South Western Railway

Stephen Hammond Excerpts

Tuesday 1st October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Nokes]

I thank the hon. Lady for making that point. It may try her patience, but I will come on to the issue of disabled passengers at the end of my remarks. A constituent of mine has been in touch about a terrible experience he had on a train from London Waterloo to Basingstoke. As a disabled passenger, he was trapped on the train and unable to make alternative arrangements, and he had a distressing and dreadful experience.

I am concerned by the circular firing squad we sometimes see between South Western Railway, Network Rail and the Department for Transport. At times, all can appear keen to blame and turn on each other, when perhaps they might do better to establish a constructive relationship with clear accountability, instead of the obfuscation and fudge we have at the moment. It is not only in this House that we achieve more by working together.

I shall move on to the specifics of where it still seems to be going wrong. The independent review commissioned by my right hon. Friend the previous Secretary of State for Transport, and chaired by Sir Michael Holden, reported over a year ago now, making a number of important recommendations. This is perhaps a good time to consider those recommendations and allow my constituents the opportunity to reflect on the progress they think has been made. It is also a good time to pose questions to my hon. Friend the Minister about what oversight he has of the progress of South Western Railway against those recommendations, which particular ones he regards as the highest priority, and what sanction he might consider imposing if there is not adequate improvement. As I indicated earlier, SWR has had a year since the review, and the patience of my constituents—if not the Minister—has run out.

I would like to highlight in particular the frustrations regarding overcrowding. Of course, I welcome the additional trains introduced following the timetable changes in May, but there is a nagging suspicion that this has been achieved by pinching carriages from other services. As my constituent David Willey explained to me, the most significant change on the service he uses has been the reduction in capacity by 17% from 720 seats in 12 carriages to 600 seats in 10. This has meant he has had to stand in his carriage usually two mornings a week.

Barnaby Wilson of Chilbolton let me know that he could not remember the last time his commuter train in or out of London was not short-formed and/or late. He comments on the regular occurrence of a 10-carriage train running with just five, thus halving the capacity at rush hour. And we all know the consequences: people crammed in like cattle, standing for the entire journey, or forced to wait for the next train as they simply cannot get into the reduced number of carriages.

[Stephen Hammond (Wimbledon) (Ind)]

My right hon. Friend is making a powerful case on behalf of her constituents. When the service gets further up the line, shortened carriages cause even more problems, for constituents in Wimbledon and elsewhere. SWR promised to address this in its franchise bid, and we should now be reviewing that and asking whether it will be held to account.

[Caroline Nokes]

My hon. Friend makes a valid point. As my constituents pass through places such as Wimbledon, they see that no one is able to get on those trains.

As one constituent put it to me, the only change he has noticed in SWR’s service is a further deterioration, from a very low base: short formations, broken trains and stations being skipped, and delays continue unabated. As he correctly points out, if SWR publishes a revised timetable the evening before the service is reduced, there is no recourse to Delay Repay unless the service deviates from the newly published timetable. He describes it as a consumer rights void that he would like the Minister to address.

I would like to ask about the way transport strategy is joined up. Ian Dickerson of Romsey assured me that his preferred route from Romsey to Waterloo was to drive to Sunbury and then join the rail network on the Kingston loop to Waterloo, thus saving over £50 a week in tickets and parking costs, but undoubtedly adding to emissions on our road network. It is simply not a green solution.

One of the recurrent themes from constituents has been that SWR’s predecessor, South West Trains, had its moments, as they put it, but most of the time ran a robust, if no frills, service. If anyone in 21st century Britain regards functioning wi-fi as a frill, let me tell them that SWR has not even managed that. The passengers I sat across from yesterday commented in amazement that the wi-fi was working for once—right up until the point it wasn’t.

The consensus is that this performance is a breach of contract between company and traveller, and there is a suspicion that the Government have been duped by a provider promising what it simply cannot deliver. SWR won the contract pledging more seats and services and it has produced neither. The 442 shambles has meant there are now fewer seats and services. The promised new rolling stock has not yet arrived. It was promised by the end of this year. That clock is ticking and passengers are watching closely. Peak-time payers suspect they have been sacrificed on the altar of winning a contract and left with the old SWT trains, where the promised refurbs seem to have come to a grinding halt. It is far too simplistic to say we should renationalise—that is not the issue. The Department was sold a pup and needs to work out how to hold SWR to account against the Holden review challenges.

