Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, pursuant to the Answer of 6 March 2014, Official Report, column 940W, on railways: passengers, and to paragraph 4 of Annex 2 to the Tenth Report of the Transport Committee of Session 2010-12, High Speed Rail, HC 1185-i, what assessment he has made of whether an 80 per cent increase in seats on the West Coast Main Line by 2016 should create enough extra seats to deal with projected increase in passenger growth outlined in the Answer.

The Department for Transport asked Network Rail to carry out an assessment of the 51M and RP2 proposals referred to in paragraph 4 of Annex 2 to the Tenth Report of the Transport Committee of Session2010-12, High Speed Rail, HC 1185-i. This assessment is available at:

http://assets.dft.gov.uk/publications/hs2-review-of-strategic-alternatives/hs2-review-of-strategic-alternatives.pdf. Network Rail's assessment suggests that the additional capacity proposed by both 51M and RP2 would not match the demand growth on the route and would not solve the overcrowding on suburban services at the southern end of the route in the peak.