Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Davies of Gower on 6 March (HL2701), whether they have received any representations from Chiltern Railways about ending the direct access services between Northolt Junction and Paddington.

Answered by Lord Davies of Gower - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)

There are no plans to reinstate direct access services from Northolt Junction to Paddington.

Chiltern Railways used to run a twice-daily service from Northolt Junction (i.e. South Ruislip Station) to London Paddington. In December 2018, this route was cancelled with the closure of the Acton to Northolt line to enable High Speed 2 works. Chiltern Railways made representations to alternatively run to West Ealing via the Greenford branch line, however this was not possible due to Crossrail capacity constraints.

Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Davies of Gower on 6 March (HL2700), when they expect the train service specification for the TransPennine route to be finalised and approved.

Answered by Lord Davies of Gower - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)

Network Rail will be using standard industry processes to progressively formalise train service changes as the programme progresses, in line with the TransPennine Route Upgrade’s (TRU’s) key delivery milestones. The last stage of the fully approved timetables will be in place in the early 2030s when the full service uplift, which TRU enables, is able to come on line.

Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Davies of Gower on 6 March (HL2702), whether any proportion of the costs of the Delay Repay scheme have resulted in a direct cost to public funds; and if so, how much.

Answered by Lord Davies of Gower - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)

At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, when revenues dropped very significantly, the Government introduced emergency agreements that transferred day-to-day revenue and cost risks to the Department. These agreements protected services that key workers depended on. Under the agreements, the Government effectively receives the revenue and pays an operator’s reasonable costs, subject to the revenue incentive mechanism introduced recently to encourage operators to grow patronage and revenues.

Operators are compensated by the Government for all reasonable costs incurred that are accumulated in accordance with the terms of the contract, including those in relation to Delay Repay.

Payments made to rail passengers for Delay Repay as well as discretionary compensation are published annually, and for 2022-23 totalled £101 million.

Found: The meeting was hoste d in hybri d format by the UK Government with Lord Davies of Gower , Parliamentary