Cleaning and catering workers on Transpennine Express

That this House commends the work of cleaning and catering staff who work to make travelling on Transpennine Express a hygienic, safe and pleasurable experience; notes that cleaning and catering are essential services and will be a crucial part of Great British Railways’ offer to passengers; further notes with concern that cleaning is outsourced to Bidvest Noonan while catering is outsourced to Rail Gourmet as legacies of the failed experiment with privatisation; is disturbed that workers in both these companies on Transpennine services have been driven to take strike action as a consequence of low pay offers while Bidvest Noonan paid out a dividend of £37 million last year and Rail Gourmet’s parent company SSP paid out £29.6 million; believes that this behaviour by outsourcing companies undermines the Government’s aspiration that Great British Railways be one railway, one team, a champion of diversity and an employer of choice; supports the RMT’s Better Jobs, Better Services campaign, which aims to end outsourcing on the railways; further believes that this aligns with the Government’s long-stated aim of overseeing the biggest wave of insourcing for a generation; and calls on the Government to direct publicly-owned Transpennine Express to insource its contracts now to create better jobs and services.