South Eastern Rail Franchise

Debate between Matthew Pennycook and Robert Neill

Tuesday 27th November 2018 Westminster Hall

[Robert Neill]

That is absolutely right, and I have total sympathy with those further down the line. Investment has not matched capacity. The few trains that come up from the coast and stop at somewhere such as Bromley South are crowded by the time they get there. Despite the promise that the London Bridge rebuild would solve the congestion, it has not, and all too often, it is necessary, for whatever reason, for the signalling arrangements to let trains from the coast go through, sometimes not full, while people are sitting on commuter metroland trains that are absolutely rammed. That is not working for anybody. We also frequently get points failures in that first six miles out of London, and that affects everybody who uses the network, however far they are going.

It is no exaggeration to say that I could probably fill the whole of this half hour by reading out emails, tweets and messages from social media sites that I have received since this debate was announced. I have had scores and scores. The numbers are perhaps exaggerated this time because of the publicity, but it is more or less a normal arrangement for me. There is not a day on which I do not see some complaint or other about some failing on the trains.

I commute up every sitting day from Chislehurst and I see it myself. I got the 8.09 from Chislehurst today. That is supposed to be a service of about 25 minutes, but I allow half an hour, to Charing Cross. That is not what it is supposed to be, but nobody expects these trains to run exactly to time—that is how bad it is. It is an exception if it runs to the minute. As it was, we arrived at 8.55, so it took nearly three quarters of an hour. My maths is not brilliant this afternoon, and I will be generous, but that is a 30% or 40% increase on what the journey time is supposed to be. That is not an exception; all too often, it is the norm.

Constituents say to me that they like the area, but are seriously thinking of moving because the trains are unreliable. As the hon. Member for Erith and Thamesmead (Teresa Pearce) said, that is compounded by the failure to invest in stock. Short train formations are a regular bane on both my lines and those going into north Kent, which creates serious overcrowding at peak hours. There is also pretty poor communication in terms of making people aware of last-minute cancellations and changes. The one shining light of Southeastern is the quality of the station staff at our local stations. I have found every one of them to be absolutely excellent; they really do their best and are well linked into the communities they serve. It is not their fault. It is a case of lions being led by donkeys, as far as the operation of the franchise is concerned. They deserve better leadership and could do with better investment in some of their stations. They have to bear the brunt of the frustration of passengers who pay a lot of money and are simply not getting the service they are paying for.

The issues have been well documented. The Department conceded that the number of responses to the consultation on the proposed renewal of the franchise was “unprecedented”. It is not surprising, given the amount of anger and angst. There are assurances that the new franchise documents will meet the concerns and that they will be taken on board. People’s trust is running pretty thin. The Minister is new to his post, but trust in the Department is running thin as well, as is trust in the regulatory apparatus and the operator. We were told that there would be much more joint working. The reason given for not redesigning the franchise and putting the metro services into Transport for London was that the Secretary of State wanted to bring train and track together. Although there have been efforts at joint working and there is a joint board, in practice what I seem to get is senior managers from both sides coming and giving me their excuses together rather than separately. I am not sure that it makes much difference to my constituents on the platforms.

There are some pretty blatant examples beyond the daily grind of cancellation and failure. When I was sitting on the train waiting to get into Lewisham about 10 minutes behind time, I had a tweet from one of my constituents, Tommy, who is known to Network Rail because it tried to block him once, because it did not like the fact that he was calling it out for the errors that it was consistently making. He tweeted about three trains delayed in the Lewisham area. He was spot on. That was because they had all been held to allow a late-running Dartford train, which was already behind schedule, to come through. Owing to the way it was operated, there were now four trains behind schedule. Clearly, that joined-up working is simply not happening.

We have had other errors on basic things such as timetabling. A lot of my constituents travel from Bromley North and Sundridge Park, then change to the mainline at Grove Park. That is a busy station, because even trains that start from Orpington are pretty full by then. The timetabling means that often people have one or two minutes to get from one side of Grove Park station—it has about four mainline tracks plus a baby platform stuck on one side—to the other. It is a very short period for people to have to go up a lengthy walkway and then on to a footbridge. That is assuming that the mainline trains run to time. When they do not, the shuttle service leaves without people. People either run—and sometimes slip, as I have seen on the footbridge—and pile on to an overcrowded train, or else they are left hanging around for perhaps half an hour until the next shuttle returns.

