Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment his Department has made of the potential effect of the recommendations in the Gibb Report on the performance of Southern trains.

Chris Gibb’s independent report into Southern Rail makes a number of recommendations for the network that we are already working with industry to deliver. Performance has been consistently better since the new year with the Public Performance Measure – which measures performance across train operators - currently at 85% on Southern, compared to 62% in early December 2016.

We want and expect this figure to improve further, but that can only happen if industrial action by the trade unions stops. The Gibb Report was clear that the main cause of widespread disruption on Southern was union action.