Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether the provision of East Coast High Speed Trains will be included in the new Cross Country trains franchise.
The current CrossCountry franchise runs to October 2020. We are working with CrossCountry on a number of options that could provide additional capacity over the next few years for passengers using the CrossCountry network. This could include CrossCountry bringing additional trains into their fleet as suitable trains become available in the rolling stock market.