Southern Railway (Performance)

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Wednesday 8th July 2015 Westminster Hall

[Crispin Blunt]

As my right hon. Friend says, he won. Given the number of hon. Friends who wish to contribute, I will try to restrain my remarks, despite the immense pain felt by my constituents because of Southern’s service. I have been president of the Redhill, Reigate and District Rail Users Association since my election in 1997, and I have never known anything like the situation that we face today. I do not say that Southern has been a beacon of excellence throughout that period, and my commentary on the performance of the company overall is that it seems focused on the interests of its shareholders rather than its customers. When service improvements such as increased train lengths during out-of-peak services are put forward, there is then an issue of cash and cost, and it appears that service levels for customers are a secondary consideration.

We face a company that has managed itself extremely tightly. The disaster over the introduction of the London Bridge upgrade scheme has seen company performance levels totally collapse, to the cost of the people we serve. My right hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs has already illustrated some of the highlights: the five-hour delay on 30 April and the 230 cancellations and significant delays as recently as last week, on 1 July. Southern’s performance in the heat was worse than any other company’s.

The daily commute has become a wholly unpredictable experience, with the consequences that the hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes) mentioned. Too often it is a nightmare for the people we represent, so Southern’s levels of satisfaction being at the bottom of the league table are not remotely surprising.

I want to turn to issues specific to Reigate and Redhill, given where my constituents sit on the line.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

Or stand.

[Crispin Blunt]

My hon. Friend points out that they stand on the line. My constituents are at the point of the service where, if they are taking a busy train—a quarter of which have been cancelled because of the London Bridge upgrade—and trying to get on at Redhill, which is a significantly longer journey than for the constituents of the hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood, the prospect of getting a seat is close to zero. At times, the prospect of getting on the train at all is now in doubt. Hon. Friends from further up the line will no doubt have more to say about the fact that they cannot even get on the trains because they are so crowded.

I stood for re-election in Reigate on a pledge to campaign for fair fares and compensation for rail users. It was a central part of my election campaign. I went to every single station to make the point about the campaign for fair fares and to meet the people getting on trains at 6 o’clock in the morning. There is no point in going at 7 o’clock, because it is far too busy, so people’s days have been extended because of Southern’s diabolical performance levels, combined with those of Network Rail and the botched implementation of the upgrade at London Bridge.

I want to focus on the milking of my constituents as cash cows for the system. Ours is a so-called negative subsidy area, so the people I represent pay not only for the rail service that they get, but for the rail service in the rest of the country. That adds insult to injury. For example, a Redhill annual season ticket holder who also buys zone 1 to 6 travel in London will pay £1,088 more than someone travelling from Coulsdon South, two stops up the line. Passengers from other stations outside zone 6, such as Dorking, Oxted, East Grinstead and Three Bridges, who have a greater or similar length of rail journey into London, pay less for the service.

Southern has enjoyed the second highest income among train operators, and unlike many other companies it has not received funding from the Government, because it is a negative subsidy area. There is a change to the franchise coming, with Govia Thameslink taking over the management of the contract from 26 July. From that point, unhappily for the Minister and her accountability, the Department for Transport will take the fare box. I strongly appreciate her moves to convene the rail bosses and oversee the implementation of a performance improvement plan, but I am afraid I have to put her on notice that we will expect a meaningful level of effort now that she is effectively taking responsibility, so that commuters will be given a decent level of compensation to take account of the deteriorated services until the London Bridge works are completed in 2018.

The opportunity for my constituents comes with the extension of Oyster to Gatwick, which is part of the requirement of the new franchise. Transport for London has been ready to roll that out for ages, but it is being blocked by the Department for Transport while it and Southern sort out their fare arrangements.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

I congratulate my West Sussex neighbour, my right hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert), on securing the debate and on the robust way in which he introduced it. Other hon. Members have given the same reasons for complaint about the appalling service from Southern rail: poor timekeeping; cancellations; diversions; overcrowded trains; poor value for money; the rarity of refunds; the extraordinary coincidence that many delays seem to amount to 28 or 29 minutes, just below the 30-minute compensation threshold; and appalling communications when things go wrong. Problems are compounded for pedestrians as well. In my constituency and in Worthing West, delays while level crossing barriers have been down have meant pedestrians and motorists having to wait for 48 minutes out of every hour in some cases. Commuters on trains are therefore not the only people affected.

