Southern Rail

Maria Caulfield Excerpts

Monday 5th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Paul Maynard]

As Members will be aware, Chris Gibb is an experienced railwayman with a deep understanding of the industry and of that network. His report will look at all the issues that the hon. Gentleman has just raised. We look forward to receiving it and deciding the most appropriate action we can take to deliver the improvements that not only he but all of us in the Chamber are impatient to see.

[Maria Caulfield (Lewes) (Con)]

Given that from tomorrow two of my towns, Seaford and Newhaven, will see their rail service cease to exist once again and instead have bus replacement services, and that from next week 14 of the stations in my constituency will see no rail service at all for nine days out of 14, the Government response is just not good enough. They need to intervene between the unions and Southern rail and get this sorted.

[Paul Maynard]

My hon. Friend has never been anything less than assiduous in campaigning on behalf of Lewes, Seaford and Newhaven and their rail services, but the diminution in service to her constituency is due to an ASLEF threat of strike action against something that its members have been doing for many, many months—30% of our commuter network is driver-controlled operation. ASLEF has been operating this system for many, many months on the new class 700s, yet its members are now striking against precisely what they have been doing. That, also, is disproportionate and unreasonable.

Oral Answers to Questions

Maria Caulfield Excerpts

Thursday 17th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Paul Maynard]

I am sure that the hon. Gentleman recognises the importance of engaging in adequate revenue protection on the railways, but I accept that when people have inadvertently, for whatever reason, not been able to purchase a ticket, there is a sense of unfairness. I will make sure that I write to Northern Rail and get a reply for him.

[Maria Caulfield (Lewes) (Con)]

7. What his policy is on improving rail infrastructure in Sussex.

[The Secretary of State for Transport (Chris Grayling)]

My hon. Friend will be aware that we are making a range of substantial investments on the rail network in Sussex, including in longer platforms on the Uckfield line, a new Thameslink depot and upgraded power systems. That said, I want to be clear that I am well aware of the frustrations felt by passengers in her constituency. Quite apart from the disgraceful and unwarranted industrial action that is taking place at the moment, one of the key issues is that this network is not reliable enough. I give her and her constituents an assurance that I am looking very hard at how to step up a programme of incremental improvements to stop the day-by-day breakdowns that are making the current issues much worse.

[Maria Caulfield]

I welcome the investment in infrastructure, which is causing 50% of the delays. Does the Secretary of State not agree that, in the long term, a second rail main line between Sussex and London is needed to increase rail capacity in the south-east and to improve journey times for my constituents?

[Chris Grayling]

I am well aware of the degree of campaigning behind the Brighton main line 2 concept. My hon. Friend the rail Minister and I have discussed that, and I am aware that a report has sat on the desk for much too long. I intend to make sure that it does not sit on the desk for very much longer.

Oral Answers to Questions

Maria Caulfield Excerpts

Thursday 15th September 2016 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

Let us be clear. Labour was in power for 13 years and did not tackle the issue. I am very clear that this is an unacceptable practice, and we intend to unveil tough action on it shortly.

[Maria Caulfield (Lewes) (Con)]

T2. Do Ministers agree that the Brighton main line 2 rail line, which will reopen the Lewes to Uckfield line and has a feasibility study ongoing at the moment, is the only realistic long-term solution that will increase rail capacity to the Sussex coast?

[Chris Grayling]

I am very interested in this as a proposal, and it is being looked at very carefully. What I would say to my hon. Friend, to every Member on the Southern route and to all the passengers on the Southern route is that I recognise that the issues over the last few months have been unacceptable. I am working hard with all those involved, and I have unveiled a number of changes in recent weeks, which I believe will help to get this situation resolved as quickly as possible. It has not been acceptable; it has to be dealt with, and we are working as hard as we can to ensure that it is.

Govia Thameslink Rail Service

Maria Caulfield Excerpts

Wednesday 13th July 2016 Westminster Hall

[Maria Caulfield (Lewes) (Con)]

It is not just the new timetable that is the issue. My constituents have faced delays for many weeks and months. Last month, more than 1,350 trains were delayed each and every week. My constituents are fed up. I will not go over the impact it is having on many of them, but their experiences reflect much of what has been said.

