Chester-le-Street: Rail Services

Andrew Jones Excerpts

Tuesday 15th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Andrew Jones)]

I congratulate the right hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) on securing the debate. He has raised a number of important issues relating to his constituency and to County Durham more broadly, and I will address them all.

I entirely recognise the importance of Chester-le-Street station as a vital local link for the right hon. Gentleman’s constituents. I know how much they rely on it. The right hon. Gentleman said that the service was growing, and I can confirm that. The number of passengers has increased by about 30,000 a year over the past six years, and an average of just over 600 a day use the station. Those people play a vital role in the local economy: for instance, as the right hon. Gentleman said, they provide access to employment in both Newcastle and Durham. Nearly all the services are provided by TransPennine Express, with a handful of additional peak services provided by Northern and CrossCountry.

The right hon. Gentleman rightly focused on the central issue of performance—about which the hon. Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns) also expressed concern—and how bad it became, particularly after the May timetable change. Let me stress that I entirely agree: the services that were offered to several parts of the country, including those offered by franchises in the north of England, were unacceptable. I must also stress, however, that important lessons have been learnt, some of which have already been implemented by the industry and have led to a significant improvement in performance.

The planned December 2018 timetable changes in the north were deliberately scaled back in favour of a phased approach. Risks were mitigated to the extent that this was largely a rollover of the May timetable, but with a focus on some performance “fixes” to improve the resilience and reliability of the network. They included changes to local TransPennine services between Leeds and Manchester, although I fully recognise that “the north” extends further than Leeds and Manchester. Indeed, I represent a constituency that is north of Leeds and Manchester. Those changes have already delivered significant improvements and the provision of standby trains at key locations to help recovery should things go wrong.

I observe performance daily, and I know that many Members on both sides of the House do the same. Performance on Northern and TPE has improved significantly since December. On TPE, according to the public performance measure—which can be found online—the number of trains that are on time has increased to about 83%. That figure still presents a significant amount of room for manoeuvre, and it is below target, but it is also 18% higher than the figure during the last period before the December changes. Although there has been an improvement in punctuality and a reduction in the number of cancellations, I agree with colleagues throughout the House that that is still not good enough.

As for Northern, the January figures so far show that about 89% of trains are on time, which is an improvement of about 10% on the figure for December. I am pleased to report that the number of trains that are late, very late or cancelled has substantially declined. This month fewer than 1 in 10 have been late, and just 1.3% have been very late or cancelled. However, I am aware of the base from which they are starting; I also know that the recovery of passenger trust is critical, and will only be delivered by a relentless focus on reliability and punctuality.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

I agree with the Minister, but what concerns me about TransPennine is that it does not care. A company that should be focusing on what is good for customers has no customer ethos at all. I would love to know how we can change that.

[Andrew Jones]

The right hon. Gentleman has made a significant point. I have to say that that has not been my experience when I have been dealing with the train operating companies, but it is nevertheless clear that the communication to which he referred in his speech has not been good enough. I shall say more about that shortly.

As part of the wider drive to improve performance in the north, the Government commissioned Richard George, a respected industry figure, to review the performance of the region’s rail network. He will recommend operational improvements to increase reliability in the short and medium term. Richard will co-ordinate and lead the efforts of Network Rail and the operators. His remit is to help industry reach the right conclusions so that passenger impact is central to every planning decision; the passenger must be at the centre of all of our decisions. He has already helped highlight problem areas and will provide his conclusions later this year.

In addition, since the May timetabling issues Network Rail has established a programme management office. This will also help to ensure future timetable changes can be better planned and managed. There will be no repeat of the processes that led to the failure of May 2018 and that timetable change.

I thank the right hon. Member for North Durham for raising the issue of communication and poor information about cancellations and delays. I hear it in other parts of our network too, and it is simply not good enough. There are customer information screens at Chester-le-Street station, and both TPE and Northern publish updated information on their websites and social media channels, but we continue to stress to these operators and the whole industry the absolute importance of giving passengers the information they need when things go wrong. I have raised this with the train operating companies and will continue to do so. It has not been good enough. Obviously I want to get to a place where we do not have to make these comments, but until then a focus on communication is important.

