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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Norman Baker)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey) on securing this debate and on providing an opportunity for hon. Members to discuss rail services in her constituency and further afield. I have always admired the hon. Lady, who is an independent person. Independence of mind is an attribute that we could do with more of in the House of Commons.
The planned changes to south London line services are a matter of concern to several Members, and officials have informed me that the Department for Transport has received significant correspondence on the matter over the past few months. I am pleased that my right hon. Friend the Minister of State, Department for Transport, will meet the hon. Lady in the coming days to discuss the issue in greater detail. Obviously, I will ensure that my right hon. Friend has access to the exchanges in this Adjournment debate.
It is probably worth starting my response by setting out the background to the proposed changes to the south London line, with some details about the existing service. The current service, provided by rail operator Southern, operates every 30 minutes in each direction between London Bridge and Victoria via Denmark Hill and Peckham Rye, including stops at Wandsworth Road and Clapham High Street. Two-car trains run for most of the day, with four-car trains provided for the morning peak. That is the only service for Wandsworth Road and Clapham High Street stations, all other stations on the route being served by other train services. I take the hon. Lady’s point about the withdrawal of services to London Bridge and Victoria, and note her dramatic phrase, “a double betrayal”.
It should be noted that Clapham North underground station is located some 300 yards from Clapham High Street station, and provides services to the west end, the City and Morden as well as connections to the rest of the underground network. However, I am not ignoring the points the hon. Lady rightly made about overcrowding. As an occasional commuter on the Northern line, I am well aware of the problems. It is also worth noting—I shall come back to this later—that the Northern line will benefit from enhanced capacity over the next couple of years as a result of the planned upgrade that forms part of Transport for London’s investment programme.
The latest information on demand levels at these stages, which is provided by Southern, indicates that Clapham High Street is the start or end point of some 850 journeys per weekday, around a quarter of which have Victoria as their origin or destination. By comparison, Wandsworth Road is used for some 630 journeys per day, with two thirds starting or ending at Victoria.
As the hon. Lady knows, several of the planned service changes in her area of south London are required because of the start of the main works at London Bridge associated with the Thameslink upgrade programme. She will be aware that work on the Thameslink programme has already commenced across London: Blackfriars and Farringdon stations are already being rebuilt, platforms outside London are being lengthened and preparatory works at Borough market have begun. When completed, the Thameslink programme will enhance the frequency and capacity of train services throughout the centre of London, improving connectivity north to south and creating new journey opportunities while helping to relieve the Northern line north of London Bridge.
However, while works are carried out at London Bridge, the capacity of the station—the number of trains it can accommodate—will be reduced. We all recognise that any reduction in the number of services that can go into London Bridge is not ideal, but rebuilding and enhancing a busy operational railway is not possible without some disruption.
The original plan, as consulted on by Network Rail as part of the south London route utilisation strategy document, was to divert the south London line service away from London Bridge and to create a new stopping service from Victoria to Bellingham, as the hon. Lady and the hon. Member for Lewisham East (Heidi Alexander) recognise. Bellingham is south of Catford and is a convenient location where trains can terminate. The new service would have reduced the number of train movements into London Bridge while maintaining key connections to and from London Victoria from Wandsworth Road and Clapham High Street as well as from Peckham Rye and Denmark Hill. I note Members’ support for that option. It was the Department’s intention to implement a Victoria to Bellingham service in place of the existing Victoria to London Bridge service while works at London Bridge were carried out, but the service changes made by TfL—I shall come to those in a second—mean that the alternative service strategy will not now be implemented.
I turn to the East London line extension phase 2 to Clapham Junction and why the proposed Victoria to Bellingham service will not now go ahead. The south London route utilisation strategy developed by Network Rail highlighted the potential benefits that the extension of the East London line would bring to the area of south London represented by the hon. Member for Vauxhall. However, in 2008, TfL and the Mayor concluded that the £75 million scheme was not affordable within the constraints of the TfL budget. Recognising the value of the extension project, the Department offered to provide an additional £15 million as grant to TfL and to support a £19 million funding application to the Office of Rail Regulation for Network Rail works to implement the project, so I think that the Department has been helpful.
