Govia Thameslink and Network Rail

Claire Perry Excerpts

Wednesday 16th March 2016 Westminster Hall

[Andy McDonald]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. While that was an excellent turnaround from a pretty dire situation, if this particular franchise is, as Members have outlined, so poor that it demands intervention, my concern is that we should still retain the capacity to do that. Given the recent changes to the DOR—it is no longer in the same form—I am concerned that it would not assist at all. Will the Minister address that point?

Will the Minister also address the pertinent issue of electronic ticketing? Members have correctly identified and highlighted the benefits that could be secured from an intelligent roll-out of electronic ticketing. Those benefits relate to access not only to fair fares, but to refunds. I understand that although several tens of millions of pounds was spent trying to progress that agenda, it has come to a shuddering halt and has simply been handed over to the operators.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Claire Perry)]

indicated dissent.

[Andy McDonald]

The Minister disagrees. I am enquiring, so perhaps she can enlighten and correct me. A number of Members have clearly made that reasonable demand on electronic ticketing, and it seems eminently sensible. We want to know what happened to that investment and how it will be progressed.

Finally, I was heartened to hear many Members from across the territory express, on behalf of their constituents, the need for proper staffing levels to be maintained in our railway stations. Many people spoke about difficulties in accessing ticket machines and computer systems. Often that was beyond their capabilities, whether because of information technology illiteracy, learning difficulties or other issues. That strong message came from Members’ contributions today. Will the Minister comment on how we can secure those reassurances that all members of the travelling public need? They need to see that human interface, and sadly it is clearly lacking in the operation of the franchise.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Claire Perry)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. You are always a fount of rail-related humour. I join in congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Horsham (Jeremy Quin) on securing a very important debate, which we must not shy away from continuing. Members have been very kind about what my Department and I are doing, but we are simply reflecting the concerns of Members and the constituents they serve. It is imperative that we sort the issue out. As the hon. Member for Middlesbrough (Andy McDonald) said, with many more investment projects to happen, we have to learn lessons and ensure that this level of disruption does not happen again.

There was very little that I disagree with in what was said today. We know that performance on this part of the network in the franchise—it carries almost a quarter of all rail passengers every day—is simply not good enough, whether in punctuality, reliability, customer satisfaction or the way people feel they are being treated. A lot of points have been raised today, and I will try to address as many as possible in my closing remarks, but if I do not get to everyone’s, please be assured that I have instructed my officials to take notes and to write specifically in response. It is important, on Budget day no less, to have so many hon. and right hon. Members prepared to come to Westminster Hall to make passionate and compelling cases. We need to keep working collectively on this issue.

I will step through the three root causes of problems on the lines, which I think Members know, and then I will talk a little about what is changing and where more needs to be done. The first root cause—my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon (Dr Offord) made the point compellingly—is that there is a very big improvement project going on with Thameslink and what that entails and the London Bridge reconstruction. It is not just London Bridge, though; Blackfriars is a beautiful station and a wonderful addition to our landscape, and it opened almost without fanfare. We will be unpicking the north-south lines through London and under the Thames so that the constituents of my hon. Friend the Member for Horsham will be able to take a direct train straight through to Peterborough or points in between and access other train journeys. Moreover, they will be able to do so on a brand new fleet of trains, which will start to roll out in the next few months.

I was delighted to welcome the first of the new fleet of Gatwick Express trains. They are purpose-built for people travelling to and from the airport. The first is in operation, and the others will be up and running by the summer. That is tangible evidence of improvement. It is a big package of untangling lines that have not been touched properly in many years, putting in new stations, driving new train paths and providing customers with a much better travelling environment. That is a prize worth having. When London Bridge is open, all the platforms are returned to full capacity and we have many more trains with the ability to take many more passengers, some of the immediate issues will undoubtedly be solved.

[Tim Loughton]

The Minister mentioned Gatwick Express. I saw the brand new trains, which are fitted with wi-fi. I gather that she is in negotiations with Govia Thameslink Railway about upgrading existing rolling stock with wi-fi so that at least our commuting constituents stuck on trains going nowhere can get on with some work while they are delayed. Will she ensure that that happens as a matter of urgency?

[Claire Perry]

I am happy to confirm again that I have committed to roll out free wi-fi in all classes of train travel across England by 2018. Trains coming on to the franchises will be fitted with wi-fi as a matter of course, and trains that are already running will be retrofitted. I hope constituents who are not stuck on trains for longer than their train times will also be able to do some productive work. Wi-fi is an important addition to the landscape.

We always knew it would be tough with London Bridge and Thameslink. Despite what some might say is long-term disruption on the line and fare changes, we have seen incredible amounts of growth on the railway. In fact, travel from Horsham, for example, is up 40% in the past 10 years, so more and more people are getting on trains right across the country. Frankly, successive Governments have neglected to invest in infrastructure. We have all ducked our collective responsibility to invest in trains to get people moving effectively and efficiently around the country. It is vital that we keep the investment programmes growing, because we are now seeing some of the problems associated with passenger growth on lines that have not been invested in.

Underlying all that is a problem that is a little more sinister: even when Thameslink is running—when all the trains are rolling, the system looks great and the stations are open—we still have persistent, daily failures of the infrastructure the trains are running over. Our constituents do not care whose fault it is, and nor should they—that is my job, or at least my Department’s—but around 60% of delays are the result of infrastructure failures such as points failing, signals failing or other things going wrong. That is intolerable. Not only is it intolerable on a daily basis, but the Thameslink programme, which will deliver 24 trains an hour through the centre of London, north to south, will not be able to operate unless those infrastructure problems are sorted out.

The focus for my Department has been working together with Network Rail and the operators, including Southeastern, but I am afraid there is no magic bullet. There is no one thing we can all do. It is about a relentless focus on the day-to-day details of running a railway; and ensuring that, in the morning, trains come out of the depot on time to the second, and that, if there is a problem, it is fixed in the minimum amount of time. People may ask, “Surely that’s just railway 101—why hasn’t it happened?” Of course, it has happened, but the problem is that, under both public and private ownership, the customers have not mattered enough.

Members might be surprised to hear that no measure of lost customer time has ever existed on our railways, other than briefly on the London underground. That is inexcusable. My hon. Friend the Member for Horsham made the valid point that it is the human cost of failure that is so hard, as well as the productivity loss of making millions of people late, day in, day out. We have a record programme of investment in transport infrastructure—it was added to in the Budget today, which I welcome—and it is being done to drive up the productivity of the country, but nobody has ever captured the productivity loss from not running the trains on time. Members will be pleased to hear that I am devoting considerable time to that. I want the volume of people being carried on that part of the railway to really count, so that when infrastructure programmes need to be sorted out, there is even more emphasis on sorting them out. We are absolutely committed to doing that collectively.

Many Members raised driver shortages, which is a historical problem for the franchise. It has been run on a shoestring, with the number of drivers about 6% or 7% below what was required. That sounds like a small difference, but, on a very busy railway, if one driver is not there to run one train, there is an infection of delay right across the network. On its current recruitment plans, which are the biggest in the country, GTR will reach the minimum level—the operational level—in August this year. We have asked it to go further than that by recruiting more so that there is resilience in the system, and it is on track to do that. That is vital.

Several Members made important points about ticketing offices and smart ticketing. A consultation on ticket office changes is going on. Nothing can happen without the Department’s say-so. The future of travel in this country is not orange bits of paper but digital ticketing information being delivered to us through whatever device we choose. In some cases, that might be a bar code printed out on a piece of paper, although as the hon. Member for Luton North (Kelvin Hopkins) said, many customers like to buy a ticket from a person, or at least have some interaction.

We have already invested more than £30 million in the south-east flexible ticketing programme, and there are tens of millions of pounds of further commitment to come. That money has been invested to ensure that the franchises, of which GTR is the flagship, can implement the technology, have the back office and gate their stations so that the Key card—the smart card system—can work. If the Key card system were working, there might be an argument for getting people out from behind ticket office counters and on to the front lines, but I will commit today to having a deep-dive conversation with my officials and the franchise so that we can get to grips with where it is on the roll-out of the Key card and how that relates to ticket office closing hours. If we are going to do smart ticketing, let us do it right.

[Mr Chuka Umunna (Streatham) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Horsham (Jeremy Quin) on securing this debate. The Minister is right that the Budget debate is ongoing; I want to take this opportunity to say that we in Streatham welcome the green light being given to Crossrail 2, but we want it to come to Streatham.

On ticket offices, it is totally and utterly unacceptable that the three stations in my constituency affected by the franchise will be losing more than 13 staff. It is all well and good telling people to go to the machine, but the problem is that the machines are not giving people the best prices that they are entitled to.

[Claire Perry]

To be clear to the hon. Gentleman, the proposal is to do what Transport for London has done very successfully: train us all to use a reliable alternative system and then take people out and put them on the gate lines to help us. That is 21st century travel and I support it, and I hope he does too. I am afraid he will have to join the queue for lobbying on Crossrail locations.

[Nick Herbert]

In the two minutes my hon. Friend the Minister has remaining, will she say how the franchise is going to be held to account for its failure to deliver the performance expected?

[Claire Perry]

I was just about to address some of the specific questions. The franchise has been fined more than £2 million for cancellations and the short formations that it has put on the service. That money will be spent on passenger-facing benefits. I am very keen that the money that comes in—the hon. Member for Middlesbrough mentioned the £4.1 million of reparations—is spent to directly benefit customers on this line. Additional proposals on that will be forthcoming.

I was asked at what point we do something radically different. Do we take the franchise back? Do we change? The truth is that this is an exceptionally busy, very difficult franchise to run. In my view, nobody out there could do a better job than the current management team, but we have to ensure that there is a relentless focus on the customer. It is inexcusable that the wrong communications are given. It is inexcusable that delays happen or trains are going in the wrong direction. That is customer relationship management 101. We expect the private sector to deliver on that.

In closing, I will always happily welcome debates on this matter, because they strengthen the resolve of us all in getting to grips with some of the underlying problems of running a franchise in the busiest part of the country. Our debates are helping to inform wider changes throughout the industry, such as the relentless focus on customers. With this Government’s record level of investment in transport, we will have to have these conversations in future, whether about Euston or Manchester’s stations.

[Jeremy Quin]

rose—

Luton Railway Station

Claire Perry Excerpts

Friday 11th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Claire Perry)]

It is always a pleasure to respond the hon. Member for Luton South (Mr Shuker). He is a Lutonian born and bred, and he speaks very passionately on many issues relating to his constituents.

I want to say that I absolutely share the aspiration of getting this project started. The hon. Gentleman has made the compelling case that, for too long, Luton station has not had the investment it needs. It is the 136th busiest station in the UK, and is used by 3.5 million passengers a year. It is not only an important commuter link to London, but a gateway to the midlands and beyond. The growth and development of the town will only continue, so ridership numbers will increase.

I gently point out to the hon. Gentleman that the Thameslink project—I am very proud that we are close to delivering on this very large investment for his constituents and those in the wider region—will run with brand-new trains. I take his point about 12-car rolling stock, but the upgrade of the tracks and trains was probably neglected by successive Governments. I am very proud to be part of a very pro-rail and pro-rail infrastructure Government.

As the hon. Gentleman knows—I have been pretty fully briefed about this—there are a number of moving parts, so let me summarise my understanding of what is happening. There is a commitment of almost £2 million to the national stations improvement programme: it is funded, ring-fenced and available to go. There are also proposals for the relocation of the ticket machines, and improvements to waiting facilities, as well as retail units, cycle storage and other things that will benefit the station.

Govia Thameslink Railway has made an application to the stations commercial project facility. The hon. Gentleman will understand why I cannot comment on that, given the current stage of the bid allocation process. The announcement of the successful bids will be made shortly.

The area on which there has been great disappointment, because the money is available, is the Access for All funding. We have committed more than £500 million for this work. As the hon. Gentleman pointed out, Luton was one of the first stations selected. It seems as though the whole project has been dogged by delay. As I understand it, Luton fell out of the first wave. It reapplied for the extended programme, which was made available in 2014, and qualified for it, as was absolutely right.

