Commuter Services (Chelmsford to Liverpool Street)

Simon Burns Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd December 2015 Westminster Hall

[Sir Simon Burns (Chelmsford) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered commuter services from Chelmsford to London Liverpool Street.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Dorries. I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel), who was the Essex representative on the taskforce set up by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer to look at rail services from Liverpool Street through Chelmsford and Ipswich and up to Norwich, better known as the “Norwich in 90” project. I pay tribute to her for the work that she did before retiring from that committee on becoming a Minister, when I replaced her as the Essex representative. I am delighted to see that my right hon. Friend the Member for Saffron Walden (Sir Alan Haselhurst) is present. He has worked very closely with me and other local MPs on the perennial problems of rail services between Chelmsford and London. He also provides an added bonus through the work that he does on the West Anglia line from Stansted down to Liverpool Street.

We have a perennial problem on the line from Chelmsford to London. Chelmsford is a major commuting city, with about 8,000 people commuting down to London to work every day, as well as people commuting in to work in Chelmsford. They rely on a reliable, fast service to enable them to get to their place of work on time. I am sure Members will be aware that there is nothing more frustrating than constant delays in the service that mean that people do not get to work on time. Part of the problem is historical. The original line was built in a slipshod way to get a railway up and running swiftly. It has only two tracks: an up track and a down track. There is very little opportunity to increase it to more than two tracks, particularly in places such as Chelmsford where it goes through the city from one end to the other. What with the building of housing, offices and other public places, it would not be feasible to increase the number of tracks on the line.

I am pleased, though, that the Government have accepted the case for improvement. It is expected that, at the beginning of the next decade, an eight-mile loop line to the north of Witham will allow fast trains to overtake slower trains and contribute to increasing capacity on the line to Liverpool Street. I welcome the investment and congratulate those responsible for upgrading the track and improving the electrification—to be fair, that investment came from the last Labour Government as well as the coalition Government and the current Government. Such things are done, but obviously one does not see them as one sees new rolling stock. It is unseen work, but it is crucial to improving reliability and journey times.

Sadly, despite the latest official statistics showing an improvement in the reliability figures, that is not reflected in passengers’ impressions, as shown in Transport Focus surveys. It is interesting that on the Great Eastern main line, which goes through Chelmsford, overall satisfaction declined from 77% to 71% between spring 2014 and spring 2015. Given what my constituents have had to put up with over the past two months or so, I suspect that the current figure is even lower. Similarly, the levels of satisfaction with punctuality are poor. On the main line, the satisfaction rate is about 73%, and the overall figure for how delays are dealt with is a mere 33%. That is not acceptable in this day and age.

Too often, particularly on a Monday morning, there is utter chaos on the line. One of the main causes is the overrunning of weekend engineering works, which are the responsibility of Network Rail. Given the problems at London Bridge and Ipswich, one would have thought that Network Rail would have finally got its act together to ensure that overrunning work was not a regular problem, but unfortunately it is. For example, a week ago last Monday the whole line came to a grinding halt because of overrunning engineering works, which were compounded by the track repair machine having broken down on the line. My constituents were unable to travel on the line until around 11 o’clock in the morning, which is unacceptable.

Since then there has been another problem that was the responsibility of Network Rail. It put a late-running freight train—I believe it was coming from Felixstowe—on the line at the beginning of the morning rush hour, bringing absolute havoc to the trains. Given that a freight train does not have the same timetable requirements and needs as a commuter passenger train, what possessed Network Rail to run that late-running freight train during the morning rush hour? It was inevitable that that would have a significant impact on the efficiency of the commuter trains to Chelmsford or Liverpool Street, depending on where people work. That is very poor and seems to indicate a lack of planning and, quite frankly, of common sense.

We also have regular problems with signal failures, and sometimes electrification problems. There is sadly an issue with suicides, although they are obviously not the fault of Network Rail or the people who run the rail services. The line in question and the east of England do not have a good record on that. The British Transport police, local authorities and Greater Anglia, which runs the train service, are doing a tremendous amount of work to seek to minimise the problem, but sadly it happens too often. One hopes that the measures they are taking to minimise it will be successful.

We also have problems with the service itself, because trains break down, or doors jam mid-journey and will not shut, which of course causes delays. Those are historical problems owing to the fact that the rolling stock operating on the line is in excess of 30 years old. In this day and age, with so many people relying on an efficient, effective and punctual rail service, we should not be putting up with such antiquated rolling stock. That has to be dealt with.

On top of all that, my constituents are paying considerable amounts of money to use the service. If a zone 1 tube fare is not included in the ticket, a standard-class season ticket currently costs £3,728. Thanks to the actions of my right hon. Friend the Chancellor, who has stopped RPI-plus rail price increases, it will be rising in January by just £36 per annum, to £3,764. That is a relief compared with some of the previous increases, but my constituents say, quite reasonably, that if they are paying that sort of money they want a reliable service. If we break down the total on the assumption that people travel for 48 weeks of the year, over five years we come out with a current price of £15.53 per return journey, rising to £15.68 from January. For that price, people not unreasonably demand a reliable service.

