Rail Services (Enfield)

Theresa Villiers Excerpts

Wednesday 15th September 2010 Westminster Hall

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Mrs Theresa Villiers)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bone. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield North (Nick de Bois) on securing the debate and presenting an impassioned case for improvement to rail services in the borough of Enfield. I recall him raising the issue in Transport Question Time shortly before the summer recess. I know that he is a staunch campaigner on these matters in his constituency, standing up for the interests of local commuters in a highly effective way, alongside my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes), whom it is great to see in the Chamber today. As the near neighbour of both my hon. Friends—I represent Chipping Barnet—I well understand the importance of transport links in the London suburbs.

My hon. Friend the Member for Enfield North set out his concerns about reliability and performance. As we have heard this morning, train services to Enfield are operated by both National Express East Anglia and First Capital Connect. In my ministerial capacity, I take a close interest in the performance of all train operators, but my role as MP for Chipping Barnet means that I have an additional reason to scrutinise the performance of FCC on the Great Northern line, as it serves my constituency as well as Enfield.

That franchise experienced significant disruption between October 2009 and January of this year. That was largely caused by industrial action, and Thameslink services were the worst affected. However, there were also problems on the Great Northern line, which serves Enfield. It was particularly regrettable that action by drivers meant that no trains ran on Remembrance Sunday last year on the suburban Great Northern line services. I am relieved that the problems that led to that disruption have gone away for the moment, and that First Capital Connect’s overall public performance measure has recovered to reach the levels prevailing prior to that episode. However, the underlying issue for the railway—namely that on a number of routes drivers are not under a contractual obligation to work on Sunday—obviously has yet to be resolved.

As far as National Express East Anglia—the main focus of my hon. Friend’s remarks this morning—is concerned, in the latest period for which complete performance data are available, 90.8% of NXEA’s trains arrived on time, according to the PPM moving annual average figure. That is an improvement, albeit a modest one, on the 88.6% reliability levels that it inherited from the previous franchise in 2005. It is also worth noting that PPM figures are aggregated across a diverse franchise, covering long-distance, rural and commuter services. That means that they do not necessarily give us all the answers, when it comes to the specific performance of Enfield services. As my hon. Friend pointed out, NXEA’s most recent national passenger survey results indicate that it is below the average for London and the south-east. I agree with my hon. Friend that there is room for improvement.

My hon. Friend referred in some detail to capacity and his constituents’ concerns about crowding. The latest passenger loading data confirm that overcrowding is indeed an important issue on some Enfield services. Anxiety about overcrowding in a number of parts of the UK’s rail network increased during the previous Government’s term in office. In my view, one of Labour’s most serious mistakes was that it took far too long to wake up to the seriousness of this problem. It took, for example, over a decade to get moving on projects such as Crossrail and Thameslink. Four successive Labour Secretaries of State for Transport promised extra carriages under the HLOS—high-level output specification— programme, but that political decision came late in the day and less than a quarter of what they promised had arrived by the time that Labour left office. That leaves the current Government to deal with the problem during very lean times, when the pressing need to deal with the deficit that we inherited from our predecessors places intense pressure on the public finances.

The issue for consideration today is how we address the problems experienced by commuters—problems of the kind outlined by my hon. Friend—in an affordable way, consistent with our pledge to address the deficit that we inherited from the previous Government.

First, I should mention that I meet senior representatives of the rail industry and the Office of Rail Regulation every month to assess performance levels on all lines, and to scrutinise carefully the record of Network Rail and the train operators. Of course, the ORR takes the lead on these matters, but I am grateful to those who participate in what is a very useful process for me. Following on from my hon. Friend’s intervention at Transport questions, I raised the issue of NXEA services in Enfield with the group.

As my hon. Friend was kind enough to acknowledge, the Government’s wider reform agenda has the potential to drive forward progress in addressing a number of the issues that he raised. Our approach has three parts: first, reform of Network Rail; secondly, reform of rail franchising; and thirdly, taking forward capacity enhancement programmes where they can be reconciled with our commitment to address the deficit.

As hon. Members will be aware, making progress on reliability and delivering extra capacity depends in no small part on ensuring that Network Rail, as the infrastructure provider, delivers high-quality services to its customers in an efficient and cost-effective way. In the case of the NXEA services that we are considering, the most recent industry figures indicate that Network Rail was responsible for just over 60% of delays on the franchise. In particular, I am advised that Network Rail infrastructure has suffered a number of overhead line problems.

