5th Special Report - Intercity East Coast franchise: Government Response to the Committee's Fifth Report

This is 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".

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