I gently say to the hon. Gentleman that my concern is that if we do not get a scheme started, what happened last time might happen again. It will become harder and harder to defend a scheme when money has been committed but the work has not yet started, given the clamour for support for other commitments from right across the UK. I am very keen to make sure that the money is kept for the improvements at Luton. It would be absolutely ideal to take the two pots together as the start of a project facility and begin to develop a plan.

I want to point out to the hon. Gentleman that he must not doubt this Government’s commitment to investment in infrastructure both in his town and in the region. There has been £26.5 million from the regional growth fund for the improvements to junction 10A on the M1. There has been the further £15 million for the Woodside pinch point link scheme. There have been various other schemes, such as the £126 million from the local growth fund for the area. It is a shame that some of that has not been pulled through to support the station project, as has been done in other areas. Another £80.3 million has come in for the Luton to Dunstable busway, which is helping passengers right across his area. The £24 million Luton town centre transport scheme, to the north of the town centre, was opened in July 2014, with the support of £16 million of Government funding. I hope I have convinced him that the Government have no interest in not investing in the area; it is simply a question of pulling together the available funding and coming up with a scheme that will work.

I do not want to ascribe blame or point fingers at anybody, but it is incumbent on the council, Network Rail and GTR to come together to put together a feasibility scheme. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman would be keen to be heavily involved in that, and I will do whatever I can to help him. My Department is fully aware of this matter and has been working closely with Network Rail. Indeed, the council has written to ask for a meeting in the next few weeks and I have asked my officials to arrange it so that we can understand what the scheme looks like.

The hon. Gentleman is a very pragmatic person, so let us focus on what can be delivered for the money that we have to spend on the station, then let us think about what else could be bid for, what could be attracted from the development that is going on in the town and what we could get from broader growth funds. Many of the new station projects that I have the pleasure of going to and welcoming are part-funded by Network Rail and part-funded by other local government pots and growth money. Of course we want to build multi-modal systems and better bus travel, but we must not put other transport modes before the rail passenger experience. The station is a gateway not only for the railway but for the town. Many stations were built as the showcase for the railway that they served, but sadly many of them have fallen into neglect.

I want to point the hon. Gentleman towards a couple of examples that may help him in his conversations with the council, which may want to deliver the big bang scheme that is not fully funded. In Putney, a phased approach was taken to station development. First, the platforms were lengthened, which improved the business case for Access for All, because there was higher passenger usage. That helped to improve the business cases for the new mezzanine raft, then the new ticket office and then the additional retail units. The station became more and more interesting as a place in which to invest both public and private money through that staged approach.

I know that it is more difficult, and of course one wants to have a vision towards which one is working, but a phased approach might be the way to get the project moving and, as the hon. Gentleman said, to get shovels in the ground. At Leyland, which has a smaller station, Lancashire County Council spent £100,000 to draw in match funding to improve the station. That led to £500,000 for a new ticket office and £4 million for three new lifts, delivered in phases.

The hon. Gentleman has to help me make the business case for these investments, against a clamour of competing interests. If he goes off and leads the charge with his local council to come up with a scheme that works—something that can be delivered and that will achieve his aims—we will be able to plug in the funding that is already available and get it spent before the end of this control period. I cannot believe that I am saying those words, Madam Deputy Speaker, but I want to get this money out the door and spent on these disability improvements. He should then look at how that can enhance the business case, so that match funding can be drawn in over a longer period.

As I said, my Department will meet the council over the next few weeks. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will keep me informed of the results, because I want his passengers and his constituents in Luton to benefit from the Government’s record investment plan for rail.

Question put and agreed to.

Oral Answers to Questions

Claire Perry Excerpts

Thursday 10th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

8. What funding his Department is providing to help refurbish railway stations.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Claire Perry)]

I am proud that under Conservative-led Governments since 2010, my Department has made almost £400 million pounds available for station improvements through programmes such as the national stations improvement programme, the station commercial project facility, the new stations fund and the Access for All scheme. In addition, we have many improvements delivered by operators through franchise commitments or through substantial local growth funding.

[Mr Cunningham]

What effort is the Minister making to ensure that the rail franchise holders pay their fair share to maintain the railway structure? Will she look at how the Nuckle project in Coventry is working out, in relation to the frequency of train stops at the Ricoh Arena? I believe that there are some problems there.

[Claire Perry]

We are clear in our franchising agreements that improvements to stations are absolutely part of those projects. The hon. Gentleman has benefited locally, with Virgin West Coast installation of automatic ticket machines at Coventry station. I was pleased to participate in the opening of the Coventry Arena and Bermuda Park stations, to which the Department contributed almost £5 million, the first stage of the vital Nuckle scheme. That scheme was 14 years on paper under Labour; delivered under this Government thanks to the amazing efforts of the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, my hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton (Mr Jones).

[Mr Speaker]

Sounds very exciting indeed, I am bound to say.

[James Berry (Kingston and Surbiton) (Con)]

When we consider rail station refurbishments, one of the things that we should prioritise is disabled access. On the Chessington branch in my constituency there is not a single accessible station. In the renewal of the South Western route franchise, will the Minister therefore consider prioritising improvements to disabled access on our train stations?

[Claire Perry]

Mr Speaker, I am glad that you share my excitement about the improvements in the rail networks. We have set up the £400 million Access for All scheme, which has been wisely and well spent. I am always happy to look at additional station improvements and to meet with my hon. Friend to discuss.

[Jonathan Reynolds (Stalybridge and Hyde) (Lab/Co-op)]

I rise to support the point made by the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (James Berry). I have nine train stations in my constituency. Unfortunately, about half are inaccessible for people in wheelchairs or with prams. We were using Access for All to improve those stations. The funding has been cut in half. Are we really doing enough?

[Claire Perry]

I am afraid I dispute the statement that funding has been cut in half. The first phase of the programme—£400 million—was delivered, but I am always keen to look at cost-effective ways to improve access for disabled people and young mothers with buggies, for whom a flight of stairs, as I know, and dads like the hon. Gentleman with his daughter know, can be a real problem. I am happy to meet further to discuss.

[Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)]

Residents in Torbay have welcomed some of the investment that we have seen to improve Torquay station, but Paignton station is a relic of the Beeching era. It is the old goods shed, which was converted into a station. Will she meet me and a delegation from the bay to discuss how we can make Paignton a terminus for the 21st century?

[Claire Perry]

Of course. The best way to deliver station improvements is to get together the local group, the local enterprise partnership, local businesses and local communities. The record Government investment in the railways is best spent when it is pulled through to support local needs.

[Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)]

What assurance can the Minister give that full accessibility for passengers with disabilities is made a priority in the refurbishment of railway stations? Will she ensure that the needs of passengers are central to the refurbishment or renovation of stations without any access provisions or stations that need upgrading? How can that be achieved, given the 40% cut to Access for All funding?

[Claire Perry]

I sometimes wonder whether we are reading the same papers. The Government are spending more on the railways—£38 billion—than has been spent at any time since the Victorian era. The hon. Gentleman is right to point out that disability access is hugely important. It is also important on the trains. All the train fleet will be disability compliant in the next few years. It is important, but we have a limited amount of money to spend on upgrading the railways, which were woefully neglected under his Government.

[Greg Mulholland (Leeds North West) (LD)]

9. What steps he is taking to tackle the use of laser pens to target aircraft.

--- Later in debate ---

[Peter Kyle (Hove) (Lab)]

I have been contacted by one of my constituents, Fiona Brice, who describes the impact of late running trains on her job and her income. She says:

“Please understand that I am self-employed and cannot just phone in sick”

if I am late for work and the

“service fails me. This meeting was for a job worth £5,000 to me personally. Turning up 30mins late may well cost me this work.”

Does the rail Minister accept that late running trains and the lamentable performance of Southern rail are having an impact on the productivity of the south of England?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Claire Perry)]

The hon. Gentleman knows that I absolutely accept that point. I just point out that rail passenger satisfaction is up 3 percentage points over the country. The challenge we have is that, behind the national numbers, there are some lines, such as his Brighton main line, on which customers are absolutely not getting the punctuality and the service they deserve. That is why we are so committed to getting Network Rail and the franchise holder to work together. There is no blame; we want the two of them to work together to improve the service.

[Sir Henry Bellingham (North West Norfolk) (Con)]

T5. Does the rail Minister agree that capital improvements to the Ely North junction and the nearby crossing are crucial to securing improved services on the line between King’s Cross and King’s Lynn, thus unlocking more economic growth along the route? Will she and her colleagues work with me to help to secure this crucial investment?

[Claire Perry]

My hon. Friend and other hon. Members have left me in no doubt about the value of the Ely North junction upgrade work. I am disappointed that this work will not be completed until after 2019. As a result of discussions that he and others have organised, I am now more confident that the preparatory work the project needs can go ahead sooner, with funding coming from a variety of sources. I have committed my Department to work with him and the local team.

[John Pugh (Southport) (LD)]

What actual progress has been made with the top three projects recommended by the northern electrification taskforce, which was chaired by the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Andrew Jones)?

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[Graham Evans (Weaver Vale) (Con)]

T7. Will my hon. Friend update the House on the reinstatement of the Halton curve, and will she agree to meet me and a group from the Merseyside local enterprise partnership to discuss this vital transport link, which is so important for Cheshire, Wirral, north Wales and beyond?

[Claire Perry]

My hon. Friend is right that this is a vital link. The Government have contributed £10.4 million to the work. I understand that the business case will be considered by the combined authorities in April. If approved—I hope it is—the work will go ahead in June next year and be completed by May 2018. It would of course be a pleasure to meet my hon. Friend and his friends, if only to feed him some buns to keep up his weight during his marathon training.

[Mr Speaker]

It is always useful to have a bit of additional information. I feel sure that the House is very appreciative, not least the hon. Gentleman.

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[Andrea Jenkyns (Morley and Outwood) (Con)]

T9. The Government are making a welcome investment in rail in the north, with electrification bringing huge benefits to constituencies such as mine. What will the Government do to upgrade stations such as Morley, where improvements to disabled access and other facilities are long overdue? Will the Minister meet me to discuss improvements at Morley station?

[Claire Perry]

My hon. Friend is right to mention Morley station. It has been put forward several times, but there were many others ahead of it in the queue in terms of passenger footfall—again, we are trying to catch up from decades of neglect. It would be a pleasure to meet her and discuss station refurbishment, in particular disability access.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

I am sorry that the Secretary of State did not think much of the second part of my earlier question, but it was deadly serious. The re-routing of services because of the work at Piccadilly and Oxford Road will use the line though my constituency. May I meet the Secretary of State so that I can explain the importance of being able to assess whether Denton and Reddish South stations can make a business case for future services?

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[Claire Perry]

Like my hon. Friend I have also visited the Vivarail facility, and there are fantastic innovations with rolling stock that is made of aluminium, is rust free, and could run for many more years. The East Midland franchise competition is coming up this summer, and the successful bidder will be required to bid based on the rolling stock they will provide. We expect them to be innovative and to consider each and every opportunity for rolling stock. We want to improve the rolling stock in my hon. Friend’s region.

[Jonathan Reynolds (Stalybridge and Hyde) (Lab/Co-op)]

The proposed trans-Pennine tunnel mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts) would be transformative, not just for congestion in my constituency, but for our local economy. Yes it is ambitious, but I say that the north is worthy of that level of ambition. Will the Secretary of State reiterate what he has just said, and urge the Chancellor to show his support next week?

Flexible Ticketing: Rail Transport

Claire Perry Excerpts

Thursday 10th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[James Cartlidge]

Another excellent point.

What is to be done? To go back to my constituents, Deborah suggested this:

“A system whereby a commuter could, say, buy 10 day returns for the price of 6-7 would really encourage the flexibility that the modern work force needs when juggling work and family life.”

There is a word for what she proposes—it is “carnet”—and I must confess that, when I lived in Barnet, I used a carnet. [Laughter.]

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Claire Perry)]

It’s “car-nay”.

