Chester-le-Street: Rail Services — House of Commons, 2019-01-15
Topic: Transportation
Andrew Hanson Jones (Conservative, Centre-right): I congratulate the right hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) on securing the debate. He has raised a number of important issues relating to his constituency and to County Durham more broadly, and I will address them all I entirely recognise the importance of Chester-le-Street station as a vital local link for the right hon. Gentleman’s constituents. I know how much they rely on it. The right hon. Gentleman said that the service was growing, and I can confirm that. The number of passengers has increased by about 30,000 a year over the past six years, and an average of just over 600 a day use the station. Those people play a vital role in the local economy: for instance, as the right hon. Gentleman said, they provide access to employment in both Newcastle and Durham. Nearly all the services are provided by TransPennine Express, with a handful of additional peak services provided by Northern and CrossCountry The right hon. Gentleman rightly focused on the central issue of performance—about which the hon. Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns) also expressed concern—and how bad it became, particularly after the May timetable change. Let me stress that I entirely agree: the services that were offered to several parts of the country, including those offered by franchises in the north of England, were unacceptable. I must also stress, however, that important lessons have been learnt, some of which have already been implemented by the industry and have led to a significant improvement in performance The planned December 2018 timetable changes in the north were deliberately scaled back in favour of a phased approach. Risks were mitigated to the extent that this was largely a rollover of the May timetable, but with a focus on some performance "fixes" to improve the resilience and reliability of the network. They included changes to local TransPennine services between Leeds and Manchester, although I fully recognise that "the north" extends further than Leeds and Manchester. Indeed, I represent a constituency that is north of Leeds and Manchester. Those changes have already delivered significant improvements and the provision of standby trains at key locations to help recovery should things go wrong I observe performance daily, and I know that many Members on both sides of the House do the same. Performance on Northern and TPE has improved significantly since December. On TPE, according to the public performance measure—which can be found online—the number of trains that are on time has increased to about 83%. That figure still presents a significant amount of room for manoeuvre, and it is below target, but it is also 18% higher than the figure during the last period before the December changes. Although there has been an improvement in punctuality and a reduction in the number of cancellations, I agree with colleagues throughout the House that that is still not good enough As for Northern, the January figures so far show that about 89% of trains are on time, which is an improvement of about 10% on the figure for December. I am pleased to report that the number of trains that are late, very late or cancelled has substantially declined. This month fewer than 1 in 10 have been late, and just 1.3% have been very late or cancelled. However, I am aware of the base from which they are starting; I also know that the recovery of passenger trust is critical, and will only be delivered by a relentless focus on reliability and punctuality.