Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many responses have been received to the consultation on the future of the Northern Rail and TransPennine Express franchises.

We received over 20,000 responses to the Northern and TransPennine Express consultation; this included responses from Local Authorities, Rail User Groups, Community Rail Partnerships, local businesses, trade unions and other organisations, as well as responses from individual members of the public. Of those 20,000 responses, 9,315 were identical postcards from RMT members that highlighted concerns about a variety of franchise-related areas. Summaries of the responses we received and a breakdown of response numbers will be provided in the Stakeholder Briefing Document that will be published alongside the Invitations to Tender in this quarter.