For anyone on a train or about to head off to a station, travelling to work or to a place of entertainment, I hope that your journey is a good one. You may be interested to know that according to Jo Johnson who is the Minister of State for Transport with specific responsibility for the railways “It is worth noting that some parts of the GTR network, including all of Southern, are now experiencing more train services and better performance than ever before”

Jo was speaking at the end of a two hour debate in the House of Commons on Tuesday which was intended to allow Parliament to vote to terminate the Govia Thameslink Railway and Northern rail franchises and declare a lack of confidence in Jo Johnson’s boss, Chris Grayling. As regular observers of Sussex MPs will know there has been constant criticism of GTR by MPs across Sussex. Some MPs are more vocal than others, but in recent months Maria Caulfield, Huw Merriman, Nick Herbert, Amber Rudd and Henry Smith along with colleagues on both sides of the House of Commons have been extremely clear that they believe that GTR has hit the buffers. In some respects their views concur with some of the other words from Jo Johnson who after suggesting a positive point of view went on to state “GTR is also working to increase the predictability and reliability of journeys on its network. It is working actively to reduce on-the-day cancellations, and is now updating its timetables on a Friday evening for the following week, enabling ​passengers to plan ahead more effectively. Alternative travel arrangements are in place. For example, passengers on the Brighton main line can have their Thameslink tickets accepted on Gatwick Express, and next month GTR will introduce a full temporary timetable across its network as the next step to improve reliability and performance for passengers. However, I do not consider the service to be anywhere near approaching one that I or passengers would find acceptable.” So his idea of things being better than ever before, suggests that this is not of great value.

When it came to the vote, the number of MPs who voted amounted to 590 which represents a 91% turnout of the House of Commons. Of those who took the time and trouble to vote, 48% wanted to see an end to the franchise and 52% appear to believe that the GTR franchise is worth retaining and they have confidence in Chris Grayling. The slightly surprising element of the vote is that all of those MPs mentioned above voted to retain the franchise. This will be something of a surprise to their constituents who as Henry Smith suggested only a few days ago in the House of Commons as part of Prime Minister Questions “A majority of my Crawley constituents want their trains to arrive without delay”. I would have thought that all Crawley constituents want their trains to arrive without delay, but clearly Henry is better placed to understand why some would want there to be a delay. Nevertheless if most want the trains to run on schedule, then why did Henry along with all of the MPs mentioned vote to retain the franchise? They were joined by Nusrat Ghani who works in the same department as Jo Johnson and therefore would want to express allegiance to her boss, Peter Bottomley, Nick Gibb, Jeremy Quin and Gillian Keegan. These 10 MPs mentioned represent a majority of the 16 Sussex MPs and so the fact that the vote went the way it did is not necessarily a surprise once we come to terms with the MPs voting in a manner that is at odds with the strong words expressed by at least five of those who voted to keep the status quo in terms of both politics and the franchise.

Alongside these 10 MPs, there were 3 Sussex MPs who voted for GTR and Grayling to go. Each of them spoke in the debate unlike any of the others apart from Huw Merriman, and each of them represents a constituency in Brighton and Hove. Thank goodness these MPs did stand up, speak and were counted as wanting an improvement to our railways. The final three Sussex MPs did not vote at all although they have been as vocal as some of the others. Perhaps their abstention should be seen as a positive. If this is the case then abstentions should be treated with a great deal more appreciation when it comes to other votes such as referenda. Why Nicholas Soames, Tim Loughton and Stephen Lloyd chose not to vote to end the franchise is hard to understand. Their lack of support for Chris Grayling is clear.