Mayor Khan could run the trains

Sadiq Khan has previously said he would get Transport for London to take the reins of the failing Southern Rail network and there has been renewed calls for him to step in after a brutal analysis of the franchise by MPs which questions the operator’s fitness to hold the franchise.

Brighton Pavilion MP Caroline Lucas said : “Given the chaos that we have it’s certainly something I would want to look into and it should be seriously considered.”

The Transport Select Committee's report into the service voiced scepticism over the union’s motives for strike action and also questioned the Government’s competence.

But speaking exclusively to The Argus, the Rail Minister refused to accept that the Government had let down commuters and dismissed suggestions that the Department for Transport (DfT) should step in.

In a 63-page report the cross-party parliamentary committee took aim at the three stakeholders who have blamed each other for the crisis, while Sussex’s furious and frustrated commuters have been repeatedly let down trying to get to their jobs, or home to see their children.

The report slams the government’s “wildly inaccurate” forecasting of disruptions caused by London Bridge refurbishments and highlights “serious inadequacies” in awarding the franchise.

The committee has “little confidence” the DfT is monitoring the contract properly and says it is “completely unacceptable” that changes to contractual targets were not published.

The union is not spared the wrath of the committee members, questioning whether strikes are really over passenger safety.

They reference two independent reports which confirm driver only operated (DOO) trains are safe, and point out that RMT members have continued to work elsewhere on DOO trains despite continuing to strike over the issue on our network.

And franchise owner Govia is berated for having too few drivers at the start of the contract, and for performance levels so miserable that “in normal circumstances this would be grounds for termination”.

Speaking exclusively to The Argus rail minister Paul Maynard pointed to the appointment of troubleshooter Chris Gibb as an example of steps the Government has taken to resolve the crisis.

But he repeatedly refused to answer the question of whether the government had let down passengers.

The report stressed the importance of the DfT threatening to take the franchise in-house as a way of forcing all parties to reach a settlement.

But Mr Maynard said: “In the current circumstances with industrial action continuing to hang over the franchise I don’t believe that simply changing the name over the door would deliver the improvement we want to see.”

STARK REPORT LAMBASTS ALL PARTIES FOR RAILWAY FIASCO

ALL three parties are to blame for Sussex’s dire rail network, and its problems began at its very conception.

That is the damning conclusion of a report which aims dozens of criticisms at the Government, Govia Thameslink Railway (GTR) and the RMT union.

The cross-party parliamentary Transport Select Committee has pulled no punches. Its report concludes that the franchise is too big. It also questions the Government’s competence. And it casts doubt on the union’s motives for the strike.

And it says that the franchise holder GTR is so substantially in breach of its contractual obligations that “under normal circumstances” it should be stripped of the franchise.

The contract came into being in its current form in July, 2015, but the report concludes that from the very start the Government failed both to estimate the impact of improvement works being planned and to confirm GTR had the resources to run the operation.

Additional delays caused by the redevelopment of London Bridge were estimated by the DfT at 10,000 minutes per year, the actual effect was 10,000 per week.

The report says these “wildly inaccurate” assumptions by the Government raise “serious questions about the department’s competence to run an effective franchising operation”.

GTR was supposed to have 650 drivers, but there were only 607 ready when the contract started. The report concludes that it was “unacceptable” that GTR was awarded the franchise despite not having enough staff to run it and says it reveals “serious inadequacies” in the awarding process.

Sussex commuters will not need reminding that industrial action by the RMT, which started this spring, still rumbles on with one three-day stoppage just finished and 11 strike days still threatened before Christmas.

The committee asks why – if RMT staff have not gone on strike on other trains and other networks which run “driver-only operation” – the union has claimed their industrial action is all about passenger safety.

Many have called for GTR to be stripped of the franchise for failing to meet its targets. On this point the report is fiercely critical of GTR’s performance and of the Government’s management of its franchisee.

The committee discovered, after several times of asking, that GTR’s cancellation targets had been amended twice by the Government – once after the bidding stage and once after a Remedial Plan was instituted following a breach of benchmarks in July, 2015.

It called the lack of transparency “completely unacceptable” and urged the department to take urgent action to improve transparency.

