay settlement, no changes to T&Cs and no redundancies, on 80% of 2019 revenue, is just not going to happen.
(Just my 5p).

No its not but Merriman might just be able to engineer some more money if the unions engage on meaningful changes to T&Cs that put the industry on a sounder footing to go some way to neutralise the operating cost deficit. It can't be beyond them to acknowledge that a Tory government yes a Tory government has so far been pretty reasonable in supporting the industry through difficult times and working with them will realise a better outcome for the industry and thus its members.

 

[Wyrleybart]

More people may support the unions than not, but that doesn't mean they will get what they want, any more than any of us will be happy with the economic settlement.
An inflation-matching pay settlement, no changes to T&Cs and no redundancies, on 80% of 2019 revenue, is just not going to happen.
(Just my 5p).

I agree with the basis of that but I am interested in the DfT aims to improve revenue and revenue collection. Buying new trains without end gangways (WMR and TfW apart) gives the passengers free reign to avoid buying tickets. Having guards sat in back cabs and not checking their pax tickets is also letting revenue go. What are thew DfT doing about it ?

It is quite obvious Peter Wilkinson doesn't want to pay railway staff any increases. He said it five years ago in Croydon. However, not paying railway staff any salary increase whilst inflation is at 10% and energy is through the roof is also immoral, particularly when MPs got their increases every year without productivity demands.

 

[zwk500]

However, not paying railway staff any salary increase whilst inflation is at 10% and energy is through the roof is also immoral, particularly when MPs got their increases every year without productivity demands.

I for one would welcome MPs pay being on a graded scale, and making them produced evidenced submissions of useful work to access the higher grades, Judged by crossbench Life Peers and a High Court Judge.
A similar system could also be used to defend the integrity on ministerial appointments...

(I'll keep an eye out for high-altitude pigs)