§ 2.52 p.m.
§ Lord McCarthy asked Her Majesty's Government:
§ Why local railway stations no longer operate telephone advisory services which provide the public with up-to-date information concerning such matters as train cancellations, late arrivals and the state of station facilities.
§ The Minister of State, Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions (Lord Macdonald of Tradeston)My Lords, in the past, local stations were not formally equipped to operate as telephone advisory services although some did provide information to callers upon request. Under British Rail, up-to-date information was available from 43 relatively small call centres all with different opening hours and telephone numbers. The creation of the National Rail Enquiry Scheme (NRES) outsourced call handling to modern, large call centres which have a single 24-hour telephone number which I am assured is deemed memorable. Noble Lords may judge for themselves: it is 08457 484950.
§ Lord McCarthyMy Lords, does the Minister know that you can never get an answer when you ring that number? I do not know whether the noble Lord is an inveterate rail, car or executive jet man. However, in the days before privatisation if you woke up and could not see your before your face because of fog, or if there were leaves on the line, or if the IRA was "up to it" in the waiting rooms, you could ring the local railway station. I have rung hundreds. They were always manned. That disappeared on privatisation.
We now have the invisible National Rail Enquiry Scheme. When one occasionally manages to get through to the number, one is given the local customer services telephone number, but that too is often unobtainable. If one does get through, those individuals do not know what is happening in one's local railway station or the station to which one wishes to travel. If one presses the point, they ask, "Have you tried Ceefax?" The other day I was told, "You can always have a go at the Net". More often they say, "If I were you, I would try contacting your local railway station or local radio".
I do not understand why we got rid of those telephone services, or why we cannot have them back. Until we do so, the Government will be under continuing criticism because people do not know where they are going.
§ Lord Macdonald of TradestonMy Lords, my noble friend says that one can never get through. Knowing where he comes from, yesterday I telephoned NRES to ask about his local station, Oxford. I got through twice on two calls averaging one and a half minutes.
In the years when the noble Lord worked for British Rail, about 60 per cent of callers found that the telephone lines were engaged or that their calls were unanswered; 90 per cent of calls are now answered.