A huge amount of my energy is devoted to fighting for the reliable, comfortable and efficient rail service all passengers deserve.

I became an MP right at the time our train service plummeted into crisis. Long-term underinvestment and crumbling infrastructure was compounded by a driver shortage, London Bridge upgrade works, government incompetence, mismanagement, poor communications between Network Rail and Govia and DfT…and strike action to top it off.

I set up an emergency All Party Parliamentary Group of MPs whose local areas are affected by Southern Rail, with Sir Nicholas Soames MP. It’s designed to amplify the voice and concerns of our constituents to the people who run our network, and together we coordinated a response to the crisis with every single MP in the region. Ministers and rail bosses attended every meeting, and always have since, and I can promise you that your anger was conveyed loud and clear over that period. As a group we continue to push for crucial investment in the South East route, and we’ve helped unlock an additional £320 million to invest in critical infrastructure upgrades.

In 2017, you would have noticed there were a lot of closures over the year for upgrade work, and I have to fess up, it was my fault! As we had got all this money from the conservative government it had to be spent on upgrade work! In that time every single part of the network had been worked on; from signalling, to replacing 35 miles of track, to huge amounts of work on the Balcombe tunnel – which was the leakiest in the country. There had also been a complete management change at Govia.

To understand the problems, I visited the signalling centre, did driver training, shadowed a train driver along the Coastway route, and spoke to rail bosses on the phone almost every week for months and months on end.

It’s all starting to pay off. Customer satisfaction had risen 20%, and the performance index for our service touched 90% for the first time in five years. As a very frequent user of the service myself, I noticed the improvements and have thanked the staff for them.

I do know there’s a long way to go. Right at the beginning of all this, even in the midst of crisis, I always mentioned the long term at these meetings. The improvements we’ve seen means we can now spend more time on the long term investment to deliver real reliability and robustness to the line, with much more focus on customer service.

A lot is happening. A massive upgrade programme for Gatwick Airport station saw the entire redesign of the station and platforms there in 2023. This was funded by a combination of our local development partnership, Gatwick Airport, and government. And most important of all – now completed – the upgrade to Windmill Junction just the other side of East Croydon.

This upgrade was massive and wouldn’t cost millions, it would cost over a billion. That’s why we needed to fight for it, and believe me I did. Thanks to our campaigning, the conservative government released funds to start planning investigations and secure the land.

I’ve also used the contacts I’ve made to deliver for our communities here too. In early 2018 campaigners from Aldrington Station – including the brilliant councillors Chris and Carmen- got in touch because they wanted a new shelter installed. So I arranged for the managing director of Southern Rail to come to the station itself and meet them. Well, just to prove that community campaigns work, a few months later the managing director, Angie, came back to join me and campaigners to open the new shelter! I promise you, getting together as a community really can make a difference.

In addition, Govia (the parent company to Southern) made available a pot of money to be spent on our three stations. Portslade recieved £50,000, Hove recieved £50,000 and Aldrington recieved £30,000!

The journey to where we are now has been a tough one. There was a time when I would sit in my office in parliament for an hour early every morning reading the messages from passengers as they came in. Some people had their mobile numbers on the message and I’d call them up. The number of people who I spoke to at their wits end or in tears. It was harrowing and I will never forget it.

I am delighted to be in a position to change the rail network fundamentally with my Labour peers. I’ve always wanted a system owned locally by the people and accountable to the regions they serve, not just run by Whitehall. And with our plan for change, devolution and nationalisation are both well on there way to the hit the rails, with full nationalisation expected in 2027 when the last private trainline contracts run out.