Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Huw Merriman and Anna Firth

Thursday 21st March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Anna Firth (Southend West) (Con)]

T2. The Rail Minister is well aware that Network Rail continues to let down disabled residents and visitors and families at Chalkwell station by repeatedly failing to install the much-needed disabled lift. This is the seventh time I have raised this issue in this place. Two years ago, I was promised that the lift would be installed this year. I have now been told it will not even be started until next year. This is a disgrace. What can the Minister do to accelerate this project and address this poor performance?

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Huw Merriman)]

There was a retendering at Chalkwell, and Network Rail found that the existing structures would not be suitable to deliver the project as it stood. The design work is going on right now and building will happen next year. My hon. Friend is right that the delay is not acceptable. I will meet her at Chalkwell station and bring the Network Rail team along so that we can talk her through the project and its challenges and, if we can, show how we will speed it up.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Huw Merriman and Anna Firth

Thursday 26th October 2023 Commons Chamber

[Anna Firth (Southend West) (Con)]

T6.   Chalkwell station in beautiful Leigh-on-Sea has 40 steep steps to get up from and down to the platform; it is 100% inaccessible. I was told last year by the Treasury that work on it is part of the £350 million Department for Transport Access for All programme. Work was supposed to start a year ago, but nothing has happened. The timetable has slipped; it is not due to be completed until March 2026. To ensure that there is no further slippage on this timetable, will the Minister meet with me?

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Huw Merriman)]

I am very happy to meet my hon. Friend. Chalkwell, Ockendon and Southend East remain within the Access for All programme. We have delivered 230 stations and we will deliver those three as well. We had an issue with the contractor putting in a cost estimate that was about double what I would expect; that is why we have had to look anew, but I will very happily meet my hon. Friend to discuss this further, and she has that commitment. We will deliver it.

Railway Ticket Offices

Debate between Huw Merriman and Anna Firth

Wednesday 13th September 2023 Westminster Hall

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Huw Merriman)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Chris Loder) for securing this important debate on railway ticket offices. I also give a warm welcome to his new role to the hon. Member for Portsmouth South (Stephen Morgan). I look forward to working with him.

I will give my hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset two minutes to wind up, but in the time I have allotted to me I want to set out a little more detail about the consultation, as many of the questions I have been asked have had that in mind. I will also discuss the rationale for the moves. I will try and take the odd intervention if I can, but, if I cannot, I will ensure that I respond to all right hon. and hon. Members who made their points.

I thank Members for their kind remarks and I enjoy working with everybody across the divide. I want to continue to work with all those who have railways at their heart, and at the heart of their constituencies, to make the railways work. I am a passionate advocate of this, but Members are the champions and I want to continue to work with all Members. I recognise that some of my points will be accepted while others will not, but we will continue to liaise and engage, hopefully with the good spirit and kindness that I have been shown this morning.

[Anna Firth (Southend West) (Con)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Huw Merriman]

I will make some progress and then I may have some time to take interventions.

Together with the rail industry, we want to improve and modernise the experience for passengers by moving staff out from behind the ticket office screens to provide more help and advice in customer-focused roles. As hon. Members have recognised, there has been a huge shift in the way in which passengers purchase their tickets at railway stations, with about one in every 10 transactions taking place in ticket offices in 2022 to 2023, although I take the points that that differs across the estate. Despite that change in passenger transacting behaviour, stations have hardly changed in the past 10 years, which means that staff are constrained to work in ticket offices, although they could serve passengers better on station platforms and concourses. Ten years ago, the ticket office proportion of sales was one in three and it is now almost one in 10.

Rail Ticket Offices

Debate between Huw Merriman and Anna Firth

Thursday 6th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Huw Merriman]

I am putting the travelling public first when I make these points. What the right hon. Lady and others cannot deny, despite saying it cannot be believed, is that 10 years ago one in three tickets was sold across the ticket office counter, because people were not purchasing as much online or through machines. Now it is 10%. That demonstrates that ticket office staff are not being utilised fully. We want to utilise them in a better manner. Redeploying staff where they are not as busy as they were and could be better utilised and have a more rewarding job is what happens across the retail sector. The railways should be no different.

[Anna Firth (Southend West) (Con)]

Anyone who has experienced the long queues from the machines and the ticket office at my local train station of Leigh-on-Sea—sometimes it goes out of the office and around the block—on a Monday morning, and sometimes on a Saturday, will know why I have been campaigning for contactless ticketing to be extended to Leigh-on-Sea and Chalkwell stations ever since I arrived in this place. As such, I am personally delighted; however, innovation must never be used as an excuse to exclude any of my constituents or deliver a worse service. The blind and partially sighted, such as the wonderful Jill Allen-King OBE, cannot access the touchscreen ticket machines and need a person to help them buy that ticket, but that person does not need to be behind glass. Can the Minister assure me that there will always be somebody available at Leigh-on-Sea and Chalkwell ticket stations to help the blind and partially sighted, the elderly, and anyone else who needs help?

[Huw Merriman]

Yes—any currently staffed station will not become unstaffed as a result of these changes. As I have said, 43% of stations do not have ticket office staff, but if the stations that my hon. Friend has mentioned are currently staffed, they will not become unstaffed.

My hon. Friend referenced guide dogs. I am very grateful for the meeting I had with the Guide Dogs team, because we know that when it comes to mobility and accessibility issues, what may work for some does not work for everyone. Sight loss is a particular example of that, so I am very keen to continue to work with Guide Dogs to reassure my hon. Friend’s constituents that they will always get the help they need at her local stations.

Rail Cancellations and Service Levels

Debate between Huw Merriman and Anna Firth

Thursday 1st December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Anna Firth (Southend West) (Con)]

Does the Minister agree with me that service levels across the country are just as important? There have been 10 negative stories in the last month about the c2c line, which hard-working commuters from Southend West and Leigh-on-Sea need, including signal failures, overrunning engineering works and rush-hour queues to buy tickets. Would the Secretary of State sit down with me to discuss this level of service, and in particular our long-awaited disabled access at Chalkwell station and the long-awaited contactless ticketing?

[Huw Merriman]

I had perhaps better not promise that the Secretary of State will sit down with my hon. Friend because that may be above my pay grade, but I certainly will, and I will certainly ask him if he would like to do so. We are very keen to work with all hon. Members across the House on the specific issues they may have, hers among them.

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to say that, while this urgent question is on cancellations in the north, we are conscious that there has been a knock-on effect across the country and the network is not performing as we would like it to. One of the issues, and I again recognise that this comes down to the morale of both the management and the workforce, is that there is a contagion effect after strikes. We want a modern railway in which all in the workforce feel they have a future, with their jobs changing as ours all change and evolve, where there is more interaction with passengers and more pride as a result and we therefore see more passengers enjoying the experience. That is the passion I have for what we can do with rail. We just need everybody to work together to deliver it.