[James Cartlidge]

In French it is a “car-nay”; in Barnet, we called it a “car-net”. It was a small book of tickets that were usually valid for up to three months on the tube, which was very handy and convenient when I was teaching English as a foreign language and did not know which days I would be working. Of course, that has been phased out now that we have moved to the Oyster system. The key problem with the previous system was the absence of technology. If we want flexible ticketing, we need the technology, as my hon. Friend the Member for North East Hampshire (Mr Jayawardena) has said.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Claire Perry)]

I was wondering when the Adjournment would be moved formally again, but I will get started in the interim. May I start by—

--- Later in debate ---

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—(Sarah Newton.)

[Claire Perry]

I am a former Whip, so I know the tricks. I should say that I will not take all of the remaining time.

I want to commend my hon. Friend the Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge) for securing this debate. His constituents are incredibly lucky to have him. The same goes for all my hon. Friends in the Chamber tonight. The class of 2015 is particularly assiduous in campaigning. [Interruption.] Some Members from previous classes are also assiduous. I sometimes feel I am the most popular Minister, even though that is not true, because I am the one most frequently lobbied—on train-related issues. I appreciate the opportunity to answer some of my hon. Friend’s questions and to put on the record some of things that the Government are doing.

I first want to unpick what we mean by part-time season tickets. I think the definition is quite confusing. We mean a product that people who work part-time—about 27% of workers do so—can buy to give them, in effect, a multibuy discount. With that product they would not be forced to buy weekly season tickets, but something more suitable for their journeys. My hon. Friend made very good points about grey consumers—is that what he called them?—who sit at home having caught the 18.23 every day. That pattern is changing so dramatically. Technology is liberating many people from the workplace. We know that many more women, in particular, are working part time. The Government are absolutely committed—indeed, we have committed funding—to ensuring that such people can use the rail system effectively. In terms of “car-nay” or “car-net”, depending on how my hon. Friend used to pronounce that word in “Bar-nay” or “Bar-net”, I like to think of carnets as a multibuy discount.

I want to separate out another thing about which the debate has sometimes got bogged down. The decision on multibuy discounts is separate from the decision on ticketing technology. It is perfectly possible—indeed, this happens already—to buy carnets on the rail network, albeit in ticketing form. People can buy 10 tickets for the price of nine, and there are various other options. However, we must be careful not to try to have a big bang to solve all these problems at once. The industry has often hidden behind the excuse that this is all so terribly difficult. For me, it is simply a question of sorting out the right fares to suit this part-time working group, which is separate from the issue of ticketing technology.

As my hon. Friend well knows, because he is a very good businessman, there are a few questions to pick through when we talk about fares. The two main issues are those of cost and timing. On cost, train companies say that if people who currently buy full-time season tickets are suddenly given the opportunity to buy tickets for less, it will lead to less revenue, meaning that somebody will have to pay. My understanding is that only about 10% of current rail travellers work part time, so those numbers may be lower than they are represented to be, but ultimately, if there is an additional cost in the form of reduced revenue for the rail industry, somebody will have to pay. That will be other fare payers, through increased ticket prices—we absolutely do not want that, which is why we have capped rail fares for the duration of this Parliament—or the Government, who will be asked to pay up front or through the franchising process, or the companies, which will have to commit their own capital to make up for the shortfall in fares.

All those points are valid. The Government have committed £132 million to introducing such products during this Parliament, so we are clearly prepared to pay our fair share. However, the measure is slightly crude, because it ignores some of the points very well made by my hon. Friends. There is a series of costs to society that are avoided by getting people to use trains, such as the cost of congestion, which we always find very difficult to price.

There is also a massive productivity uplift from getting more people travelling. We know we have a massive skills shortage in this country, so if we can get more people back into work part time and working more effectively, that has to be good for productivity. As we have seen with Transport for London, if people are given slightly more attractive fares, more people will travel, so what a company might lose in value, it will gain in volume. It seems difficult to get people to model that in the round. That is always difficult with any infrastructure investment, but I believe we should be considering these benefits collectively, and that is why the Government have underpinned those programmes with £132 million.

On timing, we can either impose the roll-out on the industry all at once, or we can do it with the franchising competition. My preference is always to do it while franchising, because a competed price is always a better price. We are relying on the franchising process to drive innovation wherever possible, albeit with Government underpinning if we want to do things that cut across the franchising schedule. Many franchising competitions are ongoing, including that in the constituency of my hon. Friend. I cannot possibly say anything about what is happening, because those bids are live and under evaluation, but my hon. Friend knows—he has campaigned assiduously on this—that we have made it clear to bidders that we are looking for a step change in technology, in the customer experience, and in how innovative ticketing solutions are delivered. I am confident that we will start to see progress.

As my hon. Friend said, Abellio Greater Anglia has introduced two forms of ticketing progress. One is underpinned by the Government’s £80 million investment in the south-east flexible ticketing scheme, and we will meet our contractual commitments. SEFT is basically providing a back office for rail companies to offer smart season tickets on a key card basis, and I look forward to launching that product in a couple of weeks from Cambridge station. It will be going live on my hon. Friend’s line, and is already live under other train operating companies in the south-east. Therefore, not only do we have a digital ticket, but there is also the opportunity to build a customer relationship, and to offer things such as season ticket discounts to provide potentially automated compensation in the way that C2C does. That is a good step forward.

Abellio Greater Anglia is trialling the MultiPass scheme that uses low-energy Bluetooth readers across stations, tracks people via their phone and works out their journey patterns, and bills them after the fact. That is a great example of innovation in the industry. My hon. Friend asked whether it was possible to travel using a smartphone, and it is. The m-ticket scheme is already up and running. I went to see it a year or so ago in the north of England, and it is spreading rapidly. It is basically a series of barcodes that are sent straight to a mobile phone. Someone taps that, and it becomes their ticket to travel. It is brilliant and should be much more cost-effective for the operators.

There is a lot of ticketing innovation out there for us to unleash. Rather than sitting around waiting to be told what to do by the Government—who despite the best efforts of the brilliant officials in the Department are not necessarily on top of the latest technological revolutions—those companies that are closest to customers should innovate and be prepared to put in their capital and innovation to drive results. We want the franchising process to do that.

My hon. Friend asked me some specific questions. During the franchise, can we go back and influence what is happening with the bidders? The bids we have refer to our terms and conditions, which include fairly specific requirements on smart ticketing and part-time season tickets or multibuy discounts. He will also know—I am proud of this—that this franchise is a step change from where we were five or 10 years ago, as have been the last few franchises that I have let. We are putting in the franchise the highest level of quality scoring—the stuff that faces the passenger—that we have ever seen. We have had other debates on rolling stock, and the quality of that is not what it should be. This franchise will have the highest weighting for improved rolling stock that we have seen so far.

We will also have tough targets to contract for customer outcomes—one might imagine that we would have done that previously, but that has not always been the case. We are contracting to ensure that the punctuality and customer satisfaction targets that we want are an output —we are contracting not for inputs, but for outputs—and I think that we will see a positive result when we assess the various bids for this competition.

My hon. Friend asked about technology. I have mentioned the Multi Pass trial, which uses low-energy Bluetooth readers. We already have Smartphones that are using a digital barcode, which can also be printed out, as a way of allowing people to move around the system. A chap on the Moscow metro has his smartcard implanted in his wrist, so he is a human swiper; he just walks through and away he goes. I am not advocating that, although my hon. Friend would perhaps like to pilot it, but we are moving very rapidly in this country to innovate.

I have been shameless in calling for the death of the tangerine ticket. It bothers me that season ticket holders have scrabby old bits of paper that fray and wear out. I am sick to death of feeding my seat reservation coupon through the gate and shuffling through a great raft of tickets. This is 1970s technology and we want a 21st-century transport network. That is why the Government are so committed, both contractually and financially, to underpinning this technology.

My hon. Friend asked me about the combined authority, and he knows that we are great fans of devolution. We think that the best way to spend the record levels of investment in the rail programme is by pushing it through to local people—to local authorities—who are best placed to spend it. I must take the opportunity to commend the work that has been done by local councils, local enterprise partnerships and the so-called “Norwich in 90, Ipswich in 60” taskforce. They really have taken an argument about economic value added and used it to shape what they want franchising to look like in the area.

This is an excellent opportunity not only to put on the record the progress that we are making and the Government’s commitment to rolling out the SEFT contractual obligations, but to say that we do not want to stand still and be backing only one technology. There is a world of ticketing innovation out there and we want to be clear that it is to be delivered as soon as possible to customers. The Government stand by ready to underpin some of this, but we expect operators to be looking carefully at the business case themselves and thinking about how they can get people travelling off peak. My hon. Friend the Member for North East Hampshire (Mr Jayawardena) made an important point about that, because the trains are full at the peak but are carrying fresh air for large parts of the day. Let us have a ticketing and fares structure that gets people using those trains, so that we do not have to keep building expensive new tracks and buying new trains to deal with the peak demand.

I remain extremely committed to rolling out what I prefer to call a multibuy discount ticket, although my hon. Friend the Member for South Suffolk has a snappy way with his branding and can perhaps help us to come up with a snappy title for this part-time season ticket thing that we all want, even though we cannot necessarily come up with a good title. The Government are committed to these innovative products as part of the biggest railway investment we have seen in this country since Victorian times.

Question put and agreed to.

Southeastern Train Services

Claire Perry Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd March 2016 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Claire Perry)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Evans. I am sorry that I have not been left with an enormous amount of time. I will endeavour to answer all the questions raised, but if I do not get to them, I promise that I will write to hon. Members.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Eltham (Clive Efford) on securing the debate. He is an assiduous campaigner for better rail services, and we work best on this when we work together. Many right hon. and hon. Members have attended and spoken, including the Lord Commissioner of Her Majesty’s Treasury, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford (Mr Evennett) and the Minister for Immigration, my right hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (James Brokenshire), both of whom were rendered mute by high office, but made a point of coming.

I want to step through a couple of the tactical questions and then go through some of the broader issues. The landslip and Southeastern’s response to it was mentioned several times. Heavy and persistent rainfall closed the Bexleyheath line between 12 and 15 January. A recovery plan was put in place by Southeastern and Network Rail. My officials stayed in close contact with the operator and Network Rail to ensure that those actions were carried out. I was disappointed to hear today some examples of partially-sighted passengers and others not given the care and support they needed. There was a plan to offer taxis to passengers. I will certainly ensure that the company receives those comments and responds to them.

Dover sea wall was mentioned. Of course, major issues happen. I have been asked whether Network Rail’s surveying and early warning system is adequate for those sorts of events. I went to see the Lamington viaduct, which washed out and broke the west coast main line for a period of weeks. I am assured that the surveying programme is proactive, comprehensive and appropriate. Extreme weather events are clearly becoming even more common, and there is an important question to be asked, in particular about the level of funding that is baked into the current period—which, again, I am assured is appropriate. I do not have an answer on whether early warnings were received, but I will ask and respond to the hon. Member for Eltham on that point.

The reason why we are all here is that, despite such one-off events, performance on these services is not where it should be, not where I want it to be, not where the operator wants it to be, and certainly not where anyone in this room, or the customers they represent, wants it to be. I would gently point out that if Members look at the overall performance schedule, it has dropped from 91% of trains arriving on time last January, according to the public performance measure—I want to say a word about that, because I think the hon. Gentleman and I agree on whether it is adequate—to 88.3%, which means that almost nine out of 10 trains are getting to their destination on time. It is important to bear in mind that sometimes the vociferous complaints that we hear are a response because a particular line runs very ineffectively, which is important, or because there are certain passengers who are just extremely unhappy and now have the ability to let us know.

As hon. Members know, after the election I set up the south-east quadrant taskforce, which brought together, for the first time, Network Rail, Govia Thameslink Railway, Southeastern, Transport Focus and my officials. I continue to chair that group, and the next meeting is tomorrow. The group is an attempt to sweep away all this blame game and accounting for who is wrong. Our constituents do not care who is responsible for a delay; they just want to make sure that they are going to get to work, or home to pick up their kids from day care, on time. It is complete nonsense that for generations that was not the case. By the way, this has nothing to do with who owns the railway: it has always been the case that the railway has argued among itself about whether the engineers or the passenger-facing bits are correct. Frankly, I am sick to death of that conversation. If there is a problem, I want all aspects of the industry to work together to sort it out, which is very much the message that we give through the taskforce. Indeed, things are starting to improve, which I will mention.