As part of the funding proposal, TfL requested the withdrawal of the planned replacement south London line service to Bellingham. The money raised from that was to be diverted to the capital costs of the East London line extension—the saving is the equivalent of £24 million over 10 years. Under the devolved arrangements for London, the Mayor and TfL were, and are, fully at liberty to request such changes, given the powers granted to them over DFT-specified train services. Under the arrangements, TfL can propose, and pay for, services additional to the Department’s base franchise specification. Alternatively, it is entitled to propose reductions in service levels and keep any savings made. The latter approach is what TfL proposed in respect of the Victoria to Bellingham service.
It would have been apparent that the proposed service changes would have meant that Wandsworth Road and Clapham High Street would lose all direct services to London Victoria, with passengers instead being required to travel via a change of train at Clapham Junction. However, train frequency at both locations would double from two to four trains per hour in each direction, with a far wider range of services available from Clapham Junction, including to Waterloo, stations on the west London line and the wider Southern and South West Trains networks, although I appreciate they may not be destinations that all the hon. Lady’s constituents want to reach.
Jane Ellison (Battersea) (Con)
I apologise in case I have to leave before the end of the Minister’s remarks, because I have to ask a question in the main Chamber at 11.30 am.
Slightly fewer of my constituents are affected than those of the hon. Member for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey), but I want to pick up on the point about Clapham Junction, because one problem is that it is not an effective interchange, despite being pretty much the busiest one in the country. I should like the Minister to recognise that the strategic long-term upgrade of Clapham Junction—I do not just mean the £20 million announced in March 2010 before the election—to reflect its status as the busiest interchange in the country is essential to making a lot more services attractive to a great many more people, irrespective of the direction from which they are coming into that station.
Norman Baker
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her comments.
I stress that we, as a Government, are committed to devolution. We are talking about an earlier example of devolution to TfL and the Mayor, so whatever the Department for Transport thinks we live within the existing legal framework. Therefore, the Department may have fewer powers in this regard than in respect of other rail matters elsewhere in the country.
TfL made a judgment that the East London line service to Clapham Junction provided better overall benefits than the south London line to Bellingham. Clearly, Members present do not share that judgment. It is entirely appropriate that TFL, which is London’s transport planning body, should make this judgment and assess the trade-offs between the different service proposals. Ministers in the previous Administration accepted the guidance provided by the Mayor on that being the best use of the limited available resources. If the Mayor and TfL make such decisions—the coalition agreement states that the Government believe that decisions should be taken at a more local level—it is important that they stand behind the consequences of such decisions when they are made, including the impacts on passengers at stations such as Wandsworth Road and Clapham High Street.
The decision not to implement the proposed London Victoria to Bellingham service was requested by TfL and the Mayor to help fund the East London line service. Implementing both the Bellingham service and the East London line would have been ideal, but both services were not affordable and TfL and the Mayor judged that the East London line extension provided more benefits than the diverted south London line. A judgment call was made by TfL in light of the financial constraints it faced. As is the case with such funding agreements, a number of conditions were attached to the funding given by the Department. TfL was fully aware of those conditions before it signed the funding offer.
Importantly, the Department was conscious of the need to keep stakeholders informed of any changes and included a requirement for TfL to inform key stakeholders about the route of the proposed changes. The Department also included a clause stopping East London line services operating into London Victoria. If TfL decided to operate into Victoria we would need to renegotiate, and perhaps reduce, the £24 million funding offer. This may seem an odd condition, but it was put in place because other train operators would have had a claim on the Department for loss of revenue if TfL operated services into London Victoria.
The hon. Member for Vauxhall mentioned her concerns about London TravelWatch. She is aware that following the proposed changes, and significant negative public reaction, TfL and London TravelWatch undertook a further exercise to investigate what mitigation measures could be implemented to resolve some of the problems that stakeholders identified. That study recently reported and the Mayor of London wrote to the Secretary of State regarding its conclusions.
The study suggested stopping some peak-time mainline services at Peckham Rye and Denmark Hill and implementing a new off-peak Victoria to Bromley South stopping service, which would call at Wandsworth Road and Clapham High Street. However, in all its study work, TfL has not addressed the hon. Lady’s key concern regarding peak period train services from Wandsworth Road and Clapham High Street to London Victoria. The study was, of course, led by TfL with London TravelWatch and they will need to answer the question about why such services cannot be accommodated, but I understand that a key constraint is the length of platforms at stations, and the costs of extending them, which limits the services that they believe can call at those stations at peak times.
