Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what obligations and timescales he has placed on the new South Western Railway under its franchise agreement on the introduction of faster trains from London Waterloo to (a) Portsmouth and (b) Southampton.

The Train Service Specification is part of the Franchise Agreement and will see a recasting of the South Western timetables, in December 2018 and December 2020. December 2018 will see the introduction of the modified fleet of Class 442 trains on the Portsmouth Direct services between London Waterloo and Portsmouth Harbour. While the contracted maximum journey times for off-peak services to both Portsmouth Harbour and Southampton Central are consistent with current fastest journey times, we are expecting to see journey time improvements arising from the December 2018 Timetable re-cast. South Western Railway, will be carrying out consultation with Stakeholders on the December 2018 timetable in the coming months.