Responding to the Transport Secretary’s announcement that TfL would not take over Southeastern services from 2018, the Mayor of London Sadiq Khan said:
"The only proven way of improving services for passengers is giving control of suburban rail lines to TfL. This is why the government and previous Mayor published a joint prospectus earlier this year. There is cross-party support for this from MPs, assembly members, councils inside and out of London and businesses and their representatives.
“Anything short of this simply won't make the improvements desperately needed. It is a fact, TfL lines have more frequent trains, fewer delays and cancellations, more staff at stations and fares are frozen. We will keep pushing the government to deliver the rail devolution they have promised and that is needed."
Notes to editors
•Chris Grayling’s proposal today is concerned with infrastructure, whereas TfL’s devolution proposals concern the operation of train services. This proposal would not end spiralling fare rises for passengers, put more trains on the network, allow more frequent services or put more staff on stations – which would all happen with devolution to TfL.
•Earlier this year, the government signed a prospectus on handing control of suburban rail lines - Southern, South West Trains and Southeastern – to TfL.
•There is cross party support for devolution to TfL from MPs, assembly members, councils inside and out of London, and businesses and their representatives. Among the improvements of devolution would be bringing the fares into TfL's fares freeze
•London Overground has demonstrated what TfL can achieve in terms of improving services for passengers when it is given responsibility. In the three years after it was launched in 2007 train delays fell by 42 per cent.
•TfL’s proven concession model is designed specifically for metro-style services to incentivise reliability and customer satisfaction, whereas nationally-led franchises have fallen short of what is needed for these types of suburban services.
•The detailed business case that the Mayor provided in October demonstrated that for every £1 invested in the proposals there would be £4.30 of benefits, including more reliable services, improved customer service, and better access for disabled people, and that this would be at no cost to central Government. The business case also showed that the delivery of 80,000 homes across south London could be enabled or accelerated.
•If the Secretary of State does not take this opportunity to devolve responsibility for the south eastern rail services to TfL now, the chance will be lost until after the next franchise ends – the mid-2020s at the earliest. This decision would also make it very unlikely that services in south central, southwest and north London would transfer to TfL in 2020 or 2021 as previously indicated.