Asked by: Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Labour (Co-op) - Brighton, Kemptown)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what plans his Department has to build a bridge between Northern Ireland and Scotland.
Answered by Grant Shapps - Secretary of State for Defence
The previous Secretary of State met with DUP MP’s to discuss the proposals. Subsequently, officials provided advice to both the previous and current Secretary of State on the options available to facilitate a feasibility study.
Asked by: Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Labour (Co-op) - Brighton, Kemptown)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many times Thameslink Service trains ran without a second member of staff and stopped at unstaffed or part-time staffed stations in 2018.
Answered by Grant Shapps - Secretary of State for Defence
The Department does not hold this information. Govia Thameslink Railway, the operator of Thameslink services, has procedures in place for instances where a service operating without a second member of staff on board calls at an unstaffed station. For passengers who require assistance, there are a range of measures in place depending on the type of assistance that is required and the specific station. These measures are set out in Thameslink’s Disabled Persons Protection Policy (DPPP) which is available through this link: https://www.thameslinkrailway.com/travel-information/travel-help/assisted-travel/disabled-persons-protection-policy.
Asked by: Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Labour (Co-op) - Brighton, Kemptown)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment he has made of the effect of (a) driver controlled operation and (b) stations which are unstaffed or staffed part-time on accessibility for disabled people who wish to travel without pre-booking on Southern Railways.
Answered by Grant Shapps - Secretary of State for Defence
The Office of Rail and Road (ORR) and the Rail Safety and Standards Board (RSSB) have both confirmed that the driver operating the doors is a safe method of working. It is vital that train operators have policies in place so that passengers with disabilities are able to travel with confidence. ORR is the organisation which is responsible for the approval and monitoring of operators’ Disabled People’s Protection Policies (DPPP). Following the introduction of driver-controlled operation on Southern, ORR carried out a period of enhanced monitoring to ensure that policies were in place on Southern so that disabled passengers, regardless of whether they had pre-booked assistance or chose to travel spontaneously, and regardless of whether they were travelling to a staffed or unstaffed station, were able to complete their journey. ORR concluded that GTR had provided assurance that it has the systems and processes in place for this purpose. ORR continues to monitor operators’ compliance with their DPPP, and the Department supports it in doing so.
Asked by: Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Labour (Co-op) - Brighton, Kemptown)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, pursuant to the Answer of 13 March 2019 to Question 230103 on Southern Railways, what proportion of the trains cancelled due to there being no conductor was due to (a) official and (b) alleged unofficial industrial action.
Answered by Grant Shapps - Secretary of State for Defence
The Department does not hold information on the reasons why a conductor was not available to operate those services.
Asked by: Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Labour (Co-op) - Brighton, Kemptown)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what information his Department holds on driver controlled operation on Southern Rail services.
Answered by Grant Shapps - Secretary of State for Defence
The operation of services is a matter for the operator and they are generally best placed to respond to queries regarding practices like driver-controlled operation.
Asked by: Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Labour (Co-op) - Brighton, Kemptown)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many British Transport Police officers worked on the Southern Rail network in each of the last eight years.
Answered by Andrew Jones
The British Transport Police does not allocate officers exclusively to specific parts of the network. Train Operating Companies each contribute a share of the overall costs of policing the railway network through a Police Service Agreement (PSA) with BTP. The PSA does not specify or allocate officers to a particular PSA holder or area and it is the responsibility of the Chief Constable of BTP to determine the level of policing across the rail network as a whole.
Asked by: Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Labour (Co-op) - Brighton, Kemptown)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether his Department monitors the number of trains services without an on-board supervisor on the Southern Rail franchise.
Answered by Andrew Jones
The Department does not monitor these figures as a matter of course. We do, however, hold recent figures for the proportion of Southern services that have run without an on-board supervisor since the role was introduced in January 2017. These figures demonstrate that the percentage of services running without an on-board supervisor is very low and is decreasing over time.
Southern are only able to run services without an on-board supervisor in exceptional circumstances. This reduces the disruption to passengers, as if a conductor was due to work on these services, but is then unavailable, then they would have had to be cancelled.
Asked by: Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Labour (Co-op) - Brighton, Kemptown)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps he has taken to ensure that disabled people are able to access rail travel (a) in the absence of second safety critical member of staff and (b) at unstaffed stations.
Answered by Nusrat Ghani - Minister of State (Minister for Europe)
The Inclusive Transport Strategy, which was published in July 2018, sets out the action the Department is taking to improve access to transport for disabled people, including to the rail network. This includes working with industry partners to improve the Passenger Assist scheme through which disabled passengers can book the assistance they need, and the provision of information about accessibility to enable better journey planning.
All operators are required as a licence condition to have a Disabled People’s Protection Policy in place, which sets out how disabled people can seek assistance on board and at stations.
Asked by: Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Labour (Co-op) - Brighton, Kemptown)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment his Department has made of the effect on disabled passenger access to the rail network of (a) driver-only operations and (b) unstaffed stations.
Answered by Nusrat Ghani - Minister of State (Minister for Europe)
With growing passenger numbers, the Department has been clear that it wants to see more customer-facing staff on the railways, not fewer. For example, there are now more on-train staff on Southern and South Western Railways and their modernisation plans will mean more staff to assist passengers on trains. Regarding off-train staff, the number of staff employed at stations in Hampshire has increased by nearly 10% since 2010.
In addition, train and station operators are required as a condition of their licence to take part in the Passenger Assist scheme through which disabled passengers can book the assistance they need.
We believe that train operators themselves are best placed to determine how staff are deployed to best meet the needs of their passengers.
Asked by: Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Labour (Co-op) - Brighton, Kemptown)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what representations his Department has received from (a) organisations representing disabled people and (b) disabled people on the accessibility of the rail network.
Answered by Nusrat Ghani - Minister of State (Minister for Europe)
The Department is committed to ensuring that disabled people have equal access to the rail network. As such, officials and Ministers regularly engage with disabled people and organisations representing disabled people to discuss making the railways more accessible.
This includes, for example, the Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee, who are statutory independent advisors to the Government; extensive engagement with disabled people and disability organisations in the development and delivery of the Inclusive Transport Strategy; and the Inclusive Transport Stakeholder Group, which brings together the expertise of representative bodies to act as a sounding board for the Department on inclusive travel policy.