The question is, what can we do to improve the situation? My first plea to the Minister is that Network Rail should be gripped and have the facts of life explained to it. It should have better planning for its engineering works to ensure that they actually finish when they are meant to. I warn the Minister that Network Rail is closing the network late on Christmas eve for a number of days to do major repair works. I think that is acceptable, because far fewer people use the railways during that period and that work needs to be done to ensure that the infrastructure is up to scratch. We must also ensure that there are no muck-ups by Network Rail and that the work finishes when it is meant to, so that engineering overruns do not cause utter chaos for our constituents trying to get to work on the first day of the running service.

The franchise is critical to the future of the line. With the new franchise, we want a commitment to provide new rolling stock—no ifs, no buts; we do not want sloppy seconds from elsewhere on the network. We want new rolling stock that is reliable, faster and can brake quicker so that we get the speeds up, have a more efficient and effective service and build on the infrastructure investment. We have to meet the “Norwich in 90” commitment. If we do that and adhere to the recommendations in the taskforce report, which my right hon. Friend the Chancellor enthusiastically endorsed and accepted, journey times in Chelmsford will improve. With new rolling stock, the new station that will be built at Beaulieu Park in the north-eastern part of Chelmsford, and the loop just north of Witham, which will allow faster trains to overtake slower trains, we can ensure that that happens.

I accept that our railways are like a supertanker: we cannot change everything overnight, particularly given the historical basis, but we can introduce short-term measures to ensure the service is regular, punctual and does not cause grief to my constituents. We can certainly take a grip of Network Rail. I suggest that we introduce a few more incentives to ensure that if it fails it gets punished with fines, as it was after the London Bridge disruption. We need fines that actually have an impact to concentrate the minds of those who are planning. My constituents deserve a better service for the season ticket price that they pay for their travel to and from work.

--- Later in debate ---

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Dorries. May I say for the record that, like my right hon. Friends the Members for Chelmsford (Sir Simon Burns) and for Saffron Walden (Sir Alan Haselhurst), you assiduously campaign on the railway service for your constituents?

It is incredibly important that we continue to talk about the issues on the line, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford does. We discussed the challenges on the line on 28 January, and my right hon. Friend the Member for Saffron Walden also attended that debate. Since then, there has been a series of steps forward to improve services for the 8,000 commuting constituents of my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford and for others from further afield. However, there have also been some real challenges. I will set out some of the things that are happening and offer some words of reassurance about what we will be looking for in the new franchise, which will start in October next year.

A series of performance improvement plans have been put forward by Abellio Greater Anglia in conjunction with its work with Network Rail, which have been approved by my Department. They were first given one in April 2014, to which it responded. Indeed, the performance, measured by the public performance measures, started to improve. However, it then dipped because, as my right hon. Friend pointed out, there were ongoing issues relating to signalling on the lines, and there was unfortunately a series of fatalities on the line.

Some services on those lines, such as those running into Enfield, were then devolved to Transport for London. In fact, those were the higher performing services, in terms of punctuality, so a new baseline had to be set for what good looks like for the remaining services. The Department is still having that conversation, so at the moment there is no firmly agreed baseline for the PPMs, although it is worth noting that the numbers on punctuality started to tick up in the summer before taking an unfortunate dive in the past couple of months. The reasons for that are severalfold, but they fall into two main groups. First, there was a series of fleet issues, partly relating to the old rolling stock. Secondly, there was a series of infrastructure problems, particularly relating to the classic adhesion problem of leaves on the line. Research I have seen shows that the preparation of the lines and the scraping-off of the leaves is not what it could be and is not done as assiduously by Network Rail as it is in other parts of the country. That is definitely something to work on.

As my right hon. Friend the Member for Saffron Walden said, capacity on the line is so stretched that a minute of delay exacerbates a series of problems for many commuters. Sadly, the ongoing station improvements at Chelmsford, which we all welcome, are a long way behind schedule as a result of a contractual dispute between the original contractor and the train operating company that has to retender. The train operating company is working hard to fix that problem. My right hon. Friend the member for Chelmsford said that there were some serious engineering overruns. Although there have been only four main ones over the past 12 months, their impact has been substantial. As he rightly pointed out, the most recent caused a shut-down of services at 11 am.

There has been a root-and-branch transformation of Network Rail’s approach to engineering works, particularly after the problems we saw last Christmas. Whether the works are major or minor, there is now a zero-tolerance approach to overrunning. The route operating directors are far more involved in decision making. I am disappointed that that is not coming through in these cases. I am particularly disappointed to hear about the late-running freight train, because it is policy that freight is always sequenced behind passenger trains, particularly during commuting hours, so I am disappointed to hear that that has not happened.

There are infrastructure problems on the line, but my right hon. Friend and other colleagues will welcome the fact that, since we last spoke in January, £170 million has been invested in railway lines from London to Norwich on a series of upgrades, and there has been a £20 million investment at the start of this short direct-award franchise, which includes the refresh of the existing rolling stock and some improvements on the class 317s and 321s.

