Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Tracy Gilbert and Lilian Greenwood

Thursday 13th February 2025 Commons Chamber

[Tracy Gilbert (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab)]

8. What steps her Department is taking to improve reliability on the east coast main line.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Lilian Greenwood)]

The Department recognises the critical importance of the east coast main line and has invested £4 billion in a combination of infrastructure enhancements and rolling stock upgrades that will help to deliver journey time, reliability and capacity improvements. The full benefit of this investment will be felt with the introduction of a revised timetable in December 2025. The Department continues to work closely with Network Rail to explore opportunities to improve performance and resilience.

[Tracy Gilbert]

My constituents have raised concerns about the reliability of services on the east coast main line, with one constituent receiving delay repay compensation for five out of six journeys he took over a two-month period. I welcome the correspondence I have had with the Rail Minister on the action that the Department for Transport is taking with rail partners, including through the east coast digital programme. Will my hon. Friend confirm that the first trains utilising new digital signalling technology will be on the tracks by the end of the year? When does she expect passengers to feel the full benefit of this welcome upgrade?

[Lilian Greenwood]

The east coast digital programme is delivering digital signalling on 100 miles of the east coast main line. The technology will deliver an inherent improvement to service reliability and uplift performance and capacity across the line, including for my hon. Friend’s constituents. The first trains are forecast to start running under digital signalling from early 2026. The number of services running under digital signalling will increase until the full programme is expected to be complete in the early 2030s.