Asked by: Christina Rees (Labour (Co-op) - Neath)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, if he will outline the scoring mechanism for the procurement of new HS2 rolling stock that will reflect the need for the benefits of HS2 investment to be spread across the whole of the UK.
Answered by Nusrat Ghani
The ‘benefits realisation’ requirements of the HS2 rolling stock procurement requires the successful tenderer to achieve a number of skills, education and employment objectives including items such as apprenticeship and graduate recruitment in addition to supporting the National College for High Speed Rail in Birmingham and Doncaster. It also requires the successful tenderer to promote supply chain opportunities to the wider supply chain across the UK including new entrants and SMEs. Tenderers’ plans for delivering the ‘benefits realisation’ requirements are assessed in Stage 4 of HS2’s tender evaluation model.
Asked by: Christina Rees (Labour (Co-op) - Neath)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what progress has been made on electrification of the mainline between London and Swansea; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Claire Perry
The Great Western electrification is the biggest and most complex electrification scheme for more than a generation and it is planned to be completed during Control Period 5.
Asked by: Christina Rees (Labour (Co-op) - Neath)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what estimate he has made of average change in regulated rail fares between 2015 and 2016.
Answered by Claire Perry
We have committed to capping regulated rail fares at the Retail Price Inflation (RPI) for five years from 2016 and we have also stopped operators increasing individual regulated fares by up to 2% more than RPI. Train operators will use the July 2015 RPI figure, published in August, to set regulated rail fares for 2016. Data on these fares will be published in December 2015.