Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how much of the £300 million allocated by his Department to Network Rail for improvement works on the Southern and Thameslink networks will be paid to Govia Thameslink Railway in compensation for disruption during those works.

No compensation will be paid to Govia Thameslink Railway (GTR). Some of the money will be used to pay for additional costs incurred by GTR as a result of the disruption to passengers, for example bus replacement services – according to usual industry processes. For other franchises, some compensation would normally be paid to franchisees to reflect the loss of revenue resulting from the engineering work impact. Again this is part of standard industry practice. For the Thameslink, Southern and Great Northern (TSGN) franchise, as the Department for Transport takes revenue risk, this compensation will not be paid to GTR.