Clive Betts
Main Page: Clive Betts (Labour - Sheffield South East)Department Debates - View all Clive Betts's debates with the Department for Transport
(6 years, 7 months ago)
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Andrew Jones
I recognise the frustration that people have experienced in parts of our network, but just bringing the franchise to an end could cause further and unnecessary disruption for passengers and therefore be an inappropriate course of action. The question should be how we can improve our network, and that is the action that we are taking. We are seeing this coming through in performance improvements.
Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)
Poor performance is not just down to the operating companies. Peak-time trains between Sheffield and London are running slower than they were a year ago because of the botched timetable changes that the Department brought in. When is the Minister going to reverse those changes so that the journey times for peak-time trains between Sheffield and London can get back to being less than two hours, as they were a year ago?
Andrew Jones
The hon. Gentleman makes a point about Sheffield, so I will highlight the amount of work happening on the midland main line to improve journey times and passenger experiences up and down the network, including Sheffield.