Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they are providing a subsidy to Great Western Railway; if so, why; and what lessons they have learned.

Premium and subsidy payments, together with key components of those payments, are reported for each train operating company in the Office of Rail and Road’s Data Portal entry ‘Government subsidy per passenger kilometre by train operating company’. This can be found at: http://orr.gov.uk/statistics/data-portal.

Directly awarded franchise agreements such as the Great Western Railway are awarded under the terms of procurement regulations. These require the Department to assure itself that the costs and revenues agreed with franchisees, and recorded in the franchise agreement as net premiums or subsidy, are correct. The Department continues to review its procurement processes to ensure that this requirement continues to be met in any new directly awarded franchises granted.