The final comment I have from a constituent is about the provision for and the treatment of disabled passengers. We all know there was an extremely hot spell during the summer, when rails got very hot and there were challenges right across the network. I am tempted to comment that it coincided with my hon Friend’s arrival in the Department for Transport, but I do not blame him for train conditions that were in some instances hotter than hell. But rail services run better in countries that are a great deal hotter than the UK ever gets in July and without the same level of chaos.

My constituent, a wheelchair user trying to return home via Andover, was advised at Waterloo to get on a Basingstoke train, as most other trains had been cancelled. With SWR assistance, he boarded a Basingstoke-bound train that was about to depart. Once he was onboard, it became apparent the heating was stuck on in the carriage and passengers were told to move forward, but my constituent was in a wheelchair; he was trapped. By the time the train arrived at Clapham, only a few minutes down the line, he was in serious medical difficulty, but he remained trapped in the carriage, as it was too far off the platform. He was in carriage nine, and we are all conscious of the shortness of some platforms at Clapham. No help was forthcoming from train or station staff, and it was only because another passenger intervened by preventing a door from shutting—literally putting his foot in it—that a medical emergency was averted. My constituent was seconds away from calling 999. However, the event prompts us to ask why the rolling stock is so antiquated that it had the maximum heating on the hottest day of the year, and why SWR staff at Waterloo helped my constituent into a carriage when there was an immediate announcement that the heating was stuck on.

Finally, let me return to the recommendations of the Holden review, and how SWR can be held to account for any failure to deliver. If Network Rail does not fulfil its obligations it can be held responsible by the Office of Rail and Road, which, in November 2018, took formal action to ensure that it would deliver on the recommendations in the review. However, SWR is accountable only to the Department for Transport, so I respectfully remind my hon. Friend the Minister that it is up to him to ensure that it delivers. May I ask him how robustly he intends to do that?

The medium-term recommendations are all due to be completed by the end of this year. There are 12 of them, ranging from ensuring the competence and training of controllers to ensuring that there is adequate provision of CCTV on platforms to assist with the dispatching of trains. Crucially, the review identifies the misalignment of incentives. It recommends that by the end of the year, the non-aligned objectives of Network Rail and South Western Railway should be dovetailed to ensure that the two organisations are pulling in the same direction at the same time—rather as we might expect a train engine to do. I simply ask my hon. Friend what steps he is taking to make sure that that actually happens, so that he may avoid having to return to the Chamber time and again to listen to what currently appears to be a tale with no end in sight for the poor passenger from my constituency who will pay just short of £6,000 a year to be subject to a sub-standard service.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

And Leigh in Greater Manchester, I am informed by a terrible heckler from a sedentary position, suffers the same.

The current operational performance of South Western Railway for the period 18 August to 14 September, measuring arrival time to within five minutes at the final destination, was 82.9%. That is the common measure used by the rail industry. Using the measure that we, as a Department, now like to use—being on time within a minute—for the first quarter of this year performance was 59.7%. That is clearly not good enough.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North knows that we are a relatively new ministerial team in the Department, and when the Secretary of State came into the Department he set out his priorities for improving the railway. He is absolutely determined to work with the rail industry to deliver a more reliable, passenger-focused railway.

[Stephen Hammond]

Those are appalling statistics, but the Minister is absolutely right about a customer-focused railway. He must bang the desk of Network Rail, because a number of those failures have been signal failures, such as those which we experienced on the line yet again yesterday. When he bashes South Western Railway, will he please also make sure that Network Rail is brought into that attribution, and make sure that it recognises its responsibilities to customers?

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

I completely hear what my hon. Friend says. I promise to take up the mantle on this issue. It has not been lying still on the table—I can also promise that.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Guildford (Anne Milton) informed the House that her constituents just wanted their rail service to do simple things—run, and be on time. I think that is a fair expectation. Maybe have enough room for three bottoms on some chairs as well, but basically that is it. I do regularly look at the various sets of statistics for the things that my right hon. Friend mentioned. I know that the Guildford ticket office has caused great concern to Guildford customers, and I do know, because I was warned by previous Rail Ministers, that the Guildford station platform 0 option is a matter of great contention locally, but I have not formally looked into it. I will ensure that I do, if that is okay as an offer to my right hon. Friend.

