Southern: the franchise and the driver-only trains are here to stay, says Grayling

Ministers will not strip Govia Thameslink of its franchise for Southern rail services nor hand control to Transport for London, they have told backbench MPs.

The rail minister Paul Maynard has written to MPs bombarded with communications from constitutents angry over the on-going problems with Southern services, which saw hundreds of services removed from timetables, and continued strike action by the RMT union over taking away guards from trains. While conceding that "operational improvements are needed," and that he and transport secretary Chris Grayling have "spent a considerable amount of time considering how this might be done," he says it would be "wrong" to hand TfL the franchise.

"TfL does not have the expertise, nor should the Mayor of London have political responsibility, to run a main line route from Cambridge and Bedford to Brighton," he writes. Noting there are calls for the DfT to "take back control of the route," he says "my prime concern is to get the problems sorted out rather than focusing on the francise agreement and the contracting out of the route."

The letter also says the DfT is wedded to the continued roll-out of driver-only trains, which will improve the service for passengers, he says, adding: "Train operators cannot and should not be prevented from modernising the railways." He will respond with proposals "shortly".