Local MPs and I have repeatedly raised the issue of timetabling. Time and again, I have said, “Why can you not align the timetables properly on the Grove Park branch?” but nothing has ever happened. Only three stations can be saved on the app’s dashboard, yet most people would like to have a choice of which London terminal they go from if there are going to be problems. That has been raised time and again with the most senior level of management. They say, “That’s an interesting idea,” but nothing ever happens.

About a year ago, there was a scandalous incident that ended up being investigated by the rail safety authorities. Just before Christmas, about half a dozen trains were stranded for up to four hours in the Lewisham area, affecting both sets of lines. There was very heavy snow and there were poor weather conditions—I accept that the central rail form of electricity on that line is particularly susceptible—but there was a complete failure to rescue people from the trains in any decent time, as my constituents regularly point out to me. A plan was supposed to be put in place to get people out of those trains—it should have been activated within an hour and got people out within two—but it failed. We had people sitting on those trains for five to six hours with no power.

One might think that something would have been done about that after the report was published by the Rail Accident Investigation Branch, but my constituents remind me that there have been another four incidents of people being stranded for two hours or more. The basic procedures for getting people off delayed trains are still being ignored—there is no other word for it. That seems to be an extraordinary failure.

I could go on at length. An excellent councillor for Bromley Town, Will Harmer, has just tweeted me. He says of the Grove Park scenario:

“Yes, it happened again last night. Train just left as the first person got on to the platform.”

How many times do people have to say that before it sinks into the minds of the people who run Southeastern trains? Another message reads:

“Thanks for raising this, Bob. The delay problems have been steadily getting worse. Southeastern trains have been getting away with murder.”

My constituent Alex Le Vey commutes, and he says:

“The service is getting worse—more overcrowding, more delays.”

Another constituent says:

“Trains are late almost every day. The 17.52”—

it goes down to the Medway towns—

“is 15 minutes late on average, and only on time 20% of the time.”

I mention that because managers, Department officials and Ministers often come out with statistics and say, “Actually, things are improving. Things are getting better. Statistics show that reliability has gone up.” That is not the lived experience of people on the trains and platforms. On the operation of Southeastern trains, I am inclined to take the view that there are

“lies, damned lies and statistics”.

Looking at that scenario, it is understandable that we have real concerns about the franchise renewal. We might well get the same operator or one very much like it.

[Matthew Pennycook (Greenwich and Woolwich) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this debate. Many of my constituents are disappointed that the Government changed their mind and ultimately decided not to hand responsibility for the service to Transport for London. Knowing that the franchise will be renewed, they are worried that the renewal might be delayed. Earlier this year, we were promised that there would be an announcement this month—we have four days left. Does the hon. Gentleman share my concerns that we need a decision to be made, and that the new franchise cannot be delayed? In the minds of my constituents, the worst possible scenario would be the current operator extending the service far beyond April next year.

[Robert Neill]

I agree. The Minister will not be able to tell me the likely outcome, but some of our problems are with the franchising process. I was a believer in franchising out because I thought it would bring competition, but there are only about three big conglomerates that are capable of bidding for those franchises. Competition is non-existent—those big conglomerates have a nice, captive market, and there is nothing like the incentive that there should be for them to come up with the goods for paying customers.

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to say that there is uncertainty and no guarantee of the investment that the network is crying out for. The thought of simply renewing franchises for operators that have failed would be, I think, pretty outrageous to most of my constituents and to most people who commute on that line. They do not want just a change of badging or a renewal or change with lots of promises that things will be better this time; they want to see precisely what is in the franchise document when it is published. We have seen the consultation, but we need to see the contract itself. What benchmarks is the operator being held to, what will be the penalties, and will those penalties genuinely be applied at this time? What more incentives will be offered to Network Rail to keep their end of the bargain? That is a big part of it, too.

What penalty will we sensibly apply to the public sector? When the private sector fails, franchises can be taken away—it should have happened more often in the railway network in the past—but we must also have proper recompense when the publicly owned Network Rail is at fault. What delivery timetables will ensure that overcrowding will be reduced and that the number of signal failures on the Network Rail side will be reduced, and over what time period? When will we have investment in the new carriages and the extra rolling stock? When will we have upgrades to the communications system? I recognise that we have seen some changes, such as to the delay repay system. With respect to the Minister and the Department, that is just skirting round the edges.

