Rail Services (South-East England)

Lilian Greenwood Excerpts

Wednesday 12th February 2014 Westminster Hall

[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)]

Thank you, Sir Roger, for calling me to speak. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship today.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Dartford (Gareth Johnson) on securing this topical debate. All the hon. Members here in Westminster Hall this morning have ably described the challenges facing individual commuters and the vital role that rail plays in the wider south-east region. As we have heard, too often commuters face overcrowded trains and disruption, and season tickets have risen by an average of 20% since the election in 2010 while on many routes punctuality figures have stagnated or declined.

My hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham East (Heidi Alexander) emphasised the importance of the train to her constituents. Rail accounts for 45% of journeys into central London, a figure that rises to 79% of journeys if we include the underground and the Docklands Light Railway. Rail also serves the expanding leisure and freight markets, not only from the channel tunnel but from the region’s growing ports, such as Southampton.

The severe weather encountered in recent weeks has exposed the fragility of some of that infrastructure. Much attention nationally has focused on the enormous disruption in the south-west, but passengers are also facing cancellations and delays in the Thames valley, which has seen extensive flooding. The line between Oxted and Woldingham in Surrey is due to close for up to a week, and the line between Eastleigh and Fareham is not expected to reopen until the end of February. Landslips are causing misery for commuters in Hastings, as there have also been closures on the line to Tonbridge. The Minister should say today what assessment Network Rail has made of the stability of trackside banks along this route, and whether more maintenance work should have been done to secure them.

Even when closures are inevitable, clear information and decent alternative rail or bus replacement services are vital, but unfortunately they are often lacking, as both my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham East and the hon. Member for Dartford confirmed. To go back to one of the cases I mentioned before, as one passenger told the Rye & Battle Observer:

“As a regular commuter I am used to disruption but this is the worst I’ve ever seen in 27 years of commuting.”

Another passenger said that the operator was

“not talking with the bus company. There are scenes of chaos.”

The operator advised passengers to make use of its “delay repay” scheme, but Sarah Owen, Labour’s prospective parliamentary candidate for Hastings and Rye, has been contacted by passengers who have not received a prompt reply after contacting the company.

Train operators receive substantial compensation from Network Rail if the weather causes disruption, and when commuters are paying more than £4,000 for a season ticket—as my right hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr Denham) said, some commuters pay more than £5,200 for a season ticket—they expect and deserve better when there are problems.

Those problems are not limited to one particular line or operator. During last week’s debate secured by the hon. Member for Enfield North (Nick de Bois) about the Hertford loop line, which runs from Alexandra Palace to Stevenage, the Minister spoke about the timetable improvements that could be delivered when the new Thameslink, Southern and Great Northern franchises were let, although he did not go into detail on that occasion. However, the Minister should recognise that this Government’s actions have led to concerns on the part of passengers and communities.

For example, Milton Keynes is a rapidly growing town that relies on its strong rail links to London. The hon. Member for Milton Keynes South (Iain Stewart) is in the Chamber. The collapse of the west coast main line franchise competition, which, of course, has cost the taxpayer at least £55 million, has led to uncertainty about future services. The franchising debacle has put orders on hold, hurting the supply chain and threatening jobs and skills, including at the Railcare maintenance company in Wolverton. Commuters from Milton Keynes Central to London have seen the cost of their season tickets increase by £940 and are now paying 25% more than they did four years ago, well above the average increase of 20% in season ticket prices. They are paying the cost for the Government’s failure to impose a strict cap on rail fare rises, which Labour has called for. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen and my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham East rightly recognised, when commuters are already spending a large proportion of their income on transport costs, such increases in fares, far outstripping salary increases, are a real drain on family living standards.

My right hon. Friend highlighted passenger concerns about value for money, which reflects not just the amount that they are paying, but the quality of services that they are able to attract. Two main operators serve the station in Milton Keynes—Virgin west coast and London Midland—and both have been offered franchise extensions until the middle of 2017, as a direct result of the fiasco on the west coast main line. Is the Minister able to offer local commuters reassurance that the Department is planning at least to maintain current service frequencies when it re-lets that franchise, and will train operators be able to vary the current definition of peak time, under which some commuters could be paying even more? The Minister needs to answer such questions about problems directly caused as a result of extensions to timetables.

