HC Deb 20 July 2001 vol 372 cc527-31W
Mr. Redwood

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions what the capital expenditure for the London Underground was for each year since 1994. [1604]

Mr. Byers

The capital expenditure in the Underground is set out in London Transport's annual report documents, which incorporate their audited annual accounts. London Transport's annual report for 2000–01 will be published shortly.

Tom Brake

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions (1) for each of the last three years what key performance indicators, subdivided by infracos, were used for safety critical maintenance and renewal work on LUL infrastructure; and to what extent London Underground and each infraco have complied with these key performance indicators; [5848]

and 27 November 2000, copies of which are in the Library. For convenience, copies of the relevant extracts have been placed in the Library.

The table shows the net percentage change in SSAs against adjusted SSAs for the previous year for Wiltshire, west Wiltshire and Salisbury over the period, together with the percentage change due to changes in methodology. It is inappropriate to compare actual SSA between years because of changes to the services financed by grants allocated using SSAs. Adjusted SSAs enable a like-for-like comparison between years.

(2) what was the expenditure allocated to London Underground for achieving each individual key performance indicator; and what the actual expenditure was for each key performance indicator broken down by infraco. [5849]

Mr. Jamieson

I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave yesterday, 19 July 2001,Official Report, columns 366–68W.

Jeremy Corbyn

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions what his estimate is of the annual rate of repayment to private financiers of the PPP he has proposed for each of the London Underground projects. [5913]

Mr. Jamieson

The Government's plans for the London Underground will deliver £13 billion of investment over the first 15 years, giving London the 21st century underground that it deserves. London Underground is currently negotiating the contracts to deliver this investment. To estimate what the annual rate of repayment might be at this stage of negotiations would undermine London Underground's commercial position and jeopardise its ability to deliver best value.

Jeremy Corbyn

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions what has been the cost to date of consultants' evaluation of the PPP plans for the London Underground undertaken by his Department. [5912]

Mr. Jamieson

London Underground employs external consultants to support the development of the PPP and associated restructuring. Some advisers provide joint advice to London Underground and to my Department. My Department has not employed any consultants to evaluate the PPP plans.

Mr. Rosindell

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions what is the proposed timetable for the refurbishment and replacement of trains running on the District line of London Underground. [6294]

Mr. Jamieson

The Government's plans for the London underground will deliver £13 billion of investment over the first 15 years, giving London the publicly-run, privately-built underground that it deserves. The contracts to deliver this investment remain under negotiation and so precise investment plans are still subject to change. I understand from London Underground that its current plans would see an interim refurbishment of District line trains by 2005. There would then be a full refurbishment or replacement of trains by 2016 at the latest, as part of an upgrade of the line.

Tom Brake

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions how many(a) escalators and (b) escalator faults in London Underground stations there were in each year since 1994–95 broken down by line. [5008]

Mr. Jamieson

[holding answer 19 July 2001]: This is an operational matter for London Underground, which inform me that, in the time available, they are not able to provide an accurate breakdown of the number of escalators by line over the last seven years. However, they are preparing this information and I will write to the hon. Gentleman with it as soon as it is ready, placing a copy of my letter in the Libraries of both Houses.

London Underground also inform me that they track faults on escalators, but do not hold ready collated statistics showing long term trends in fault rates. This is because they regard this as a poor guide to the level of customer service provided, as many faults are minor and are corrected without affecting services. However, they do track escalator performance through keeping records of the percentage of machines available for service. These figures give a good indication of service levels because they include the effects of planned works (overhauls and renewals) as well as faults. The following table shows the average percentage of escalator availability by line for the last five years. The figures for 1994–95 and 1995–96 are not immediately available, but I hope to be able to include them in my letter to the hon. Gentleman.

1996–97 1997–98 1998–99 1999–2000 2000–01
Bakerloo 92.6 97.7 97.4 94.4 94.1
Central 89.9 87.1 92.2 89.0 85.0
District 91.1 93.7 95.3 94.9 97.7
Jubilee 95.8 82.7 79.1 96.6 98.1
East London 99.6 99.7 97.9 77.0
Met & Circle 96.2 98.7 93.6 94.3 86.1
Northern 94.1 94.6 90.1 87.7 88.5
Piccadilly 94.9 93.8 93.2 91.6 90.8
Victoria 92.1 96.5 92.8 89.4 84.7
Total 92.8 93.3 92.7 92.0 91.4

Mean distance between train, failures (MDBF)—rolling stock
Kilometres
1994–95 1995–96 1996–97 1997–98 1998–99 1999–2000 2000–01
Bakerloo 4,633 4,906 7,367 7,087 8,649 8,066 7,113
Central 5,800 7,855 5,807 5,620 6,049 5,077 4,019
District 6,513 8,546 9,934 13,542 15,112 19,277 25,042
Circle & Hammersmith 3,615 3,247 2,804 2,462 4,062 3,877 3,311
Jubilee 4,129 2,908 4,081 3,907 1,952 4,269 7,950
Metropolitan 4,874 4,221 4,518 5,924 6,993 7,289 7,051
Northern 59TS1 3,306 3,008 3,113 2,968 3,120 2,412
Northern 72MK1TS1 2,663 2,412 2,288 1,817
Northern 95 1TS1 862 4,475 10,166
Piccadilly 5,585 6.069 6,372 5,966 5,310 5,734 5,037
Victoria 4,106 5,018 7,091 5,607 6,947 6,362 6,175
1 951TS has replaced 59TS and 72MKITS in the Northern line

Escalator availability across the network fell in the last two years because of the cracks that appeared in the top-shafts and steps of three types of escalator at various stages in 1999 and 2000. Of the 52 escalators affected by these faults, 51 have now been repaired and are back in service. The last one—at Old Street station—has now been incorporated into the planned refurbishment programme. The completion of these works has had a notable impact on recent escalator performance—with performance comfortably above 93 per cent. since the beginning of 2001.

Tom Brake

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions what was the average number of train drivers working on London Underground each week day broken down by line in each of the last five years. [5004]

Mr. Jamieson

[holding answer 19 July 2001]: This is an operational matter for London Underground, which have provided the following information on the total number of train operators required to work on any weekday for the current working timetable on each line.

Current timetable
Line Total number of train operators required each week day
Bakerloo 114
Central and Waterloo and City 230
Circle and Hammersmith and City 134
District 267
East London 26
Jubilee 167
Metropolitan 154
Northern 273
Piccadilly 285
Victoria 127

London Underground inform me that to provide information for previous years would incur disproportionate costs as the data are not kept in this format.

Tom Brake

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions if he will make a statement on the mean distance between train failures on the London Underground in each year since 1994–95 broken down by line. [5014]

Mr. Jamieson

[holding answer 19 July 2001]: This is an operational matter for London Underground, which has provided the following information, broken down by line:

Train performance is a key aspect of operational effectiveness and it is encouraging to see the substantial improvements which are being made in the performance of some rolling stock.