Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask Her Majesty's Government whether ministers took into account current or past performance as a criteria when awarding Virgin Trains East Coast the East Coast franchise; and if so, what weight was given to performance criteria.

Past performance is evaluated for all prospective franchisees at the Pre-Qualification stage when suppliers are short listed for a competition. For the East Coast competition, this was set out in the Pre-Qualification Questionnaire which was published in October 2013. The evaluation criteria for the award of the InterCity East Coast franchise are set out in the Invitation to Tender which was published in March 2014. The Invitation To Tender sets out five Delivery Plans, each of which contains a series of requirements against which bids were evaluated, with appropriate weightings. Contract award was made following an evaluation of bids against these requirements.