East Coast Main Line

Lord Beith Excerpts

Wednesday 24th January 2024 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Beith]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what discussions they have had with train operators about changes to the East Coast Mainline timetable in December 2024.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Transport (Lord Davies of Gower) (Con)]

My Lords, the department holds regular discussions with its operators to ensure that they continue to respond to changes in demand, balancing capacity and reliability with value for money for taxpayers. As part of the December 2023 timetable change, the department agreed that London North Eastern Railway should provide some additional Sunday services and the Rail North Partnership agreed some reductions to TransPennine Express services to stabilise the service while it completes its driver training programme.

[Lord Beith (LD)]

My Lords, Berwick-upon-Tweed station, serving the Scottish borders and north Northumberland, normally has a quite good hourly train service on the east coast main line. However, now LNER has resurrected the previous abandoned plan to slash that service by half from December, so that the trains will be only every two hours and with longer journey times. Is the Minister prepared to challenge this—or is publicly owned LNER doing what the Government have told it to do?

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

The industry is currently close to finalising its response to the east coast main line major timetable change consultation that was undertaken in 2021. While it will not be possible to address every concern raised, I am confident that the industry proposal is an improvement over what was offered in consultation. The Rail Minister is in regular contact with Transport for the North, having met with the chair and chief executive in recent months.