Southern Rail: Gibb Report

Lord Rosser Excerpts

Tuesday 27th June 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan]

There have certainly been no attempts to run the service on the cheap and I do not agree with the noble Baroness that performance over the past six months has been poor. In fact, since strike action has been reduced, Southern Rail’s performance has significantly improved in the past six months. Its public performance measure, which measures performance across train operators, is up by 23 percentage points—from 62% in early December to 85% now. We want and expect that figure to improve further but, as Chris Gibb’s report makes clear, that can happen only if industrial action by the trade unions stops.

[Lord Rosser (Lab)]

In his report, Mr Gibb recommended that the Government should “urgently consider” transferring the East Croydon to Milton Keynes and Great Northern metro services from the problem-ridden GTR franchise to Transport for London in 2018. Mr Gibb also indicated that similar consideration might be given to transferring the inner-London Southern metro services in time for franchise renewal in 2021. The current Secretary of State for Transport previously made it clear that he would not transfer any further rail services to TfL, as that would mean giving control over more routes to a Labour mayor. The Government have now had six months to consider Mr Gibb’s recommendations on transferring more routes to TfL. What is the Government’s response to those recommendations—particularly those relating to 2018—and what are the reasons for the conclusions that the Government have reached on transferring more rail routes to TfL in the light of Mr Gibb’s recommendations?

[Lord Callanan]

Chris Gibb’s report sets out several reasons why Southern Rail faced problems last year, including disruption from infrastructure works, the process of introducing new trains and insufficient numbers of drivers at the start of the franchise. The Secretary of State has now ordered the operator to reduce reliance on overtime, which means that it has started to increase the number of drivers, although that has an 18-month lead time. We decided to proceed with 34 of Chris Gibb’s 38 recommendations, but the transfer of additional lines to TfL was not one that we proceeded with.