Preston Park Train Services

Debate between Caroline Lucas and Peter Kyle

Tuesday 24th July 2018 Westminster Hall

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered train services to and from Preston Park.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. I welcome the Minister and the hon. Member for Hove (Peter Kyle), who cares deeply about this issue and other subjects relating to rail services in Brighton and Hove. Today, the focus is on Preston Park.

This debate is sadly necessary because of the decimation—quite literally—of rail services at Preston Park station in Brighton. People travel from that very busy commuter station to London, and to the station to attend the many schools and the two sixth-form colleges in the area. The station also supports Brighton and Hove Albion—fans are shuttled to and from the station by buses located near it—and is essential for key events such as Brighton Pride and the marathon.

It therefore beggars belief that, following the introduction of the new timetable on 20 May, services have been slashed by about 30% at peak times. Cancellations on top of the devastated timetable have left Preston Park almost unusable. Even with the new timetable, since 16 July some 63% of Preston Park services have been either delayed or cancelled. Although cancellations appear to have been slightly improved, I hope the Minister will not suggest that people should be grateful that 37% of trains now run on time, compared with 29% after 20 May.

The ongoing fiasco is leading to dangerous overcrowding and distress. Preston Park commuters are at their wits’ end. It is no surprise to me, given the daily messages of distress that fill my inbox, that in just five days more than 1,000 people signed a petition, which I presented to the House of Commons last Tuesday, calling for the restoration of services. I have repeatedly raised my concerns with the Rail Minister, and he recently wrote to me in response. I want to take this opportunity to explain to him directly why his reply did not go down well with the constituents I sent it on to.

On the inadequacy of the new timetable, it has been explained to the Minister that the Gatwick Express to Victoria no longer stops at Preston Park, after having served the station for 10 years. There is not a reduced Gatwick Express service; the service no longer stops at Preston Park. People have bought annual season tickets with a huge premium to enable them to use Gatwick Express services from that station. They moved to that area to make their lives work with a commute to London, based on an understanding and an expectation that the service would be there. The Southern trains that have replaced the Gatwick Express start at Littlehampton, 11 stops before Preston Park, so by the time they reach Preston Park they are—unsurprisingly—crammed full.

The service cuts are causing massive distress and are ruining lives. These are just three quotes from my bulging inbox. The first person said:

“I commute from Preston Park to London Bridge...The trains are cancelled and delayed more than they run on time. I spend the (standing) journey fretting as I’m late for work. I spend the journey home fretting as my child has one parent, me, and I’m left stranded 70 miles away.”

The second person said:

“I would like to let you know about the severe difficulties I have experienced going from Preston Park to London Victoria and back for work. I pay nearly five and a half thousand pounds a year for a Gatwick Express service that no longer stops at Preston Park.”

Finally, the third person said:

“The train service from Preston Park is appalling with trains constantly cancelled. The ones that do are packed and often I am left sitting on a dirty floor.”

[Peter Kyle (Hove) (Lab)]

I am very grateful to the hon. Lady for securing this debate. I had the pleasure of speaking to one of her constituents today, who told me that the train he now regularly gets to London now is only four carriages long. The problem is not just that some trains do not stop at Preston Park, but that the ones that do stop have only four carriages, so many people cannot get on in the first place. Does she agree that, if the Government are going to prevent the Gatwick Express from stopping there, at the very least they should ensure that every train that stops there is 12 carriages long?

[Caroline Lucas]

Of course I agree, but I do not want to concede yet that the Gatwick Express might not be restored. That is my big ask from today’s debate: we need those train services restored. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that it adds insult to injury, first, to see the Gatwick Express trains fly through Preston Park station pretty much empty and, secondly, to have four-car trains, which, as he says, are simply not enough. Somebody told me today that they had been commuting for 18 years through rail strikes and all kinds of problems, but this is the straw that broke the camel’s back and caused them to give up commuting and their work.

I have raised this issue with the Minister on many occasions. When he wrote to me on 12 July, he suggested that services to Victoria are better since the introduction of the new timetable:

“Before the timetable change, Preston Park received six services into Victoria in the morning peak made up of three Gatwick Express services and three Southern services. Following the timetable change, Preston Park now receives seven services into Victoria into the morning peak, all of which are Southern services.”

