Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, if his Department will issue guidance to train companies stating that they should always seek to run trains as long-form not short-form, including when operating strike day timetables.

The Department’s contracts with train operators include obligations upon operators to plan services that provide sufficient capacity to meet the expected level of passenger demand and within the constraints of the infrastructure and the available resources. Operators are also required to act with reasonable endeavours to mitigate the impact of any disruption to their planned services, including during strike action.