Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether he plans to include equalities targets in future direct award agreements between train operating companies and his Department.

Regardless of the type of contract they have, the Department expects that train operating companies will undertake the diversity impact assessments required through their current contracts and comply with all other diversity requirements.

As the Emergency Measures Agreements (EMAs) were prepared as a short-term measure to keep the railways running at a time of national emergency they did not include specific equalities targets. The EMAs are all published on Gov.UK.

Following the expiry of EMAs, the government introduced Emergency Recovery Measures Agreements (ERMAs) in September 2020. I can confirm that each ERMA contains an obligation on the operator to prepare, submit and agree with the Secretary of State a Diversity and Inclusion Strategy, which must include key performance indicators relating to diversity. Performance against these indicators will be carefully monitored. Full details are contained in the ERMAs themselves, which will be published as soon as practicable.

For future direct agreements we are currently reviewing the equality, diversity and inclusion requirements.