My Secretary of State’s vision is that the industry must make innovative changes to make the trains run on time, all of the time. South Western Railway agrees that its general performance is not yet up to the standard that it would like, and that its customers expect.

Around 70% of the delays and cancellations that affect passengers result from problems with the infrastructure, which is down to Network Rail, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon (Stephen Hammond) identified. Overall, Network Rail will spend around £48 billion nationwide on maintaining the network over the next five-year period, running from this year until 2024, and the Wessex route has seen a 20% increase in its funding compared with the previous five-year period. This funding should see more maintenance and a huge uplift in the renewals, to increase reliability and punctuality for passengers, but I know that it has not been delivered yet.

The train services provided by the South Western franchise are relied upon by 600,000 passengers every day. The train operator, South Western Railway, runs around 1,700 services each day on the network. The latest figures published show that 110,000 passengers pass through Waterloo station during the morning peak. It is a very, very busy network.

People are rightly frustrated and angry about the level of delays and cancellations that they are suffering, and I personally am sincerely sorry that that performance has reached this level—to the extent that we are having to hold this debate again on the Floor of the House. This has not happened overnight; sadly, the service has been deteriorating since about 2011-12. The Department for Transport has been working closely with South Western Railway and Network Rail to try to ensure that the causes of the problems are identified and understood and that there is a plan to turn performance around.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North referred to Sir Michael Holden’s review of South Western Railway and Network Rail’s performance on the Wessex route. The review was commissioned by the previous Secretary of State to ensure that everything was being done to understand and address the causes of the downturn in performance on the route. Sir Michael made 28 recommendations for improving performance. Some of them could be implemented in the short term and others will take longer. He was clear that there is no silver bullet and that it will take time to restore performance to acceptable levels, and that is our highest priority.

Sir Michael’s recommendations cover a range of disciplines, including performance management, train operations, infrastructure maintenance and renewals, and control and resourcing. He also suggested a number of infrastructure changes that could be made to improve the service. SWR and Network Rail are documenting their progress and sharing a copy of their “tracker” with the Department each month so that we at the centre can see how they are progressing. I can assure my right hon. Friends that we are monitoring it very closely.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

Full deployment of that will come in the next three years.

On the experience during the summer of my right hon. Friend’s constituent who uses a wheelchair, clearly this situation was handled badly and is unacceptable. I had not heard of this particular case beforehand, although I follow these cases closely in my office. I used to be the chairman of the all-party group on learning disability, and I think accessibility on our railway should be and is absolutely a priority of a modern-day rail service.

[Stephen Hammond]

I am pleased that the Minister is touching on this point, because I wanted to raise it. Accessibility, both for people who are disabled and for young mothers and others, is a real issue. Major stations up and down the SWR network have failed to have that step-free access implemented. I am thinking of places such as Raynes Park, in particular; currently, disabled people have to catch a taxi to Wimbledon in order to get on the train. That level of access is not acceptable.

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

I completely get the point that my hon. Friend is making, as well as those made by the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) and a host of other points I have picked up on since I became the Minister of State with responsibility for rail. I can honestly say that we are looking at this as hard as we can. Obviously, it would be much more helpful if people were able to book in advance, and they are able to. I know from my commute home on London Northwestern that a huge amount of investment has gone into some software at Euston and 35 people work there to ensure that disabled people or people who need help to get on and off trains can book that help in advance and get on and off in the right place. The work is being done and it is extremely important to me and to all the franchise holders.

We are continuing discussions with FirstGroup about train service operations for the future great western franchise, which will start in April 2020. The hon. Member for Bristol East has left the Chamber, but she would be interested to know that the discussions include options for the heart of Wessex line, which was a route that respondents to the public consultation suggested would benefit from improvements in the frequency of train services.

As I said in my opening remarks, SWR agrees that its general performance is not yet up to the standard that it would like, that its customers expect and that we all would expect. SWR’s joint performance improvement centre at Waterloo, which was established together with Network Rail last year, is focusing on performance improvement initiatives that should have a real impact on services. I look forward to taking my right hon. and hon. Friends to see it. SWR is working to reduce the number of incidents on the network to be more responsive to them when they occur. So, a whole host of things are going on to try to improve the situation for my right hon. Friend’s constituents and all who travel on the SWR network.