Thameslink

Oliver Dowden Excerpts

Wednesday 19th July 2017 Westminster Hall

[Oliver Dowden (Hertsmere) (Con)]

May I begin by thanking you for your chairmanship, Mr Bailey? I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for St Albans (Mrs Main). I know what a doughty campaigner she has been on this topic. My remarks are only intended to echo some of the points she has made, and indeed some of the points made by the hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes).

I should begin by declaring an interest: I commute, for my sins, on this line every day, so I have first-hand experience of it, but also a desire to improve it, as do many of my constituents. Literally thousands of my constituents commute every day from Radlett and Elstree and Borehamwood on that line into central London. They, like other hon. Members’ constituents, have sorry tales to tell of the poor performance of the line.

I will give a few statistics. At times last year, less than two thirds of Thameslink trains ran on time. Almost one in five trains were cancelled or significantly late. The level of frustration and volume of correspondence that I received in relation to that poor performance led me eventually to compile a dossier of more than 100 complaints from constituents, which I was able to present to the Transport Secretary. They were very similar to the complaints outlined by my hon. Friend the Member for St Albans. The most distressing cases were those of people who felt they had to give up their jobs because they could not rely on the service, and of younger mums and dads struggling with childcare. We know what it is like with childcare—we think we are going to pick our kids up at a certain time, so we allow, say, an hour for the train journey, but it takes two hours. The nursery is closing, and the level of stress involved if family or friends cannot pick our children up is enormous.

Commuters in my constituency are seeking a number of reassurances. I know that many of these do not fall within the direct purview of the Minister—they fall within the purview of the franchisee—but I hope he will be able to bring some pressure to bear on the franchisee in relation to them. Specific points that constituents have asked me to raise include the problem of trains switching at the last minute. I have seen that: people get on a train thinking it is an all-stopper or a semi-fast train, and literally moments before it is about to depart, they suddenly discover that it is either not going to stop where they thought or stopping at every stop. Communicating that effectively to commuters is very important. My hon. Friend drew the comparison with London Underground. Thameslink has been improving a little in this respect, but there is still a lot more it could do to keep passengers up to date with what is going on as it happens. If people know what is happening, it makes things that bit easier. Even if it just involves sending someone a text to say they will be late, it makes it a little easier.

There is also tremendous variability in the length of trains. There can be a full platform waiting for an eight-car train and suddenly there is a four-car train that not everybody can get on. A perennial bugbear for my constituents—although I admit it probably runs contrary to the interests of my hon. Friend’s constituents—is that too few trains stop at Elstree and Borehamwood and Radlett, instead running directly to St Albans. When there are delays on the line, my constituents are just looking to get home, and in those circumstances they would look for trains stopping every time. I would be grateful for an update on anything the Minister can do to raise the pressure on that.

There is also a broader question about the infrastructure. A great number of my constituents drive to and park at the station. In both Elstree and Borehamwood and Radlett there are single-tier carparks. I simply do not understand why another level or two cannot be put on those carparks. Given the incredibly high parking fees charged by Thameslink, it would be in its interests to construct other levels. I am interested in the Minister’s perspective on that. As the hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood said, as the level of densification in these areas of the south-east inevitably continues to rise, the demand for the station will only continue to grow. Equally, there is the issue of capacity at the station. I am grateful for the Government’s progress on Borehamwood station—they have announced some additional funding, which is very gratefully received—but that money needs to continue to flow so that we can keep up with the ever-rising demand.

I echo the concerns about the pricing of the railway line. By many measures, this is the most expensive railway line per kilometre travelled not only in the United Kingdom but in the whole of Europe. If passengers are being forced to pay that much, the service really does need to improve to match it. I know that anything the Minister can do to keep pressure on the company to find further efficiency savings to keep the cost of commuting down would be very gratefully received by constituents.

