Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what estimate has he made of the number of companies that hold pre-qualification passports to bid for rail franchises in the UK; and how many companies there are that are compliant bidders for the (a) West Coast Partnership and (b) Southeastern rail franchises.

There are eighteen Passport holders which are listed here: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/rail-franchising#rail-franchising-pqq-passport

The shortlisted bidders for the West Coast Partnership and South-Eastern franchise competitions were announced on 22 June 2017. Details of the announcement can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/west-coast-partnership-and-south-eastern-rail-franchise-bidders

On the 10 April 2019, Stagecoach announced it had been disqualified from the West Coast Partnership and South Eastern competitions for submitting non-compliant bids.