Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what the cost to the public purse was of the negotiations on the Northern rail franchise agreement.

The costs of the project to procure the Northern rail franchise, to the end of November 2015, were £8.0M. Forecast costs to project completion, including project mobilisation, are expected to add a further £0.6M to this, making an estimated total of £8.6M by the end of the project. These figures include adviser costs (financial, technical and legal advisers), pay costs for the project team, “non-pay” costs (such as staff training, travel, bidder day seminar, publicity, etc) and VAT where applicable.

The costs of procuring this franchise however need to be set against the context of a deal whereby the amount of annual subsidy will be reduced by £140million by the end of this 9-year contract. In addition, unlike the last Northern franchise in 2004 which included limited plans to invest in services or meet demand, this new franchise will deliver more than 2,000 extra services each week, nearly a 40% increase in capacity and the complete removal of the outdated and unpopular Pacers by the end of 2019.