My constituents travel along the coastal strip—often having to change at Brighton—come into London and go to Gatwick airport. If that airport is to be expanded, when the issue is finally decided, having a reliable rail service will be an essential factor, but that is another argument for another day. The Southern rail problems go well beyond the ubiquitous, traditional excuse that always used to be trotted out of the signal box fire at Penge or the landslip at Balcombe.

I will not repeat everything that has already been said, but I will quote from two complaints that I have received from constituents in the past week. Last week a constituent left West Worthing at 10.32 am, heading for London Victoria. The indicator board stated that the destination was Haywards Heath, not London, but the train was cancelled due to electrical supply problems in the Purley area. She caught a later, stopping service to Brighton, but it arrived late, and the connecting fast service to London was announced as being delayed due to

“awaiting a member of train crew”.

Eventually she arrived at London Victoria some 23 minutes later than she had intended.

On the return journey, the 15.52 from Clapham Junction to Ore and Littlehampton was delayed because of the incoming journey, which had in turn been delayed by speed restrictions imposed because of the heat—that is the seasonal version of leaves on the line. Departure was at 16.12 and the service was 20 minutes late into Haywards Heath. A problem developed with the doors of the front portion of the train after splitting, so there was a further delay while the driver tried to reset the electronics. The late-running 17.03 Littlehampton and Eastbourne train arrived on the adjacent platform and detached, and my constituent says that

“we were advised to get off our train by our guard and board the Littlehampton part of the other train as that was going to leave first.

As we were boarding the train, platform staff were then telling us to reboard the train we had just got off because THAT one was going to depart first.

We then all reboarded the original train.”

Eventually, my constituent departed Haywards Heath at 17.11 and

“arrived at Preston Park where the driver announced that the Brighton signalman had decided to divert the train to Brighton and terminate it there, and passengers for coastal stations through to Littlehampton to alight at Preston Park and catch the following late running train (ie the one we had got on and got off again).

(How does diverting and then terminating a late service get counted in the ‘performance statistics’, or is it a canny way of not being counted at all?)”

I hope you are keeping up with “this farce”, Mr Turner, because then:

“Four carriages of passengers got off the train.

The indicator board and automated announcement at Preston Park then ‘advised’ us to ‘please stand clear of the platform as the next train will not be stopping at this station’,”

because that service was not scheduled to stop at Preston Park. Fortunately,

“it did, four carriages of people reboarding a train that they had already boarded once and then had to get off earlier in their journey”,

eventually arriving at West Worthing at 18.59,

“48 minutes later than scheduled.

Any apologies/communication etc. from Southern? Why bother asking—the poor guard knew as much as we did! Did Southern care or think about the passengers as we were being told to get off trains, get on others, only to then get off what became a diverted and terminating train, and reboard another, yet again. What about people with children, children in buggies, people with mobility problems, people with cases and large bags? Any thoughts about them from Southern”?

Of course not.

“My overall journey was delayed by more than one hour, and according to the delay repay leaflet I should be entitled to compensation ‘made in respect of the OVERALL delay to the planned UK rail journey’.

Will I actually get that?

I suspect not, because on previous occasions when similar delays have occurred on my daily outward and return journeys, Southern have only compensated me for a single journey delay of over 30 minutes…Over the last few months the 10.30 and 11.06 West Worthing-London services, on the Tuesdays that I have to catch them, have all regularly been cancelled”

or late.

My constituent also asked:

“I would also like to know why the real time train running app from Southern shows those cancelled services as ‘running on time’. Another example of totally inaccurate and misleading information that passengers have to endure from a company that doesn’t know how to provide clear, timely, accurate, consistent information from its staff, indicator boards or announcements.

Southern rail services are beyond a joke for those of us who have to use them regularly and I think my experience from yesterday is a graphic illustration.”

[Nusrat Ghani]

My hon. Friend raises a valid point about customer experiences, which do not seem to be heard about at the top table at Southern or Network Rail. Will he join me in urging the Minister to call on Network Rail and Southern to convene regular meetings with passengers so that they can share their real day-to-day experiences on the line?

[Tim Loughton]

I absolutely urge that. Communication is the heart of the problem. If there were real reasons for the delays, and those were communicated properly, there would be greater understanding, and surely also better ways of getting around the problems.

I will quote one final constituent who wrote to me a couple of days ago:

“I am writing to inform you that I believe that Southern Rail has lost its strategic direction and has lost the respect of both its customers and its staff. The Performance Plan published by Southern Rail clearly shows a continuing and substantial reduction in the quality of service over a three-year period and the management of changes at London Bridge further demonstrates a lack of planning and the mitigation of risk. Credibility has been further lost by the recent publication of changes to services to improve performance by reducing the level of service being provided.”

