On Monday I attended an emergency meeting with Transport Minister Chris Grayling to discuss the appalling timetable fiasco at Northern Rail. Watch the video below to see what he said and my reaction.

Many of my constituents have been seriously affected by major delays and cancellations across the Northern Rail network, commuters who rely on our trains to get to work. The chaos has been caused by the introduction of new timetables with not enough time to make them work. The new timetables were supposed to improve the service, but have made the situation worse. It simply isn’t good enough.

When I met the Minister and asked him for assurances that this disruption would be resolved as a matter of urgency, I was frankly shocked by his response. He stated that the disruptions came as a surprise to him and his Department and that he couldn’t promise but “hoped” that the issue would be resolved in 8 weeks.

This is an unacceptable response from a Minister whose job it is to have a grip on the issue, and I find it extremely hard to believe that he was completely unaware of the problems before we got to this point. My constituents who are affected, meanwhile, are expected to continue to struggle to get to work and back home in time.

I was then invited for a meeting on Wednesday with senior bosses from the Northern Rail franchise and Network Rail. Watch the video below for more.

They told a very different story from the one I heard from the Minister just two days earlier. In fact, they said that the disruptions were ultimately a consequence of the collapse of Carillion who were initially contracted to carry out the work on the Bolton Corridor. Not only that, but Carillion were also the ones responsible for running the Delay Repay service that has caused so many to struggle to get reimbursements for cancelled or delayed journeys.

This is just the latest example of Chris Grayling’s gross mismanagement of an appalling situation, not to mention yet more passing of the buck for his own failures as Transport Minister. It’s time the Prime Minister made the right decision and had him sacked.