Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what progress his Department has made on increasing capacity across the Great Western rail franchise.

Capacity increases across the Great Western franchise include the ongoing conversion of First Class seating to Standard Class on the HST fleet which will provide 3,000 more standard class seats a day for passengers; an increase of 16% in the morning peak (as I stated in the House, “I have sat in the 2,000th seat to be delivered under that programme” (17 Oct 2014: Column 655)), and the electrification of the Great Western main line between London, Oxford, Newbury, Bristol and Swansea, which together with the electrification of the Thames valley branch lines allows capacity increases, through the deployment of new electric powered rolling stock, and the cascade of the diesel powered stock that they replace to non-electrified parts of the network. The Great Western Main Line will be equipped with brand-new Inter-City express trains, which form part of our commitment to provide better, more comfortable journeys for passengers, with over 2000 new carriages being in service across the UK rail network by the end of 2019. In addition to this, the Crossrail project will boost capacity for services from Reading into, and beyond, central London.