Rail Update

Lord Shutt of Greetland Excerpts

Monday 5th February 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shutt of Greetland (LD)]

My Lords, there is a conflict in the Statement between what it is stated in paragraph 7:

“The business will continue to operate … with no impact on services or staff on the East Coast”,


and what is stated in paragraph 18:

“I have … asked my officials to conduct a full appraisal of the options available to the Government to ensure continuity of service”,


until the fresh start in 2020.

The noble Baroness may well recall that I tabled a Written Question last week, which she kindly answered on 1 February. I had had a look at the press release that was put out by Stagecoach when it got the franchise in the first place. It said that it would give us direct services from Middlesbrough to London, two-hourly direct weekday services between Bradford, Harrogate, Lincoln and London, and a new direct peak-time service between Huddersfield and London, to be established by May 2019. The noble Baroness answered that the Government:

“expect to provide additional services between Lincoln, Harrogate, Bradford and London from May 2019. It remains our intention to deliver additional services to Middlesbrough and Huddersfield”.

She does not say when. She continued:

“Virgin Trains East Coast has contingent rights to run services from London to Middlesbrough from May 2020 and firm rights from May 2021”.


I do not know how strong they will be now. I do not know when all this brewed up, but does she still stand by these services commencing in May 2019 that she signed off on 1 February?

[Baroness Sugg]

I thank the noble Lord for his question. On the issue of making sure that we get the decision right for passengers, as the Statement said, protecting the interests of passengers is the first principle which we look at and we will be looking at the comparison between the two on that basis. I have a copy of the reply to the noble Lord’s Question as I thought that he might bring it up; he helpfully read it out. We absolutely expect to meet those commitments. Whatever decision the Secretary of State makes on the running of the franchise up to 2019, whoever gets it will inherit those. Again, with the new partnership in 2020, they will be expected to deliver that.