Govia Thameslink

Baroness Randerson Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sugg]

My Lords, on the operational readiness board, the timetable was planned to introduce major changes and rail companies communicated these changes extensively to their passengers. However, the level of disruption caused by the introduction of the timetable was obviously not anticipated. We are working closely with GTR to put this right. One issue was that the operational readiness board did not anticipate the disruption, so the review will cover that.

On the review itself, Professor Stephen Glaister, who is chairing it, is from the independent rail regulator, the ORR. The inquiry will consider why the industry as a whole failed to produce and implement an effective timetable. There are various independent people on that review and they will consider the role of the ORR, train operating companies and, indeed, the Department for Transport.

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, I am interested in why the Government are suddenly so concerned about the appalling service from GTR when Southern, for instance, has been in a state of prolonged crisis for years and passengers have been left to suffer. Can the Minister explain the Government’s sudden change of heart?

Given the information from the operational readiness board, why did the Government not take the sensible step of deferring the new timetables? The Minister said in a Written Answer to me that the Secretary of State had not seen the minutes that warned of this impending chaos. Why was the Secretary of State not informed of the situation? When will the terms of compensation be precisely known?

Turning to electrification, the Government are very coy about the whole issue but we have rumbled the Secretary of State: when he skirts around a subject, it always means bad news. What is the Minister’s reaction to today’s ORR report, which warns that Network Rail has deferred £441 million of renewals this year, adding further to the backlog of work it needs to catch up on in CP6? Why do the Government want to phase out diesel cars while promoting diesel railways?

[Baroness Sugg]

My Lords, on GTR and Southern, obviously there has been awful disruption on Southern in recent years. The franchise was designed to deliver the Thameslink programme and the department has been keeping a close eye on that. However, with the introduction of the new timetable, services have further failed.

On the information provided to the Secretary of State and around the wider timetable changes, I fully acknowledge that the correct information was not given to the Secretary of State. That is why we have set up this inquiry: to ensure that we learn lessons for the future and investigate what went wrong.

On compensation, we are working hard with the train operating companies and Network Rail on the exact details, which will be announced in the coming days.