Rail Services (South-East London)

Teresa Pearce Excerpts

Tuesday 1st March 2011 Westminster Hall

[Teresa Pearce (Erith and Thamesmead) (Lab)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman both for giving way and for obtaining the debate. On the point about the website, constituents came to me saying that the website said that their service was running when it was not and they had unsympathetic employers who said, “I don’t believe you couldn’t get to work because the website says there’s a service running.” Did the hon. Gentleman have the same experience with his constituents?

[Mr Evennett]

I agree; I had exactly the same experience with my constituents. The website was useless, giving wrong information, which of course fed through to other people, who said, “Well, the service seemed to be running because it said so on the website.” That is a fair point and I am grateful for the hon. Lady’s comment.

All that increased the pressure on station staff, and tempers flared in some circumstances. The communication was absolutely appalling. I cannot understand why that was allowed to happen and why someone from Southeastern was not briefing the local radio stations. I happen to listen to LBC and Magic in the mornings, and they are very good stations, but they had no information at all. Any good organisation would have passed the information to the media, so that they could update people who were getting ready to go to work. On one occasion, I had to drive up to Westminster because I could not guarantee that there would be a train to take me up and bring me back.

Recently, I was privileged to be at a meeting of Kent MPs with Southeastern, which was organised by my hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Mrs Grant). I was underwhelmed by the excuses offered by its managing director, Charles Horton, and his team. Although some of the blame of course lies with Network Rail, I do not believe that Southeastern has learned the lessons and I am worried about the consequences for passengers. I wrote to the Minister to ask questions about that and am grateful for her response.

However, the poor performance cannot be blamed only on the snow. I believe that the service has got worse since September. I receive regular e-mails and am regularly contacted by constituents on the matter—sometimes when I am travelling with them on our daily commute up to Westminster. The comments are universal. One person said:

“The service/performance is failing…The passengers’ charter is a list of meaningless words.”

I am told that the service is not any better; it is worse. Those are the words of constituents. I, too, have concerns and I share their views.

Some constituents say that the journey is taking longer and that the problem is affecting their job. Punctuality is a real issue. Despite the poor performance, Southeastern has been trying to avoid paying compensation and reducing the cost of season tickets. Regrettably, that is because of the low targets agreed with the previous Government. If punctuality falls below 82% during a 12-month period, Southeastern is supposed to cut season ticket prices by 5%. That means that nearly one in five trains can run late without incurring a penalty. That is poor service and it was a poor agreement at the time. Also, by running an emergency timetable during the period of bad weather, Southeastern was able to distort the statistics by not counting the trains that it should have run. Southeastern is therefore claiming that its punctuality was 82.04%—marginally above the season ticket discount threshold. That is a betrayal of commuters and it is unacceptable.

To support its case, Southeastern recently commissioned the university of Sheffield to audit the statistics. Predictably, it found the following:

“As judged against the present validation criteria, the source data, processing and public information for the Passenger’s Charter are satisfactorily accurate.”

I am sceptical about that and I understand from correspondence with the Minister that the rail industry’s national taskforce will be looking into the operation and performance of both Southeastern and Network Rail. I hope that the Minister will look closely into the validity of Southeastern’s figures and perhaps consider an independent audit, taking into account all the matters that I have raised.

Fares have gone up again dramatically because of the agreement that they could be increased by retail prices index inflation plus 3%. That has meant that many people in our area have been clobbered by high fare rises. Again, that seems unfair to me and to my constituents.

So what of the future? There are some welcome developments under way that should help to increase rail capacity and reduce overcrowding. I know that the Minister is working hard to improve the opportunities for travel in and around London and throughout the country. I am a big supporter of Crossrail and hope that it will be delivered on time. I believe that, when the time is right, it should be extended beyond Abbey Wood. We are very keen for that to be done. The hon. Member for Erith and Thamesmead has been an advocate for that as well. We are looking forward to having Crossrail at Abbey Wood. There will be more capacity then.

There is the redevelopment of London Bridge station, which should help to relieve some of the congestion problems caused by the bottlenecks. Again, we have to be patient and wait, but I do not want the improvements to be made in the long term—I would like improvements to be made now for our constituents and residents of Bexley and Bromley, so that they can get to work in a more satisfactory fashion.

Information is vital, but that has been the greatest failure of all. However, I am very happy with the approach that the Minister has taken. I hope that she will help me even more this afternoon in her response to the debate, because there is real concern in my area and that of my colleagues about the current operator, the current franchise agreement and the future bidding process. She is reasonable, understanding and usually pretty positive in her approach. I hope that she will look at the transport in south-east London and say that it is not acceptable at the moment and it must improve.