Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps his Department is taking to support Thameslink Railways in its management of capacity on trains between Bedford and St Pancras as a result of East Midland trains not stopping at (a) Luton and (b) Bedford from May 2018.

As a result of East Midlands Trains being unable to stop at Bedford or Luton at peak times, the Department expects approximately 1500 passengers from Bedford and 500 passengers from Luton to transfer to Thameslink services to London each day, from May 2018. However, passengers on this route will benefit from capacity improvements as a result of the Thameslink Programme which mean that GTR will provide around 2000 additional seats from Bedford and nearly 3000 extra seats from Luton, off-setting the extra demand.

In order to continue to provide some faster services between Bedford, Luton and London, GTR will remove some intermediate stops from a total of 4 trains in the morning and 6 trains in the evening. However, the improvements to capacity across the peak periods mean that GTR will still be able to provide more seats at intermediate stations than it does today.