He ended the paragraph with a spectacularly out-of-touch comment:

“Scheduled journey times have in fact improved since the timetable change, with the average morning peak journey time being around a minute quicker.”

The purpose of the debate is to explain to the Minister again why his suggestion that Preston Park services to Victoria are more frequent and faster has gone down like a cup of cold sick with Preston Park commuters. When the seven trains he referred to are not cancelled, a large proportion are full on arrival. As I mentioned, they start at Littlehampton, 11 stops back, rather than at Brighton, just one stop back. I repeat that point, because I am not quite sure it is getting through. Trains are short formed, as the hon. Member for Hove identified, and often have only four carriages, making journeys extremely unpleasant, if commuters can even squeeze themselves on to the packed trains when they arrive.

Crucially, of the seven new services, one arrives in London after 9 am and two arrive after 9.30 am. Those times are too late for the large proportion of commuters. In place of six reliable peak trains to Victoria, three of which were Gatwick Express, we have effectively just four or five totally packed short-formed trains, and on top of that there are chronic cancellations and delays. I want to ensure that the Minister really understands why people who have paid in advance for the premium Gatwick service are incredibly angry and not at all satisfied with his letter.

The solution to the mess cannot be only to address the cancellations and delays, because the base timetable itself is unacceptable. The Minister is aware that Hassocks has four Gatwick Express trains an hour and Preston Park none. That simply does not make sense. The Gatwick Express sails by virtually empty while people who have paid a premium to catch it from Preston Park are making the journey backwards into Brighton to get it—a significant number of them drive to do so.

More than 40 people have replied to a post on the Preston Park train campaign Facebook page, saying that they now have to travel to other stations by car or via other means because the Gatwick Express service no longer runs. It urgently needs to be reinstated. There is no justification for removing the Gatwick Express from that incredibly busy city station while Hassocks, a small town, gets four Gatwick Express services an hour. Gatwick Express must be reinstated at Preston Park, and more trains need to start from Brighton, with enough carriages to meet demand. People have paid a huge amount of money to commute a relatively long way. They need to be able to get on the trains that arrive, and they need to be able to get a seat.

The Victoria service is not the only issue. London Bridge-St Pancras trains have been massively hit with a 43% cut in the morning and a 53% cut in evening peak time. Again, the Littlehampton issue in the morning makes those trains unusable, and in the evening it is complete carnage as none of the 53% fewer trains start from London Bridge, which leads to massive overcrowding. Trains often miss out London Bridge completely because more passengers cannot be fitted on, so the trains and platforms are a serious health and safety risk.

Added to that, there are massive gaps in the timetable to Preston Park, including a 1.5-hour gap between about 6 pm and 7.30 pm. That is a key commuting time, but if people miss the train—or, more likely, the train does not stop or is full—they have to wait 1.5 hours with no service at all. Preston Park commuters want more trains that start at London Bridge, as they used to. Commuters face packed trains when they arrive for boarding, so it is plain that there is demand.

The Minister’s 12 July letter to me showed that he is aware of the huge cuts to Thameslink services from Preston Park to London Bridge, Blackfriars and onwards. He simply said that, before the May timetable change, there were 12 morning peak services to those London stations, and that from 15 July there would be eight. He said that, for people going home, the numbers went from 15 trains before the May change to seven. He had two comments for those affected: first, that journey times are now quicker, and, secondly, that he expects Govia Thameslink Railway to keep the timetable under review.

Constituents are incredulous, as am I. Nearly half their services have been removed and the ones that remain are overcrowded, and telling people who cannot get on trains that the ones that do go are very slightly faster simply does not cut it. Vague assertions about expecting things to be reviewed are an appalling dereliction of duty. People are losing their jobs over this; they are missing family events, unable to pick up their children on time and looking at moving house. How bad does it have to get before the Government get a grip?

On the issue of demand, there are serious concerns that the footfall at this incredibly busy and vital station has not been accurately measured and taken account of. The Office of Rail and Road has produced statistics for Preston Park, but without barriers it is hard to know how many people are using that station. A lot of guesswork is going on. How confident is the Minister that he has a sound estimate of Preston Park numbers? It would be very interesting if he shared that estimate with us. Not only are there no barriers, so the number of people going through cannot be counted, but when commuters buy their season ticket they often designate Brighton, or even Hove, as their station of origin because it does not cost them any more to do that but it gives them greater flexibility.