The hon. Member for Lewisham West and Penge (Jim Dowd) mentioned suicides. Let us not trivialise that. Somebody takes their life every 30 hours on the railways. It is a tragedy, it causes disruption to millions of people and it is absolutely ghastly for the train staff and train drivers. It is something that we must work to solve.

The taskforce is determined to sort out performance. I send a message to the industry that public performance measures, or right-time measures, that ignore the number of people whose lives are affected by disruption are irrelevant. There is no point comparing the PPM on a very lightly used franchise—say, the one north of the border—with the PPM on franchises running around London and the south-east. We are talking about the busiest parts of the railway. Tens of millions of people are travelling every year, and a delay for one train on those lines creates misery for millions, which is why I am working with the industry to try to ensure that these measures that we all like to throw about actually reflect the human experience of what is happening on the tracks.

We talk a lot about one of the fundamental causes of delay, which is the work at London Bridge. That is a real problem. It is a multi-million pound unpicking of a very tangled set of lines, some of which date back to the 1930s, and the rebuilding of what will be a fabulous station. That work is clearly putting immense pressure on the operators, and I am sympathetic. We are trying to encourage them to work much more closely with the Thameslink team to ensure that the works proceed without too much disruption. Let me flag for MPs in the room that, before the station opens, there will be a significant timetable rejigging for Southeastern customers in the summer. I want to ensure that everyone is aware and that that communication work goes out as effectively as possible.

My hon. Friends the Members for Tonbridge and Malling (Tom Tugendhat) and for Faversham and Mid Kent (Helen Whately) asked the important question of what “good” looks like once all this disruption works through the system. What is the level of performance at which we can hold up our hands and say that it is a high-performing railway? Many activities have already happened. New maintenance regimes have been put in place, and new bunches of relief drivers are stationed around the system to ensure that if a misplaced train arises, drivers can quickly get to it.

Right-time starts from stations and depots to ensure that trains leave on time are fundamental. A question has been raised several times about whether Southeastern is meeting its franchise commitments. When the franchise was originally let under the last Labour Government, and re-let under a direct award a couple of years ago, franchising tended to focus on processes and inputs. If an operator said, “Yes—tick—I have deep-cleaned my stations. Yes—tick—I have hired an additional number of drivers. Yes—tick—I have made sure that all my front-line staff have better information systems,” the Department, under all colours of Administration, would say that that franchise holder was doing its job. That is not good enough. Franchising should be about delivering outcomes, delivering performance and delivering customer satisfaction.

The hon. Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner) and I occasionally share a train ride, and it is much better than he likes to say, but there we are. The new franchise for the Greater Anglia area is focused on contractual outcomes on performance and customer satisfaction. It is not just, “Have you done the following things?” but “Have you actually delivered the results that we want you to deliver?”

The important issue of customer care and handling has been raised several times. Indeed, customer satisfaction is not quite at its bottom, but I admit that it is almost there, at 75%, which is actually the highest score in the last two years. The score for the autumn period is improving, but customer care on this franchise has to improve. Many right hon. and hon. Members have pointed out that there are still gaps. Staff have to be outward-looking, and they have to be thinking of people on the trains as customers who have a choice—they are not just units who need to be moved to and from their lives. Indeed, Southeastern is committed to pushing out more information to the frontline and upgrading customer information systems. All those obligations that were in the franchise agreement have been completed on or ahead of schedule.

Southeastern has also invested almost £5 million in improving stations. The scores on satisfaction with stations have gone up, which is important to see. Southeastern is liable under the terms of its franchise agreement if it does not meet its national rail passenger survey scores. At the moment, it is still meeting those scores, but it is liable for penalties if they should drop further. I also want to put into the mix the question of what we expect during major works, such as the London Bridge project. We will face that problem with HS2, and we have to make it absolutely clear what outcomes we expect from operators at those times of disruption.

I will not delight Members and say that we have made a decision on the rolling stock. I am bound and determined to get new rolling stock on the line by the end of this year. New rolling stock will add capacity, particularly on the very crowded metro lines. I do not need to bore Members with details about the departmental investment cases, but all of them are being worked through. As Members might imagine, I am pushing hard to ensure that I can make a positive announcement for capacity both later this year and again in 2018, because I understand the point and its relevance. I take the point raised by the hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Matthew Pennycook). We must make sure we know where we can use the trains effectively so that people can walk forward, with selective door-opening if necessary. [Interruption.] Oh dear: that’s thunder.

The other point that has been raised is about compensation. We have among the most generous compensation schemes in Europe. People travelling from the constituency of the hon. Member for Eltham have a journey time of only 36 minutes to Victoria, so compensation is not particularly relevant because it kicks in at 30 minutes, which is not terribly helpful. It is a manifesto commitment of my Government, reiterated by the Chancellor, to introduce in a relatively short time—I certainly want to do it this year—a compensation commitment on which the clock starts ticking at 15 minutes. Several Members alluded to the c2c scheme, which is now providing compensation per minute of delay after the first two minutes. That is possible because of the Government’s investment in the south-east flexible ticketing programme. That is being rolled out to Southeastern, which will have the capability to offer compensation for these minutes of delay when it goes live on the SEFT system with smartcard season ticket holders by the end of the year.

Fare increases have been mentioned. I am proud to represent a Government who have capped fares at RPI plus 0% not just for this year but for the whole of this Parliament, which on average is worth more than £400 to every season ticket holder in the country.

I have very little time left. I will write, in particular on the point that the hon. Member for Erith and Thamesmead (Teresa Pearce) raised about changes to compensation, because I am not aware of that and I want to investigate. None of us is satisfied with the performance of the franchise. The question is whether anyone out there could run it better. My considered judgment is no. This is difficult, and there are huge engineering works taking place on the line. The company and Network Rail are absolutely committed to driving up performance, to the extent that Network Rail’s operating director is now devoting 40% of his time to sorting out the performance problems on these very congested lines.

Motion lapsed (Standing Order No. 10(6)).

Rail Services: East Hertfordshire

Claire Perry Excerpts

Tuesday 1st March 2016 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Claire Perry)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Chope. It is always a pleasure to respond to debates called by my hon. Friend the Member for Hertford and Stortford (Mr Prisk) and attended assiduously by our right hon. Friend the Member for Saffron Walden (Sir Alan Haselhurst), because the arguments are always eloquently made and extremely well informed. I know that both of them have been dedicated for many years to securing the best possible service for their commuting constituents, as am I.

My hon. Friend raised many interesting points, and in the time available I will focus on three of them. On the important issue of compensation, ultimately we all want the same thing: a timely and reliable train service. If we had that, there would be no need for compensation because passengers would not be delayed. We are working hard as a Department and an industry to deliver solutions to the problems he mentioned, particularly failures by Network Rail. He is absolutely right to say that Abellio Greater Anglia has worked extremely hard to solve many of its own internal issues, and of course there are still problems, such as trains breaking down, partly as a result of the ageing fleet, but ultimately everything hinges on the relationship between Network Rail and the operator. We will shortly publish the results of the Nicola Shaw review, which considers some of the fundamental questions about how to join up Network Rail’s activities and those of operators in ways that focus entirely on delivering for both passengers and freight customers. I cannot say more about it, but I look forward to seeing the proposals.

It is important when things do not work that passengers have quick, easy and in many cases automatic access to appropriate compensation. We have some of the most generous compensation schemes in Europe for rail passengers. Through the “delay repay” scheme, we already offer relatively generous levels of compensation: passengers can claim back 50% of their ticket price if they are delayed for 30 minutes or more. However, as my hon. Friend pointed out, given that the average journey time from Hertford East to Liverpool Street is only 49 minutes, that is not necessarily particularly helpful for his constituents. We want the system to be even better, which is why we committed in our manifesto—the Chancellor has since confirmed that commitment—to reduce the threshold for compensation from 30 minutes to 15 minutes. I intend to announce the details of the change in the next few months. It is always a commercial negotiation when we deal with the rail industry, and we want to ensure that we secure the right deal for taxpayers.

Given the timing of the franchise competition, to which my hon. Friend referred, that will become an in-franchise change for both Abellio Greater Anglia and Govia Thameslink Railway, which already operates as the franchise holder. It is entirely consistent with what we have done in many cases. We intend to roll out the system right across England, so it will become a relevant negotiation to have with franchise operators.

Of course, we are not standing still on compensation. We made some changes last year to the national conditions of carriage so that passengers can claim compensation in cash instead of rail vouchers. As my hon. Friend rightly pointed out, the industry must do better. I pay tribute to Which?—a fine consumer-focused campaigning organisation. We are considering the responses to the Which? super-complaint and working with Transport Focus to ensure that operators publicise the compensation that they offer, because the data suggest that only 12% of passengers who are entitled to compensation bother to claim it. That is unacceptable. We want to ensure that the offer is widely publicised and available.

My hon. Friend might be interested to know that last week c2c, which runs the franchises into London from the east, introduced a pence per minute automatic delay scheme. If a train is delayed for more than two minutes, passengers will start to receive compensation automatically if they are registered for a c2c smartcard ticket. He will be pleased to know that Abellio Greater Anglia, which is also part of the south-east flexible ticketing programme funded by the Government, will introduce its own smartcard next month. It is expected to launch in Cambridge and then roll out across the network, giving the operator the opportunity to introduce a similar system to c2c’s, so that signed-up smartcard users can receive compensation automatically, without having to do anything about it. I am sure that we all welcome that.

[Mr Prisk]

The Minister’s comments are encouraging. To return to the advent of the new franchise, she described the 15-minute rule as an in-franchise agreement. Does that mean it will be discussed at the time the franchise is let, or will it be negotiated across that period and perhaps introduced later?

[Claire Perry]

The proposal is to introduce it across all UK franchises at the same time. We will not wait for franchise renewal to come up; it will be introduced. In some cases, where it cannot be introduced as a franchise commitment, it will be funded by Government. We have funding for that, and we are absolutely determined to do it.

The second issue my hon. Friend spoke about is rolling stock. As he pointed out, many of his constituents travel on trains that date from the 1970s, which was a fine decade for fashion but not necessarily a fine one for train quality. Although those trains are still running reliably, which is a tribute to the way they were made and the way they are maintained, they are the oldest electric rolling stock in the country. As both he and our right hon. Friend the Member for Saffron Walden know, the bidders for the new East Anglia franchise have been challenged to specify a massive improvement in the quality of the trains they will run.

In fact, the way we let franchising now is based on both the financial aspects of the bid and the quality that will be delivered. That quality is referred to as the Q score and the weighting for rolling stock quality has never been higher than in this franchise. It is the most significant weighting that has ever been given to rolling stock and we absolutely expect that bidders will include new rolling stock in their bids. That is because, as has been pointed out, the journey time improvements in particular cannot be achieved with the speeds that the existing rolling stock can achieve.

As always, there is a balance to be struck between taxpayers and fare payers, so rather than specify exactly what bidders should do, we have given them the freedom to deliver what they think will give the best performance for passengers. Having visited the CrossCountry franchise only last week and seen the refurbished class 170 trains, I can assure my right hon. and hon. Friends that customers often cannot tell whether a train is new or refurbished to 21st century standards, because in either case it will have the appropriate toilet facilities, and brand new seating and lighting. To all intents and purposes, it looks and feels like a brand new train. That quality is what we are looking for bidders to propose, and my expectation is that the bids will include a high concentration of new rolling stock.

We will also for the first time hold the successful bidder to account contractually for the improvements that they propose for the franchise. We are introducing a contractual customer experience regime, with tough penalties if the operator fails to deliver. At the moment, we have lots of feedback and information, but this will be the first time that we have contractualised those customer experience obligations, with financial penalties if the successful bidder fails to deliver.

As my hon. Friend mentioned, we will see improvements on Great Northern lines, and his constituents will see those improvements even sooner. The deal that was announced last week to replace the wonderful 1976 trains with 25 new six-car trains will bring benefits in 2018. It is worth mentioning that the deal, which is worth just over £200 million, will create jobs right across the UK supply chain from Poole to Hebburn and provide much-needed capacity. My hon. Friend pointed out the capacity problems on the routes, so we can all welcome the improvement.

