Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what recent steps his Department has taken to improve services on South Western Railway.

South Western Railways’ (SWR) Franchise Agreement contains provisions that incentivises South Western Railway to improve its own performance and to work jointly with Network Rail. Challenging targets for performance have been set and where performance falls below expected levels, SWR is required to invest additional sums of money into initiatives to address the causes of the poor performance. Officials and I continue to closely monitor SWR’s performance and are currently in the process of finalising a Remedial Agreement.