Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Vere of Norbiton on 11 April (HL6905), how many trains of what capacity are included in the contract scope; what is the value of the purchase contract; and what are its delivery dates.

The Rolling Stock contract awarded to the Hitachi/Alstom Joint Venture (‘JV’) will see the JV design, build and maintain a fleet of 54 state-of-the-art high-speed trains that will operate on HS2. Each train will be 200m long with up to 528 seats and have the option to couple two units together to create a 400m long train. The final seating capacity of the rolling stock will be agreed in collaboration between HS2 Ltd, DfT, and the West Coast Partner (as future operator) in order to support their customer service proposition. The contract award value for the supply of the rolling stock and a 12 year initial maintenance period is £2bn (as at December 2021) and the current contract programme will see the full fleet delivered to HS2 Ltd by November 2030.