My hon. Friend is right to raise the question of what can be done about track capacity. Indeed, he and our right hon. Friend are not lone voices. Our hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne (Mr Walker) campaigns vigorously on this issue, and support is growing. I am well aware of vocal support for a four-track solution to this long-standing problem. My hon. Friend the Member for Hertford and Stortford will be aware that it is a difficult problem in terms of the layout of the track and what surrounds it, and in terms of the platforming restrictions at Liverpool Street. However, as time goes on and as the proposals for developments along the Lea valley come to fruition, the economic case that can be made for this work on the track grows ever stronger.

Although there is no four-tracking solution currently on the cards, I remain interested and I am always happy to discuss the subject with my hon. Friend and the broader group of interested people. However, a three-tracking scheme is being delivered in the current period—it will be done by 2019—between Tottenham Hale and Stratford, which will help to relieve some of the capacity squeeze closer to London.

My hon. Friend invited me to specify other works that will be going on. I do not have the details about other works, but I will write to him to let him know what other enhancements and renewals are taking place on his local lines.

[Sir Alan Haselhurst]

On that point, although I appreciate that the Minister does not have responsibility for airports, there is a problem. Stansted is the only airport in the London system that has sufficient capacity to handle such demand as cannot be satisfied at Gatwick or Heathrow until the Government have decided where an extra runway will be. The problem is that airlines are reluctant to go to Stansted because of the poor quality of the Stansted Express—indeed, trading standards were expressing an interest and wondering whether or not it is right to call it an express, in view of the congestion on the line. Also, that issue has to be reconciled with the ambitions of Transport for London to run a superior Metro service.

[Claire Perry]

As always, my right hon. Friend makes a very good point. He will be pleased to know that I think my very first ministerial engagement was to go and welcome the launch of the new Stansted Express, which is the new connection going from Cambridge, which will operate with increased frequency compared with the old service. At that time, I visited Stansted airport, where the new operators of the service take a muscular approach to wanting to deliver more flights and are also very vocal about the restrictions of the rail service. I was pleased that Abellio Greater Anglia was able to work with Stansted to deliver a very early morning service from Liverpool Street, because previously people were going to the airport and sleeping there in order to catch their early morning flights. The growth of Stansted and of the whole region is a very strong supporting point for the underlying investment case for improving track capacity outside Liverpool Street.

Such work always requires us to bring together the voices of the local community, the local MPs, the local airports and the developers who would like to benefit, and to consider the social value that the railway network could bring to people locally if it was improved. It is a difficult case to make but it is certainly one that I would be very interested to hear.

Before I conclude, I wanted to point out that some comfort is being provided by the current passenger satisfaction scores that Abellio Greater Anglia is delivering. In the six months between spring 2015 and autumn 2015, passenger satisfaction rose by six percentage points, which I think is among the highest scores that the company has ever achieved. In particular, there have been improvements in areas that the franchise holder can influence: passenger satisfaction was up by 17% with the company’s dealing with delays; by eight percentage points with its provision of information at stations; and by 11% with its provision of information during journeys. What we want is an operator that is very responsive to the needs of its passengers, so that when things go wrong it is absolutely committed to providing information and compensation.

In conclusion, I thank my hon. Friend for raising such important matters. I feel that we are on the cusp of a rail renaissance in this country. We have a Government who are committed to spending almost £40 billion during the next five years on improving the rail network, but that money ultimately has to be seen to benefit customers; it will all be wasted if customers do not see and feel the benefit of it.

I am happy that I have been able to set out for my hon. Friend and my right hon. Friend some assurances around the introduction of the compensation offer at 15 minutes and around the fact that new trains have already been contracted to run on the Great Northern lines. Also, I confidently expect that the rolling stock offer that bidders on the AGA franchise will put forward will be better than anything that people in the constituencies of both my hon. Friend and my right hon. Friend have seen up to now.

Question put and agreed to.

Crossrail: Elizabeth Line

Claire Perry Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd February 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Claire Perry)]

With permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to make a statement to the House.

I am delighted to announce that from December 2018 the Crossrail route will be known as the Elizabeth line and will be marked on the nation’s transport maps in royal purple.

Today Her Majesty took part in a naming ceremony at the line’s new Bond Street station, where she met just some of those responsible for delivering Europe’s most complicated engineering project, which is now more than 70% complete and running on budget and on time.

Her Majesty has served our country for more than 60 years. She has been a symbol of wisdom, continuity and stability in an age of unprecedented change, and she has long been associated with many aspects of this nation’s transport. Our Queen opened the Victoria line service in 1969. The Fleet line was renamed the Jubilee line in honour of her first 25 years on the throne in 1979, and she is the first reigning monarch to travel on the London underground. More recently, Her Majesty opened the redeveloped Reading and Birmingham New Street stations and Heathrow airport’s new terminal 2 building. I am told that trains are Her Majesty’s favourite form of travel and that she is a frequent user of both the royal train and scheduled train services. I hope that Her Majesty will consider an invitation to travel on the first passenger train that will pass through the Elizabeth line’s tunnels in December 2018.

Even before that date, the project is breaking new ground. It is not just the largest infrastructure project in Europe, but the most technically challenging and the most ambitious. In a little over three years, the thousands of people who have worked night and day on the project have dug 26 miles of tunnels under London. Thanks to their work, the line is now more than 70% complete.

Last May, Transport for London began operating the first section of what will become the Elizabeth line route from Liverpool Street to Shenfield. Network Rail has completed most of the work to connect the line to the existing rail network. In Derby, as I have seen for myself, Bombardier is building the first carriage of the first Crossrail train—a British-built train for a Great British rail line.

When the Elizabeth line opens fully in December 2018, it will change dramatically the way in which people travel around London and the south-east. It will bring an extra 1.5 million people within a 45-minute commuting distance of London’s key business areas. It will increase the total railway capacity by 10% in the south-east, adding much needed capacity to some very crowded lines. It will support our ambition of city-wide regeneration and shorter journey times for passengers. I am pleased to confirm that all 40 Elizabeth line stations will be step free so that they are accessible to all.

We are proud of this investment, but it is not just about the current project work. The project will bring a lasting skills legacy to Britain—in particular, a skills legacy that will benefit many thousands of women. As Terry Morgan, the project’s chairman, has said, Crossrail has always been more than a transport project. It has been a blueprint for how infrastructure should be built in future.

Today’s construction sites are sophisticated places, which require communication skills, the ability to multitask and manage complex projects, work in teams and win the trust of clients and site neighbours. Those are all skills that make such projects natural places for women to work. Through the building of Crossrail, they are steadily becoming a hallmark of modern construction. As a result, the project has broken new ground in the diversity of its workforce. Women make up almost a quarter of those in its graduate programme. Those are people who will go on to become the future leaders of the industry. Of the 10,000 people working on Crossrail, nearly one third are women. Through Crossrail, women are forging careers they never thought possible—a fact that we celebrated at a cross-party reception here in January that we called “She’s Building It”.

Crossrail—soon to be the Elizabeth line—the Olympics, Heathrow terminal 5, and Reading and Birmingham New Street stations are rejuvenating the image and the economics of British engineering and opening career opportunities to our best and brightest, among them increasing numbers of women. I know that people working on the Crossrail project are already immensely proud of the legacy that they are helping to create. I believe that their pride can only be enhanced by the announcement that this amazing, groundbreaking engineering project will forever be known by the name of our sovereign, Queen Elizabeth. With permission, I commend this statement to the House.

[Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)]

I am grateful to the Minister for advance sight of her statement. On my behalf and that of Her Majesty’s Opposition, I am in the happy position of being able very much to welcome the announcement. Crossrail has had cross-party support over its lengthy gestation period, and we all look forward to the considerable benefits that the new line will bring in the years ahead.

The naming of the line as the Elizabeth line is very much welcomed by Opposition Members. We have become used to the title Crossrail in recent decades. The renaming is a significant improvement on Cross London Rail Links Ltd, and Elizabeth is undoubtedly a much more elegant and fitting title for such an innovative and important transport infrastructure development, which will bring the benefit of better transport to millions of passengers from Reading in the west to Shenfield in the east. Given the enormous public commitment that has gone into developing the Crossrail brand, will the Minister give us an assurance that the Crossrail brand and livery will continue to be used?

I pay tribute to the last Labour Government, who took the Crossrail project forward in their 10-year transport plan, “Transport 2010”, in which they reasserted that an east-west rail link should go ahead. Alistair Darling, the then Secretary of State for Transport, announced that the Labour Government supported the new east-west Crossrail link and committed to bringing forward legislation to enable Crossrail to proceed, which was critical in turning the aspiration and ambition of Crossrail into reality.

One of the first ideas of the previous coalition Government, after they came into power in 2010, was to consider cancelling the Crossrail project altogether. Labour Members are delighted that not only is the project back on track, so to speak, but the Government’s conversion to supporting Crossrail has been so all-embracing that they have not only given the project their full backing but decided to dedicate it to Her Majesty. In that, they have our support.

We all expect Crossrail or the Elizabeth line to change the face of transport in London and the south-east, whatever its name. I would like to draw the Minister’s focus to a few points. Crossrail is largely on time and on budget, so can the Minister confirm that it will indeed open on schedule? Will she inform the House of what lessons have been learned from the successes of Crossrail that can be applied to High Speed 2? The Crossrail service will share the Great Western main line to Reading, but sadly the electrification programme has slipped and will cost more than was first estimated. Will the Minister take the opportunity to confirm to the House that the rescheduled electrification of the Great Western main line to Reading will be completed in time for the opening of the Elizabeth line?

I was delighted by the fact that after some 35 years of planning and development, Crossrail finally broke ground on 15 May 2009, when the Mayor of London and the then Transport Secretary, the noble Lord Adonis, sank the first pile into the docklands at the new Canary Wharf station. As we approach the conclusion of this most magnificent engineering undertaking, we remember the name of Crossrail with much affection and admiration. Although Crossrail is not dead, I wish the Elizabeth line a long and successful life.

[Claire Perry]

It is a delight to share, as we often do, a cross-party view—total agreement—on transport infrastructure. I would like to answer some of the hon. Gentleman’s questions.

Crossrail branding will apply for now, but the intention is that from December 2018 the Elizabeth line branding will come into force. The trains are currently under construction, as the hon. Gentleman knows, and it is not expensive to repaint and rebrand them, so I do not think that there are any costs associated with this welcome decision.

The hon. Gentleman asked about lessons that have been learned from Crossrail and that can be applied to Network Rail. I would argue that there are lessons that can be applied more broadly. One thing that has worked well is the fact that the project has stuck to its guns—stuck to its knitting. It has resisted demands for deviations from the route and proceeded with its original plan, which it has delivered very effectively. Crucially, it has blazed a trail in engagement with communities who are affected by the work. I have been surprised, when I have visited stations, by how little the people around the stations realise that the work is going on. That is a tribute to the care and consideration behind that engagement. Another enormously important factor has been the engagement of the supply chain. The majority of supply contracts are let to companies outside the south-east and, in many cases, to small and medium- sized enterprises. Those are two important lessons for the future.

The hon. Gentleman is right to talk about bringing the project in on time and on budget. I emphasise that that is part of the project’s careful planning.

On the question about the vital link between the Crossrail line and the Great Western main line to the west, I am happy to confirm that that work is on time and on budget, and it will absolutely be in place to ensure that the line runs. It is an enormous priority for all of us to ensure that the first trains can run from December 2018.

[Tom Pursglove (Corby) (Con)]

I strongly welcome the Minister’s statement. Can she guarantee that in the final 30% of the construction process we will be trumpeting the use of British steel wherever possible?

[Claire Perry]

I am happy to confirm that that is absolutely the case. Indeed, 85% of the supply chain providing steel to the project is UK-based, and the 57 km of rails that run through the central tunnel are 100% provided by UK steel suppliers. I am sure that my hon. Friend will also welcome the fact that 61% of the firms that have won work associated with the project are based outside London.

[Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)]

I, too, thank the Minister for providing an advance copy of her statement. I will come to the name of the line in a moment, but may I first welcome the increased opportunities that the project has provided for women? More needs to be done to get the message out to women and young girls about the opportunities that are available for them. I also welcome the accessibility aspect, which is an important factor.