It is also important to look at what happens when things go wrong. As my hon. Friend the Member for St Albans alluded to, the compensation scheme is still not simple and transparent enough, and does not cover a lot of the on-costs. For example, if the line is down, my constituents living in Radlett or Borehamwood often have no alternative than to go to the very end of the Jubilee line and then take a taxi from Stanmore. That is in no way covered in the compensation scheme. It is a completely unavoidable cost for my constituents, and that should be considered.

It is also important to look not just at the franchisee but at Network Rail. Too often, we concentrate on the failures of the franchisee, not those of Network Rail. It is to the Government’s great credit that when faced with a dire financial situation in 2010 they decided not to cut back on railway investment. They kept the investment going for Crossrail and for the rather unfortunately named Thameslink 2000 programme. We are hopeful that Thameslink 2000 will be delivered by 2020, but that process has necessitated considerable upgrades at London Bridge. That was clearly necessary, but it has had a bad knock-on effect on commuter services, because capacity has been significantly reduced around the station. I would be grateful for an update from the Minister about progress on that upgrade. When can we expect London Bridge to be completed, and when can we expect trains to start fully running through there?

An issue has been flagged to me that I would be grateful if the Minister took very seriously. Capacity in the London core of Thameslink will be effectively doubled overnight when trains go up the northern stretch—on which my hon. Friend’s and my stations lie—not just towards Bedford, but to Hitchin and Harpenden. That will mean huge pressure through the central core. At times, there could be trains every minute or two minutes. I know the system will be computerised, but I would be grateful if departmental officials stress-tested the system before roll-out so that we do not face a cliff edge. After all the pain, the moment the system at St Pancras is not working—my hon. Friend alluded to this—we would not want to go back to square one again and have a complete failure of the service.

I would be grateful if the Minister updated me on plans to integrate between franchisees and Network Rail, as announced by the Secretary of State. That is important. One of the problems of privatisation was the artificial distinction, and it is important that we close that distinction. An update would help us understand how that can be addressed in the longer run.

Let me quickly turn to two final issues. There is a desperate need for the Oyster card system to be extended to Radlett. I know the Minister is on the case, but an assurance from him to my constituents that that will be delivered by 2018 would be gratefully received—and the same goes for Potters Bar, which is not on Thameslink but is served by Govia Thameslink, the wider holding company.

We cannot discuss rail freight without looking at the rail freight terminal: the disastrous development that is entirely unsuited to our part of Hertfordshire. My hon. Friend the Member for St Albans and I continue to campaign against it, but if it is to go ahead, we must look at its impact on the railway line. At the meeting we both had with Network Rail, it updated us that the development will involve putting a line under the existing line to access the rail freight terminal. When we think about the infrastructure involved in building one railway line under another, it is difficult to conceive that that will not involve significant delays. I would be grateful for an update on that and, in particular, an assurance that the full cost will rightly be borne by the developer, and that means minimising disruption to passengers, even if that means a higher development cost. Given all that we have heard, it is simply not fair for commuters to bear the cost in terms of delayed journeys for the developer to get a cheaper deal.

Equally, I would be grateful for some reassurance on timetabling. I know Network Rail’s argument is that there are already allocated slots, but those slots are not being used by freight trains at the moment. I fear we will lose capacity once they are being used continuously by the rail freight terminal. Some reassurances would be gratefully received.

I thank the Minister for coming here. I was on the radio just now talking about this, and the interviewer said, “This is the last day of term. You will all be watching videos, relaxing.” I trust that the Minister will completely disprove that and demonstrate that he will address this issue with vigour.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Paul Maynard)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bailey. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for St Albans (Mrs Main) on securing this debate and presenting her case, as she always does, with great vigour and force; I expect no less from her. She is right to hold Ministers to account for the service on her railway.

Passengers expect a timely, punctual and reliable service, and when they do not get it, they are right to want to understand why, and what Ministers and the train operators intend to do about it. This has been a helpful debate on what is occurring with Thameslink, and I am grateful to both the hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes) and my hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere (Oliver Dowden) for their contributions. There was also a sensible contribution from the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell). We may not agree on the final paragraphs of her speech, but I thought that much of what she said made great sense.

