Delay Repay: Great Eastern Main Line

Debate between Giles Watling and Andrew Jones

Wednesday 30th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Jones]

That is an important point well made. Up and down the country, we see TOCs partner with either public bodies or, as in this case, successful and important charities. The British Transport Police and the secure station scheme work with the Railway Children and the Samaritans, for example, and such partnerships can make and are making a difference.

I mentioned that performance has been mixed over the autumn period, but it is starting to improve. Looking at the public performance measures, Greater Anglia’s PPM for the period ending 5 January was 89.7%, which should be compared with the target in the franchise agreement of 88.7%. However, we want to go even further. We want all passengers on our network to receive the best possible service.

[Giles Watling]

We are at the end of the line down in Clacton and Walton-on-the-Naze, and it feels like the further away a place is, the more it gets ignored. Will the Minister please give some reassurance to my commuters that their train times will improve?

[Andrew Jones]

I can absolutely confirm to my hon. Friend that trains cannot go beyond the end of the line, because it then gets very wet. However, there is no way that different parts of the network are being treated disproportionately. There is an even approach, and everybody is entitled to a good service. That is what we are working towards. The Department’s work with the train operating company looks at performance as a whole, not individual parts, so I assure my hon. Friend that his concerns are being addressed.

I was talking about how we want to go further. The target is to have over 92% of trains arriving on time by the end of the franchise. Together with Network Rail, the train operating company needs to manage day-to-day performance and ensure that passengers see performance improve. It is my priority to see our trains provide an excellent service that delivers a network upon which commuters and passengers can rely every day.

Many colleagues have mentioned new trains. Greater Anglia has a great initiative, but it is part of a bigger scheme right across the country. Some 7,000 new carriages will be entering service on our network over the next two years, and the change is comparable to the UK’s move from diesel to steam. It is that kind of scale of development. The new trains will deliver significant improvements for passengers. In Greater Anglia’s case, the entire fleet of trains will be replaced, with over 1,000 new carriages on order. They are being built by Stadler and Bombardier, with manufacturing and construction well underway. The first five of the new Stadler trains have been delivered to Norwich Crown Point depot, where they are undergoing testing and acceptance processes.

We expect that the new trains will start to be rolled out across the network from the middle of this year, with the full roll-out completed by the end of 2020. These state-of-the-art trains will provide many more seats for busy services, which relates to points raised by my hon. Friend the Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge) and the hon. Member for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham). The new trains will be more efficient, accelerate faster and have much better customer information. They will also provide a much-improved on-board environment with wi-fi, air conditioning and power sockets, which goes back to the contribution from my hon. Friend the Member for Braintree .

I want to inform the House that Greater Anglia has a franchise commitment to deliver two direct trains each weekday between Liverpool Street and Norwich in 90 minutes and two direct trains each weekday between Liverpool Street and Ipswich in 60 minutes. Those new services follow long-standing campaigns from both sides of the House, and they will commence in May. Since the start of the franchise, Greater Anglia has invested over £100 million at stations and depots and in ticketing initiatives. Major station upgrades have been completed at Norwich, Ipswich, Cambridge and Chelmsford, but I will have to take away the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford about the second railway station there. I will need to do a bit of research to provide the exact up-to-date position, but I will write to her with that information. I recognise the point about two for one and the passing loop, which has improved resilience across the entire network.