Railways: East Coast Main Line

Lord Framlingham Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd May 2018 Lords Chamber

[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.

[Lord Framlingham (Con)]

My Lords, may I suggest to the Minister that she might reconsider the question of HS2? If HS2 is abandoned, as it ought to be if there is any common sense in the world, there would be plenty of money out of those billions and billions of pounds for all the other projects required on the railways.

[Baroness Sugg]

I am afraid that yet again I will have to disagree with my noble friend on HS2. Our railways are at capacity; we have seen the doubling of passenger numbers since privatisation, and HS2 is much needed to relieve that capacity and provide a better service for people across the country.