My constituency is rural, so the train service is the only form of public transport available to many people. I share Wivelsfield station with my right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex (Sir Nicholas Soames). Plumpton, Cooksbridge, Glynde, Berwick and Polegate are also in my area, and are all facing significant delays. Cooksbridge has only ever had peak-time services. One of my campaigns during the election was to get an off-peak and weekend service for Cooksbridge, but I was told by Southern that it could not do that because it would add two minutes to the timetable.

My main concern for my residents is the new timetable, which was introduced on Monday with less than a week’s notice. Services on the branch line have been cut by 80%, and are being run by a replacement bus service. Those service cuts affect the stations of Southease, Newhaven Town, Newhaven Harbour, Bishopstone and Seaford.

Seaford is the largest town in my constituency, with 27,000 people who can no longer get to work and who have to travel to Brighton or Eastbourne, which they can no longer access by train to get to a hospital. There are young people who want to go to the University of Brighton or the University of Sussex, as there is only a sixth-form in the town, but they cannot access higher or further education because they have no train service. It is a tourist town, which depends on people not just leaving the town for work, but coming into the town to spend money.

Newhaven is a town that we are trying desperately to regenerate. I went over to France to try to save the ferry that goes from Newhaven to Dieppe only a few weeks ago. The French put £20 million a year into that ferry, and I am ashamed to say to them, “There is no longer any train service to Newhaven.”

I have five asks of the Minister. First, each and every train ticket, whether it is a single ticket or a season ticket, needs a fare reduction of 25%. Secondly, we need the urgent reintroduction of the branch line for the reasons I mentioned. Thirdly, we need new management to take over Southern. If we are not going to remove the franchise, let us get people in who can run it. No other rail operator has experienced such a level of delays when introducing driver-only trains.

Fourthly, the trolley service needs to be reintroduced. Passengers cannot be on a train for three hours and not be able to buy a bottle of water or a sandwich. The Two Ronnies made a career of making jokes out of British Rail sandwiches; we can laugh no longer because there is no trolley service available at all on my trains. Fifthly, first class needs to be declassified. I have been on a train when an elderly woman had nowhere to sit and was fined by Southern because she used first class. That is disgraceful. In the words of my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), enough is enough.

Oral Answers to Questions

Maria Caulfield Excerpts

Thursday 10th December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr McLoughlin]

Just to put the record right, the conversations in 2011 that the right hon. Gentleman refers to were not held in the Department for Transport—they were held elsewhere. I very well remember both the case he made and visiting the vessel in the summer of 2013.

[Maria Caulfield (Lewes) (Con)]

14. What his policy is on improvement of rail services in the south-east.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Claire Perry)]

The Government are investing heavily in service improvements in this region through the multibillion pound Thameslink programme, in which new trains, service and station improvements will finally start to be delivered next year. However, I am the first to recognise that the current performance, especially on the Brighton main line, has been well below expectations. That is why I continue to chair the Southeastern quadrant taskforce, which focuses on driving up performance on these vital routes. I wish to invite my hon. Friend and all other interested hon. Members to a new year taskforce meeting in which we will discuss performance improvements specifically for those routes.

[Maria Caulfield]

I thank the Minister for her reply and her hard work in dealing with this issue. Given that Southern rail is about to roll out a new timetable on the Brighton main line and that its performance has been so poor, will she provide all Sussex MPs with a monthly performance report so that we can personally put pressure on Southern rail to deliver?

[Claire Perry]

My hon. Friend raises an excellent point. I am told that all that information is on the Govia Thameslink Railway website, but I confess that I find it quite difficult to find and quite hard to interpret. I will ensure that the information, which is already provided by the operator to my Department and published, is made available to members of the public and their MPs in the most obvious and transparent form, so that we can all see the performance improvement that we want.

