Transport

Thursday 25th April 2019 Ministerial Corrections

East Midlands Rail Franchise

The following is an extract from the response by the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Andrew Jones), to an urgent question on Thursday 11 April 2019.

[Andrew Jones]

Stagecoach is an experienced bidder and fully aware of the franchise competition rules, so it is regrettable that it submitted a non-compliant bid that breached the established rules. In doing so, Stagecoach is responsible for its own disqualification. Bidders were invited to bid on the basis of a pension deficit recovery mechanism. They knew that at the very start of the process.

[Official Report, 11 April 2019, Vol. 658, c. 460.]

Letter of correction from the Under-Secretary of State for Transport:

An error has been identified in the response I gave to the hon. Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts).

The correct response should have been:

[Andrew Jones]

Stagecoach is an experienced bidder and fully aware of the franchise competition rules, so it is regrettable that it submitted a non-compliant bid that breached the established rules. In doing so, Stagecoach is responsible for its own disqualification. Bidders were invited to bid on the basis of a pension deficit recovery mechanism. They knew that was part of the process.