Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, pursuant to the Answer of 9 April 2019 to Question 241018, what (a) criteria and (b) timeframes in the Northern franchise agreement his Department is using to assess Arriva Rail North’s progress in ensuring that all Pacer trains will be retired by the end of 2019.

The Department continues to monitor the delivery of new trains across the network. Those new trains delivered to the Northern franchise, together with fully-refurbished cascaded vehicles, will allow the withdrawal of Pacer units.