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Select committee: Transport Committee

Intercity East Coast rail franchise inquiry

Closed Opened 12 Feb 2018 Closed 11 Mar 2019

Transport Committee Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗

Inquiry scope (the committee's words)
The Committee’s inquiry examines the lessons to be learned from this and previous franchise failures on this part of the network; the best way forward in the short and longer term; and the wider implications for the rail franchising system. The Committee is particularly interested to receive evidence addressing: the reasons for the failure of the current franchise agreement, lessons learnt from previous failures of franchises on the East Coast Mainline and the steps the Department for Transport needs to take to guard against future failures; the management of infrastructure works on the East Coast Mainline, including the relationships between the Department’s aspirations for the franchise, the operators’ obligations in the franchise agreement and planned Network Rail infrastructure works; the Department’s contingency plans, particularly the steps it is taking to minimise risk to passengers and taxpayers; the readiness of the Department to act as an operator of last resort; the feasibility of the Department’s proposal to establish a public/private East Coast Partnership, to be operational by 2020; and the wider implications for rail franchising of the failure of the East Coast franchise, including for the competitiveness of the system.

Where it stands

The inquiry is closed, opened 12 February 2018.

The committee has published 1 report, most recently 5th Report - Intercity East Coast Franchise on 12 September 2018.

The government's response

Published 23 November 2018.

Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.

The Government responded to the Committee's report by agreeing to clarify several processes, partly agreeing with two recommendations and disagreeing with others, including those on the operator of last resort timetable, the feasibility assessment of the East Coast Partnership and informing the Committee about possible franchise defaults.

  • The Government was "happy to clarify" its approach to macroeconomic risk sharing, describing the Forecast Revenue Mechanism as sharing risk "against the full range of revenue risks", and set out Network Rail's role in franchise bidding.
  • On the interim operator, it disagrees with the recommendation to outline an exact timescale, saying creating the East Coast Partnership "is an evolutionary process, not a single date".
  • It "partly agrees" that obligations and targets for an operator of last resort should be revised and published, but says published Agreements "will often need to be redacted" for commercial confidentiality.
  • It disagrees that a feasibility assessment should precede the East Coast Partnership, saying proposals will be developed by Network Rail and LNER through the independently chaired Partnership Board and go through the respective decision-making processes "where necessary".

Read the government's response ↗ Report an error

Reports

All reports

Evidence

  • 3 oral evidence sessionsLatest 24 July 2018
All evidence

Recent activity

Reports

1 report

Oral evidence sessions

3 sessions

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Date Session and witnesses Source
24 Jul 2018
Oral evidence session
No witnesses recorded 		View ↗
16 Jul 2018
Oral evidence session
No witnesses recorded 		View ↗
21 May 2018
Oral evidence session
No witnesses recorded 		View ↗

Correspondence

1 letter

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PublishedDirectionLetter
25 Jul 2018 To committee Letter from Chris Grayling MP to Chair re East Cost Main Line Upgrade 23-7-2018