Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what is their latest assessment of train connectivity and train services in West Yorkshire, in comparison with other parts of England.

As part of its long-term strategy , the Department for Transport has contracted longer trains and more frequent services, allowing rail commuters into Leeds to benefit from a 52% increase in the number of seats in the morning peak on TransPennine Express (TPE) trains, and a 37% increase on Northern trains. To more widely improve connectivity in West Yorkshire we have contracted various service benefits to be delivered by December 2019 for Leeds, Bradford and the surrounding area, which include:

Leeds:

• 3 extra TPE services per day to Hull, with some longer trains
• Brand new electric trains to Skipton and Ilkley to provide extra capacity, with more carriages on the busiest services
• Local Northern services to Doncaster will operate using more modern trains and will increase to an hourly service on Sundays
• Quicker journeys to Sheffield and Nottingham as part of high-quality Northern Connect network – to Nottingham in 1h 40mins
• Increased frequency to provide 4tph to Harrogate between 0700 and 1900 in combination with Virgin East Coast, plus enhanced evening and Sunday services. The additional Northern services to Harrogate will be up to 20% faster
• Increase to 7 trains per day to Lancaster via Skipton - with times better suited to commuters.
• One extra train departing for Settle and Carlisle between 1600 and 1900, and two extra services on Sundays
• Stopping service to Sheffield via Moorthorpe will double in frequency to hourly on Sundays
• Later evening service to Cattal, Hammerton, Poppleton and York
• New station at Kirkstall Forge with 1tph to Leeds
• New station at Apperley Bridge with 2tph to Leeds

Bradford:

• A new direct link to Wakefield, Sheffield, Chesterfield and Nottingham as part of the Northern Connect network, with at least 10 services per day in each direction operated by brand new trains
• One extra train per hour to Manchester, with a significantly enhanced evening and Sunday service
• New direct links to Liverpool and Manchester Airport, with an hourly service to each using brand new trains as part of the Northern Connect network
• Increased frequency on Sundays to Skipton and Ilkley, with hourly trains
• A new station at Low Moor to receive 1tph to Bradford.

Other locations will also benefit, including:

• Halifax – an additional service every hour to Manchester, Bradford and Leeds
• Huddersfield - Northern stopping services to Leeds via Dewsbury replaced by an additional 1tph between Manchester and Leeds on TPE, improving punctuality by using better accelerating trains
• Knottingley and Pontefract Monkhill - Doubled frequency of trains to Leeds with 2tph; Sunday services increase to 1tph
• Pontefract Tanshelf, Featherstone, Streethouse - existing services to Wakefield extended through to Leeds, and they will also run in alternate hours on Sundays
• Slaithwaite, Marsden, Greenfield and Mossley will enjoy a direct hourly TPE service to Leeds.
• Cross Gates, Garforth, East Garforth and Micklefield will receive 2tph to Leeds on Sundays.

The Department does not compare train services from area to area as assessments are conducted on the needs of the individual areas they serve.