A change of name can be invigorating. In Scotland, we found that the change of name from the Scottish Executive to the Scottish Government provided a new sense of purpose, from which people were able to take confidence. In general, the change of name is a good move. The royal theme is continued in Scotland by the Queensferry crossing, the name of which was chosen by public vote. Will the Minister tell us about the mechanism for renaming Crossrail? The public have certainly embraced it with some vigour. The Minister described Crossrail as a great British rail line. On that basis, can she guarantee that all the ticket machines on the new Elizabeth line will be able to accept Scottish notes so that we can actually travel on it?

According to figures announced just last weekend, the Scottish Government are investing twice as much per person in transport as England is, and have spent more per head on improving infrastructure than all the other nations in the UK since the Scottish National party came to power in 2007. I am glad to see some ambition today. May we have more of it to make sure that the people of the nations of the UK are better connected?

[Claire Perry]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for a very important list of questions. He is absolutely right to focus, as we are, on the diversity opportunities that have opened up as a result of this project. People too often think of engineering skills, particularly on the railways, as involving joining the wheel-tappers and shunters club, but it is not like that. It is a high-tech world in which people are more likely to go to work with a laptop than with a spanner. As I say, it is a growing industry partly thanks to this Government’s record in transport infrastructure, so it is one to which we would like to attract more women. There have been some little but subtle changes. The so-called man cage that takes people down into the giant hole where the tunnels start has, at the suggestion of the very feisty woman in charge of the work at Farringdon station, been renamed a people basket. That is a brilliant example of how small changes can make a difference.

The hon. Gentleman asked me about the mechanism. Many people would like to claim credit for what is a very good idea, but I am sure if we put it to the British people in a referendum, they would—if they do not have referendum fatigue—overwhelmingly support this decision. Of course, the Queen did approve the decision. I think its genesis lies in the fact that she is now our longest-serving monarch—she has been on the throne for 64 years—and the name change is a very fitting tribute to the length of her reign.

The hon. Gentleman asked about Scottish pound notes. Based on my experience with London cabbies, I am very sorry to say that many people still do not believe they are legal tender south of the border. I will look into that matter and respond to him. Of course, I would like a revolution in ticket vending machines so that we can use mobile and smart ticketing much more often than cash when we purchase railway tickets.

The hon. Gentleman raised the importance of infrastructure north of the border. I am sure he is delighted, as I am, that the west coast main line—the vital passenger and freight route that crosses our borders—has been reopened two weeks early, after the devastation at Lamington viaduct. I went to see it in the snow, with his party’s Transport Minister from north of the border. It was a difficult site, and I am sure we all want to pay tribute to the orange army that delivered that result and got the line open.

[Mrs Louise Ellman (Liverpool, Riverside) (Lab/Co-op)]

I welcome this announcement, and the Minister is right to praise Crossrail—the Elizabeth line. Does she think it is a suitable model to follow for Rail North, and indeed for the new northern transport body that has just been set up, Transport for the North, so there can be investment in new lines right across the north of England to make the northern powerhouse a reality?

[Claire Perry]

I thank the hon. Lady for her support for the announcement. She is right to focus on such parallels. Clearly, transport money is best spent when it is pulled through to satisfy local demands and to drive local economic growth. I am sure she welcomes what the Government have done. We have set up Transport for the North on a stand-alone basis and we have funded it, and we have asked the devolved authority to work on plans and proposals to drive forward infrastructure investment in the region. In his comments, the hon. Member for Middlesbrough (Andy McDonald) referred to the role of Lord Adonis. I pay tribute to him for generating this idea and pushing it through, often, as with many rail investments, in the face, frankly, of opposition—

[Andy McDonald]

No.

[Claire Perry]

Well, the hon. Gentleman corrects me, but I am delighted to say that this is now happening. Lord Adonis now heads the Government’s National Infrastructure Commission, which has been tasked with looking at—this idea again has cross-party support and consensus—how we can best spend the ongoing investment in infrastructure for the benefit of the British economy.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

Crossrail is a complex project, as the Minister says, especially where there are interchanges with other lines. At Old Oak, it interchanges with overground, underground, Great Western and, of course, HS2 services. Will she look at the very poor co-ordination of that interchange, where every company is doing its own thing, with the Crossrail depot being built in the middle of prime development land? She might like Lord Adonis to look at that, as he knows what he is talking about.

[Claire Perry]

The hon. Gentleman is right to point out the complexity of the project—some of the tunnels have been tunnelled to within 30 cm of existing infrastructure beneath the streets of London, which is an astonishing achievement—and of the interchanges, on which such decisions are often considered to be too complicated. The Government, TfL and Network Rail are working closely with the Old Oak and Park Royal Development Corporation—that is another example of a devolved authority—to make sure that it understands its aspirations for the publicly held land at Old Oak Common. It is a balancing act and it is difficult to get it right for the future, but we will continue to invest in this vital infrastructure and we will make it work for the benefit of the British economy and of rail passengers across the UK.

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

I agree wholeheartedly with what the rail Minister and the shadow rail Minister have said about Her Majesty and about our brilliant railway staff. I am a former Network Rail staffer, and I worked with some fantastic women engineers. May I, however, offer the Minister some constructive criticism? Her statement made more references to services to Liverpool Street than to those to Liverpool. Now that Crossrail is moving towards completion, will she turn her attentions northwards, and will she say when she will meet a delegation from Merseyside to discuss rail services there?

[Claire Perry]

I talked more about Liverpool Street only because Crossrail does not of course go very far north at the moment. I have great respect for the hon. Lady, but she will know from her constituency that we have electric trains running between Manchester and Liverpool for the first time ever. That is tangible evidence that the Government are delivering both on infrastructure promises in the north and on rolling stock. I am sure that she, like me, has long thought the Pacer should have been phased out a long time ago, because it is not fit for purpose in moving people around such a vibrant and growing part of the country—the north—which I know she is proud to represent. This Government are taking such investment decisions. My door is always open to delegations from any part of the country that wants to talk about how railways can further transform their local economy.

[Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)]

May I add my congratulations to the whole Crossrail team on this remarkable feat of engineering, which will bring enormous benefits to my constituents in Ilford? In particular, I want to pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes), who, as chair of the all-party group on Crossrail, has batted particularly strongly, if I may say so, for the longer-term benefits for the residents of Ilford.

This weekend, I will join residents of St Peter’s church at Aldborough Hatch in my constituency to “Clean for the Queen”. May I therefore, on behalf of so many of my constituents, commend those who have come up with this fantastic and fitting tribute to our longest-reigning monarch for her more than 60 years of dedicated public service?

[Claire Perry]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his support, and indeed for highlighting “Clean for the Queen”, which will have us all putting on our rubber gloves and getting out our litter pickers in the next few months. He raises the important point that this House is at its best when we come together to invest in major pieces of infrastructure that will transform the lives of those who will benefit directly, but also benefit those working for such a construction project or, indeed, supplying products for it.

An outbreak of cross-party consensus is just what we need, and we of course have such a project with HS2, which I believe completed its Select Committee stage only yesterday. Frankly, I pay tribute to the Committee, because it has been a labour of love—[Interruption.] I am not going to comment on that. Spades will be in the ground from 2017, and the skills that many hundreds of men and women have built up—we now lead the world in soft-ground tunnelling—will be very useful for the Thames tideway, the HS2 work that is coming and, indeed, with the A303 proposals that will benefit my constituency.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

Could some of the efficiency that the Minister has spoken about with regard to Crossrail be applied to Southeastern, which has been providing an appalling service? Will she agree to meet a delegation of MPs from south-east London to discuss how that might be done?

[Claire Perry]

The hon. Gentleman has long been a doughty campaigner for improved rail services for his constituents. I hope that he received a letter from me just a few weeks ago, which said that I hope to make a decision shortly about the long-awaited capacity increases, because I know that he is very concerned about the crowding on those trains. I hope to have good news on that very shortly, but, as he knows, my door is always open.

[Mr Speaker]

I am sure that if the hon. Gentleman received the Minister’s letter, his happiness would be as unalloyed as hers obviously is today. We are extremely grateful to her.

Great Western Railway Routes

Claire Perry Excerpts

Monday 8th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Bradshaw]

I entirely agree, and we look forward to hearing the Minister respond at the end of this debate. I intend to finish with what I hope will be an attractive suggestion to all those Conservative Members who were swept to power—

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Claire Perry)]

I simply hope that at some point the right hon. Gentleman will welcome the fact that there will be a new station opening in his constituency next year.

[Mr Bradshaw]

Yes, and we have already had a new station opened just outside my constituency—and the investment programme for it was put in place by the Labour Government, so I am very grateful that the Minister did not cut it. [Interruption.] Of course I am grateful for that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Claire Perry]

rose—

[Mr Bradshaw]

I am sorry, but I am not giving way again.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Claire Perry)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster) for securing this excellent, coherent, thoughtful and wide-ranging debate. He has heard many reports, as have I, of the damage created by Storm Imogen during the day. I am just thankful that everyone is here in one piece. So far, there has been no report of injuries. I am sure we will all be thinking about what our constituents have had to deal with during the course of the day.

Let me deal with a couple of points before answering some of the outstanding questions put to me. A broad set of issues have been raised by Members and I am tempted to respond to many of them.

The right hon. Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw) is one of the few Labour Members, I am pleased to say, representing the south-west, but he is an assiduous campaigner on behalf of his rail users—[Interruption.] He is probably the only Labour Member representing the south-west. I am pleased to hear that he enjoys his journeys, accompanied by his bicycle, but I am disappointed that he tends to produce a tirade of misinformation and never likes to have the facts put to him.

I was interested to hear that he rebelled against his party Whip on HS2. I wondered whether he rebelled against—or at least had stern words with—shadow Ministers on issues such as the pitiful performance of the Labour Government on electrification. I know that the right hon. Gentleman was one of a revolving door of Ministers whom I had to face, but let me ask him once again—he could not answer one of my hon. Friends earlier—that at a time when we had a go-go economy and a light-touch regulatory system that was pouring money into the Treasury’s coffers, how many miles did the Labour Government electrify in 13 years? It was fewer than 10 miles.

Do you know why, Mr Deputy Speaker? In Labour’s view, the railway was not something that really mattered. The view of the Labour Government was that they could jack up the fares with the flex and have inflation-busting fares year after year. They did not invest a penny in electrification in the south-west. Here is the thing, though: they could have replaced the Pacers. Do we all remember the Pacers? Do we remember all the heat and fury from Labour about the dreaded Pacers that were carrying thousands of people around the north? Could they have replaced the Pacers in 2003-04? Yes, they could. Did they? Did they heck. Let me tell you why, Mr Deputy Speaker—it is because they do not give a stuff about transport investment. It is not important in Labour’s view, and their track record is disgraceful. Frankly, I will take no lessons whatever from the Labour party on the railways.

I hope that the right hon. Member for Exeter will also have stern words with his party about its plans to abandon the upgrade of the A358, as set out in his party’s manifesto, and about its lack of a word in support of the dualling of the A303, which is vital to the economy of the south-west. If he did not complain about that, which is a road so close to his constituency, I hope he would complain about his party being monetary fantasists who had no plan at all to generate a strong economy, without which we cannot invest in transport infrastructure and in vital public services. I think the whole House can agree that we will take no lessons whatever from—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. I am going to help a little bit. I am not quite sure how the A303 fits in with a rail debate on the Great Western line. I know that the Minister wants to deal with the railways. Her reputation as the rail Minister is what I want to see tonight.

[Claire Perry]

Far be it for me to criticise you, Mr Deputy Speaker—[Interruption.]

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

We both know that that is not an option.

[Claire Perry]

But the roads and rail investment is vital to this region.

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

It looks like I need to be even more helpful. If the Minister looks at the title of the debate, she should realise what it is about, and Members have tried to stick to that subject. I know the Minister has a lot to cover, and I want her to concentrate on what Members have said and on the railways. I know that that is what she wants to do, too.

[Claire Perry]

I will follow your excellent advice, Mr Deputy Speaker.

