First Capital Connect (Hertford Loop)

Debate between Robert Goodwill and Nick de Bois

Tuesday 28th January 2014 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Mr Robert Goodwill)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield North (Nick de Bois) and congratulate him on securing this debate on an important subject, not only for his constituents in north London, but for rail passengers throughout the country.

I have to say that I feel rather guilty, because although I travel down from Yorkshire as a weekly commuter I suspect that I have had fewer problems in the past year than some commuters from north London, and further afield, experienced during just one week before Christmas. Although some of that could be down to the St Jude’s storm and other inclement weather, and the need to clear tracks of fallen trees before services could resume, I appreciate that the service has, on many occasions, fallen below the standard that people would expect. I am very much in the picture, having heard a number of contributions on this subject. I will ensure that the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon (Stephen Hammond), who deals with rail franchise policy, is also in the picture, and that Network Rail and First Capital Connect are aware of what has been said during this debate.

It is clear that if we are to continue the strong growth in rail travel over recent years, passengers must be confident that the service that they receive is reliable, quick and comfortable. That is why this Government have invested billions of pounds in railway infrastructure improvements during this Parliament and have set out their plans to continue doing so in the years to come.

My hon. Friend mentioned specifically the services provided by First Capital Connect in his constituency. As one would expect, the Department monitors rail performance closely. I should like to spend a moment providing a little more detail on some of the recent performance trends. I will also explain some of the issues involved, but I stress that it is not my job to make excuses on behalf of the operator; my job is to understand why things go wrong and what can be done to alleviate problems.

The key headline indicator for rail performance is the public performance measure, which measures the percentage of services that arrive on time. Data from the start of the financial year up to 4 January, the most recent period for which data are available, show a total PPM score for the Great Northern route, of which the Hertford loop is a part, of 85.16%. That is 6.07 percentage points short of the target agreed by the operator and Network Rail. My hon. Friend has already alluded to the inconvenience that that has caused to his constituents and to other passengers on the line. Only about a fifth of the total delay minutes over the year to date are attributable to a fault of the train operator. Some three quarters of all such delays were the responsibility of Network Rail, with the remainder being attributable to the knock-on effect of actions by other operators on the network.

My officials regularly discuss performance with First Capital Connect, and I am reassured that a number of key measures are in hand to ensure that the situation improves over the coming months. The two main causes of delays within the operator’s control are issues with drivers and issues with the train fleet. On the former, regular passengers will be aware that there have been some isolated cancellations due to train crew. Passengers will naturally be frustrated by those cancellations, which have occurred for a number of reasons. Passengers should, however, also note that First Capital Connect has been steadily recruiting and training new drivers across a number of key routes. The latest cohort of drivers will be out on the network, ready to drive trains, from this month. That rolling programme of recruitment and training will continue for the remainder of the franchise and beyond.

The level of delays on the First Capital Connect network due to fleet-related problems has also been increasing, despite expected improvements over the course of this year. We have challenged First Capital Connect on that matter, too, and we are aware that First Capital Connect has considered ways to improve its response to incidents, thereby reducing the level of delays that result from problems with the train fleet.

I have mentioned that the majority of delays on the Great Northern route over the year to date have been attributed to Network Rail. Such delays, however, include significant and, to a large extent, unavoidable delays due to the severe weather over recent months. The St Jude’s day storm, for example, caused widespread disruption, as did severe weather just before Christmas and since. In such severe weather it is inevitable that some disruption will occur. On a number of occasions, Network Rail has been forced to order the suspension of rail services until full route inspections have taken place, which has caused major disruptions.

[Nick de Bois]

The Minister is right to point to the weather, which played a significant part, but I remind him that the incidents raised today are also related to infrastructure. There have been signal failures and power failures with Network Rail, as well as operating issues with First Capital Connect.

[Mr Goodwill]

I am well aware of those issues, and the weather was only one part of it. Coupled with the other problems to which my hon. Friend alludes, weather was probably in some cases the straw that broke the camel’s back and caused annoyance and anger among passengers. When we have such weather situations, safety must remain the highest priority, and it is in no small part due to Network Rail’s performance on safety that the UK now has one of the safest, if not the safest, railways in Europe.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Goodwill]

The hon. Lady is right. One of the problems, as mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Stevenage (Stephen McPartland), is with the information provided to passengers. We have discussed inaccurate information on the live update boards with First Capital Connect, and my hon. Friends the Members for Broxbourne (Mr Walker) and for Enfield North, who also mentioned the problem, may be interested to know that First Capital Connect is already considering the implementation of a live countdown system at a number of stations. Although I cannot promise that the system will be installed at every station for the time being, it is definitely a step in the right direction.