I am aware of how important it is that we deal with this issue. As I said, passengers want a service that they can rely upon, and if they cannot, that should be a concern for us all. The Thameslink service is vital for our country, not least because our capital city depends upon it. Reliability of services through central London is critical. It is one of Europe’s busiest rail routes, so it is right that passengers will see new stations—and better stations, in fact—new trains, new infrastructure and new systems to increase capacity, reduce crowding and provide better connections for passengers across London and the wider south-east.

A number of points have been made in the debate, but I want to focus first and foremost on answering the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for St Albans. I often find that these one-hour debates are neither fish nor fowl, and I want to give proper attention to the points made by the Member who secured the debate without ignoring the other points made. Normally I run out of time in that ambition, so if I do not manage to respond to all the points now, I ask Members to make sure that I reply to them all subsequently.

The first point made by my hon. Friend the Member for St Albans was about the impact of the new trains. Of course, people want new trains. It is right to point out that the new Thameslink trains have advanced technology; they are more spacious and modern by their very definition. We have contracted Siemens to deliver 115 of them overall. We have 37 currently in service, between Bedford and Brighton, on the Wimbledon loop and on services in Kent. We expect all Thameslink services to be served by Class 700 trains by October 2017.

Train performance on the brand-new trains is improving bit by bit every period, but I recognise that it has not been good enough. I have spoken to Siemens myself to urge improvement. I know that it is working very closely with GTR. With every software improvement we see a significant improvement, but it is worth bearing it in mind that this platform is a step beyond what Siemens has produced before with its Desiro platform. There will always be slightly more challenges with such a new piece of rolling stock, but we are seeing significant improvement over time, and I fully expect to see significant improvement in reliability over the coming weeks.

My hon. Friend the Member for St Albans gave a number of examples of where her constituents were not getting the service they desire. I have been hearing those tales about this GTR network since I started in this role last July, and that is what has inspired me to focus on trying to deliver the rail ombudsman that we had in our manifesto as rapidly as I can. That is making good progress. I want to ensure that passengers can get binding arbitration at the end of the day where they cannot secure the right outcome from their appeals. We do not want these situations to occur—far from it—but where they do, I want the passenger to feel empowered. That is why I wanted to ensure that we had passenger representation on the Gibb report panel, for example—to ensure that their voice was being heard.

I was fascinated to hear about the Train Suffragettes to whom my hon. Friend referred. I would be delighted if she could send me more of their ideas about how the service could be improved, and I would be happy to take on board as many of them as possible.

[Oliver Dowden]

I should also highlight Thamestink, which is the campaign group in my constituency. I would be grateful if the Minister could extend the invitation to that group as well.

[Paul Maynard]

I always risk creating extra work for my private office in inviting all submissions, wherever they are from, but I am more than happy to receive them and give them my full attention.

A number of hon. Members mentioned what is referred to in the industry as passenger information during disruption. It has been a major concern of mine that passengers may, at the breakfast table, consult their mobile phone, get one piece of information that their train is running, beetle down to the station to get the train and then discover that for some reason it has been cancelled. There are too many sources of information across the industry. The Office of Rail and Road has two key obligations under law. One is improving passenger information during disruption. I have asked it to look closely at how that is working across the south-east quadrant as a whole, because I have concerns about both GTR and Southeastern ensuring that we have consistent information. I accept that that is a key point, and it is one that I am taking up.

My hon. Friend the Member for St Albans has raised concerns both with me and with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State about the Radlett freight interchange. Those representations were augmented today by my hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere (Oliver Dowden). I genuinely recognise those concerns; that is why I want to ensure that the timetable is protected from the impact of the works. Network Rail has reassured my Department, just as it has reassured both my hon. Friends, that the work at Park Street has been planned to have minimum impact on passengers, as freight trains will run only outside peak times and overnight, but I recognise that the concerns remain and that there is a wish to have greater oversight of the detail of what is being planned. I suspect the best thing I can offer is to broker a meeting with Network Rail, with me present as well, and perhaps we can test some of those assumptions against what my officials and the Department are also aware of. That might be of assistance to my hon. Friend the Member for St Albans, so we will co-operate as best we can to try to find that reassurance.