It is genuinely a pleasure to see the Minister back in his place. I hope it is not too much of a displeasure for him to have to come and listen to a debate on Southeastern trains again, because he did so a good deal in his previous incarnation. There must be a sense of déjà vu for him, as there is for me. Above all, there is a sense of déjà vu—not in a good way—for my constituents who are commuters. I am grateful for the opportunity to raise these issues, and after the debate I will happily supply the Minister with a detailed list of all the complaints that have been sent to me on social media platforms. I will get that across to his office tomorrow—it will set out what has happened in the past 14 days or so to one Member of Parliament. I suspect that there are plenty of other Members across the franchise area who can say exactly the same thing, and I look forward to the Minister’s response so we can find out what is happening, when we will have some action and real promises, and how those promises will be delivered—frankly, people in our area have had enough.

South-eastern Rail Franchise

Debate between Matthew Pennycook and Robert Neill

Wednesday 24th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Matthew Pennycook (Greenwich and Woolwich) (Lab)]

Thank you for calling me to speak, Mr Deputy Speaker. I should like to add my sentiments to those that have been expressed to you today. It is very good to see you back in your place. Huge numbers of my constituents, including me and my family, depend on local metro train services on the south-eastern rail network for work, for leisure and as a means of accessing the wider transport network in our city, so let me start by thanking you for giving me the chance to speak on their behalf on this important issue. However, as much as I am grateful for the opportunity, I am also struck by a depressing familiarity in having to raise concerns about services on the network—a feeling that I know will be shared by a number of hon. Members on both sides of the House, including those who have stayed behind to attend the debate and, I suspect, the Minister himself, whom I welcome to his new role.

In the relatively short time that I have been a Member of Parliament, we have had several debates on this issue. I recall an Adjournment debate that the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill) secured in January 2016 and a well-attended Westminster Hall debate secured by my hon. Friend the Member for Eltham (Clive Efford) in that same year, along with scores of oral and written parliamentary questions, all driven by the same basic grievance: passengers using the south-eastern rail network have suffered for too long from overcrowded and unreliable train services.

My own journey to work today was sadly typical of what many of my constituents experience every week. The 6.59 am service from Charlton to Charing Cross that I caught this morning was six minutes late, had two fewer carriages than advertised and was badly overcrowded as a result.

My argument is simple: the residents that I represent in Blackheath, Greenwich, Charlton, Woolwich and Plumstead, and those across south-east London represented by other Members of the House, deserve better from the next franchise, but I am concerned that the way the Government have approached it will not deliver the improvements my constituents need.

[Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)]

I warmly congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing the debate. He is absolutely right: we have been discussing this for a very long time, but nothing seems to have changed. Does he agree that one of the particular frustrations for constituents in suburban London is that the current franchise appears to be structured in such a way that the rewards go to the longer-distance trains from the coast and that the suburban or metro trains tend to bear the brunt of the cancellations and lack of space, and are treated as the poor relation in all this?

[Matthew Pennycook]

I absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman. There has been a long-standing tension on the network between metro trains and the longer services, and it often feels as though the suburban services and those who use them get a raw deal.

I think that it is fair to argue, although the Minister might disagree, that the record of successive operators of the franchise since privatisation in 1996 has not been particularly impressive. That would certainly be the view of many of those I represent. When the Strategic Rail Authority took the decision in June 2003 to strip Connex South Eastern of its multi-billion pound franchise, it did so because of concerns about the company’s financial performance, but anyone who used Connex services will recall just how dire its operational performance also was.

Under South Eastern Trains—a subsidiary company of the SRA that took over and ran the franchise for three years—we saw a steady improvement, but the SRA really only adopted a care and maintenance approach pending the new franchise. Under the current operator, Southeastern—a subsidiary of Govia that has run the franchise since 2006—services on the network have all too often been less than satisfactory.

That is not a criticism of Southeastern staff, whom I know to be dedicated and hardworking. I recognise that Southeastern is not solely responsible for service failures. A lot of the problems on the network are infrastructure-related. They are the responsibility of Network Rail and will remain an issue, whoever takes on the new franchise. I am also very much aware that maintaining services throughout the London Bridge rebuild would have presented any operator with enormous challenges. But all that said, there have still been real failures with Southeastern.

The provision of additional rolling stock has failed to keep pace with entirely predictable local population growth and a corresponding growth in passenger numbers. Despite much earlier requests from Southeastern, supported by a number of hon. Members, only in September last year did the Department for Transport finally authorise the purchase of 68 extra carriages for the network from GTR. Even with the addition of that extra stock, 12-car trains are still a rarity on the lines that run through my constituency, and overcrowding at peak times is frequently unacceptable, if not dangerous.