Redhill and Reigate Rail Users

Debate between Crispin Blunt and Claire Perry

Tuesday 12th January 2016 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Claire Perry)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Dorries. May I wish you and the rest of the team in Westminster Hall a happy new year?

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Reigate (Crispin Blunt) on securing this important debate. He tempts me to comment on issues that are rather outside my brief, such as the runway decision, and I will resist that temptation. However, I am always happy and, indeed, anxious to discuss the performance on his line, and I am committed to doing that.

My hon. Friend has raised these issues repeatedly with me in correspondence and, most recently, in our meeting on 22 October. He has eloquently made his points about the need for clarity about who does what under the management contracts and about the need to ensure that his constituents get a reliable service.

I genuinely welcome the ongoing campaigning and activity of the Reigate, Redhill and District Rail Users Association, of which my hon. Friend is president. The campaigning and the information and analysis that the group has presented to me is truly excellent. That is exactly the sort of on-the-ground, forensic analysis we need to ensure that we get things right.

My hon. Friend pointed to the fundamental problem: over many decades, successive Governments ducked carrying out the improvement works that were needed at London Bridge station—the fourth busiest station in the country—and on the Brighton main line. It was this Government who finally took the decision to make those necessary investments as part of spending an unprecedented £38 billion on upgrading vital transport infrastructure across the country.

It is difficult—it would be fair to say that it is more difficult than the project team perhaps thought—to carry out such enormous improvement works on a vital functioning railway. There is always the choice whether to blockade the whole service for a time or to keep it running and to manage the timetable so that the improvements can be carried out.

Now that we have gone through the worst of the project—I am the first to admit that it has been very difficult for all the users of London Bridge station and particularly for Brighton main line commuters—the light is quickly emerging at the end of the tunnel. Half the new station will be open this year. There will be new trains, and they will serve the main line that commuters in my hon. Friend’s area connect with. We will start to see a steady improvement in services and the benefits that were the basis for all that investment. About £800 million is being invested in and around London Bridge alone.

As my hon. Friend will know, the Brighton main line, with which his loop connects, is one of the busiest lines in the country. In the last five years, the number of passengers on Thameslink has grown by 40%, while the number on the Southern network has grown by 32%. In a way, therefore, we have had a perfect storm of enormous and long-overdue investments to sort out creaking infrastructure; continued growth in passenger numbers; and a railway system that has, in some cases, struggled to cope.

My hon. Friend was right to allude to the series of completely unacceptable engineering overruns that happened last Christmas. I am sure that he, like me, welcomed the fact that this year, all the planned engineering work done right across the country, including at London Bridge, was completed on time, and that the railway was handed back to passengers. There were then several unacceptable points of disruption in the first week of service. We are investigating those, but Network Rail has, quite rightly, learned how to do these major pieces of infrastructure work and then to hand back the railway on time so that passengers can benefit.

My hon. Friend asked what was in it for his constituents and whether we can confirm that there will be new services. He is right to point out that the timetable has been squeezed to deal with all the pinch points on the network. In 2018—this will, of course, be subject to consultation—Redhill alone will have five extra trains to and from London in the morning and evening peaks. They will be new, state-of-the-art, longer trains, and there will be more capacity. At that point, I think we will be able to say that his constituents are getting the service they deserve. What we all want from that work is once again to make that part of the network a high-performance route, with improved trains, stations and performance.

My hon. Friend asked me repeatedly to talk about compensation. I have considered the issue extremely carefully. Having done some research over the holidays, I want to point out that Britain has one of the most generous compensation systems in the world for rail users. We already have in place compensation payout triggers that we do not see on any other network. The challenge for my hon. Friend’s constituents, whose average journey time is about 43 minutes, is that the compensation triggers come in after 30 minutes, which is not much use on a 43-minute journey. We need compensation that addresses the repeated short-term delays. My hon. Friend will be pleased to know—this is something the Conservative party committed to in its manifesto—that we are looking to introduce compensation payments from a 15-minute delay trigger point. That is something I would like to introduce very quickly, because my hon. Friend is right that we have to improve the compensation. The challenge is that it is really difficult to target a compensation package specifically at passengers using a particular station on what is a very open network. We have repeatedly looked at ways of doing that, but, so far, we have not found a way of targeting the compensation specifically.

My hon. Friend’s point about fares is absolutely right. That is why I am pleased that we were able to commit to an RPI plus 0% deal on fares for the remainder of this Parliament. For too long, commuters in the south and the south-east were seen as easy pickings—as a way to subsidise the overall railway operation, particularly for other franchises in the country that received a subsidy. That is completely wrong. The RPI plus 0% deal that we have put in place means that, on average, regulated and unregulated fares will go up by only 1.1% this year. That is worth about £750 million to commuters across the life of this Parliament. The average season ticket-holder will save £425 over the life of this Parliament and for the first time in a decade wage increases are outstripping rail fare increases—quite properly. We are listening and trying to do all we can to improve the fare structure and the deal for commuters.

