Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether all three bids for the East Midlands franchise were non-compliant.

It was a fair, open competition and Abellio provided the best bid for passengers, in which it demonstrated that it will not only meet but exceed the Department’s specifications

In complex procurement processes such as this, it is a matter of course that there may be small technical non-compliances. These include, for example, incorrect font sizes or submitting bids in the wrong format. This does not constitute a material non-compliance which would affect the compliance of the bid as a whole.