I want to say a couple of words about disruption before I turn to the challenge of rolling stock and what is specified in the franchise. We are at a critical point for the railways. We are investing an unprecedented amount in railway and, indeed, road infrastructure over the next five years and that investment has to deliver on the ground. It is no good saying, “We have 2,000 engineering projects and, oops, three of them went bad.” That is unacceptable when thousands of people face disruption. I am pleased to tell my right hon. Friends here today that there has been an enormous review of engineering plans, a lot of contingency planning, and an evaluation of what happens in stations. I personally met the gold commanders at the various stations to assure myself to the best of my ability that the works will happen. The train operating companies have been present in all those review meetings.

It is fair to say that we are waiting for the new franchise to unlock the journey time improvements that we know are so crucial to the “Norwich in 90” campaign. I congratulate my right hon. Friends present, including my right hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel), who has just joined us, because the aspiration would not be so advanced without Members’ assiduous campaigning. I hold it up as the poster child for what people need to do if they are trying to make improvements through rail spending in a region. However, until the franchise is in place and we get firm performance measurements, we will not see the level of improvement that we all expect, particularly for those constituents paying £3,728 a year.

We are in the process of letting the invitation to tender. I pay tribute to Members present for highlighting the importance of new rolling stock, but I want to say gently that the days of the Department absolutely specifying exactly what train operating companies should buy and do are over, which is a good thing. The commercial sector is involved in the industry so that it can bring its best innovation to bear, but the specifications that we have put in the franchise cannot be delivered without new rolling stock on many routes or substantial improvement to the newer existing rolling stock. I think we will all be pleased with what comes back in the bids. In this invitation to tender, the emphasis on rolling stock quality is greater than it has ever been. Its importance is firmly recognised

However, I do not want Members to feel that everyone is sitting around doing nothing and waiting for the franchise to happen. I have just been reading the correspondence that my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford has had with the current managing director of the franchise holder, Abellio Greater Anglia, in which he says that it has

“engaged an external company to assist us in a major transformational change for our Engineering Team.”

The company is really trying to nail down the planning-led approach to engineering. The letter continues:

“The stated objective is to increase productivity by 30%, which will lead to greater reliability and availability”.

The franchise holder is therefore working hard to improve operations with the existing fleet.

I want to touch on suicide, about which my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford has spoken movingly before. While the instances of suicide on the line have actually fallen on a year-on-year basis, it is still an absolutely tragedy when it happens and it can create enormous disruption for passengers. AGA is addressing shortfalls in measures to prevent suicides and is working on all sorts of services, particularly from organisations such as Samaritans, with which AGA is working closely, but it is an ongoing battle. New technology, such as intelligent CCTV that can identify people who exhibit behaviour known to result in a possible attempt on their life, is being trialled in the new control room in Romford, but it will take time to roll the programmes out across the network.

I will finish with a couple of quick points about fares and the future approach to the railways. I was pleased to hear my right hon. Friend talk about the fact that fares have been held down by an RPI-plus-zero accelerator this year and for the duration of this Parliament. It will be the first time in 10 years that fares will rise more slowly than wages, which is a good deal that is worth some £700 million over the Parliament to rail users. For that money, however, commuters from our constituencies expect to get a reliable service. With all the investment, it is imperative that franchise holders deliver their services, which is why the franchising process has been improved and is securely focused on passenger benefits, and that, ultimately, Network Rail delivers on its responsibilities in a way that does not create disruption through late-running engineering works.

[Sir Simon Burns]

Does the Minister agree that the rail service operator tends to get the blame for problems such as overrunning engineering work, faulty track or signal failure because it is at the sharp end, although it is in fact not responsible? Network Rail and its maintenance department are responsible. We do not want both organisations at each other’s throats, but it seems a little rotten for the rail operators to get the blame every time.

[Claire Perry]

As a former Rail Minister, my right hon. Friend understands this better than almost anyone. He is absolutely right to say that various players are involved in problems that occur, but our constituents do not care. They just want to pay their fare, feel that they are getting a reasonable quality journey and get to work and then home to their families on time. One-off disruptions are clearly a problem, but the really insidious problem is the daily disruption on the parts of the network where we are undertaking massive improvement plans which leads to people being unable to say when they are going to pick up the kids from day care or when they will be in for a meeting in the morning. We are focused on such issues and we are addressing them. Most fundamentally, whether it is Network Rail or the operator or my Department, it is about putting the customer front and centre of railway decisions.

I will share briefly my theory of railway management. The railways have historically been run by gentlemen—only 17% of the workforce across the whole network is female—who probably had trainsets on their bedroom floors as little boys, but the problems with trainsets are twofold. First, all the trees are evergreen—bits of broccoli will do—and do not shed their leaves, so leaf adhesion is never a problem. Secondly, there are no teeny-tiny passengers to stuff into the train as it whizzes around the floor. I have been told by a departed senior person in the railway industry that were it not for passengers, the timetabling would be perfect. I assure all Members here that that my Department and I utterly reject that view. We will do all that we can, working with Network Rail and the operators, including Abellio Greater Anglia, to ensure that passenger interests are put front and centre of this unprecedented investment in railways.

Question put and agreed to.