My hon. Friend raised the point about extending Oyster zone 6 to Reigate and Redhill. I know that he knows quite how hard we have all worked to get the Gatwick extension proposal up and running. Indeed, that extension was opened yesterday and people can now buy a pay-as-you-go Oyster card at Gatwick and use it on the intermediate stations. He also knows that that is not the same as a zonal extension. It is difficult but possible to put the technology in place and there is a very small reduction in fares if people buy a pay-as-you-go Oyster card, but it is a much more complicated structure to rezone.

My hon. Friend mentioned some stations. I need to double-check. My understanding is that the fare changes, for example at Dartford, were almost de minimis when the zoning happened—very similar fares already applied. Rather than responding on a piecemeal basis to requests for rezoning, which may be very valid, I would like to look at this issue on the round. He will know from our conversations that we are supportive of a proposal to consider further changes regarding who does what between Transport for London and those with franchise contracts let by the Department. We are committed to devolution where it makes sense, and I am hopeful that we will be able to have a consultation and a conversation on that specific issue in the very near future. I also hope that he and those he represents will continue to lend their voices to that conversation. We want to do things right and make something work for the future.

My hon. Friend again raised his concerns about the disparity in fares between Redhill and Reigate services and East Grinstead and Oxted services. Again, his user group made some very clear points when we met. However, he will know that it was dear old British Rail that changed the whole basis upon which fares were calculated. Until 1968, fares were based on mileage, which was something we could all understand. Then they were changed for all sorts of reasons—frankly, the thinking of BR management at that time was about what the market could bear. We have ended up with discrepancies such as the ones he pointed out.

Although Redhill and Oxted are both about 20 miles from London, rail fares are no longer calculated on distance alone. That is why, rather than trying to manage some of these discrepancies, we have focused on the overall cap and capping the fare increases at RPI plus 0% over the duration of this Parliament. Fundamentally, however, if we had a train service that ran on time and did not have delays, the questions about compensation and fair fares would drop off.

Delivering performance on one of the most heavily congested lines when some of the most substantial engineering works in the country are being carried out is a real problem. My hon. Friend will know that performance on that route and indeed specifically on the Brighton main line has been in decline for several years. Passengers on that part of the network have not received the high-quality service that they deserve.

As my hon. Friend knows, that is why, since the election, I have set up and chaired a south-east quadrant taskforce, which for the first time brings together Network Rail, the operators and Transport Focus to thrash through these issues and to understand what is causing the problems—it is fair to say that most of the problems are infrastructure-related, but there are challenges around driver numbers and train reliability. Both those issues are reducing in terms of the level of disruption they are causing. People should remember that, when the franchise was let, the franchise holders inherited a very substantial driver shortage.

On the Southern and Gatwick Express line, I can tell my hon. Friend that, by looking at my charts, I can see that the headcount deficit for drivers will be cleared by May. In other words, there will be enough trained drivers out there driving trains so that the number of trains cancelled because of driver shortages will drop very substantially. The same is true regarding the new train fleet. As the new fleet comes into service up to 2018, the issues caused by fleet reliability will decline.

[Crispin Blunt]

I have had the frustration of being on a train that was cancelled because it did not have a driver, only to move to another train that could not move because it did not have a conductor, which is an entirely typical experience for the people I represent. My hon. Friend has given that promise about improvements by May. Can she say what there is within the contract to hold Govia Thameslink’s feet to the fire? If it does not deliver, when will it lose the franchise?

[Claire Perry]

I am quoting from the plan, which is baked into both the contract and the remedial plan that was put in place last year, when we were fervently of the view that the performance on the line was unacceptable. That is what the company is now being managed to in terms of driver delivery and the train roll-out. Slightly later—I am conscious of the time—I want to discuss with my hon. Friend what happens with the contracting process.

Fundamentally, we are trying to address the challenges: what is happening with the underlying infrastructure, drivers and train performance? By the way, I hope my hon. Friend and MPs from all parties on the route will attend the meeting with the head of franchising in my Department, the management team and Network Rail next Monday, 18 January, to hear the conversation. I want all that information out in the public domain and I want the commitments to be made very public.

What has happened since we let the contract? Clearly, there has been an unacceptable period of poor performance and we have notified the franchise holder that it was effectively in breach of its contract. The first stage is to come up with a remedial plan that sets out the measures that it will take, which is what I am referring to, particularly on the driver side.