Of course, we in the Department will study the conclusions of the study carefully, but I should make it clear that the Department is unlikely to be willing to fund the mitigation measures that the Mayor is proposing, given that the issues arose because the Mayor sought the withdrawal of the proposed Bellingham service.
Kate Hoey
I really appreciate what the Minister has said so far. Will he clarify something? I appreciate that how we got here is to do with TfL and the Mayor, and TravelWatch, and that it is probably more for Londoners to take up, rather than for the Minister to do so. Could he or the Department say, “No, we want you to look at this matter again”, particularly the peak services between the two stations that I have mentioned and Victoria? Or is the Minister told about these things by TfL and the Mayor, with the idea being, in theory, that he is meant to say yes or no—although actually the answer is always yes?
Norman Baker
The hon. Lady makes an important point. I want my response to be exactly right because I do not want to mislead hon. Members, so I will reflect and give the hon. Lady an answer in a moment.
I understand that implementation of the proposed service is likely to cost about £1 million a year, which the Mayor is seeking from the Department. Given our current funding constraints and the likely reductions in available resources in future, an exceptional case would need to be made for any such funding to be implemented.
I note the hon. Lady’s concerns about London TravelWatch, which is not the responsibility of the Department for Transport, as she is aware. London TravelWatch is an independent watchdog sponsored and funded by the London assembly, which is part of the Greater London authority. Any comments regarding London TravelWatch, concerns about its involvement in the study, or how it functions should therefore be directed to the GLA and the Mayor as well as to its chair, Sharon Grant, whom the hon. Lady mentioned. The hon. Lady might also want to contact Passenger Focus, because although London TravelWatch is the predominant body in London—Passenger Focus tends to let it have its say and take the lead there—Passenger Focus has responsibility for rail issues nationally so it may be interested in some of her comments.
In response to the hon. Lady’s earlier point, TfL made its proposals to the DFT, as I mentioned. We can ask it to look at the matter again, but doing so risks the DFT being forced to fund such a proposal. As I understand it, we have to be careful not to enter into a discussion with TfL that in any way makes us liable for the decisions of the Mayor, but I will ask my right hon. Friend the Minister of State to give the hon. Lady further clarification about that important point when they meet.
Kate Hoey
I thank the Minister for that helpful comment. It seems silly to put the matter through departmental bureaucracy if the Department can never say, “No, we don’t like this.” Could the Department say, “Look, actually, in the end it’s probably better for this not to be changed at all,” and not put in the money? Who is benefiting from the extra money that is going in?
Norman Baker
A number of factors must be taken into account, including, first, the devolved powers for the Mayor and TfL, which most Londoners would probably support—we are trying to devolve powers away from central Government; secondly, the legal restraints and legislation made in respect of the Mayor and TfL; and thirdly, the consequences for other rail operators. There is a complicated matrix to consider and I do not want to give a misleading answer today, so I will draw the hon. Lady’s concerns and comments directly to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Minister of State to ensure that she gets a proper, full answer when they meet.
The East London line will bring significant benefits to the part of south London that we are talking about, providing four trains an hour regularly between Clapham Junction and Dalston seven days a week and providing connections to key interchanges to other parts of the London transport network, such as at Canada Water, for example.
On the Northern line, and crowding issues at Clapham North station, the hon. Lady will know that London Underground is planning an upgrade of the Northern line to be implemented in 2012, which will increase frequency on the southern end of the route from the current 28 trains per hour to 32. The additional capacity will help to relieve crowding issues on that section of the network. There are concerns about the spending review and funding arrangements, but we hope that the Mayor will be able to deliver the upgrade on the Northern line, as previously announced.
Members have mentioned Clapham Junction station and its use as an interchange station for London Overground services. It must be remembered that in Network Rail’s plans to 2014, suburban trains through Clapham Junction to both Waterloo and Victoria will be lengthened to 10-car services. Works are also already under way to improve the interchange facilities at Clapham Junction by providing new lifts, and plans are in place to improve access to the station, for example, by providing a new entrance.
Although the changes to train services in south London are largely driven by the need to accommodate train service changes at London Bridge, the proposed Victoria to Bellingham service would have mitigated a number of the impacts of those changes. The changes to train services at Wandsworth Road and Clapham High Street and the severing of the link to London Victoria were made at the request of the Mayor of London, under the arrangements that cover rail services in London.
We will, of course, reflect on the comments made by hon. Members during this debate and consider the issues that have been raised.