I live near London Road station, another Brighton station, but my season ticket is for Brighton, because that allows me to use London Road or any surrounding station. Simply looking at the destination written on the season ticket will not make the Minister any wiser about the number of people using that station. I urge him to look at other ways of counting, perhaps manually if necessary, to demonstrate to him how busy the station is.

In response to the dire impact of the cancellations and delays that have come on top of the slashing of the base Preston Park timetable, the Minister is likely to talk about the new interim timetable of 15 July. However, from my inbox and just a glance at the Preston Park train campaign Facebook page, it becomes clear that that has not solved the problems. Indeed, the campaign analysed the new timetable and found that there are still severe cuts and the service remains, in commuters’ words, “catastrophically inferior”. The campaign explains that there are now even fewer trains or connections to the hub of Haywards Heath, making travel to all destinations more difficult and time consuming. At night, there is often only one Preston Park train an hour from Victoria; if trains are missed there are no timely connections at Haywards Heath or Brighton. My inbox is full. Last Thursday—19 July, after the new timetable came into effect—a constituent wrote to let me know:

“It has been consistently awful since I last wrote. Yesterday the 08.11 to Cambridge was cancelled without explanation so all passengers at Preston Park could do was watch as two Gatwick Expresses whizzed by. Getting home in the evening is still a game of chance.”

Even when passengers get on a train, their station might be skipped. Following such an infuriating experience at the end of last week, one constituent wrote:

“How do you expect people to be able to run lives, collect children, arrive for NHS, police, rail and other security shifts, be punctual for meetings, keep businesses viable?”

I would like to hear the Minister’s response. I must ask him, when he does answer, not to suggest that things are getting better on other bits of the network, as that is tantamount to saying that it is fine for Preston Park to be sacrificed in the interest of benefits somewhere else. It is not fine for my constituents to be sacrificed in that way.

Preston Park is considered a station for which the higher amount of one month’s season ticket cost can be claimed as compensation for recent disruption. However, that is only for those whose season tickets start at Preston Park and are valid for Thameslink services. As I mentioned, plenty of people have season tickets from Hove, Southern-only season tickets or other types of ticket. They will be left out of that compensation, even though they start their journey at Preston Park. I urge the Minister to find a way to ensure that they too are eligible for compensation. Passengers are often advised at rail offices to buy their season ticket in a way that is more flexible, not specifically for Preston Park. As a result of doing so, they will lose out.

Why should my constituent, who is a low-income freelance worker who visits London only two or three times a week, be left out of the compensation? Many different people—men and women—work part time, but a disproportionately large number of those who work part time are women, such as those who go back to work after maternity leave. Has the Minister considered that the season-ticket-only system of compensation he has devised is discriminatory, particularly since we do not yet have part-time season tickets in Brighton and Hove? It cannot be right for non-season ticket holders to be excluded; there is no principled basis for that.

This debate is not long enough for a discussion on the shambles of our fragmented and privatised railways, which should be reunited and put into public hands, but I will say something specific to the dog’s breakfast of the GTR franchise. As Ministers well know, the word “franchise” is utterly misleading in this case. GTR has a management contract and Ministers are meant to be overseeing it. The Rail Minister said last week:

“There is too much buck-passing, and we want to bring that to an end.”—[Official Report, 18 July 2018; Vol. 645, c. 417.]

I can only agree, but to follow that logic the Secretary of State himself should resign. If that is what was meant, I would certainly support it.

I want today’s debate to be a constructive demonstration of what real democracy looks like: hundreds of people contacting their MP, and getting together to campaign to seek resolution and accountability over something that is drastically affecting their everyday lives. A very large number of passengers want to hear the Minister’s response to their very reasonable demands, which include a reinstatement of Gatwick Express trains, for trains to and from Preston Park to have adequate capacity when passengers board, no gaps of more than 15 minutes in peak time services, investment in the stations and trains to be fit for commuting.

I end with a request for the Minister to provide solutions, not excuses. I want to hear that there will be an end to the ongoing Preston Park train nightmare.