The other question is on Network Rail because, as I have mentioned, most of the delays are related to infrastructure. My hon. Friend will know that Network Rail has been put on notice and has agreed a £4 million package of remedial works for the Brighton main line to address some of the more immediate performance issues.

My hon. Friend has invited me to set out a vision of what good looks like. The answer is that we have that information and we need to ensure that it can be delivered. What we want is a performance target that can be delivered. Subject to all those works, the new trains will roll out, which is what we are all striving for. That is what good looks like and what we are contracting for in 2018. If he comes to the meeting next Monday, we can further discuss what it looks like both for his line and right across this network.

My hon. Friend will see some very specific improvements to his local station in the next couple of years. We have committed to providing a £270 million, 12-car platform at Redhill station, so that we can get longer services on that line, and so that the Great Western Railway can increase its services on the north down lines linking Redhill and Reigate to Reading, accessing all the works that are going on through Crossrail and on to Heathrow. A series of other benefits come at that point.

Fundamentally, however, my hon. Friend invites me to say at what point we would take the franchise back. I would invite him to consider that we would remove the franchise only if we felt that the management team could not deliver. Having spent far more time down in the weeds of railway management than I ever intended to on that particular line, I have to assure him that I think everything is being done to address the performance issues, the driver shortages and the roll-out of new rolling stock. For the next 18 months, there will be a difficult period of performance. It does not need to be as difficult as it has been, and we are doing all we can to ensure that the new timetable delivers the sort of reliable service people want.

My hon. Friend mentioned one thing that I want to go away and investigate. If it is true that no peak evening train has arrived on time since last October, that will give me great cause of concern. I want to go away and look specifically at that particular timetable.

[Crispin Blunt]

I am very grateful to the Minister and I appreciate her giving away. I will have to present the case to her behalf to my constituents. The reason that I called for the debate in isolation from the wider line performance is about the proposal to zone the line down to Gatwick. Rather than simply a no, can she give me a full costed reason if the answer remains no, which I hope it does not? I need a full explanation to take back to the rail users to say exactly why she has come to that decision. I will be very happy to help her to do that.

[Claire Perry]

What I will tell my hon. Friend’s rail users is that the proposal to rezone and effectively to change the boundary between TfL and the franchising should be quite rightly looked at in the round, so that his constituents and others who are involved—this is an around-London issue—feel that the proposals have been properly worked up. What he can take back to his constituents is that they will shortly be asked for their opinions regarding a London-wide and suburb-wide series of proposals on devolution. I would expect that he and they will make their voices heard.

In conclusion, my hon. Friend is well aware of the constant level of concern that that railway causes. It is the biggest and busiest franchise. We look at performance measures. By the way, what I want to see is performance measures that focus on the people rather than the trains.

Southern Railway (Performance)

Debate between Crispin Blunt and Claire Perry

Wednesday 8th July 2015 Westminster Hall

[Crispin Blunt]

My hon. Friend points out that they stand on the line. My constituents are at the point of the service where, if they are taking a busy train—a quarter of which have been cancelled because of the London Bridge upgrade—and trying to get on at Redhill, which is a significantly longer journey than for the constituents of the hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood, the prospect of getting a seat is close to zero. At times, the prospect of getting on the train at all is now in doubt. Hon. Friends from further up the line will no doubt have more to say about the fact that they cannot even get on the trains because they are so crowded.

I stood for re-election in Reigate on a pledge to campaign for fair fares and compensation for rail users. It was a central part of my election campaign. I went to every single station to make the point about the campaign for fair fares and to meet the people getting on trains at 6 o’clock in the morning. There is no point in going at 7 o’clock, because it is far too busy, so people’s days have been extended because of Southern’s diabolical performance levels, combined with those of Network Rail and the botched implementation of the upgrade at London Bridge.

I want to focus on the milking of my constituents as cash cows for the system. Ours is a so-called negative subsidy area, so the people I represent pay not only for the rail service that they get, but for the rail service in the rest of the country. That adds insult to injury. For example, a Redhill annual season ticket holder who also buys zone 1 to 6 travel in London will pay £1,088 more than someone travelling from Coulsdon South, two stops up the line. Passengers from other stations outside zone 6, such as Dorking, Oxted, East Grinstead and Three Bridges, who have a greater or similar length of rail journey into London, pay less for the service.

Southern has enjoyed the second highest income among train operators, and unlike many other companies it has not received funding from the Government, because it is a negative subsidy area. There is a change to the franchise coming, with Govia Thameslink taking over the management of the contract from 26 July. From that point, unhappily for the Minister and her accountability, the Department for Transport will take the fare box. I strongly appreciate her moves to convene the rail bosses and oversee the implementation of a performance improvement plan, but I am afraid I have to put her on notice that we will expect a meaningful level of effort now that she is effectively taking responsibility, so that commuters will be given a decent level of compensation to take account of the deteriorated services until the London Bridge works are completed in 2018.