My hon. Friend the Member for Newton Abbot (Anne Marie Morris) made possibly one of the most impassioned speeches we have heard in the House, drawing attention to the value of this investment and what it does for the region. As for the hon. Member for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies), who made a powerful speech about the extension of the line to Swansea, I am very sad that he will—potentially—leave us in May. I hope that it has nothing to do with anyone whom he nominated for the Labour party leadership; it would be awful to think that he was disappearing on that basis. He will be much missed by many Members on both sides of the House. I have asked my hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Glamorgan (Alun Cairns), the Under-Secretary of State for Wales, if he will meet the hon. Gentleman, as a matter of urgency, to discuss the important infrastructure issues that he raised.

My hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Oliver Colvile) was, I believe, the only Member who mentioned the vital role of freight on the railways, and he was very clear about his priorities for the constituency. I am delighted that the Laira depot, which I have visited, is being retained, because of the important jobs that it brings, although I was disappointed that he did not mention hedgehogs once. I had hoped to hear a plea for a hedgehog crossing.

My hon. Friend the Member for North Devon (Peter Heaton-Jones)—whom I have enjoyed meeting many times, along with Mr Mike Day—raised the possible opportunities on the Tarka line, which are fantastic. My door is open, and I am happy to give further consideration to his proposals.

The right hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart), who is no longer in the Chamber—I think that she had to leave early—is another passionate campaigner for rail. Her constituency will, of course benefit from the Government’s record investment in the railway, and particularly in Crossrail. I take her point about the Heathrow spur. However, she accused my Department of having tunnel vision. Far from it: we are multi-tasking on a daily basis. We are delivering the electrification of the midland main line, the Great Western main line electrification—about which I shall say more shortly—the multi-billion-pound Thameslink programme, and Crossrail. We are delivering £38 billion of investment on the country’s railways. That is the biggest investment programme since Victorian times. However, one of the lessons that we have painfully learnt is that if we are committing money, it must be spent wisely. The hon. Lady was right to raise the Heathrow issue, and it will be delivered, but it is a question of appropriate sequencing.

My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Johnny Mercer)—who is not a trainspotter, I gather—made a powerful point about the regional need for transport investment to drive entrepreneurial growth. He made the important point, which was received rather churlishly by Labour Members, that private sector economic growth drives the best improvement in life chances, particularly in a disadvantaged constituency. I was disappointed by Labour Members’ reaction to that.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

In fact, the private sector has an important role to play in development and growth. However, as the Minister will know, the company that has achieved the highest satisfaction, the highest investment and the lowest bills is a not-for-profit water company called Dwr Cymru, which returns its surpluses to shareholders. Does she agree that the Wales consultation—it was launched on my birthday, 22 January—on a not-for-dividend model for the Wales and Borders franchise is a worthwhile exercise, given that it is considering a different way of delivering more value to rail users?

[Claire Perry]

When the hon. Gentleman becomes First Minister—which is, I am sure, his aspiration—he will have every opportunity to look at models for that franchise for the Welsh railways, because it is a devolved matter. However, I hope that he will be grateful, as I am, for the Government’s commitment of £125 million, over and above the Barnett consequentials, to ensure that electrification of the Welsh valleys is delivered. How the work is sequenced will, of course be within the purview of the Welsh Government.

As always, my hon. and, allegedly, rugged Friend the Member for North Cornwall (Scott Mann) spoke passionately about the potential of his constituency. He also made the important point that branch lines that create local connectivity are vital to the railway. I hope that the Peninsula Rail Task Force, about which I shall say more later—I know that there is bated breath in the Chamber—will capture some of the investment. My hon. Friend also made an important point about the sleeper service, which the Government have supported with a multi-million-pound investment. I am glad that it is rocking him to sleep every Thursday night, but it is also a vital way of building the tourism and business pathway down to the south-west, and I am very pleased that that work has been done.

My hon. Friend the Member for Wells (James Heappey) pointed out the importance of transport links, including road links. I am sorry that I was ruled out of order by mentioning road links earlier, so I will not mention them again, Mr Deputy Speaker. My hon. Friend made a point about regional investment, and I want to assure him that this is not a zero-sum game. It is not a question of pitching the north against the south-west or the south-east. In this Government’s view, transport investment across the local, regional and national economies drives up economic growth, and economic growth delivers greater tax revenues and greater skills. That is a boat that floats the entire country higher, so if we can generate economic growth from transport investment, we will all benefit from that.

My hon. Friend made the fascinating point about regional transport around an area and talked about commuting into Bristol, where house prices can be very high. I hail from that area and I know it very well. In this regard, we would be looking to organisations such as the Peninsula Rail Task Force to help us to understand where every pound of spending can deliver maximum economic growth.

My hon. Friend the Member for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow) cannot be here tonight as she is recovering from surgery, but she too has campaigned on the vital issue of regional connectivity and is working hard on proposals to put forward to the new station investment fund, to which this Government have committed another £20 million in the latest spending review. I hope that I have now mentioned everyone who has contributed to the debate.

What is going on with this line? This debate is about the future of the Great Western railway. Some people have called it “God’s wonderful railway;” others have called it the “great way round.” It is a railway that I know very well. I grew up in Bristol and I remember when the InterCity 125s came to the city. It was as though we were no longer cut off; we were finally connected. However, as many Members have pointed out, those self-same trains are still running today. Some of them have been re-patched; they have been rebranded and refreshed. They still work, and they are a tribute to their engineering, design and maintenance, but they are now old trains. In the past 20 years, passenger numbers have doubled on that line. Indeed, since privatisation, passenger journeys are at a record high, with numbers having doubled across the country.

Too many trains are overcrowded and too many paths are full. Successive Governments of all political colours—I hold my hands up here—have not taken the necessary tough decisions on railway investment. Too many difficult decisions have been ducked and, as I have said, Labour’s record on this is really nothing to shout about. However, despite the appalling economic chaos that we inherited, this Government have picked up the pieces and said, “We will invest more than £38 billion on our railways.” Moreover—if I may crave your indulgence for a moment, Mr Deputy Speaker—we will put our road investment budget on a sustainable basis, so that all our transport systems can be protected.

This is truly the most ambitious rail upgrade since Victorian times, and it is being directed at the south-west because that region is a priority for this Government. Good transport reduces the cost of doing business. It helps local companies to reach new markets and to grow, and it helps local people to travel to new opportunities. It helps students to travel to our wonderful universities. However, poor transport acts as a drag on growth and on social aspiration, and this Government understand the importance of rail investment in the south-west.

Powerful cases have been made tonight about the need to transform the Great Western main line. Over the next four years, the 40-year-old InterCity 125s will be replaced by reliable cutting-edge intercity express trains. I have seen them, and they are great. Along with the electrification of the fleet running on the suburban lines around London, they will deliver a 40% increase in the number of seats coming into Paddington. That is an incredible number, and it will start to deal with the overcrowding problems that we have heard about tonight. Also, journey times will be cut by up to 15 minutes, which will help to achieve some of the ambitions that have been described today. Fifty stations and 170 bridges will be improved, along with 200 miles of track and 17 tunnels, including the Box tunnel, which I have been through on a people-mover. All this work is going on.

The hon. Member for Ogden—[Hon. Members: “Ogmore.”] The hon. Member for Ogbourne—

[Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby) (Lab)]

Do you know Wales very well?

[Claire Perry]

I know Bristol much better than Wales. The hon. Member for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies) made an important point about electrification. I want to tell him that the commitment to electrify the line to Cardiff is absolutely baked into the new Hendy plans, and he must consider that as preliminary work towards Swansea—[Interruption.] It is difficult to get through the Severn tunnel, as he knows, but the work is going on and the gantries are in place. We have made the commitment that the electrification will continue on to Swansea the next capital period. [Interruption.] He says, “What about the new trains?” Of course the hybrid trains that we have purchased will be able to run on those tracks, so his constituents will see the journey time and capacity improvements, and those brand-new, state-of-the-art trains. I hope that he will at least be happy with that—

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

rose—

[Claire Perry]

I can tell that the hon. Gentleman is not and that he is going to ask for another piece of infrastructure.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

I winced only because I could feel the whole population west of Cardiff wincing at the same time as we were told that that was an interim measure to get us there. I do understand the point the Minister was making, however. Will the right hon. Lady—

[Claire Perry]

Hon. Lady.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

She would be right hon. in my eyes if she could give the date when we will see the completion to Swansea.

[Claire Perry]

I am sorry, but I do not have that completion date. As the plans proceed and the work accelerates on the electrification to Cardiff, I will be happy to make sure that the hon. Gentleman is one of the first people to know, in whatever the capacity. I was invited earlier to choose glory, but my job is to serve—that is it.

Let us talk a little about the direct investment, as well as this Great Western line, because some people, including the hon. Gentleman, might legitimately say, “That is fine, but it just goes to Bristol and the south-west is much more than just Bristol.” Indeed, it is much more than just Cardiff, if we are talking about south Wales. What is actually happening for the south-western peninsula? Hon. Members were right to say that the south-west has sat and watched other regions pull ahead and wondered why that was happening. The south-west has vital extractive industries and some brilliant talent, but we are, in effect, cut off. Whether it was what happened at Dawlish or other transport network issues that had to prove that, the events at Dawlish were a wake-up call for so many of us. The work done on restoring that line showed that where there was a will and funding, there was a way to deliver. That is why in this Parliament the Government are investing more than £400 million directly in the rail system for this region. We are providing the class AT300 trains—the bimodal trains—which go through my constituency, too. I put my hands up: this is a great thing for my constituents, too. Those trains will provide fast, reliable journey times down to the south-west.

We have opened a new station at Newcourt, with others to come at Marsh Barton and at Edginswell, in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay in the next 18 months. We are re-signalling the main line from Totnes to Penzance, which is vital. The right hon. Member for Exeter mentioned Reading station, where this Government are making a £700 million investment in untangling freight and passenger lines, so cutting a key source of delay on that line. We have overhauled the Night Riviera sleeper trains, and I am told that the new launch will be before the vital tourist season this year. We are expanding the Long Rock train maintenance site at Penzance to maintain those trains, and of course we spent £35 million at Dawlish at the time of the works, and money has continued to go into that project since, because it is not enough just to stabilise the track for now.

As we have heard over and again tonight, the challenge will be in future-proofing these lines, which are in some of the most exposed parts of the railway network. That is why £3.5 million has been spent by Network Rail on the geological analysis—on the cliff resilience analysis—to make sure that what is proposed for Dawlish works for the future. An additional £31 million is also being spent at 10 sites across the south-west, including the works at Cowley bridge, and the installation of rainfall and other monitoring. We are trying to make sure that the flooding problems we saw in 2014 do not happen again.

We have a plan for the south-west and we are determined to improve the resilience for the south-west. We also have a plan for Wales, and although the hon. Member for Ogmore may not be entirely happy with it, this Government are delivering for Wales, too. I was pleased to hear an almost universal series of comments about Great Western Railway today, which is delivering its highest ever score for overall passenger satisfaction. As has been said time and again today, it has really delivered at a time of tough service disruption. It is delivering 3% year-on-year increases in customer scores and it is determined to do more.

There is a No.1 question today. People have said, “Okay Minister, you have told us that this matters and clearly there is a long-term plan, but what about the resilience study?” I am delighted to assure the House that we have indeed negotiated a package that will make sure that those relatively small but important studies do go ahead, to form part of the plan that we are expecting to get from the great Peninsula Rail Task Force. I wanted to keep everyone in suspense until the last possible moment. Therefore, the GRIP 2 study—governance for railway investment projects—into line speed improvements between London and Devon and Cornwall can go ahead to establish what more can be done to bring about track and signalling improvements. That is an important but not the only part of the study. I am really excited that the Peninsula Rail Task Force will report in June with a vision for the next 20 years. That work will include the resilience questions at Dawlish and the journey time improvements we need. That is no easy task, so we should all thank the relevant parties, led ably by the chair of Devon County Council, for putting that work together.

[Mr Bradshaw]

I think what the Minister just said is welcome, but she used the expression, “We have negotiated a package.” How much are the Government putting on the table compared with the local authorities, which have already put quite a lot on the table?

