Minister tells Southern Railway to pull up its socks

Under-fire train operating company Southern Railway has been warned by the rail minister to pull up its socks - or risk having its parent company barred from bidding for any future franchises.

The operator is responsible for routes in south London and the south of England, primarily centred around the London to Brighton main line out of Victoria station.

It is a part of the Govia Thameslink Railway ‘superfranchise’, which is majority-owned by FTSE 250 transport company Go-Ahead.

Southern services have been plagued by hundreds of delays and cancellations daily as a result of what the company calls staff shortages - though the unions dispute that claim and say the chaos is a result of mismanagement and unfair treatment of workers.

Govia has introduced an emergency timetable which sees 341 trains each day disappear from the schedules, in a bid to “normalise” services.

Rail minister Claire Perry told BBC Radio 4’s Today on Monday that Govia would not be allowed to bid for further franchises unless it improved it service.

She did not go as far as saying she would review its ownership of the franchise, however.

“It’s been quite clear to me that companies who cannot deliver a good service, particularly over the things they can control, should not be bidding for new franchises and we need to be absolutely clear about that,” Perry said.

“We need to ask serious questions about their performance going forward.”

Perry said the failures were the collective responsibility of Govia, the Department for Transport and state infrastructure owner Network Rail.

“If I were to say today the department is to run the franchise, would anything change?”

“The problems we’ve got are a major engineering works and a series of industrial actions, both of which would continue regardless of whose name is on the door,” the minister said.

Perry stressed the importance of getting Govia and the unions to “sort out their differences”.

The operators long-suffering commuters are expected to demonstrate at London Victoria station during the evening rush hour, in protest of the ongoing state of the service.