Southeastern Rail Services

Tom Tugendhat Excerpts

Thursday 28th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Robert Neill]

I am sure we would all echo that. My hon. Friend is quite right. According to my information, well over 20 rush-hour trains from Kent to London were cancelled because of overrunning engineering works. Sometimes, the delays were over two hours, which affects my constituents at Bromley South station, many of whom use those trains into London. So there is a real problem here.

I have quoted from the official statistics, but people sometimes think them dry and remote, so I want to read out some of the experiences put to me directly, either on Twitter or by email, which I think capture the problem. These are people talking about their problems on Southeastern trains. In my constituency, people pay £1,600 to £1,700 a year for a season ticket. One reads:

“People’s lives are literally being made a misery by Southeastern trains”.

Another reads:

“The service I have personally experienced this month has been shocking, almost daily delays”.

A third reads:

“I got to the train on time, but the train itself seldom runs on time because of track problems, congestion, lack of stock, no drivers—not on”.

I cannot disagree with that. I use the service myself on an almost daily basis to come to Westminster, and I now factor delays into my journey. It is absolutely ludicrous.

A fourth quote reads:

“Weekend engineering works mean no trains and earliest bus doesn’t get me to work on time so no overtime for 5 weeks”.

This is somebody on low pay whose job is being made a misery by this poor performance. “Not value for money” says another—well, you can say that again! Another reads:

“There is not enough time to write all that is wrong”.

Even this Adjournment debate is not long enough to expand on all that is wrong.

I have two final quotes. The first reads:

“The delays happen on a daily basis. My train is delayed again…use the Hayes line for a week, you’ll see.”

That is in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart), and is wholly within Greater London. One final quote, for those further into Kent:

“7.40 Dunton Green to London delayed this morning to let 2 fast trains through. Are Metro customers 2nd class citizens?”

That is the feeling actually. There is an inherent conflict or tension in the Southeastern trains franchise, as currently constructed, between the high-volume and frequent demands of the inner-suburban services, such as in my area, and the demands of those coming from further into Kent.

[Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con)]

I assure my hon. Friend that the frustration of the inner-London customers is shared entirely by those a little further out. I have the great privilege of representing people who use the Tonbridge line, the Maidstone East line and the Medway Valley line. All three have had a woeful service for as long as I can remember. A survey I put out recently found that nearly 90% thought the service had gone downhill since Christmas, which is really saying something, because it was hardly uphill before then. I urge the Minister to do exactly what she has been talking about, which is to hold these people to account, get the money back off them when they fail and make sure that privatisation works by making the companies pay.

[Robert Neill]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, although it is worth stressing that the failures are not just with the privatised train operating company, but with the publicly owned Network Rail. I draw a contrast between this line, which I now use, and the line I used before I moved to south-east London, the c2c line, which is also privatised but which has hugely improved its performance and satisfaction levels since it was privatised. So this is not an ideological issue; it is about sheer competence, and that involves enforcing the terms of the contract.

--- Later in debate ---

[Claire Perry]

I shall be happy to have that conversation. The hon. Lady probably finds it as frustrating as I do that selective door opening works perfectly well in some parts of the country and not in others. There may well be very good operational reasons for the need for a software change. I will certainly look into the matter.

[Tom Tugendhat]

The Minister said that Transport for London might take over some metro services. I understand that, but my constituents are rightly concerned about the fact that we do not have a vote on the mayoralty of London, and therefore have no democratic control over Transport for London. They fear that Transport for London would ignore our area in favour of those who would—how can I put it?—benefit more electorally from the change in service.

[Claire Perry]

If my hon. Friend will bear with me and can spare the time, I will say a couple of words about the genuine consultation that we are running. The change could indeed solve some problems, but I know that constituents outside the London boundary have real concerns.

The intention is to complete the review very quickly and secure a final decision on the business case in the next couple of months, so that, if it makes sense, the extra capacity can be put on the metro services by the end of the year, with an additional slug of capacity to come in 2018. Southeastern has already added 95,000 seats to the network, although it is a bit like the M25: as soon as the seats are provided, people travel, because they feel that they can now get on to the trains. In some instances, we are running to stand still.

Southeastern has also refreshed and improved its trains. I sometimes get on to a train and think, “This looks nice”, and then remember that it is a 40-year-old train that has been repainted. What we want are trains that look good, provide capacity, and have state-of-the-art toilets, and some of that has been achieved on this line.

Let me now deal with the issue of performance. Basically, people can tolerate a great deal if their trains run on time, but I know that my hon. Friend shares my disappointment at the fact that this franchise holder has not met its public performance measure targets at any time over the last year—well, it may have done so on a daily basis, but not on a monthly basis. I can tell my hon. Friend that 60% of that failure is infrastructure-related, about 25% is the fault of Southeastern and involves issues related and unrelated to trains, and the rest is “train operator on train operator” stuff. I do not think customers care about that. My hon. Friend is right to say that we can demand improvements through the franchising programme, we can hold operators to account, we can demand plans and we can issue financial penalties, but what we actually want to do is run a reliable railway. I also make the following commitment to my hon. Friend and the House. Although the quadrant taskforce has been running and there has been an unprecedented level of co-operation between the operator and Network Rail, the industry needs to do more. I will be having that conversation with it in the next few days.

It is crucial, not least for the delivery of the Thameslink service which is so important in increasing the number of journeys through the core of London, that the outer bits of the track work effectively. Not only are the current levels of delays unacceptable, and in some cases inexcusable, but we have to get this working right to get the benefit out of the £6.5 billion the Government are investing in Thameslink. We have to keep demanding that Southeastern and Network Rail work together to keep the disruption to a minimum.

There have been some changes, although that is not always obvious. There have, for example, been small changes such as putting relief drivers at Cannon Street, so if there is a delay drivers are quickly on hand and do not have to move around; continuing to review the timetable to make sure there is resilience should there be a delay; and making sure trains leave the stations and the depot exactly on time—not 10 or 20 seconds late—because in a busy stopping service all that builds up.

I am very sorry to say one of the great causes of delay is trespass and suicide on the line. Someone takes their life every 30 hours on the national rail network. That causes an immense amount of delay and is, of course, often a dreadfully distressing experience for the staff and train drivers, as well as there being the tragedy of the loss. I know that Southeastern and the whole industry are working closely with the Samaritans to try and reduce that.

On compensation, in an ideal world we would not be paying it at all because the trains would be running perfectly on time. I am keen, however, to reform the delay repay scheme. It is already among the most generous in Europe; train users in other countries do not get a lot of money back. However, although in delay repay we have one of the most generous compensation schemes, we want to go further. As the Chancellor said in his autumn statement, we want to take the time at which the clock starts ticking from 30 minutes to 15 minutes, which will start to address some of my hon. Friend’s constituency problems. I expect to make announcements on that shortly. We are gearing up to reform that and I will have further details on it.

I also want to point out to the House the London Bridge improvements. There is light at the end of the tunnel. Part of that station will be open in August of this year, although there will be continued disruption to some Southeastern services. I urge the operators and all Members to make sure everyone is fully aware of those changes. By 2018, when this station opens, it will be a brand-new, state-of-the-art station with much more capacity, able to run many more services through the core of London.