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Written Question
West Midlands Trains: Strikes
Monday 28th October 2019

Asked by: Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Labour - Life peer)

Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, with reference to the Answer of 15 May 2003 to Question 113237 on rail strikes, whether (a) he or (b) his Department has had any correspondence with West Midlands Trains on reimbursement for potential industrial action.

Answered by Chris Heaton-Harris - Secretary of State for Northern Ireland

There has been no correspondence between the Department and West Midlands Trains on this subject.


Written Question
West Midlands Trains: Strikes
Monday 28th October 2019

Asked by: Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Labour - Life peer)

Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, with reference to the Answer of 15 May 2003 to Question 113237 on rail strikes, whether West Midlands Trains has an indemnification clause in its franchise agreement with the Department for Transport allowing it to apply for reimbursement for revenues lost as a consequence of official industrial action.

Answered by Chris Heaton-Harris - Secretary of State for Northern Ireland

In common with other rail franchises, the West Midlands Trains Franchise Agreement includes a standard provision whereby the Secretary of State is able to, at his discretion, reimburse net losses arising from Industrial Action. This can be viewed at Clause 5 of Schedule 8.1 of Franchise Agreement which is on the Department’s web site at:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/837515/west-midlands-2017-franchise-agreement.pdf


Written Question
Bus Services
Monday 29th February 2016

Asked by: Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Labour - Life peer)

Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what estimate he has made of the number of bus routes that have been (a) added and (b) removed since 2010.

Answered by Andrew Jones

My Department does not hold this data, as decisions about the provision of bus services, including the frequency, the level of fares or agreed local concessions are mainly a matter for the operator concerned.

Where there is not enough demand for a bus route to be commercially viable in its own right, all local authorities have powers to subsidise bus services, Provision of subsidised services is a matter for individual English local authorities, in the light of their other spending priorities.

We are very aware however of the importance of bus services to local communities, and in recognition of this we were able to protect Bus Service Operators Grant funding as part of the 2015 Spending Review. We have also protected the national concessionary travel in England for the whole of this Parliament.


Written Question
Bus Services
Monday 29th February 2016

Asked by: Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Labour - Life peer)

Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what estimate he has made of the potential benefits for bus passengers of municipal ownership of bus companies.

Answered by Andrew Jones

There are a few towns and cities that have municipal bus operators, however no analysis has been undertaken by the Department for Transport to understand the potential benefits of those models for passengers.


Written Question
Railways: Midlands
Monday 29th February 2016

Asked by: Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Labour - Life peer)

Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what discussions he has had on devolving responsibility for rail services to the Midlands.

Answered by Claire Perry

West Midlands Rail made a submission to the Secretary of State in October 2014 to devolve rail services in the West Midlands region. The Secretary of State confirmed his support in a letter to West Midlands Rail in March 2015 for rail devolution in the West Midlands and set out the expectation that West Midlands Rail will work with the Department for Transport in developing the specification for the re-letting of the next franchise. A public consultation was launched jointly with West Midlands Rail in December 2015 to inform the specification of the next West Midlands franchise. The new West Midlands Franchise is expected to commence in October 2017.


Written Question
Network Rail
Wednesday 21st October 2015

Asked by: Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Labour - Life peer)

Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many lawyers are employed by Network Rail to work on delay attribution issues with the staff of train operating companies.

Answered by Claire Perry

Network Rail have no lawyers employed to deal with this topic, they may become involved in larger and more contentious delay attribution disputes but time commitment will vary significantly.


Written Question
Network Rail
Wednesday 21st October 2015

Asked by: Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Labour - Life peer)

Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many lawyers are employed by Network Rail to deal with contractual interface issues.

Answered by Claire Perry

Network Rail has 26 lawyers in the company. None are employed full time to deal specifically with these types of contractual interface issues. Those in the Routes Legal Team (c 12 lawyers) will spend a percentage of their time on these issues and to a lesser extent those in the Corporate Legal Team (c 3 lawyers).Input from the team will vary considerably depending on the nature and size of the issue that has arisen.


Written Question
Network Rail: Staff
Wednesday 21st October 2015

Asked by: Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Labour - Life peer)

Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many staff are employed by Network Rail to deal with delay attribution issues with train operating staff.

Answered by Claire Perry

167 staff at Network Rail have responsibilities in train delay attribution, representing around 0.5% of Network Rail’s total staff. This number of staff dealing with train delay attribution has remained fairly constant over recent years. Network Rail is a company of c. 35,000 staff operating a network that transports 1.66bn passengers a year, and being able to accurately measure how its work impacts on train performance is essential to maintaining and improving a high standard of service.


Written Question
Network Rail
Wednesday 21st October 2015

Asked by: Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Labour - Life peer)

Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what consultants have been used to advise the Government on the future structure of Network Rail; and what the cost to the public purse has been of engaging such consultants.

Answered by Claire Perry

Since Network Rail’s reclassification to the public sector in 2014, the Department has engaged EY (previously known as Ernst & Young) to support the development of policy on the future of rail infrastructure management. The final cost of this work was £750k.


Written Question
Railways: Dawlish
Wednesday 21st October 2015

Asked by: Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Labour - Life peer)

Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how much it cost to reconstruct the railway at Dawlish; and from which budget that cost was met.

Answered by Claire Perry

£35m was spent repairing the most damaged section of the track and sea wall and associated works during the initial 56-day work period at Dawlish. Work to raise the walkway is additional and has an anticipated final cost of £15.3m. Funding came in two phases: Phase 1 emergency work was funded primarily from insurance with the Network Rail structures renewals budget paying the excess of £2m. Phase 2 (raising the walkway) will be funded through Network Rail’s Control Period 5 (2019-24) structure renewals budget.