Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, when he plans to announce the award of the next franchise for passenger services on the Greater Anglia line.

The successful bidder for the East Anglia franchise will help us realise our ambitious plans for East Anglia’s rail network. We have been clear that as a minimum they must provide a modern service with state of the art trains, and also introduce at least two 90-minute services each way between London and Norwich. In addition they must invest heavily in improving stations.

We continue to consider the bids and will announce the new operator in due course.