South Western Railway

Chris Heaton-Harris Excerpts

Tuesday 1st October 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Chris Heaton-Harris)]

I thank Members who have contributed to this interesting debate this afternoon. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes) on securing the debate and for the opportunity to discuss this important issue in the House. She mentioned in passing Mr Speaker’s magic touch—her train appeared early the day after he granted this debate. As my right hon. Friend knows, Mr Speaker can work in mysterious ways. She also mentioned my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport (Caroline Dinenage) possibly having in her constituency the largest town without a railway station. The hon. Member for Daventry might have a competition with her on that, because the main town in my constituency does not have a station, either. [Interruption.] It is not good enough, obviously, but there are plenty of towns that do not.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)]

And Leigh in Greater Manchester.

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

And Leigh in Greater Manchester, I am informed by a terrible heckler from a sedentary position, suffers the same.

The current operational performance of South Western Railway for the period 18 August to 14 September, measuring arrival time to within five minutes at the final destination, was 82.9%. That is the common measure used by the rail industry. Using the measure that we, as a Department, now like to use—being on time within a minute—for the first quarter of this year performance was 59.7%. That is clearly not good enough.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North knows that we are a relatively new ministerial team in the Department, and when the Secretary of State came into the Department he set out his priorities for improving the railway. He is absolutely determined to work with the rail industry to deliver a more reliable, passenger-focused railway.

[Stephen Hammond]

Those are appalling statistics, but the Minister is absolutely right about a customer-focused railway. He must bang the desk of Network Rail, because a number of those failures have been signal failures, such as those which we experienced on the line yet again yesterday. When he bashes South Western Railway, will he please also make sure that Network Rail is brought into that attribution, and make sure that it recognises its responsibilities to customers?

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

I completely hear what my hon. Friend says. I promise to take up the mantle on this issue. It has not been lying still on the table—I can also promise that.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Guildford (Anne Milton) informed the House that her constituents just wanted their rail service to do simple things—run, and be on time. I think that is a fair expectation. Maybe have enough room for three bottoms on some chairs as well, but basically that is it. I do regularly look at the various sets of statistics for the things that my right hon. Friend mentioned. I know that the Guildford ticket office has caused great concern to Guildford customers, and I do know, because I was warned by previous Rail Ministers, that the Guildford station platform 0 option is a matter of great contention locally, but I have not formally looked into it. I will ensure that I do, if that is okay as an offer to my right hon. Friend.

My Secretary of State’s vision is that the industry must make innovative changes to make the trains run on time, all of the time. South Western Railway agrees that its general performance is not yet up to the standard that it would like, and that its customers expect.

Around 70% of the delays and cancellations that affect passengers result from problems with the infrastructure, which is down to Network Rail, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon (Stephen Hammond) identified. Overall, Network Rail will spend around £48 billion nationwide on maintaining the network over the next five-year period, running from this year until 2024, and the Wessex route has seen a 20% increase in its funding compared with the previous five-year period. This funding should see more maintenance and a huge uplift in the renewals, to increase reliability and punctuality for passengers, but I know that it has not been delivered yet.

The train services provided by the South Western franchise are relied upon by 600,000 passengers every day. The train operator, South Western Railway, runs around 1,700 services each day on the network. The latest figures published show that 110,000 passengers pass through Waterloo station during the morning peak. It is a very, very busy network.

People are rightly frustrated and angry about the level of delays and cancellations that they are suffering, and I personally am sincerely sorry that that performance has reached this level—to the extent that we are having to hold this debate again on the Floor of the House. This has not happened overnight; sadly, the service has been deteriorating since about 2011-12. The Department for Transport has been working closely with South Western Railway and Network Rail to try to ensure that the causes of the problems are identified and understood and that there is a plan to turn performance around.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North referred to Sir Michael Holden’s review of South Western Railway and Network Rail’s performance on the Wessex route. The review was commissioned by the previous Secretary of State to ensure that everything was being done to understand and address the causes of the downturn in performance on the route. Sir Michael made 28 recommendations for improving performance. Some of them could be implemented in the short term and others will take longer. He was clear that there is no silver bullet and that it will take time to restore performance to acceptable levels, and that is our highest priority.

Sir Michael’s recommendations cover a range of disciplines, including performance management, train operations, infrastructure maintenance and renewals, and control and resourcing. He also suggested a number of infrastructure changes that could be made to improve the service. SWR and Network Rail are documenting their progress and sharing a copy of their “tracker” with the Department each month so that we at the centre can see how they are progressing. I can assure my right hon. Friends that we are monitoring it very closely.

[Caroline Nokes]

I welcome the fact that the tracker is being shared with the Department, but does my hon. Friend have any plans to share it more widely with Members of Parliament from across the south-west who are hearing the same levels of frustration in their postbag?

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

I asked my officials the very same question before the debate, and currently there are no such plans. However, I am sure that we can have a conversation afterwards and perhaps get to the stage where we do not need a humble address or anything too exciting to get the information.