My hon. Friend also mentioned overcrowding at St Albans station. We are extending the platform to accommodate 12-carriage trains as part of the Thameslink programme. GTR is working to deliver extended automatic ticket gates at platform 4, which I believe is called the Ridgmont entrance, by 2019. The main station building will also receive an enhanced retail offering, a larger concourse area to accommodate peak periods and associated platform furniture and shelter facilities to improve the station environment. I recognise that there remain capacity concerns at St Albans station. We are thinking through the implications of that for future rail control periods.

In terms of future Thameslink services and how they will benefit St Albans, it is a matter of improved peak frequency and more capacity between central London, St Albans and Bedford, with more peak services, new cross-London routes, and Thameslink services reinstated to serve London Bridge. I expect passengers to see more comfort benefits, with more than 3,000 standard-class seats into London St Pancras, which is 15% extra from today, particularly through using the 12-carriage trains.

Essentially, Thameslink is all about expanding capacity on a key commuter route. We are trying to deliver the trains and the infrastructure to enable that, with 24 trains an hour in the peak through the Thameslink core between Blackfriars and St Pancras, which is an additional nine trains in each direction.

Part of our focus is on making sure that we have the right infrastructure—not just track but signalling. My hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere is right to identify that we need to make sure that signalling and timetabling are robust. We have a planning board, chaired by Chris Gibb, of Gibb report fame, and an assurance panel, chaired by another industry expert, Chris Green, double-checking the work that is going on to make sure it is reliable and will deliver the outputs that we seek.

To date, the Thameslink programme has delivered a new Blackfriars station connecting both side of the Thames. We have seen major enhancements at Farringdon, platform extensions on midland main line stations to allow longer trains and, as I said, 37 of the new class 700 trains. There are new maintenance depots at Three Bridges in Crawley and Hornsey in north London, and many hon. Members will be familiar with the new London Bridge station, two thirds of the concourse of which has been open since August 2016.

What else can passengers expect? The rest of London Bridge station will be open for business in early 2018. The new class 700 trains will start operating on Great Northern routes and on services in Kent and Sussex. Entire new journeys, such as Cambridge to Gatwick, will open up new journey options and connections for customers, including an interchange with the Elizabeth line services at Farringdon, which I think will transform how people approach travel options within London. Most importantly, from 2018 there will be services every two to three minutes through the central London core between Blackfriars and St Pancras International.

I recognise concerns about performance. We have seen performance steadily improving since the start of the year. When we are able to focus on improving the network, rather than just on industrial relations, we can deliver a real improvement in performance, working together with the drivers. The jump in public performance from 62% last December to a high of 85% this year reinforces that point, but I recognise that we need to do better—85% is still not good enough. We continue to have an immense amount of pressure on the network.

We are also looking carefully at the future Thameslink timetable. Journeys will be improved with better travel across the network, but modern track will make journeys more reliable and new trains will provide additional capacity. GTR has been actively seeking feedback from any interested parties on the timetable changes to make sure that they best match passenger need. The second stage of the consultation has just closed and we are looking carefully at what people are saying.

As I mentioned earlier, our Thameslink industry readiness board, chaired by Chris Gibb, is doing important work. Thameslink brings many other franchises on to its network, and the board is looking at making sure we maximise the potential for all aspects of the train network.

My hon. Friend the Member for St Albans mentioned delay repay, as did the shadow Minister. We have brought “delay repay 15” specifically into GTR as the first franchise to trial it, because we recognise the impact that the disturbances across the network as a whole have had. I share the concern that we need to explain more carefully that the impact of Thameslink is not just felt south of London. It is often hard to envisage how Thameslink is a regional service. What occurs north of London has an impact south of London and vice versa. It is worth highlighting, for example, that right-time presentation, as we call it—in other words, the right-time arrival of the train at the station—is rarely higher than 50% on services from the north of London going south through to Brighton. That indicates that problems in Brighton on trains going northwards also impact on punctuality and reliability, so investment in both sides of the central core is absolutely crucial.

