Business of the House

Clive Efford Excerpts

Thursday 17th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend about the appalling occurrences that have taken place in the last few weeks. Over the bank holiday weekend there were some terrible instances of shootings and knife crime, particularly in London, which were appalling for families and friends and, of course, for the victims themselves. I am very sympathetic to my hon. Friend, and I will find out whether we can indeed provide protected time. I recognise the urgency of the need for that debate.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

The Government are currently consulting on a new franchise for South Eastern which will result in the removal of the Victoria service on the Bexleyheath line, apparently because it would be too confusing for service providers to have trains crossing over west of Lewisham. This weekend, however, a new timetable will come into force which says that they can only go to Victoria on a Sunday. It seems that the service is being run for the providers and not for the customers. May I join my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) in calling for a debate in Government time on rail franchising, so that we can expose the fact that the trains are being run for service providers rather than passengers?

[Andrea Leadsom]

I am genuinely sorry to hear about the problems that the hon. Gentleman has raised. He will be aware that Transport questions will take place on Thursday 24 May and he may well want to raise those specific issues then. I hope that he participated in the questions on yesterday’s statement, when there were opportunities to speak to the Secretary of State for Transport directly.