Train Services: North of England

Baroness Randerson Excerpts

Monday 27th February 2023 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Randerson]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what steps they intend to take to improve train services in the north of England.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Transport (Baroness Vere of Norbiton) (Con)]

My Lords, Ministers recognise that the current service provision is far below the standard that passengers rightly expect. The Government constantly review operators’ performance, and all options regarding contracts remain on the table to ensure we reach a long-term solution that works for passengers in the north and across the rail network.

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

Recent Office of Rail and Road data exposes the scale of the misuse of P-coding the last-minute cancellations by TransPennine Express. In the month up to 4 February, TPE cancelled almost a quarter of its services, and Avanti West Coast was not far behind on 17%. These train companies have exploited this loophole to the great inconvenience of passengers and have misled the public. Can the Minister assure us that they will not be rewarded with new contracts?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I am not entirely sure that the picture is quite as the noble Baroness has set out. There is not necessarily a misuse of P-codes; the issue is that there has to be a point in the day beyond which a cancellation counts and has to be published as a same-day cancellation and the period before, when a cancellation can happen for all sorts of different reasons, including engineering works and a reduction in timetables, asked for by the department to ensure reliability. We are working very closely with the ORR on the transparency of the cancellation data that is out there. There will of course be P-code data, but there will be other data around the cancellation of train services. When it comes to performance figures, all of the data is taken into account.