Poor communication, poor timekeeping, poor value for money and a worsening situation: things are not getting better, and given the rising demands on our rail service and the increasing population in the south of England in particular, they can only get worse. Frankly, the rise in passenger numbers that the rail companies always quote to us as some sign of satisfaction has come about because our constituents have no choice but to catch trains if they are heading northwards into London. The fact that they do not get proper compensation payments only adds insult to injury. This has gone on for far too long, and our constituents deserve better.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Philp (Croydon South) (Con)]

I add my voice to those we have heard this morning lamenting the woeful performance of Southern railway over the past year or two. There are four principal problems, which other hon. Members have already alluded to: consistent lateness; excessive cancellations; short trains that lead to the gross overcrowding we have already heard about, which is particularly difficult for pensioners and people with disabilities; and the practice of station skipping, when a station stop is missed out to catch up on journey time. I strongly suspect that station skipping occurs so that services can get just inside the half-hour delay repay deadline. My own local station, Coulsdon South, appears to be a particular victim of that insidious practice.

The figures tell their own story. As recently as three years ago, the performance and punctuality measure on Southern was around 90%—I know there are other measures, but that one is published most often. Over the past two or three years, that figure has consistently declined, month on month, and now sits at only just above 80%. That is far too low. If we compare that with other parts of the railway system we can see how woefully bad it is. For example, London Overground, a metro railway run by Transport for London, has a PPM figure of 95%. That shows what can be done with a well organised system.

Southern’s figure of 80% is the worst in the United Kingdom. We are not complaining about the structure of the railways in general, but about this particular line, which is the worst in the country. My hon. Friend the Member for Croydon Central (Gavin Barwell), a party Whip, is in the Chamber; I know he shares my views on this terrible service, which affects his constituents every bit as much as mine.

I deplore the fact that in the document on improving performance on Thameslink and Southern, published a few months ago, the targets for improvement are extremely unambitious. The 2015-16 target for PPM is only 81%, barely better than what we are experiencing at the moment; it is an unacceptably low aspiration. Even by 2018-19, nearly five years away, the aspiration is only for 87%, still below where the railway system was a few years ago.

The problem is perhaps best illustrated by a few tweets I have recently received. One is from a gentleman I know quite well, who tweets as MaximusThurbon—I think he is modelling himself on the guy from “Gladiator”. He says:

“Train late this morning by 10 minutes, train home cancelled. Another normal day on Southern”.

Another tweeter said that

“evening rush hour can only mean one thing…Southern network delays and cancellations!”

Another person said that

“Southernrail provides a horrific service”.

Another said:

“It’s starting to turn into a full time job filling out the delay repay forms”.

It is no surprise, therefore, that when rail users are surveyed, satisfaction is very low. The consumer organisation Which? recently found that Southern railway had the second-lowest satisfaction rating of any train operating company in the country and the worst satisfaction rating for delays. Moreover, figures from Transport Focus, which my right hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert) mentioned, have seen Southern’s passenger satisfaction rating slump from 82% to 72%—once again, the lowest level in the country. Most tellingly, however, the satisfaction rating among commuters using the line is just 60%. I contrast that with the figures for lines such as the Heathrow Express, which has a 94% satisfaction rating; the east coast main line, which has a 94% satisfaction rating; and a railway system called First Hull, with which I confess I am unacquainted, but which has a 96% satisfaction rating. So why does our local railway have only a 60% satisfaction rating among commuters?

I would like the Minister to reply to two or three points, because I know she is working hard to fix these problems. First, will she confirm that she is chairing weekly meetings of a taskforce with Southern railway and Network Rail to fix these problems? Secondly, will she consider improving the compensation system, perhaps by having better publicity and by reducing the threshold to 15 minutes, as the right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) suggested? I certainly endorse the suggestion from my hon. Friend the Member for Reigate (Crispin Blunt) that we have an automatic refund so that, where a commuter says, “I am always on the 8.30 train,” and that train is late, compensation is automatic.

Will the Minister also consider fining the operating company for station skipping—a problem that affects my local station?

[Tim Loughton]

Hear, hear.

[Chris Philp]

Thank you.

Furthermore, if things do not improve in a reasonable time—say, one year—the entire operation of the franchise may need to be looked at again.