Southern Rail

Maria Caulfield Excerpts

Friday 20th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Maria Caulfield (Lewes) (Con)]

Today, the world is watching political speeches of historic significance, and I hope my Adjournment debate does not disappoint.

I thank the House for once again allowing the issue of Southern rail to be debated in the Chamber. While many of my constituents—in fact, many people in the south-east region—were pleased to hear that next week’s strikes by the ASLEF union have been halted and that a normal Southern rail service should start again on Tuesday, the fear of a “normal” Southern experience is filling some people with trepidation.

The normal service in the Southern region for the last 18 months to two years has been extremely poor. At times, performance has gone down to a level where fewer than 40% of trains have turned up on time, and the average is around 66%. That compares with over 90% for other operators, so we in the Southern region certainly suffer more than most. It is not just late trains and cancellations. Trains are often short-formed, going from 12 carriages down to 10 or eight. There is also poor customer service, and we have even had our trolley service removed from our trains, to add insult to injury.

Many constituents have been to see me, whether that is individuals who have shared their experience of getting to work late, getting home late and being at risk of losing their jobs, or businesses, and I recently attended the local chamber of commerce breakfast meeting in Seaford, where businesses told me that trade was down because no one could get to them to use their services. In my four towns of Lewes, Seaford, Polegate and Newhaven, the experience is exactly the same.

My constituency has suffered more than most. We are a Southern-only constituency, and we do not have Thameslink or Gatwick Express. We are a very rural constituency, so there are few other forms of transport available. Not all our little villages have a GP, a post office or a school, so people use the trains to get to the main towns or the neighbouring villages to use the services there. When there is no train, people are literally cut off from the rest of the world.

When people come to see me, I say that there are three reasons why the rail service has not been great in our Southern region. The first, of course, is the dispute. As I said at the beginning, that is hopefully on the way to being resolved. We are glad about that, and we praise all those involved in getting people back round the table.

The second issue is Network Rail. Over 50% of delays on the Southern rail network have been down to rail infrastructure issues. We have an old line in the constituency and across Surrey and London. It has lacked investment for 10 to 20 years, leading to recurring signal problems, point failures and track failures. I was pleased that one of the first tasks the Secretary of State undertook when he came into post was to outline some of the initial investment in the track.

[Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making a typically powerful case, as a diligent constituency MP. Does she agree that, while passengers understand that there will be service outages, what frustrates them is the lack of information? What we need is proper co-ordination between the train operating companies and Network Rail in real time so that people can make alternative arrangements.

[Maria Caulfield]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. It is as if he is psychic, because that was going to be my very next point. As well as the investment, the Secretary of State has asked the Rail Delivery Group to bring together Network Rail and the rail operator so that when there are problems on the tracks, passengers have a better experience through better customer service and information about alternative routes. We have all felt frustrated on a Monday morning when engineering works have overrun and trains have been cancelled because of poor communication between Network Rail and the rail operator. Those two points, however, do not take away from Southern rail’s poor performance. As we move from the dispute to a normal rail service, my constituency wants a good rail service.

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

I thank the hon. Lady for bringing the issue to the House. Her constituents and mine suffer the daily misery of the failure of Southern rail. Does she agree that Southern’s performance has been so bad over the past two years that it should have been stripped of its franchise, and that it is because of a problem with the structure of the franchise that that has not been contractually possible? Will she join me in calling on the Secretary of State to look as a matter of urgency at ways in which the franchise can be stripped from the operator and handed to Transport for London or another part of the public sector, such as the Department for Transport, to run in the interim while the service is sorted out?

[Maria Caulfield]

The Secretary of State is on record as saying that once the dispute is resolved, the performance of Southern rail will have to be tackled. I can only speak for myself when I say that I would look at all the options. It is not acceptable to my constituents and others across the country that only 66% of train services run on time. I know of people who are losing, or who have lost, their jobs and who are moving home because of that poor performance. People miss flights from Gatwick airport, which is on the rail line; I even know of a young couple who missed their honeymoon because of Southern rail. Getting to and from work is also an issue. I have been contacted by many parents who have had to arrange extra childcare because they have been unable to get home in time to collect their children from school.

