---

Rail Services (West Kent)

I am delighted, Sir Nicholas, that you share my love of my constituency. I should declare an interest, in that I am a regular and frequent user of the Hastings line, between Tunbridge Wells and London, and I want to bring the attention of the House to its performance. I am grateful to Mr. Speaker for granting the debate, because it gives me the chance to ask the Minister the question that is on the lips of many travellers from my constituency: what on earth has gone wrong with the performance of Southeastern trains in recent months? A service and company that were in the past reliable and well run have in recent months undergone such a collapse in performance as to add to the stress of my constituents and subject them to daily delays and uncertainty. I want to get to the bottom of that. My constituents have gone through three phases with Southeastern in recent months, which could be called the good, the ugly and the bad. To start positively, with the good, six months ago we were looking forward to what we hoped would be a new era for travel from Tunbridge Wells and High Brooms to London. Through the construction of a new turnback facility over the summer at Tunbridge Wells, we had the prospect of a new timetable, which would allow trains at quarter-hourly intervals throughout the day, and five new peak-time services. That came on the back of a 10 per cent. increase in rail fares the previous January, so we thought that it was overdue. Nevertheless, it would be a significant improvement in services. It would be fair to mention that we have had some improvements to the facilities in the stations. As a result of a debate that I obtained a year ago, the Minister's predecessor kindly put pressure on Southeastern to reverse—which it did—a cut in the capacity of the trains. It had reduced the capacity from 10 carriages to eight, but thanks to that intervention it reverted to the full 10. We have had improvements to the condition of the stations—an overhaul of all the stations in my constituency—including the installation of a long overdue new passenger lift in Tunbridge Wells and a much better look and feel to the station. Even the station clock, which was out of action for many years, is now restored and in full working order. The Minister will understand that we looked forward to the new timetable in December with a degree of hope and confidence. However, the ugly phase began. The first warning signs were when the new timetable was introduced and much of the new rolling stock turned out to be inferior. It was inner-suburban stock, which was much more crowded and less comfortable than the higher-quality rolling stock that was previously available. In a crowded journey of an hour and more for stations to the south of my constituency, that is a material change in the comfort of the journey. The big collapse in service, however, came with the bad weather in December. Of course, everyone accepts that severe weather will have consequences for the rail network generally and the service operators in particular. However, it exposed some real failings in the management of Southeastern's response to the events, however severe. First, information was affected. When the snow hit, High Brooms and Tunbridge Wells were, from the point of view of Southeastern, cut off. The information conveyed to my constituents was completely inadequate. People turned up at the station and were told over the public address system to go home and inspect the website for information about when the next trains might be available. They went home and found no more useful information on the website than was available in the station; their journeys were wasted. A service was continuing from Tonbridge, further up the line, and the natural response would therefore be to put on a bus service to connect Tunbridge Wells and High Brooms with it. However, that service was much delayed in starting, and was then completely inadequate. I pay tribute to the bus drivers of Arriva, the local bus company. However, despite the fact that the regular buses were able to operate, the number of buses put on by Southeastern was completely inadequate to my constituents' needs. I remember turning the corner to approach the station, to try to come to the House at the time in question, and finding a queue snaking out of the station, over the bridge, round the corner and up a road called Mount Pleasant. A vastly greater number of people than could be accommodated were waiting to board those very infrequent buses. Surely it should have been possible to mount a response that would have provided enough capacity? When, eventually, some trains were got moving again on the line, we had a limited skeleton service—a shuttle service—between Tunbridge Wells, High Brooms and Tonbridge. However, it went once an hour. I said earlier that we are now used to four trains an hour at peak times, and in fact throughout the day, from Tunbridge Wells and High Brooms to Tonbridge; the consequences of attempting to pack the passengers of four trains into a single train can be imagined. The result was chaos, confusion and misery. I understand from conversations that the reason for what happened is that the Hastings line south of Tonbridge was considered to be a branch line and was not given the same priority as the line to Tonbridge. However, the Minister will know, having done his research, as I am sure he has, that there are probably just as many commuters in Tunbridge Wells as in Tonbridge, and the line should not be classified in that way. I hope that that will not happen again. To move on from what can be seen as a very ugly phase of transport in my constituency, we at least hoped that when the weather improved services would improve with it. Instead, although we may have come through the worst, we are still in what everyone would consider a bad phase, with continuing problems. I can do no better than to quote some of the e-mails that I have received from my constituents. I have received them in recent days, during the improved weather, not at the height of the bad winter weather. A constituent wrote at the end of February to describe the effect on his wife, who commutes to London, saying that""the delays and breakdowns continue even during 'normal' winter weather and she rarely receives any explanation…The season ticket from Tunbridge Wells is in excess of £3,000 and every year it costs more; for this she receives a poorer and poorer service and yet has more and more additional stress"." He continues:""Sir, I see my wife come home from work in tears some nights due to frustration at the treatment she receives on this so called service. We barely enjoy our evenings together because she has to ""get earlier and earlier trains in the morning when she needs to be assured to arrive for meetings on time in London because the timetable cannot be trusted."" Another constituent writes that he needs to""take the 8.18 service from Tunbridge Wells"" adding""This is the earliest possible train that I can take as I have to take my children to nursery in the morning which only opens at 8 am. The 8.18 train is consistently late arriving at Cannon Street; in fact by my estimation…I believe that it has arrived on time at Cannon Street…twice this year…Clearly this is a huge issue as it means that I am late for work nearly everyday."" I could mention some of the knock-on effects of the recent chaos. Another constituent wrote just this week to say that""people have started to use Southern's"—" the neighbouring franchise's—""service from Eridge to London Bridge which costs £2,268 per annum compared to Southeastern's £3,352 from Tunbridge Wells. It's more reliable, there are more seats and it is much less stressful."" That constituent and his partner""have considered moving to Crowborough as a result."" I might add, Sir Nicholas, that from your earlier remarks it seems that you are aware that the station at Eridge is 5 miles further from London than Tunbridge Wells. The situation is ridiculous.