Rail firms should not be paid when trains run late, says Grant Shapps

Rail firms “should not be paid when they don’t run trains on time”, Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said today as new figures showed more than a third of services are late.

The Cabinet minister has ordered a shake-up of Britain’s rail system including making the main measurement of whether trains are on time that they arrive no later than one minute after the scheduled time — rather than five to 10 minutes under the old system.

The new figures showed just 64.7 per cent of trains were “on time” — with more than a third not — in the three months to June.

Under the new 60-second rule, four out of 10 trains run by South Western Railway were not on time, more than three out of 10 on Southeastern and nearly 30 per cent of Govia Thameslink Railway services.

Firms running long-distance services had even worse records, with just 41 per cent of London North Eastern Railway services in time, 45.5 per cent of Virgin Trains West Coast, and 63.5 for Great Western Railway.

Mr Shapps told the Evening Standard: “It’s embarrassing not to have trains running on time in a modern 21st-century country.”

He told rail chiefs at a meeting last week that punctuality of services must be their number one priority.

Mr Shapps is proposing that a new national body, possibly called “Rail for Britain”, should collect fares and then distribute the money based on priorities and performance of rail companies.

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Southeastern passengers to get refunds for delay of 15 minutes

He also believes the current system is too fragmented with Network Rail, responsible for track and signalling, and the train operating companies too often not “pushing” in the same direction.

He added that he was “amazed” that trains could be as late as 10 minutes and still be counted as on time.

Mr Shapps told Sky News: “We have ended up with a very dysfunctional and flawed system. They should not be paid when they don’t run trains on time.”

Susie Homan, director of planning, engineering and operations at the Rail Delivery Group, said: “There is more to do but over the last year, while we’ve added thousands of extra services, we’ve also seen train punctuality start to improve.”

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Read more Southeastern passengers to get refunds for delay of 15 minutes