Northern Rail Services: Greater Manchester

Kate Green Excerpts

Wednesday 6th June 2018 Westminster Hall

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Howarth, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton North East (Sir David Crausby) on securing a debate that is important to all our constituents in Greater Manchester.

As I said in the Chamber on Monday when the Secretary of State made a statement to the House, the problems my constituents are experiencing are not new. They have endured months of misery, beginning well before the botched introduction of last month’s new timetable and well before the delays in completing the infrastructure improvements. In fact, my constituents have been used for far too many years to an unreliable, infrequent service on clapped-out old Pacer trains, which are still running on the line despite promises of replacements to come, and they are frankly fed up with what they have had to put up with.

Although performance has not been good for a very long time on the line through my constituency between Liverpool Lime Street and Manchester Oxford Road, the performance in recent months has been particularly abysmal. Day after day, constituents have been in touch with me about delayed, cancelled or overcrowded trains; trains that have only two carriages when they should have four; trains not stopping at all at scheduled station stops because they are too full for anyone else to get on, meaning that people who need to alight at those stations cannot do so and are taken well out of their way; huge gaps between services as not one, not two, but sometimes three consecutive rush-hour trains are cancelled, meaning people cannot get home from work to see their families in the evening; and a dearth of information for passengers, with information switching at the last minute from, “The train’s on time,” or, “The train’s two minutes away,” to, “The train’s 15 minutes delayed,” or, “It’s not coming at all.”

It is absolutely impossible for passengers in those circumstances to have any confidence in the service they need to rely on. No wonder that they are thoroughly fed up and furious. No wonder, as other hon. Members have said this afternoon, that they have started to drive to work or to other engagements, although many would prefer to take the train, because they know they cannot trust the service. As my hon. Friend alluded to, it is also no wonder that staff morale is so poor when drivers, conductors and other staff find themselves delivering a service that they know is substandard and for which they take the brunt of passenger anger. I have no doubt that that is contributing to the already difficult employment situation that my hon. Friend mentioned, with Northern itself acknowledging to me that absence rates are on the rise.

Passengers in my constituency do not really care whether it is Network Rail, Northern rail, Rail North or other train operators that are actually responsible for this mess and they do not really care about this passing the parcel of blame. They want someone to take responsibility for the whole system’s functioning, in order to fix the service and to make it reliable now. That is why I will put three particular questions to the Minister this afternoon.

First of all, we need a reliable, credible, up-to-date information system for passengers that tells them what is going to happen, and for that to then happen. My constituents have been relying on the now notorious hashtag on Twitter, #NorthernFail, to tell them what is going on; indeed, that has been my best source of information about what is happening to my constituents too. If #NorthernFail can give us up-to-date, real-time information about what is going on with the rail service, why on earth can Northern rail not?

It should not be too hard to give passengers reliable and accurate information that allows them to have faith that a service will run, rather than the situation they are in now, in which they do not know if a train will run or not. If that does not change, many of them will vote with their feet and simply not use the service at all. Will the Minister say what is being done to improve the quality and reliability of information to passengers, so that we can win back passenger confidence in the service and ensure that they can use it confidently in future?

Secondly, my hon. Friend talked about the compensation scheme that is in place, which I would also like the Minister to address. I was very pleased to hear the Secretary of State for Transport say in the Chamber on Monday that the compensation offered will be equivalent to that provided to Southern Rail users, who have suffered similar levels of disruption in recent years. It is absolutely clear that the current system is simply not adequate to compensate passengers for the level of inconvenience that they have suffered. The delay repay system does not address the persistent pattern of delay, cancellation, uncertainty and inconvenience.

That limited system has been exacerbated by passengers being frankly insulted by long delays in getting their compensation, by being refused for petty reasons and by being offered quite derisory amounts. Passengers have told me of compensation of £1 or £1.12, which is hardly worth the effort of asking for. What more can the Minister say to us about a proper, appropriate and fair compensation scheme that will recognise this persistent inconvenience? When will it be in place, how will passengers access it and what can they do to gain redress if they are not satisfied with the compensation they have had so far?

Thirdly, what will the Minister and his Department do going forward to monitor and enforce a Northern rail performance that complies with its contractual obligations under its current franchise, and what will he do to drive improvement? Passengers have been telling us for months that the service is dire, so I am at a loss to understand why it has taken so long for the Secretary of State to act. As my hon. Friend pointed out, this fragmented system is clearly not delivering for passengers, because Network Rail, Northern, the different train operators and numerous oversight and governance bodies all seem to stir the pot but do not actually take responsibility for putting things right.

Will the Minister describe exactly who is responsible at every level in this chain of command, from the operating companies to the infrastructure companies, to the oversight companies, and to the Department for Transport and Ministers themselves? I am not clear to whom the different demands and challenges should be directed, and I am tired, as are my constituents, of seeing blame passed all the way around.

I look forward to hearing the Minister’s answers to these questions, but my constituents look forward most to assurances that a service that they have endured for too long will now finally see real improvements.

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure, as always, to see you in the Chair, Mr Howarth. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton North East (Sir David Crausby) on his comprehensive and historical analysis of the failings of the transport network, and particularly of Northern rail in its delivery of services to so many of our constituents.

I will focus specifically on the recent timetable changes and how they came about, and what I think the Government should have done to address these problems before they actually happened. I also have some specific questions about compensation and contingency arrangements. I was promised by the Secretary of State that things would improve by today, but I am afraid that the information I have so far is that there has been no improvement at all.

