Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of the creation of Great British Railways on the restoration of pre-pandemic train service frequencies.

Rail demand post COVID-19 has changed, and it is not appropriate to automatically go back to pre- COVID-19 frequencies if travel demand patterns are now different.

Under Great British Railways (GBR), rail services will be planned on a whole-system basis. So, instead of different organisations all working independently and private operators prioritising profits for their shareholders, publicly owned GBR’s priority will be for the benefit of passengers, based on the whole-system view of cost, revenue, capacity, passenger usage, and infrastructure and rolling stock factors.

As we transition to GBR and train operating companies continue to come back into public ownership, we expect them to determine how best to serve the current and future levels of demand.