Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, for what reasons his Department (a) disqualified Stagecoach from the East Midlands, South Eastern and West Coast Partnership rail franchise competitions on 1 April 2019 and (b) did not inform that company of that decision until 9 April 2019.

Entities in which Stagecoach were participating were disqualified from the East Midlands, West Coast Partnership and South Eastern competitions because they chose to submit bids which were not compliant with the requirements of the Instructions To Tender for each competition. Stagecoach were informed of the disqualification as soon as possible after the decision was confirmed.