Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps she is taking to improve rail services on the East Coast Main Line.

The Department has invested £4bn in route-wide upgrades – including new trains and improvements to platforms, tracks, signals and junctions.

This will deliver journey time, reliability and capacity improvements, with more than 60,000 extra seats across the route each week, faster services between London and Edinburgh, and London to Leeds, and a third train per hour to and from London and Newcastle. This will all form part of the new timetable in December.

The Department are now working closely with Network Rail and industry stakeholders to develop a long-term strategy for the route.