Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what mitigating factors the Office of Rail Regulation took into account in its calculation on the fine imposed on Network Rail for punctuality performance in Control Period 4 2009-14.

The Office of Rail Regulation are an independent statutory body, with powers vested by Parliament in their board. As an independent regulator, the ORR operates within the framework set by UK and EU legislation and is accountable through Parliament and the courts.

As announced in 2012 (see http://orr.gov.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0004/13792/network-rail-monitor-2013-14-q4.pdf for details)

[the] ORR’s Board issued an order that a reasonable sum of £1.5 million would be returned to funders at the end of CP4 for every 0.1 percentage point below the sector regulated target that Network Rail achieved. We have reviewed the available evidence and concluded that Network Rail did not do everything reasonably practicable to achieve the 2013-14 PPM target in the Long Distance sector, and determined that a reasonable sum of £76.8 million would apply. We adjusted the figure to take account of factors which were beyond Network Rail’s reasonable control including extreme weather, and external factors such as suicides and cable theft. The final sum is £53.1 million

Ministers and Department officials were briefed by the ORR shortly before the issue of the 2012 order and the final decision on the amount payable, but were not party to either decision.

DfT Ministers and officials regularly meet with the Office of Rail Regulation to discuss Network Rail’s performance. ORR is the independent economic regulator accountable to parliament and ORR’s board makes its regulatory decisions independently of government.