Asked by: Baroness Cavendish of Little Venice (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask His Majesty's Government when they expect that the Department of Transport will be reporting on the performance of trains, including on running times, cancellations, and staff absences, following the pay agreement with ASLEF.
Answered by Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill - Minister of State (Department for Transport)
Resolving the long running pay dispute has brought certainty for passengers as we work to improve the railways.
The Office of Rail and Road publishes quarterly and periodic (four-weekly) statistics on punctuality, reliability and causes of delay for passenger trains operating on the mainline network in Great Britain. This information shows that the moving annual average for cancellations has remained flat at 4.1per cent for the most recent three rail periods; suggesting that reliability is stabilising following a long term declining trend over the past decade. This is helping to improve revenue, which is good news for taxpayers.
We are committed to providing transparency for passengers around performance, which is why we have made station specific performance information available more than 1,700 stations across England since March 2025.’
Asked by: Baroness Cavendish of Little Venice (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether there have been improvements in train running times and cancellation rates, following the pay deal agreed with ASLEF in September; and what further improvements they expect to see as a result of that pay deal that do not require changes in working conditions.
Answered by Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill - Minister of State (Department for Transport)
The pay agreement with ASLEF has brought an end to over two years of damaging national industrial action which was very disruptive to passengers. Industrial relations have also been reset to enable delivery of a reformed railway that works for everyone. However, because the agreement is so recent, the Department does not yet hold national data to show the extent to which this has directly improved train running times or cancellation dates, which are influenced by a range of factors including seasonal effects.