Asked by: Kate Hollern (Labour - Blackburn)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what comparative assessment his Department has made of domestic rail fare costs compared to European averages; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Lord Johnson of Marylebone
The Rail Delivery Group published in February 2018 a report showing a comparison of European railways against those in Great Britain. It showed that our domestic railway comes second after Finland in terms of passenger satisfaction which stood at just below 80%. It also showed that we have one of the least subsidised rail networks in Europe which delivers value for taxpayers, the economy and passengers – a previous report by Passenger Focus found that Great Britain has the most frequent services in Europe for commuters.
Asked by: Kate Hollern (Labour - Blackburn)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, if he will make an assessment of the profitability of the east coast main line train service under its new publicly owned operating body compared with its profitability under Stagecoach and Virgin Trains.
Answered by Lord Johnson of Marylebone
As outlined in the “Short-term Intercity East Coast train operator 2018 Options Report” the introduction of the new Intercity Express Programme (IEP) train fleet will see a new cost and revenue base for London North Eastern Railway (LNER) and subsequently direct comparisons to Virgin Trains profitability prior to 24 June 2018 will be limited. This would also have been the case had the contract stayed with Virgin Trains and Stagecoach. The East Coast franchise is a fundamentally good business which continues to deliver strong revenues to the government.
Asked by: Kate Hollern (Labour - Blackburn)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what the timeframe is for Northern Rail to resume its standard timetable.
Answered by Lord Johnson of Marylebone
Northern continues to work towards reintroduction of its standard timetable on 29 July.
Asked by: Kate Hollern (Labour - Blackburn)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what criteria his Department uses to determine the value of railway lines.
Answered by Lord Johnson of Marylebone
The Department uses the Transport Appraisal Guidance (available at: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/transport-analysis-guidance-webtag) to determine the value-for-money of railway lines. This guidance is consistent with the HM Treasury guidance for use across central Government on the appraisal of policies, projects and programmes: the Green Book (available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-green-book-appraisal-and-evaluation-in-central-governent).
Asked by: Kate Hollern (Labour - Blackburn)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, when he plans to announce the successful applications for the new station funding scheme.
Answered by Paul Maynard
Assessment of the New Stations Fund bids is complete and I hope to announce the successful projects shortly.
Asked by: Kate Hollern (Labour - Blackburn)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, if he will bring forward legislative proposals to support regional airports.
Answered by John Hayes
The Government is committed to developing a new Aviation Strategy and we will be setting out our proposed approach in due course.
Asked by: Kate Hollern (Labour - Blackburn)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, with reference to his Department's announcement of 26 August 2016, for what additional reasons the decision to award new station funding has been delayed.
Answered by Paul Maynard
The deadline for bidders for this round of funding was 25 November 2016. We received 19 applications for funding from industry and local authority promoters and we then evaluated each bid against the qualifying and assessment criteria. We could not announce the winning bidders during the pre-election period but now that the General Election period is over, I hope to be able to announce the successful projects shortly.