This month Passenger Focus, the statutory representative body for rail passengers, published the autumn results of its national passenger survey, which contained some positive signals for First Capital Connect passengers, so it is not all bad news. For example, First Capital Connect showed an annual 10% increase in satisfaction with the way it deals with delays and a 5% increase in satisfaction with the helpfulness of staff. Good results were also seen in improvements to the train and station environment; passengers report that trains and stations are cleaner and better maintained.

[Nick de Bois]

The heart of the problem is that, notwithstanding the fact that the operator improved by 10% from a very low, appalling 33% to 43%, if the data are not available and there is no scope within the contract to drill down to key lines and commuter routes, the chances are that a franchise operator will always hit his target, but there will always be a poor relation, and in this case that is our constituents.

[Mr Goodwill]

I am not saying that everything in the garden is beautiful. I am saying that there are a few more blooms around this year than in the past. The pressure is now on First Capital Connect to improve performance on punctuality and reliability, in which the survey showed an annual decline.

As my hon. Friend will know, we are planning to re-let the franchise in September, and the Department is currently assessing bids from several operators and looking at their plans for the future. I am sure he will understand that I cannot say more about the details of those bids at the moment, but I assure him that the new franchise will contain a regime of financial penalties and rewards to improve passenger satisfaction.

The extent to which bidders meet or exceed the Department’s requirement to improve the quality of services and to increase customer satisfaction will form an important part of the evaluation of bids, as my hon. Friend suggested. The winning bidder will be required to publish a regular customer report, setting out how it is engaging with passengers and taking account of their views, and how it is meeting its commitments and targets. It will also have to monitor and publish its performance against a new passenger experience metric, which combines a national passenger survey of satisfaction run by Passenger Focus, an independent body, and an objective assessment of service quality. We will, of course, make further announcements in due course.

If my hon. Friend is interested, extensive information on the new TSGN franchise is available publicly on the gov.uk website and includes the draft franchise agreement and the invitation to tender. Between them, those two documents set out the Department’s detailed expectations of all bidders hoping to be the next operator of train services in my hon. Friend’s constituency. In particular, they provide a full explanation of how the operator will be challenged to improve services throughout the entire spectrum of passenger experience, and detail how it will be rewarded if it exceeds passenger expectations, or held to account if it falls short. They also explain how the operator will be measured against the targets, including by reference to the national passenger survey independently undertaken by Passenger Focus.

On compensation for passengers, Network Rail pays compensation under schedule 8 of its track access agreement to train operating companies for unscheduled delays. A proportion of that will find its way to passengers via delay repayment refunds, but I accept that it is sometimes a hassle to fill in the paperwork and get the refund.

I was pleased to hear my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield North praising some of First Capital Connect’s front-line staff. I hope that passengers will take advantage of its facility to nominate staff who go an extra mile for passengers.

[Mr Goodwill]

There is often criticism of such franchises and questions are asked about what incentive there is for the operators to provide a decent quality of service as they do not keep the revenue. We are very mindful of that.

The winning bidder’s performance in key areas will be subject to a performance regime with financial incentives and penalties used to drive the quality of service, protect passengers’ interests and, therefore, increase revenue. The winning bidder will focus on reducing delays, cancellations and short trains and improving customers’ experience of the railways in the franchise area, not just on minimising costs.

[Nick de Bois]

The Minister is being generous in giving way and I am conscious of time. Will he tell us now or write to us later to say whether Network Rail pays compensation to operators if it has let them down, and should there be scope to pass that on to passengers?

[Mr Goodwill]

I will write to my hon. Friend about that. When a train breaks down, for example, it may cause delays for other services. It is not always Network Rail’s fault when such a problem happens.

Questions were asked about rolling stock, some of which is 37 years old. Decisions on the rolling stock in the new TSGN franchise are for the bidders, and we do not intend to mandate them. However, the strict service standards that operators will be held to should help to drive up services for passengers. We will be interested to see the bids that come forward.