DMB Solutions: Liquidation

Debate between Caroline Lucas and Peter Kyle

Monday 5th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

The issue that I should like to raise tonight has arisen in my constituency in recent weeks, but it has national implications. I am also sure that it will be familiar to many Members of this House: namely, the sudden collapse of a private sector business—in this case, a building services company. That collapse has left my constituents out of pocket and in some cases literally out of their home. Understandably, they are angry and frustrated by the response, or more accurately, the lack of it from the relevant state bodies.

DMB Solutions, a Brighton-based building and design company, went into voluntary liquidation over the new year. It had operated in my constituency since about 2009 and, to a slightly lesser extent, in the neighbouring constituencies of the hon. Member for Hove (Peter Kyle), who I am delighted to see in his place, and the hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Lloyd Russell-Moyle). The fallout from the collapse of the company has gained national media attention, owing to both the number of people affected and the scale of the financial losses they suffered. More than 400 local people have joined a victim support group on Facebook set up more than a year before the company collapsed—a point to which I will return—while a significant number have lost in excess of £50,000. This was money saved up over years and paid to DMB for work that will now never be completed, or at least not by DMB Solutions.

It has been shocking and heart-breaking to meet my constituents and hear at first hand the devastating situations in which many have been left by the demise of the company. For example, Norma Smith, who is 84 years old, employed DMB Solutions last summer to build a wet room with a toilet in the downstairs of her house in anticipation of one day being unable to use the stairs. In common with many others who have complained to me about DMB Solutions, Norma paid in full before work commenced. She reports that the contract time of three to four weeks for completion stretched into months and months, during which she was confined to living in her bedroom.

Norma eventually cancelled part of the project in a bid to save costs, but that money was never returned to her. Moreover, a leaking pipe caused flooding in her home and damage to floorboards that she had to pay a carpenter to repair. The project was never fully completed by DMB Solutions, and Norma has since had to employ another building company to create a shower space instead of the wet room originally envisaged. She says:

“As the weeks went by with very little work being carried out, downstairs a building site, I become very exhausted. In the end, I had to ask my son-in-law to take on all communication with the company, and with Trading Standards. I do hope that the company will be fully investigated, as the damage, not only in financial terms but also the emotional toll, has been huge.”

The psychological impact of such cases—the stress and anxiety caused, as well as the financial problems—cannot be overestimated.

[Peter Kyle (Hove) (Lab)]

The hon. Lady is making a powerful point. To add to her catalogue of constituents, I can speak of those who have turned to me, such as Alison, who gave £30,000 to this company six days before it went bust. It knew it would not fulfil the order, yet it took £30,000 from somebody—in the full knowledge that it would not complete the work. Does the hon. Lady not think that in such cases the authorities should investigate fully to ensure that the full force of the law is on the side of people such as Alison, not of the directors, who were clearly ripping her off?

[Caroline Lucas]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, and I agree entirely. It is a point to which I will return shortly. As he says, the company must have known six days before it chose to go into liquidation that it was about to do that. I would have thought that to seek tens of thousands of pounds just days before was criminal—I would have thought it was fraud—but we are having great difficulty prosecuting the case.

I want to share one last story from a constituent who told me:

“My partner and I started a project with DMB Solutions in May last year. The project – to rearrange rooms in the loft extension, and create an extension housing a large open plan family room downstairs – was intended to take four weeks and cost about £95,000. We did some research on the company and were unable to find anything concerning. We had seen several boards outside houses and were impressed by the website and by the promises of the design consultant. However, in early January this year, we found ourselves in the position of having an upstairs with no heating, water or Building Control approval, and a downstairs with holes in the ceilings, unattached electrical cables hanging through ceilings, damage to rooms which were outside the scope of works, and a water system which does not provide enough hot water for a bath. We had paid all the money in accordance with the staged payment plan we had signed, so we are £60,000 out of pocket, and our lovely home has been ruined. These events have rocked me to the core and I still cannot quite believe this awful thing has happened to us. In my opinion, DMB Solutions have acted incompetently, immorally and illegally. What I find so distressing is that various bodies and organisations that exist partly to protect the public in these situations seem to have been ineffectual, enabling the company and Directors to continue to operate.”