Asked by: David Crausby (Labour - Bolton North East)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how much Northern has been fined for cancellations and partial cancellations since Arriva took over that franchise.
Answered by Lord Johnson of Marylebone
At the end of each Franchisee Year the Department, in accordance with the Franchise Agreement, will calculate the Performance Sum payable by the Secretary of State to the Franchisee or required to be incurred by the Franchisee, these are known as Performance Sum Payments.
Where following calculation of the Cancellations Performance Sum, the TOC Minute Delay Performance Sum and/or the Short Formation Performance Sum, the Franchisee is required to incur expenditure, the Franchisee shall incur expenditure equal to the amount for each to secure improvement to the Franchisee's performance in that area to meet its targets, this is known as Required Performance Improvement.
Asked by: David Crausby (Labour - Bolton North East)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many short-formed trains were run by Northern in each month from the beginning of its current franchise agreement to date.
Answered by Lord Johnson of Marylebone
Northern publish this information every 4 weeks on their website (https://www.northernrailway.co.uk/corporate/333-performance) as part of their Customer Promise. I attach a table for ease.
Asked by: David Crausby (Labour - Bolton North East)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what penalties his Department imposes on rail operators who repeatedly use short-formed trains.
Answered by Lord Johnson of Marylebone
The franchise agreement between the Department and train operators include key performance benchmarks, including short formations. The Department monitors each train operator’s overall performance against these levels, and this includes regular meetings with their senior management where performance figures are scrutinised and challenged. There are a range of enforcement mechanisms available to the Department in the event of non-compliance.
Asked by: David Crausby (Labour - Bolton North East)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, if he will take steps to ensure all passengers using Northern's delay repay scheme have their claims processed within at most 28 days.
Answered by Lord Johnson of Marylebone
The steps the Department has taken with Northern to reduce claims processing time is to ensure the introduction by the operator of automatic delay repay compensation scheme. Details of the scheme can be found on Northern’s website https://www.northernrailway.co.uk/automatic-delay-repay.
For passengers still utilising the delay repay form process, whilst the Department has no contractual mechanism regarding Delay Repay compensation processing time with the operator, the franchise management team actively monitors the level of delays and what the operator’s plans are for mitigating this delay.
Asked by: David Crausby (Labour - Bolton North East)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, if his Department will work with (a) Northern and (b) other rail operators to simplify delay repay schemes for passengers using multimodal transport tickets.
Answered by Lord Johnson of Marylebone
The Government introduced the Delay Repay scheme whereby rail passengers are entitled to compensation if a delay to their train journey means that they are late in reaching their destination by 30 minutes or more. This applies to all ticket types.
The practical arrangements for implementing this policy, including in relation to multi-modal products, are a matter for the train operating companies.
Delay Repay should be paid on the rail element of multi-modal tickets.
Asked by: David Crausby (Labour - Bolton North East)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether he will plans to ask Northern to extend the delay repay compensation scheme to commuters affected by delays of 15 minutes.
Answered by Lord Johnson of Marylebone
Delay Repay for delays of 15 minutes or more (DR15) will be contracted as a requirement for new Department for Transport franchises when contracts come up for renewal. The Department has received a proposal from Northern in relation to implementing Delay Repay 15 before their present contract expires. This proposal is in the early stages of being reviewed and analysed to determine whether it is affordable and represents value for money. Any announcement regarding introducing DR15 into Northern will be made once this evaluation is completed.
Passengers on Northern are starting to benefit from the huge investment in this franchise, with more new services and the complete removal of the outdated Pacers by the end of 2019.
Asked by: David Crausby (Labour - Bolton North East)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many of his Department's staff have been employed in each region in each of the last five years.
Answered by John Hayes
The number of people employed in each region in each of the last five years is laid out in the following table:
Region | 2012/13 | 2013/14 | 2014/15 | 2015/16 | 2016/17 |
London | 2128 | 2054 | 2027 | 2242 | 2447 |
South East | 1853 | 1825 | 1842 | 1247 | 1268 |
South West | 1347 | 1173 | 1100 | 671 | 673 |
West Midlands | 1317 | 1190 | 1379 | 367 | 373 |
East Midlands | 946 | 801 | 768 | 635 | 672 |
North East | 869 | 750 | 684 | 485 | 497 |
North West | 1151 | 973 | 970 | 455 | 495 |
Yorkshire & the Humbers | 676 | 562 | 629 | 300 | 310 |
East of England | 1012 | 867 | 935 | 363 | 384 |
Wales | 5637 | 6030 | 6283 | 6636 | 6563 |
Scotland | 597 | 480 | 459 | 460 | 486 |
Northern Ireland | 38 | 41 | 40 | 40 | 39 |
Overseas | 11 | 13 | 12 | 12 | 10 |
Unknown | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
The figures above represent the headcount figures at the end of each financial year, by region, for the central Department and the Executive Agencies. Note that up to and including 2014/15, the above figures include Highways Agency staff, but these staff are not included from 2015/16 onwards when the Highways Agency became a government company, Highways England.
Asked by: David Crausby (Labour - Bolton North East)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what estimate he has made of the consolidated local transport budget for Greater Manchester after implementation of the devolution deal (a) in total and (b) per capita.
Answered by Andrew Jones
The Budget 2016 document set out that a total of £2.86bn would be provided to the places that had agreed devolution deals as unringfenced single pots. This includes the consolidated transport grants. A detailed breakdown of the grant for Greater Manchester will be set out by Ministers shortly.
Asked by: David Crausby (Labour - Bolton North East)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what the (a) total and (b) per capita consolidated local transport budget for London is for (i) 2015-16 and (ii) 2016-17.
Answered by Robert Goodwill
Transport for London (TfL) receives its funding from a wide range of sources, with the largest single contribution (around £4.6 billion in 2015/16) coming from fare-payers. This Department pays a transport grant to TfL, via the Greater London Authority, which was £1.516 billion in 2015/2016 and which will be £1.418 billion in 2016/17. We do not routinely publish a per capita breakdown of this grant, because spending on London’s transport infrastructure benefits not only London residents but also commuters and others travelling into the capital. There are also differences in the funding and regulatory framework between London and the rest of the country, making like-for-like comparisons difficult.
Asked by: David Crausby (Labour - Bolton North East)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, pursuant to the Answer of 9 November 2015 to Question 15641, what estimate he has made of the projected transport budget per capita in Greater Manchester after the devolution agreement comes into effect.
Answered by Andrew Jones
The devolution deal agreement with Greater Manchester will provide the city region with a devolved and consolidated local transport budget. The deal also provides Greater Manchester with other funding and flexibilities that it can use to invest in transport if it chooses. In addition, there are national investment programmes that will benefit Greater Manchester. Such an estimate is therefore dependent on decisions that are still to be taken locally and nationally.