Sir Michael has also been retained by SWR and Network Rail to review their progress. He has confirmed that 16 of his 28 recommendations have already been delivered to his satisfaction, including key infrastructure changes and relaunching SWR’s approach to performance management. I understand that he is due to return to check on progress in November.

A range of recommendations were made on performance management. SWR and Network Rail have established a joint performance improvement centre at Waterloo to focus on the critical areas of delivery across the infrastructure and train operations, and that is key to understanding what is actually happening and, more importantly, what can be done to prevent delays. I have an outstanding invitation to be shown around the JPIC, and I would be delighted if my right hon. Friend, and perhaps other Members, joined me to see at first hand how the executive teams at SWR and Network Rail are tackling the performance issues. I will happily arrange for my office to have the invitation extended if that is suitable—it seems like it could be a date.

Other areas of progress have seen £3.5 million invested to redesign the SWR control centre arrangements and create an industry-leading set-up to improve train performance. As part of that work, SWR is implementing enhanced decision support tools and improving training and competency management systems for controllers—lots of long words, but they refer to unbelievably important things that are going on. SWR is reforming its control centre operations, recruiting more people to improve decision making and providing information to customers during disruption. I heard very loudly indeed the complaints about communications to passengers. I have seen the complaints about communications—just type “SWR” into Twitter and have a cursory glance. The point is well made and well understood. Improving the control centre operations is a crucial part of improving performance and, ultimately, providing a better service to customers.

Other progress is being made to mitigate the biggest causes of delays within SWR’s control. It has introduced an innovative scheme that employs paramedics to work at the key London stations that are most impacted when people fall ill, and it has made significant investments in suicide prevention measures to ensure that SWR is doing as much as it can to reduce the impact of these tragic events.

The national rail passenger survey results for 2018-19 show that SWR failed to meet the expected levels against all nine benchmarks, with only 83% of passengers satisfied overall with their journey. SWR is therefore being required to make additional investment in initiatives to try to meet the contracted levels within the coming year.

There are obviously occasional strikes on the network, which are causing disruption to SWR. I understand and share the frustrations of all users of South Western Railway services who are being unnecessarily inconvenienced by the action being taken by members of the RMT union. My Department has been clear that it wants to see more people, not fewer, working on our railways so that it can deliver more services for passengers. SWR’s plans are completely in line with that. It will be employing more guards on trains in future, not fewer, and it has been clear from the outset that no one will lose their job and every service will continue to have a guard or conductor rostered to work. SWR wants to discuss with the RMT the method of operation of the new trains, which may involve transferring the task of closing the train doors from the guard to the train driver on the new suburban trains that are due to be introduced in 2020. This is a safe, well established practice that has been in place on our railways for the last 30 years. The RMT currently objects to it. We do not think that is right, but I hope that there will be proper dialogue to overcome that situation.

Forgive me, Mr Deputy Speaker, for taking a bit longer than normal, but we have a bit longer than normal and I want to address properly the points that my right hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North raised on behalf of her constituents.

Overcrowding continues to be an issue on this franchise. Significant investment that has already been made has seen suburban network trains lengthened from a maximum of eight cars to 10 cars. In the very first year of this franchise, SWR completed the introduction of 150 more carriages when the class 707s were introduced. Where possible, mainline services have also been lengthened using the units that were freed up by the increase in the suburban fleet. We have also introduced more terminal capacity at Waterloo by fully reopening the former Waterloo International platforms.

SWR’s plans for the franchise anticipated further capacity increases from changes to the layout of the existing fleet, the refurbishing and introduction of class 442 units, which my right hon. Friend mentioned, and the replacement of the entire suburban fleet with a new fleet of 750 carriages in Bombardier five and 10-car class 701 Aventra trains—an increase in the fleet taking it to almost 1,700 vehicles by the time that they are all in service. It is absolutely true, regrettably, that these projects are running behind schedule, but everything is being done to see those trains enter service as soon as possible.

Turning to the specific concerns of my right hon. Friend’s constituents, Mr Willey and Mr Wilson, about short formations, I am aware that, following the changes to the May timetable, a safety issue emerged with the operation of the class 442 fleet, so the trains that had been introduced have been withdrawn until the problem—electromagnetic interference with a signal, so quite a significant safety issue—has been resolved. SWR and Network Rail are working as fast as possible to resolve it.

[Caroline Nokes]

The Minister has referred a number of times to things being done as fast as possible and the new fleet being introduced as soon as it can be. Can he give any indication of a timescale?

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

I can, and I will probably get to that in a minute, because I am going through this in some detail. I will also write to my right hon. Friend to clarify completely any points that I do not pick up on in my speech.

As I said, SWR and Network Rail are working as fast as possible to resolve the issue, but in the meantime, SWR has had to make some changes to its timetable and train plan to minimise the impact on passengers. I am pleased to say that Delay Repay 15 has been introduced on the franchise and the process for claiming compensation has recently been streamlined. That includes the introduction of automated Delay Repay in the case of advance tickets bought on the franchise’s website and Touch smartcard season tickets.