We have improved delay repay, although I take on board the point about improving its delivery. We have to be careful about our terminology, as I have learned. Automated compensation is about improving the behind-the-scenes progress of individual train operating companies. It is about someone getting their compensation without doing anything to achieve it. That requires them to demonstrate that they have been on the train in question. They can either nominate their usual commuter train, in which case it can be automatic compensation, or, where they have not specified a train, they must prove that they were on the delayed train. There is sadly a risk of fraud, and we are talking about considerable sums of money from regular commuters, so there has to be that element of assurance.

I share the ambition of the hon. Member for York Central, which is why I have been pushing for delay repay to be rolled out as much as possible. Passengers have a right to expect it. We need to be much better at making people aware of it and confident about using it. I would rather, as my hon. Friend the Member for St Albans said, that there were no delays at all; then we would have a better service in the first place.

As I often mention, there is a £300 million investment in improvement across the Thameslink network. Not all of that is occurring south of London. Hon. Members may think this an issue just on the Brighton main line, but it is not. We are investing in additional land sheriff shifts to reduce trespass and railway crime across the entire length of the line, and there will be more use of predict and prevent condition-monitoring software and processes on the infrastructure. There will be additional incident response teams and embankment works at New Barnet. All of that is occurring north of London on the stretch that covers St Albans. Because of the point I made earlier about interaction, service delays, either north or south, inevitably have an impact on St Albans at some point.

We will continue to deliver that £300 million until December 2018, when we cease the current control period. We will need to invest further in control period 6, and we will be making future announcements about how that spending will be allocated. We are committed to doing what is needed to bring this stretch of track up to the standards required to deliver timely and punctual rail services.

I will try to make a bit of progress, because I recognise that I have not covered any of the points made by the hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood. I am not sure whether the shadow Minister had time to be briefed on this before she arrived here, but there will be talks tomorrow at the Department involving GTR, ASLEF and, I think, the RMT—I am not sure whether that is precisely correct. Hopefully, that will be an opportunity to have the discussion the hon. Lady is aiming for.

I do not think anyone disagrees that having a second person on board is a bad thing. We have been able to have a second person on board across the network where GTR is in operation. That is a good thing in my view. The issue will be the circumstances in which a train may depart if someone is not available. That is the narrow point that was in dispute in the past, and perhaps tomorrow will be the chance to resolve that—we will have to wait and see.

The hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood made a number of perfectly relevant suggestions. I am not sure I can do them justice in two minutes, but if it would be helpful to her I would like her to come to see me and my officials to go through them in more detail. I am aware of schemes such as the expansion of Loughborough Junction and Camberwell, and she deserves a better response than me saying, “We will look at it.” If she gets in touch, I will be more than happy to meet her. I know the Secretary of State met the Mayor yesterday and had constructive discussions.

On the hon. Lady’s point about resilience, we are already seeing greater resilience through a re-diagramming of services. Part of the problem is drivers joining and leaving a service as it passes through the GTR network. By simplifying the diagrams with the agreement of the drivers, we can make for a more resilient service by ensuring that that interruption is reduced.

I noted the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere. We should not overlook the fact that GTR was criticised in the Gibb report—as was the Department. We saw penalties imposed on GTR last week, which will go towards improving the network. This is not just about trade unions, GTR or the Department; it is about an entire ecosystem, as some have pointed out. I heard my hon. Friend’s point about car parking, and I know the rail delivery group is looking at that. The passenger’s experience begins when they decide to make a journey, and that includes car parking.

Vertical integration is moving according to plan. We have already seen some of the benefits for this franchise of getting Network Rail and GTR to work more closely together and of continuing to work with TfL on the Oyster zone, which should help my hon. Friend’s constituents in particular. One highlight of the last week was the rail delivery group’s announcement of new statistics on right-time arrivals at stations, which I urge all hon. Members to have a look at.

If there is anything I have missed, I ask Members to get in touch. We will keep Members informed—