Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps her Department has taken to ensure there is adequate payroll and human resources capacity within the Department to manage the employees of the newly nationalised South Western Railway operating company; and whether it entered into any external contract to assist delivery in state control of South Western Railway.

South Western Railway (SWR) has been responsible for the provision of its own payroll and human resources services both before and after being taken into public ownership. The public ownership programme sees train operating companies transition into the Department for Transport Operator, not the Department itself. The Department did not enter into any external contracts with the specific purpose of transferring South Western Railway into public ownership.