Generally, I don’t believe in personalising differences of opinion. I prefer to stick to dealing with the government’s policies and, where appropriate, being critical of them rather than the minister who is promoting them.
But, I have to tell you that I am prepared to make an exception in the case of the government’s Transport Minister, Christopher Grayling. It is quite difficult to find another example of a government minister who is such a serial offender and yet remains in denial about his performance and his actions, although Esther McVey (the recently-resigned Minister for making the poor poorer through the flawed Universal Credit scheme and for defending the family-destroying fixed-odds betting terminals) has given him a close run at times.
It is against the rules of Parliamentary debate to accuse an MP of dissembling. So, in a reversal of the intention of parliamentary privilege (to protect MPs who say things in the House of Commons which might lead them to legal action if said outside the House), let me say here that it is difficult to find any defence to the assertion that Mr Grayling is a serial dissembler.
In fact, I’m almost certain that the original version of the old joke must have been “How can you tell when Chris Grayling is not telling the truth? When his lips move.”
In 2010, when he was Shadow Home Secretary, Grayling issues press releases on crime throughout the UK which the independent Chair of the UK Statistics Authority described as "likely to mislead the public" and "likely to damage public trust in official statistics". Later that year, he spoke in favour of homophobic discrimination at a Tory think-tank meeting, until his statements were published, when he was forced into a public apology.
After the general election, he became a minister at Work and Pensions, where he implemented job centre closures and actively promoted benefit cuts.
In 2012, he became the Justice Minister. He was responsible for banning books being sent in to prisons and implemented a programme to cut the number of prison officers by 20% and increase prison privatisation. The result? The all-party Justice Select Committee accused him of being complacent about a 38% increase in prison deaths and concluded that efficiency savings and staffing shortages had made "a significant contribution to the deterioration in safety" in prisons.
The independent Chief Inspector of Prisons criticised Grayling for "robustly" interfering with the contents of reports and for using financial controls to influence what was inspected, thereby threatening the independence of the Inspector's role.
Leading barrister David Pannick QC described Grayling's performance as "notable only for his attempts to restrict judicial reviews and human rights, his failure to protect the judiciary against criticism from his colleagues and the reduction of legal aid to a bare minimum." Instead of being ashamed by his performance, Grayling appeared proud of it.
Not satisfied with making a mess of prisons, Grayling then set about a disastrous privatisation reform of probation services. The National Audit Office and the all-party Public Accounts Committee subsequently published devastating critiques of the financial and practical outcomes. Just 8 out of 24 performance targets were met and it cost an additional £350 million. In July this year, the new Justice Secretary announced that Grayling’s disastrous regime was being brought to an end two years early, and that many millions were to be spent on trying to restore decent probation services.
Grayling became Transport Secretary in 2016.
The decline in bus services has actually increased under his watch. The bus network is now smaller than it was in 1990, patronage is at a 10 year low and usage by young people has fallen by 40% since 2010 as funding has been halved. Everyone is predicting further route cuts during thi8s and next year.
On the railways, he is planning another 3.2% increase in rail fares in January, taking this to a fare increase of 36% since 2010. Meanwhile, rail punctuality has reduced further from 91.5% in 2010 to 87.5% last year, and all the signs are that this will worsen further.
Last year, Grayling mislead the public and MPs in to believing that the long-promised electrification of the MidlandMainLine, TransPennine and GreatWestern routes were going ahead, before suddenly announcing the cancellation of that investment. Far from ending the great disparity between spending in London and the South-East, Grayling has increased the gap. Last week, an IPPR analysis showed that public spending on transport in Yorkshire and Humber fell by £18 per person last year while it increased by £90 per person in London.
Earlier this year, I went public with my claim that Grayling’s Department of Transport officers had instructed that journey times of peak-time MML trains between Sheffield and London were to get longer in order to accommodate London commuter trains. The Department put out a statement that my claim was wrong, Of course, when the timetables came out, peak-time journey times had increased. Since then, Mr Grayling has consistently refused to answer a simple question: when will Sheffield to London journey times get shorter that they were 10, 20 and 30 years’ ago?
Last week, at Transport Questions in the House of Commons, I asked My Grayling:
“On the last timetable changes Midland Main Line (run by) Stagecoach were forced to lengthen the journey times of the peak time train from Sheffield to London to accommodate more commuter trains on Thameslink. Is it true now that the Department for Transport has told Stagecoach they can’t come and revisit that in the next timetable changes because of the shambles last time and the nervousness that’s created in the department?”
He answered:
“We would dispute that we have done anything to disadvantage Sheffield to help GTR. We are doing a massive upgrade programme on the Midland Main Line at the moment … we will do everything we can do to make sure, if we can, the timetable remains as intact as possible as those changes happen.”
In other words, he is still in denial about the longer journey times set out in today’s timetable. But, he is also confirming that – despite the impression he tried to give earlier this year about any timetable changes being temporary – the situation is not going to improve, because he is frightened of another timetable shambles of the sort he oversaw earlier this year.
I am not alone in my view that this incompetent minister should resign. It’s a view echoed by public and MP alike throughout the country. Even the Yorkshire Post, not reknowned for its criticism of Conservative ministers, has oft repeated this year that “Grayling must Go.”
