Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment she has made of the comparative operational performance of publicly owned rail operators versus privately owned rail operators since December 2024.

The Department for Transport holds all the operators that it funds to account for delivering performance for passengers. The Rail Minister meets regularly with the Managing Directors of train operators and their Network Rail counterparts to address poor performance and demand immediate action to raise standards.

The table below shows the most recent data on levels of reliability and punctuality for DfT funded services over the past year. This compares operators currently in public ownership and shows that reliability is higher for operators currently in public ownership under DfT Operator Ltd (DFTO) compared to private sector operators contracted by DfT.

“Time to 3 punctuality” refers to the proportion of trains calling at stations within three minutes of schedule.