Southern Railway (Performance)

Maria Caulfield Excerpts

Wednesday 8th July 2015 Westminster Hall

[Maria Caulfield (Lewes) (Con)]

I will not go over all the issues raised so far, as my experiences of Southern mirror those of a number of Members. Passengers in my constituency of Lewes include those travelling from Wivelsfield, which is not in my constituency but is used by a number of my constituents, Cooksbridge, Plumpton, Seaford, Newhaven, Polegate and Berwick. They are commuters going to London, air passengers going to Gatwick, business people trying to get to appointments and tourists trying to visit the South Downs national park and the coastal strip.

Although it is good news that fares are to be frozen for the duration of this Parliament, a season ticket costs £4,408, so let us not pretend that it is cheap by any means—and the service is poor. Passengers and my residents are fed up of game playing and excuses—national rail issues are often used as an excuse when the problem is actually a Southern issue. A number of Members have mentioned London Bridge station. Although the improvement works there are welcome, they are too often used as an excuse for Southern’s poor service.

There are improvements in the way that we can claim back fares, but that is not what people want. They would far rather have a decent rail service so that they can get to work on time. The delays are so frequent that, as the hon. Member for Upper Bann (David Simpson) said, people are not bothering to claim, because it is too time-consuming. People are missing flights to and from Gatwick, and are late for work. Several key problems are now happening on almost a daily basis.

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

Does the hon. Lady agree that the issue that has come up time and again in the debate is the frequency of lateness, the lack of information for passengers so that they can put complaints in at the time rather than several weeks later, and then the inability of the company to react to complaints immediately and resolve the issue?

[Maria Caulfield]

I absolutely agree with those points, which replicate the experience of a number of my constituents.

On almost a daily basis there is no longer a rush hour, as people leave earlier and earlier for work and then leave later and later to get home, so that they can actually get on a train—never mind having to stand. Train drivers do not turn up on regular basis. As a commuter myself, I would say it happens almost two or three times a week; certainly I have heard that excuse on a number of occasions. As the hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes) said, the number of carriages is cut, often at very short notice—almost as people are getting on the train—leading to further overcrowding and congestion.

Southern has recently cut a train from the timetable to try to make the 7.29 from Brighton run on time, meaning passengers are no longer able to get on that service at Wivelsfield. The advice is to travel to Haywards Heath instead, which can take half an hour, and anyway there is no parking at the station for those who travel there. That is not an acceptable way of keeping to the timetable. I have also experienced elderly people, who cannot stand for the hour and 10 minute duration of the journey to London, being ticketed for being in first class. That is completely unacceptable when they have to stand because there are no seats for them in standard.

Instead of campaigning about complaints, I should be campaigning for improvements to rail services for my residents. We are trying to get a second rail main line from the coast to London, and more services for stations such as Cooksbridge, where passengers see the trains go through at high speed and have to wait at the level crossing, unable to get on, as my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) said. I am trying to get better access to platforms and trains for people with mobility needs, whether people with a disability or young mums with pushchairs. I am also trying to get better carriages so more bicycles can fit on our trains and people can commute onwards after they get off their train.

Instead, I am campaigning on a daily basis about the poor rail services my residents have to endure. It is not good enough. It has an impact not only on people’s purses, as they have to pay for extra journeys, but on their quality of life. It should not be the case that people experience such a poor rail service just because of where they live. I welcome the initiatives the Minister is trying to take, but we need to see improvement soon.

Oral Answers to Questions

Maria Caulfield Excerpts

Thursday 11th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr McLoughlin]

I am pleased that we have seen some stations reopened and some announcements of new stations. My hon. Friend and I did visit that station in his constituency and I am glad that, with his increased majority, he will continue to make a good case for it in this House.

[Maria Caulfield (Lewes) (Con)]

Although investment in Network Rail’s existing lines is welcome, my constituents in Lewes really want a second main line from Sussex to London, and the Chancellor kindly gave us £100,000 for a feasibility study in the last Budget. Will the Secretary of State update me on the progress of that study?

[Mr McLoughlin]

I know the Minister with responsibility for rail, my hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Claire Perry), is more than happy to discuss that project with my hon. Friend following her stunning electoral success.