The opportunity for my constituents comes with the extension of Oyster to Gatwick, which is part of the requirement of the new franchise. Transport for London has been ready to roll that out for ages, but it is being blocked by the Department for Transport while it and Southern sort out their fare arrangements.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Claire Perry)]

indicated dissent.

[Crispin Blunt]

The Minister is now shaking her head, so I am delighted that she will be pushing Southern and Govia to deliver that instantly. Will she intervene so that the Oyster roll-out can go ahead as soon as possible?

Will the Minister also take the necessary steps to extend TFL zone 6 to Reigate, Redhill, Merstham, Earlswood and Salfords, and out to Gatwick, until the London Bridge works have finished? At this point I declare my interest as a commuter from Horley who, along with the people I represent, would benefit. Some 2,000 people have signed the Reigate, Redhill and District Rail Users Association petition to the Secretary of State calling for zone 6 to be extended as a fair and proper reflection of the poorer service. That zoning could then be reassessed once the London Bridge works are complete in 2018. I look forward to a one-on-one meeting with the Minister to discuss that further.

Finally, I turn to the issue of compensation for delay, which my right hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs touched on. DelayRepay.net estimates that if compensation were properly claimed, 15% would go back to customers in the form of money reclaimed. That is using a service level whereby a train has to be 30 minutes late for someone to be able to claim, and a 30-minute delay on a 30-minute journey is a pretty shocking level of performance. A 15% reduction would be a return to customers of more than £500 on their season ticket.

If I understand the Minister’s private views correctly, she, too, cannot see why customers have to be put through the hoops that they are put through by some of the companies to claim compensation money. It must be possible to make things far more automated—indeed, from her briefings, I know that that is the case in other parts of the country. It is technically possible to use Network Rail data to allow passengers to enter their journey details and to receive the compensation that they are owed. Compensation could even be paid out automatically to those with a contactless card. Has she considered requiring the train operating companies to tender for the technologies available to put that into practice? Will she introduce phased compensation for journeys delayed by more than two minutes, as the data and the technology would now permit?

Southern’s performance, and therefore the Minister’s revenue when she takes responsibility from 26 July, will be a significant problem for her and the Department given that more than half of trains are late. I recognise that, but it is right that such an incentive is placed on her, so that she can then place it on the rail operating company. The incentive will be to ensure performance levels that secure for the Department for Transport the revenues that it deserves from customers, not the revenue that it can rake in as a monopoly supplier when people have absolutely no choice about how they travel to work.

Passengers using the trains in my constituency are at the end of their tether. I look forward to hearing from the Minister about the actions that she will take to turn that appalling state of affairs around and to ensure that customers pay a fair fare for the service that they receive, which is definitely not the case today.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Crispin Blunt and Claire Perry

Tuesday 15th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Blunt]

No, because the change in trend on crime was achieved by Michael Howard, the then Home Secretary, who delivered a robust policy that effected changes. He was the author of the change in policy, but there is a limit to continuing that process, as there must be to the rate of growth of incarceration. In the end, we cannot lock up everybody who might be a threat to someone, because in that way, the entire population would end up in prison. There is a logical end to that process, and we will do our level best to deliver more effective policies to ensure that there are fewer victims in future.

[Claire Perry (Devizes) (Con)]

13. How many and what proportion of prison inmates are accommodated on a doubled-up basis; and if he will make a statement.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Crispin Blunt)]

In 2009-10, the average number of prisoners sharing a cell designed for one was approximately 19,000, and there are more than 1,000 cases in which three prisoners are sharing a cell designed for two. That overcrowding is concentrated in male local prisons, where 47.6% of prisoners are held in overcrowded conditions.

[Claire Perry]

Will the Minister comment on the fact that the previous Government’s mismanagement of the indeterminate public protection sentencing regime in many ways contributed to that overcrowding? That was brought to my attention by a prisoner in HMP Erlestoke in my constituency, who copied me in on a very good letter to Inside Time this month. Will the Minister tell the House what he will do to help to reform the IPP regime?

[Mr Blunt]

I notice that the previous Government had to reform the IPP arrangements in 2008, having introduced them in the Criminal Justice Act 2003. We inherit a very serious problem with IPP prisoners. We have 6,000 IPP prisoners, well over 2,500 of whom have exceeded their tariff point. Many cannot get on courses because our prisons are wholly overcrowded and unable to address offending behaviour. That is not a defensible position.