Asked by: Christopher Pincher (Independent - Tamworth)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps his Department is taking to improve capacity utilisation on the East Coast and West Coast main lines in order to allow more open access services to compete with the franchised operator.
Answered by Claire Perry
Government is investing heavily in the rail network to increase strategic capacity for the benefit of passengers and £38bn will be spent on enhancing and maintaining the network between 2014 and 2019. Specific plans to upgrade the East Coast Mainline are set out in the Rail Investment Strategy and £9bn was spent on upgrading the West Coast Mainline. Decisions about the available capacity and the access rights to utilise it, including that that will be provided by the infrastructure enhancements as a result of the Rail Investment Strategy, are made by the Office of Rail Regulation.
Asked by: Christopher Pincher (Independent - Tamworth)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps his Department plans to take to lower barriers to greater open access rail competition (a) in general and (b) on the West Coast and East Coast main lines.
Answered by Claire Perry
The Department is supportive of the principles and the benefits of competition that open access can bring, such as greater choice and lower fares for some passengers. Open access operators have helped to provide new services for passengers and grow new rail markets.
However, these benefits must be set against the need to reduce the overall cost of the railway to taxpayers and balanced against the potential to abstract passenger revenue from franchised operators.
Decisions on granting access rights to operate railway services are the responsibility of the independent Office of Rail Regulation (ORR). ORR does not normally approve access rights for new competing services, including open access services, which would not generate at least 30p of new revenue for every £1 abstracted from existing operators. ORR also takes account of the total amount of abstraction from franchised operators in order to consider the effect this may have on the funds available to the Secretary of State for the purposes of his functions in relation to railways and railway services.
The Department is continuing to develop the franchising approach and to engage with prospective operators about the opportunities within the railways in England and Wales. The pre-qualification process, which is the first stage operators face in the franchising competition process, is designed to ensure a field of appropriately qualified operators to meet the requirements of passengers and the Department; the process has been recently adapted to specifically encourage new entrants and partnerships.
Asked by: Christopher Pincher (Independent - Tamworth)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what his policy is on the future role of open access operators on the rail network.
Answered by Claire Perry
The Department is supportive of the principles and the benefits of competition that open access can bring, such as greater choice and lower fares for some passengers. Open access operators have helped to provide new services for passengers and grow new rail markets.
However, these benefits must be set against the need to reduce the overall cost of the railway to taxpayers and balanced against the potential to abstract passenger revenue from franchised operators.
Decisions on granting access rights to operate railway services are the responsibility of the independent Office of Rail Regulation (ORR). ORR does not normally approve access rights for new competing services, including open access services, which would not generate at least 30p of new revenue for every £1 abstracted from existing operators. ORR also takes account of the total amount of abstraction from franchised operators in order to consider the effect this may have on the funds available to the Secretary of State for the purposes of his functions in relation to railways and railway services.
The Department is continuing to develop the franchising approach and to engage with prospective operators about the opportunities within the railways in England and Wales. The pre-qualification process, which is the first stage operators face in the franchising competition process, is designed to ensure a field of appropriately qualified operators to meet the requirements of passengers and the Department; the process has been recently adapted to specifically encourage new entrants and partnerships.
Asked by: Christopher Pincher (Independent - Tamworth)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what estimate his Department has made of the number of people likely to take up the alternative cash offer under the High Speed 2 compensation scheme.
Answered by Robert Goodwill
The Department recognises that the alternative cash offer is a new approach to compensating those who will be affected by the railway and we therefore do not have the evidence to estimate the number of people likely to take it up. We have instead modelled a range of possible take-up rates, up to 75%. In order to strengthen our understanding of the potential impact of this policy, we have commissioned an independent social research company to gather further evidence and we will also be able to draw upon responses from the current consultation.