Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether the franchise specifications for rail passenger services on the (a) TransPennine and (b) Northern lines contained in his Department's consultation document published on 9 June 2014 will increase the total number of daily (i) peak and (ii) off-peak services on these routes.

The specifications for both the Northern and TransPennine Express franchises have not yet been decided. A public consultation exercise is being conducted, which will inform these specifications. The consultation can be found at:https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/future-of-northern-and-transpennine-express-rail-franchises. No decisions on services will be made until the consultation process has finished.