I agree with the hon. Lady. I want the Minister to outline the timescale within which we expect performance to improve. We cannot go on for months with poor performance. Before the dispute, Southern was fined £2 million for its poor performance, but given how much it earns from the contract, that is a drop in the ocean. It would be helpful if the Minister could outline the timescale within which he will measure Southern rail’s performance and the sanctions that will be imposed on it if it does not improve the service.

This is not just about the number of trains that are cancelled or delayed. A huge number of constituents contact me when trains fail to stop at stations. If people in rural constituencies such as mine miss their stop because the train keeps going, the next stop is often 10 miles away, which can mean a taxi ride home. They might even be dropped off at an unmanned station without any lighting or a taxi service. The situation is heart-breaking. There are more issues than the sheer number of cancellations and delays. My Lewes constituents often find that their train will terminate at Haywards Heath for no reason. It usually divides, but if there is no driver or guard it just terminates and they are left to their own devices to try to get home. Short trains are also causing severe overcrowding. There should be no reason for suddenly cutting a 12-carriage train to eight carriages. There are also huge concerns about the timetable for 2018. Residents are deeply concerned about the proposals to cut the only direct services from the town of Seaford to London.

Although I welcome the Secretary of State’s announcement of a refund equivalent to the cost of a month’s travel for season ticket holders, it is not working. Not one of my constituents has heard from Southern rail, and I would be surprised if anyone else has, either. They were supposed to be contacted in January and told how they would get the rebate, but not one of them has heard anything. That goes hand in hand with the everyday experience of the delay repay scheme. The Government have tried to reduce the length of the delay for which people can claim from 30 minutes to 15 minutes, but time and again I hear from constituents who say that the system is not working. Passengers have to apply online or by post, and they often find that their forms are lost or their claims are challenged by Southern rail. Most of us do not bother using Delay Repay, so the train operator is getting off scot-free. Our constituents do not receive compensation for the taxis that they have to take when their train does not turn up or when it terminates early, or for the extra childcare that they have to pay out for. Simply compensating people for the rail fare that they have paid is not enough.

Part of the issue is the key card system. Unlike in the TfL system in the zones around London, passengers have no opportunity to use a contactless card; they have to use a Southern rail key card. It must be pre-loaded before a journey, which means that passengers cannot spontaneously get on a train without pre-loading their card first. If they have not left enough time and the IT system is not coping, the ticket will not have loaded on to the key card in time, and they will not be able to get through the barrier. It is a cumbersome, clunky ticketless system, and it is part of the reason why people cannot claim their refunds.

We were promised flexible season tickets for people who travel, as I do, two or three times a week. With more people working at home, the traditional season ticket is rapidly becoming outdated. Southern is still consulting on the flexible season ticket that we were promised and has not delivered on it. I would be interested to hear an update on that from the Minister.

Another key issue that I want to outline is the experience of disabled passengers. Particularly in the towns of Seaford and Newhaven, an appalling bus replacement service has been provided, using buses that are not wheelchair accessible. Many disabled passengers have been turned away over the last few months, because they have been unable to get on to those buses. Taxis have been ordered, but disabled passengers have experienced long waits. That is unacceptable, in my belief. Even when the rail service is working, disabled passengers have to pre-book and hope that their booking will result in station staff being there to help them. Many disabled passengers have contacted me to say that the assistance that they have booked has not been available at the station and they have been unable to get on to their train.

A final point on the experience of disabled passengers concerns toilets. There are no “Changing Places” toilets in my constituency. Haywards Heath, which is a big junction for my constituents, has had a huge upgrade. It has a new car park and a fantastic system that allows wheelchair users to take a lift directly to the platform, but there are no suitable toilet facilities. That led to one of my young constituents, who goes to Chailey Heritage School, having to be changed on the platform because there was nowhere among the new all-singing, all-dancing facilities for her to be changed. In this day and age, that is completely unacceptable.

I welcome this week’s announcement, and it is a huge relief to us all that the dispute seems to be coming to an end. For us, it is the first step in getting an improved rail service. The experience over the last 18 months has been absolutely dreadful. We dread returning to a normal Southern timetable. We want a good Southern timetable with trains that turn up on time; that are not cancelled or delayed; that do not terminate early; and that are accessible for all passengers. If that does not happen, we want the reassurance that Southern will be taken to task and dealt with by means of financial penalties or, if it comes to it, a change in the franchise.