South-eastern Rail Franchise

Debate between Clive Efford and Matthew Pennycook

Wednesday 24th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Matthew Pennycook]

If the hon. Lady will forgive me, I will not, because time is short and the Minister has to wind up the debate.

At the very least, the Department should guarantee that the service standards delivered by the new south-eastern franchise match those that would have been delivered by London Overground. My fear is not only that the new franchise will not match those standards, but that it could lead to a deterioration in the services on which my constituents rely.

Slipped out alongside an announcement that it will look at reopening lines across the UK that were lost under the Beeching cuts, the Department published its invitation to tender for the new franchise on 29 November 2017. With one operator, Trenitalia, having withdrawn from the process, there are now only three operators bidding: Abellio, Stagecoach and the current operator, Govia.

As expected, given the instant and, I suspect, co-ordinated opposition they generated from Conservative politicians across south-east London and Kent, proposals that all metro services on the North Kent, Greenwich and Bexleyheath lines will terminate only at Cannon Street have been dropped, but that does not mean all services on those lines will escape cuts under the Government’s franchise specification.

The requirements set out in the ITT include the introduction of a revised train service, no later than 2022, that will see Woolwich and Charlton stations in my constituency lose direct services to Charing Cross, and Blackheath station, along with other stations on the Bexleyheath line, lose direct services to Victoria. Those revisions come on top of the proposed replacement of two of the six hourly off-peak Southeastern services on the line with Thameslink services that I fear might be slower and less reliable and that will not stop at Woolwich Dockyard station in my constituency or at Erith and Belvedere stations in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Thamesmead (Teresa Pearce).

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful case. Does he agree that the Government’s reason for terminating Victoria services on the Bexleyheath line—that the services somehow create problems because they have to cross over and that the complexity is not surmountable by modern technology or signalling—is an excuse? The people who run the service are benefiting at the expense of the passengers who use it.