As colleagues have mentioned, there have been many issues with the new timetable, including a shortage of properly trained and available drivers who are qualified to run the new services, as described in last year’s Gibb report, and, as my hon. Friend mentioned, the overrunning of engineering works—specifically, the electrification of the Manchester-Bolton-Preston line. Those issues meant that the proposed new timetable had to be overwritten, delaying its launch and the driver training for the new routes. Network Rail’s planners were unable to confirm routes and times until a matter of weeks before the revamp, rather than the normal three to six months for a routine change. Will the Minister explain why the timetable changes were not deferred once these multiple problems became clear?

We have heard words of remorse from the Transport Secretary, Network Rail and others, but in addition to many constituents asking me to raise the matter with the Transport Secretary last November, many rail experts also raised these issues. They have been proven right. Why were they not listened to? How could this have gone so horribly wrong, and why was there no delay in implementing the new timetable?

The Transport Secretary said in the Chamber on Monday that

“both Northern and GTR were not sufficiently prepared to manage a timetable change of this scale… Neither Northern nor GTR had a clear fall-back plan.”—[Official Report, 4 June 2018; Vol. 642, c. 50.]

If that was the case, why were Ministers and officials within the Department not aware of it beforehand? Surely, given the sheer scale of the changes being introduced, they should have been closely monitoring this.

In Oldham East and Saddleworth there has been deep concern from passengers at Greenfield station for many months about the proposed new timetable, with a reduced service and capacity at peak hours, destinations changing from Manchester Victoria to Manchester Piccadilly and poor connection times via Stalybridge, as well as ongoing accessibility issues at Greenfield. I wrote to the Secretary of State about these issues last November, and in response the then Transport Minister, the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard), said the new timetable would deliver “significant reliability benefits”. The evidence has shown that response to be completely wrong. Given that “significant reliability benefits” have not been delivered, will the Minister ensure that future timetable planning now underway for the December changes will actively involve rail users and not ignore their concerns?

The impact of the timetable changes on people’s lives cannot be underestimated, particularly on those with caring responsibilities. Parents who were previously able to drop their children off at school before getting their morning train into Manchester now struggle to do so if they are to get into Manchester for 9 am. The changes to the timetable mean that there is a 44-minute gap between 7.45 am and 8.30 am, which is the time that they are able to do so after dropping their children off. Their return journeys are equally fraught, with not just too few trains between 5 pm and 6 pm, but the timings of these trains being at 5.17 pm and 6 pm.

We realised that the new timetable was going to play havoc with the lives of working people using Greenfield station in particular, but the chaos since 20 May has been far worse than we feared. Both Northern and TransPennine Express trains have frequently been cancelled and have too often been late as well. The TPE delays significantly impact on constituents interchanging at Stalybridge and have a knock-on effect on their arrival at work

As I told the Transport Secretary following his statement in the Commons, on Monday there were five cancellations at Greenfield station alone, and that was before the evening peak. That was under the new emergency timetable that was meant to address these issues, but made things worse. Such a level of incompetence from TPE and Northern is unacceptable and my constituents deserve much better.

The Government must ensure that appropriate compensation is paid to season ticket holders and that there is a reduction in general ticket prices. The announcement that there will be a special compensation scheme for passengers on affected routes on Northern is to be welcomed, but passengers affected by disruption to TPE services must also be included. The Government also need to look at wider compensation for people who may have had their wages docked or even worse. We have heard of cases where people are on final warnings and have been threatened with losing their jobs.

What details can the Minister provide on how passengers will receive appropriate redress for the disruption and other hardship that they have experienced since 20 May? My constituent’s children were under intolerable stress on their way to exams and experienced delays, which adds to their stress.

[Kate Green]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for drawing attention to the situation faced by constituents trying to travel to exams. I know of exactly the same situation. Even more shockingly, when a taxi had to be used and the cost was claimed back from Northern rail, it said that such expense would not be covered by the compensation system.

[Debbie Abrahams]

Clearly that is absolutely unacceptable. I hope the Minister will reassure us that that will not be the case and that he will take that up with Northern.

We need timescales, eligibility requirements, details of how passengers can claim, and confirmation that entitlements will be similar to those conferred by last year’s Southern passenger compensation scheme, as mentioned by the Transport Secretary on Monday. Will the Minister confirm that compensation for poor service will be measured against the original timetable proposed, not the slimmed-down one now on offer? Will Northern tickets be able to be used on other operators and modes of transport, as called for by my colleague, the Greater Manchester Mayor, Andy Burnham?

Northern’s action to set a unilateral timetable should not go unchallenged. I repeat my earlier point: passengers must be engaged with and consulted on the timetable. What discussions has the Minister had with Northern on customer consultation on the timetable? The Transport Secretary assured me and my hon. Friends the Members for Stalybridge and Hyde (Jonathan Reynolds) and for Colne Valley (Thelma Walker) on Monday evening that the emergency timetable will deliver significant improvements by today. I have mentioned what we have found out so far, but I will hold the Secretary of State to that.

What contingency arrangements are in place to remove the franchise from Northern if services do not rapidly improve for passengers across Greater Manchester? I would expect the contingency arrangements to be in place already. Finally, will the Department look to give Transport for the North the necessary policy and financial powers to ensure oversight of all suburban and regional services and work in tandem with Network Rail?

It is clear from this fiasco that our railways cannot be cared for properly from London, and the failure to fairly fund transport in the north exacerbates the problems we face, with deferred electrification and poor-quality, ageing rolling stock. The Minister will be aware that local and regional newspapers yesterday joined together under the banner #onenorth to fight for the north and called on the Government to prove their commitment to our region. I hope that his response will show that commitment.