The Minister should also explain how he will tackle the aspirations of the constituents of the hon. Member for Dartford for wi-fi and smart ticketing and those of my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham East, including Mr Jolly, when the re-letting of the south-east franchise is delayed by more than four years.

Questions about service frequencies cut to the heart of one of the most pressing issues facing the railways: the lack of available track capacity. We have debated this issue many times in this Chamber and I do not intend to revisit those arguments in depth now, but it is a fact that passenger numbers have doubled over the past 20 years. Some lines that 50 years ago were deemed incapable of paying their way now form vital commuter arteries. For example, the link between Cambridge and Marks Tey in Suffolk was condemned in the Beeching report, although a short stub was eventually saved. The surviving route, which is sometimes known as the Lovejoy line, after the TV series, now supports bustling services during the morning peak. How many former routes might be similarly used today—reflecting some issues that hon. Members have raised today—to provide a better quality service?

As the capacity constraints on our existing network become increasingly apparent, it is right that we have to look at ways of enhancing the capacity of our existing lines, as well as exploring the opportunity for reopening old lines where there is a compelling case for doing so. This is particularly important in light of the severe disruption caused in the south-west by the storm damage at Dawlish. That is why Labour supported High Speed 1, which has enabled greatly enhanced commuter services from many communities in Kent, including those on the line itself, and those which benefit from Javelin services, which transfer to and from the conventional rail network. These trains have created commuter routes that previously would not have been feasible for many travellers, including the high-speed services from Deal. I pay tribute to the local campaigners, including Labour’s parliamentary candidate Clair Hawkins, who have put real pressure on the operator and the Department for Transport to secure those services, despite timetable extensions putting those at risk.

Labour is also committed to the £6 billion Thameslink programme, which represents a huge investment in new rolling stock and infrastructure improvements that will substantially increase capacity on one of the most intensively used routes in Europe. Unfortunately, the programme was paused after the election and it took an unacceptable two years to reach financial close on the contract for the new rolling stock. Given the limited number of officials working on Thameslink, the Public Accounts Committee has warned that

“we remain sceptical about whether the Department has the capacity to deliver the remainder of the programme by 2018.”

It is vital for rail services in both London and the south-east that Ministers get this project back on track and deliver it on time and within its budget.

Labour also oversaw the devolution of rail services in London to Transport for London, as my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham East mentioned. The Campaign for Better Transport has provided compelling evidence of the improvements made since 2007: the new rolling stock secured and stations transformed from the drab, unstaffed stops that characterised the old Silverlink franchise. As a result, passenger numbers and passenger satisfaction is up, bringing in more revenue for the service. I am sure that hon. Members who represent communities along the West Anglian suburban lines to Enfield and Chingford hope for similar improvements when services are devolved to London Overground next year. I understand my hon. Friend’s aspirations in asking for further devolution to be considered.

Labour also passed the legislation for Crossrail and committed funding to make a project that had been discussed since the 1940s into a reality. Crossrail will radically improve rail connections and capacity in London and the south-east, while supporting the wider UK manufacturing industry and the supply chain. The previous Government also took the important step of safeguarding potential future routes to Reading and Gravesend, which could include extending the service to the constituency of the hon. Member for Dartford.

The previous Government took action to address the growing constraints on the rail network in the south-east, and the important work of my right hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen focused minds on the challenges facing ordinary families in the south. Today, Labour’s candidates are taking the lead when it comes to campaigning for better services in Hastings, in Dover and Deal and in Milton Keynes, and across the region as a whole. Labour is the only party campaigning for a strict cap on rail fares to benefit commuters facing the cost of living crisis, and we are committed to improving rail services for passengers.

