Transport Secretary Chris Grayling 'should resign' over 'chaotic' railway timetables

The transport secretary has been told he should resign over the "chaotic rollout" of new railway timetables introduced earlier this year.

Following a scathing report by the transport select committee into the widespread disruption to tens of thousands of passengers back in May, Chris Grayling has come under heavy fire from MPs and union bosses alike.

The report said Mr Grayling should have been more proactive to prevent the delays caused by the timetable changes, which saw Govia Thameslink Railway (GTR) fail to run 12% of its planned service in the weeks following 20 May.

Arriva Rail North did not run around 11% of its trains and there was also a knock-on impact on TransPennine Express.

The report came as Go-Ahead, the transport operator that owns a majority stake in the company behind GTR, agreed a settlement with the government over the timetable failures which includes £15m of funding this year for "passenger enhancements", in addition to £15m it has already spent on customer compensation.

Mr Grayling said the agreement also meant that GTR would make no profit from the franchise in the current financial year and that the government was "holding GTR to account for their role in the unacceptable performance".

However, he said in a written statement to MPs that the company would not be stripped of the franchise as this "would cause further and undue disruption for passengers and is not an appropriate course of action".

Tuesday's select committee report described the disruption earlier this year as "inconvenient, costly and potentially dangerous", with the chaos having hugely eroded the level of trust passengers had in the rail industry.

Labour MP Lilian Greenwood, who chairs the committee, added: "It is extraordinary, and totally unacceptable, that no-one took charge of the situation and acted to avert the May timetabling crisis.

"Instead of experiencing the benefits of much-needed investment in our railways, around one in five passengers experienced intensely inconvenient and costly disruption to their daily lives.

"There was extraordinary complacency about protecting the interests of passengers, who were very badly let down. The complex system by which we operate our rail services failed to cope with the scale of change planned for May."

Mr Grayling has announced a year-long independent review into the state of the railways, but Ms Greenwood said passengers should not be made to wait until 2020 for any reforms to be implemented.

Before then, they will have to stomach an average 3.1% hike to rail fares, which was announced last week and will come into force in the new year.

The Department for Transport has said it is committed to deliver "significant change" to the rail industry, with its year-long review aiming to "put passengers first".

But Mick Whelan, general secretary of train drivers' union Aslef, said any goodwill that could be afforded to Mr Grayling had been completely used up.

"The transport secretary, if he had any sense of embarrassment or responsibility, would do the decent thing and resign after this damning report," he said.

"He won't, of course. Everything is always someone else's fault, as far as he's concerned."

It has been a rough year for Mr Grayling, who in August was accused of "gross incompetence" after telling unions he wanted to change how fare rises are determined and how employee wages are decided.

The following month, he admitted the British rail network was "bursting at the seams" - but insisted re-nationalisation was not the answer.

Go-Ahead's settlement with the Department for Transport over the timetable chaos earlier this year includes a plan to improve performance and a profit-sharing mechanism with the department over the remainder of the GTR franchise to 2021.

The company said this narrowed profit margin expectations for the business over the franchise term and that no profit was expected from the business in the current financial year, though expectations for the wider group remained unchanged.

Go-Ahead has previously apologised to passengers over the disruption. It reported a 6% rise in full-year profits for the year to the end of June.