Railways: East Coast Main Line

Baroness Randerson Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd May 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sugg]

My Lords, the Government are investing significantly in northern transport. With the setting up of Transport for the North, there is now a strong voice to help us allocate funding up there. On the timetable, to which I believe the noble Lord refers, we have seen some big changes in the past week: the biggest change to rail timetables in a generation. That timetable change will deliver improved passenger services across the country—in both the south and the north.

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, the failure of the east coast franchise seems to have surprised no one except a few people in the Department for Transport. Given that 92% of the public were satisfied with the train operating company concerned, it was clearly not a failure to achieve standards set within the franchise. Therefore, we must conclude that the failure lay with the Department for Transport in accepting an unrealistic bid that was just too good to be true. What steps are being taken to train staff within the Department for Transport involved in franchising to design and deal with franchises in a much more realistic, thorough and effective manner?

[Baroness Sugg]

My Lords, the noble Baroness is quite right that we have seen very high levels of passenger satisfaction—92%—under the previous franchise, and we are of course working to continue that. I take her point that the franchising system is not perfect, and we are working to improve it. We are continually refining the franchise model and monitor the performance of all franchises closely. We have evolved and improved bid assessment since 2014 and have a new process to ensure that bids are more financially robust, including a scenario where we look at lower growth than expected.