South-eastern Rail Franchise

Robert Neill Excerpts

Wednesday 24th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Matthew Pennycook (Greenwich and Woolwich) (Lab)]

Thank you for calling me to speak, Mr Deputy Speaker. I should like to add my sentiments to those that have been expressed to you today. It is very good to see you back in your place. Huge numbers of my constituents, including me and my family, depend on local metro train services on the south-eastern rail network for work, for leisure and as a means of accessing the wider transport network in our city, so let me start by thanking you for giving me the chance to speak on their behalf on this important issue. However, as much as I am grateful for the opportunity, I am also struck by a depressing familiarity in having to raise concerns about services on the network—a feeling that I know will be shared by a number of hon. Members on both sides of the House, including those who have stayed behind to attend the debate and, I suspect, the Minister himself, whom I welcome to his new role.

In the relatively short time that I have been a Member of Parliament, we have had several debates on this issue. I recall an Adjournment debate that the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill) secured in January 2016 and a well-attended Westminster Hall debate secured by my hon. Friend the Member for Eltham (Clive Efford) in that same year, along with scores of oral and written parliamentary questions, all driven by the same basic grievance: passengers using the south-eastern rail network have suffered for too long from overcrowded and unreliable train services.

My own journey to work today was sadly typical of what many of my constituents experience every week. The 6.59 am service from Charlton to Charing Cross that I caught this morning was six minutes late, had two fewer carriages than advertised and was badly overcrowded as a result.

My argument is simple: the residents that I represent in Blackheath, Greenwich, Charlton, Woolwich and Plumstead, and those across south-east London represented by other Members of the House, deserve better from the next franchise, but I am concerned that the way the Government have approached it will not deliver the improvements my constituents need.

[Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)]

I warmly congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing the debate. He is absolutely right: we have been discussing this for a very long time, but nothing seems to have changed. Does he agree that one of the particular frustrations for constituents in suburban London is that the current franchise appears to be structured in such a way that the rewards go to the longer-distance trains from the coast and that the suburban or metro trains tend to bear the brunt of the cancellations and lack of space, and are treated as the poor relation in all this?

[Matthew Pennycook]

I absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman. There has been a long-standing tension on the network between metro trains and the longer services, and it often feels as though the suburban services and those who use them get a raw deal.

I think that it is fair to argue, although the Minister might disagree, that the record of successive operators of the franchise since privatisation in 1996 has not been particularly impressive. That would certainly be the view of many of those I represent. When the Strategic Rail Authority took the decision in June 2003 to strip Connex South Eastern of its multi-billion pound franchise, it did so because of concerns about the company’s financial performance, but anyone who used Connex services will recall just how dire its operational performance also was.

Under South Eastern Trains—a subsidiary company of the SRA that took over and ran the franchise for three years—we saw a steady improvement, but the SRA really only adopted a care and maintenance approach pending the new franchise. Under the current operator, Southeastern—a subsidiary of Govia that has run the franchise since 2006—services on the network have all too often been less than satisfactory.

That is not a criticism of Southeastern staff, whom I know to be dedicated and hardworking. I recognise that Southeastern is not solely responsible for service failures. A lot of the problems on the network are infrastructure-related. They are the responsibility of Network Rail and will remain an issue, whoever takes on the new franchise. I am also very much aware that maintaining services throughout the London Bridge rebuild would have presented any operator with enormous challenges. But all that said, there have still been real failures with Southeastern.

The provision of additional rolling stock has failed to keep pace with entirely predictable local population growth and a corresponding growth in passenger numbers. Despite much earlier requests from Southeastern, supported by a number of hon. Members, only in September last year did the Department for Transport finally authorise the purchase of 68 extra carriages for the network from GTR. Even with the addition of that extra stock, 12-car trains are still a rarity on the lines that run through my constituency, and overcrowding at peak times is frequently unacceptable, if not dangerous.

--- Later in debate ---

[Joseph Johnson]

I will happily write to the hon. Lady with those figures. I do not have them off the top of my head, but I commit to providing additional information on the money we are spending on Lewisham station.

To continue on the changes, Hayes line services will in future run to London Bridge, Charing Cross and Victoria. Again, a small minority of passengers will lose a direct service. Those who currently travel to Cannon Street will have to change at London Bridge. On the North Kent line, which is of particular interest to the hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich, services to Charing Cross via Lewisham, which serve his constituency, will run to Cannon Street, as he noted, to facilitate new Thameslink services to London Bridge, Blackfriars, Farringdon and London St Pancras along the route.

Sidcup services will continue to run to Charing Cross, with Cannon Street services moving to peak times reflecting that the principal demand for those services is commuter-driven. Outside peak hours, the small number of passengers for Cannon Street will change at the new London Bridge station.

I recognise, like all Members who have spoken, that Southeastern passengers have had a torrid time in recent years and that there is considerable room for improvement in the quality of service. A combination of major infrastructure problems such as the collapse of the Dover sea wall, the impact of major enhancement works such as Thameslink and crowding have seen the operator regrettably languish at the bottom of satisfaction league tables for too long. However, I believe we are turning the corner.

To help alleviate crowding, members will applaud the fact that 25 trains have transferred from Govia Thameslink Railway to Southeastern to add capacity to both metro and mainline services.

[Robert Neill]

The extra trains are welcome, but does my hon. Friend the Minister agree that it is utterly bizarre that, even with the extra trains and the fact that the stations on the line from Sevenoaks through Orpington and my constituency can take 10 and 12-car trains, rush-hour trains are still being run to Charing Cross with eight-car trains? That is just poor use of the assets that the Government have given to Southeastern.

[Joseph Johnson]

My hon. Friend is a tireless and brilliant champion for his constituents in Bromley and Chislehurst, and he makes important points that doubtless the operator has heard and would be well advised to take note of.

The new trains are providing 5,300 additional seats in the morning and 4,300 seats in the evening peak. All metro routes have now have longer trains, and the 13 most overcrowded Southeastern trains now have significant additional capacity. The past 12 months have also seen important performance improvements, with the official public performance measure moving up from 85.9% in February 2017 to almost 89% in the most recent figures. The positive impact of all that for passengers is clear and we want to see things continue to improve in the months ahead.

Question put and agreed to.