Govia Thameslink and Network Rail

Nusrat Ghani Excerpts

Wednesday 16th March 2016 Westminster Hall

[Nusrat Ghani (Wealden) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Horsham (Jeremy Quin) on securing the debate, and agree about being rather tired of seeing each other’s faces in these circumstances—so sorry.

Despite all the recent talk and excuses, my constituents across Wealden, who commute on the misery line previously known as the Uckfield line, still have to put up with delays, timetable changes, short-formed trains, extended engineering works, overcrowding, unsatisfactory compensation processes, nonsensical bus replacements, poor communication and—the latest nail in the coffin—potential ticket office closures. I want to take this opportunity to ask my right hon. and hon. Friends to join me in writing to the Transport Committee. I first wrote to the Committee in July asking for an inquiry into the performance of Southern. I wrote again six months later, in January, asking it to consider an inquiry again, because of the constant and continued failure of the service. We need proper answers and accountability. I do not believe that GTR and Network Rail understand the impact of the disruption on individual passengers—but also on their families, jobs, and the rural economy in places such as Wealden.

[Chris Philp (Croydon South) (Con)]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend and will certainly sign her letter. The service is shocking. Does she agree that if it does not improve within a reasonable time, we should look at the franchise itself?

[Nusrat Ghani]

I wholeheartedly agree. I want to describe the events on the network in an average week, which Southern itself later admitted in an email was “particularly disruptive for passengers”—for which I read “failing to deliver a service”. Southern cited

“a series of incidents affecting the service each day.”

For that, I read “complete and utter management failure”. We had signalling failures at Norwood, Bognor and London Bridge, a power supply failure at Littlehaven, a major signalling failure at Purley, a train at Coulsdon with door problems, a Horsham-bound service with power issues, a broken-down train at Clapham Junction and, once again, crew shortages. All of that has a knock-on effect on the Uckfield line. Southern has failed on its own baseline public performance measure. I would like to know how the management is being held to account and what the penalties are.

Last year, Southern decided to publish a fantasy timetable—a bit like a fantasy football team, I believe, because it had no bearing on the experiences of the passengers on the line. On 5 January, a rail replacement bus service missed a connection at Crowborough and the train that London commuters had to get instead terminated at Oxted. There were so many passengers waiting that people struggled to disembark from the terminated train because there was literally no room on the platform. Figures from the Office of Rail Regulation just last week showed that the number of stops skipped by Govia has increased to 6,732 and that as many as 200 people are regularly turfed out at Crowborough so that the train going up to London can be on time.

The situation is not just dire; it is unsafe. My constituent Alistair, from Crowborough, wrote last week that

“if a serious incident took place, it would be physically impossible to move to a neighbouring carriage, such is the level of overcrowding in Standard Class.”

We all get regular correspondence on the issue, and the local radio station for Uckfield has a more or less regular slot on constituents’ frustrations with travelling on the Uckfield line. I had to share with my constituents, after a recent summit meeting with GTR executives, the appalling news that the horizon for improvements was to be pushed back again by six months, to 18 months. Wealden would like to know when this journey from hell will end, and I hope that hon. and right hon. Members will join me in calling on the Transport Committee to enter the fray.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

Last, but certainly not least, I call Huw Merriman.