My right hon. Friend is right to raise the issue of fairness. We are the only party willing to take a fresh look at our rail industry to secure a better deal for passengers and taxpayers from the billions of pounds that are invested every year.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Goodwill]

I suppose that my constituents would counter that by saying that the east coast main line is the line that contributes to the Government’s coffers, whether through a franchise operation or its current nationalised express, as I think someone called it the other day. A lot of investment is going into London and the south-east because that is where we see the most congestion and overcrowding. The £6.5 billion investment in Thameslink will link Kent, Sussex and Surrey, through central London, with Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire. The Thameslink programme will deliver up to 1,140 carriages of high-capacity, next-generation rolling stock, in addition to some 600 new carriages that are being provided as part of the Crossrail project, which is a significant enhancement of the rail network’s capacity. I do not need to mention that Crossrail is the biggest engineering project in Europe. I was down there yesterday morning to see how work is progressing, and it is expected to be delivered on time.

My hon. Friend the Member for Dartford referred specifically to the service provided by Southeastern. As one would expect, the Department closely monitors rail performance, and I will spend a moment providing a little more detail on some of the recent performance trends. The key headline indicator for rail performance is the public performance measure, which measures the percentage of services that arrive between one minute early and five minutes late of their timetabled time.

The most recent period data available, from April 2013 to 1 February 2014, show a total average PPM score for the Southeastern network of 89.8%, which is 2.4 percentage points below the target agreed between the operator and Network Rail. Southeastern’s PPM score positions it in the lower mid-table when compared with all other train operating companies. Compared with similar operators in the region, Southeastern has a higher PPM score than Southern Railway, which is at 86.8%, and a slightly lower PPM score than South West Trains at 90.2%.

Southeastern’s franchise agreement, in keeping with all franchise agreements, includes operator performance benchmarks for delay minutes, cancellations and train capacity. Those benchmarks are a contractual requirement, which, if breached, can result in actions against the operator, such as additional passenger benefits at no cost to the Department or, in the case of extreme poor performance, franchise termination. Southeastern is currently performing within its contractual benchmarks and has been doing so for the duration of its franchise. My officials assure me that swift action will be taken if performance benchmarks are breached.

[Lilian Greenwood]

Those figures indicate that, for many passengers, one in 10 services will be delayed, and the franchise has been extended by more than four years. How can passengers feel confident that the system is on their side when, effectively, the franchise will continue for a long period without passengers seeing any improvement in performance?

[Mr Goodwill]

As the hon. Lady knows, not all delays are due to the actions of the franchisee. Network Rail sometimes has some explaining to do, particularly on overrunning engineering works, which can be a problem. I will address that later in my speech.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Goodwill]

I note that point. Commuters use High Speed 1 to access London, so it would probably be unfair to exclude the line from the figures. I merely note that the figures are skewed because of the excellent performance of High Speed 1, which is built to a much higher standard. The angles of embankments, the engineering and the standard of the overhead lines are of a higher standard than the third-rail service used by many other trains, which can be disrupted by bad weather.

Southeastern is keen to influence improvement in Network Rail’s performance, and it recently requested a formal review with the Office of Rail Regulation, given several periods of missed delay minute targets. There are particular concerns about trees on the track, which can be mitigated through good vegetation management. There is also concern about landslips, which are controllable through targeted drainage management. Network Rail has its own views on the reasons for the disappointing drop in its performance, which it primarily puts down to extreme, unprecedented weather. Network Rail does, however, accept that performance must improve significantly, and it is engaged in open dialogue with Southeastern. We have told Southeastern that it must continue to challenge Network Rail to improve its performance on the Southeastern network. I await with interest the outcome of the formal review and expect to see both parties working together on targeted improvement strategies in the coming months.

Although Network Rail’s performance on Southeastern’s network has been unsatisfactory recently, investment has not been neglected. Major programmes of investment completed or started in the past 12 months include a £16 million upgrade of Gravesend station, a £7 million upgrade of Dartford station and a £6 million upgrade of Denmark Hill station.

[Lilian Greenwood]

The Minister is generous with his time. Returning to the point he made a moment ago, is he satisfied with the work that Network Rail has done to assess the stability and resilience of its railway? Has it been doing enough maintenance work to ensure that the network can cope with the difficult weather conditions that we have seen in recent weeks?

