Asked by: Clive Efford (Labour - Eltham)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether her Department has had recent discussions with Southeastern Rail on that operator's planned timetable changes.
Answered by Kevin Foster
The Department has recently engaged on Southeastern’s proposed timetable changes.
Asked by: Clive Efford (Labour - Eltham)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, if she will make it her policy to urge Southeastern Rail to reverse its decision on the reduction of train services and removal of destinations on some of its lines in December 2022 and hold a full consultation with passengers on any proposed changes to those services.
Answered by Kevin Foster
The new timetable has a very similar number of train services to today but will be structured to better match space on trains with demand and therefore be more efficient.
Throughout the pandemic train operators have had to move at pace to re-write timetables and we are still coming out of a fluctuating situation with customer numbers. The Department for Transport has agreed to allow train operators to continue to implement, demand-led timetables without formal public consultations, during this period.
Ending First Class provision on Southeastern services is a move we endorse and will not implement a policy to reverse this change to services.