Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether the Great Western direct award will specify that guards will be responsible for the opening and closing of doors on the new Intercity Express Programme trains.

Negotiations are continuing between the Department for Transport and First Great Western over the detail of the next franchise Direct Award.

As a matter of general policy, the Department does not specify numbers of staff or how they should be deployed as this is an operational matter; which the train operator is better placed to manage and understand.

However, we do support the resilience and efficiency offered by a train fleet and infrastructure which can operate as Driver Only Operation (DOO) as set out in the Intercity Express Programme (IEP) Specification which is in the public domain.