[Mr Goodwill]

I have already said that a full assessment needs to be done on how the adverse weather might have affected the stability of some tracks and on how vegetation management could contribute to fewer instances where lines are blocked by fallen trees. It is, however, often difficult to predict these weather situations. With the St Jude’s storm, the trees were in leaf, so trees that normally would not have succumbed to the high winds were brought down. I am sure that the hon. Lady would not suggest widespread desecration of the green corridors, which many rail lines offer and have environmental and ecological benefits.

In the near future, a new station at Rochester will be built, with completion in the winter of 2015. Nationwide, Network Rail has invested and will continue to invest billions of pounds in maintaining and improving the rail network. Between 2009 and 2014, it invested more than £37 billion, and more than £38 billion will be invested in the next five years.

Although the operational performance on the Kent route as measured by PPM has been disappointing over recent months, there is some positive news from the autumn 2013 passenger survey results, which were published by Passenger Focus last month. That independent survey of passengers’ views showed that 84% of passengers are satisfied with Southeastern’s service, matching the company’s record performance achieved off the back of the Olympics success in 2012. The result was also better than the national average of 83% and the average for London and south-east operators of 82%. That is an industry-leading result and is very encouraging, particularly given the severe weather experienced during that period. I suspect that some of that result is down to passengers understanding that severe weather causes disruption and not blaming the rail company specifically for that.

In further positive news, Southeastern’s performance on the provision of information about trains and platforms rose significantly to 83%, from last year’s score of 78%. That is a London and south-east sector-leading result. Southeastern’s performance did, however, decline on punctuality, reliability and rolling stock condition. Southeastern remains relatively close to the London and south-east average, and it exceeds the sector average on punctuality. In fairness to Southeastern, it is hardly surprising that customers’ ratings on punctuality and reliability have fallen, given the severe weather experienced and the escalating delay minutes attributable to Network Rail. Even given those relatively positive results, there is no complacency in the Department. My officials have discussed the issues with Southeastern and have received assurances that it is committed to driving improvements in the national passenger survey variables. Indeed, the future franchise will link financial reward to NPS performance.

On the specific points raised in the debate, I was pleased that my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford mentioned the safer station scheme, which has been such a success. I hope that we will build on that progress. He also mentioned the cost and availability of parking at stations. We need to build more cycle parking. I have been to a number of cycle parks at stations around the country and know that providing cycle parks facilitates the use of more environmentally benign ways to get to stations, and we are keen to build on that progress.

The right hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr Denham) discussed how the rise in fares and season tickets affected his constituents. A season ticket from Southampton costs £5,200 and the hon. Member for Lewisham East (Heidi Alexander) mentioned that a season ticket from Hither Green costs £976. People planning their commute might look at alternatives, and purchasing and running a car for £5,200 would be a challenge, particularly if the congestion charge was included. A season ticket from Hither Green costs less than paying the congestion charge for a car for a year. We are aware of the real issues that people face in paying for their commute and how it affects their decisions on where to live. People might find that they cannot afford property in central London, but also that they cannot afford the commute from further afield.

The fares that we collect enable us to secure investment in the rail infrastructure, and the fare box must play its part. Passengers on Southeastern trains have experienced large fare rises because of the retail prices index plus 3% fares cap, which was put in place when the franchise was let under the previous Government. The hon. Member for Nottingham South drew attention to those rises, but did not volunteer to take any of the blame for them. Members will be aware that the Chancellor announced that we would lower the cap on regulated fare rises, and that includes most season tickets. On average, those rises will be no more than RPI. That applies not only to Southeastern trains, but to all franchises for which the Government are responsible. It is the first time in 10 years that that has been the case.

Mention was made of other franchises around the country and the level of satisfaction with them, despite large subsidies. In my constituency, the Northern Rail franchise does not receive very high customer satisfaction ratings, and a lot of that is down to the regularity of the services. The first train from Whitby to Middlesbrough, for example, does not arrive at its destination much before 10 o’clock in the morning, and much of the rolling stock is old indeed.

[Lilian Greenwood]

I am reluctant to ask the question, given that the debate is on rail in the south-east, but the Minister mentioned rolling stock on the Northern Rail franchise. The Pacer trains are extremely old and rather uncomfortable. What plans do the Government have to update the rolling stock on that franchise?

