Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what plans he has to (a) address overcrowding on and (b) improve connectivity of rail services between Manchester and Birmingham via Stoke-on-Trent.

I welcome that passengers are returning to the railway. The CrossCountry franchise runs to October 2023 and a new contract is being developed. This will consider options for affordable opportunities to increase capacity on CrossCountry services in future years.

CrossCountry is working to increase the frequency of services connecting Manchester and Stoke-on-Trent with Birmingham, Bristol and Bournemouth during 2023, and their plans will be made public soon.