The performance data itself is unambiguous and damning. According to the report: “GTR’s actual performance against cancellation benchmarks is now significantly in excess of the contractual breach and default level.”

It goes on: “In normal circumstances this would be grounds for termination of the contract; however, GTR has made claims for force majeure.”

The Government said these claims (that the industrial action is beyond the control of GTR) were still being assessed and told the committee that it did not intend to enforce the termination while the industrial dispute was ongoing.

Emotional language is hard to find in government select committee reports, so it gives some measure of the committee MPs’ feelings they recorded their “dismay” at that response from the Government. They believe that approach leaves GTR with no incentive to reach a negotiated settlement.

Finally, the report begs the Government to provide stronger management, comparing the franchise to a contract or concession. It calls on ministers to “take a greater degree of responsibility”.

In bold italic text the report states: “It is simply not credible for the DfT to claim that ‘no other operator’ could improve the situation.

“We recommend that the DfT respond to this report with a clear statement of its capability to step in as operator of last resort.”

It even says the department should be drawing up contingency plans to transfer Southern’s suburban networks to Transport for London.

But select committees have no power to compel ministers or departments to do anything.

And as the rail minister told The Argus yesterday afternoon: “In the current circumstances with industrial action continuing to hang over the franchise I don’t believe that simply changing the name over the door would deliver the improvement we want to see.”

So with blame going to all parties, and responsibility seemingly taken by none, Sussex’s weary commuters cannot conclude that this brutal report brings them any closer to receiving the rail service they deserve.

RMT’S SAFETY CLAIMS UNDER SCRUTINY

THE RMT union’s long-standing claim that their strike is over passenger safety has been greeted with enormous scepticism in a report by MPs .

The Transport Select Committee’s report points out that two independent safety bodies have endorsed the safety of driver only operation (DOO) and that RMT members have not come out on strike on other trains which use DOO.

Committee member Huw Merriman, MP for Bexhill and Battle, told The Argus: “This strike just doesn’t make any sense at all.”

As recently as last week, RMT general secretary Mick Cash referenced the role of the guards in the 1999 Paddington rail disaster and accused GTR of putting “profit before public safety.”

However the committee, which is comprised of six Conservative MPs, one SNP member and five Labour MPs, said they are concerned if the strikes are on that basis.

An independent study in 2011, the McNulty Report, recommended that DOO should be the “default” position across the country’s rail network.

The report points out that studies by the Office of Rail Regulation and by the Rail Safety and Standards Board (RSSB) have broadly endorsed the safety of DOO.

The RSSB recently reported that there was “no evidence of an increased risk of harm” under DOO operation.

The committee was told by the GTR that the new role of on-board supervisors would be “trained to deal with emergencies, to deal with evacuations and to deal with the on-board emergency equipment”.

The report also points out that RMT members have continued to perform their functions on DOO trains across the UK without taking industrial action, and that GTR has promised no compulsory redundancies.

Mr Merriman said: “They operate this technology on other parts of the network and their members are at work.“It’s been signed off as safe, so what’s all this about? This strike just doesn’t make any sense at all.”

But the section of the report on industrial action concludes: “GTR, the RMT and the Government are each to some extent culpable in the current damaging industrial dispute.”

It goes on: “It would be unacceptable for any party to… use sections of this report to emphasise the shortcomings of another.”

SEARCHING FOR A STRAIGHT ANSWER

IN OUR interview with rail minister Paul Maynard, The Argus tried three times to find out whether he believed the Government has let down beleaguered passengers.

Has the Government let down passengers?

I entirely recognise why the public are frustrated and I have every sympathy.

The quality of the service has not been good enough.

Forgive me Minister, but does that mean as the report implies that the Government has let down passengers?

I recognise some of the comments in the report because I made them in the committee hearing.

It will be important in the future that we learn lessons for the future... there are certainly lessons to be learned.

But we’re moving forward, we’re investing money in the network, putting passengers first.

And one of the biggest obstacles to that is the ongoing industrial action.

So are you saying the Government has not let down passengers?

What I’m saying is there will always be a range of lessons the Government can learn.

There are always improvements to be made.