[Mr Goodwill]

I fear we are digressing, Sir Roger, but my point was that I share the pain, given the level of ridership on those trains. The hon. Member for Lewisham East mentioned the 12-car trains and called for longer trains through her constituency. She will be aware that discussions are ongoing on a new Southeastern franchise, and I will ensure that her views are fed into that discussion, to see what can be done, although it is a busy stretch of railway and there are limits on the amount of rolling stock available. She also mentioned overrunning engineering works, which are a perennial problem that affect a number of lines up and down the country. We are aware of the possession overruns by Network Rail, but one cannot plan for unexpected situations, such as fires at signal boxes, suicides and copper theft, which result in disruption on the railway and Network Rail has little control over them.

The shadow Minister made a number of points and was very good at mentioning many prospective candidates, and I wish them well. It is true that Southeastern has cancelled many more trains than usual, particularly in December 2013. Cancellations for the previous five months were ahead of plan, and Southeastern has admitted that the problems in December could have been managed better. The spike in cancellations was due to staff and drivers not working overtime, as is normal, due to the poor weather. In addition, many drivers could not get to work due to disruption to roads and rail infrastructure. Southeastern said that it has learned lessons from the incident.

On the Thameslink upgrade, the plans are completely on track and it will be a phenomenal success, delivering a step change in capacity through central London from 2018.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford will know, the Department is planning a four-year direct award contract with Southeastern from October 2014, in accordance with the refranchising programme borne out of the Brown and Laidlaw reviews. As he will understand, I cannot go into the specifics, as we are due to enter negotiations with Southeastern in the coming months. I can, however, outline some of the expected service and performance benefits.

The new Kent franchise has been specifically designed with customer satisfaction at its heart. For that reason, an innovative performance regime, which contractually requires operator-funded investments where national passenger survey targets are not met, has been included. In addition, a financial incentive regime will be linked to the standard operator benchmarks of delay minutes, cancellations and train capacity, which are the contractual measures that I mentioned earlier. Attaching financial reward to customer satisfaction and operational performance is an essential element of the new franchise and is designed to drive passenger benefits and, ultimately, continued strong growth in rail travel.

Making performance more transparent is another aim of the new franchise. Southeastern currently reports an average monthly public performance measure, but in the new franchise, it will be required to publish PPM performance data by route, which addresses my hon. Friend’s point, in addition to its overall PPM average. We will discuss with Southeastern what other information can be published about customer experience. I expect that increased transparency will help passengers to make better-informed travel decisions and allow improvement strategies targeted by the operator on the worst-performing routes. Greater transparency will also enable my officials more effectively to challenge the operator’s delivery.

On timetable enhancements, Southeastern has consulted on a number of improvements for the new franchise, including extending Victoria to Dartford services later into the evening and all-day services between Deal and Sandwich and St Pancras. There is, of course, no guarantee that the proposed enhancements will be accepted by Network Rail, but they are under active consideration and demonstrate that Southeastern is responding to customer demand. Southeastern is also in discussions with Transport for London about extending Oyster services to Stratford International, Dartford and Swanley. Again, I cannot guarantee that the proposals will be realised in the current franchise or the direct award period, but they are under real consideration. Indeed, when I last met the Mayor of London and Sir Peter Hendy, they said that they were keen to roll out cashless payments for journeys into London, but I note my hon. Friend’s comment that that need not be facilitated by extending TfL’s empire into Kent.

In conclusion, we are aware of the issues that my hon. Friend has raised about this important commuter area. I assure him that we will maintain pressure on the operator both to exceed performance targets and to work with Network Rail to facilitate a step change in their performance. I am currently satisfied that Southeastern is committed to driving improvements, as evidenced by its efforts to secure an Office of Rail Regulation formal review with its industry partner, Network Rail. I hope that by outlining some of the Department for Transport’s plans for the four-year direct award period, I have shown that the Department is committed to driving real improvements in transparency, performance and customer satisfaction. I am grateful to my hon. Friend for bringing performance on the Southeastern network to the attention of the House.