I note the concerns that my right hon. Friend mentioned, on behalf of Mr Whiteman, about compensation when there is a revised timetable. Measuring entitlement against the revised timetable is an established feature of delay repay compensation policy; publishing a revised timetable is designed to help passengers plan their journey—she suggested that is a good idea—and thereby avoid delays where they can.

My right hon. Friend also asked, sensibly, about how transport strategy is joined up, citing the journey of Mr Dickerson as an example of an interesting multi-modal journey. It is of course for individuals to make decisions about what works best for their own circumstances. A train timetable has to be planned based on making best use of the capacity available to meet the forecast demand, especially at peak times. Network Rail regularly undertakes route studies as part of its long-term planning, to ensure that plans for investment in the network are developed and targeted at adding capacity where it is most needed. I am hopeful that as one of the results of the Williams review, which will come before this place in a White Paper later—we hope it will be this year—we will start to see the emergence a much more integrated system, of the type that my right hon. Friend envisages, rather than of the type that Mr Dickerson now takes part in.

All SWR trains are fitted with wi-fi, including the new trains that will arrive in 2020. By December 2020, an on-board media service of films, TV shows, magazines and games will be available on all mainline fleets.

[Caroline Nokes]

I think it is important to take the opportunity to press the Minister when I can. He makes the point that wi-fi is fitted—it is, but it simply does not work. It is complicated to log on to and it drops out frequently. Will he use all power to his elbow when discussing this with SWR? We know it is there, but make it better.

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

That discussion has already been had, so SWR is working with BT to install 31 new masts and upgrade 104 existing lineside masts to deliver better phone signal improvements for more than 90% of customer journeys. Full deployment of that will come in the next three years.

[Caroline Nokes]

Three years!

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

Full deployment of that will come in the next three years.

On the experience during the summer of my right hon. Friend’s constituent who uses a wheelchair, clearly this situation was handled badly and is unacceptable. I had not heard of this particular case beforehand, although I follow these cases closely in my office. I used to be the chairman of the all-party group on learning disability, and I think accessibility on our railway should be and is absolutely a priority of a modern-day rail service.

[Stephen Hammond]

I am pleased that the Minister is touching on this point, because I wanted to raise it. Accessibility, both for people who are disabled and for young mothers and others, is a real issue. Major stations up and down the SWR network have failed to have that step-free access implemented. I am thinking of places such as Raynes Park, in particular; currently, disabled people have to catch a taxi to Wimbledon in order to get on the train. That level of access is not acceptable.

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

I completely get the point that my hon. Friend is making, as well as those made by the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) and a host of other points I have picked up on since I became the Minister of State with responsibility for rail. I can honestly say that we are looking at this as hard as we can. Obviously, it would be much more helpful if people were able to book in advance, and they are able to. I know from my commute home on London Northwestern that a huge amount of investment has gone into some software at Euston and 35 people work there to ensure that disabled people or people who need help to get on and off trains can book that help in advance and get on and off in the right place. The work is being done and it is extremely important to me and to all the franchise holders.

We are continuing discussions with FirstGroup about train service operations for the future great western franchise, which will start in April 2020. The hon. Member for Bristol East has left the Chamber, but she would be interested to know that the discussions include options for the heart of Wessex line, which was a route that respondents to the public consultation suggested would benefit from improvements in the frequency of train services.

As I said in my opening remarks, SWR agrees that its general performance is not yet up to the standard that it would like, that its customers expect and that we all would expect. SWR’s joint performance improvement centre at Waterloo, which was established together with Network Rail last year, is focusing on performance improvement initiatives that should have a real impact on services. I look forward to taking my right hon. and hon. Friends to see it. SWR is working to reduce the number of incidents on the network to be more responsive to them when they occur. So, a whole host of things are going on to try to improve the situation for my right hon. Friend’s constituents and all who travel on the SWR network.

[Steve Brine (Winchester) (Ind)]

Will the excellent Minister give way?

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

Well, the Minister will happily do so.

[Steve Brine]

I thank my constituency neighbour, my right hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes), for securing this important debate. One bit of homework that I would give to the Minister and the new ministerial team is on the issue of smart ticketing, and specifically on part-time season tickets. We had a commitment in the 2017 Conservative manifesto and, two years into the Parliament, the work is still outstanding. SWR’s carnet product is not a part-time season ticket, and my constituents see through attempts to present it as such. Work patterns are different these days and people feel that they are paying a lot of money for a five-day season ticket that they do not need. I do not ask the Minister to respond in detail at this point, but if he would write to update me on where we are with respect to that manifesto commitment on part-time season tickets, I and the good people of Winchester would be intensely grateful.

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

It would be a pleasure to write to my hon. Friend on those matters, and I think he will quite like the response he gets.

I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North and all Members who have taken part in this important debate. I have mentioned that the service on this part of our railways is currently absolutely not good enough, but I have spoken about the many ways in which we are trying to make improvements and to eradicate the reasons for the poor standard of performance—but there is much more to do.

Question put and agreed to.