Train Services: North of England

Lord Foulkes of Cumnock Excerpts

Monday 27th February 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I am not entirely sure that the picture is quite as the noble Baroness has set out. There is not necessarily a misuse of P-codes; the issue is that there has to be a point in the day beyond which a cancellation counts and has to be published as a same-day cancellation and the period before, when a cancellation can happen for all sorts of different reasons, including engineering works and a reduction in timetables, asked for by the department to ensure reliability. We are working very closely with the ORR on the transparency of the cancellation data that is out there. There will of course be P-code data, but there will be other data around the cancellation of train services. When it comes to performance figures, all of the data is taken into account.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, I caught the train from Edinburgh Waverley at 9.30 am and got here in plenty of time for Questions because I travelled on the publicly owned LNER. When are the Government going to learn that lesson?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

My Lords, I went to Liverpool the Friday before last; I got there on time and I returned on time. There are journeys across the country, and across the north, that work on time and to a great level of passenger experience. However, it is the case that, where services are not working properly, we need to hold the operators to account and make them better.