I very much welcome the fact that the franchise operator and Network Rail are working together to try to address the problem. However, if we are to improve Network Rail’s performance and reduce its costs, the company needs to be made more accountable for its actions, and that includes demonstrating greater accountability for its decisions on executive bonuses. We are considering a number of options, and we are working with the ORR and other stakeholders to take that work forward. I should make it plain, however, that the status quo is not acceptable, and we will be making changes in due course.

As we heard this morning, the Government are consulting on reforms to the rail franchising system, and those are the second element of our strategy for addressing the problems outlined by my hon. Friend. The reforms are aimed at moving away from a system in which Whitehall specifies highly detailed and prescriptive inputs for franchises—what my hon. Friend referred to as the command-and-control approach to the railways. Instead, we want a stronger focus on the quality of outcomes for passengers, while giving the professionals who run our railways more flexibility to apply innovation, enterprise and specialist expertise in working out the best way to deliver outcomes.

We need a more qualitative approach to the assessment of franchise bids—an approach that judges the quality of a bid’s overall package of proposals to invest in the railways, improve services and grow passenger numbers—rather than focusing solely and exclusively on the binary question of the level of subsidy or the premiums to be paid. Again, I hope that that will address some of the problems involved in what my hon. Friend referred to as the money-go-round.

Franchises should also be longer. We expect 10 to 15 years to become the normal, expected length, with the possibility of franchises running for up to 22 and a half years, where significant investment is promised. The increased certainty that longer franchises will give train operators will encourage private sector investment in the railways and help to deliver the improvements that passengers want. My hon. Friend called for us to include better services, better stations, longer trains and better rolling stock. On the specific improvements that he asked for, I hope that he will understand that I cannot prejudge the process that will commence once the franchise re-let is under discussion, but I encourage him to take part in the consultation on the re-let as and when it starts.

Our reformed franchises will set demanding passenger satisfaction outcomes for train operators to achieve. Train operators that do not comply with franchise requirements will face sanctions. Ultimately, in the case of very serious failure, sanctions will include termination of the franchise. The approach that we have set out in our consultation document will enable and incentivise train operators to respond more effectively and efficiently to commuters’ concerns. I expect our proposed measures to help address a range of the customer service and capacity issues that my hon. Friend outlined.

At this point, I should respond to my hon. Friend’s questions about the timetable for re-letting the East Anglia franchise. I reiterate that I decided to cancel the franchise competition initiated by the previous Government to ensure that the new franchise was issued under the reformed system, and to ensure that passengers using NXEA services could have the benefits of the changes that the coalition has promised to deliver. The franchise was due to be re-let and to commence on 1 April 2011, but a contractual extension has been agreed until October 2011.

I turn now to the third element of Government policy that is relevant to the matters under consideration: delivering additional capacity, where that can be reconciled with our commitment to address the crisis in the public finances that we inherited from the previous Government. The Department for Transport is funding 120 new carriages for the East Anglia franchise. Most will be used on the Stansted Express route, with some deployed on Cambridge commuter services. The carriages are expected to enter service from March 2011, and that will free up carriages that will be used to strengthen services on other parts of the NXEA network. The decisions on exactly where those carriages will go have yet to be made, but I am advised that stations in Enfield will be among those that benefit from the extra capacity.

Additional capacity will be introduced on First Capital Connect lines to Enfield in December 2010. In the morning peak, five of the six stations in the borough—Gordon Hill, Enfield Chase, Grange Park, Winchmore Hill and Palmers Green—will have three additional six-car train services to Moorgate, and one of the existing services will be doubled in size from a three-car to a six-car train. The five stations will also be served by additional services to Hertford North and Gordon Hill from Moorgate. The remaining station, Crews Hill, will be served by two additional six-car train services.

In the evening peak, the same five stations will have an additional three services, two of which will go to Gordon Hill, with the third going to Hertford North. That is except for Grange Park, which will have two additional services running to Gordon Hill. All those additional services will be six-car trains. Additional services will also run from Gordon Hill to Moorgate. Crews Hill will benefit from an additional six-car train running to Hertford North. There will be three more services during the morning peak, and extra carriages will be added to one of the existing services. Evening peak service capacity will see similar improvements and increases in capacity. Those morning and evening peak improvements are part of the additional 3,800 peak-time seats being added to Moorgate services from December.

In conclusion, I understand my hon. Friend’s concerns. The Government are working to ensure that we have a reliable railway and that crowding problems are addressed. We face the difficult task of achieving that at the same time as tackling the state of the public finances that we inherited from the Labour Government. I have summarised some of the most important initiatives that we are taking to seek to achieve those important goals. When the consultation process begins for the re-let of the franchises serving my hon. Friend’s constituency, I very much hope that he will make his views known. I am sure that they will be a valuable and welcome contribution to that important process, just as his remarks this morning have been a valuable and welcome contribution to the debate.