But, I have to tell you that I am prepared to make an exception in the case of the government’s Transport Minister, Christopher Grayling. It is quite difficult to find another example of a government minister who is such a serial offender and yet remains in denial about his performance and his actions, although Esther McVey (the recently-resigned Minister for making the poor poorer through the flawed Universal Credit scheme and for defending the family-destroying fixed-odds betting terminals) has given him a close run at times.
It is against the rules of Parliamentary debate to accuse an MP of dissembling. So, in a reversal of the intention of parliamentary privilege (to protect MPs who say things in the House of Commons which might lead them to legal action if said outside the House), let me say here that it is difficult to find any defence to the assertion that Mr Grayling is a serial dissembler.
In fact, I’m almost certain that the original version of the old joke must have been “How can you tell when Chris Grayling is not telling the truth? When his lips move.”
In 2010, when he was Shadow Home Secretary, Grayling issues press releases on crime throughout the UK which the independent Chair of the UK Statistics Authority described as "likely to mislead the public" and "likely to damage public trust in official statistics". Later that year, he spoke in favour of homophobic discrimination at a Tory think-tank meeting, until his statements were published, when he was forced into a public apology.
After the general election, he became a minister at Work and Pensions, where he implemented job centre closures and actively promoted benefit cuts.
In 2012, he became the Justice Minister. He was responsible for banning books being sent in to prisons and implemented a programme to cut the number of prison officers by 20% and increase prison privatisation. The result? The all-party Justice Select Committee accused him of being complacent about a 38% increase in prison deaths and concluded that efficiency savings and staffing shortages had made "a significant contribution to the deterioration in safety" in prisons.
The independent Chief Inspector of Prisons criticised Grayling for "robustly" interfering with the contents of reports and for using financial controls to influence what was inspected, thereby threatening the independence of the Inspector's role.
Leading barrister David Pannick QC described Grayling's performance as "notable only for his attempts to restrict judicial reviews and human rights, his failure to protect the judiciary against criticism from his colleagues and the reduction of legal aid to a bare minimum." Instead of being ashamed by his performance, Grayling appeared proud of it.
Not satisfied with making a mess of prisons, Grayling then set about a disastrous privatisation reform of probation services. The National Audit Office and the all-party Public Accounts Committee subsequently published devastating critiques of the financial and practical outcomes. Just 8 out of 24 performance targets were met and it cost an additional £350 million. In July this year, the new Justice Secretary announced that Grayling’s disastrous regime was being brought to an end two years early, and that many millions were to be spent on trying to restore decent probation services.
Grayling became Transport Secretary in 2016.
The decline in bus services has actually increased under his watch. The bus network is now smaller than it was in 1990, patronage is at a 10 year low and usage by young people has fallen by 40% since 2010 as funding has been halved. Everyone is predicting further route cuts during thi8s and next year.
On the railways, he is planning another 3.2% increase in rail fares in January, taking this to a fare increase of 36% since 2010. Meanwhile, rail punctuality has reduced further from 91.5% in 2010 to 87.5% last year, and all the signs are that this will worsen further.
Last year, Grayling mislead the public and MPs in to believing that the long-promised electrification of the MidlandMainLine, TransPennine and GreatWestern routes were going ahead, before suddenly announcing the cancellation of that investment. Far from ending the great disparity between spending in London and the South-East, Grayling has increased the gap. Last week, an IPPR analysis showed that public spending on transport in Yorkshire and Humber fell by £18 per person last year while it increased by £90 per person in London.
Earlier this year, I went public with my claim that Grayling’s Department of Transport officers had instructed that journey times of peak-time MML trains between Sheffield and London were to get longer in order to accommodate London commuter trains. The Department put out a statement that my claim was wrong, Of course, when the timetables came out, peak-time journey times had increased. Since then, Mr Grayling has consistently refused to answer a simple question: when will Sheffield to London journey times get shorter that they were 10, 20 and 30 years’ ago?
Last week, at Transport Questions in the House of Commons, I asked My Grayling:
“On the last timetable changes Midland Main Line (run by) Stagecoach were forced to lengthen the journey times of the peak time train from Sheffield to London to accommodate more commuter trains on Thameslink. Is it true now that the Department for Transport has told Stagecoach they can’t come and revisit that in the next timetable changes because of the shambles last time and the nervousness that’s created in the department?”
He answered:
“We would dispute that we have done anything to disadvantage Sheffield to help GTR. We are doing a massive upgrade programme on the Midland Main Line at the moment … we will do everything we can do to make sure, if we can, the timetable remains as intact as possible as those changes happen.”
In other words, he is still in denial about the longer journey times set out in today’s timetable. But, he is also confirming that – despite the impression he tried to give earlier this year about any timetable changes being temporary – the situation is not going to improve, because he is frightened of another timetable shambles of the sort he oversaw earlier this year.
I am not alone in my view that this incompetent minister should resign. It’s a view echoed by public and MP alike throughout the country. Even the Yorkshire Post, not reknowned for its criticism of Conservative ministers, has oft repeated this year that “Grayling must Go.”
