Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps his Department is taking to improve the performance of rail services operating from Woking to London.

South Western Railways’ (SWR) Franchise Agreement contains provisions that incentivises SWR to improve its own performance and to work jointly with Network Rail. Challenging targets for performance have been set and where performance falls below expected levels, SWR is required to invest additional sums of money into initiatives to address the causes of the poor performance. This has been the case in the first two years of the Franchise, where targets were not met. Officials and I continue to monitor closely SWR’s performance and are currently in the process of finalising a Remedial Agreement.