[Claire Perry]

We have not been asked to put in a penny. Great Western Railway has funded the study, as part of our negotiations with it. No Government money was ever being put into these studies. We stood by to make sure the studies happened—

[Andy McDonald]

Stood by!

[Claire Perry]

No, we were prepared to backstop any shortfall, but Great Western Railway agreed to fund this small part of the overall plan. We are talking about £200,000 to £300,000, as opposed to the £3.5 million Network Rail has already spent. I hope the right hon. Member for Exeter, just for once, is going to crack a smile and welcome something. Go on! Just welcome something the Government have done. No? I think we will move on.

The Government are committed to the region, and these studies will go ahead. This is a vital region of the country for transport investment and economic growth, and I am delighted, as both a south-west MP and the rail Minister, to confirm that those studies will go ahead.

Delay Repay Scheme: Rail Commuters

Claire Perry Excerpts

Thursday 4th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Claire Perry)]

I thank the right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) for securing this debate. Some people say that I seem to have drawn the short straw by having to participate in Adjournment debates on successive Thursdays, but I am always happy and keen to talk about the railways and what this Government are doing to try to improve them.

I agree with many points made by the right hon. Gentleman, including the fact that the compensation system is not working as well as it should and his comments about performance issues. Indeed, I chair a taskforce comprising the operators, Network Rail, Transport Focus and anyone who might be able to help us drive up performance in this crucial region.

May I crave your indulgence, Mr Deputy Speaker, and put on the record my personal thanks to the Network Rail team that has managed to fix the Corbridge landslip, which had completely disconnected the vital east-west line between Newcastle and Carlisle? The team has moved 35,000 tonnes of soil, the line is open and trains will run from next week. That is proof that the orange army really can deliver, and I want to make sure that that happens in the right hon. Gentleman’s region as well.

It might be helpful if I set out some of the improvements that are already happening. Delay Repay is a universal, standardised offer of compensation that has been adopted by 80% of rail companies. That addresses the right hon. Gentleman’s point about variability in what people are entitled to. As he has said, under Delay Repay passengers can claim 50% of a single fare for delays of 30 to 59 minutes; 100% of a single fare for delays of more than 60 minutes; and 100% of a return fare for delays of more than two hours. Ten operators use the scheme and it is being introduced nationally, along with franchising.

Interestingly, the scheme is among the most generous compensation schemes for rail passengers in Europe. I know that sometimes it does not feel like that, particularly if there are persistent delays, but there are countries that do almost nothing for customers who are delayed.

[Tom Brake]

Will the Minister reflect on the fact that the compensation scheme can afford to be generous because so few passengers actually claim compensation?

[Claire Perry]

The right hon. Gentleman anticipates a very important point—on which I also agree with him—that I will come on to address.

It is not enough to rest on saying that a general scheme is in place and being rolled out. The right hon. Gentleman raised two main, vital issues. First, he asked what passengers can do if there are shorter delays. I have had a look at journey times from his constituency. The average journey time for constituents of his travelling from Wallington to London Victoria is about 38 minutes, and for those travelling from Carshalton and Mitcham Junction it is 25 to 29 minutes. Clearly, it would be a bad day if the delay lasted as long as the journey time. That is why the Chancellor made it absolutely clear in the autumn statement that we will introduce a compensation level starting at 15 minutes. I want to do that quickly. We are, of course, working through the numbers. I cannot yet say what percentages will be paid and when, but the right hon. Gentleman can have an absolute assurance that in the near future a compensation scheme will be introduced right across the Delay Repay franchises, including the Govia Thameslink Railway: the clock will start ticking, quite rightly, at 15 minutes. That is absolutely appropriate.

Improvements were made to the scheme last year. The right hon. Gentleman is right to ask what other industry pays us in travel vouchers. We need to pay people in their own currency, to demonstrate respect for the time they have lost. Three main changes were made to the GTR compensation scheme last year, to the benefit of his constituents. First, when calculating compensation, it used to be assumed that a season ticket holder travelled every single day of the year. Now, holiday entitlement has been included in that. The net result of all those calculations is that if annual season ticket holders claim compensation, they will get £3.70 per journey instead of £3.30, which is a 12% increase in the compensation level. If they experience a 60-minute delay, which would be unlikely, and, indeed, catastrophic, the compensation will be substantially more—an additional 10%.

The second change that the right hon. Gentleman rightly focused on is that the industry now pays compensation in cash, not in vouchers. He will share my disappointment that there is not widespread knowledge about that, certainly among staff. I will talk a little about my expectations of the ORR super-complaint in a moment.

The third change is, I think, the most important. People do not have time to faff about trying to claim compensation. These are busy people, trying to get to work and home to their lives and families. I am sure the right hon. Gentleman will welcome the introduction of automatic compensation. It is already happening. Certain operators offer automatic compensation if passengers buy a ticket online, so it can be linked to a specific journey. Others, including GTR, are linking automatic compensation payments to the use of a smart card, which has been rolled out for season tickets.

C2C, which, like GTR, has benefited from the south-east flexible ticketing programme—the Government’s great investment in smart ticketing in the south-east—will, from this month, provide automatic compensation of 3p per minute for every minute’s delay after two minutes. If someone is sitting on that train, even if they are only delayed for five minutes, their time is worth something. That is exactly the sort of scheme that works well for constituents such as those represented by the right hon. Gentleman, who take shorter journeys and for whom those persistent minutes of delay are very annoying. That is something that we are monitoring and we would like to see it rolled out, particularly across the metro franchises.

The right hon. Gentleman raised an important point: it is completely unacceptable that all these measures are being put in place but, as Passenger Focus found, only 12% of passengers claim the compensation to which they are entitled. That is made doubly annoying by the fact that train companies receive compensation from Network Rail and from each other if delays are created—the so-called section 8 compensation payments. Money is flowing into those train companies, and it should be flowing out to all passengers who are entitled to compensation.

Southern and GTR have a “reasonable endeavours” clause in their franchise about making announcements. We are determined that they should meet that, and one of the measures I am looking at is whether to get all the train companies to publish their numbers for compensation claims so that we can see, relative to the number of passengers they are carrying, which ones are doing well. As the right hon. Gentleman says, making announcements is not rocket science. Indeed, some companies do so, particularly on their Twitter feeds, where they say: “This is a delayed train, and you are entitled to claim compensation. Here’s how you do it.” By the way, rather than having people muck about with bits of paper, the claim forms now can generally be downloaded or completed online. In fact, GTR has an app that enables passengers to submit their delay claims straight from their mobiles.

The right hon. Gentleman made an interesting point about nominee companies and airlines. Such companies exist in the rail sector. I do not know whether I am supposed to say this, but companies such as Delay Repay Sniper will do all the work and take all the hassle out of the process. I want people to get the compensation that they are entitled to. I mentioned the smart card, on which GTR will offer an automatic refund by 2017. We will not stop here; we will keep pushing for better compensation.

The right hon. Gentleman made a suggestion about announcements on trains. The new fleet of class 700 trains that will start running on the franchise this year have lots of onboard information, and it is perfectly reasonable to have an electronic message that states, “You are entitled to compensation if you are on this train.” Those are all good suggestions.

The right hon. Gentleman mentioned performance. In an ideal world, compensation would be zero, because the trains would all get there on time. I am sure that we all want that. There might be an element of apples and pears in the statistics that he cited about historical cancellations, because the franchise was re-let in a very different form two years ago. It is now the biggest in the country, with about 20% of Britain’s passenger journeys, and that may have something to do with the big increase in the cancellation numbers.

I would be the first to say that the performance level is not good enough. I have pulled out the performance statistics. They show that about four out of five trains on the Southern metro service, which serves the right hon. Gentleman’s lines, arrive on time according to the public performance measure, which is about 77%. I am interested in trains arriving at the right time, for which the figure is 51%, and that is substantially better than what it was last year.

The point that so many people have collectively missed is that the impact of a crowded train of 1,000 people arriving late on the British economy is very substantial in terms of the productivity of that train load of passengers. My view is that performance on that very crowded part of the rail system should be driven up and made substantially better, because the aggregate level of human misery created by delays is higher and the hit to the productivity of the British economy caused by delaying millions of people is also higher.

I have therefore challenged the entire group of people operating that part of the railway, from the head of Network Rail downwards, to drive it back on to a high-performance route by the end of 2018. By then, the London Bridge works will be substantially complete; we will have the new class 700 fleet, which will offer so much relief in terms of better trains and increased capacity; and we will largely be through the Thameslink programme, which has created disruption for so many people. We must stay focused on how we can deliver a high-performance railway at that time. However, it is not enough to wait until then. I have made it absolutely clear to the operators and Network Rail that performance needs to improve now, so that although people can claim compensation, they will not necessarily need to do so because their trains will be on time.

[Tom Brake]

Will the Minister clarify one point? She said that at some point in the future—perhaps she will speculate on when—compensation might kick in after 15 minutes. Given that only 80% of TOCs have currently signed up to Delay Repay, does she expect 100% of them to sign up to that new, enhanced system for 15-minute delays?

--- Later in debate ---

[Claire Perry]

The current intention is to put Delay Repay in the franchising commitments. Delay Repay may cover 80% of the TOCs, but the vast majority of passengers are covered by it.

I want to say a few words about the ORR super-complaint. It is absolutely right that something that is clearly not working for consumers is picked up by Which? —a great organisation—and I have met Which? to discuss the super-complaint. My expectation of what will come out of it is that there will be a clearer understanding of who is ultimately responsible for sanctioning companies that do not pay compensation. Companies do pay compensation: there is very little evidence that they do not pay customers who are entitled to it, but the process is tortuous and much more difficult than it should be. We absolutely expect that, through a combination of the ORR, the Department for Transport and normal consumer measures, the situation will improve. Compensation will continue to improve, and pressure will be applied to ensure it is paid to those who need it. We are absolutely committed to driving up performance on this vital part of Britain’s railways.

However, I want to say a final word about the cost of rail fares, which the right hon. Gentleman rightly mentioned. In fact, a season ticket from Carshalton costs £1,676 a year, not including a travelcard. That is only £6.45 a journey, which is not necessarily a huge amount, but people need to feel that that is money well spent and that they will have a reliable journey for that amount.

By the way, that is why we have frozen rail fares at RPI plus zero for the duration of this Parliament, which is the first time that has happened in many years. While the disruption is going on, we do not want rail fares to outstrip wage inflation, as has happened for the past few years. For the first time in a decade, wages are rising quite a lot faster than rail fares.

Fundamentally, we are making a record level of investment in the railways, but unless passengers see and feel the benefits, both in the right hon. Gentleman’s constituency and right across the country, that investment is not delivering. We are determined to make sure it delivers.

Question put and agreed to.

Transport

Claire Perry Excerpts

Friday 29th January 2016 Ministerial Corrections

[Jim McMahon]

I share the Minister’s appreciation for the staff and for the patience of passengers, but I think the point is being missed. Because money has been taken away from routine maintenance and flood defences, there has been a massive effect on our local economy. If an assessment has been carried out, surely it should be made public.

[Claire Perry]

I am afraid that I have to disagree with the hon. Gentleman’s facts, although I hate to do so at his first Transport questions. The Government have announced that overall flood spending in the next period will be £1.7 billion higher than it was in the previous period. Within the transport budget, about £900 million is dedicated to things like making sure that the banks and cuttings are safe—those things that are often the first to go when there is heavy flooding. Improving the resilience of the rail network and making sure that it is fit for a 21st century climate are at the heart of the record level of investment that this Government are putting into the railways.

[Official Report, 28 January 2016, Vol. 605, c. 402.]

Letter of correction from Claire Perry:

An error has been identified in the response I gave to the hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton (Jim McMahon) during questions to the Secretary of State for Transport.

The correct response should have been:

[Claire Perry]

I am afraid that I have to disagree with the hon. Gentleman’s facts, although I hate to do so at his first Transport questions. The Government have announced that overall flood spending in the next period will be higher than the £1.7 billion it was in the previous period. Within the transport budget, about £900 million is dedicated to things like making sure that the banks and cuttings are safe—those things that are often the first to go when there is heavy flooding. Improving the resilience of the rail network and making sure that it is fit for a 21st century climate are at the heart of the record level of investment that this Government are putting into the railways.