Refurbishing Trains: Contracts

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Tuesday 12th December 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

I thank the noble Baroness for that question. What I can say to noble Lords that manufacturers are ultimately responsible for sourcing work for their assembly plants. There are upcoming procurements in the market being run by Northern, Southeastern, TransPennine and Chiltern. It is a competition process that is open to all manufacturers to bid, including Alstom in Derby. The department is also working with the Treasury to set out a pipeline for expected rolling stock orders, to provide the sector with further clarity over the near term.

Regarding HS2, Alstom are part of a contract with Hitachi to design, build and maintain HS2 trains for phase 1 only.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, may I wish the Government all the best in ensuring a future for Alstom? Who is responsible for ensuring that the overhead electricity wires are fit for purpose? We have seen three outages in two different parts of the country, one of which lasted three days and caused absolute havoc on the east coast main line. This cannot be sustainable. Will the Minister assure us that there is a rolling programme of improvements and refurbishment of the overhead lines, particularly on the east coast main line?

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

Well, we have been subject to adverse weather, of course. I can, however, assure my noble friend that Network Rail is responsible for overhead lines. I will take her comments back to the department.