Lord Berkeley
Main Page: Lord Berkeley (Labour - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Berkeley's debates with the Department for Transport
(7 months, 1 week ago)
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Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
Avanti, like all train operating companies, is working with its stakeholders and Transport Focus and London TravelWatch on the responses to the consultation to its proposals. The results of that will be forthcoming soon.
Lord Berkeley (Lab)
My Lords, there have been many reports of quite severe overcrowding on some of the CrossCountry services to the south-west in recent months. Can the noble Baroness explain whether any extra capacity is planned? I believe quite a few of the trains have been scrapped. What kind of new rolling stock will there be and will there be more capacity? This is a very important route. It is the only intercity route that does not go to London and one begins to suspect that, because Ministers do not take much notice of it, it gets the worst rolling stock. I hope the noble Baroness can give me some comfort.
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
The department is well aware that there is some overcrowding on CrossCountry routes. We are considering options, with CrossCountry, on the size of its future fleet. This will be balanced with the interests of taxpayers, given the financial pressures.