Southeastern Rail Services — House of Commons, 2016-01-28
Topic: Transportation
Claire Louise Perry (Conservative, Centre-right): I have had a dry January, so I have not been in the last-chance saloon once, but it has enabled me to have a clear head and to look carefully at the issues that my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill) has raised—and this is not the first time they have been raised. Indeed, silenced on the Front Bench next to me are my right hon. Friends the Members for Bexleyheath and Crayford (Mr Evennett) and for Old Bexley and Sidcup (James Brokenshire). They, and many others who are able to speak, have left me in no doubt of the concerns of their constituents. These are daily concerns, because many people use these trains on a daily basis I welcome the opportunity once again to express my concerns about some of the issues raised, to talk a bit about what the Government are doing and to try to offer some bright spots. We have talked a bit about déja vu, and I am happy to keep talking about these matters for as long as it takes to get these services fixed. These are vital services that are delivering people to high-value jobs, and not necessarily just to high-earning jobs, but to lower-income jobs. These jobs are vital in the most dynamic part of the UK economy. It is absolutely right that those people have the transport investment that they need I do not defend the current system in any way, but my hon. Friend knows very well that these lines have been neglected for many a long year. It has been a failure of successive Governments to invest. In some cases, the tracks these trains are running over date from the 1930s and have not had proper investment subsequently. It was always going to be a challenge to deal with what is the busiest part of the railway, with 23% of this country’s railway journeys made under the Govia Thameslink Railway and Southeastern franchises, and to keep this huge number of people moving. It was always going to be a challenge to do the required improvements for the Thameslink works and the London Bridge investments without creating disruption. I want to thank passengers who, I know from my many visits to the station, get that and are very forgiving about the need for that investment I know my hon. Friend will be pleased to be reassured that I have made sorting this out an absolute priority. The return of services to a high-performing railway on this franchise and indeed on GTR has been my No. 1 priority since May. He may well say, "What have you achieved over all this time?" What I will say is that we have had Network Rail, the operators, Transport Focus and anyone who needs to be there down in the weeds of the problem Although I am interested, I do not think customers are interested in whose fault it is. They do not need to know that engineering works overran this morning, or that a tamping machine broke down. All they care about is that 20 of their services from my hon. Friend’s constituency were cancelled. We are not in the business of finger-pointing; we are in the business of working together to solve the problems as these necessary engineering works proceed Passenger numbers have more than doubled since privatisation, and, indeed, the number of passengers trying to travel on Southeastern’s trains has increased by 30% since it took over the franchise. As we know, investment has not kept up with that level of demand My hon. Friend mentioned crowding and rolling stock, an issue on which we have specifically focused. I am determined to review the business case for running the additional, bigger 12-car trains on the metro service in particular. I give the House an undertaking that there will be a decision on that in the next couple of months. If we decide to go ahead—if the business case is favourable —Southeastern will put additional trains on the tracks late in 2016.