Lord Pannick
Main Page: Lord Pannick (Crossbench - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Pannick's debates with the Department for Transport
(6 years, 4 months ago)
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Baroness Sugg
My Lords, on GTR and Southern, obviously there has been awful disruption on Southern in recent years. The franchise was designed to deliver the Thameslink programme and the department has been keeping a close eye on that. However, with the introduction of the new timetable, services have further failed.
On the information provided to the Secretary of State and around the wider timetable changes, I fully acknowledge that the correct information was not given to the Secretary of State. That is why we have set up this inquiry: to ensure that we learn lessons for the future and investigate what went wrong.
On compensation, we are working hard with the train operating companies and Network Rail on the exact details, which will be announced in the coming days.
Lord Pannick (CB)
My Lords, on 4 June the Secretary of State told the House of Commons, in relation to GTR:
“Let me be absolutely clear: passengers on these franchises are facing totally unsatisfactory levels of service”.—[Official Report, 4/6/18; col. 1190.]
He added that,
“my immediate priority is to ensure that the industry improves train services to an acceptable level as quickly as possible”.—[Official Report, 4/6/18; col. 1194.]
As a commuter on the Thameslink route from Radlett to City Thameslink, may I tell the Minister that the service has not improved over the last month? Indeed, it is getting worse. Will the Minister please tell me and the House why the Secretary of State has not done what he promised to do a month ago?
Baroness Sugg
My Lords, I apologise to the noble Lord for the experience he has had on his commute, and to all passengers. Resolution of this issue remains an absolute priority. GTR is currently working towards implementing a temporary timetable on 15 July, with the aim of bringing stability and performance improvements for passengers. Like many passengers on Thameslink and Great Northern, I am frustrated that the service is not stabilising sooner. GTR has a new CEO, who starts on Monday. He has been given a clear mandate to improve stability, and we expect the timetable change to start delivering improved reliability and stability to the service.