[Ian Mearns]

In my experience trains that serve Chester-le-Street moving both north and south can suffer from cancellations, because if a train is coming from the south to the north and is late it is the habit of the operator to terminate the train at Darlington, and therefore not to allow it to travel on through to Durham, Chester-le-Street and Newcastle and then make the return journey. Can we ask the franchises to stop that practice, please?

[Andrew Jones]

The hon. Gentleman’s point is important, but there is also a point that the operators must consider in the operation of a timetable: how do they recover? If something goes wrong, how is that timetable recovered?

[Ian Mearns]

Additional rolling stock, Minister.

[Andrew Jones]

That is exactly what is happening, and I will come on to rolling stock in a moment. I understand the hon. Gentleman’s point and also where train operating companies are coming from, but regularly disadvantaging the same customers is not acceptable. I want to get to the place where we do not have to have these questions in the first place.

If things do go wrong, I also want to make sure we have compensation schemes. There have been delay-repay schemes and after May the Government asked Northern and TPE to implement special compensation schemes that quickly and fairly reimburse those passengers most adversely affected, and that included regular service users from Chester-le-Street. To date, over £1 million has been paid in compensation for the summer disruption.

Passengers will see the benefit of the new huge investment in rail in the north of England when the new rolling stock enters service this year. As part of the investment in TPE three new fleets of Nova trains will be introduced, starting from May this year until the end of 2020. For Chester-le-Street longer brand new trains will be in service, while on Northern the outdated and unpopular Pacers will be removed by the franchise by the end of this year. Passengers using the Northern services in County Durham will see refurbished trains offering increased capacity.

What does that actually mean? Nova trains are faster and have more capacity, and we are moving from three to five carriage trains; that means over 150 extra seats. The Pacers will in some cases be replaced by refurbished stock cascaded down from Scotland. These are class 170 trains which are longer than those they replace; they are increasing in size from 18 metres to 23 metres per carriage, again increasing capacity. The vast majority of the 500 brand new carriages from Northern and TransPennine will be delivered in less than a year from now, and every other train that is not brand new will be refurbished to be as-new.

The CrossCountry consultation was a concern. It ended on 30 August and we are conducting a thorough review of its findings. No decisions have been made about the CrossCountry timetable. The east coast main line timetable will be rewritten for all operators in 2020-21 and that will be an opportunity to review the current train services at Chester-le-Street, alongside wider long-distance service changes. The only decision that has been taken so far is to cancel the franchise competition because of the rail review. The current franchise ends in October, with the option to extend by one year. We are looking at options for the franchise and we are aware of severe overcrowding on that network, so we are looking to bring in additional trains as soon as the appropriate carriages are available within the existing rolling stock market. But the importance of Chester-le-Street and the north-east to the CrossCountry franchise is noted. Colleagues here asked me to note it and I have done so, and I give them my assurance that it will be considered.

Let me turn to the services at Chester-le-Street station. It is managed by Northern, which is conducting improvements throughout the life of its franchise to ensure that the station is well maintained. I understand of course how inconvenient it has been for passengers in the interim, but the waiting room and toilets are due to be refurbished very soon. As for the bridge, we are painting a structure that spans the east coast main line, so it is not as simple as a regular painting job. It is one that needs to be planned such that it minimises disruption. However, the point made by the right hon. Member for North Durham has been heard and I will ensure that Network Rail is aware of his concerns.

Our railways have to be fit for the future. This requires investment, vision, innovation and ambitious thinking, so that our rail network meets the needs of the people who rely on it. That is the point of our rail review. The service that we have and the structures we have had have served us well, taking us from 700 million passenger journeys a year to 1.7 billion. But times are changing and we are seeing huge investment. We are on the cusp of experiencing the benefits of the billions of pounds of investment. Our railways are undergoing much- needed transformation that, as a country, we have never experienced before. That will improve rail services in the north of England for good and it will see rail play its part in driving economic growth right across the north.

Question put and agreed to.