Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment she has made of the adequacy of the frequency of rail services (a) at Chester-le-Street station and (b) in County Durham.

My Department works with stakeholders including Transport for the North, elected mayors, transport authorities and passenger groups, as well as train operators, to assess the demand for services. Rail North Partnership, through which the Department jointly manages Northern and TransPennine Trains’ contracts with Transport for the North, monitors operators’ planned train deployment to ensure this falls within the requirement on them to match capacity to demand within the constraints of the network.